Brussels sprout and potato bubble and squeak

I can't claim any originality for this particular recipe as it's by Angela Hartnett, but it's great the morning after the night before. Top it with a fried egg and lots of brown sauce. Your Boxing Day hangover will thank you for it. Serves four.

50g bacon, finely chopped
1 small onion, peeled and finely chopped
50g butter
2 sprigs fresh thyme, picked
350g cooked brussels sprouts, chopped
450g cooked potatoes, lightly mashed (you can use leftover roast potatoes for this)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Plain flour, for dusting
Olive oil, for frying

In an ovenproof frying pan, lightly sauté the bacon and onion in a little butter until the onion is soft and translucent. Stir in the thyme leaves, then the sprouts and potato, and season generously. Set the pan aside and, once the mix is cool enough to handle, use your hands to mould it into four large patties.

Heat the oven to 200C/400F/gas mark 6. Dust the patties in flour, and fry lightly in butter and a touch of oil until golden brown on both sides (the oil helps prevent the butter from burning). Transfer to the oven for four or five minutes, to make sure they're heated through, and serve hot.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/dec/04/christmas-standby-recipes-angela-hartnett

Chorizo And White Bean Soup

Serves 4

This is one of those easy, versatile soups that you can play around with, use rosemary instead of thyme or add shredded cabbage or greens just before serving. Ideal for a last minute supper.

Ingredients

Glugs of olive oil
1 chorizo sausage (about 150g/5½oz), chopped
1 large onion, thinly sliced
2 celery sticks, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed and finely chopped
2 tsp chopped fresh thyme leaves
1 tsp paprika or Hot Smoked Pimenton
2 or 3 ripe tomatoes, chopped
1 litre/2 pints chicken stock
2 x 400g/14oz tins cannellini beans, rinsed and drained (or equivalent in dried beans soaked overnight and cooked)
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

1. Heat some olive oil in a large pan over high heat and cook the chorizo for 3-4 minutes until crisp. Set aside in a bowl, leaving the delish red oil in the pan.

2. Reduce the heat to medium-low, add the onion and celery to the pan and season well. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 6-7 minutes until softened. Add the garlic, thyme and paprika and cook, stirring, for 1-2 minutes until fragrant. Add the tomatoes and cook for another minute.

3. Return the chorizo to the pan with the stock and bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, for ten minutes. At this point you could add some thinly sliced cabbage to bulk it out a bit. Add the beans and cook for another five minutes.
Check the seasoning and serve with bread and lots of olive oil.

Roasted pumpkin and thyme soup

Make Halloween Soup!

Ingredients

2-3kg unpeeled pumpkin
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Extra virgin olive oil
2 medium onions, chopped
8 sprigs fresh thyme leaves only, plus extra leaves to garnish
2.25 litres/4 pints vegetable stock
300ml/½ pint single cream (Optional)
175g/6oz Gruyère cheese, coarsely grated

Preparation method
1. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6

2. Cut the pumpkin or squash into chunky wedges and scoop away all the fibres and seeds. Rub the wedges with oil, season well with salt and freshly ground black pepper, then place them into one large or two smaller roasting tins, skin-side down. Transfer to the oven to roast for 30 minutes, or until tender.

3. Remove the pumpkin from the oven and, when cool enough to handle, slice away and discard the skin and cut the flesh into small chunks.

4. Splosh some olive oil in a large pan. Add the onion and half the thyme leaves and cook gently for about ten minutes until the onion is very soft but not browned. Add the roasted pumpkin, any juices, and the stock. Cover and simmer gently for 20 minutes.

5. Leave the soup to cool slightly, then add the remaining thyme leaves and liquidise in batches until smooth. Return to a clean pan and bring back to a gentle simmer.

6. Stir in the cream (optional) and season, to taste, with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Ladle into warmed bowls and place a small handful of the grated Gruyère into the centre of each. Scatter a few more thyme leaves on top and serve.

Spaghetti Al Crudo

This is amazingly simple. I've just made a huge bowlful using some tasty tomatoes but without the capers and anchovies. It's very delish.

Spaghetti with tomatoes, olives, capers and anchovies. Crudo means raw, and in this recipe the sauce is uncooked. Look for a spaghetti with a surface that is slightly rough, rather than very shiny, because you need everything to cling to the pasta. Use quality ingredients, especially the tomatoes and basil.

Serves four (or six as a starter).

2 tbsp capers (baby ones, if possible)
4 tbsp black olives, pitted
5 anchovy fillets, finely chopped (Optional)
2 large ripe tomatoes, or 3 smaller ones (the best quality you can find), finely chopped
2 tbsp tomato passata
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
400g spaghetti
1 bunch basil
5 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

Put all the ingredients except the spaghetti, basil and half of the oil in a sauté pan and mix together, but don't heat. Taste and season.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil (use a little less salt than usual, because the anchovies will add salt later), drop in the pasta and use a fork to curl the pasta around the pan so that it gets submerged quickly. Cook for about a minute less than the time given on the packet (usually five to six minutes), until al dente. (It was 9 mins with the pasta I used.)

While the pasta is cooking, put the sauté pan containing the ingredients for the sauce over the top of the pasta pan, so the steam just warms everything up a little and the flavours start to infuse.

When the pasta is cooked, drain, but reserve the cooking water. Add the pasta to the sauté pan and toss through, adding a little of the cooking water as necessary to loosen. Add the rest of the oil and toss through again. Tear the basil leaves, scatter over and toss through again. Serve straight away.

Spicy roasted parsnip soup

Just the thing for an autumn day

Ingredients
2 tbsp olive oil
½tsp coriander seeds freshly ground
½tsp cumin seeds freshly ground, plus extra whole seeds to garnish
½ tsp ground turmeric
½ tsp mustard seeds freshly ground
2 sprigs fresh thyme. Leaves stripped and finely chopped
2 garlic cloves
500g parsnips, peeled and cut into small chunks
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 plum tomatoes, finely chopped
1.2L vegetable stock

Method
Heat oven to 220C/fan 200C/gas 7. In a bowl, mix together the oil and spices. Add the parsnip chunks, peeled garlic cloves and the thyme leaves and mix well. Spread over a heavy baking sheet, then roast for 30 mins until tender.

In a pan gently sauté the onion in some olive oil until soft but not brown. Add the chopped tomatoes and sauté for a minute or two.
Add the roasted parsnip chunks give a good stir, then turn the heat up and add half the stock. Bring to a simmer.

Put into a food processor or liquidiser and process until smooth, adding more stock as necessary. Pour back into the pan with any remaining stock, season to taste, then heat until barely simmering. Remove from the heat and serve. Garnish with whole cumin seeds.

French Onion Soup

I made this last night, much better than wearing an extra pullover in these freezing temperatures!

Serves 6

Ingredients
1½ lb (700 g) onions, thinly sliced
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 oz (50 g) butter
2 cloves garlic, crushed and finely chopped
½ -1 teaspoon soft brown sugar
2 pints (1.2 L) vegetable or beef stock.
10 fl oz (275 ml) dry white wine
2 tablespoons Cognac (Optional)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Home made chunky croutons.
Grated cheese.


Place the saucepan on a high heat and melt the oil and butter together. When this is very hot, add the onions, and sugar, and stir them well from time to time until the edges of the onions have turned dark – this will take approx 6 minutes. Then reduce the heat to its lowest setting, add the garlic and leave the to carry on cooking very slowly for about 30 minutes, by which time the base of the pan will be covered with a rich, nut brown, caramelised film.

After that, pour in the white wine, bring to the boil, add the stock, then stir with a wooden spoon, scraping the base of the pan well. As soon as it comes back to simmering, turn down the heat to its lowest setting, then leave it to cook very gently, without a lid, for about 1 hour. Season as required.

If it's extra-cold outside, add a couple of tablespoons of Cognac!

Spoon into bowls, add chunky croutons, grate cheese over the top and put under hot grill until the cheese has melted slightly.

Serve. Remember it will be VERY hot!

A Winter Warmer for Vegetarians

Vegetarian sausage hotpot with beans

Serves: 4
Prep time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 40 minutes (though the longer the better)

2 tbsp olive oil
2 medium onions, finely chopped
1 to 4 cloves garlic peeled and finely chopped
8 veggie sausages
4 baby leeks, or 2 average leeks finely sliced
2 large sprigs fresh thyme
250g cannellini beans (cooked and drained) reserve the liquid for the stock.
1½ litres vegetable stock (made using liquid from beans and 1 Knorr Veg Stock cube)
8 mushrooms (medium flat mushrooms), sliced (optional)
Hot smoked pimenton and paprika powder

1 Gently heat the olive oil in a deep pan. Add the onions and garlic and fry until softened without browning. Add the veggie sausages and gently brown them. Add the leeks and sprigs of thyme, and sauté until the leeks are soft. Turn up the heat, put in the hot pimenton (up to 2 tsps) and paprika powder (½ tsp) and stir to prevent burning. This gives the leeks and onions a lovely red/orange colour.

2 Add the beans, and stock. Bring this all to the boil, turn down and leave to simmer for as long as possible, stirring occasionally, for at least 40 minutes. The longer the better. Check and adjust seasoning. Add mushrooms (optional) and cook gently.

Serve with creamy mash.

This is one of my favourite winter comfort dishes.
I found that the best way is to fry the veggie sausages first, drain well and add back to the pan with the leeks and thyme.

Also you can add some finely chopped savoy cabbage towards the end of cooking. (I don’t!)

Mellow

The weather continues to be dank and grey. What happened to the "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness"?
I had a few days coming to terms with this yearly transition, triggered by the switch from British Summer Time to GMT. Like many others I whinged about the impending darker evenings, but luxuriated in the extra hour in bed on the Sunday morning.
However, I've now adjusted. I revel in drawing the curtains in the afternoon, the house is cosy, I'm cooking "hearty" food, having cake for tea at 4pm and my normally selective brain is insisting I "veg" in front of cr*p TV.

The mellowness continues as I dig out some of my favourite music.....