Pumpkins, inside and out...

As I said earlier, this week I decided to attempt gnocchi. I've never eaten it before, which seems odd, and I've obviously never made it. Traditionally (I believe!) gnocchi is made with potato, but I was planning to carve my first jack-o-lantern this weekend as well (it's Halloween today) so I thought I'd try pumpkin gnocchi instead - very autumnal, no? In searching for an appropriate (read: easy) recipe, I also came across one for "15 Minute Ricotta Gnocchi" which sounded too good to be true, so I made two types!

But first, meet Henry, my pumpkin! He wasn't easy to find, but was worth the hunt as he's a smooth-skinned, hollow, rotund specimen - perfect for carving (and clearly quite the wise-cracking pumpkin...).


Knives sharpened, band-aids at the ready, I began to hack into his orangey flesh...


And the finished Henry...I'm pretty happy with him actually! It was fun, if slightly sticky, work and I think he'll look very spooky tonight once it gets dark! Ooooh....


Anyway, the insides of Henry (along with some other squash, because most of Henry is actually still intact...though I do see a large amount of pumpkin soup in our future!) were roasted for the gnocchi, then mashed and mixed with the egg, flour and seasonings, and that's really it. The ricotta gnocchi did live up to its 15 min fame, although I have to admit that sadly, neither variety was met with rapturous applause. Andrew didn't really like either version (owing to the texture which he claimed was 'slimy'. Flattering...) and if I'm completely honest, while I didn't dislike it, it wasn't something that I'd go out of my way to eat again. Of course, having never eaten gnocchi at a restaurant, I've got no point of comparison, so I don't really know what it should be like! The instructions said not to add too much flour since you wanted to achieve a 'velvety' texture. I'm pretty sure that mine were velvety - I definitely didn't add too much flour - but I just wasn't inspired. Sad...I had such high hopes for this week's recipes! Ah well. Worth a shot anyway, since you never know when you're going to discover your new favourite food! And, I do think that if you are a gnocchi fan, then these recipes will probably appeal. They are pretty easy and certainly quick. And the flavours of the pumpkin one particularly were wonderfully autumnal.


Ricotta Gnocchi (recipe from Delicious:Days)

250g ricotta
1 egg yolk
1/2 tsp sea salt
30g grated parmesan
50-70g plain flour
(I also added about 2 tbsp finely chopped garlic chives)

In a bowl, beat the ricotta, egg yolk, salt, parmesan and herbs (if using) together. Add the flour and mix to just combined. I used the full amount of flour and it was still very sticky. THe original recipe said you could add more flour if you wanted, but the more you add, the heavier the gnocchi will be. Apparently heavy gnocchi are not desirable.
Mixture will be very sticky, so your hands are going to get a bit messy from now on.
Flour a chopping board thoroughly, then blob a good dessert-spoonful of the mix onto the board. Flour your hands and then roll/schmoosh the dough into a finger-width thick sausage. Cut into wee pieces about 1.5-2cm long and place each onto a well floured surface.

To cook: put wee pillows of gnocchi into boiling, salted water and cook until they float. This will take about 2-4mins. Serve with simple tomato sauce, and some parmesan.



Halloween Gnocchi

450g cooked, mashed/pureed pumpkin (I roasted mine first and then mashed since it intensifies the pumpkiny flavour)
sea salt to taste
1 egg yolk
100g plain flour
freshy ground nutmeg

Basically the same instructions as above, except you mix the egg, pumpkin puree, salt and nutmeg, before adding the flour. Roll out then cook as described above.

I served this with crispy prosciutto, roasted pinenuts and crisp sage with the scented olive oil (that the sage had cooked in) drizzled over. I definitely liked this gnocchi version better than the first - very rich and autumnal. If you're vegetarian, leave off the prosciutto! :-)

Autumnal, halloweeny, festive temptations

Just a wee heads up about my planned recipe attempt this weekend...pumpkin gnocchi! I've never eaten or made gnocchi (well, the latter goes without saying since I've never eaten it!) and since the oven is still out of commission and I'm stuck with stove-top cookery, I thought I'd make use of the abundance of pumpkins the shops have at the moment and give it a bash!

I'm also planning to carve my very first jack-o-lantern!

Stay tuned...

And something extra

If you make the mousse of the last post, you will find yourself in possession of 3 egg yolks and may be wondering what to do with them. I made garlicky thyme aioli to go on with our steaks and fries for dinner. Delish.

This mayo technique is one I was fortunate enough to find on Delicious:Days, where I believe they saw it on a late night tv ad. It's changed my mayo-making days forever!

Usually you'd use just one whole egg in this recipe, but I thought I'd give it a go with the egg yolks and it's fine...pretty thicky and fatty tasting, but I like that! You could, if you were so inclined, thin it out with a little milk or water.

It'll keep a few days in the fridge - great on toasted ciabatta, or blobbed on top of a roasted vege pizza (sounds weird, but trust me! You'll be addicted...)

Instant Garlic and Thyme Aioli

3 egg yolks (or 1 egg...or a combo?)
1 finely chopped fat clove of garlic (more or less depending on garlic-addiction levels)
1 tbsp (or so) of chopped fresh herbs (I used thyme and garlic chives but by all means change the herbs to suit you and your meal)
1 tsp dijon mustard*
1/2 tsp salt (you might add more after tasting)
juice of about a quarter of a lemon (again, add more to taste)
3/4-1 cup oil (I used a Sunolive oil which is mostly sunflower but with some olive oil - nice result. I think too much olive oil is a bit olivey, but use what you have or what you like!)

Put ingredients (in order listed) into the jug thingy that came with your hand-held blender.
Blend, lifting blender up slowly as you blitz. This will take about 3-5 seconds.
Taste and enjoy your instant aioli!


Before the blitz (apologies for blurriness...)


The magic starts to happen...(apologies for blurriness...this really does happen very quickly!)


Et voila!


*Actually, I didn't use dijon this time because I'm out of mustard. Mayo recipes always include mustard, and I've often wondered if it is key to the emulsion process or if it's just for taste...turns out, just for taste. You can successfully make mayo without mustard if you want. Good to know if, like me, you sometimes forget to restock the fridge!

Something new...with room for improvement!

So, after the whole Salmon Tikka debarcle of earlier in the week, I've become very aware that I need some new recipes in my repetoire...especially if I am going to presume to write about my cooking on this blog! With that in mind, I've set myself the task of trying at least one new recipe every week. I'm also going to try and take a photo of the results because A) I'd like this site to have more pictures, and B) I've let my photography attempts slip up of late too. I've been making excuses about being busy and not having the time or inclination for complicated cookery, but really when I get down to it, I cook in some format every day, so why can't I cook a new recipe at least some of the time? Broaden the ol' horizons and all that. Potentially there will be some horror stories emerging from this little adventure, but that's half the fun, isn't it!? (and as long as we have eggs in the cupboard and bread the freezer, there's always a back-up meal available if things go really pear-shaped).

So, anyway, yesterday was Andrew's birthday and earlier in the week he'd suddenly declared that he felt like strawberry mousse. He's a total chocophile, so the strawberry longings were a bit out of character. But since the oven is still out of commission (damned electrician who was meant to turn up and fix it today was a no-show!) and I couldn't bake him a birthday cake, I thought why not make strawberry mousse. That's my first new recipe for the week. Not precisely revolutionary, given that it has about 4 ingredients, but hey; from small acorns....!

The resulting mousse (recipe and pic below) was actually a little weird. It did this odd seperating thing in the fridge which looked pretty (darker pink on the bottom and fluffy light pink on the top), and the texture was just a bit fluffy for our liking. The taste was ok, but it was sort of just like strawberry clouds (which does actually sound rather lovely). It's ok, though, and I do think you could posh it up with some tuile biscuits or shortbread if you were having a dinner party. Although if you are doing that, you might want to serve smaller portions than the gargantuan ones shown in my photo...the only clear serving-type glasses I had were my wine glasses and they can take a fair bit of mousse! (also, using wine glasses leaves you drinking the rest of your Riesling out of a coffee mug which is not terribly classy. Since i was already covered in sugar, egg whites and cream, I wasn't overly worried about looking classy, but you may be more presentation-conscious!).

The original recipe is from the BBC's Good Food website, although I've adjusted the measurements since they gave them in ml which is frankly a little arsey for my liking (seriously - 141ml of double cream?? I measured it and it's half a cup people - let's just call a spade a spade, shall we?!)

Strawberry (or other berry) Mousse*

3 egg whites
50g caster sugar (that's 1/4c for those without scales)
300g strawberries, whizzed until smooth in food processor or blender (abt 1 cup)
1/2 cup (or 141ml!!!) heavy cream (normal cream for those who live in normal places where they only have one kind)

Whisk egg whites until stiff. Add sugar and whisk to make a glossy meringue-type substance.
Whip cream until softly whipped (be careful you don't over-whip. I think I did and my cream was a little reluctant to be folded gently into the egg and strawberry which resulted in a rather uniform colour/appearance. If you're after the swirls of strawberry through pinky mousse, you'll need to have very softly whipped cream. It'll still taste good if you over whip, just will look more like mine and not so gorgeous as it could be! Hmm, maybe my overly-stiff cream caused the lack of combining which ended up making it separate and be weirdly fluffy? Or maybe that's just how it's meant to be...)
Gently fold the berry schmoosh and cream into the meringue, spoon into serving glasses and chill.




* If you make this with other berries - which I think would be lovely - you might want to consider seiving out the seeds. That sounds like an awful great faff, and in most cases I wouldn't bother, but blackberries and raspberries are quite pippy

Well this is embarrassing...

Ok, I've just had a horrid feeling that I'd already written about the salmon tikka thing before...and, after checking, I've discovered that yes, I did post that recipe once already. (BLUSH!!) Am I tapped out already, after only a few months?! Sob. Clearly it's time for some new recipes! At least I added the vege dish to this one I suppose....

Me thinks it might be time for some coffee (to kick start my flailing memory!) and a browse of the cookbook aisle at my friendly local bookshop!

Lazy salmon supper

Easy, tasty, healthy and beautifully coloured with greens and pinks...perfect mid-week food as far as I'm concerned! This is inspired by a Tandoori Salmon dish that Andrew's uncle always orders when we go for curry in Glasgow. The tandoori curry paste that I've got though, is frighteningly fluro-pink coloured which freaks me out, so I used the much more normally-hued tikka pasta I had. You could use Korma or madras paste too, or make your own mix of spices if you're that way inclined (although that would rather defeat the whole easy/quick concept of this meal).

Salmon Tikka

2-3 salmon fillets (either organic or sustainably sourced and higher welfare preferably)
2-3 tbsp tikka masala paste or tandoori paste
Handful of baby spinach leaves, to serve
Raita (yoghurt mixed with cucumber and mint), to serve
Steamed rice and/or naan breads, to serve

Slice salmon fillets lengthwise into 1cm thick slices. Smear with the paste on either side and let them sit for 5-10 mins. Heat some oil in a frypan on high heat. Fry salmon for a minute then gently turn slices for another minute on the other side.

Serve a-top a bed of spinach, with the raita, rice and naan. Delish!

I also served this with a side-dish of Okra and Green Tomatoes...I love okra although don't cook with it terribly often so needed to do some googling for recipe ideas! During this search, the Southern US dish of fried green tomatoes and okra came up frequently. That requires crumbing and deep frying both, and while that sounds delish, it didn't really fly with my 'easy dinner' mood. Instead, I went for a more Indian-inspired combination of the two ingredients.

Okra and Green Tomatoes

1/4 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
12 okra (ladies fingers, bhindi), sliced into 1cm thick pieces
small handful of green cherry tomatoes, halved(or red - I just have some green ones left!)
1/2 tsp each of cumin and ground coriander (and chilli if you fancy)
1/2 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp sugar

Saute onion and garlic, add okra and fry 2-3 mins. Add tomatoes and cook another minute or so. Add spices, stir and let cook for about 4 mins until everything is cooked and the tomatoes have softened.

Israeli Couscous

I haven't done any cooking today (in fact, beyond inhaling a small bag of crisps and a muesli bar, I haven't really eaten anything since breakfast...which reminds me, I'm starving!) but I came across this recipe on a news website and thought it sounded delicious. I've never cooked with Israeli couscous - or even really seen it in shops - but I'm now intrigued. Has anyone cooked/eaten it before and if so, is it as good as it looks in this recipe/picture...??

http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/food-wine/2981656/Making-family-meals-fun

Fracking oven!!!!!!!

I really do love my new kitchen. I'm sure it's bigger than many others I've had, and it contains my prized (rented) possession...the dishwasher (yes, I have become a slave to modern consumer conveniences...and I'm not ashamed of it!) But it also unfortunately contains the world's most useless (fracking!!!) oven!! It feels me with such rage that I'm bordering on kicking it. Oh who am I kidding? I have kicked..several times. See, I come from the DIY school of physical brutality...if something is broken or faltering, my first instinct is to kick or hit it in the hopes that this will make it work again. And this technique does, on occasion, work. We had a tv for quite some time that would lose its picture unless you hit it to make it come back. When watching tv in bed (and no one could be bothered getting up) we'd throw shoes at it in the hopes of hitting it at the right angle and with sufficient force to make it come back on. In the end the tv died properly, and ok, that might have been because of the large hole that we'd ended up smashing into the top of it. Oops. Oh well...
Anyway, as I said, the annoying (godforsaken) oven was kicked the other night, but to no avail. The sodding thing: A. burns everything (and I know I do have many flaws in the kitchen, but burning things is not one of my regular failings!) and B. it turns its bloody (demonic) self off in the middle of cooking things!!! Arrgh! I was baking pizzas the first time this happened. The whole thing just shut down and then about 15 mins later came back on with a flash of blinking green lights ("oh, you've decided to play now have you? well that's just fine - I've already decided to make pasta instead so bollocks to you, you ridiculous excuse for an oven!") It also did it while I was making bread yesterday morning. Fortunately it hasn't turned itself off while I've been baking a cake, but I can only imagine that would effectively ruin a cake - causing collapses and all manner of enraging yelling. Makes life very frustrating when you love to bake and cook and your oven won't play ball, no?! Our property management company are a bit (entirely) useless too, so this is going to take weeks to get any sort of resolution on. Deep sigh, sip of wine...

In the meantime, expect to see a lot of stove-cooked meals in our house!

Actually, I haven't done a lot of cooking lately, because I've started two new jobs at opposite ends of England, so that's sort of killing my kitchen time. I must figure out a way of managing this though, because I miss having that creative outlet. Actually the one thing I am seriously considering is buying a breadmaker. I've always made a lot of our bread myself, and I love making it by hand - the hands-on beating and shaping of dough is fun (I think). Plus I'm of the personal belief that most mass-produced bread is utterly crap. It's even worse in the UK than at home - it's either doughy and so dense you could knock someone on the head with it, or it's already stale when you buy it. Either way, grotty and I'd rather do without. But unless I take to making bread late at night (which I suppose is actually a possibility, but it would require considerable organisation on my part, and that's really where I fall down in that idea), I don't think I'm going to have much time for dough. That fills me with quite a bit of sadness, I have to say, so I'm wondering if a breadmaker might be the way to go.

So tell me, can you still be creative with a breadmaker, or does it take all the fun out of bread-making??

Things I love about cold weather: #1

Soup!!

Say what you will about autumn and winter (and the Poms sure do - they make moaning a national sport), but I love it! It's warm and cosy inside, and when the weather is grey and bleak, you don't have to feel guilty that you're tucked up inside reading a book instead of being outdoors. I love the sound of rain on my roof and I love winter food. Cooking in winter is just so easy - you throw things in a pot, leave them for a decent length of time and when you come back, you've got perfectly cooked, warming winter fare that tends to taste even better the next day. Mashed potato, stews, dumplings, fruit crumbles...all things that make winter fabulous, as far as I'm concerned. But, the one thing I most look forward to in winter is having soup for lunch almost everyday. Simple perhaps, but definitely not boring! Last week I had mushroom soup all week (a hot contender for my favourite soup crown) but today I was hankering for something more vegie oriented. Below is what I did, and it turned out really well! It's the sort of soup that isn't really a recipe, and it probably should have beans of some kind in it rather than split peas, but I didn't have any pre-cooked or tinned beans, so I threw the peas in instead. Also, I usually prefer my soups like this to have big chunky pieces of vege floating in a soupy broth, rather than blitzing the life out of them, but if you're a smooth soup fan then by all means crank up the blender!

Jess's Wednesday Soup

1 onion, chopped
2 large cloves of garlic, chopped
about a cup of peeled, seeded pumpkin or butternut squash, cut into large chunks
1 parsnip, peeled and cut into similarly large chunks
2-3 carrots, cut into chunks
3 cups of vege or chicken stock
a few sprigs of herbs (I used rosemary and thyme purely because that's what is growing on my balcony)
a handful (literally) of split yellow peas
a squirt (probably about a tbsp if you wanted to measure) tomato paste/puree
1 cup (ish) of roughly chopped curly kale (or spinach maybe?)

Saute onion and garlic in some olive oil. Throw vege in as they are prepared. Add stock, herbs, peas and tomato paste. Simmer for at least 30 mins, but probably closer to 45 (so that the peas are properly soft). Taste and add salt to your liking. Add the kale, pop the lid on and leave it to simmer for another 10 mins. Pretty, hearty and delicious. Soup really is food for the soul as far as I'm concerned!

NB. I actually got impatient and hungry waiting for this to cook, so after about 35 mins, I put 1/2 tsp of baking soda in the soup. This probably sounds odd, and it was a wee experiment but it worked out just as I'd hoped. A friend of mine - Katrina - and I have had a couple of conversations about the role of baking soda (bicarb) in legume-cooking. In my recipe for felafel, you have to add some bicarb to the mixture because you don't pre-boil the chickpeas. I wasn't ever really sure why this was, but Kat thought it might help to soften the chickpeas. Hence, when I felt the split peas in this soup needed a wee helping hand (so that I could eat them sooner!) I added a small amount of bicarb to the soup. It fizzed and looked a bit weird for a minute, but once it calmed down, the peas softened almost instantly. Definitely a handy trick to know!

Tomatoes, tomatoes, everywhere...

It's autumn here in the UK (or Fall, as my American students would say) and along with the pretty foliage we are currently experiencing that wonderful end-of-summer treat, an abundance of tomatoes. My own tomato plants did admirably this year (considering how root bound the poor wee things were) but my friend Rosie's tomatoes have really gone crazy. I'm down staying at her place once a week, and everytime I go down there's a new pile of freshly picked tomatoes on the kitchen counter. While passata and chutney are all well and good, sometimes it's nice to do something a bit different too, I think. My mind immediately went to curry this week. In particular I had in mind that I wanted to try an eggplant and mushroom curry (not sure why those vege in particular, but that's what I fancied. Why question a determined mind?)

I did a bit of googling for tomato-based curries and came across one for a paneer curry which sounded really good. I tweaked it a bit (in addition to replacing the paneer with eggplant and mushroom, obviously) and the result was considered a big success by all of the willing taste-testers (namely Rosie and her sister, and myself!)

You could, of course, add paneer instead of - or in addition to - the vege, or use other vege or even pulses I'd say. And I think that if you're a butter chicken fan (butter chicken in the sense of NZ-style butter chicken which, as it turns out, is different to the butter chicken you get over here) you'll really like this sauce over chicken - or even over fish. Give it a bash - I hope you like it too!


Eggplant and Mushrooms in a Tomato Curry Sauce

1 tbsp olive oil and 1 tbsp butter
4 green cardamom pods, seeds removed and crushed
4 cups fresh diced tomatoes (or equivalent in tinned toms)
1/2 cup whole (unroasted) cashew nuts
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 scant teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
4 bay leaves
1 inch fresh ginger root, skinned and roughly chopped
4 cloves garlic, crushed and roughly chopped
1 green birds eye chili, stemmed and split in half (remove the seeds for a milder sauce)
2 tablespoons dried fenugreek leaves
1/3 cup double cream (that's just regular cream if you live in NZ and probably Australia. Weirdest thing ever the ridiculous range of cream they have in the UK)
1 tablespoon honey (or sugar I'm sure would be fine too!)

Heat oil/butter to medium heat, add cardamom and cook for 30 secs or so. Add other spices, ginger and garlic and the chilli - stir to combine and start sizzling. Add cashews, tomatoes and salt. Bring to a boil, add the bay leaves and simmer until it has thickened and reduced - about 15-20 mins, depending on how watery the tomatoes are.

Once sauce has cooked down, put into a blender and blitz until quite smooth - this might take a couple of minutes.

Heat some more oil/butter and saute a chopped onion until soft. Cook some eggplant and mushrooms until soft as well (or chicken if that's what you're using, or other vege of your choice). Add the sauce back to the pan, add the cream, fenugreek seeds and honey. Bring back to a simmer and heat through (or cook until the meat/vege are cooked).

Enjoy! And if you do try this and use it over something other than eggplant/mushrooms, let me know how it goes!