MEATLESS MUSHROOM MEATLOAF

This is a game changer recipe!  I dare any meat lover to realise this is vegan!  A great family diner for those meatless Mondays.  GreenForce’s vegan pea based mince mix is outstandingly brilliant and easy to use, just add some seared mushrooms in olive oil with onions and garlic a dash of ketchup or brown sauce and Worcestershire sauce for a great meatloaf, this mix also makes a brilliant Salisbury steak too.

Now the debate for the tomato topping!  If your in a hurry then a good farmers market ketchup will do the trick, but a lovely saucy marinara is a whole other level giving not just a lovely top to the meatless loaf but extra sauce to mop up while eaten with buttery mashed potatoes, perfect.  If you want to use a marinara sauce make this first, recipe below.

Prep time 5 minutes / Cooking time 30 minutes

Ingredients 

(serves 4-6)

200g chestnut mushrooms finely diced

1 onion finely diced

3 cloves garlic finely diced

1 tbsp olive oil

1 pinch sea salt and black pepper

2 tbsp tomato ketchup or HP brown sauce

1 dash Worcestershire sauce

1 pack of GreenForce Vegan Mince Peas and Love

Heat a skillet medium hot, add the olive oil onions and garlic soften without colouring for around 7 minutes, add the mushrooms and cook for a further 5 minutes, remove from the heat and leave to one side.  To make the mince add 300ml of very cold water to the pack of greenforce pea mince along with your sautéed mushrooms, season and add the tomato ketchup or brown sauce depending on your taste and a dash of the Worcestershire sauce, popthe mix in the fridge for 30 minutes.  Free form as your loaf of press in to a dish.  Pre heat your oven 180 C.

For a speedy dinner paste the top with ketchup pop in the oven for 30 minutes, at 20 minutes paste the top again with more tomato ketchup and finish baking.  If you want to use a saucy marinara make the sauce first, top a generous layer on your meatless loaf and bake.

Marinara Sauce

50ml olive oil

1 tbsp butter

1 small onion finely diced

2 cloves garlic

2 tins of tomatoes crushed

1 tbsp tomato purée

100 ml good red wine

50 ml dry white wine

1/2 tsp Italian herb seasoning 

Pinch Himalayan sea salt 

Pinch fresh ground black pepper

1 tsp sugar (optional if needed)

Make your marinara, heat a pan medium hot add the olive oil and butter once melted add the onion and garlic and soften for eight minutes, add the tomato purée and cook for a couple of minutes, the add the wine and bring to a bubbling simmer, add the tomatoes and leave to cook on a low simmer for at least 30 minutes if you can, this is to cook out the acidity of the tomatoes.  No time to simmer then adding the sugar will cut the acidity.  

I use Italian San Manzano tomatoes as they are less acidic.  I also often make my marinara the day before making a big batch and leaving it to slowly cook out for several hours.  This is the also the base for many other meals and stores well in the freezer for quick future use.

BRANSTON PICKLE

As close to the ORIGINAL recipe so far!  Loving self sufficient living.

I love this time of the year the gardens over producing and I get to preserve and can produce for the coming months.  This is a pretty darn close recipe to the famous original pickle that we love and grew up on, the classic Somerset cheddar cheese and pickle sandwich and of course the pubs famous ploughman’s lunch.

All the ingredients are homegrown from my garden except the spices, sugar and lemon juice.  Yes I have homemade vinegar, apple cider and rhubarb, but don’t be too impressed I was actually making wine which turned into vinegar due to temperature variation over the years fermentation!  However I have used malt vinegar for this recipe as I was trying to be as close to the original as possible.

I haven’t used a malt barley caramel flavouring and colouring or the corn starch thickener as shown on the ingredients list on the jar of the original for this recipe but I can see why the original is darker in colour and slightly thicker in consistency.

1 hour prep time / 1 hour cooking time / 10 minutes canning time / 3 months resting time

Ingredients

(makes 15 small jars)

1 generous glug olive oil

2 onions finely chopped

300g finely diced carrots

1 swede peeled finely chopped

5 cloves of garlic

150g chopped dates or apricots

1 cauliflower finely chopped

1 marrow peeled, deseeded and finely chopped

4 apples peeled finely diced

15 small dill pickles finely chopped

2 tbsp tomato paste (optional)

600g dark brown sugar

900ml malt vinegar 

1 generous tsp Himalayan sea salt

4 tbsp lemon juice

2 tsp mustard seeds or powdered mustard

2 tsp ground all spice

1/2 - 1 tsp cayenne pepper (to taste)

Heat a cast iron pan medium hot, add the olive oil, onions and garlic and soften for 10 minutes, add the rest of the chopped ingredients and stir through, add the rest of the ingredients and bring to a simmer, cook for around 1 hour until the swede and carrots are soft but retain that crunch, I ate some of the original to compare the depth of crunch.

To can, heat your jars in a roasting tin in the oven at 170 C / 320 F for five minutes until very hot to sterilise, remove and now pop the lids in for five minutes.  While the lids are sterilising fill the jars leaving 1 - 2 cm headspace, (headspace is the gap from the pickle to the top of the jar), pop the lids on and place all the jars back in the roasting tin and pop the tray into the oven for ten minutes only, this is just to ensure a good seal for storage over the many months.

All jars lids depression button should ping down once the jars have cooled confirming a correct and safe seal for storage, any jars that do not keep in the fridge and use over the next few weeks.

MARROW CURRY

Got a glut of marrows !

This is a great curry recipe in fact it is that good it will now be a regular over summer for using up our excess marrows when we have a glut of them.  This curry is great as a main dish or as a side dish.  Serve with mango chutney, fresh coriander and gorgeous flatbreads for scooping.

Ingredients

(serves 4 mains)

1 glug olive oil or tbsp ghee

1 onion finely chopped

1 clove garlic chopped

1 tsp mild curry powder

1 tsp madras curry powder
1 tsp Garam masala

1 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp turmeric

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1 large marrow peeled, deseeded and diced

1 tbsp white wine vinegar

1 tsp tomato paste

1 cup vegetable stock

5 tomatoes roughly diced

1/2 tsp dried chilli flakes

Salt and black pepper to taste

Small bunch fresh coriander chopped

Flat Breads 1-48 hrs in Advance

500g 00 flour (blue caputo)

15g yeast (optional)

10g Himalayan sea salt 

50g olive oil}

320g water

The Curry

Heat a pan medium hot, add the ghee or olive oil, soften the onions and garlic for 10 minutes keeping them translucent, add the curry powders, cumin, turmeric and ginger, stir in and cook for a couple of minutes, add tomato paste and white wine vinegar, cook for a further couple of minutes, add the vegetable stock and chopped tomatoes. Cook the sauce for 5 minutes, add the marrow and cook until tender and your sauce has thickened to a coating consistency around 10 minutes, stir in the garam masala and fresh coriander and serve with mango chutney and flat breads.

Flatbreads

Place all the ingredients in a mixing bowl and either by hand or by machine with a dough hook mix for seven minutes, then dust a little flour over the dough mix and gently form into a ball, cover the bowl with a tea towel and leave in a warm area to prove for 1-2 hours until doubled in size if you want to use immediately, then other options are leave to prove slowly in the fridge for 24hrs, this is what I do as it gives me much more control over time and usage, this will keep for 48hrs in the fridge ready to go when you are, you can also freeze any left over dough at this stage, then when ready to use remove from the freezer defrost and once up to room temperature use as you would fresh.

 Take a oversized golf ball piece of dough, dust your work top with a little 00 flour, roll into a ball and roll out a large disk no bigger than your skillet if your not cooking in a wood fired oven, heat to a hot heat, place the flat bread in the pan and cook for one and a half minutes on each side, keep warm by wrapping in a tea towel until serving, these flatbreads are best served warm but are almost as good used later the same day, to use the following day dip the flat breads in water and pop in a pre heated oven for 3-5 minutes and Ta-Da almost as good as fresh.

ROASTED BEETROOT CARAMELISED ONION AND ORANGE TART TATIN

Garden Grown Food

This was such a sweet pleasure to cook and eat from the vegetable garden, lots of excitement wondering down the garden looking for the biggest beets to pick then the earthy sweet roasted beetroot smell from the oven filling the kitchen, followed by anticipation when tossing the beets with the orange zest, apple cider vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper and layering with the caramelised brown sugar red onions then all enveloped under a deep layer of rough puff pastry, baked and turned upside down to serve, finished off with crumbled goats cheese, thyme sprigs and orange zest this was a triumph from the garden.

This recipe has a brilliant and super speedy rough puff pastry recipe, that delivers a great rise and lightness with minimal effort, not something I often do but on this occasion I was super tight on time and this pastry delivered on all points.  This now questions experimenting on my long slow efforts versus short cuts which I generally avoid…interesting…

The history, well the story behind this famous tatin is the sister Stephanie was making a apple tart but forgot to line the tin with the pastry, so not wanting to waste the apples she just laid the pastry on top of the apples, baked and turned the tart upside down to serve and so the famous tart tatin was created!

Prep time 15 minutes / 1hr 30 minutes cooking baking time

Ingredients 

(serves 3-4)

Tart Tatin

7 large beetroots

1 orange juiced and zested

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

Himalayan sea salt 

Fresh ground black pepper 

1 red onion

1 tbsp dark brown sugar

100g crumbly goats cheese

3 fresh thyme sprigs for decoration

The Rough Puff Pastry

400g plain flour

200g cold butter cubed

150ml ice cold water

1 tsp sea salt

1 beaten egg wash

Pre heat your oven 200 C / 410 F

First place your trimmed top and tailed beetroots in the oven to roast for 40 to 60 minutes until a knife just slips in softly. Then Gently peel the skins off.

Meanwhile…make the rough puff pastry, roughly and lumpy rub the butter into the flour, you still want small lumps not breadcrumbs, add the salt and water, mix and just bring the dough together, wrap in parchment paper and rest in the fridge for half an hour, while the pastry is resting caramelise the onions, add a dash of olive oil to a pan, gently pan fry the onions for 10 minutes then add the brown sugar and caramelise for a further ten minutes stirring occasionally.

In a large bowl place the olive oil, orange juice, apple cider vinegar, salt and pepper and once the beetroots are peeled toss in and coat.

To assemble the tart tatin, choose a cast iron or non stick frying pan around 6-8” place your caramelised onion in first, then assemble your beetroot, now this is personal, whole, halved, presentation round side up or flat side up, sliced or quartered?  Just remember the base will be the top! place the pastry lid on top and gently tuck the edges down and around tucking all the edges down towards the base of your pan to create a hugged pastry case.  Brush the beaten egg over the pastry, bake in the oven for approx 30 minutes until golden and all puffed up.  Remove from the oven and leave to cool for five minutes, don’t leave much longer before turning the tart out as the brown sugar cools it gets caramelised sticky and can prevent the tart from coming out of the pan.

To turn out place a board or plate over the pan and turn over, gently tap to release the tart, decorate with the crumble goats cheese, orange zest and sprigs of thyme, enjoy.