Tag: cheese

March’s Recipes for Life challenge: what can you do with beetroot, carrot and cheese?

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Take part in the Recipes for Life food bloggers challenge for your chance to see your recipe featured in a new charity cookbook!

With such a great response to the first Recipes for Life challenge, I really can’t wait to see what dishes come in this month.

Your mission for March – should you choose to accept it – is to show us what tasty and tempting dishes you can create using beetroot, carrot and cheese.

As you’ll recall from last month, this challenge is run in conjunction with a fantastic charity called SWALLOW, which supports adults with learning disabilities to lead more independent lives. SWALLOW is looking for new recipes for its members to make in their cookery lessons, and ultimately to include in its new cookbook coming out later this year. Therefore it’s important entries to Recipes for Life focus as much as possible on the three key ingredients and aren’t too complicated to make.

This month your dishes featuring beetroot, carrot and cheese can be either savoury or sweet, raw or cooked and you can use any kind of soft or hard cheese you like, just so long as it’s widely available.

Recipes for Life: how to enter

  1. Display the Recipes for Life badge (shown above) on your recipe post, and link back to this challenge post.
  2. You may enter as many recipe links as you like, so long as they are based on the three main ingredients selected for this month and accompanied only by basic store cupboard items.
  3. Send your recipe URL to me at vanesther-at-reescommunications-dot-co-dot-uk, including your own email address and the title of your recipe or post. The closing date this month is Tuesday 26 March 2013.
  4. If you tweet your post, please mention #recipesforlife, @BangerMashChat and @SWALLOWcharity in your tweet and we will retweet each one we see.
  5. Feel free to republish old recipe posts, but please add the information about this challenge and the Recipes for Life badge.
  6. As entries come in, links to these will be added to this page and at the end of the month there will be a round-up of all entries received.
  7. SWALLOW staff and members will choose their favourite recipe at the end of each month, and the winner will receive a small prize.
  8. A selection of recipes entered each month will be featured in the SWALLOW cookbook to be published later this year, helping the charity to raise much needed funds for its ongoing work.

Any questions, please feel free to email or tweet me and best of luck with your dishes!

March’s entries

  1. Carrot and Beetroot Soup with Cheesy Croutons from The Garden Deli
  2. Beetroot and Carrot Pancakes with Herby Mascarpone from Bangers & Mash
  3. Roasted Roots and an Easy Roasted Roots Pizza from Chez Foti
  4. Baked Cheesy Meatballs with Beetroot Sauce from The Crazy Kitchen
  5. Roasted Vegetable and Goat’s Cheese Risotto from Under The Blue Gum Tree
  6. Two-of-your-five-a-day Chocolate Cake from The Crazy Kitchen
  7. Beetroot, Carrot and Cottage Cheese Salad from The Crazy Kitchen
  8. Beetroot, Carrot and Goat’s Cheese Tatin from Martin at The Tempest Arms
  9. Beetroot, Carrot and Goat’s Cheese Muffins from Chocolate Log Blog
  10. Beetroot, Carrot and Feta Cheese Salad from Bangers & Mash
  11. Carrot and beetroot cake with a cream cheese topping from Lucy at The Bell Inn

Stilton, ham and brussel sprout tart

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Brussel sprouts tend to have the Marmite effect on people. You either love them or hate them. In the Bangers & Mash house we fall firmly on the ‘love them’ side of the fence. Even the children. Miss Bangers was asking me to buy some in the greengrocer just the other day. Strange I know…

So while most people only dish up sprouts as part of Christmas lunch in a dutiful nod to tradition, we tend to eat them all through the winter months. It’s their crunchy nuttiness I love, which I think works particularly well in this tart, teamed with strong, salty Stilton and some lovely smoked ham. And as these ingredients are the kind of foods you find hanging around in the fridge at Christmas time, it also offers an ideal way to use up some of the festive leftovers.

If you make your own shortcrust pastry, this tart costs just £4.80 to make from scratch. Serving at least six people, that works out at around 80p a head. So it’s as cheap as it is tasty. And it’s very, very easy to make too.

That’s why I’m entering the recipe into Action for Children’s Festive Food for a Fiver recipe competition.

This Christmas, the charity Action for Children is asking people to support their emergency appeal: No child should wish for food this Christmas.

As more and more families struggle to put regular meals on the table, they’d like people to put their creativity to work for a good cause and learn new cooking and money management skills from others, by sharing frugal recipes ideas on Facebook and Twitter.

The two best recipes will be rewarded with a lovely family cookbook, full of many useful tips, kindly provided by Giraffe Restaurant.

To enter the competition, you need to come up with a festive recipe that families can make on a budget:

  • The recipes should be festive themed and creatively presented
  • They need to be cheap (ideally £1.25 a head or £5 for a family of four), nutritious and reasonably simple to make
  • The ingredients should be very easily available at standard shops or supermarkets all around the country
  • They should be original (so no turkey curries, please!) and include elements that younger members of the family might be able to help with
  • They need to be family recipes – something the whole family will enjoy eating.

You can enter your recipe via Twitter or Facebook, or both. Visit the Action for Children website to find out how.

This is my entry – what dish will you submit?

Stilton, ham and brussel sprout tart

175g plain flour
salt
75g butter
350g brussel sprouts
3 eggs
150ml double cream
150ml milk
Salt and pepper
100g chopped ham
50g Stilton cheese

Preheat the oven to 190°C / gas mark 5.

To make the shortcrust pastry, sift the flour into a large mixing bowl with the salt. Using your finger tips, rub in the butter until it resembles soft breadcrumbs. Add enough cold water to make the mixture come together to form a firm dough. Cover with cling film and rest in the fridge for half an hour.

Lightly flour your work surface and roll out the pastry to line 9 inch well-buttered flan dish. Pop back in the fridge while you prepare the filling.

Break the eggs into a jug and lightly whisk with the cream and milk, and season with a little pepper.

If you’re not using left-over sprouts, steam or boil them until just tender. Rinse under cold water to stop them cooking any further and to retain their bright green colour. Drain well and then slice each sprout in half.

Arrange the sprouts across the pastry base and season with a little salt – not too much as the cheese can be quite salty.

Sprinkle over the chopped ham and then crumble over the Stilton. Finally pour over the egg and cream mixture.

Carefully place the tart in the oven for about 20 minutes until the pastry is crisp and golden and the filling is set and slightly browned. Serve with a simple salad and enjoy!

I’m entering this tart into the No Waste Food Challenge, where the theme is Christmas Dinner leftovers. This challenge is the brainchild of Kate at Turquoise Lemons and this month is hosted by Elizabeth at Elizabeth’s Kitchen Diary.

no food waste challenge

Courgette and cheese scones

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With both of my girls now at school and with me working away from home most of the week, keeping the contents of our lunch boxes vaguely interesting is an ongoing challenge. Normally I go for set staples like rolls, pasta or rice salads, pitta bread and hummus – that kind of thing. From time to time though I do like to bake something a little bit different, but something which isn’t too much of a departure from the norm that the kids leave it untouched.

These courgette and cheese scones fit the bill perfectly. Tasty and moist, they are the ideal finger food and are packed full of goodness. Ideal served cold from a lunch box or warm straight from the oven. And they aren’t too much of a faff to make. A definite winner in my book.

Courgette and cheese scones

Makes 12

225g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
45g soft butter
115g Cheddar cheese, grated
1 courgette, grated
1 carrot, grated
2 spring onions, finely chopped
handful of fresh herbs, chopped (I used thyme and oregano)
salt and pepper
2 tbsp creme fraiche
60ml milk

Preheat the oven to 200°C / gas mark 6 and grease a baking sheet with a little butter.

Sieve the flour and baking powder into a large mixing bowl. Rub the butter in the flour until it looks like fine breadcrumbs.

Add the cheese, carrot, courgette, spring onion, herbs, salt and pepper. Combine and form a well in the middle. Pour in the creme fraiche and milk and mix together to create a sticky dough.

Lightly knead the dough on a floured surface and then form into 12 scone shapes and place on the baking sheet.

Bake in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes until golden brown. Cool a little on a wire rack before serving.

These scones can be frozen, or can be kept  in an airtight container for up to five days.

Barbara’s Courgette Bake and Vanilla Cream Terrine for the Care to Cook Challenge

Posted in Meat, Puddings and desserts, RecipesTagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments
Knitting with my Nana Barbara back in the 1980s

My parents split up when I was very little. I can barely remember them being together. So much so, I’m not totally sure how old I was when they went their separate ways. Two perhaps, or three?

But despite that, my dad’s parents, my Nana Barbara and Grandad Peter, ensured they remained constant factors in my life – through my childhood and teens, my university days and when I started my own family and they became great-grandparents. My mum moved around the UK quite a bit as I was growing up, but no matter where we went, Nana Barbara and Grandad Peter would trek across the country to come and visit me. Because family is important. I grew up knowing that and knowing how much I was loved. And that is so important.

I am so pleased my Nana Barbara has entered these recipes into the Care to Cook recipe challenge to raise awareness of the fostering and adoption charity TACT. I always associated visits from my grandparents and then later, when I was old enough to go and stay with them in Lancashire and then the Lake District, with food. Homebaked cakes, pies, tarts, casseroles and puddings. Dinner round the table. Proper family food.

My Grandad Peter and my Nana Barbara with me and my daughter Jessie a few years ago

The two dishes Nana has entered are actually new ones on me, and I can’t wait to try them out…

Courgette Bake

In one bowl mix:

2 grated courgettes
1 grated carrot
1 chopped onion
5 rashers of chopped up crispy bacon
1 cup grated tasty cheese
1 cup self-raising flour

In a second bowl mix:

5 eggs, beaten
½ cup olive oil
salt and pepper
crushed clove of garlic
1tsp paprika

You’ll also need:

Parmesan or cheddar for sprinkling on top
Chopped fresh parsley to finish

Stir bowls one and two together, then spread into a lasagne dish. Sprinkle with Parmesan or Cheddar cheese.

Cook at 200°c for 30 to 40 minutes. Serve hot or cold, garnished with fresh parsley. Will serve six people.

Vanilla Cream Terrine

2 tsp vanilla extract
425ml whipping cream
11g sachet powder gelatine
85g caster sugar
425g Greek yoghurt
Mint leaves and raspberries to garnish
raspberry couli

Begin by placing the gelatine in a cup together with three tablespoons of the cream and leave to soak for 10mins.

Meanwhile place the rest of the cream in a saucepan with the sugar and heat gently until sugar has dissolved. It is important not to overheat the cream. Next, add the soaked gelatine to the warmed cream and whisk everything over the heat for a few seconds. Now remove the cream mixture from the heat.

In a mixing bowl, stir the yoghurt & vanilla together, then pour the gelatine cream mixture through a sieve. Mix very thoroughly and pour the whole lot into a plastic box (I use an old ice cream container). Allow to cool, cover and chill in the fridge for at least 4-6 hours or overnight.

Serve sliced, with fresh raspberries and mint springs, with a pouring of raspberry coulis.

Thanks Nana!

Homity pie

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Before I go any further I want to say that Cranks today is probably quite different from how I remember Cranks growing up in the 1980s.

My step-mum was a big fan of Cranks. When we went shopping in the West End, we’d invariably end up in the Cranks restaurant just off Carnaby Street and we ate many dishes from their recipe book.

In case you don’t know Cranks, they’ve been around since the 1960s and were one of the first brands I’m aware of that were exponents of healthy eating. This of course is fantastic. But as a kid, I grew to associate Cranks with worthy food: brown rice, heavy wholemeal pastry, nut roasts and – this for me was the worst part – wholemeal pasta. Now I know we need roughage in our diet. But there is a right way and a wrong way to eat your fibre, and a bowlful of wholemeal spaghetti is for me most definitely the wrong way.

I’ve just taken a peek at the Cranks website. They are still going strong it seems and they look very different from the Cranks I knew growing up. There are some recipes I’d actually be quite interested in trying.

Despite my lack of enthusiasm for Cranks as a youngster, there was one dish that my step-mum could make time and time again from their recipe book and I’d be happy, and that was Homity Pie – a tasty open cheese and potato pie. OK so it was made with wholemeal pastry but I could cope with that when balanced with the lovely buttery, cheesey, garlicy potatoes and onions. As with all my favourite foods, so very simple and so very delicious. In fact, when I left home for university, this was the only recipe I copied out to take with me.

I’ve played with the recipe a little. I use half wholemeal and half white flour for the pastry. Sometimes I add ham or bacon to the filling. And quite often I add whatever leftover vegetables I happen to have in the fridge. Last time I baked it, I used half a celeriac I had hanging around, so this appears in the recipe below.

Homity Pie

For the pastry

100g plain white flour
100g wholemeal flour
2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
100g butter
3 tbsp water

For the filling

300g potatoes, peeled and diced
300g celeriac, peeled and diced
3 tbsp olive oil
450g onions, peeled and chopped
50g butter
handful fresh parsley, chopped
150g Cheddar cheese, grated
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tbsp milk
Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 220°C/gas 7.

To make the pastry, place the wholemeal and white flour, baking powder and salt in a basin and rub in the butter with your finger tips until you have a breadcrumb-like mixture. Gradually add the water and mix in with a knife to form a dough. Wrap in clingfilm and leave in the fridge for 20 minutes.

In a large pan of salted water, boil the potatoes and celeriac until just tender, then drain and return to the pan.

Heat the olive oil in a pan and gently sautee the onions until golden. Add the onions to the potatoes and celeriac along with the butter, parsley, 100g of the cheese, garlic, milk, salt and pepper and combine well.

Butter your flan dish – I use one that’s 25cm diameter. Take your dough out of the fridge and roll out on a floured board. Don’t worry if it’s quite crumbly. Mine always falls apart a bit and I end up moulding it into position to line the flan dish.

Simply tip your ingredients into the pastry case, flatten it out a bit so the pastry is well covered and sprinkle with the remaining Cheddar cheese.

Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes until the pastry is crisp and the cheese topping has melted and is golden brown.