Green Veggies Pasta and Blue Cheese

This is another recipe, where the original was made with ricotta, sometimes though as I have already mentioned, it’s just not for us and this was one of those occasions, so I bought a cheap brand of cream cheese and used that instead and I also didn’t include the coriander, also not a fan of that soapy taste. My added extras to this recipe were the runner beans, asparagus and mushrooms. A perfectly simple but tasty, busy week night meal!

Green Veggies Pasta and Blue Cheese

I added extra green vegetables, runner beans, asparagus, and mushrooms which I sautéed with the scallions/spring onions

4-6 scallions

100 grams mushrooms
400 grams spinach tagliatelle (or other mixed green vegetables, totalling 400 grams)
150 grams cream cheese
150 grams blue cheese
150 grams crème fraîche
1 tbsp coriander
coarse sea salt and pepper
few sprigs of corriander/cilantro (optional, I don't add it because we don't like it)

1. Trim the spring onions/scallions and finely chop them.

2. Cook the tagliatelle in a large pan of boiling salted water, until al dente. Whilst at the same time cooking the other veggies until al dente.

3. While the pasta and veggies are cooking, in a bowl mix together the cream cheese, blue cheese and the crème fraîche.

4. Drain the pasta thoroughly and turn into a heated serving dish. Immediately add the cheese mixture, spring onion/scallions and other veggies, toss to coat. Garnish with coriander sprigs (if you wish to).

Servings: 4

Pasta & Veggies With Garlic Cream

I like this recipe, it’s quite light tasting yet filling. All the added vegetables make me feel less guilty about the ‘bad’ bits. It takes about 20 minutes to make – provided you don’t dilly dally in the kitchen, like I do, I still manage to drag a 20 minute recipe out into about an hours work…. But to be honest I enjoy being in the kitchen singing along to my iPod, not entirely sure my husband enjoys my ‘kitchen antics’ as much as I do though, or the windows for that matter. Anyway that’s what I love about this recipe, minimum time and effort to make un-yet you emerge from the kitchen with restaurant quality pasta.

 Pasta & Veggies With Garlic Cream

115 grams cream cheese

150 ml heavy cream
115 grams peas
1 handful baby spinach
2 tomatoes, seeded and diced
450 grams penne pasta
Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

TOPPING

6 Tbsp evoo
175 grams back bacon lardons
100g mushrooms
2 spring onions, finely chopped
2 leeks thinly sliced
½ tsp thyme chopped
1 tsp Rosemary, finely chopped
1 tsp garlic, finely chopped
85 grams breadcrumbs
grated lemon zest

1. First, bring a deep pot of salted water to the boil.

2. Next make the topping, heat one tbsp evoo in a skillet, and dry fry the bacon until crispy, then add the spring onions and the mushrooms cook until they are soft. Lastly add the leeks and thyme, and cook for 2 minutes. Heat the rest of the oil in a separate skillet, add the rosemary, garlic and breadcrumbs, and toast them until they are golden brown and crispy, constantly turning them over, so they don’t burn. Once the breadcrumbs are toasted, stir in the lemon zest and bacon mixture.

3. Meanwhile, cook the pasta in the boiling water until al dente - for fresh pasta it will only take a few minutes. Whilst the pasta is cooking, in a saucepan, melt the cream cheese and add the heavy cream, stirring continuously until the mixture is smooth, then add the peas and spinach leaves, and cook for 3 minutes. Gently stir in tomatoes and season to taste. Drain then add to the sauce. Serve into four warm bowls and top with the bacon crumbs.

Broccoli Rabe Pie - Errmm well not really!

Broccoli Rabe, what is that? I had no idea. It’s a herb related to the turnip and looks a bit like broccoli (I’m guessing that’s where the “broccoli” bit comes from), I had to google it. I’ve not seen it, but like most things that’s not to say, it’s not here in Germany, I just haven’t seen it. Why am I talking broccoli Rabe? This next recipe was inspired by Broccoli Rabe Pie…

America is great, my most favourite place on earth and I would go back given the chance. You can buy frozen pie crusts, and not worry about having to make pastry from scratch, I still make rubbish pastry. I’m speculating here, slightly bitter and angry about the past, and what I say next, will probably reflect that – mostly because I never measured up to what was expected of me. All of my “friends” were the perfect women – great cooks, perfect mothers and housewives etc… Pastry was never an issue for them. In truth I didn’t really have any friends, they were all my ex’s friends and took great pleasure in humiliating me – my issue is not that I’m unable to make pastry, and every thing to do with my body heat. I’ll not go into it again but if you have read my blog about quiche Lorraine you’ll know, that regardless of what I do my hands are always too warm.

Broccoli And Spinach Pie  

1 pie crust

¾ lb broccoli
¾ lb spinach
3 eggs lightly beaten
2/3 cup cottage cheese
½ cup mixed shredded cheese
1/8 tsp black pepper
2 cloves minced garlic

1. Preheat the oven to 375˚F (190˚C) Check the instructions for your pie crust, does it need prebaking? If so now is the time to do it.
2. Cook the broccoli and the spinach for 5 minutes or until just tender; drain well, cool slightly and finely chop.
3. In a large bowl stir in the eggs, cottage cheese, pepper, garlic and shredded cheese. Stir in the broccoli and spinach. Pour egg mixture into your pastry shell. Bake for about 35 minutes or until the knife comes out clean. Let it stand for about 10 minutes before serving.

Instead of using broccoli and spinach, you could use 1 ½ lbs of broccoli Rabe and follow the original recipe.

Winter Warmer? How about Chicken and Dumplings?????

Chicken and dumplings is a delicious filling winter warmer, the only really awkward bit I found with this recipe was making sure the dumplings didn’t get submerged in the cooking liquid. It’s funny, I made this recipe in April 2010 approximately, and I remember thinking at the time, that it was going to be quite complicated “culinary taxing” but looking back I realise it wasn’t really that hard to do!

Chicken And Dumplings

2 ½ - 3lbs Chicken
3 cups water
1 medium onion cut into wedges
¾ tsp salt
½ tsp dried sage
¼ tsp black pepper
1 bay leaf
1 cup thinly sliced carrot
1 cup sliced mushrooms
½ cup cold water
¼ cup flour

1. In a dutch oven combine the chicken, water, onion, salt, sage, pepper and bay leaf. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat. Cover and simmer for about 25 minutes, add the vegetables and return to a boil, reduce the heat again, cover and simmer for about 10 minutes until the vegetables are tender and the chicken is no longer pink. Discard the bay leaf, and place the chicken on top of the vegetables.
2. Meanwhile prepare the dumplings. In a medium bowl combine 1 cup all purpose flour, 1 tsp baking powder and ½ tsp salt, cut in 2 tbsp shortening until mixture resembles course crumbs. Add ½ cup buttermilk, stir in until just moistened. Spoon the batter into six mounds on top of the chicken, and return to a boil. Reduce the heat again, cover and simmer for about 15 minutes, until the dumplings are cooked through, check with a toothpick, it should come out clean. Transfer the chicken, dumplings and vegetables to the serving plate and keep warm.
3. Now make your gravy, pour 2 cups of your cooking liquid into a large measuring cup, skim the fat and discard. Then pour into a saucepan. Mix ½ cup of cold water with flour then add to the cooking liquid, stir continuously until thickened. Serve gravy over the chicken and dumplings.

“Wedgitables”

The potato gratin recipe inspired this one, even without the five-a-day, I want to say nonsense; but I realise it’s not – being burned into our brains at every turn, I know we must eat veggies, my own body tells me it needs “wedgitables,” thing is I get so bored of plopping ‘just’ veggies on my plate and slopping sauce or butter and salt and pepper, over the top, I needed something different. So I decided to do something else, this is what I came up with.

Mixed Cheesy “Wedgitables”

¼ cabbage
2 carrots peeled and diced
1 leek thinly sliced
1- ½ cup mixed frozen vegetables
1 cup cheddar cheese, grated
Salt and black pepper to taste

1. shred the cabbage, peel and chop carrots and leek, place in boiling water and cook until soft, then add frozen vegetables and cook for 5 more minutes.

2. Drain all the vegetables, place in a medium sized bowl, stir in the cheese and salt and pepper.

3. Place in a 180˚C (350˚F) oven and bake until the cheese is nicely melted!

poaching fish

This recipe is another of my own, and also the other way that I like to cook fish, I have a serious issue with "crispy" fish, I can't stand the texture, but love the taste - rather unfortunate if you ask me. It's like, for example, if you really like peanuts but can't eat them because of a nut allergy, to me that's really unlucky, but at least you have a reason! I just start to gag because of the texture, how incredibly lame is that? Anyway by poaching the fish, you can pretty much bet your bottom dollar, that the fish will be perfectly cooked, and it only takes a few minutes...... I serve this with new potatoes and vegetables. The milk I turn into a white sauce, simply by adding a little flour to cold liquid and pouring it into the milk,

cook stirring continuously until it thickens and        

season to taste.                                                       

   Poached Fish

2 fish fillets of choice

milk

salt and pepper 

1 bay leaf

tsp Italian dried herbs

butter

1 tbsp cornflour

50 ml white wine

1. Place fish in a large skillet, cover half way with the milk, add salt and pepper to taste, the bay leaf, Italian herbs and a knob of butter. Cook until the fish is cooked, you can tell because it should easily flake with a fork...  You may have turn the fish over, to cook the other side.

2. Gently remove the fish, once it is cooked. Carefully wrap in toil foil and keep warm. Remove the bay leaf, from the fluid.

3. Add the white wine to the cornflour, and give it a good stir so that the flour has "dissolved" then slowly pour into the milk, gently bring to a boil, stirring continuously until the sauce thickens.

Serve with new boiled potatoes and vegetables of choice! 

Vegetable Soup

This vegetable soup recipe has been in my family for years, certainly my Grandmother passed it on to my mother and my mother onto me, and I am pretty certain my Great Grandmother probably passed it onto my Grandmother. Originally it was a french vegetable soup, my mother adapted it to her tastes and I have done the same. My husband although not entirely adverse to having a vegetarian dish, prefers to have a little meat with his meals, so I throw in a handful of chunky bacon bits, or cut up frankfurter sausages. It kind of negates from being vegetable soup, but hey ho, if my husband is happy and it tastes good, why not right? I suppose the special thing for me in all this, despite the changes, this is a recipe from my past but it signifies my future. I realise that seems pathetic and maybe even incredibly melodramatic after all it's just soup...... But this "just soup," has been passed down for          generations and I will eventually pass it onto my children and grandchildren...                                                                    

Vegetable Soup

1 leek

1 carrot

1cm wide slice of celery root or a 1/4 fennel

1/2 a turnip

1 onion

2-3 potatoes

butter

500ml vegetable stock

salt and pepper to taste

 100ml sour cream

1. Wash, peel and chop all the vegetables, into bite sized pieces. Gently heat the butter in a large pan, then add all the vegetables and saute gently for about 5-10 minutes.                                             

2. Add the veg stock, bring to the boil then turn down the heat and simmer gently until the veggies are cook through.                                                                                                                                     

3. Drain and retain the liquid, mash the vegetables (mash a lot if you want a smooth soup, or leave it chunky entirely up to you) return the liquid, do it a little bit at a time, until you have the soup consistency you like, some people like a really thick soup, you can always add extra water if the 500ml isn't enough, but you can't take it out once it's in.                                                               

5. If you are adding any pre-cooked meat now is the time to do it, salt and pepper to taste and the sour cream, return to the heat and warm through, but do not boil.                                                            

The vegetables are just a guide line, as you can see from the photo I also added sweetcorn to this soup.