Roasted Root Vegetable Gratin

I was writing out menus and shopping lists for Christmas the other day when I found myself mulling over the question of what to do with the leftover veg from lunch on Christmas Day. Sure… there’s always bubble and squeak; we’ve all been there and done that. But what about something a little different to have with your cold nut roast next day…such as a roasted root vegetable gratin? Ha, now there’s an idea!

Well, in the interests of research and not having any leftover veg about my person, I cooked a small pile of roasted roots yesterday and made a damn fine root veg gratin which we had for dinner last night. It was delicious; in fact, it was so good that we shamelessly polished off the lot between us before I'd even cooked the sausages that were supposed to go with it! Fact is, this can be used as a one-pot main course or, in smaller quantities, a side dish to a 'main event'.

The veg kept their individual flavours nicely and underneath the crispy topping there was just enough mustardy creaminess to bring the whole thing together; I will definitely be doing the same again on Boxing Day.

Actually, I’m really looking forward to Boxing Day, I always enjoy it a lot more than the whole palaver of Christmas Day – it’s so much more relaxed once all the fevered expectancy of the big day is over. A plate of nibbles, a bowl of nuts and a DVD and I’m a happy bunny. I'm easily pleased.

250g carrots
250g parsnips
200g celeriac
200g small new potatoes
2 medium onions
2tbsp olive oil
1 tsp dried thyme
ground black pepper
4 tbsp crème fraiche
1 dsp grainy mustard
60g breadcrumbs
75g mature cheddar
25g pine nuts

Peel the carrots, parsnips and celeriac; cut into bite-size chunks. Cut the potatoes in half or quarters if they’re a bit big. Peel the onions and cut into eighths through the root.

Put all the veg into a large freezer bag with the olive oil, thyme and a few grinds of black pepper; hold the end securely closed and shake to coat the veg all over. Tip into a large roasting tin and roast at 200C for about 25 minutes.

(Obviously, if you're cooking this with leftovers, you can skip the instructions above)

Mix the crème fraiche and grainy mustard together in a large bowl then add the cooked veg and mix well to coat. Tip the mustardy veg into an ovenproof dish; grate the cheese then mix the breadcrumbs, cheese and pine nuts together and scatter evenly over the veg.

Bake at 200C for about 15 minutes until golden and crispy.

Fruit & Nut Christmas Pudding Loaf

It’s the 1st of December! I’ve opened the first door on my Advent calendar and the outside lights are up, although they haven’t been turned on yet. We couldn’t get Jessie J to do our switch-on, she’s too busy apparently (!), so the honour will fall to Mr Simply Veg.

I’m only cooking for the two of us on the big day this year and I’d already decided I was going to do Cranberry and Apricot Sponge Puds for our dessert… then I saw this recipe on one of the regular email alerts I get from GoodFood which threw my decision out of the window. It seems such a good idea to cook a Christmas pudding in a loaf tin that I wonder why I’ve never seen it done before.

I didn’t want to be disappointed so I had a dry run yesterday. I roughly halved the recipe and cooked it in a 1lb loaf tin; I also changed some of the ingredients. I’m not keen on glacé cherries but I love preserved ginger and nuts; I also dropped the amount of mixed spice but added ground ginger and a touch of  ground cloves to warm it up a little bit.

It cut into eight decent slices, six of which were put in the freezer, and we had a slice each with custard after dinner last night. Well, we had to try it out, didn’t we?! I’m pleased to say it was just right, not stodgy and much lighter than the traditional pudding, fresher tasting and really fruity. I have a feeling it will form part of many of our Christmases to come. I didn’t make the accompanying sauce from the original recipe – it would have been a sweetness overload for us but I leave that up to you.

200g dried mixed fruit
2 balls of preserved ginger in syrup, chopped
½ a small Bramley apple (about 75g) grated
grated zest of an orange
75ml apple juice
2 tbsp brandy
70g butter
50g dark muscovado sugar
1 large egg, beaten
45g self-raising flour
50g white breadcrumbs
1 tbsp syrup from the ginger jar
½ tsp mixed spice
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground ginger
pinch of ground cloves
20g toasted mixed nuts, roughly chopped

Put the dried fruit, chopped ginger, grated apple, orange zest, apple juice and brandy into a largish bowl; give it a good stir, cover with clingfilm and leave overnight.

Next day, cream the butter and sugar then stir in the rest of the ingredients including the soaked fruit and any remaining juice. Put the mixture into a 1lb loaf tin lined with bakewell paper then put the loaf tin into a roasting tin.

Turn the oven on to 180C or 160C fan. Boil a full kettle. Put a foil ‘lid’ loosely over the loaf tin, scrunching up the sides a bit to make it stay put, then pour a couple of centimetres of boiling water into the roasting tin. Place the whole thing carefully in the oven.


Having halved the recipe this is where I had to use a bit of guesswork. I cooked mine for 25 minutes at 160C fan then I turned the oven down to 140C and cooked it for another 55 minutes. No two ovens are the same, so test with a skewer to make sure it's cooked through.

Serve with cream, custard, brandy butter or whatever takes your fancy.

Makes 8 slices

Champ

Just a quick, brief post to show you what we had for dinner one night last week – Champ…god, it was lovely. We had it with Cauldron Lincolnshire sausages and mushroom gravy – although, to be perfectly honest, I’d have been quite happy to have had it on its own accompanied only by a very large spoon!

It was fabulous; one of those things that cheers you up no end when a bit of cold weather comfort food is required.

500g floury potatoes
75ml hot milk
40g butter, melted
1/2 bunch spring onions
black pepper








Peel and chop the potatoes into large chunks and steam or simmer until tender; mash well with hot milk and stir in the finely chopped spring onions and a good grinding of pepper.

Pile the potato into a warmed serving dish and make a shallow well in the middle; pour in the warm melted butter. Serve immediately and try to avoid licking the dish clean!

Serves 2.

Apple Compote

I thought I’d better quickly type up the apple compote I made with the last of our apples from the garden before I forgot what I did.

We eat loads of various compotes with porridge, yogurt or ice-cream and sometimes on pancakes for breakfast so we get through masses of it. I generally cook up a couple of kilos of fruit at a time. This particular one is fragrant with warm spices and is especially good with porridge although, to be fair, I like almost anything with porridge…

Hells bells - I’ve just realised it’s exactly a month today until Christmas!! Now if that doesn’t get you up and cooking, nothing will…!

2kg apples
150ml water
juice of a lemon
150g white sugar
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
½ tsp ground cinnamon
pinch of ground cloves
¼ of a nutmeg, grated

Peel, core and chop the apples into dice; put into a deep wide pan with the lemon juice and water. Bring to the boil and simmer gently until the apples start to soften (I won’t give you an exact timing because it really depends which apples you use).

Add the sugar, the vanilla bean paste and the spices; stir well, bring back to a simmer and cook gently for about 10 minutes.

Pot up into sterilised jars while still hot. Store in the fridge once opened.

Pre-Christmas Musings

I haven’t been blogging much recently, but I can assure you we’ve most definitely been eating! I don’t seem to have been cooking anything new or terribly exciting, just making old favourites and stuff we like. Oh, I did make some spiced apple compote with the last of the fruit from the garden which is rather nice – I’ll have to type it up.

Now that we’re well into November, though, I thought I’d better stir myself and do a bit of pre-Christmas cooking. So… the Christmas Cake has been made, as has a huge batch of Red Cabbage and a couple of pots of Mushroom and Sherry Gravy for the big day. Nut Roast Wellington seems to have become a bit of a Christmas fixture for us so I’ve made and frozen the mushroom duxelles layer which will save me time later.

The whole point of Christmas food for me is the traditional aspect of it all; I don’t expect to have to cook something different each year – it’s Christmas, therefore we know what we’ll be eating! It wouldn’t be the same if some of the favourites were missing. However, I always like to throw in a few surprises so I’ve also been spending some time scouting around for any new Christmas recipes that might be useful; I’ve found a couple which are worth a closer look.

These spiced plum trifles look really nice and incredibly easy (I’m useless at desserts so anything that’s easy looks good to me!) and I have a sneaking suspicion that these palmiers may make an appearance at some point, although I think I’ll substitute basil or maybe a few dabs of pesto for the rosemary.

We popped into town yesterday for lunch with DS and a bit of shopping at Selfridges; the store was dressed up like a Christmas tree, inside and out, it looked fabulous! The pics aren't great but you get the idea.

Outside, just getting dark.

Looking up into the Atrium from the basement

Carrot and Coriander Soup

Our little veg plot is almost empty and it's looking a bit sorry for itself but we still have lots of lovely carrots waiting to be used. Now we’re well into October, and the weather is feeling decidedly autumnal, it’s time for soup!

It’s not particularly cold here yet (give it time - it will be!) but it’s pouring with rain today and we’ve even had lightning and a couple of rumbles of thunder; it’s also so dark that I had to put the lights on because I couldn’t see to type. It’s 3pm….

This was a really nice soup; fresh and light with a subtle, rather than in-your-face, taste of coriander. When I say fresh, the carrots went from garden to bowl in under an hour – now you don’t get fresher than that!



1 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 tsp ground coriander
a large floury potato, about 250g, peeled and chopped
650g carrots, peeled and chopped
1.5l stock
a good handful of chopped coriander

Heat the oil in a large saucepan and sauté the onion for about 5 minutes until softened but not coloured; add the garlic and continue to sauté for another minute before adding the potato, ground coriander, carrots and stock.

Bring to the boil then lower the heat, put a lid on and simmer for 20 minutes. Blitz with a hand blender and stir in the chopped coriander.

Sprinkle with a little more chopped coriander and serve with plenty of crusty bread.

Serves 6 (I froze two double portions)

Lemon, Poppy Seed and Yogurt Muffins

I ripped an advert for Alpro soya yogurt out of a magazine a couple of months ago, because part of the ad was a recipe for lemon, poppy seed and yogurt muffins. Alpro is wonderful stuff and I love it with a dollop of fruit compote – it’s rare that I don’t have a tub of it in the fridge – so I thought baking with it could be an interesting development.

The muffins in the advert looked lovely, probably because they’d had a team of food stylists fiddling with them for half an hour, but on closer inspection it looked a really strange recipe…there was an enormous amount of baking powder in it (2 tbsp!!), there didn’t seem to be enough lemon zest to give any flavour and it seemed like an awful lot of mixture for only eight muffins.  I sometimes wonder if anyone actually tests these recipes before they’re let loose on an unsuspecting public!

Well, in the spirit of bravery (or possibly stupidity!) I decided to give the recipe a go. With a few tweaks and twirls it actually turned out OK. I used self-raising flour instead of plain, dropped the amount of baking powder drastically, upped the amount of lemon zest and discovered that it actually made twelve decent sized muffins, not eight.

I added a little drizzle of lemon icing to smarten them up a bit and, although they wouldn’t win a prize at the village fête, they were nice with a cuppa and a good book.

225g SR flour
2 tsp baking powder
140g caster sugar
grated zest of a lemon
2 tbsp poppy seeds
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 egg
245g Alpro Plain Yogurt
100g melted butter

2 tbsp icing sugar + lemon juice to mix

Mix the five dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Mix the four wet ingredients together in a large jug. Pour the wet into the dry and fold together just until no dry flour remains. Do not overmix; it doesn’t need to be completely smooth.

Divide the mixture between twelve muffin cases set into a muffin tin. Bake for about 20 minutes at 190C until golden and puffed.

Cool on a wire rack. When cold, drizzle with a little lemon icing.

Makes 12