My husband is a real meat and potatoes man. This transition to a more plant based diet isn't an easy one for him. I am out to prove to him that he won't really miss some of his old favourites, like sausage and mash. This is what I did today!
Of course you can use regular sausages instead of vegetarian ones if you want to, they will be equally as delicious and will also work well. I used Linda McCartney vegetarian sausages and they were really nice.
I did a simple glaze of honey and soy . . . whisked together and drizzled over the sausages prior to baking in a moderately hot oven . . . I turn them in the mixture every now and then while they were baking so that they glazed evenly. The trick is to keep them from burning. That's why you keep the temperature only moderately high and why you keep turning them.
I paired them up with a delicious root vegetable mash . . . potatoes, carrots, swede and parsnip . . .
Simply boiled in lightly salted water until they are meltingly tender, drained well and then mashed together with a nice nob of butter and some seasoning . . . so good.
The two went together perfectly. This mash would go with just about anything . . . I can only imagine how tasty it would be with gravy or topping a cottage pie. The veggie sausages were really lovely also, with that delicious mix of salty sweet in that sticky glaze!
*Honey & Soy Glazed Sausage*
with Root Vegetable Mash
Serves 4with Root Vegetable Mash
Preheat the oven to 190*C/375*F/ gas mark 5. Line a small baking tray with aluminium foil and spray lightly with cooking spray.
While the potatoes are cooking pop the sausages onto the baking tray. Whisk together the soy and honey. Drizzle over all of the sausages. Pop into the preheated oven and roast for 15 to 20 minutes, turning them occasionally to coat in the honey/soy mixture and glaze. (If you are using pork sausages, cook until the juices run clear. They may take a few minutes longer.)
Divide the hot mash between four heated plates and top each with two glazed sausages. Serve immediately. A green vegetable goes nicely with these.
Todd was pleasantly surprised and even went back for an additional sausage. That made me happy. If there is one person I want to make happy through all of this, its Todd. Bon Appetit!
This is a beautiful supper dish with lovely fresh flavours and colours. I love recipes like this. Its simple, easy and uses things I normally have in my kitchen . . .
Fresh bell peppers . . . I used golden yellow peppers. I like to peel the skin from them as I am not overly fond of cooked pepper skins, which can oftimes be somewhat bitter. They are not that hard to peel. I have a soft skin vegetable peeler which makes it very easy.
They are really great for peeling things like pepper and tomatoes. I like to pick peppers with straight sides for this dish. They cut and peel much easier than overly rounded ones.
As well as the peppers there is a large red onion, cut into half moons. The peppers and onions are cooked in a skillet together, until the edges begin to caramelize, at which time you add garlic and a bit of dry white wine. (I used water with a pinch of sugar as we don't do alcohol) You let this bubble up while you scrape up any sticky bits in the skillet.
Next you add some chopped black olives and capers. Black olives and capers go very well with all of the other ingredients . . . both are kind of salty and the capers are a bit tangy as well . . .
Of course your pasta is cooking while you are doing all of this right? A scoop of the pasta water is added to the sauce along with some cherry tomatoes . . . and flat leaf parsley . . .
both of which are only briefly cooked . . . so that when you are eating the finished dish those cherry tomatoes pop in your mouth with a beautiful burst of flavour! Yum!
There is a temptation to use more parsley than you need to . . . don't. Trust me on this. None of the flavours in the dish should overpower any of the other flavours. Flat leaf parsley can sometimes be really strong in flavour, so taste it and then judge accordingly.
I only use whole wheat pasta these days. I really like it. It has a subtle nutty flavour and really doesn't look all that different than regular pasta. But, if whole wheat pasta doesn't float your boat, then use regular pasta, no problemo.
Altogether this is a really delicious dish. I would recommend serving it with some crusty bread if you aren't watching the carbs, and maybe some soft goats cheese on the side. Yum yum!!
*Spaghetti with Peppers, Olives & Tomatoes*
Serves 4
340g dry spaghetti (3/4 pound, I like whole wheat)
2 TBS olive oil
Cook the sauce while the pasta is cooking. Heat the oil in a large deep skillet. Add the peppers and onions. Cook over high heat, tossing them with a wooden spoon to sear the edges, for 5 minutes. Add the garlic and the wine, allowing it to bubble up, scraping up any pan juices. Lower the heat to medium ad add the olives, capers, half of the parsley and a bit of water from the cooking pasta. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Add the cherry tomatoes and simmer for a minute, then turn off the heat and set aside.
Drain the pasta, then toss with a bit of olive oil. Divide amongst 4 heated serving bowls. Spoon some of the pepper mixture over heat. Garnish with the remaining parsley and serve.
I am loving this new emphasis I am making in my diet on plant based foods. Todd's not so sure, lol, but you shouldn't be surprised. He's a WW2 baby and he likes his meat. Its okay, I made him a cottage pie which he enjoyed very much. We were both happy. Its okay, he knows I won't always be doing this for him. Bon Appetit!
We love baked beans in this house. When I was growing up baked beans were often on themenu on Saturday evening suppers, and there was nothing tastier. Good baked beans do take long slow baking. My mom always started hers early Saturday morning, and by about noontime onwards, we were tortured by the tantalising smell of them cooking. By the time we tucked in at supper time, we were all more than ready for them! They were so, so SO good! 😋
This recipe I am showing you today is a bit of a cheat in that you don't have to bake them for all day in a slow oven. Instead they cook to taste perfection in about 2 hours, and surprisingly do taste very similar to the ones my mother used to bake back in the day.
This is a vegetarian version however, adapted from a recipe that I got from a book published by Ryland Peters, entitled "The Vegetarian Pantry", by Chloe Coker and Jane Montgomery.
It makes use of store cupboard ingredients I always have in my larder . . . good tinned tomatoes, tinned cooked haricot beans . . . Dijon mustard, brown sugar and dark treacle . . . with a hint of a good balsamic vinegar . . .
You begin by softening some onions over low heat in a bit of oil until they are lovely and almost meltingly soft. Into that goes some garlic, just enough to give them a lovely subtle layer of additional flavour without going over the top . . .
There is no bacon to give that smokey flavour home baked beans usually have . . . instead some smokiness is imparted by using paprika, along with the above ingredients and some vegetable stock.
Once you get it all mixed together and simmering, you cover them and bake them in a slow oven for about 2 hours, which condenses all those flavours down and gives you a beautifully flavoured sauce . . .
We enjoy them, hot . . . with a grating of a good cheddar on top and some warm crusty bread to mop up all of these delicious juices . . . these are a real taste treat. Low in fat. High in fibre. Healthy, and delicious! What more could you ask for?
*Homemade Baked Beans*
Serves 2 as a main
4 as a side
pinch dried chili flakes (how much you use depends on how spicy you want them)
1 TBS Balsamic vinegar
Preheat the oven to 160*C/325*F/ gas mark 3.
Put the onion, oil and 2 tsp of water in a flameproof casseroe and cover with a lid. Cook gently over low heat for about 10 minutes, without allowing the onion to take on too much colour. Add the garlic, brown sugar, treacle, mustard, paprika and vinegar. Stir to combine. Stir in the beans and tomatoes, as well as the stock. Bring to the boil and cook for two minutes. Cover with a lid and then transfer to the oven.
Bake in the preheated oven for 2 hours. If at the end of that time you think the consistency is too liquidy, you can simmer over gentle heat and reduce the liquid to your desired consistency. Season to taste and serve hot with crusty bread or corn bread.
We enjoyed them with some sliced cucumber, but a salad would go also go very nicely on the side, as would coleslaw. (Oh, I do so love coleslaw.) Once we get into really warm temperatures I won't want to be heating up the oven, but for now, while we are still enjoying the Spring weather, these went down a real treat. Bon Appetit!
Note - I have never doubled this recipe myself, (there are only two of us) but I imagine that it would work very well to do so.
One flavour which I really enjoy is Maple. In Canada at this time of year, the sap is running on the Maple trees and they are tapping them so that they can make Maple Syrup.
One of my favourite things to do when I lived there, with the family, was to take a trip into the Maple bush to watch them making the Maple Syrup and to buy some of their products.
They don't just make syrup, but also candies and sugar. Butter, fudge, etc. It takes about 45 litres of maple sap to make one litre of syrup.
The harvested sap goes into a sugar house where it is put into the evaporator which boils and condenses it down into syrup, as the water evaporates.
For other products (butter, sugar, candy) the syrup is boiled/evaporated/condensed even further.
When I first moved over here to the UK, Maple anything was very hard to procure. I came over with a 4 liter can of Maple syrup which I carried right onto the plane.(Try doing that now!)
Thankfully Maple products are a lot easier to find now. You can buy the syrup in all the shops and even Maple sugar in some.
I used some of my maple sugar the other day to make this delicious Pear & Maple Upside-down Cake, along with some maple flavouring in the batter.
Pears and maple go very well together. I had some tinned pears which were coming close to their sell by date and this was a great way to use them up.
Of course if you don't have maple sugar, soft light brown sugar works very well. It is what was originally used in making upside down cakes. Using maple sugar was my own idea, and it worked well.
I used tinned pear halves and pecans, filling in the spaces in between with some slices of pear and more pecan nuts.
The recipe itself was based on the one for Pineapple Upside-down Cake in my old Purity Cookbook. You can't beat that book!
It is filled with lots of very sound basic recipes.
The recipe for the batter calls for the use of white vegetable shortening, which makes for a lovely white sponge. Generally, you can use butter or margarine in place of shortening, but making this substitution may slightly alter the texture of baked goods.
Shortening is 100 percent fat, but butter and margarine are composed of about 85 percent fat and 15 percent water.
I have found that in cakes the substitution is barely noticeable really, except you might have a slight golden cake instead of a pure white one.
Not a problem really. Just don't use whipped or spreadable butters/margarines. Use solid, and you will be okay.
I think I like this Pear & Maple version even better than the old Pineapple version. My husband ate two pieces, one while it was still warm and another one later on after it had cooled!
Myself, I am trying hard to resist it, but it's hard to do! A little sliver won't hurt . . .
*Pear & Maple Upside down Cake*
makes 1 9-inch cake
A
delicious twist on an old favourite. If you want you can use 65g (1/2
cup) of maple sugar instead of the brown sugar called for in the recipe
for an even more maple-like flavour. That is what I did this time and it
worked beautifully.
a quantity of toasted pecan nuts
210g plain flour (1 1/2 cups)
1/2 tsp maple flavouring
190g sugar (1 cup)
.
Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Whisk in the sugar. Drop in the shortening and 120ml (1/2 cup) of the milk. Beat on low speed with an electric whisk for 1 minute. Add the eggs, remaining milk and maple flavouring. Beat for an additonal 2 minutes on low speed. Pour over the pears in the pan. Smooth out evenly.
Bake in the preheated oven for 40 to 45 minutes. The cake should spring back when lightly touched. Remove from the oven. Immediately invert on a serving plate. Let cool for 10 minutes before carefully lifting off the cake tin.
Cut into weges to serve with ice cream or whipped cream.
This really is a lovely cake and one I am sure the whole family will enjoy! Bon Appetit!
The other day I was in the shops and I thought I would buy a loaf of gluten free bread to try it out. I have one word to say. BLECCH.
It was a very popular name brand, and it did have a nice texture and it looked like real bread, albeit a much smaller loaf, and very expensive I might add. £3 for a seeded loaf.
It didn't taste bad. It just left a pasty kind of coating in my mouth. I couldn't bring myself to eat any more of it. I just couldn't. I will have to try making my own.
If these delicious brownies are any example of how good homemade gluten free baking can be, then we are in for a treat. I need to do some research first on bread.
I am not sure why it is so difficult to photograph chocolate things. They never come out looking at tasty as they really are.
If you have any hints or tips on that, I would really appreciate!
These gluten free chocolate brownies are fabulous. Dense. Fudgy and chocolatey!
I dusted them lightly with some icing sugar to make them look better. Not sure if it worked, lol
They really are nice . . . with a fudgy, dense and rich chocolate crumb . . .
I wish I could just give you one to try to you could taste test for yourself, I am that sure you would love them. Especially if you love Brownies.
I baked these for a friend of mine in hospital who is wheat and dairy free, and she loved them. Of course I had to try them before I gave them to her.
I would never give anyone anything I hadn't tasted myself and didn't KNOW tasted great!
They are composed of butter, ground almonds, cocoa powder and copious amounts of dark chocolate, with some eggs, brown sugar and flavourings . . .
Vanilla and orange flavourings . . . think dark chocolate orange here.
If you are not fond of chocolate and orange together, you can simply leave out the orange flavouring, and add a touch more vanilla.
This was excellent served warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top.
I dare say these would make an excellent dessert choice if you knew that you were having gluten intolerant people over for dinner.
*Gluten Free Brownies*
Makes 6 - 8 servings
Preheat the oven to 160*C/325*F/ gas mark 2. Base line an 8 by 12 inch baking tin with baking paper. Set aside.
Bring a pot of water to a simmer on the stove. Using a bowl that will sit comfortably on top without the bottom touching the water, put the butter and chocolate into the bowl and place over the simmering water. Stir until it is melted and amalgamated. Set aside to cool slightly.
Beat together the eggs, brown sugar, vanilla and orange extracts. (If using)
Whisk together the cocoa powder, almonds and baking powder. Make a well in the centre. Pour over the melted chocolate/butter mixture and the egg mixture. Stir togther until well combined, working from the centre. Pour into the prepared baking tin.
Bake for 25 minutes until set all over and beginning to pull away from the edges of the pan. For gooey brownies, take them out a bit sooner. For firm brownies leave in the oven a bit longer. Allow to cool completely in the pan. Tip out onto a board and carefully peel off the paper. Cut into squares or bars as desired. Store in an airtight container.
Oh boy . . . was this ever good! Amazing even. I had it slightly warm with some Scottish ice cream. I think you will enjoy, even if you aren't gluten free. Bon appetit!
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