Beetroot and Beluga lentils

I tend to shop interesting foods and then forget them in the cupboard until the best before date has long gone. Today I found a bag of fresh beetroot that really needed using and started to look for something to go with it and discovered some beluga lentils at the back of the top shelf. (After I'd chucked a few other "best before last year" products in the bin)

Never having used beluga lentils (aren't they pretty!) before, I googled and found a nice recipe at Ahmija blog. Only 20 mins cooking in veg stock, rinse and they're ready! Me, I am not a fan of overnight soaking business etc.

Marinade:
1,5 dl olive oil
2 tbsp honey
0,75 dl white balsamic
2 tbsp lemon juice
Salt&Pepper
2tbsp fresh parsley, chopped

Mix the ingredients and add to the lentils when they're still warm.

Beetroot was washed, peeled and chopped into wedges. In an oven dish, add olive oil, salt and pepper, and a few crushed whole garlic cloves. Cook in 200C for 20 mins, then add crumbled feta cheese, and cook another 25 mins or until the beets are cooked through.

Chop some fresh spinach and top with the lentils and beetroot. Enjoy!

Monday dinner

 It's starting to look and feel like winter finally, with heaps of snow and temperature going down to -20 celsius soon. On days like these nothing tastes better than my home chef''s Asian style noodle soup. We often have it on Monday nights, and it always tastes so good. He makes the broth separately with lots of spices, the flavour is intense with chilli, ginger, garlic, star anise and a hint of sweetness. The broth is poured on a bowl full of chopped vegetables and cooked noodles. Plenty of coriander is needed, as well as either tofu or prawns. I might share the recipe one day as well.
It is really a weeknight dish for us normally but you could make it more special and enjoy a glass of medium dry Gewurtztraminer.

We have sun!!!

Vegetarian moussaka

 So, we have a pretty good selection of cookbooks but we rarely pick a recipe and follow it. I am on a mission to change this, and started with Jane Noraika's "New Food for thought". Food for thought is a lovely little vegetarian restaurant in Covent Garden of London, which I used to regularly visit when I lived over there in 2004-2005. It was also the first ever restaurant I took my meat eating boyfriend to, with success I think. He took me to Pizza Hut. :D

He gave me this book around 2006 (we can't agree on the year...) but not many recipes have been followed, as I said. I browsed through the book and decided to start on Moussaka, as it is most certainly apt food for the dark cold wintertime.

 MOUSSAKA
(Serves 6)

Tomato sauce:
Olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 sticks celery, sliced
1 carrot, grated
tinned chopped tomatoes, 400g
2 tbsp tomato puree
splash of soy sauce
bunch of fresh basil, chopped

White sauce:
50g butter
50g flour (2tbsp in the original recipe, found that it wasn't enough)
pinch of nutmeg
150 ml milk
100g cheddar (think I nearly doubled this...oops)
(original recipe adds a beaten egg white but I gave it a miss)

Vegetables:
100g green lentils (bought mine ready cooked)
675g potatoes, cooked and then sliced
2 aubergines (aka eggplant), sliced
275g mushrooms, cut into quarters
1 red pepper, de-seeded and sliced into thin strips
450g FRESH spinach, washed very well

 1. Preheat oven to 180C.
2. Cook lentils if didn't buy them ready cooked.

 3. Place sliced aubergine on a large oven tray with plenty of olive oil. Add pesto if you want extra flavour. I used the new Pirkka lemon pesto, which is nice and fresh. Roast in the oven for 20 minutes until tender, stir every now and then.

 4. Stir-fry mushrooms and peppers, set aside.

5. Cook the spinach quickly in a saucepan in olive oil and butter (no butter in the original but I think spinach needs it) until it's wilted. Squeeze extra liquid out.

6.In a large saucepan fry the onion, garlic, celery and carrot in olive oil until soft. Add tomatos, tomato puree and soy sauce. Bring to the boil and season with basil, salt and pepper. Let it cool down for a while.Combine with lentils, mushrooms, peppers and spinach.

The best ever white sauce I ever made! (Might be the first one too...)

 7. In a small pan melt the butter with the nutmeg. Lower the heat and stir in the flour slowly. I needed much more flour than 2 tbsp like the original recipe suggested, almost the same quantity as butter. Cook until the texture of the roux changes to breadcrumb-like. Slowly add the milk and stir vigorously all the time to avoid lumps. Stir in the cheese and season with salt and pepper. Stir until the cheese is melted.

8.Cover a deep dish with half of the tomato mixture, layer half of the aubergines on top.Add half of the potatoes on the aubergines. Repeat, and cover the final layer of potatoes with the white sauce. Add extra cheese if you're as greedy as me.

9. Cook in the oven at 200-225C for 20-30 minutes until the cheese is golden brown and bubbling.

10. Serve with something green and ENJOY!

I look forward to making more yummy vegetarian recipes from this book. I really need to experiment more with pulses and stuff to get more vegetable proteins, I eat too much fish for my liking at the moment. I'd like to eat soups more regularly, so the next recipe might be a red pepper and almond soup. And we are hoping to visit UK at some point this year, maybe it's time to visit the good old Food for thought again...

Red Onion Jam with Mulled Wine

December's blog challenge is so interesting I have to take part again! This time with something a little more challenging than my mom's macaroni soup. Congratulations to Chocochili who won November's challenge, her blog is one my favourites, not least because of her amazing food photography! Her choice for the challenge was glögi, Finnish version of mulled wine. The idea was to share your glögi recipe or use glögi in cooking. We start drinking glögi as soon as it arrives in the shops in September, so by December we're already quite fed up with it. I decided to make up something different, and spent a few days thinking how to use glögi in something savoury.

Red onion jam is made in our kitchen a few times a year and so I thought I would make a more Christmassy version of it, finally making some savoury muffins with the onion jam and blue cheese. I'm making the jam tonight and the muffins (which will be the challenge recipe) tomorrow. The jam takes a couple of hours to make and it's simmering as I write this post.

Red Onion Jam with Mulled wine
Measurements are estimates, add,change or reduce to your liking!

6 large red onions, finely chopped
A bottle of readymade mulled wine or glögi (I had Kaskein Marja Juhla glögi, 0,75l)
1 dl Berry liquor (I happened to have some Estonian Cherry liquor in my cupboard)
1 dl Port wine
You can use what you happen to have, or buy some cheap, full bodied red wine, but remember to add more sugar
3 dl  Brown sugar
Couple of dashes balsamic vinegar
Star anise or other spices used in mulled wine, that you like. Star anise is my favourite

Assorted liquids found in the cupboards

Lotsa onions!

Mix all the ingredients in a big pan, bring to simmer at medium heat and keep simmering until the liquids have evaporated and the onions are soft and sweet. Ready!

Serve with cheese, in a sandwich, fill a quiche with it or as a side dish with anything you think it would go with. You can also fill some cute little jars with it and give to other foodies as a gift. Keeps for a couple of months or so in the fridge.

I will post my muffin recipe tomorrow, with which I will be taking part to the monthly blog challenge.

Soup and Bread

As any self respecting foodie would, we too do collect many cook books and food magazines to fill our bookselves. However, we have a bad habit of just looking through them and not actually using any of the recipes - this could be called food porn I guess...
But since one of the main resons we started this blog for was trying more new things, I have systematically started marking the recipes that I would like to give a go. We wouldn't really need any new magazines or cook books for a year, that's how little we've been using the ones that we already have!

We really enjoy the UK food mag Olive, which fortunately is also sold in many shops in Helsinki. It has beautiful and inspiring photography, a variety of recipes from really easy to professional and a great travel section, to mention a few good reasons to keep buying it. A foodie's must-read I think! Both of the recipes today are from Olive's February issue 2009.

Before

Celeriac and Pear Soup
A lesson learned with this recipe; always check how many it serves. This recipe is for 6, and as Andy does not much like to eat soup, I will most likely be slurping this for days unless I freeze some. Nevermind, it is delicious! I'd never used fruit in a soup and the pear and celeriac were a great combination. A little bit sweet, but the ginger balanced it nicely. A good winter day soup!

Olive oil, 1 tbsp
Shallots, 4, finely sliced
Garlic, 2 cloves, chopped
Ginger, to taste, finely chopped
Celeriac, 1, peeled and roughly chopped
Pears, 4, peeled, cored and roughly chopped
Veg stock, 1 litre
Parsley, chopped for garnish

Heat the oil in a large saucepan, add shallots, garlic and ginger and cook over medium heat for about 5 min or until softened but not coloured.
Add cleriac, pears and stock, bring to boil and then reduce to a simmer. Simmer for 20-30 minutes or until the celeriac has softened.
Whiz and blitz in your chosen method until smooth, sieve if you like it really smooooth. Season and serve with parsley and your homemade bread!

After

Quick Carrot and Walnut Bread
This was super easy as well as super tasty, reminding me of something I know as "tea bread" that all Finnish kids learn to make in domestic cooking classes at school.

Plain flour, 350 g
Wholemeal flour, 150 g
Salt, 1 tsp
Bicarbonate of soda, 2 tsp
Carrots, 150g, peeled and grated
Walnut pieces, a handful
Greek yoghurt, 300 ml
Milk, 125 ml

Heat oven to 230C/fan 210. Mix flours, salt and bicarb, stir in carrot, walnuts and yoghurt, then add enough milk to make a soft, sticky dough. Tip onto a floured surface and form a flat ball, but on a baking sheet, slash the top and bake for 30 mins until risen and cooked.

Spicy Shepardess Pie

Friday night, and time for some serious comfort food!
This is a veggie version of the British dish Shepherd's pie, which normally has minced lamb in it. I saw a recipe of the meaty version on Maku magazine's Kevät 2/09 issue and was inspired to make it, maybe for the first time actually. I made up this slighty spicy version, perfect for the -21 degrees weather we're having over here at the moment. For the vegetarians this is an excellent filling and protein rich meal.

Spicy Shepardess Pie

4-5 Portions

For the mash:
Around 6 potatos
Cream
Seasoning

Filling:
4 dl Vegetarian Soy Mince
Veg stock
1 Onion, diced
2 Garlic cloves, chopped
1 Carrot, grated
~100 g Frozen Sweetcorn or Peas
Teaspoon of minced red chilli paste (Rajah)
Teaspoon of Paprika powder
Worcestershire Sauce to taste- LOTS in mine!
Salt and pepper to taste

Parmesan Cheese

Heat the oven to 200 degrees celsius.

Boil the potatos in salted water until cooked.
Mash and add cream, season to taste.
Prepare the soy mince according to the package instructions.
Heat some olive oil on a frying pan, cook the onion for a minute, then add garlic.
Add soy mince and some water if needed to prevent the mix from sticking to the pan.
Add carrot and sweetcorn/ peas.
Season with chilli paste, paprika powder, Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper.
Pour the soy mince mix on the bottom of a baking dish. Spread the mash on top.
Add lavish amount of parmesan cheese.
Place in the middle of the oven and bake for around 20 minutes or until the top is golden brown.

I have decided to find a drink match to all of my recipes and since this dish is really a pub classic I recommend you wash it down with some dry apple cider or a thirst- quenching lager. Since we don't really have the proper equilavant of a British pub here in Helsinki, this home version will do just fine!

Edit. I forgot the chilli paste earlier! Very important ingredient to make it spicy.