Roasted Romesco Cauliflower

I admit it. Cauliflower is one of my least favourite vegetables. So when I started my veg box, I added it to the dislike list so I wouldn't end up with it in my box.

With Abel and Cole, you can see what is in your veg box each week before you receive it, anything you dislike is marked with an 'X' and you will receive something random on the day!

Last week, I was due to receive Romesco Cauliflower, but as I had added cauliflower to my dislike list, there was a big X beside it. I'd recently started to hear more and more about this cauliflower and it's unusual appearance  being intrigued I decided to give it a go and removed the dreaded cauliflower from the block list...

So anyway, here is what one looks like

The top is pointed, so if you had two, they would make an excellent Madonna bra for a fancy dress costume (especially if the theme was vegetable celebs)!

Anyway, I decided to try Hugh-Fearnley Whittingstall's Roasted Cauliflower with lemon and paprika (found on the Abel & Cole site) with a side of roast potatoes with lemon and rosemary and some Quorn sticky BBQ fillets.

The cauliflower was really nice, the flavour seems to be a lot more 'delicate' compared to regular cauliflower, and the lemon and paprika went together really well. Surprisingly the big disappointment was the Quorn. It just reminded me of those tasteless Bird's Eye chicken fillets I use to eat as a teenager. The extra BBQ sauce helped to make it more bearable.

Vegan Apple Cake

I have two apple trees in the garden at my new place, a eating apple tree and a cooking apple tree.

As eating apples are now in season, I have apples coming out of my ears!  Here are some I collected that had fallen off the tree:

There are still plenty on the tree and on the grass but given it is now winter I only have a small snippet of time to pick them after work. Although I may try and pick some over weekend.

The thing is, there are just TOO many, and a lot of them are too small or have imperfect skin so are unsuitable to take to work.  So I've had to think of other ways to use them up:

1. Apple porridge with cinnamon: peel the apple and remove the core. Cut into small pieces. Place in bowl and microwave on highest setting for around a minute. Add porridge and milk/water (I've been using hazelnut drink) mix and cook as normal. Sprinkle with a little sugar and ground cinnamon.
2. Vegan Chocolate Orange cupcakes 

Lisa at We Don't Eat Anything With a Face suggested that I should try her vegan apple cake recipe.  Now I'm not a fruit dessert fan, but this was a sponge cake, not the usual apple pie so I thought I would give it a go:

Apologies for the blurry photo. My camera has broke and so I am using my smart phone as a camera. After this one it refused to take any more for some strange reason!

It's lovely and moist, and uses every day ingredients (instead of special vegan ingredients) and have made it twice now. And somehow, I don't think this will be the last time I make it!

Cabbage Stir Fry with Ginger, Chilli and Garlic

I've not really got into cooking until the last year or so, OK I had some staples that I use to make on a weekly basis but that was about it.

Therefore, I tend to stick quite strictly to recipes and don't tend to try and use my own imagination. Hence why so many recipe posts on here are quoted from recipe books, magazines and websites. However I knew eventually that I would gain enough experience to give me the confidence to try and come up with my own ideas.

This week in my veg box I got some savoy cabbage, and decided to make a stir fry.  Along with Thai green curries, this is another regular meal in my kitchen! However, instead of looking up recipes for 'cabbage stir fry', which I normally would do, I decided to improvise and make my own way.  OK, so it's only a stir fry, but it's a step forward!

I made this twice this week, the first time I went a little OTT on the sesame oil and it was a little greasy, but second time was much better.  I used the outer leaves of the cabbage for this and then used the inner leaves, which are packed more closely and stay together better to make cabbage wedges.

Ingredients (serves 1)
Noodles (enough for one person, I used a brand that sold the noodles in a pack of 'nests' that were enough for one person per nest)
Sesame oil
2 handfuls of savoy cabbage (tough stem removed, stack leaves on top of each other, roll and chop to make cabbage 'ribbons')
Red onion (peeled and quartered)
1/2 a red chilli (sliced and de-seeded)
Ginger (as much as you like, peeled and grated)
One garlic clove (peeled and crushed)
Soy sauce

1. Cook noodles according package instructions, cooking for a minute less than needed so that they can finish cooking when you stir fry them. If you are organised, you can then drain and retain the water ready for the next step. One drained, put noodles back in the pan or bowl and toss in a little of the sesame oil.
2: If your cabbage leaves are quite tough, boil a pan of water (hence why you retained the water in step one), and the cabbage and simmer for a few minutes....
3. Whilst the cabbage is simmering, heat a little of the sesame oil in a wok/large frying pan. Then add in the onion, garlic, ginger and chilli. Allow to cook for a few minutes until fragrant.
4. Whilst the onion and spices are frying gently, drain the cabbage.
5. Add the cabbage to the spices and add a good drizzle of soy sauce. Stir fry until the cabbage has shrunk a little and a very glossy dark green. Add the noodles.
6. Mix together and stir fry for around a minute so everything is heated through.

Serve

You may want to add some cashews at the same time as the same time as the cabbage for a little extra protein.

Thai Green Veggie Curry (vegan).

It's veg box delivery day tomorrow, so tonight is when the last of this week's veg needs using up.

One of my favourite ways of using up any veg that's lying around is a curry. Because you can put ANYTHING in it. Thai green curry is one of my favourites.

Tonight's Thai green curry consisted of:

Chard
Potatoes
Carrot
Frozen peas
Frozen baby corn

Mammoth portion!

I usually buy ASDA's own brand Thai curry paste as it happens to be vegetarian, but TESCOS' own brand is also really nice, and also veggie. I did try a more traditional paste I bought from a Chinese supermarket but it was HORRID and far too spicy!  Maybe when I finally get my mitts on a food processor I will try and make my own, if I can get hold of Kaffir lime leaves (apparently the frozen ones are a lot better than the dried ones).

Also when I make it, I use coconut cream instead of coconut milk. It makes far more creamier and less runny. The Boy uses double/or single cream (Elmlee do a low fat double 'cream' version). But I think that coconut cream makes it taste a lot more like it should do, and makes it creamier.  Yeah it adds on the calories, but then, the rest of the curry is just vegetables and you know, live a little ;-). Since the instructions on the back of a jar usually relate to chicken, I thought I would tell you how I do it, not that might is the only way :-)

Method:

For the rice:
Rice is pretty simple, but I've just started to use a new method to cook rice, I've found that using this method, I don't end up with rice stuck to the bottom of the pan!:

1. Put rice in a lidded pan and heat for 1 or 2 minutes until fragrant 
2. Add a drizzle of olive oil and a pinch of salt
3. Add water and bring to boil.
4. Simmer with lid on for 10-15 minutes, until nearly all the water is gone (when you can just about see little bubbles of water still simmering away. 
5. Turn off heat and let rice steam with the lid on until all the water is gone

For the curry:

1. Vegetables like potatoes and carrots will need boiling first for about 10 minutes (ensures that the veg is cooked through, I hate half cooked carrots- either give me cooked carrots, or raw carrots- not some minging in-between!). Then drain and set aside.
2. Add a generous dollop of Thai green curry paste, I use 1/4 jar per person (ignore whatever measurement the instructions on the jar give!) to the pan and heat for a few minutes until fragrant.
3. Add veggies that take longer to cook, like carrots and potatoes.
4. Add the coconut cream and put a lid on the pan, simmer for around 10 minutes.
5. Now add an veggies that don't take that long to cook, such as peas, baby corn and chard. Cook for another 5-10 minutes.

Serve.

Yum.

Comfort Food

As a child, every now and then my Dad use to make what I fondly remember as Friday tea. Unlike many traditional families, this did not involve a visit to the local chippy, instead this meal consisted of breaded chicken goujons and skinny fries, with mayonnaise.

I LOVED it! I was never allowed fries, so it was very much a treat.

I'd not thought about it until I was browsing in my local ASDA and saw a £2 trial pack for Quorn's chicken style goujons and I just HAD to have them! They had been sitting in my freezer for around about a week and I've obsessed over them constantly, but the 'bad' thing about getting a veg box is that it removes any need to eat junk as everything you need for a healthy meal is already there.

I had planned to do something with the aubergine tonight, but it's cold, wet, dark and I had to get the later train home and I was off swimming. In summary I didn't feel like preparing vegetables, I just wanted something I could just whack in the oven for 20 minutes.  So goujons and curly fries it was!

I decided to make it healthier than it was in my childhood so I added some garden peas with a small dollop of garlic butter, as well as a bit of hummus I used with the left over chickpeas and lemon juice from last night's tea.  I have no Mayo, so I artistically drizzled some ketchup!

It was so good, the goujons were satisfying, as there were an uneven number of goujons (7), I decided it was best to have them all! It's is SUCH a child's tea but you know what? Sometimes that is just what you need :-)

Disclaimer: I've noticed a few bloggers putting disclaimers on the bottom of posts if they had received any payment or freebies etc. for blogging about a product.  Therefore I would like to add that I did not receive and freebies or payment for this post and my views are my own.  Neither have I ever receive any freebies or payment for any previous products I have mentioned, I wish I did. That would be awesome!

Pasta with cavolo nero and chickpeas

It's has not been one of my most successful weeks in the kitchen so far, on Monday I made Green Pesto Pasta with Broccoli and Pine nuts using my first attempt at kale pesto (or pesto in general for that matter). The pesto was a bit too bitter for my liking and I think I need to work on the recipe a bit.

Yesterday went OK, fennel was not completely my cup of tea and although the roast broccoli was amazing the 'roasties' were a let down. So tonight, if it wasn't for the fact that I had already got all the veg for this week (and therefore feel inclined to use it) I probably would have resorted to some kind of Quorn based meal with curly fries!

Tonight was my first taste of cavolo nero, and I found this recipe on the BBC Food website.  I made a few adjustments; the recipe is for 4 so I reduced the amounts accordingly, I used some mild cheddar I had in the fridge instead of the Pecorino and I used some dried wholewheat penne pasta which I cooked according to the packet instructions.

The results were very nice, I just love the colour of cavolo nero and kale when you fry it, it goes such a lovely dark green and so shiny. The taste of the lemon just seem to cling to the leaves giving it a lovely taste. If I was to make it again, I would probably add some chilli, if only to give the dish a bit more colour.

Fennel 'Steaks' with roasted broccoli and potatoes

I took my Abel and Cole cook book (free with my first veg box!) with me for a bit of light reading on the train on the way to Coventry to see The Boy and came across a recipe for Fennel Steaks.  Given that I'd got some fennel in my veg box this week I thought I'd give it a go.

I also had some broccoli left over after tea the day before, and a cosmos potato from lasts week's veg box and given I had a free evening I thought I'd roast them.

My thoughts on fennel- I'd mentioned that I had some fennel to The Boy's mum who mentioned it had an aniseed flavour. I've never had fennel, or smelt/tasted aniseed so I wasn't sure what to expect.  But as soon as I cut into it DEAR GOD I NOW KNOW WHAT ANISEED SMELLS LIKE! This made me a bit apprehensive about how it would taste as I now know I do not like the smell of aniseed. I followed the recipe for fennel steaks, but as I decided to try the rapeseed oil with it that I picked up at the East Midland's Food Festival.

After watching one an Abel and Cole's video on fennel, in which they demonstrate fennel steaks I thought I would try cooking the lemons in the pan along with the fennel before drizzling the juice on them before serving.

The smell either eased off during the cooking or was masked by the smell of the lemon. Either way when it came to eating it, it didn't taste as bad as it smelt, not that the taste or smell of aniseed was totally gone but it was mellower than before, therefore although I wasn't bowled over I would try it again with hope that after a couple of tries I may become more accustomed. I could perhaps try roasting it instead.

Looking a bit bland! Need to work on ideas to make it a bit more colourful- roasting the potatoes properly would help!

As you can tell in the picture, the roast potatoes didn't work that well (despite cutting them into smaller pieces in hope that they would cook in a shorter time) but I sprinkled them with some garlic during the cooking, which really made them taste really good anyway.

The roasted broccoli on the other hand was delicious! I've never roasted broccoli before but it may now be my favourite was of cooking broccoli. It was especially good drizzled in balsamic vinegar.

Abel and Cole Vegetable Box

I mentioned briefly in my previous post that I have signed up for veg boxes with Abel and Cole. Well today was my second delivery day, and since I forgot to take any pictures last week I thought I would do so this week.

I have today off, so didn't need to get up until 8am this morning, but at 6:30am I heard a disturbance outside and like a young child on Christmas day I just had to get up to see what 'Santa' had left, I then put it away before going back to sleep again!

There is:

• Broccoli
• Cavolo Nero
• Watercress
• Carrots
• Fennel (I had to Google this to find out what the hell it was!)
• White Onions
• Organic Milk
• Aubergine (I got a note in my box to say they threw it in as a freebie as they had a few spare!)
• Organic Free Range Eggs (free gift)
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil (another free gift!)

Altogether (including a 99p delivery charge) this cost £11.03 (£9 veg box and £1.04 for the milk, which is a bit more expensive than in the supermarkets but the farmers get a fair price and as a result the cows are treated better!). 

A few of the carrots will go into making Carrot and ginger soup for work, I'll make green pesto pasta with broccoli and pine nut pasta (using some kale pesto I made and froze last week) and more pasta this time using the cavolo nero with chickpeas. But other than than that, I have no idea! But that's all part of the fun!

Alpro Hazelnut drink

OMG you (un)lucky people! Two posts in one day, you must think Christmas has come early!

Truth is, I've found myself with and unexpected free evening as a friend ditched me to prepare for an interview tomorrow (good luck K, I hope you get it so we can go out and buy pretty things!) so I thought I would catch up on some blogging.

I've tried many different milk alternatives before, with different levels of success:

Soy milk: soy milk is weird. You know how no matter what company makes your milk, it always takes the same? This isn't the case for soy milk, I've tried different brands and they've all tasted completely different.  Some tasted really creamy, which I don't like but I did manage to find one I did like- Alpro's light unsweetened soy milk which is a lot more 'watery' than others.

Hemp milk: this stuff was just horrid, I think I threw most of this away, which is very unlike me even if I don't like something I will try not to throw it out.  Before going veggie I bought a block of parmesan and discovered I do not like parmesan. However I continued to use all of it instead of throwing it away. Perhaps hemp oil would taste better?

Coconut milk: by Kara, this stuff was OK, it was the only milk alternative that I could put in coffee without it tasting rank. However it way nothing to get excited about.

Anyway, I found myself without any milk, so I was forced to go to ASDA to refresh supplies. I always feel a bit guilty about buying milk from ASDA as I have doubts about the welfare standards of the cows used to produced the milk, plus there is the even though they caved in and agreed to pay their farmers a 'fair' price for milk, it only just covers the price of production.

So I decide to try a nut milk after hearing so many good reviews, and I saw ASDA had an offer on Alpro's hazelnut milk so though I'd give it a go.

IT IS AMAZING! I love this drink, it does taste a little nutty and with coffee it tastes like hazelnut latte :-) It also tastes good with porridge.

I like this so much that I'm really tempted to hoard it while ASDA are selling it for £1.

Pasta with kale, garlic and chilli

Last week (on the same day that I signed up to Graze) I signed up to Abel and Cole who deliver seasonal, organic veg boxes (as well as other things) straight to your door, as my plan of getting up early on a Saturday morning to go to my local market isn't really working out!

In my first box I got a bunch of kale, which I hadn't a clue what to do with- I've never had kale before!

So I started googling recipes and I came across a recipe for pasta with kale, garlic and chilli, I pretty much followed the recipe given but adjusted it for one person and substituted the spaghetti for wholewheat penne. I also added some  toasted pine nuts for a bit of protein and added a drizzle of balsamic vinegar at the end.

I've tried other recipes to use up the kale (I still have some left and no idea what to do with it) but this one has to be my favourite so far. As for my opinion on kale? Hmm it's not one of those vegetables your instantly love (I also got spaghetti squash in my box and that was love at first taste!) but I think it's like olives- I love olives now, but the first time I had them I was aware that they tasted OK and didn't make me was to vomit, so I kept having them and now I love them.  Hopefully that will be the case with kale.