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This is one of my favorite ways to eat asparagus, simply paired with a plain old poached egg. There is no real recipe to this just cook the asparagus the way you like it. I like to simply blanche mine for a minute and the poach an egg in boiling salted water and sit it on top. Poaching for 3 minutes will give you a perfect runny yolk to dip the still crunchy spears in.
There you go a very quick and satisfying meal packed full of goodness.
Well what happend to summer? The jet stream seems to have moved and it’s now positively autumnal at times. So what better way to warm up than with my baked rigatoni with aubergine and mozzarella.
Iv’e been wondering where the sun has gone for a few weeks now as it is needed to ripen all the wonderful blackberries, blueberries and raspberries that grow wild around here and I am looking forward to foraging a few of them to make this seasons blackberry vodka. Then I have plans for some fresh raspberry jam which is just one of my favorite flavor’s of all time. It always reminds me of my childhood in Scotland and eating as many raspberries as I put in the pot from days out foraging. They were so juicy and tart, delicious.
Following on from my post about this glorious vegetable romesco. Here is a funky alternative to plain old cauliflower cheese. My Romesco & Cauliflower Cheese.
Well the weather has taken a turn for the worst today with nought but torrential rain and a cold wind. Not really summer weather so here is a comfort dish to keep you warm and cosy on these abnormal summer days. I must say though the ground does need the rain as it has been so dry for so long now. I love the vibrant green that the romesco brings to the dish and if you are wondering what it tastes like well it’s a cross between broccoli and cauliflower.
In the second of my articles on “Everyday & Sunday” I am going to look at that perennial favourite, cauliflower cheese. For some reason since time began there always seems to be a version of cauliflower cheese in every vegetarian based cookbook. I should point out though that Everyday and Sunday is not strictly a veggie cookbook but it does contain mostly vegetarian dishes.
So what did we here at Knobbly Plate like about this recipe. Well first of all it definitely fits in with the affordable bit. The whole dish cost just £6.32 to make and there was easily enough for 4 people. That’s just £1.58 a portion for this classic comfort food. The most expensive ingredient was the gruyere cheese at £2.87 so it’s possible to make the dish even cheaper by substituting that for a mild cheddar which would probably halve the cost of the cheese.
The dish was simple enough to prepare but we found that the roasting part of ths cauliflower took double the amount of time it said on the recipe. Next and this is a personal preference I like my mustard so I doubled the amount to give it a bit more zing.
Taking all this into account it was a passable version of cauliflower cheese. I think however the one big change I would make in future would be to par boil the cauliflower first as we found the roasted version just a tad chewy. I would however say that if you have had a long day at work and can’t really face cooking then this version is definitely quick and easy to get from cupboard to plate.
Yesterday was a good day. I got lots of cooking done from making bread to soup for lunch which I told you about yesterday and last night following inspiration from Malibu Kitchen’s recipe for a similar tart I decided to make a tart from ingredients in the fridge that were starting to get towards the end of their shelf life. There are quite a few ingredients in my tart which could make it a bit on the expensive side if you were to buy all the ingredients fresh. I think the point of this tart is to start with a basic pastry base a few eggs some cream and milk and then look at what you have in the fridge or in your veg basket and design your own tart from there.
I pretty much followed Malibu Kitchen’s recipe because I had most of what she has in her recipe in the fridge. I just had less of it. I did however have the remains of some wonderful samphire that I had bought form Julies Hut, my local crab and fresh fish shack here in Selsey. Can I just say at this point I absolutely love the salty taste of fresh samphire!
I decided I was not going to buy in puff pastry that the recipe originally required but make my own wholemeal pastry. Pastry is not that healthy at the best of times so making it wholemeal at least makes me feel better and I think it has a better taste to it also. I also made my tart slightly smaller so that it meant I would need one less egg and considerably less cream. I have not in the end priced this recipe up as I feel it is irrelevant as like you it is made up of odds and ends that have all been used in previous recipes. I guess though as a rough estimate for a tart that would feed 6 people the basic recipe works out at around £0.82 then you add your fillings.
It says it all in the title really. But there are those out there who simply do not like pizza. I suspect it’s because they have never made their own pizza but have always bought those horrible massed produced frozen ones from the supermarket. Even when you are just buying the base to put your own topping on your not getting that real pizza taste. Here at Knobbly Plate we absolutely love our pizza’s. They are a brilliant way to use up leftover vegetables and so so simple to make as you will see. They can also be as affordable as you like from costing just a few pence to those of you who like to add those special ingredients such as fresh anchovies and capers where the cost goes up to maybe a whole £1 for a 12 inch pizza.
Some historical facts for you now….. Here at Knobbly Plate we think facts 6 & 7 fit in with our philosophy perfectly.
