Christmas Nut Roast

The finished product!

One of the most common questions I get asked when people find out I'm a vegetarian, especially at this time of year, is 'but what do you eat for Christmas dinner?'. People seem genuinely interested in hearing about this, and lots of people tell me that they could imagine giving up meat to a certain extent, but could never give up their Christmas turkey. All year round I can meet people who say they can't imagine giving up meat, but I think that these feelings are magnified at Christmas time, when the contemplation of a meat-free Christmas dinner is just too much for some!

So I am really excited to tell you all about my stilton and nut roast, that I made this year and last year, and thoroughly enjoyed both times. The best thing is that as I'm the only one eating it, there are always plenty of leftovers, which is good, as it's really delicious! The recipe comes from a book called The Vegetarian Cookbook: From Earth to Table by Nicola Graimes and Fiona Biggs. I love this book, and have tried a few of the recipes so far, but after years of searching for the perfect Christmas dinner recipe, it is their nut roast recipe that I love the most. I have made some minor changes, so the recipe below is not the original, but the slightly tweaked version. 

A few things I love about this recipe:

It calls for roasted chestnuts. So now I have an excuse to roast chestnuts on Christmas Eve and eat the leftovers....yum! This really gets me in the Christmas spirit - such a simple, old-fashioned tradition - and so tasty. Sadly I do not have an open fire on which to toast them, but even in the oven, they're still good.

I prepare this nut roast the day before, getting everything chopped, mixed, and layered into the tin and covered with foil, but I don't cook it until the next day (Christmas Day!) - so all the more time to chill out and enjoy a bit more time with the family on the day. No matter how much I or anyone else loves to cook, who wants to spend Christmas Day slaving away in the kitchen?

Making my own nut roast may take a little time, but I feel that makes it all the more special to eat on Christmas Day. As soon as I have got the raw ingredients in the tin on Christmas Eve, I can't wait to get my Christmas dinner the next day!

It is very forgiving - as I already mentioned, I have changed some ingredients and quantities from the original recipe. But I even adjust the oven times and temperatures to suit the turkey that my mum is cooking in the oven at the same time. And the nut roast still turns out great*. 

I should also admit something that may shock cheese lovers here, but will appeal to anyone who is a savvy shopper watching their pennies: I used Morrisons Savers blue cheese rather than actual Stilton....and it tasted great! So even with more budget-friendly ingredients, this roast is still a yuletide winner, and it won't break the bank.

* It's best if you can adhere to the times and temperatures in the recipe as this makes the roast hold together better, but if you can't, due to conflicting temperatures of other food in the oven, it is still possible to cook the roast nicely and it will still taste lovely.

I hope that you all had a very merry Christmas, and that Santa was good to you. I'd love to hear what all the other veggies out there eat for their Christmas dinner - please leave a comment below and let me know! And if you are looking for new inspiration for next year's Christmas dinner, or simply a nice vegetarian roast to serve up at another time of the year, then look no further than the following recipe.

I made the mistake of not lining the tin...

Christmas Nut Roast

Ingredients:

2 tbsps oil, plus extra for greasing tin

2 onions

5 garlic cloves, crushed

2 celery stalks, finely chopped

150g roasted and peeled chestnuts (about 250g unpeeled, uncooked chestnuts)

200g mixed chopped nuts

55g ground almonds

55g fresh breadcrumbs

215g Stilton (or another blue cheese), crumbled

30g Cheddar cheese, grated

a handful of fresh basil leaves, chopped

1 egg, beaten

salt and pepper

1 red pepper, finely sliced

115g courgette (for me this was about half a fat courgette), cut into rough chunks

Method:

If you are cooking the roast on the same day as preparing it, start by preheating your oven to 180ºC. If you are cooking it the next day, leave the oven off just now; you're not going to need it. Lightly grease and line a 900g loaf tin.

Finely chop one onion and fry in a little oil with the celery and three of the crushed garlic cloves over a medium heat. Fry for about 5 minutes. If you are making your breadcrumbs from a slice of bread, this is  a good time to make them in the food processor, while you wait for the onion, celery and garlic to cook. 

Put the onion, celery and garlic into a food processor and add the breadcrumbs, all the nuts, half the Stilton, the Cheddar and the basil. Pulse until combined, then add the egg and gradually blend to create a stiff mixture. Season with salt and pepper.

Finely slice the remaining onion and fry over a medium heat in a little oil with the courgette, red pepper and remaining garlic. Fry for about 5 to 10 minutes, or until vegetables are softened, stirring occasionally. Take off the heat and season with salt and pepper.

In the tin, ready to be cooked!

Place half of the nut mixture into the loaf tin and smooth down. Next, add the courgette and pepper mixture as the middle layer, crumbling the remaining Stilton over the top. Finally, top with the remaining nut mixture and smooth down. Cover with foil. If you are cooking the roast the next day, pop the tin in the fridge at this point, until you are ready to cook it.

Bake in the oven for 45 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for a further 25 - 35 minutes, or until cooked and firm to the touch.

Slice and serve with roast potatoes, carrots, parsnips, Brussels sprouts, bread sauce, cranberry sauce, veggie gravy, veggie stuffing.....and anything else that is part of your favourite Christmas dinner!

Lentil 'Meatballs' and Tomato Sauce

I love taking inspiration from other food blogs - in terms of both style and content. I have already mentioned one of my favourite blogs, The Stone Soup on here - not only is Jules very knowledgeable about her subject, but she has a great style that I love reading. Plus all of her recipes come with tweaks, so even when she blogs about a meat or fish-based dish, she gives pointers on how to make it vegetarian or vegan. Her recipes are also nice and simple, which is always a plus! But another thing I love about her blog is how interactive it is - lots of readers always comment on her recipes, and - perhaps following her lead - are always keen to share how they have tweaked the recipe to suit their own needs or tastes. The end result is an amazing melting pot of culinary ideas based around a common dish, which I find so inspirational.


Last night's dinner was an amalgamation of one of Jules's recipes and one of Heidi Swanson's. Jules had blogged about lentil balls as an alternative to meatballs, and one of the commenters mentioned that they had made Heidi's Five-Minute Tomato Sauce to accompany the lentil balls. The sauce sounded so amazing that I just had to try both it and the lentil balls (that I keep accidentally referring to as meatballs....slips off the tongue more easily, doesn't it?!) and I was really impressed with both and just had to share this recipe with you. (David really enjoyed it too, so it has also passed the 'meat-eater test'.)

Lentil 'Meatballs' and Tomato Sauce

(Serves 2)

Ingredients:

115g dried brown lentils

500ml vegetable stock

3 tbsps olive oil (plus more for drizzling)

1 1/2 teaspoons crushed red pepper flakes

1/2 tsp salt

3 cloves garlic, crushed

1 tin chopped tomatoes

1 tsp lemon juice

75g ground almonds

1 medium egg

150g dried spaghetti

Method:

Pre-heat the oven to 200ºC Put the lentils in a medium pan and pour over the stock. Bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook for approximately 20 minutes or until lentils are soft. Meanwhile, prepare the tomato sauce. Put the olive oil, red pepper flakes, salt and garlic in a pan and gently heat until the aromas are released - don't let the garlic brown. At this point, add the tomatoes, and bring to a gentle simmer. Crush any larger pieces of tomato between the side of the pan and the stirring spoon. Take off the heat and add the lemon juice. Pour the sauce into an oven-proof bowl and set to one side. Once your lentils have finished cooking, drain them, put them in a bowl and rougroughly mash them. Add the ground almonds and the egg, and mix well. Once everything is well combined, use a soup spoon to help form the lentil mixture into medium-sized balls, and place the balls into the tomato sauce. Drizzle with a glug of olive oil. Bake the whole thing in the oven for 20 minutes. After 10 minutes, put the spaghetti into a large pan of boiling water and cook until tender (about 10 minutes). Serve the lentil balls and tomato sauce on top of the spaghetti for a tasty, filling dinner.

To serve, Jules suggests sprinkling with parmesan, which I forgot to do, but that would definitely be really tasty!

Mushroom Risotto

I think I need to improve on my food photography skills.....this mushroom risotto is mouth-wateringly good but I don't think it comes across in the photos. You'll just have to take my word for it for now, and any tips on the photography front will be gratefully received!

Many people think that making a risotto from scratch is really difficult and/or time consuming. But it is one of my go-to meals, partly as it is so easy to make it seem fresh every time by altering the ingredients, but partly as I feel so comfortable making it. Yes, you need to spend a good half hour standing over it, stirring frequently, but other than that, there's not much else required in terms of time. And it is not as complicated as you'd think. I think the trick is to keep tasting the rice as you near the end of the cooking time, until you are satisfied with the consistency - not too hard, not too mushy. You will eventually develop a feel for how long your risotto takes.

Another tip I would offer would be this: don't worry too much about how much stock you need. If you taste the rice and it seems done but you haven't used all your stock, that's fine. (I suggest preparing a litre in the recipe below, but the other night I found I only used 700ml.) Or, if it's not quite done and you've run out of stock, simply add a little boiling water instead of the stock. Bearing this in mind may help you if you have a fear of trying to make risotto.

I have been making mushroom risotto for years, but had taken a bit of a break from it for the last few months, favouring pea and mint (ever since I started growing my own mint, I have loved any excuse to use it in my cooking!) or pea and carrot versions. But now the weather's getting colder and I was looking to revisit some old favourites, the mushroom risotto came back onto the menu, and it has been a welcome return!

I am usually not very specific about quantities with this recipe - I use lots of mushrooms, as I absolutely adore them, but you can reduce the amount if you want/need to. Also, I just add as much cheese and butter at the end as I feel like (sometimes this is dictated by how much of each I have left!!), but I tried to weigh out what I was using the other night to give me an idea of what to suggest you add - these are the weights I have noted in the recipe below.

If you don't have wine, it is possible to make the recipe without it, or to substitute lemon juice (both of which I used to do), but the wine really adds the 'wow' factor to this one, so I'd highly recommend its inclusion if possible. One thing I've learned over the past couple of years is that although white wine can't be drunk after more than two or three days open in the fridge, it is still fine to use in cooking after this time. I usually have an open bottle of 'old' wine in the fridge specifically for cooking, and a couple of times I have used wine as old as two months old in my risotto - and it was still delicious and caused no problems. This makes it even easier to include wine in your risotto - there's no desperation to use up the rest of the bottle! Alternatively, you can buy those mini bottles of wine, or even small cartons of wine for a pound or two at the supermarket - ideal for cooking with.

Mushroom Risotto 

(serves two with a little left over for lunch the next day!)

Ingredients:

3 tbsps olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped finely

300g button mushrooms

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

200g arborio rice

150ml white wine

1 litre vegetable stock

30g butter

50g grated parmesan/vegetarian equivalent

salt and pepper, to taste

Method:

Heat the oil in a large pan over medium-high heat. Add the onion and mushrooms and fry, stirring gently until the mushrooms have softened (approximately 10 minutes). Add the garlic and fry for another minute. Now add the rice, stirring to coat each grain in the oil. Once all the grains are coated, add the wine. Stir until the wine has been fully absorbed by the rice. Now add the stock, gradually (many recipes suggest a ladleful at a time; I am not so precise, but would say about 150ml-200ml at a time). After you have added a ladleful/approximately 200ml, keep stirring until the stock has been fully absorbed by the rice. Only at this point add the next ladleful/200ml portion. At this point, it may be good to turn the heat down a touch, if the risotto seems to be boiling rather than simmering. Continue like this until the rice is cooked through - it should still retain a little bite (it should definitely not be soggy!) but it should not be so firm that it's crunchy either. I never normally time this, but I did the other night and it took approximately 20 minutes to reach this stage. At this point, take the risotto off the heat and add the butter, cheese and salt and pepper. Stir well to combine. Let stand for a couple of minutes, and then serve. If you have some fresh basil leaves, they make a nice garnish.

I hope you enjoy this recipe and that if you have previously been put off trying to cook risotto, that I have inspired you to try!

Sunday Pasta Salad

I woke up today with the sudden desire to make a nice pasta salad - preferably in bulk so I could take it into work for lunch a few days this week. The only problem being that Sunday is our usual food shopping day, so the cupboards are usually pretty bare until we can be bothered to head to the shops. I thought I'd see what I had kicking about in the kitchen anyway, and was pleasantly surprised! So, taking my inspiration from this Jamie Oliver recipe, I decided to put my ingredients together and see if I could create a delicious pasta salad. I was really happy with the result, so thought I would share it with you. I am also getting better at thinking like a blogger, as I managed to take photos not only of the finished product, nor of the finished product and method, but actually of the raw ingredients, the method AND the finished product. Impressive or what? Yes, I thought so too.

This pasta salad is great as it feels so fresh (thanks in part, I think, to using rice vinegar - a tip from Jules at The Stone Soup [another great blog I recommend], who wrote an interesting post on different types of vinegar). Before reading that post, I just blindly followed what the recipe said in terms of what type of vinegar to use - too scared to try a substitution for fear it might ruin the dish. But as usual, Jules gives an honest, no-nonsense introduction to this subject that helped me (and will help you) to be more creative in my use of different vinegars. (Jules's guidance reassures me that never again will I spend an hour and a half traipsing around what feels like every food shop in the west end of Glasgow searching for the cider vinegar that a particular recipe calls for. Not that I have ever done such a thing, of course....!)

It's also not too oily (I use much less oil than Jamie suggests....but then again, I do find that he has a bit of an obsession with the good ol' olive oil, and it's usually safe to use about half of what he suggests). I used artichokes on a whim as I had them in the fridge, but as they were stored in a jar of oil, I drained them on kitchen roll before adding them to the salad. Again, this helps to keep the whole thing nice and light and summery (perhaps the lovely weather today was what inspired me to try this out, come to think of it).

So without further ado, I give you my pasta salad.

Ingredients:
150g tricolore fusilli
300g cherry tomatoes
1/4 cucumber
a good handful of stoned black olives
a good handful of artichoke pieces
2 cloves garlic
1 tbsp fresh chives
a handful of fresh basil
5 tsp olive oil
2 tsp rice vinegar
salt and pepper, to taste


Method:

Bring a pan of water to the boil, add the pasta and garlic cloves (unpeeled). Whilst the pasta is cooking, chop the cucumber, tomatoes, artichokes and olives. I like to chop them all pretty small, as you can see from the picture below, but you can make them as chunky as you like, if you prefer a bit more bite to your salad. Also, finely chop your herbs.

Once the pasta has cooked, drain it and remove the garlic cloves. Put the pasta in a serving bowl. (I like to pat it dry with a bit of kitchen roll, too, to avoid the salad being too watery, and also because it helps the dressing to 'cling' better to the pasta.) Squeeze the garlic out of its skin and mash them up. If you have a mortar and pestle, now is the time to use them, but if, like me, you don't, a small bowl or ramekin and teaspoon/fork works just fine. Add the oil and vinegar, then salt and pepper, and mix well. Mix the dressing into the salad and you're ready to serve it up!

I also, feeling experimental, tried some of the salad with a little mayonnaise mixed in, and it was really good too. If you want a slightly richer tasting salad, I'd recommend the mayo route. Otherwise, just the oil and vinegar dressing is really all you need - completely delicious!

I should point out that the above quantities make enough for two portions (if you're eating it as a light lunch), so if you're wanting to make enough for a few days or a few people, I'd suggest doubling the above. (The only reason I made so little was due to the whole 'cupboards being bare' situation I mentioned earlier!)

Let me know what you think if you make this!

More Ottolenghi - Marinated Buffalo Mozzarella and Tomato

Yesterday I wrote a bit about how fussy Yotam Ottolenghi can seem when writing about his recipes in his book, Plenty. So fussy that it would almost put me off trying some of his recipes, actually. But I decided to give myself a challenge and see if I could do his Marinated Buffalo Mozzarella and Tomato any justice using bog-standard, supermarket-bought ingredients. After all, I figure that this is what most people will end up using. I actually went one step further and bought the cheapest mozzarella I could find, just to be bad! (Um, ok, and to save money...) So I tried this recipe using Tesco Everyday Value mozzarella and Tesco 'juicy cherry tomatoes' (that's what the box said they were!). All other ingredients were for the marinade, and I had all of these on hand, with two exceptions. I had no lemon to get lemon zest, so instead I opted for a splash of lemon juice from a bottle (shock! Horror!), and I didn't have any fresh oregano, so I used dried instead (remember to always reduce the quantity if you're using dried herbs as an alternative to fresh, as the flavours are intensified).

Now, I have to give top marks to Mr Ottolenghi on the simplicity of this recipe. It really is extremely easy to prepare and takes hardly any time (if you don't count the 15-30 minutes' time that the mozzarella is to sit in the marinade - which I don't). I'll give you a quick run-down of how I made this, so you can get an idea of just how easy-peasy it really is.

My makeshift mortar and pestle!

The first step is to dry-fry 1/2 a teaspoon of fennel seeds until they pop - at this point, transfer to a mortar and pestle and crush the seeds. I don't have a mortar and pestle (hint hint, if anyone wants to buy me a present!), so I just crushed the seeds with a teaspoon in a ramekin (but any small bowl could be used), and this worked very well. Tip into a small bowl (if you have crushed the seeds in a bowl rather than a mortar and pestle, then obviously just keep them in that bowl, and congratulate yourself on saving on a bit of washing up) and add the following ingredients: grated zest of one lemon (or a splash of lemon juice), 15 finely chopped basil leaves, 2 teaspoons of chopped oregano (or 1 teaspoon of dried), 2 teaspoons of extra virgin olive oil, 2 teaspoons of rapeseed oil, 1 garlic clove (crushed), 1/2 a teaspoon of sea salt, and black pepper. This is your marinade.

The marinade

Ottolenghi suggests ripping the mozzarella (250g) into chunks and then smearing these with your marinade. But to me, it makes a lot more sense to just add the mozzarella chunks straight into the bowl and mix it up a bit to ensure all the mozzarella is covered by the marinade. That way, no marinade is wasted and also it's a less messy process. Win-win!

You then let the mozzarella sit in the marinade for 15 to 30 minutes, then chop your tomatoes into wedges and serve together with the mozzarella. The recipe suggests drizzling with extra olive oil, but I didn't do this, partly because I was so excited to try out the salad that I forgot (oops) and partly because I don't really feel it needs any extra oil.

Mozzarella in the marinade

So what was the verdict? I really enjoyed this. I had originally intended to taste some tonight so I could blog about it and take the rest into work for my lunch tomorrow, but it was so good that I gobbled it all up!  (I hasten to add at this point that I had only made a half portion, so although I am greedy, I'm not as greedy as it may have just sounded.) The fennel really shines through and gives the dish an unusual taste, and it looks beautiful, with all the ripped up basil (and I'm sure if you had fresh oregano it would only look even better).

The finished product - delicious!

But what about the 'poor' quality of my ingredients, I hear you cry! Well, I have to say, that with the mozzarella the star of this dish, I might buy slightly better quality cheese next time. But it would all depend on the occasion. If it were just to be a lunchbox filler, I'm quite happy with the cheap mozzarella - it tasted nice enough to me. But if I were serving it to guests, I'd probably prefer to know I was serving slightly higher quality fare. And the tomatoes? Actually, I really enjoyed my straight-from-the-fridge tomatoes in this salad! Yes, I'm sure it would be absolutely delicious with a lovingly homegrown fruit instead, but honestly, I wouldn't waste any time or money searching for the perfect tomato for this recipe. Go with a type of tomato that you enjoy, and you'll be fine. I am not a huge fan of regular-sized tomatoes, so tend to substitute the sweeter cherry tomatoes in a lot of dishes that call for ordinary tomatoes. So doing the same here worked just fine.

Marinated mozzarella and tomato 

I am hoping that perhaps I can get some tomatoes growing in my wee patch of garden next year, so perhaps at that point I will try this recipe with home-grown tomatoes instead and see what I think, but I can't imagine it making that much of a difference. What do you think? How important is the quality of ingredients to you? And does anyone grow tomatoes (or anything else that could grow well in a pot in the harsh Scottish climate) that could give me some tips? (I'm not the most green-fingered, but I am enthusiastic and hope I will learn quickly!)

Yotam Ottolenghi's Lemon and Aubergine Risotto

So, tonight I decided to try a new recipe from a book that was given to me as a birthday present: Lemon and Aubergine Risotto from Yotam Ottolenghi's book, Plenty. This is a beautiful book, which I love looking through (I sometimes just read cook books for fun, as nice bedtime reading...!), but the one criticism I would make is that sometimes the recipes seem to call for quite obscure ingredients, or time-consuming techniques. Ottolenghi does also seem extremely bothered by the quality of his ingredients.

Now, I'm not saying this is a bad thing - of course it is great to be cook with the freshest, best ingredients you can find, or afford, but sometimes he just seems to take things to extremes. For example, in the introduction to one recipe, he states that he "would ditch the idea at once if [he] couldn't get a ripe, summery tomato, juicy and sweetly intense, a tomato that has never seen a fridge or a chilled truck, only soil and sun". I don't know about you, but that kind of puts me off even trying to make that recipe. Would I really have the time and energy (and possibly money!) to go off on this massive search for the perfect tomato before I could even contemplate making what is essentially a tomato and mozzarella salad? I don't think I would. I have decided to give the recipe a go at some point anyway, with 'average' ingredients and see what I think.

But tonight was all about one of the recipes that seems at first glance a little too time-consuming, but after thinking about how delicious it would probably be, I decided to give it a go. It was also recommended by the friend who gave me the book, and I always love a recommendation!

The time-consuming part of this was the burning (yes, you read that correctly - burning!) of one of the aubergines. This can be done on the flame of a gas hob in about 15 minutes, apparently, so this makes the recipe immediately more appealing if you have a gas hob. But, as you may have guessed, I do not have a gas hob. So method number two it was, then. Method number two involves grilling the whole aubergine under the grill, turning occasionally, for about an hour. See, I told you it was time-consuming! But I have to say, the taste of the flesh that you scoop out of this burnt aubergine is just amazing, and completely worth the effort. My tip for this part of the process, if you have an electric hob, is to do this step in advance - I actually burned my aubergine on Monday afternoon as I had the day off work and thought I'd take advantage of some extra kitchen time to prep! I then stored the pre-burnt auberine in the fridge for a couple of days, only scooping out the flesh tonight when I came to that step in the recipe. This really made a difference to the amount of effort I felt the whole dish took - it was great having that first, annoying step right out of the way already! This actually links in to an idea I saw another - much more established!! - vegetarian blogger (Gemsmaquillage) talking about on YouTube, about prepping all your food at the beginning of the week. I want to talk more about this in another post, but in the meantime, head over to Gemma's blog when you've finished reading this, as it has lots of great ideas!

The rest of the recipe involved cooking a basic risotto (one onion, two cloves of garlic, 200g arborio rice, 120ml white wine [ok, I never measure wine, so there may have been more in my risotto!] and 750ml vegetable stock). Again, Ottolenghi likes to suggest that his readers make their own stock from scratch. Perhaps I am lazy, but when I have been at work all day and just want to make a nice meal for myself, the last thing I feel like doing is making the stock from scratch when I have some stock cubes in the cupboard. So I reached for the trusty stock cubes tonight, I have to admit. Right at the end, two tablespoons of lemon juice, the zest of half a lemon, butter, the aubergine flesh, parmesan and a little salt are added to the risotto. This is left covered for five minutes, and then to serve, a little parmesan, the other half of the lemon zest, some basil leaves, and some fried aubergine cubes are sprinkled on top.

I love risotto, and I love aubergine - if it is properly cooked - but I would never have thought to combine the two. I thought this was absolutely delicious, and looked pretty too. My boyfriend wasn't too impressed when he tasted a bit of the aubergine - but then, in fairness, he has always hated aubergine! This was my last-ditch attempt at converting him. I guess I failed there :-(

Another failure tonight was my camera and my phone camera - unfortunately, my phone is playing up a bit at the moment, so although it seemed that I was able to take a few nice pictures of the risotto, when I actually went back to the gallery, only one had saved. I then got out my trusty camera....but the batteries were dead and I couldn't find any new ones. So, sadly, the picture above is all I have to show for my efforts (well, that plus the leftovers in the fridge). 

I would definitely recommend that you check out Plenty - although I do think some of the recipes seem a little more complicated or time-consuming than I would normally choose, they are great for when you are in the mood to be a little bit more creative in the kitchen. Plus, you can always adapt and incorporate time-saving ideas (like using a stock cube instead of making stock, that kind of thing) to cut down on the time/effort required. And like I said before, it really is a beautiful book to flick through and be inspired by.

I would be really interested to hear what anyone else thinks of Yotam Ottolengi's books/recipes - do you have any more recommendations for me? Or any other good time-saving tips in the kitchen?

Thank you for reading my first ever blog post, and I hope you come back soon for more from my veggie kitchen!