Meat-free Vegetable Bolognese Linguini

 

Hands up if you’ve been observing ‘Meatless Mondays’ or 'Meat-free Week’ and generally trying to eat less meat.

*my hand is tentatively half-raised*

My efforts to reduce the amount of processed food I eat has - sort of - extended to eating less meat and less white potatoes, and more leafy greens and vegetables. It’s been a bit of a failure so far, but it has also emphasised to me just how much meat and processed gunk I do consume.

It’s not my fault, she whines. It’s just that most of the ‘good’ food is pretty boring when compared to a juicy chargrilled steak with some little roast potatoes with truffle salt… (I dare you to deny this!).

That was, until I tried this most excellent Vegetable Bolognese. Admittedly, it doesn’t sound too exciting, but please believe me when I tell you that this is one of the most flavoursome pasta dishes I’ve ever had.

The intensely flavoured porcini, sweet carrot and capsicum and a good glug of red wine are all concentrated into this amazingly luscious sauce that looks like meaty bolognese but tastes so much better. You must give it a try, even if you aren’t planning on going meat-free.

Vegetable Bolognese
serves 2

Ingredients
¼ cup dried porcini mushrooms
200g linguini
1 carrot, roughly chopped
1 small brown onion, roughly chopped
1 red or yellow capsicum, roughly chopped
100g Swiss brown mushrooms, roughly sliced
1 garlic clove, crushed
2 tblsp olive oil
½ tblsp chopped thyme leaves
2 tblsp sundried tomato pesto
¼ cup red wine
¾ cup vegetable stock
¼ cup mascarpone
Grated parmesan, to serve

Method

1. Soak porcini in ½ cup boiling water for 10 minutes. Drain, reserving the liquid, and roughly chop the porcini.

2. Place the carrot, onion, capsicum, Swiss brown mushrooms and garlic in a food processor and process until finely chopped but not mushy.

3. Meanwhile, cook linguine in a large saucepan of boiling, salted water until al dente.

4. Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat and add the finely chopped vegetables. Cook, stirring, for 3-4 minutes, until softened. Add the thyme, pesto and porcini and cook for another minute.

5. Add the wine, stock and half the reserved porcini liquid. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat, and stir through the mascarpone, then season with salt and pepper.

6. Drain the linguine. Add the vegetable sauce to the pasta and gently toss to combine. Sprinkle parmesan on top and serve.

recipe adapted from delicious (March 2013).

Lovely veg, including yellow capsicum, onion, carrot, dried porcini and Swiss brown mushrooms

The rest of the ingredients: mascarpone, red wine, sundried tomato pesto and linguini

A rich, flavourful meat-free dish

I don't like my pasta to be too 'wet', but you can add more liquid to the serving, if you like.

A challenging Key Lime Tart

One of the the first ‘grown-up’ books I read as a young teenager was Nora Ephron’s Heartburn. It was grown-up to me because it dealt with adult themes of neurotic Americans in therapy, relationships and divorce.  Believe me, coming from a rich diet of Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden, Heartburn was quite an eye-opener.

I haven’t read Heartburn at all since then (can’t say the same about ‘Trixie Belden and the Mystery of...’, heehee), but there were 2 memorable things I got out of Heartburn : how to boil the perfect egg, and Key Lime Pie.

Firstly, the boiled egg: place an egg in a saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring to the boil, then turn off the heat and leave for 4 minutes. Rinse under cold water and you have a perfect soft-boiled egg. So, since I was 13, I’ve boiled eggs this way and they are always just right.

Secondly, Key Lime Pie. Oh how I wished I lived in America so that I could experience Key Lime Pie. Just the description of it, all tangy and creamy and lime green, evoked images of Florida and sunshine and graham crackers, whatever they were. And would you believe, I’ve always been too intimidated to make it, even now that I am a ‘food blogger’. Well, I, too, have grown up and I won’t let a dessert scare me no more. This is a lovely pie/tart, I really should not have waited decades to try it. This recipe is not from Heartburn, but I’m sure Nora Ephron would have liked it as well.

By the way, this effort is being entered in Our Growing Edge, a great concept from bunny eats design that showcases learning and experimenting and meeting challenges, like key lime pie. Check it out here.

Key Lime Tart

serves 10

Ingredients
300g plain biscuits (I used Nice biscuits)
50g unsalted butter, melted
4 eggs, lightly beaten
395g can condensed milk
2/3 cup (160ml) cream
Finely grated zest and juice of 4 limes
Whipped cream, to serve
Candied lime
1 lime, sliced 1-2mm thick
½ cup caster sugar
½ cup water

Method

1. Use a food processor to crush biscuits to fine crumbs. Add melted butter and pulse to combine. Press the mixture into the base and sides of a 25cm-wide loose-bottomed tart pan. Chill in refrigerator for 30 minutes.

2. Preheat oven to 170C/340F. Whisk the eggs, condensed milk, cream, lime zest and jice in a bowl until combined. Pour into tart pan and bake for 40 minutes or until filling is just set. Cool completely in the pan.

3. For the candied lime: Blanch lime slices in boiling water for 2 minutes, then drain. Combine sugar and water in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat, stirring to dissolve sugar. Add the lime slices and cook for 10-15 minutes until white pith looks translucent. Drain, then dry on a wire rack for 30 minutes.

4. To serve, decorate the tart with whipped cream and candied lime.

recipe adapted from delicious (April 2011)

 

Speckled eggs and limes (not Key Limes, but suitable nonetheless)

I used my 22cm tart tin, so had lots of crust and filling left over to fill 2 small (8cm) tins as well.

Even though this was quite an exciting effort for me, Tabitha cat finds desserts quite boring.

My candied lime slices looked pretty but were very bitter to taste, so next time I will just use raw lime to decorate.

A wonderful treat for grown-ups and little ones (not cats, though).

Le fancie: Smoked Salmon Rillettes

Recently, I had lunch at a French-style pub. Yes, there is such a thing. I mean, it’s called ‘Le Pub’, after all.
PS: One day, I’d love to eat at a restaurant called ‘Le Pantalons Fancie’, like on American Dad.

 

For starters (les hors d'oeuvres), we shared a well-stocked charcuterie plate that featured a luscious duck rillette.

I just love rillettes, it’s such a French dish, so richly textured and usually swimming in delicious graisse (that’s French for fat). So it’s not a dish that you want to have too often if you value your health.

 Duck rillette in a tin, with accompaniments.

But how about these salmon rillettes, with no duck fat to be seen, just tangy crème fraiche to tie all the flavours together? Don’t mind if I do!

Not much to say about this recipe, except that it looks super-swish, is super easy to make, and it’s the perfect dish to impress, well, anyone. It’s bound to be on the menu at Les Pantalons Fancie.

 

Smoked salmon rillettes

serves 8

Ingredients

300g piece of skinless salmon fillet, pin-boned

200g smoked salmon, chopped

2 tblsp finely chopped cornichons

1 eschalot, finely chopped

Finely grated zest of 2 lemons

1 tblsp finely chopped dill

¼ cup finely chopped chives

200ml crème fraiche

Toasted baguette slices and cornichons, to serve

Method

1. Place the salmon fillet in a saucepan and cover with 4 cups of boiling water. Cover with a lid and stand for 30 minutes, or until the fish is just cooked.

2. Remove poached salmon from the water and pat dry with paper towels.  Flake the flesh into a large bowl and cool completely.

3. Add smoked salmon to the cooled poached salmon, together with the chopped cornichons, eschalot, lemon zest, dill, chives and crème fraiche. Season with salt and black pepper, then stir until just combined.

4. Serve the rillettes with toasted baguette and cornichons.

Rillettes can be stored in a covered container in refrigerator for up to 2 days. Serve at room temperature.

recipe adapted from delicious (February 2013) 

Salmon, before and after poaching, with eschalot, chives, lemon and chopped cornichons

Add smoked salmon to the poached salmon, together with lemon zest and crème fraiche

Serve with crusty bread

Très fancie!

And please pardon the imperfect French in this blog post!.

 

Oh, Fig!

In terms of complexity, this is dessert is pretty simple, really. But when has this blog been about making things that are difficult?  Never!

Did you ever take Sewing at school? Do they even teach that anymore? Well, I remember back in my day, when we had to make a 4-gore skirt, or a pair of trousers (in gabardine!) or a t-shirt (in stretch fabric!), and we would spend hours poring over the pattern books at the local fabric store (do they even have pattern books anymore?). I would always make sure that the pattern I chose had ‘Easy/Facile’ printed on it because there was no way I could handle anything that wasn’t Facile. 

My rudimentary sewing skills meant that my patterns were always from Butterick or Simplicity – no fancy schmancy Vogue patterns for me, no siree! Of course, there was no guarantee that I wouldn’t sew my own finger to the trousers I was attempting to stitch together, but there was definitely less risk with a Butterick pattern. No matter that everything I made had to be taken apart and sewn back together again (properly) by my mother, who was a trained dressmaker – what a disappointment I turned out to be to her...

Anyway, here is a très facile fig dessert that would also be perfect for breakfast, just substitute the biscotti for granola or muesli.  Hope you give it a go and enjoy (which is more than can be said for my gabardine trousers).

Layered Figs

serves 1

Ingredients

2 slices biscotti, roughly crushed

3 tblsp Greek yoghurt

3 tblsp honey

1 or 2 ripe figs, sliced

Method

1.  Place some of the crushed biscotti in the bottom of a glass.

2. Top with a spoonful of yoghurt

3. Drizzle some honey on the yoghurt

4. Top with a couple of slices of fig

5. Repeat the tiers, finishing with a layer of fig.

6. Serve

Fresh figs - they do not ripen once picked, so get good ones to start with.

A couple of pretty layers, and it's done.

Risotto variations

It has taken a while (a couple of years, to be exact), but I've finally found a basic technique for risotto that I can make without referring to a recipe. You see, I've always wanted to be able to throw a couple of ingredients together in a pot, give it a quick stir, then arrange it attractively on a plate with a cheerful garnish of parsley. But my inherent worrying nature kicks in whenever I try something new, and I have to constantly keep looking up the recipe in case I've left out a step - even when all it says is 'put the ingredients in a pot and stir'.

Not only is this basic risotto really simple, the standing around for 17-20 minutes, stirring, is not such a big deal, either. You can spend the time checking your Instagram feed, or daydreaming, or shooing away the cat who is always nosying around whenever there is food.  Oh, and to make things even easier, I've discovered that stock cubes are not so bad after all. I use Massel chicken stock cubes (contains no flavour enhancers and no meat/chicken), and it provides a taste that is better than the packaged stock that I used to use.

Basic Risotto
serves 2

Ingredients
25g butter
1 tsp olive oil
3/4 cups arborio rice
¼ cup white wine (optional)
450ml hot chicken stock (or 1 ½ chicken stock cubes dissolved in 450ml boiling water)

Method
1. Melt the butter and olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat.
2. Add the rice and stir for 30 seconds, to coat the grains in the butter/oil.
3. Add the white wine, if using, and stir until the wine evaporates, about 1 minute.
4. Add a ¼ cup of the hot stock, stirring until the liquid evaporates. Repeat until all the stock is used. It should take about 17-20 minutes for the stock to evaporate, and the rice should be cooked but not too soft, and ready to serve.

Variations

Porcini and mushroom: Soften a handful of dried porcini mushrooms in hot water for 15 minutes, then drain and chop. Add porcini and sliced button mushrooms to the rice about halfway through cooking. Top with crisp prosciutto before serving.

Leek, asparagus and parmesan: Soften some chopped leek in the melted butter and oil (4 minutes)  before adding the rice. Cook as per basic recipe, adding a couple of stalks of chopped asparagus during the second-last ¼ cup of chicken stock. Allow risotto to stand for a minute before serving with grated parmesan cheese.

Mushroom, bacon, onion, spinach: Cook finely chopped onion in the melted butter and oil for 3 minutes before adding the rice. Cook as per basic recipe, then add mushrooms and spinach during final ¼ cup of chicken stock. Top with crisp bacon to serve.

 

Yes, yes, I use 'chicken' stock cubes. It does taste good, but.

 Porcini mushrooms give a rich flavour to this risotto. So does the crispy prosciutto.

Green and mean, this leek and asparagus version ticks the vegetarian boxes.

This risotto is pretty much a 'throw all your leftover bits and pieces in' version. 

Again, very flavoursome and easy to make.