Sunday sarnies

No recipes today but here is a little snap. Sunday is traditionally sandwich night in our house.

Tonight we had yummy leftover soup with gem lettuce, tomato, avocado and Cheezly sandwiches in toasted Hovis. The little glass of red is my first glass of Chris's delicious blackberry wine, made from berries he gathered on his way home from work a few weeks back. How cool is that?

I probably should have moved our box of veggies out of the background of the shot but I think I'll just eat my way through them as the week goes on instead.

Chris's sweet and sour tofu

(Please excuse the Photoshop additions. Chris decided to take the photo on the diagonal which just looked odd to me. So I went to straighten it and then got carried away playing and it's late so now I'm thinking, 'Oh, that'll do!')

Chris has used Rhonda Parkinson's sweet and sour sauce recipelots of times. It only takes 5 minutes and always works perfectly.

Chris fried chopped tofu then added onion, carrot and peppers. He fried them all up for a little while, added the sauce and served with boiled rice. So much for my efforts with 30 minute meals! Chris's probably only took 20 minutes and still tasted like a Saturday night treat. Come to think of it, he didn't make pudding, but then he probably knew I wouldn't fit it in. Look at the size of those portions!

Pumpkin seed butter and date cookies

It's been a gloomy and wet Bonfire Night. Most people's firework displays have been rained off and we heard only a few wet bangs and squeaks outside. I used to love Bonfire Night as a kid but these days I'm more aware of how much it scares people's pets and wakes up people's babies so I didn't mind the rain. 
We've stayed cosy indoors and, in lieu of a bonfire, we had tasty fresh baked cookies to light up our faces. 

I often buy pumpkin seed butter because it's so good for you. I like it on toast with jam or in savoury sandwiches, but sometimes I get bored of eating it before I get to the end of the jar and it doesn't keep that long so I decided to do something new with it and turn it into cookies (and give everyone in the house an Omega 6 boost). 

They worked out soft, crispy and vanillary with the dates adding lovely chewy fruity bits. I'll definitely make them again.

Pumpkin seed butter and date cookies

1 1/4 cups self raising flour

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup plain soya yoghurt

1/2 cup pumpkin seed butter

1/4 cup oil

3/4 cup sugar

3/4 tsp vanilla extract 

Handful of dried dates, chopped finely

Mix everything together and shape dough into balls. Flatten out onto greaseproof paper and back at 175c for 10 minutes. Makes 18 largeish cookies. 

30 minute courgette soup with salsa and apple and elderberry pudding

Oh my goodness! I made it to Mofo HQ! I'm so thrilled that my little slapdash chocolate skull cakes were featured. Wow. I think I'm blushing. How glorious.

Anyway I must get my head out of the clouds and write about my soup and pudding. This time my plan to do dinner in 30 minutes actually did work out!

Courgette soup
2 onions
Oil to fry
Splash of lemon juice (bottled)
4 courgettes
2 small potatoes
1 heaped dsp vecon
Boiling water to almost cover the veg.
1 tsp dried margoram

Fry the onions in oil for a few minutes and then add the lemon to deglaze the pan. Add all the remaining ingredients and simmer for 15 minutes. Blend with a stick blender.

Salsa
2 tomatoes
1 avocado
Splash of olive oil
Splash of balsamic vinegar
2 tsp poppy seeds
1 tsp dried margoram
1 tsp mixed seed butter

Chop avocado and tomatoes and add the other ingredients to the board, Jamie style. Mix with a spoon and spoon into your soup when it's ready.

Apple and elderberry pudding
1 russet apple
Raisins
Thick soya cream
Elderberry syrup (or just whatever jam you like)
Plain chocolate shavings

Peel and slice the apple and put the pieces in a covered microwave-safe container with the raisins and a little water. Microwave for 3 minutes and the apple will go beautifully soft. It does need to be a russet one.
Allow the apple and raisins to cool before piling on the other ingredients. Make the chocolate shavings by scraping a large knife along the back of a slab of your favourite chocolate.

Yummy!

30 minute cheese and onion pasties with rustic potatoes*

I'm loving Jamie Oliver's 30 Minute Meals at the moment. Even though there is lots of meat in it he also does quite a bit of veggie stuff and his enthusiasm for food and flavours is so infectious. So, fired up to make something tasty and quick, I decided to do a vegan version of a cheese and onion pasty - something I've never had because I've been vegan so long.

Before anybody reads any further, let me confess that this didn't take 30 minutes. I hoped it would take 30 - but it took 50.  However as much as I love Jamie's 30 Minute Meals, may I just say that on that series I've never seen Jamie:
a) wash anything up as he goes along
b) wash his hands between jobs
c) make pastry from scratch
d) smash a glass jar off the draining board and onto the floor
e) stand around for a moment looking dejected while boyfriend picks up all the shards
f) refocus and hoover and wash the whole floor and cat dishes that had been on the floor
g) feed the cats.

All of this I managed in 50 minutes, so perhaps you'll forgive me for having pre-made the cashew cheese.

Cheese and onion pasties and rustic chips (for 2 servings with 2 pasties left over for another day)

1 onion
3/4 cup cashew cheese (I had some leftover in the fridge)
3 large potatoes (or equivalent in weight)
Olive oil to fry
Salt and pepper

For the pastry:
2 cups plain flour
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup cold water
1 tsp baking powder
A pinch of salt


First 10 minutes:

• Preheat oven to 180c.
• Chop the potatoes into roughly walnut-sized chunks and get them boiling in plenty of hot water
• Dice the onion and start frying it in a little oil.
• Put all the pastry ingredients together in a bowl and mix with a fork. You'll very quickly get your ball of pastry dough.

Second 10 minutes:

• Lay out a large piece of cling film onto your work surface (saves faffing around with flour) and roll or press your pastry into two rectangles, each the size of 4 pasties. Cut both pieces into 4 quarters.

Third 10 minutes:

• Drain the potatoes and tip them into a large flat-bottomed frying pan, reserving about a cupful of them. Crush the ones in the frying pan slightly with the back of a wooden spoon and knock them about a bit to get some rough bits which will go crispy when fried. Slurp some olive oil over them and put the pan on a medium-low heat.
• Mash the reserved potatoes and add the fried onion and cashew cheese. Mix it all up and add salt and pepper to taste.
• Spoon 1/4 of the mixture onto 4 of your pastry rectangles and cover with the other 4 pieces. Press round the edges with your fingers to seal.
• Place the 4 pasties onto a paper-lined backing sheet and put in the oven. Set timer for 20 minutes.
  

Next 20 minutes:

• Do something else while you wait for your pasties to cook (see d)-g) above). Occasionally toss the potatoes around to give the undersides a chance to crisp up too.

The pasties were fab. I can't say whether they tasted like non-vegan ones but they looked and smelled right and they made great comfort food. Chris said they were like some of the non-vegan ones but not the type you get in Greggs. Whatever, I think he liked them too. The potatoes were really tasty with just a sprinkle of coarse sea salt and a side of apple peel chutney.


* actually takes 50 minutes

Morbid chocolate skull cakes

Look out Mofo! I'm joining the party (albeit, two days late and it looks like everyone has been having a whole lot of fun already) but I'm ready to rock! November started with a nasty stomach bug, chez nous, so I wasn't keen on the idea of cooking, eating or blogging. Having said that, even though I was off my food, I wasn't off the idea of baking cakes ... especially chocolate cakes ... especially chocolate cakes with skulls on!

 

Morbid chocolate skull cakes

(chocolate cake mix taken from Charlotte O'Leary's Chocolate Brownies)

Cake ingredients
170g/6oz self-raising flour
salt
2 tbsp cocoa powder
170g/6oz caster sugar
5 tbsp sunflower oil, plus extra for greasing
230ml/8fl oz sweetened soya milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Skulls ingedients
1 cup icing sugar
~1 tbsp water

Chocolate topping
1/2 cup cocoa
1/2 cup icing sugar
~2 tbsp water

Method

• Pre-heat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.
• Oil a 20cm/8in square cake tin with some of the sunflower oil. Look at the shape of your tin and decide how many cakes your going to cut. Mine is rectsangular so I made fifteen (5 across, 3 down).
• In a bowl sift together the flour, salt, cocoa powder and sugar.
• Add the oil, soya milk and vanilla extract, and mix carefully together until completely mixed.
• Pour into the tin, and bake for about 25 minutes, until the brownies spring back when gently pressed.
• Whilst the cakes are cooking, mix up the skulls icing. I used about a tablespoon of cold water with half a cup of icing sugar. Once that was mixed into a paste, I added the other half a cup of icing sugar and mashed it all together with a spoon until it formed into a ball. If you don't get a ball forming, add more water or icing sugar until you get there. It doesn't matter if you make too much icing because you can add cocoa and more water to it to make the chocolate topping.
• Divide the icing ball into little balls the size of large marbles. Count out as many as you are going to need and set aside any leftover icing.
• Press the balls flat into ovals onto a piece of grease proof paper. 
• Cut across each oval about 1/4 of the way up and pull the two pieces apart from each other a bit. This separates the jaws from the skulls.
• Using a chop stick, make all the eye and nose holes.
• Using a fork, mark out the teeth. I used sugar strands for some of the teeth but then gave up because it was too fiddly to do with a toddler in one arm! 
• Mix up your chocolaate icing using leftover skulls mix if you have it.It should be thick but spreadable.
• When the cake is ready, Take it out and leave it to cool for five minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.
• Cut into squarish pieces and place them in muffin cases. Leave to cool completely before covering with chocolate icing.
• By this time the skulls should have hardened enough for you to carefully lift them off and place one onto each cake.

Happy Halloween!

 

Tropical stars

I made these for a friend's hen day. She's diabetic so I anted to make something sweet but fairly low in sugar and I didn't want to use artificial sweeteners because I don't like the taste. They came out pretty well. The best bit was the filling which had the texture of custard creams once it had set. Yum.

Tropical stars
1/3 cup canola/vegetable oil
1/3 cup sugar/1/3 cup dessicated coconut
1/4 cup soya milk
1/4 tsp almond essence
1 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt

For the filling (don't make this until the biscuits are cool because it sets quite quickly):
1" x 2" block of creaamed coconut (heat in the microwave for 30 seconds at a time until melted)
1 heaped tbs jam (I used no added sugar pineapple and mango)

Preheat oven to 177c or 350F. Mix up all the wet things and then add in the dry stuff and mix it up. Roll out the dough to 3 or 4mm thick between two sheets of cling film. Cut out star shapes and bake on grease proof paper for about 7 minutes or until golden brown.

Once the biscuits are cool, melt the coconut and mix up the filling then sandwich up your biscuits. Give them an hour or so in the fridge to set them properly but once they're done you can keep them in your biscuit tin at room temperature.

The hen day was lovely. The biscuits, along with a magnificent array of cupcakes and canapes provided by the other ladies, were enjoyed with sparkling wine whilst we all painted crockery and gossipped - so much nicer than trawling round nighclubs wearing willy hats and L plates! Oh, and in lieu of willy hats and L plates, we needed something to make us look festive so I knitted us each a flower to wear in our hair or as a brooch. Check them out!

Also I made a garter for the hen (thought she might like it has her 'something blue'). We used it as the gift in the middle of a pass the parcel game which was a good laugh. Every time one of us unwrapped a layer, we had to tell the group our celebrity crush. High/low point of the game was Marzia's appalling and shocking answer - Pierce Morgan - which had us all in fits. You think you know someone and then they come out with something like that ...