Category Archives: Recipes

Foodie Penpals

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Last month I finally signed up to Foodie Penpals - a great parcel exchange idea organised by This is Rock Salt who I had the pleasure of meeting late last year.

How does it work? Each month you are assigned a penpal to send a gift of £10 value to, and in return a penpal sends you a gift. There is some email exchange beforehand so you can give your dietary requirements or requests if you want!

My two penpals were both UK based so I didn’t request anything special, and neither did my penpal. I stupidly forgot to take a photo of my parcel before I sent it off, and my penpal doesn’t blog – but here is what I sent: whiskey tablet from The Good Spirits Co, Glasgow. I had popped in there to pick up some Nucoco chocolate as I was going for a locally produced (in Glasgow) theme! I got a bag of the dark chocolate (70%) chocolate drops which you can use to make hot chocolate – but recommend eating them with yoghurt! Added to the parcel were some Scottish oatcakes, as well as two small taster bottles of Auchentoshan (single malt Scotch whisky made just outside of Glasgow). I hope my penpal liked everything she got!

Here is a picture of the parcel I received:

Foodie pen pal parcel

I could smell the popcorn from outside the box! It was pretty enticing, I’ve never received a popcorn-smelling-parcel before. My penpal obviously had a wee peek at the blog and saw that I like all things healthy and natural! In it there is Pearled Spelt, a couple of Munchy Seeds, Chorley Cakes and Eccles Cakes as well as the two bags of homemade popcorn. Because life has been chaotic I haven’t had a chance to try anything apart from the popcorn (YUM!) but I look forward to trying it all this week.

Thanks to This is Rock Salt for organising such a huge endeavour  and thanks to my penpal for my great parcel. Head over to her blog if you’re keen on taking part yourself.

What would you send if you were sending a foodie parcel to someone?

 

Chicken and feta sausage rolls

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This recipe is my go-to saviour for when I need to make something to take a dish along to a party or gather. I am not a baker in the traditional sense (I could happily live a cake-free existence if required) so I always like to take something savoury. I also have a load of friends who are way better at making cakes than I’ll ever be!

A friend of mine suggested it to me, and after making it once I was hooked. These will convert people who will proclaim “but I don’t like sausage rolls!”. Well, if they like chicken, they will love these. I did start wondering whether a “sausage roll” is still a sausage roll if it’s made from chicken. Hmm, tough philosophical question … I’ll come back to that another day (or you can comment below and let me know what you think!)

Top view of the sausage rolls

500g minced chicken meat
1 small eshallot, finely chopped
grated zest ½ lemon
4 tablespoons chopped rocket
4 tablespoons fresh breadcrumbs
½ teaspoon chilli flakes
100g feta cheese crumbled
2 sheets ready rolled puff pastry
1 egg, beaten

Combine all ingredients except pastry and egg and mix well with your hands. Season well with salt and pepper. Halve each sheet of pastry. Divide meat into 4 sausages the length of the pastry, and place one slightly off-centre on each strip. Brush one edge of pastry strip with beaten egg and then fold over the other to enclose sausage meat. Press down to seal with the back of a fork. Brush with beaten egg. Cut each roll into 2 or 3 smaller sausage rolls, and prick each with a fork. Repeat with the rest of the pastry and meat. Chill for at least 30 minutes. Bake in preheated 220°C oven for 25 minutes, or until golden. Serve warm. Makes 8-12.

Side view of the sausage rolls

The recipe is originally from The Australian.

In the UK it can be hard to find chicken breast minced, so I just buy breasts and put them in the magic bullet to mince them up. Works perfectly! I then do the same with the rocket and crumble the feta by hand. If you make these, be sure to comment and let me know if you loved them. These always go down a treat at a party!

Tomato and butter pasta sauce

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I read about this recipe while we were in Australia, I can’t remember where from now but there are lots of recipes floating around. It is impressively simple, and yet packs a huge flavour punch. Give it a try one night when you need a comfort meal like a hug, and can’t really be bothered cooking anything more complicated.

Tomato and butter pasta

Tomato and butter pasta

Ingredients:

2 x 400 gram tins of tomatoes (preferably whole tomatoes, and a fancy brand if you feel like lashing out)
4 tbs of butter
Pasta – any kind works well. I used a packet of casareccia pasta which I got at the Zizzi launch – they use it in a pasta dish with chicken, tomato and spinach. It is a really lovely pasta that is soft and delicate, and holds the sauce really well.

  1. Simply melt the butter in a saucepan, and add the tomatoes. Bash them a little bit so they break up. Leave the sauce to simmer for about 45 minutes.
  2. Serve over your (cooked) pasta. Don’t overload the pasta with sauce – you want a nice coating but not drowning in sauce.

You might be reading this and thinking “but that’s it?!” … yes, that’s it. The butter and tomato taste amazing together, and sometimes it’s the simple recipes that really rock your world. I dare you to try it and tell me what you think of it.

Rice paper rolls

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I am a huge fan of rice paper rolls and make them every now and then for lunch or dinner. What is great is that you can put whatever you want in them, there is no set recipe. I made them last night, and a few people asked me how they’re made so I thought I’d put this post up!

Rice paper rolls

Rice paper rolls

Ingredients:

  • Rice paper roll sheets – I use Blue Dragon brand which you can buy at Whole Foods Giffnock
  • Protein filling – last night I used cooked prawns, I have also used cooked chicken and tinned tuna in the past. Any meat would work well and perhaps something like tofu if you are vegetarian
  • Noodles – I use vermicilli or any kind of thin rice noodle
  • Vegetables – again, feel free to use what you have. I used carrot (pickled in soy and rice vinegar) and green capsicum (pepper)
  • Herbs – fresh mint and coriander are absolutely heavenly
  • Sauce – you can either make a dipping sauce, or a sauce to include in the wrap. I made satay sauce from crunchy peanut butter, coconut cream, mint and soy sauce.

Method:

  1. I started off by prepping the prawns. They were already cooked, so I just marinated them in some lime juice (half a lime for around 300 grams of prawns). 
  2. For the noodles, I had got a packet from Asda which just required a zap in the microwave for a minute. I did this early on so they wouldn’t be warm when it came to wrapping up the rolls.
  3. Chop your capsicum (pepper) – long thin strips work best.
  4. Pickle the carrot – this is totally optional. You could just use carrot as it is, but I really love pickled carrot. I used 1tbs of rice vinegar and 1tbs of soy sauce for 1 large sized carrot, shaved with a speed peeler.
  5. Make up your sauce. I used around 2tbs of peanut butter, and then about 2tbs of coconut cream, 1tbs of soy and a sprinkle of mint. Just mix it all up until it has a loose consistency.
  6. Chop up all the herbs.
  7. Then you’re ready to go! The rice paper sheets have instructions on them – simply put a sheet in warm water for around 15 seconds. Then transfer onto a clean tea towel and dab off the excess water. Put on some noodles, capsicum, carrot, prawns, then the sauce and prawns in a pile in the top, middle of the sheet.
  8. Wrap by starting with the bottom, fold it up and over the filling. Then fold over the left hand size, and roll.
Rice paper roll

Rice paper roll

Based on what we ate last night – one person could eat around 3 of these for dinner. We ate 4 each and that was a bit too much really! To make 8 rice paper rolls we used 300g of prawns, one capsicum, one carrot and one small bag of rice noodles. These are great for a super fresh tasting dinner when you feel like something that will refresh you. I also love a no-cook dinner every now and then.

Please let me know if you try them and if you come up with any different combinations!  

Portuguese Caldo Verde (kale and chorizo soup)

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I have become a bit of a soup addict, as I mentioned recently. I love how you can make a batch and it lasts for so many meals. And it’s a really lovely winter warmer, as everyone knows! I was recently contacted by Sunvil to make one of their supper club recipes - Portuguese Caldo Verde, or kale and chorizo soup.

Simmering away on the stove

I love kale, and Graeme loves chorizo so I was excited to try this recipe. It was easy enough to make as you can see from the recipe – it didn’t need too much attention while it was simmering away on the stove. As the chorizo cooks in the soup, it releases some of its spices to give it a lovely warming flavour.

This recipe made about 6 servings of soup which kept us going all weekend! Some simple changes you could make would be to use sweet potato rather instead of potato, and for a vegetarian friendly dish just omit the chorizo. You’d then want to include some paprika in with the onions to give it the flavour that the chorizo would normally provide!

Portuguese Caldo Verde soup

Thanks to Sunvil for sharing this recipe with us. I’m adding it to our folder to make again when we are back from Australia!

Sunvil provided a gift voucher to buy the ingredients with. Thank you!

Book review – I Quit Sugar Cookbook

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I got lots of lovely nice feedback on Twitter about my I Quit Sugar post! Thanks to everyone who tweeted – your feedback was really nice and uplifting.

I thought I’d do a follow up post about what you actually eat on the I Quit Sugar programme. As I’ve been doing it for a while now, I am getting more inventive so will do a few of my own recipe posts in the upcoming months.

So here are a few things I’ve made, so you can get an idea of what you’d be eating if you gave it a try.

Coco-nutty Granola

Coco-nutty granola on pancakes (made from eggs, cottage cheese & oats)

Sarah has posted on her website the recipe for her granola – she says this is her most popular recipe from the Cookbook. I think this is because it is so easy, very delicious and easy to adapt to whatever you have in the cupboard. I have made this a couple of times, and I really enjoy it as well. It is great with yoghurt and berries for breakfast or a snack.

Straight out of the oven: coco-nutty granola

Fennel soup

Fennel soup with chicken, yoghurt and Parmesan

I was browsing the Cookbook as I had some fennel, but wasn’t sure how I could use it. To make this recipe I just needed leeks so I went ahead and made it. I am slowly becoming a soup addict – I used to find soup always left me hungry, but that was because I was eating the tinned variety. When you make your own soup and control what goes in, I find it is more satisfying.  I made this soup and then added in some extras at the ended – shredded chicken, Parmesan and yoghurt. But the soup on its own was delicious and I can’t wait to make this again. I ended up with about 5 servings from this recipe as well and it freezes really well, which makes it great for when you forget to make lunch.

Hash

Sweet potato, pumpkin seed crush

The best way to describe the hash recipes is that it’s just a mix of a variety of vegetables and nuts in whatever combinations you like. The first hash I made pretty much followed Sarah’s recipe and had sweet potato and pumpkin seeds in it and topped with yoghurt. It looked more like a dessert than a dinner! I put it in a bowl and struggled to finish it – it was really filling. It is also great to use up whatever you have in your fridge like herbs with a nice refreshing lemon dressing. This also makes a great, quick lunch to take to work if you have cooked the vegetables in advance. You could also add in bacon bits, shredded chicken, cheese or tuna to add in more protein.

Crushes/pesto

Pea and almond crush

I am addicted to crushes and pestos now. These are such a great way of eating more raw vegetables while still having a snack or meal that fees like a treat. I have it on toast, mixed into a hash, used as a pasta sauce, as a dip or as a pizza base. They are versatile and could really be used for anything! My husband isn’t a huge fan of the pea crush but I really like it – it has a tangy zing from the lemon and Parmesan.

Sweet stuff

The Cookbook also has a section of sweet treats – sugar free desserts to enjoy without feeling guilty. I made the cheesecake which we took to a friend’s house a while back. The judges were split – two of us liked it, and two didn’t. It was very savoury! It was the first time I’d used stevia and I don’t think I put enough in. I also can’t get used to the taste of stevia and will try xylitol when I finish our carton of stevia (we are currently using it up to make mojitos!).

The Cookbook warns about going overboard with the sweet stuff – so these are sometimes treats, not daily ones! Thankfully I don’t have too much of a sweet tooth so just make do with a small piece of 70-85% chocolate when needed.

Hopefully that is a useful insight into the recipes in the eBook. There are loads more! Generally, the recipes contain lots of nuts, coconut, vegetables and avocado. Some ingredients I haven’t been able to find in shops (such as almond flour) so some recipes I haven’t been able to try. But overall, I like the recipes and they are generally really quick and easy to make. I preferred reading the eBook and then the Cookbook to see all the things I could eat. I think they are much better when read in conjunction as they help you stay on track and remember why you’re trying to quit sugar.

If you’re interested in I Quit Sugar, you can check out the bundle using this link, which as I mentioned in my last post is an affiliate link, meaning I get some money because you buy the book via me. The eBook and Cookbook are both 50% to celebrate Australia Day until Tuesday 29 January – so get in while it’s super cheap!

I’ve got lots more posts for you this week – including my long overdue review of Nachos Southside and a couple of cookbook reviews! Let me know if you have any questions on IQS below, or via twitter.

(All the images here are photos I have uploaded to instragram, in case you were wondering about the filters!)

Guest post for Eat Balanced: Pumpkin Salad

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Please visit Eat Balanced to check out my guest post!

For this I did a pumpkin salad recipe, inspired by Sarah Wilson. I’ve been cooking a lot with coconut oil recently so roasted the pumpkin with that, and served it as a salad with spinach and yoghurt.

Pumpkin salad

Pumpkin salad

The result was amazing – I was really surprised at how delicious it was. Pumpkin definitely does not taste like I remember as a kid. It was a really tasty dish and the pumpkin tasted great with the spices and yoghurt. This made enough for 4 servings.

Spaghetti squash – two ways

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My American friend Liz mentioned a magical vegetable to me the other day – spaghetti squash. I’d never eaten it before (I’m also not sure I’ve even eaten squash) but she showed me a picture of how it turns out when it’s cooked, and I couldn’t resist.

Of course Whole Foods Giffnock had it, so I popped in on Wednesday and picked up some. For a 1kg squash it’s about £3, which for us made 4 main meals so I was pretty happy with that!

The first recipe I tried was from Steamy Kitchen as I wanted to see what the squash actually tasted like. It was pretty easy to cook – I stabbed it a few times, microwaved it for about 4 minutes, cut in half and then baked it for 30 minutes.

 

Baked spaghetti squash with garlic and butter from Steamy Kitchen

 

This served two for dinner (with a side salad of pasta, chicken and rocket) using just half of the spaghetti squash.

The next day, I was inspired by Stupid Easy Paleo on instagram to make rosti. I figured spaghetti squash and bacon would be perfect! I put the spaghetti squash in a bowl, added one egg and then added some chopped bacon. The first batch I cooked, I put bacon on top but I made a second batch with bacon mixed in. They were equally yum so it’s really just what you prefer!

Spaghetti squash rosti with bacon

The mix was quite wet, so flipping it was harder than usual but didn’t collapse so I call that a win.

I got more spaghetti squash so I will do an update to this post to show you how to shred it (ohhh, video post!)!

 

My favourite recipe ever? Perhaps! Miso, spinach and green olive pesto

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I discovered this recipe a while back via justb, an Australian lifestylish website. I had found justb via Meet Me at Mikes, the blog of a former fantastic shop in Melbourne’s Fitzroy written by Pip, who now writes for justb. I have been reading MMAM for years and even learnt how to crochet via her video tutorials!

I digress. This recipe is amazing! It was originally posted as a pesto for a soba salad – I’ve never actually made the whole recipe, just the pesto. It tastes great with mushrooms and goats cheese (baked), on pasta, as a dip, on lovely crusty bread as a bruschetta base, a pizza base … and I’m sure there are many ways I am yet to discover.

It is a really strong, intense flavour from the olive and miso – very umami, which I love. Anyway, I will stop talking about it and post a link as you really, really should make it and see why I love it so much.

Pip’s Miso, Spinach & Green Olive Pesto
makes about 1 cup full : store in the fridge and use often!

In a food processor, blitz…

2 tbsp white miso
1 cup of baby spinach, washed VERY well
1 bunch of coriander, washed VERY well
1/2 cup pitted green olives
50g almonds
2 tbsp toasted sesame seeds
1 tsp sesame oil
1/4 cup olive oil
juice of one lemon
freshly ground black pepper
optional : 1/2 tsp dried chilli flakes

Visit justb for the original, full recipe with soba salad.

Capricorn goats cheese challenge: Kale pesto pasta with goats cheese

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I really, really love twitter. I have such a lovely group of twitter friends that I’ve met through my @glasgow_food account – we even had a meet up recently that you might have read about!

Thanks to Twitter, I recently had the pleasure of “meeting” Ethel from Capricorn Goats Cheese. Ethel told me they were having a competition called the #capricornchallenge – create a recipe using their goats cheese, Ethel’s cook will try it and someone will win! We eat at least a whole thing of goats cheese a week, so I was pretty up for the challenge.

I got a parcel of goodies delivered – all I was expecting was goats cheese, so you can imagine my reaction when I opened this hamper:

Hamper

Then I hit a wall of panic. I felt like I needed to come up with something really good, and really impressive. Then I worried I was over-thinking it. Then I came up with a recipe, only to see that a pizza dish was the recipe of the month last month. So I turned it into a pasta recipe instead, and it worked an absolute treat.

Kale pesto pasta with Capricorn goats cheese

Serves 2

Ingredients:

1 bunch of kale (about two handfuls if you’re using a chopped, bag mix)
1 small garlic clove
1 tbs lemon juice
4 tbs olive oil
40g Capricorn goats cheese (slightly melted if possible)
180g whole wheat spaghetti
100g frozen peas

Kale pesto spaghetti with Capricorn goats cheese

Method:

Wash and steam the kale for around 6 minutes. Once it’s cooked, put it in a blender with the garlic, lemon and oil. Blend until all chopped up.

Put on some boiling water, and cook the spaghetti at the same time. Whole wheat takes around 9 minutes – at the 6 minute mark, add in the frozen peas. I scooped out about a cup of water right before it was finished cooking to add in with the kale pesto, to loosen it up.

Drain the pasta, mix with the pesto until it is all coated. Serve onto plates and top with plenty of goats cheese.

Enjoy!

This recipe was really quick to make, really healthy and best of all, delicious. It would be great with added nuts or seeds, possibly even some crispy bacon. Please let me know if you make it!

This post was sponsored by Capricorn Goats Cheese who provided the hamper of goodies shown above. Thank you!