Smoky Chilli & Lime Houmous

Yesterday I was really fancying some houmous to go with some nice crunchy salad and crackers for lunch. I love houmous and often (I’m ashamed to say) buy it from supermarkets, but its so quick and easy to make at home that I decided to have a little fun and jazz up some homemade houmous.

Simple clean flavours are all well and good, but I also love things with a bit of spice and after a browse though the fridge and spice cupboard I decided to make houmous with a little lime and cumin for aromatics and paprika and cayenne for a smoky kick.

I’m not a great fan of tahini, even though I love sesame and sesame oil, so instead I used peanut butter to add that creamy nutty note. This may sound a little odd, but it really works.

The houmous took literally 10 minutes from start to finish and I ended up with a lovely big pot for only a few pence, a bargain compared to shop bought. It reminded me that I really should make my own more often.

It smelt amazing and quite Moroccan so I dipped a cracker in and took a bite. At first I just got a creamy texture and a fresh zesty flavour from the lime. Then the smokiness from the paprika came in and started to develop into a gentle heat from the cayenne pepper, leaving my mouth with a warming tingle.

I loved its terracotta orange colour from the paprika, very Middle Eastern. It’s quite addictive and perfect summer lunchtime munching.

Smoky Chilli & Lime Houmous

Ingredients
1 x 400g tin chickpeas
½ tsp ground cumin
¼ tsp cayenne pepper
½ tsp sweet paprika
1 tbsp peanut butter or tahini
Juice of ½ lime
4-6 tsp vegetable oil

Method
Place all the ingredients, expect the oil, into a small blender and blitz until chunky. Scrape down the sides and briefly blitz again.
Add 4tsp of oil and blend until smooth or at your desired consistency (I like it coarse). Add a little more oil or a touch of water if it’s too thick.
Transfer to an airtight container and store in the fridge.
Eat within 5 days.

Carrot Cake Inspired Ice Cream

I adore carrot cake, it’s possibly my favourite cake. I just love its spicy flavour, chewy raisins, little chunks of nut and how it’s all topped off with a creamy frosting – yum. I was dreaming about carrot cake and decided to see if I could make carrot cake ice cream!

“Hmmm carrot cake ice cream, I bet she crumbled up some carrot cake into her ice cream…” NOPE! I actually added all the major flavour components, separately into the ice cream base. Cinnamon, mixed spice, sultanas, pecans, lemon zest, date syrup for sweetness and… 200g of freshly grated carrot! I lightly blanched the grated carrot first to soften it and release some of its natural sweetness, no one wants to be chewing on raw carrot in their ice cream.

Now before you think I’ve gone do-lally, trust me it works. It works really well. I was so excited creating this ice cream and then seeing into come together. That first softly set spoonful was amazing. OMG best ice cream ever!

The ice cream base was just sweet enough while still retaining some of its creamy freshness which emulated the cool creamy frosting often found on carrot cake. The nuts added the occasional crunch while the sultanas went fantastically chewy and sweet, like little chips of toffee hiding in the ice cream.

The spices came through well without being overpowering and the date syrup helped give that characteristic spicy orangey-brown colour to the ice cream as well as a lovely naturally fruity sweetness. The strands of carrot themselves were soft enough not to cause a problem yet still whole enough to be detectable. They weren’t crunchy in any way, but they had retained their shape which I loved.

I just couldn’t get over how much it tasted like real carrot cake. It completely satisfied my carrot cake craving and I’m now plotting even more concoctions. Move over Ben & Jerry’s!

Carrot Cake Inspired Ice Cream

Ingredients
250g sweetened custard base (homemade or shop bought)
200ml double cream
200g carrot, peeled and grated
50g sultanas
40g pecans
75ml date syrup
2 tsp mixed spice
½ tsp cinnamon
Zest of ½ lemon

Method
Start by peeling and roughly grating your carrots. Place them in a small bowl, add 1 tablespoon of water, cover the top with clingfilm and cook in the microwave for 1½ minutes. Leave the clingfilm on the bowl and set aside to cool to room temperature before placing in the fridge until cold.
When reading to start, mix your custard base, double cream, date syrup, lemon zest and spices together in a bowl. Whisk gently until combined.
Roughly chop the pecans and add to the bowl along with the sultanas and blanched and chilled carrot. Add any carrot liquid to the mix too as this will contain lots of intense carrot flavour.
Stir until well incorporated before churning in your ice cream machine until thick and softly set.
Scoop out and enjoy straight away or transfer to a Tupperware box and freeze until required.
Makes about 700ml ice cream

Pea Pod & Mint Soup. Plus a visit from the Fairy Hobmother!

The humble pea is one of my favourite vegetables. There is just something irresistible about its vibrant green colour and sweet flavour. I love how each tiny pea is encased in its own outer jacket, each one a mini vegetable in its own right. A bag of frozen peas is one of my staple freezer ingredients. There is nothing wrong with frozen peas, if fact in most cases they are actually tastier and more nutritious this way than fresh, as peas very quickly loose all sweetness and nutritional quality from the minute they are picked. Frozen peas are usually picked and frozen within 4 hours, meaning you get them almost as fresh as can be. Packets of so called ‘fresh peas’ in supermarkets have probably been sitting around for at least 4-5 days, meaning those once sweet peas will be hard cardboard bullets by the time you eat them.

However, if you can get your hands on some fresh peas, home grown, picked and eaten within a few hours, they are sublime! I am fortunate enough to know someone who has a farm growing veg and last weekend she was selling bags of freshly picked peas – still in their pods – at a farmers market. I snapped a bag up instantly and sat their happily devouring the peas like sweeties. Gently popping open the pods and scooping up the delicate row of peas inside. So sweet and tender.

After munching all the peas I was left with quite a pile of empty pea pods. I hate throwing anything away and so tried eating one – not really a good idea – very tough and stringy and it didn’t beak down no matter how long I chewed. Despite its unappetising texture, it contained a wonderful pea flavour and so I decided to try and turn them into soup.

Lightly cooked with simply an onion, a potato and some pea loving mint my soupy broth mixture was ready in a matter of minutes. After blitzing I sieved the soup which removed all the tough fibres from the pea pods and resulted in a rich velvety soup with a thick creamy texture.

The taste was amazing. Pure essence of pea and so fresh and summery. The mint wasn’t overpowering and gave just a slight lingering aftertaste which complemented the pea. I loved its beautiful pea green colour and pure pea aroma.

Amazing to thick I got such a pea packed soup for practically nothing as the main ingredients are water and empty pods which I’d normally discard. So remember, after munching those fresh peas – don’t throw the pods away, make pea pod soup!

Pea Pod & Mint Soup

Ingredients
500g empty pea pods – eat the peas first!
1¾ pints hot water
1 large onion
1 large or 2 small potatoes
15 leaves of fresh mint
1 clove garlic
1 tbsp olive oil
Salt and pepper

Method
Peel and roughly chop the onion. Heat the oil in a large saucepan, add the onion, stir and then place the lid on to allow the onion to sweat and soften gently.
Meanwhile, dice the potato (no need to peel) and roughly chop the garlic.
Once the onion has started to soften, add the potato and garlic and cook for 2-3 minutes more.
Boil the kettle and measure out the water. Add the mint leaves and pea pods (no need to chop) to the pan and stir briefly.
Pour over the water, add some freshly ground salt and pepper and bring the mixture to the boil. Then reduce to a simmer, place the lid on with just a small gap to allow some steam to escape and allow to bubble for 15-20 minutes.
Check that the potatoes are cooked by sticking the tip of a sharp knife into them. If they are then remove the pan from the heat, if not then allow to cook for 3-4 minutes longer.
Once ready, blitz the soup in a liquidiser until restively smooth. Best to do this in batches. Strain the soup through a fine sieve into a large clean bowl or pan. Use the back of a spoon to help work the soup through the sieve, leaving behind all the stringy pith from the pea pods.
You should end up with a bright green and velvety smooth soup.
Taste and add more seasoning if required.
Serves 3-4

After leaving a comment on Cherrapeno’s blog stating my dream kitchen gadget (an automatic ice cream maker – the kind you don’t need to pre-freeze) I was lucky enough to be visited by the Fairy Hobmother, in the form of Ian from Appliances Online

Unfortunately he wasn’t able to give me the ice cream maker (unsurprisingly considering they cost £200+) but I was gifted a £25 Amazon gift card to put towards my ice cream fund – yay!

To be in with a chance of a visit from the Fairy Hobmother yourself, simply leave a comment on this post, stating your dream kitchen gadget, before June 5th and who knows he may be visiting you too!

Spinach & Ricotta Tart GF

Spinach and ricotta is a classic combination, but one that I’m only recently beginning to appreciate. I remember being given spinach and ricotta tortellini when I was little and not liking the spinach’s slightly grassy taste. More often than not it was watery, causing the cheese to split into horrible lumps or else was stringy and fiberous. It put me off for quite a while! However, I have since discovered that spinach and ricotta can also be a fantastic pairing and am now using it with gusto.

I first tasted this tart during a gluten free cookery demo a few weeks back and it tasted so good that I was determined to make it myself. At the demo they used a packed pastry mix, but never one to reply on packets, I scanned the ingredients list and then concocted my own using similar flours I had at home. The demo also taught me some new tips about how to approach gluten free baking that go against all ‘traditional’ baking techniques. You want to treat pastry as if it was bread dough – use soft butter, make a batter to start and then knead it until it becomes smooth. As there is no gluten to overwork there is no fear of it becoming tough or shrinking when baked. For bread dough you want to treat it like a cake mix – it should be very wet and poured into a loaf tin before proving and baking. If it’s too thick, it won’t rise and the bread will be dense. Interesting stuff!

Anyway, back to the tart. The pastry worked like a charm and resulted in a light, crisp pastry that I think I even preferred to when I used to eat standard party. It was lighter and less greasy. The filling came together easily and all the frying onion, garlic and balsamic made the kitchen smell wonderful. Ricotta is quite a bland cheese, and in a tart such as this it adds more of a texture than a flavour. However, its lightness results in a puffy, almost soufflé like textured filling that allows other flavours to shine.

A little red onion and sun dried tomato adds sweetness and bite to the tart, while the spinach makes it fabulously green and slightly earthy. It’s delicious warm, straight out the oven but I also enjoyed it cold the next day, when it turned a little more quiche-like. As a bonus it also freezes well, meaning you can stash slices of it away for when you’re short of time or lacking inspiration to cook.

If you’re not on a GF diet, I’m sure the filling would be equally delicious is a standard pastry case.

Spinach & Ricotta Tart GF
(Recipe adapted from Glutafin)

Gluten Free Pastry
225g gluten free flour mix (I used 100g white rice flour, 50g potato flour, 50g tapioca starch, 25g buckwheat flour)
1 tsp xanthan gum
110g butter
1 egg
1 tbsp cold water

Spinach & Ricotta Filling
1 small red onion, very finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic (crushed)
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
150g frozen or fresh chopped spinach
250g ricotta cheese
2 eggs
75g sun blush/dried tomatoes in oil
3 sprigs fresh basil
Salt and pepper

Method - Pastry
Have an 8inch/20cm tart tin ready.
Mix all the flours and the xanthan gum together in a bowl to combine.
Make sure you butter is soft, if not blast it in the microwave for a few seconds. Add to a mixing bowl along with half the flour mixture, the egg and water. Beat with a spoon or spatula to form a paste. (Yes I know this goes against all traditional pastry making!) Add the rest of the flour and bring the mixture together to form a dough, switching to your hands at the en. Knead the dough gently for 1 minute to ensure everything is well combined.
Lightly dust a work surface with GF flour and roll out the pastry to the size and shape of your tart tin, plus an extra 1-2 inches for the sides.
Use your rolling pin to help you transfer the pastry into the tin and press it down gently. Trim off the excess. Patch up any cracks with the off-cuts of pastry.
Place in the fridge while you prepare the filling.

Spinach & Ricotta Filling
Preheat the oven to 190C.
Finely dice the red onion, heat the oil in a frying pan, and gently fry the onion until beginning to soften. Crush the garlic and add it to the onion and cook for 3 minutes more.
Either chop your fresh spinach or defrosted and drain your frozen spinach. Add the spinach to the pan along with the balsamic vinegar and a generous amount of salt and pepper.
Cook over a fairly high heat until very little moisture remains. Remove from the heat and stir through the ricotta cheese. Lightly beat the eggs and beat them in too.
Chop the tomatoes and basil into small chunks and fold into the filling.
Spread the filling into the chilled pastry case and bake for 25-30 minutes until set, slightly puffed and the pastry is lightly golden brown.
Allow to cool for 15 minutes before serving.
Tastes great warm or cold the next day when it goes more quiche-like. Also freezes well in slices.
Makes 1 x 8inch/20cm tart

Bean Salad with Lemon & Mint

Hasn’t the weather been glorious this weekend! It was so nice to be able to wander outside without the need for a coat. I loved wandering around the garden, the trees full of blossom, the last few daffodils nodding in the breeze, the grass lush and green, the sun making everything seem bright and vibrant. Such sun evokes visions of BBQ’s and summer picnics and my favourite bit…fresh tasty salads!

After our long spell of cold miserable weather the kitchen was rather short on summer salad ingredients but thanks to the wonderful processes of bottling and canning I was still able to put together a fresh and tasty bean salad for us to enjoy with dinner.

Lemon zest and juice take the place of vinegar for a quick and simple zingy dressing which was jazzed up with a bit of fresh mint and chives from the garden. The smells wafting up as they were picked were wonderful. A little sweetcorn and a few sundried tomatoes added sweetness and sunny colour without the need to visit the shops. Quick, fresh and tasty. Hurrah for sunshine :)

Bean Salad with Lemon & Mint

Ingredients
1 x 400g tin mixed beans (flageolet, kidney beans and cannellini etc)
½ tin sweetcorn (75g)
200g marrowfat or broad beans
6 sundried tomatoes in oil
Zest of ½ lemon
Juice of ½ lemon
Small bunch fresh chives
10 fresh mint leaves
Salt & pepper
1 tbsp olive oil

Method
Drain and rinse the mixed beans, sweetcorn and marrowfat/broad beans. Shell the broad beans by gently squeezing them along the seam and popping them into a bowl. Discard the thin outer shell.
Finely chop the sundried tomatoes, mint leaves and chives using scissors.
Add all the veg, beans and herbs into a bowl and mix to combine.
Add the finely grated zest and juice of half a lemon and drizzle in the olive oil. Season with salt and pepper and mix well.
Serve as an accompaniment to other salads and assorted nibbly bits or own its own.

Spicy Sweetcorn Pancakes

It’s pancake day tomorrow, and I’m eagerly looking forward to devouring a fair few. I love pancakes. Pancakes themselves come in all shapes, sizes and types. Thick and fluffy American style pancakes or thin and delicate French crepes. I grew up eating the thinner French style pancakes, always with a squeeze of lemon juice and a sprinkling of sugar. Recently I’ve been favouring more of the fluffier kind. I love how you can flavour them so completely, chocolate chips, blueberries, cinnamon, nuts, toffee, coconut, the list is almost endless.

Whenever anyone mentions pancakes, my first reaction is to think of something sweet. However today, as I was planning tomorrows pancakes and sorting through the fridge, I discovered half a can of sweetcorn and decided to head down the savoury pancake route for lunch.

These sweetcorn pancakes are thick, fluffy and densely studded with sweetcorn. They are made using a mix of gram flour (chickpea) and brown rice flour which gives them a very savoury flavour which is a nice contrast to the sweet little kernels of corn. I added a little red onion and cayenne pepper to the batter which lends some colour and textural contrast as well as some tongue tingling bite to keep things interesting.

They are so quick and easy to put together and taste delicious when served with some spicy tomato salsa and a blob of sour cream whos cool creaminess helps keep the heat in check. They were absolutely scrummy and I’m already plotting other savoury combinations – pea, mint & feta or tomato, olive & basil anyone?

How will you be eating yours – thin or thick and sweet or savoury?

Spicy Sweetcorn Pancakes

Ingredients
30g gram/chickpea flour
20g brown rice flour
½ small red onion
½ tin (80-100g) sweetcorn
¼ tsp ground chillies/cayenne pepper
½ tsp gluten free baking powder
1 egg
1-2 tbsp milk
Salt and pepper

To serve
Sour cream
Spicy tomato salsa
Salad

Method
Peel and finely dice the red onion. Sieve the flours into a small bowl and add the onion, drained sweetcorn, cayenne and baking powder. (You must sieve the gram flour or else it sticks together in clumps).
Lightly beat the egg and then stir through the sweetcorn mixture to form a thick paste.
Add 1-2 tablespoons of milk to slacken the mixture until it becomes spoonable, but remains fairly thick.
Season with salt and pepper.
Heat a little oil in a frying pan until hot, then add tablespoonfuls of the sweetcorn batter. Allow to cool over a gentle heat for 1 minute before flipping over to cook the other side.
Remove to a plate, covered with a sheet of kitchen roll, while you cook the remaining batter.
Makes 6-8 sweetcorn pancakes.
Serve with sour cream, spicy tomato salsa and some salad.

Parsnip, Apple & Orange Pecan Cake with Maple Mascarpone Frosting (GF)

This cake may well be the best cake I have made in weeks…months…possibly even all year! I know that’s an incredibly bold statement, but eat a slice of this cake and you’ll see where I’m coming from. It’s moist, slightly sticky, sweet and jam packed full of flavour. It’s fruity, a little nutty and filled with a luxuriously creamy maple mascarpone frosting.

Parsnips in a cake may sound like an odd idea, but they are sweeter than carrots and they often make an appearance in baked goods. Just as with carrot cake, you don’t take a bite of this cake and think ‘parsnips’ they are there to add a natural sweetness and incredible moist texture. Apple and orange also lend their juicy sweetness and it’s actually the flavour of the orange and spices that hit you first, before all the other flavours and textures pop up. The mascarpone frosting is only slightly sweetened with the maple syrup, retaining a lot of its cooling creamy smoothness which leaves a wonderful rich and decadent feeling in your mouth that has you clamoring for another bite.

The texture of the sponge is moist and slightly dense, but in a gorgeous sticky fruity way. You can see from the slices that this doesn’t prevent it from being a light, springy cake. It needs that little bit of substance to support and balance the combination of flavours.

I made this cake for my mum’s birthday last week. I actually found this recipe a year ago, just after her last birthday, and have been sitting on it for a year, waiting for parsnips to come back into season and for her birthday to roll round again. It was definitely worth the wait and due to its moist texture, a simple flour substitution was all that was required to make it gluten free. Best cake ever!

Parsnip, Apple & Orange Pecan Cake with Maple Mascarpone Frosting (GF)
(Recipe adapted from BBC Good Food)

Ingredients
175g butter
200g light soft brown sugar
100g golden syrup
3 eggs
250g Doves gluten free self raising flour (or regular flour)
2tsp gluten free baking powder
2tsp mixed spice
250g parsnips (about 2 large)
125g eating apple (I used Cox)
50g pecan nuts
Zest and juice 1 orange

Maple Mascarpone Frosting
250g mascarpone cheese
2tbsp maple syrup
3-4tbsp milk

For the Cake

Heat oven to 180C. Grease and line two 8inch/20cm sandwich tins.
Melt the butter, sugar and golden syrup together in a large pan over low heat, stirring occasionally until the sugar has dissolved. Set aside to cool for 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, Peel the parsnips and coarsely grate them along with the apple (you can leave the skin on but remove the core). Roughly chop the pecans and finely grate the zest from the orange.
Using a large spatula, whisk the eggs into the melted sugar mixture, then stir in the flour, baking powder and mixed spice. Add the parsnip, apple, pecans and orange zest. Squeeze in the juice from the zested orange and mix well.
Divide the batter between the tins (it will be quite full) and bake for 25-30 minutes until golden brown and the tops spring back when pressed lightly.
Allow to cool in the tins for 10 minutes before turning out onto wire racks to cool completely.

For the Frosting

Place the mascarpone in a bowl and leave for 15 minutes to warm to room temperature.
Add the maple syrup and beat together until well incorporated. Add enough milk so that you achieve a thick, yet spreadable consistency.
Place one cake layer on a serving plate and place spoonfuls of the frosting over the surface. Use a knife to spread the frosting out into an even layer, right to the edges of the cake.
Top with the second cake layer and dust the top lightly with icing sugar.
Serve in generous slices. The cake becomes even moister and stickier the following day.

Cauliflower Cheese (GF)

Broccoli is always one of the staple vegetables in my house, but lately I have found myself shifting to cauliflower for a bit of a change. Although they look relatively similar they taste quite different. Cauliflower is more milky and subtle in taste, and I’ve even enjoyed tearing off a floret, dipping it in houmous and eating it raw, whereas broccoli requires at least a little blanching. At the weekend I was rummaging in the fridge looking for lunch inspiration and spotted a cauliflower – cauliflower cheese it was going to be!

I’m a strange one when it comes to cheese with my veg. I love strong cheeses but not so much with veg. I still like to be able to taste the flavour of the vegetables as well as the cheese, so I decided that if I was going to make cauliflower cheese, each mouthful was going to have to have more depth to it than just ‘oh tastes like cheese.’

To add more depth of flavour I made a béchamel sauce with milk that I first infused with onion, bay leaves and nutmeg. After making the sauce I also whisked in some Dijon mustard, which helped tone down the bite of the mature cheese. These simple steps add a wonderful aromatic richness to the dish and result in a multilayered flavoured sauce.

I used potato flour to thicken the sauce to make it gluten free – you will need a little less compared to wheat flours as its thick gloopy stuff! It was then simply a matter of pouring the thick creamy sauce over the raw florets of cauliflower, topping with a sprinkle of extra cheese and baking until golden brown. You can make one large one or smaller individual portions. Simple, satisfying and above all delicious.

Cauliflower Cheese (GF)

Ingredients

1 head cauliflower

1½ pints milk

1 small onion

2 bay leaves

Pinch freshly grated nutmeg

Salt and pepper

1½ tsp French Dijon mustard (check it's gluten free)

2 tbsp potato flour

50g butter

100g cheddar cheese

Method

Pour the milk into a saucepan. Cut the onion in half and remove the skin. Add to the milk along with the bay leaves and nutmeg. Heat gently and allow to come to a simmer. Simmer for 5 minutes, then remove from the heat.

Preheat the oven to 200C

Melt the butter in a large saucepan before stirring in the potato flour to form a thick paste. Remove the onion and bay leaves from the milk (eat the onion it’s delicious!) and slowly add the milk to the butter-flour paste, a ladleful at a time, whisking constantly over the heat.

Keep whisking until the sauce thickens into a creamy pourable béchamel sauce, then remove from the heat. Whisk in the mustard and season with salt and pepper.

Grate the cheese and add most of it to the béchamel sauce, reserving a handful to sprinkle on top.

Cut the cauliflower into florets and arrange in either one large or 4 individual ovenproof dishes. Pour over the cheese sauce and scatter over the reserved handful of grated cheese.

Bake in the oven for 25minutes for individual dishes or 35-40 minutes for a larger one. It should be bubbling and lightly golden brown on top.

Serves 2-4 depending on if it’s a main meal or side dish.

Note: Don’t throw away the onion you used to flavour the milk. It will have poached into lovely sweet soft milky layers. Serve it with the cauliflower cheese or add it to a sandwich.