Courgette and tomato gnocchi bake

I still had a giant courgette left and some gnocchi plus a cupboard full of store ingredients. It was also really cold outside, I had been to hot yoga and I fancied something really hearty and warming.

I knocked up my quick tomato sauce, added shop bought gnocchi to it and topped with plenty of cheese. Why shop bought gnocchi? See my post of the great gnocchi making fiasco of 2013. I suspect, I might only attempt this again with a wholly different recipe in 2014 at the earliest.

What you will need

1 giant courgette (or 2 normal)

1 packet of gnocchi

1 jar of passata
3 cloves garlic
175ml red wine
1 table spoon balsamic vinegar
1 table spoon tomato puree
Cheddar

Parmesan

Simply chop the cloves of garlic. Add to some olive oil and fry gently just for a minute. Add the small jar of passata, the red wine, the balsamic vinegar, tomato puree and salt and pepper. Cook at a medium heat for 10-15 minutes until reduced and thickened

Half the courgettes and slice them lengthways into ribbons. Heat a little bit of olive oil in a pan and brown the courgettes flat on one side then the other.

Mix together the courgette with the gnocchi in a baking dish and pour over the tomato sauce and stir through.

Grate over enough cheddar and parmesan to cover the top – this will depend on the width of your casserole dish and possibly how much you like cheese!

Bake in the oven at 200 degrees for 45-50 minutes until the cheese has melted and browned and the gnocchi has cooked through.

Serve steaming hot.

Cauliflower, apple and butterbean salad

October is here, it brings with it sweetcorn, pumpkin and a bounty of Cox's apples in our household from mother in law Spread. So far, I have been taking them to work - 'an apple a day...' and all that and also trying to use them in my dinners.

Further, there is another holiday countdown with the fresh foods in the house needing to be eaten by Monday when we fly off to Borneo; what with kick starting our holiday with a lovely afternoon dim sum champagne tea (watch this space) scheduled at Crazy Bear for Saturday afternoon.

'Many birds and one stone' meant a healthy nutritious lunch with beans, cauliflower and apple in a tangy yoghurt dressing with harissa for spice to use up my fresh ingredients.

What you will need

1 head of cauliflower

2 table spoons olive oil

1 table spoon paprika

Half a head of lettuce/or a bag of mixed leaves
1 tin of butterbeans

2 Cox's apples
1 table spoon crushed walnuts

Fresh chives

Fresh mint

 

For the dressing

3-4 table spoons of plain yoghurt
1-2 tea spoons of harissa

 

Pre-heat the oven to 180C. Break the cauliflower into florets, drizzle with the oil and toss the paprika through. Season with salt and spread out in a roasting tin and roast for 40-45 mins until just tender.

 

Shred the lettuce and drain the tin of butter beans. Core the apples and slice the flesh into matchsticks.

 

When the cauliflower is cooked. Allow it to cool before piling up the lettuce, topping with the beans, cauliflower, walnuts and apples. I add a squeeze of lemon juice to the apple to stop it colouring. Top with the chopped fresh herbs and place the yoghurt (I used low fat) in the centre. Put the harissa into the centre of the yoghurt. Toss the lot together with some salad tongs and season with a bit more salt if necessary. Then serve.

 

 

Another delicious low carb lunch for me. It has been my favourite winter warmer dahl for the last couple of days. I will be back before I head to Borneo, but there will also be plenty from my travels to report here I'm sure.

Vegetarian (mozzarella and sun dried tomato) manti

I have previously blogged about the manti that I ate in Turkey over the summer. This is their version of a filled pasta topped with a tangy yoghurt sauce and spiced with paprika oil. It is very simple (especially if you are not filling your own pasta). This type of dish is very common in the middle east and Ottolenghi features a pasta shell dish in a pea and yoghurt sauce in 'Jerusalum'. I have messed around with what is the basic recipe to add a few extra textural and flavoural flourishes as inspired by Ottolenghi.

What you will need
A packet of filled pasta (I used mozzarella and sun dried tomatoes)
4 table spoons of plain yoghurt
2 cloves garlic
2 table spoons olive oil
1 tea spoon paprika
1/2 tea spoon sumac (optional)
1/2 tea spoon chilli flakes
A handful of pine nuts
Fresh lemon thyme

Firstly chop the garlic and add to the yoghurt and season with a little bit of salt.

Next cook the pasta as per packet instructions. This usually requires boiling for 2-3 minutes until cooked through.

Whilst the pasta is cooking, heat the oil through and add the spices and chilli flakes along with the pine nuts to brown slightly for a minute.

Serve the pasta topped with the garlic yoghurt and the spiced oil and pine nuts. Garnish with the lemon thyme.

The Page restaurant, Koh Samui, Thailand

Gipsy Spread and I tend to like to go away for our birthdays. Indeed, it is often related to the gifts that we give each other. As you know, we were in the South of France this year for Gipsy Spread's birthday, but last year we were in Thailand. Gipsy Spread had the luxury of enjoying his birthday in Koh Samui and I had made a reservation for dinner at The Page restaurant on the beach. It is part of a Design Hotel (The Library) in  Koh Samui. It was a modern addition to the fine dining scene in the area, combining thai with international foods to create a fusion menu. 

We were seated on the beach, which was lit with bamboo torches. They also released chinese lanterns along the length of the beach over the course of the evening.

As for the food, we received a delicious tomato, balsamic and feta cheese canape to start. Compliments of the chef of course. They also had an entirely seperate vegetarian menu - yes, a whole menu for vegetarians, not the usual after-thought dishes.



I had the deliciously crisp and light spring rolls with a selection of dips for starter, whilst Gipsy Spread, birthday boy opted for the thai chilli beef salad.





We also received a refreshing lemongrass sorbet as a palate cleanser between dishes.

Gipsy Spread opted for the thai green curry. In his defence, it was his first of the holiday, at his birthday meal. I had the thai massaman vegetable curry - of which, I sadly have no photo.

We then ended the meal sharing an ice cream with shortbread biscuits and a tropical fruit creme brulee.

The Library and The Page were exquisite in design and also in the execution of their food. The setting was very tranquil, off the main strip. I'd highly recommend this for a refined thai meal by the sea. I do like the idea of staying at the Hotel, however I preferred the location of ours which was out of the main town. Worth a visit if you are in this part of the world.

Bridges restaurant, Ubud, Bali

We had the most amazing honeymoon in Bali over new year 2011/12. We split our time out there between two of the finest Alila Hotel resorts. The first half was spent in a coconut mangrove by the coast, with the latter half spent in the jungle of the artisan village of Ubud. It was then in the second half of our honeymoon, on our final night in Bali that we visited Bridges. It was rated as the best place to eat in Ubud on Tripadvisor and was recommended by the hotel. It also has the most extensive wine menu in Ubud. We were sold.

We had decided to visit the monkey temples in the Town, have our final bargain spa treatment in the village (mine was a pedicaure) and then head to Bridges for dinner. I have provided some gratuitous photos of the monkeys below.

The restaurant is set on a bridge. It is decorated in the old colonial style and our Hotel had arranged for us to be seated at the best table in the restaurant, looking over the bridge which is covered in foliage. We watched the sun go down as we dined by candle light in this beautiful and romantic setting.

The restaurant was fairly busy and we were lucky to have made a reservation ahead. They had been told we were honeymooners and like all the other service we received in Bali, this was excellent.

 

The food was Asian fusion and beautifully presented. I had some raw vegetable rolls with some fresh and fragrent dipping sauce. My main was a millefeuille of mushrooms and potato with a parmesan crumble and asparagus. We drank a local rose wine.

 

 

They brought out the celebratory platter below  before we ordered our desserts.

 

So, if you are ever in Ubud, I would recommend heading to Bridges. It is the pricier restaurant option in Town, however it is much more reasonable than you would pay in the UK for an equivalent dining experience. These photos bring back great memories of my culinary journey through Bali. I can most definitely picture Julia Roberts, her entourage and the crew dining here whilst filming 'Love, Pray, Eat' just down the road. 

Silk Restaurant

I have always been an avid food photographer when eating out and I wanted to provide a retrospective on some of the fabulous meals I have eaten in the past. I have sampled a fabulous degustation menu by the beach and a 'picnic' on the edge of rice paddies in Bali; as well as on a pagoda by the sea in Thailand. Some of these restaurants are Michellin star equivalent, however this grading does not exist further afield than Europe. I find it's a great opportunity to sample high end fine dining as well as what the locals eat when travelling.

Anyway, the first of my retrospectives is of the London based Michellin recommended Indian fusion restaurant Silk.

The restaurant is within the old Courthouse Doubletree Hotel in Great Marlborough Street. The wood panelled courtroom setting (which was the old Magistrates Court) was home to the trials of Oscar Wilde, Mick Jagger and John Lennon.

The restaurant aims to take diners on "a culinary journey down the historic 'Silk Route'". The Head Chef Rajesh Parmar and his team produce seasonally inspired menus of locally and internationally sourced ingredients.

When we went with Sister and Brother in law Spread, we were seated in the famous dock. Some of the selection at the time included the paneer kofta starter for me; brother in law Spread tucking into the signature scallops seasoned with Kaffir lime leaf on strawberry salsa & refreshing chilli, cilantro coconut froth and main dishes of a fillet of beef, sea bream fillets with fresh red chilli Krachai (lesser ginger) and garlic and paneer.

The Hotel also still has the original cells which are now recesses with seating in the bar. Well worth a visit before dinner, as is the rooftop bar with views over central London.



 

Sun dried tomatoes, pine nut and chilli stuffed courgettes

The food shop arrived and I had ordered some courgettes by weight. What I got was two giant gourds. Slicing these fellas would have provided me with many a drinks coaster. So I decided to stuff whole. The courgette was going to be the star of this dish, not the support act.

What you will need

2 large courgettes

1 slice of bread

1 handful of pine nuts

1 onion

2 cloves garlic

4-6 sundried tomatoes

1 tea spoon chilli flakes

40g parmesan

Fresh lemon thyme

Fresh basil

Slice the courgettes in half lengthways. Use a knife to score the flesh in a diamond shape, cutting about two thirds of the way through. Salt the courgette flesh and add a drizzle of olive oil.

Heat the oven to 200 degrees and bake the courgette for 20-30 minutes (depending on size) until the flesh has softened.

Scoop the softened flesh out of the middle of the courgette.

Next, blend the bread into breadcrumbs and add the chopped onion, garlic, chilli flakes and parmesan. Stir through the pine nuts and the fresh herbs.

Mix in the chopped courgette flesh and fill the inside of the courgettes.

Return to the oven for another 20 minutes, until the filling has crisped and browned and the flavours have worked their way through the courgette.

Serve with a side salad or some roasted potatoes.

Spicy hasselback sweet potatoes

I love sweet potatoes in place of the usual white potatoes. Their flavour also works really well topped with spices and chilli. I found this recipe for sweet potatoes on the Good Food website. It used chipotle paste instead of the chilli spices I'm using, but I didn't have any, so I have adapted this receipe.  I like to call these hedgehog potatoes for obvious reasons.

They are also much healthier, as they have a lower GI than white potatoes. I'll be in swimwear again in two weeks in Borneo. Remember all those macarons I've been baking!

What you will need

4 sweet potatoes

2 table spoon olive oil

1 tea spoon paprika
1 tea spoon cayenne pepper
1/2 tea spoon of dried chilli flakes

Zest and juice 1 lime

Fresh coriander

 

Heat the oven to 180C. Take a small slice out of the potatoes across their middle at an angle and about three-quarters of the way through. These should be at regular intervals. Brush them with ½ table spoon of the olive oil and bake in the oven for 35-40 mins. What you see below is papa, mama and baba sweet potato.

 

Seperately, mix together the rest of the oil, the spices, lime zest and juice.

 

After 40 minutes, remove the potatoes from the oven and brush all over, and down into the slits, with the spicy lime mix. Return them to the oven for another 15-20 mins or until cooked through.

 

 

I served these with a fragrant and tangy sweetcorn succotash and some deliciously salty feta cheese.

Succotash (sweetcorn and broad beans)

This is great as a starter, but also as a side dish. The dish is eaten in Southern America and orginates from native America. I was making some baked spiced hasselback (aka hedgehog) sweet potatoes and felt the chillies, spices and herbs of the succotash would work well with it.

Gipsy Spread also loves the word/name 'succotash' - he finds it amusing!

What you will need

1 tin of sweetcorn

1 onion

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1 tin of broad beans

1 red chilli

Fresh sage

Fresh mint

1-2 tea spoons cider vinegar

This is really simple, but also different to a sweetcorn salsa. Chop the onion and garlic and soften in a tiny bit of oil for 5-10 minutes. Add the drained tins of sweetcorn and broad beans, along with the chopped red chilli and the cider vinegar. Heat the mixture through and evaporate the vinegar. Add the chopped fresh herbs, stir through and serve.

 

Laduree lemon macarons

So, yes I baked macarons last week as a leaving gift for my old colleagues. Well, it’s exciting times in the Gipsy Toast household as Gipsy Spread is also starting a new job. So, this of course meant that he wanted to take macarons in as a farewell treat for his colleagues. So I offered to make them for him.

Anyway, in terms of expanding my repertoire and the ongoing search for the perfect macaroon recipe, I typed, hit ‘enter’, flicked through pages of baking books and historical editions of Olive magazine; the latter of which put me at serious risk of paper cuts. I also wanted to make lemon macaroons and I was not sure how to make these. I was concerned that adding lemon juice and/or zest to the previous recipe I used would affect its precision to mal-effect. Then I hit proverbial gold.

I came across the Laduree cookbook ‘Sucre’. Now the Parisian tea room, famous for its macarons was sharing its recipe for lemon macarons with me. This was definitely worth a go. It also did not require the making of sugar syrup and adding to egg whites a la Lorraine Pascale. I was about to attempt my Everest.

The proportions below are very precise because they are half that outlined in the recipe as I didn't need (although who needs?) to make 50 macarons and I was unwilling to round up. Also, I used shop bought lemon curd and did not make my own.

What you will need
137.5g ground almond flour
125g icing sugar
3 egg whites + a quarter egg white.
105g granulated sugar
Yellow food colouring
Lemon curd

Mix the almond flour and icing sugar in a food processor then sieve.

Whisk three egg whites until they foam then add the sugar slowly to the whites. They should stiffen, but do not need to form stiff peaks. You should however, still be able to hold them over your head. I whisked mine in my Magimix for about 5 minutes.

Fold the sifted almond flour and icing sugar into the egg whites. Add the food colouring. Beat 1/4 egg white and add to the mixture. Mix everything well, to remove all the air that is captured in the mix. This is counter-intuitive to meringue bakers, but necessary for macaroons. It is ready when the mix tumbles from the spoon in ribbons and the surface should flatten out to leave no peaks.

I don't have a piping bag, so filled a food bag with the mix. I pushed this into a corner and twisted the top to tighten. Cut a 1cm hole and pipe small rounds (3-4cm) of the mixture onto baking parchment. A small circular motion works well. Once piped, lift the tray and drop to the work surface 2-3 times to remove any air bubbles that might be left in the mix.

Now the most important bit, leave the macaroons for at least 30 minutes to enable a skin to form on their surface.

Preheat the oven to 150°C fan, then bake for 12-15 minutes. I once again kept an eye on these and opened and closed the door at 4 and 8 minutes to release any steam.

Remove baking tray from the oven. You can apparently pour a tiny amount of water in between the tray and the parchment paper, so the macaroons peel off easily. I gave it a whirl and it did seem to work.

When cool, place half the macaroon shells upside down on a plate. Pipe a coin of lemon curd onto the macaroon shells and top with another shell.

So, eat your heart out Kirsty and Phil. The two macaron recipes that I have perfected will now enable me to have my own 'hand-made christmas'. Watch out anyone who knows me, as you will be receiving macarons for christmas this year. In fact, I think I will now go and purchase my own piping bag and nozzle!