Italian Bean and Tomato Salad with Halloumi

The evenings are getting lighter and sunnier, which for me means two things - white wine consumption has gone up by at least 50%, and the stews and soups of winter have been replaced by salads. However, I'm training for my first 10k run at the moment after months without any exercise whatsoever, and my body is so alarmed by this sudden activity that I'm absolutely bloody starving all the time.

This halloumi salad was perfect this evening when I came home from a run feeling like I could eat a bear (a vegetarian bear obviously), as it's refreshing and summery while still being substantial and filling.

Serves 2-3

What you need

A 225g block of halloumi cheese
A 400g tin of butter beans
200g small tomatoes (e.g. cherry or baby plum)
A large handful of fresh basil leaves
1 clove of garlic, crushed
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
A pinch of chilli flakes
salt and pepper
A tortilla wrap per person (optional)

What to do

First make the bean and tomato salad. Empty the beans into a largish bowl and rinse off all the gungy can water. Next, blanch the tomatoes - cut a small cross shape in the base of each one, cover with boiling water for about 30 seconds, then plunge into cold water. The skins should then slip off really easily. Chop roughly into chunks and de-seed if you prefer. Add in with the beans.

For the dressing, roughly tear the basil leaves and add to the bean and tomato mix, before adding the olive oil, red wine vinegar, chilli flakes, garlic, salt and pepper. Give it all a good stir then refrigerate while you sort out the halloumi. It wants to be in the fridge for at least 15 minutes to allow all the flavours to mingle, so no rush.

Cut the halloumi into thick slices then either place under the grill or fry, as you prefer. I tend to grill them as then I'm not having to add extra fat to fry in and the heat's a bit more even.

Pile the bean salad on top of a tortilla wrap if using, then add the cooked halloumi.

Enjoy!

Asparagus Tarts

Asparagus is in season!! Although who knows, it's not really been springtime yet (not in Huddersfield anyway) so for all we know it might all be a trick and they've brought last year's lot out of the freezer.

These tarts are very loosely based on a recipe from Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries II, which you can buy here.

They look quite pretty for how ridiculously easy they are - they use ready made puff pastry so minimal effort - ideal with a salad as a summery dinner.

Makes 4 tarts

What you need

A bunch of slender asparagus spears - 8 spears for 4 tarts
a 375g pack ready-rolled puff pastry
100ml double cream
a few sprigs lemon thyme - leaves only
40g grated mature cheddar or 'parmesan'
1 egg, beaten

What to do

First, cook the asparagus. Snap off any woody stems and get some lightly salted water boiling. Plop the asparagus in - they should only need 5 minutes. Have a bowl of icy cold water waiting to immediately plunge the asparagus into once you've drained them - this will keep them nice and fresh and green-looking! It's of course fine if they sit there getting cold as they'll go back in the oven anyway.

Unroll the puff pastry from the packet, and slice vertically into 4. Score a border about a centimetre away from the edge, without cutting all the way through. Egg wash it if you like, I never do - I always feel like it's a bit of a waste of an egg! Lay the pastry out on a non-stick baking tray and put in the oven at 200 degrees for 10 minutes, just to start crisping the pastry before you add your filling.

While that's in the oven, stir together the cream, grated cheese and lemon thyme leaves, with salt and pepper to season.

When your pastry comes out from its first stint in the oven, lay the asparagus spears on - I did two per tart. Spoon over the cheese mixture, distributing evenly between the tarts. Return to the oven for a final 10 minutes, until the filling is starting to brown and the pastry is crisp.

Serve and enjoy!

Creamy Stuffed Peppers

This is ideal for when you're doing the what's-in-the-fridge maths of an evening, as you can pretty much add anything you feel like adding. Those tomatoes that have seen better days, the bunch of spring onions that are starting to shrivel - whap them in and they'll be delicious.

If you can't get the pointy Romano peppers then normal ones are fine, just the Romano ones are sweeter. I teamed with some sautéed potatoes and salad.

Serves 2

What you need

1 tbsp olive oil
2 pointed Romano peppers
a bunch of spring onions, chopped
a finely chopped green chilli
2 large tomatoes, chopped
1 clove garlic
a splash of white wine
2 tbsp cous cous
2 tbsp stock
3 tbsp double cream
50g grated hard cheese

What to do

First, prepare the peppers by halving and de-seeding them. Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees C.

Fry the chopped spring onions, chilli, tomatoes and garlic over a medium heat until softened and just starting to brown.

Stir in the cous cous, the stock and the wine and remove from the heat, covering the pan with a lid. Leave lidded for around 5 minutes to allow the cous cous to absorb the liquid, then stir in a tablespoon of the cream.

Place the pepper halves in a gratin dish and fill them with the cous cous mixture. Drizzle over the remaining 2 tablespoons of cream, and sprinkle over the grated cheese.

Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes, until the cheese is melty and browning.

Enjoy!

Veggie Burger and Sweet Potato Fries

Please note: You need a food processor to follow this recipe

Home-made veggie burgers can be a bit of a divisive subject - there are so many great pre-made versions available that the effort involved in making your own can seem unnecessary. However, they're so dead easy to knock up and hold endless room for adaptation and reinvention. Everyone's got their own 'perfect' veggie burger, and here's mine!

Additional tips: a renowned issue with veggie burgers is the difficulty getting them to hold together. This is partly just the nature of the beast and something you'll just have to put up with, but there are a couple of things you can do to improve matters.

- Make sure your pan is really hot before you add your burger, so that the side seals immediately rather than just going soggy and falling apart

- When flipping, use the biggest spatula/slice thing that you can find in your kitchen

- Try and flip them in one swift movement, like a burger ninja!

Makes around 8 burgers - enough sweet potato chips for two (the rest of the burger mix will keep in the fridge or, if already formed into patties, will even freeze!)

What you need

3 slices of bread, whizzed into breadcrumbs
1 400g tin of kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 400g tin of cannelini beans (or any other white beans!), drained and rinsed.
2 fresh green chillies, roughly chopped
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
6 spring onions, chopped
a handful of fresh coriander
1 red pepper, de-seeded and roughly chopped
an egg
2 smallish sweet potatoes (1 each - use more if you're doing the full 8 burgers)

What to do

First prepare your chips: peel the sweet potatoes and slice them into thin chips. Lay them out on an oven tray - in a single layer so they go crisp - and drizzle with oil. Put them in at 180 degrees on the middle shelf for 30 minutes.

While they're in there crisping up, make your burgers. It's pretty much as simple as slapping it all in a food processor: in go the breadcrumbs, both tins of beans, the chillies, the garlic, the spring onions, the coriander, the red pepper and the egg. Season well with salt and pepper and pulse until roughly blended.

Form into patties and roll in flour. Chill in the fridge for 10 minutes. Your chips should only have been in for about 5 to 10 minutes at this point, so you've still got time to fry your burgers.

When they've had time to chill, heat up a little bit of vegetable oil in a frying pan and fry the patties for a couple of minutes each side.

Serve in a bun with lettuce, tomato and a slice of cheese, with your chips on the side.

Paneer and Spinach Curry

I only gave paneer a try about a year ago and I love it for several reasons: it's delicious, you can fry or grill it and it keeps its shape, it's cheap and it's low-ish in fat compared to other cheeses.

You can apparently make your own at home very easily, see advice on how at We Don't Eat Anything With a Face - must confess I've never tried it myself because it's so cheap and readily available where I live, so let me know if anyone has a crack at it!

This curry isn't intended to be particularly hot so I've only included one green chilli, but if you do prefer a bit more fire you can substitute for one or more red chillies and keep the seeds in.

So that you're not stressed out trying to prep and watch the pan at the same time, it's worth doing all your chopping, grating, crushing and what have you beforehand. 

You can easily veganise this by making sure you fry in oil rather than ghee, and using either cubed tofu or pre-boiled potatoes in place of the paneer.

Serve with rice, naan, chappattis, raita... whatever you feel like!

Serves 2-3 (2 greedy people, or 2 normal appetites with leftovers)


What you need

2 tbsp vegetable oil or ghee
1 large onion, chopped
1 green chilli, de-seeded and chopped finely
a thumb sized nubbin of ginger, grated
2 large cloves of garlic, crushed
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp garam masala
1 tsp turmeric
227g pack of paneer (size as sold in Sainsburys), cut into smallish cubes
1 400g tin of chopped tomatoes
A pinch of salt
500g bag of spinach
chopped coriander to garnish

What to do

Heat up your oil or ghee over a medium heat, then add the onions, ginger, garlic and chilli. Turn down the heat a little if necessary so that you can just sweat them all together until soft rather than browning - this should take around 5-7 minutes.

Add the dry spices and cook for another minute. Stir in the tomatoes and a little salt to taste, then leave to simmer for 10-15 minutes.

While the sauce is simmering, heat up a little oil in a separate pan - preferably non-stick - then add your paneer. Keep turning it until it's brown on all sides, then set to one side. You need to add this right at the end or it'll go soggy.

Once the sauce has been simmering for a while, it should have reduced down quite a bit. This is good. Loads of water will come out of the spinach once you add it, so your sauce even needs to look a bit on the dry side.

Add your spinach - the easiest way is a handful at a time, waiting for the last handful to wilt in before adding another. Cook for another minute until all the spinach is soft and wilted in, then stir in the fried paneer.

Garnish with coriander if you're a fan, serve with whatever accompaniments you fancy, and enjoy!
 

Spinach and Feta Pie (Spanakopita)

Even if you haven't looked out of the window for several days, you will probably have been made aware from social media alone that IT IS SNOWING. It's cold and wet and inconvenient, but never mind that! Shut the curtains, stick some pictures of hot countries on the wall, make some of this tasty Greek pie and imagine you're in the Mediterranean.

This pie is dead easy, and is really adaptable to whatever you've got in the fridge - if you feel like throwing in some fresh herbs, some ricotta, some mushrooms which'll be on the turn in a couple of days, or whatever you like - it'll be perhaps less 'authentic' (so watch out for the pretentious food police) but it'll be all the better for it.

Because it's so rich I only really serve it with something simple and acidic like a tomato salad, but if you want to go all out you could do a proper Greek mezze. You can find a nice idea for an Easter Mezze of 3 different dips here, courtesy of Vegetarian Living.

What you need

olive oil
500g fresh spinach
200g feta cheese (Tesco & Co-op own brand both veggie at time of writing)
1 onion
1 clove of garlic
a generous grating of nutmeg
black pepper
ready made filo pastry (at least half what you get in a normal packet is enough)
1 medium egg

What to do 

Firstly, for those who have not cooked with spinach much in the past, don't panic at what looks like a crazy amount of spinach - it will all wilt down to a manageable amount!

Chop the onion, crush the garlic and sweat them over a medium-low heat in some of the olive oil until soft. This will take about 7-10 minutes, so in the mean time, wilt your spinach.

I find the easiest way of doing this is to put it in a colander and pour a kettle of boiling water over it, then run the cold tap over it so it's cool enough to handle. Then you need to squeeze as much water out of it as you possibly can, or your pie will be soggy! It can help to get a potato masher and squash water out of it with that. You'll probably have to do this part in batches, unless you have one massive colander.

Transfer the spinach to a mixing bowl and add: your softened onion and garlic, the nutmeg, some black pepper (I don't add salt because the feta's quite salty anyway, but you can if you want), the egg, and the crumbled feta - then give it all a good mix. Get the hands in there, everybody likes mess.

Layer a few sheets of filo pastry in the bottom of your pie dish - as many or as few as you like, I normally do about 4 - brushing each sheet with olive oil. Then add your spinach filling and layer another few sheets of filo on top, again brushing with oil.

Pop it in the oven for about 30 mins at 200 degrees C.

Enjoy!

Weekend Brunch Buttermilk Pancakes

There are few better ways to greet the day on a weekend than a stack of thick, American-style pancakes slathered in maple syrup. We're a bit late for Mother's day now, but why not give these a try over Easter bank holiday? 

This recipe is based on Delia's - which can be found here - just veggie-fied (minus lard!). 

If you want to go REALLY American-style, accompany these with some grilled rashers of veggie bacon.

Makes 10 - 14 pancakes, depending how generously you dollop the mixture! 

What you need

150g plain flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

3 eggs 

120ml buttermilk

75ml cold water

oil for frying

maple syrup to serve

- TIP - proper maple syrup is pretty expensive, so if it's bit beyond your budget Lyle's do a maple flavoured golden syrup. Not quite the same, but tastes pretty good and MUCH cheaper.

What to do

Weigh out your flour into a mixing bowl, then add the salt and baking powder.

Measure out the 120ml buttermilk into a jug, then add the 75ml cold water and stir to combine.

Add the buttermilk/water mixture a little at a time into your dry ingredients, whisking after each addition (electric or by hand). 

Add the eggs one at a time, again whisking after each one. To save time, you can just slop all the wet ingredients into the dry without all the little-by-little stuff, it just means your mixture is less likely to be lumpy. 

Heat the oil in a non-stick pan over a high-ish heat. When it's hot enough, add a tablespoon-full of batter per pancake to the pan. 

Each side only needs a couple of minutes so keep a close eye on it. While you're cooking each batch, the rest will keep warm if you put them under the grill on its lowest setting.

Stack em up, drizzle a generous amount of maple syrup over, and enjoy!