Lancashire leek and cheese pie, tots and hot ketchup

Leek and onion pie in  a grainy mustard casing

I have decided to revive this blog as I love cooking but forget too easily what I have made.  Also, now that I am on the Cabinet and have gone half-time at work, my life seems to have gotten even busier and I rely on a few old staple recipes to see me through - most of which involve copious amounts of cheese.  They are thought up on the drive home from County with only speed in mind.

It took a while to track down this blog as I couldn't remember what I had called it or what email address it was tethered to.  In the process I found a two post blog that I had started even earlier!

Looking back three plus years ago, I was interested to see that I had talked about hives which at the time I linked to the house renovations I was doing and the loss of my mother.  I now know that the hives were the symptom of peri-menopause and worse things to come, but more of that later.....

Lancashire cheese volcano.  Though I am veggie mainly I do eat cheese with rennet which is not purist...sorry!

So at the plot we have an abundance of leeks and a few weeks ago, on a trip back home, I bought a Lancashire cheese volcano which needed using.  The husband likes a pie and there is nothing more Lancastrian than a cheese and onion pie (except perhaps a butter pie...again later....or perhaps hotpot, which isn't veggie.)

So tonight I made a pie containing four sliced and fried leeks mixed with crumbled cheese and an egg to bind the mixture.  This was decanted into a short crusted pastry casing with grainy mustard mixed in.  It was egg glazed and had the message "I love you", cut out of scraps, embellished on it. 

To accompany the pie I made tots.  I had never heard of tots until the other week when I saw them being made on "Drive-in, Diners and Dives" (American food porn.)  As the pie already had vertiginously cholesterol-raising levels of cheese in it I went for a basic recipe:

http://www.chow.com/recipes/29271-basic-potato-tots

They seemed quite dough-y and plastic when I tried to mould them.  I wondered if grating them in the food processor made them so as opposed to a hand grater.

They were pleasant enough, but not that crunchy on the outside and I wondered how they differed from Pommes Duchesa.

With them, for dipping I made a hot ketchup sauce from fried shallot and passata with  a splash of sherry, balsamic vinegar and a pinch of salt and sugar.

La grande bouffe

Well, yesterday was our ninth wedding anniversary. Hubs sadly had to work and I had some council duties to do in the morning.

I had chosen the pudding - a torte of pancakes featured in the current edition of Good Food magazine. Our neighbours at Red Brick have been invited round for Shrove Tuesday and C is a chocoholic, so I wanted to make something that blows him away. Hubs was my practice run guinea pig.

Hubs was allowed to choose the main course and I thought he would go for something light, but he chose a Brie and cranberry parcel with filo pastry.

I had tried to buy all the ingredients in ASDA Barnsley the day before, but could not get chilled filo pastry or green peppercorns. So after visiting Matlock, I went to three supermarkets in Chesterfield. Morrisons didn't have either ingredients, but I did pick up a bottle of Alpha Montes Cabernet Sauvignon for £12 (which is about as much as we ever pay for wine, as we're not millionaires.)

Sainsbo's yielded the filo pastry and the big Tesco had the peppercorns.

The pancake recipe was easy. Make a caramel, add blanched hazelnuts - cook and spread out to cool on an oiled baking tray. When it is cool, blitz it in a chopper to make little sprinkles.

The chocolate sauce for the layers involved 250g of 80% Fairtrade chocolate, 50g of butter, 50 mg of demerara sugar, 300ml of half milk, half double cream melted in a bowl suspended over a simmering pan. A good slosh of rum was added at the end.

After making 10 pancakes, the torte is assembled in a sringform cake tin. Each pancake has a layer of chocolate smeared on it, then a sprinkle of the hazelnut mixture. Nothing goes on top of the final pancake. It can then be left. Keep aside the leftover chocolate sauce and sprinkles.

When you want to eat it, it is put in to a preheated oven (180 celcius), covered by foil and heated through for 20 mins. It is then served with chocolate sauce, and whipped cream with a sprinkle of sprinkles and some shaved chocolate.

It was the most cardiac inducing dessert that I have ever had, thoroughly delicious, but so calorific. Particularly after we had it after the main.

The main was a whole brie, with a cranberry and green pepper sauce, wrapped in filo pastry with a butter and ground almond layering. To add to the cholestrol count I also made individual Pommes Dauphinoise with red onion and garlic grated in between the layers. It was served with roasted asparagus.

It was all lovely, but this morning I still felt full, and am craving slightly healthier food! For when C comes I intend to serve the pancakes with a Galliano icecream! Bring it on!

Sunday 20th February 2011

Butternut squash roulade with a spinach and Gorgonzola filling, with (failed) pommes soufflees and mulled red cabbage

ROULADE

Steamed half a butternut squash indice. Mashed it and added mustard powder and nutmeg. Separated four eggs. Mixed the yolks with the squash, salt, pepper and 100g of Gruyere. Whisked the egg whites to soft peaks. Folded in to the yolks and spooned into a lined Swiss roll tin. baked on 180 c (fan) for twenty minutes.

Filling was 250g baby spinach steamed in the bag in the microwave (2 mins), then cooled, squeezed and chopped. Added nutmeg, chopped Gorgonzola and 4 tbsp cream. Mixed up.

Spread on baked roulade and out back in oven for 5 minutes with grated Parmezan on top.

MULLED RED CABBAGE

Cooked half a red cabbage in butter in covered pan. Added a chopped red onion for five minutes and then add a mulled wine spice sachet, three chopped small apples, two tbsp demerara sugar, 100g red wine vinegar and 4 tbsp of quince jelly. Bring to boil and then simmer for an hour.

Courgette and gorgonzola tagliatelle

The courgettes have started and the main thing preoccupying me at the moment is how to use them up. Each year I seem to fight a losing battle.

With about ten already in the veg rack, tonight I decided to make a quick dish as we had a meeting of the village hall committee.

We took Baby JB and she chewed my hand throughout the whole of the meeting. On the way home we popped in to the 'Oss for a quick drink. Much to hubs consternation the real ale was off.

So, it was meant to be a courgette, walnut and gorgonzola sauce but I couldn't find the walnuts I had purchased earlier. (I found them this morning in the fridge!)

It was fine. A bit to much pasta but the chucks will like the leftovers. Had withe some french bread and a tomato side salad with home grown leaves.

Broad bean and roquefort risotto

It's been a long time.

This year I lost my mother and also set off on a major remodel of the house. With one thing and another I ahven't done that much cooking. In the last two weeks, I've held a couple of dinner parties as we finally have something like a dining room back.

Particularly during the rewire the house was so bad that we upped sticks and went to the pub. Today the decorators are in.

So, normality slowly returning, it's time to start the blog again.

Hubs and I haven't been to the plot much and the garden is a jungle but we have grown some broad beans so last night I made a broadbean and roquefort risooto.. Frankly it was very salty but we sat on the patio and ate it. The Squire joined us for a Speckled Hen whilst our new puppy, Baby JB, ran round the garden with Bo and Jet.

We had one of next doors hens broody under a bush in our garden, but they have taken her away.

Monday 22nd February 2010 Goat's cheese in filo parcels with cranberry sauce

By request fron Hubs.

Wow, they have fresh filo pastry in Tesco Clowne! As I want to encourage them to stock it, I changed from the puff pastry case I was going to make.

This is a really easy meal, and as I was home later than usual it is ideal. It is basically mashed goat's cheese in a filo "money bag" parcel, on a sauce of port, cranberry jelly, butter and lemon. I roasted some asparagus with it, and had curly fries (a wicked treat!). This is a recipe adapted from a little Sainsbury's cookbook I have. When I first made it when I lived at the Croft in Morley I thought it was so sophisticated!! Now it's a staple.

Cooking was interupted by a family phone call (no 2 niece), but was aided by one of Hub's wicked Martini Cocktails. (Chilled glass, Bombay sapphire, Noilly Prat, black olive)

Had a couple of bottles of Cote de Ventoux between us. BAD! Watched series 3 "Gavin and Stacey" GOOD!

Sunday 21 February 2010 Vegetable stifado

Hubs told me not to bother getting up as it was snowing heavily outside.

We walked to Creswell to buy some food for dinner. I wanted to do Paul Gayler's Veggie Stifado with spinach keftedes. Well, Creswell isn't exactly Clowne - so that doesn't say much. But it is walkable, mainly off road, along old railway tracks.

So, what couldn't we buy? Spinach, Sun Blush tomatoes, haricot beansspring onions for starters. Managed to buy a cauli from Spar. So it wasn't quite Gayler's recipe. Plus some extras went in: pepper, baby sweetcorn and Quorn pieces (!!!) It is quite a thin stew and not as nice as the Veggie Bourgignon I make. Next time I'll thicken it, and follow the recipe exactly.