Sweet potato and feta bubble and squeak with fried egg

So, I still had the cabbage that wouldn’t quit and some left over sweet potato mash in the freezer. This meant that I had a super healthy, low GI brunch in the making. All I needed to do was to throw some cheese at it to make sure it was a properly balanced dish. The flavours of the sweet potato, the earthy cabbage and the salty feta cheese sing un unison in my twist on a bubble and squeak.

 

What you will need

250g cooked cabbage

250g cooked sweet potato

150g feta cheese, crumbled

Fresh parsley, chopped

2 tea spoons paprika

1 egg

4 table spoons of plain flour

 

This is such a simple dish. Simply combine all the ingredients and season well with salt and pepper.

Place some oil on to heat in a frying pan and scoop large spoonfulls of the mix into a pan and shape into patties. Cook on a medium heat for 4-5 minutes before turning over and cooking on the other side.

For the final 10 minutes and to ensure the flour and egg is cooked through, place in a preheated oven at 200C.

 

 

Serve as they are, or top with a fried egg as I did.

Caramelised onion and goats cheese tart

As long as you have a packet of ready roll puff pastry and a log of goats cheese in the freezer, this is an exceptional throw together dish for lunch or dinner. I had some lovely lemony and nutty goats cheese from the Poitou-Charentes region of France to use. This combination of sweet and savoury flavours proved to be the perfect companions.


What you will need
1 packet of all butter puff pastry
2 large onions
1 log of goats cheese
2 table spoons of brown sugar
4 table spoons balsamic vinegar
A few sprigs of lemon thyme


Begin by slicing the onions finely. Add them to a table spoon of olive oil and saute for 15 minutes until softened and browned. Make sure to stir regularly so they don't burn.


Next add the brown sugar and balsamic vinegar, seasoning well and soften for a further five minutes until there is no liquid left. Finally stir through the lemon thyme.

Leave the caramelised onions to cool.


When ready to cook, pre heat the oven to 200C. Roll out the pastry and place on greased oven tray. Score around the edges, about 1 cm in.


Next, assemble the onions into the centre of the scored rectangle and spread out evenly.


Slice the goats cheese into 6-8 rounds and arrange over the onions.

Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes until crispy and browned.

Serve with a crips green salad.

Mushroom, ricotta and olive tarte flambe

From pide in Turkey to tarte flambé in Alsace France. The varieties of pizza-like breads topped with cheese are endless and clearly delicious. So, in homage to this week hosting  national pizza day, I thought I would go fancy and treat myself to this delicious tarte flambé with fresh ricotta cheese and meaty portabello mushrooms. In case you are wondering, this day appears to fall on the 9th February. So, if you ever needed an excuse to eat cheese and bread, let this day be that excuse. Gipsy Spread also managed to pick up some bresaola for his.

What you will need

125g plain white flour

125g strong bread flour

160ml warm water

1 tea spoon dried yeast

2 tea spoons olive oil

4 portabello mushrooms

4 table spoons of ricotta cheese

20g parmesan

1 clove garlic

½ a red onion
A handful of black olives
2 tea spoons olive oil

Rosemary

1 tea spoon of chilli flakes(optional)

Begin by making your tart base. Mix together the two flours with the yeast, 1 tea spoon of oil and warm water, seasoning well with salt. Knead lightly and roll into a ball. Drizzle over the  rest of the oil to coat the ball and cover with cling film set aside somewhere warm to rise for an hour.

Meanwhile slice the mushrooms and fry in some oil until they have cooked.

Mix together the ricotta, parmesan and crushed clove of garlic and season well.

Slice the red onion. and half the olives

When ready to assemble the tarte for cooking, roll half the dough out into a long oval or rectangle. Smooth over half the ricotta mix and sprinkle over half the mushrooms, olives and onion. Then sprinkle over ½ a tea spoon of chilli flakes and sprigs of fresh rosemary. Repeat for the other tarte.

Place on a greased oven tray and bake in the middle of  pre-heated oven for 15-18 minutes at 200C until browned and crispy.

Avocado and poached egg on toast

Avocados are a really nutty treat and full of awesome nutrition and all the best oils. There’s nothing I like more than an avocado and egg for breakfast and apparently, according to recent science, I have been getting it right all this time. Since Sainsburys introduced the creamy avocado to the British public in the 1970s, it has taken hold of our consciousness and manifested itself in various forms, not least, inspiring a whole generation’s choice of bathroom suite.

What you will need

2 slices of a rye or sourdough loaf

2 eggs

2 avocadoes

1 tomato

1 shallot

A squeeze of lemon juice

1 red chilli

Coriander

Vinegar

Olive oil

 

Begin by slicing the bread and toasting it.

Next, chop the tomato, shallot and chilli and combine with the avocado flesh. Season with salt and pepper, squeeze over lemon juice to taste and stir through fresh coriander. Set aside.

 

Next, for poaching the eggs. Bring a pan of water to boil. Once it’s boiling, add a splash of vinegar to it and turn it down. Immediately crack the two eggs into the pan. Leave the eggs to cook for 2-3 minutes until they start rising to the top. Remove from the pan carefully and place on some kitchen roll to drain.

Next, assemble the breakfast by sharing the avocado mix between the two slices of bread and topping each with a poached egg, a garnish of fresh coriander and a drizzle of olive oil.

 

Vegetarian sweet potato gumbo

I’d bought a green cabbage. Does anyone else find it hard to use a cabbage up? It seems to be a bottomless pit of a vegetable and I have never soup-ed it, as the suggestion conjures up ‘70s images of people surrounded by a Linus fug of cabbage scent.

Anyway, having been to Louisiana, I was aware that a core ingredient of the famous Cajun dish from the South called gumbo was greens. My cabbage was green. So, I set about making this deliciously hearty and spicy greens and bean dish with a sweet potato I had. They have a ready-made mix of Cajun spices that they sell everywhere in the region, however, you don’t really need this if you have a decent spice cupboard.

What you will need
1 onion
2 stalks celery
3-4 green chillies
2 cloves garlic
1 tea spoon thyme
1 tea spoon oregano
1/2 tea spoon basil
1 tea spoon cayenne pepper
1 tea spoon white pepper
1 bay leaf
300ml vegetable stock
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
1 tea spoon of red wine vinegar
400g sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
100g cabbage, sliced
1 tin of kidney beans


Heat the oil in a pan over a medium heat. Add the onion, celery, chillies and garlic and fry for 4-5 minutes, or until softened.
 

Mix together the salt, dried thyme, cayenne pepper, dried oregano, basil and white pepper and bay leaf until well combined. Add to the pan and stir well to coat the vegetables. Continue to fry for 2-3 minutes, stirring regularly, until the spices are fragrant.

 

Add the vegetable stock, chopped tomatoes, and red wine vinegar and bring the mixture to the boil.

Add the sweet potato cubes, shredded cabbage sand drained kidney beans and continue to cook for 20-30 minutes, or until the sweet potato is tender.

 

Serve by itself, over rice of with some fabulous corn bread.

Goats cheese, mushroom and truffle honey en croute

This recipe is adapted from an Olive magazine Christmas edition recipe and so includes quite a fancy ingredient. However, once you’ve purchased it, you may as well used it. The dish uses fairly simple staples but enhances them with the luxury product of truffle honey. This humbly lifts it a higher level. You can find it readily at M&S.

You can make the en croute as rustic or as fancy as you like. I used small plates to mark my rounds of pastry, one for the bottom and then a slightly larger one for the top, taking into account the depth of the filling I needed to cover.

What you will need
2 red onions
150g mushrooms
Thyme
1 goats cheese log cut into four slices
4 tea spoons truffle honey
1 fresh chilli
All butter puff pastry

Firstly slice the mushrooms, red onions and chilli and fry in a little oil until softened and the moisture has evaporated. Season well with salt and pepper and add the thyme.

Set aside to cool whilst you cut out four circles of puff pastry to form the bottom (10cm across) of the en croute and four slightly larger  (12cms across) rounds to form the top.

Lastly slice the goats cheese log into equal sized circles.

 

Now, to compile the en croutes. Place a couple of table spoons of the mushroom and onion mix in the centre of each base circle, leaving ½cm edge. Top with the goats cheese and then drizzle over a tea spoon of the honey.

Next, using your fingers, wet the edge of the circle.

Take each top circle and place three small slits in the centre of the circle, staying well away from the edge. Next place, each top sheet over the filling and press down at the edges to glue the two pieces together. Make sure the pastry case is sealed and flute the edges.

Place the en croutes on a baking tray and cook in the middle of a preheated oven at 180C  for 25-30 minutes until the pastry has browned.

Serve with a crisp green salad or roasted vegetables.

Cheese souffle

Gipsy Spread is a master soufflé-er. If there is such a word? If not, I have just invented in. It had been some time since he had made a cheese soufflé and strangely, prompted by my act of buying a couple of ready-made cheese soufflés at Waitrose the previous week, he set about proving his superiority in the soufflé stakes. This soufflé recipe is relatively simple and works pretty much every time. The focus is on getting the egg whites whipped just right and ensuring the soufflé mix remains full of air.

 

What you will need
3 eggs
70g cheddar
20g parmesan cheese
2 spring onions
fresh chives
40g butter
80g flour
300ml milk
1/2 tea spoon cayenne pepper

Begin by melting the butter in a saucepan. The first stage of the soufflé is to make a roux. So, once the butter has melted, slowly add the flour to bind with the butter and then slowly add the milk, stirring all the time to remove any lumps. Keep adding the milk until you have a lovely smooth roux and then add in the chives and chopped spring onions. Take the roux off the heat.

 

 

Next separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and grate the cheddar and parmesan.

Whisk the egg whites until they are light and fluffy and form soft peaks.

 

Next, carefully stir the egg yolks into the roux mix, it should have cooled slightly (you don’t want to scramble the eggs) and add the grated cheese.

Season well with salt and pepper and add the cayenne pepper.

Finally carefully fold in the egg white, making sure it is mixed through the roux.

Pour into 4 medium sized ramekins and fill right to the top and place in a preheated oven at 180C for 20 minutes. Do not open the door, but watch them rise through the glass.

 

Serve alongside some crusty bread and a fresh crisp green salad.