Making the most of  Winter vegetables before they disappear

I’m jumping in here with a winter-y recipe just before the season ends completely. Some of you may be snarling at this right now as you’re still up to your knees in snowdrifts, but where I am, Spring has definitely started with a vengeance.  I can tell because there are blossoms everywhere, weeds are sprouting all over the garden, and Phoebe the cat is shedding hair in bucketfuls. Before the Winter vegetables disappear for a few months, I wanted to make a tart with two of my favourites: pumpkin and radicchio (red chicory). Pumpkin and radicchio seem to have evolved to be eaten together.  The sweetness of the pumpkin and the slight bitterness of the radicchio, or Italian Chicory, suit each other wonderfully and get on together famously in this Radicchio and Butternut Squash Tart.

The difference between a quiche and an Italian savoury tart

You may have already seen from my recipes for pasta with radicchio and speck and  fusilli with radicchio and olives that I’m a big fan of the cooked salad.  I’m always excited by the arrival of radicchio in the stores over the Winter and try to use it as often as possible while it is in season.  I don’t really like it raw that much as I find it too bitter, but it loses its astringency when it’s cooked, and for me, becomes sort of addictive, kind of like wanting to eat fresh coriander on everything.

“So,” you ask, “What’s the difference between a quiche and an Italian tart (torta salata)?”. It’s all in the egg mixture.  A quiche has a lot more of the custard-like mixture holding the fillings together.  Many Italian tarts use whipped ricotta with the eggs, which makes them deliciously creamy.  In my laziness, I just used a little cream and milk for this one as I didn’t feel like going out to buy ricotta.

All about the pastry

I have never been brave enough to try to make puff pastry at home.  I saw a video of someone making it once and saw how much butter is rolled into it.  After that, I decided that I”d rather act like an ostrich with its head in the sand and buy it ready-made so that I can’t see all that butter I’m eating.  That’s also why I don’t read the ingredients list on the packet when I buy it.  If the thought of puff pastry being too rich disturbs you, you can always make it with a less fat kind of pastry that you industriously make yourself, or buy from the supermarket.  What I love about this recipe is that the filling can be anything savoury you would like it to be.  I often fill the tart with fried onions, cheese and ham (to make a kind of a quiche Lorraine), or you could fill it with precooked spinach and dabs of fresh ricotta.  Your imagination is your only limit!

This post is part of Cucina Conversations.. We’ve gone for lighter food this month to fit the Italian tradition of observing the period of Lent, a period of abstinence which comes before the Easter celebration. To find more healthy recipes, click on the links below:

Francesca from Pancakes And Biscotti with Spaghetti and Asparagus Frittata

Carmen from The Heirloom Chronicles with Potato And Chicory Croquettes

Flavia from Flavia’s Flavours with Rustic Spinach Tart

Rosemarie from Turin Mamma with Carciofi Trifolati

Marialuisa from Marmellata e Cipolle with a Chard And Cheese side

Daniela from Le Dani Gourmet with Pasta al Forno With Ricotta And Chicory

By Lisa Watson

Print Pin

Pumpkin and radicchio tart

How to make a delicious Italian savory tart using pumpkin and radicchio (red chicory)

Course entree, Main Course

Cuisine Italian

Prep Time 15 minutes minutes

Cook Time 30 minutes minutes

Total Time 45 minutes minutes

Servings 1 tart

Ingredients

• 1 roll Puff Pastry
• 250 g Butternut Squash 8.8 oz
• 150 g Radicchio 5.2 oz
• 30 g Grated Parmesan Cheese 6 Tbsp
• 3 Eggs
• 100 ml Cream 1/2 cup
• 180 ml Milk 3/4 cup
• 1 tsp Salt

Instructions

• Heat the oven to 180°C (350°F).
• Grease a quiche pan and line it with baking paper.
• Place the puff pastry in the pan and roll over and pinch the dough down so that you get a "pie-crust" form, with raised sides.
• Peel the squash and chop it into small cubes.   Slice the radicchio into strips.
• Put the squash pieces on the dough and spread them out evenly. Scatter the strips of radicchio over the top, then sprinkle everything with parmesan cheese.
• Whisk the eggs, cream, milk and salt in a bowl, then pour it over the vegetables.
• Bake in the oven for 30 minutes until the top of the tart browns and the filling is firm to the touch.

Notes

The tart can be baked 1 - 2 days in advance. To store it, leave it in the quiche pan and cover with clingfilm. Store it in the fridge until needed. Heat the tart in the oven for 10 minutes before eating, or eat it at room temperature.

A quick and delicious dinner:  shrimps are great to keep on hand!

I always keep a bag of frozen shrimps/prawns in the freezer for those times when I just don’t know what to make for dinner.  They’re quick to thaw out and very fast to cook, and it doesn’t take much to make them into something special.  What more could you ask for in a food?  Oh, and they’re actually good for you!  Extra bonus points for that one!

This shrimp recipe is adapted from one I found years ago.  It’s very flexible, as the marinade can be made with whatever you have on hand (whatever goes with shrimps anyway….don’t start trying to throw nutella and strawberries in with them!). If you don’t have lemons, use limes; if you don’t have oregano, use thyme or herbes de Provence; if you don’t have the ingredients for the salsa, make only the shrimps!  The combination of shrimps and tomato salsa is a winner though.  I highly recommend making them both.  This shrimp dish is also very flexible for the course it’s served at.  You can plate it in small helpings to make an appetizer or first course, or eat it in larger quantities as a main course.  Dessert is a little weird, so maybe don’t try that one…..

I haven’t written a quantity for the shrimps as it depends on how big they are and what course you are making it for.  If they are large, count about 5 per person for a first course and 10 per person for a main.

This is a short post today as it’s the last day of school holidays and I’m running around trying to find the kids’ bags and pencil cases.  It’s amazing how a couple of months can addle your brain so much that you forget where you put everything away safely!

Travel Photo of the Week

I know that it almost looks fake, but I can assure you that the colours are real.  This was taken on the island of Kauai in Hawaii. I remember sitting on this beach and watching a Labrador dog that would stand in the water, intently staring into the sea, and then suddenly plunge his head under and come up chewing.  We chatted to his owner who told us that if he couldn’t find the dog at home, he knew that he would be down at the beach fishing.

This recipe has been adapted from one I found on the recipe site www.Epicurious.com years ago.

By Lisa Watson

Print Pin

Marinated Shrimps With Tomato Salsa

A quick and delicious meal to make on a weeknight that takes less than 30 minutes!

Course Appetizer, entree, first course, Main Course

Cuisine Mediterranean

Prep Time 30 minutes minutes

Cook Time 2 minutes minutes

Total Time 32 minutes minutes

Ingredients

• Large shrimps/prawns

For The Marinade:

• Lemon Juice From half a lemon
• 6 Tbsp Olive oil
• 1 tsp dried Oregano
• 1 clove crushed Garlic
• 1/2 tsp Chilli Powder
• 1 tsp Cumin
• 1 tsp Coriander Powder

For The Salsa

• 3 - 4 Tomatoes
• 1 Avocado
• 1 small can corn or 1 fresh cob Corn
• 1 bunch Fresh corinader
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• 2 Tbsp Olive Oil
• Lemon juice from 1/2 a lemon

Instructions

• Clean the fresh shrimps and deshell them, or thaw the frozen shrimps.

For the Marinade:

• Mix all the first ingredients in a bowl and add the shrimps then mix to make sure the shrimps are coated with the marinade.
• Cover the bowl with cling-film and place in the fridge for 20 - 30 minutes.
• Either cook the shrimps on a grill-plate on a bbq or sauté them in a frying pan for a few minutes, stirring often, until they become pink.
• While the shrimps are marinating, made the tomato and avocado salsa.

For The Salsa:

• Wash and chop the tomatoes into cubes.
• Chop the avocado.
• If using fresh corn on the cob, boil the corn in salted water for 7 -10 minutes, then cut off the kernels.
• Wash the fresh coriander and pick off the leaves.
• Put all the ingredients in a bowl and mix them together gently. Leave some coriander leaves for decorating the shrimps.
• Tip the shrimps on top of the salsa and sprinkle with coriander leaves.  Serve immediately.

Excuses and Anchovies

I know it’s been quiet for a couple of weeks.  Sorry about that.  Thanks to two weeks of school holidays in which there were sick kids, one after the other, just to make sure we spent the whole first week at home, then a week of holidays in Italy, I didn’t have time to come and visit my blog.  This recipe is one that I’m pretty proud of as I made it up myself!  I had some foodie-type people coming for dinner and wanted to make something special.  This roasted red pepper flan with anchovy sauce is inspired by a traditional dish called Bagna Caoda in Piemonte, Italy.  It’s kind of like a fondue, but the sauce is made of anchovies and tonnes of garlic.  You dip Winter vegetables, such as red peppers, Jerusalem artichokes, cardoons and celery into the hot sauce and eat them.

A terrible confession and what to do if you don’t like anchovies

I have to admit that I actually HATE anchovies and if people with you eat bagna cauda, you will suffer from the smell right into the next day.  It’s one of those everyone-or-nobody kind of meals!  I remember when my Italian husband insisted (a long time ago) that even though I didn’t like anchovies, I would like bagna caoda, since after all the simmering of the anchovies and garlic, the anchovies don’t taste like anchovies anymore. I trusted him, and HE WAS WRONG! It tastes totally like anchovies, which is fantastic if you like them. Anyway, these red pepper flans are very delicate and if you don’t like anchovies, you can make the sauce for your guests and a bechamel sauce to drizzle over the red pepper flans for you. If you DO like anchovies, you’re in for a real treat as the red peppers and anchovy-garlic sauce are a perfect match!

What forms to use and how to roast peppers

Flans seem so sophisticated, but are incredibly easy to whip up and serve at a dinner party.  The trickiest thing in the recipe is getting the flans out of the muffin tin.  To  make it a little easier, grease the wells really well with butter or oil and place a circle of baking paper at the bottom of each well.  You can also use those silicon forms that come in all shapes and sizes.  They’re easier to un-mold, and then you can have almost any kind of fanciful shape you like: a star, a teddy-bear, a house……yes, I’ve actually seen those shapes in silicon. To make these flans, you just need to throw the red peppers in the oven to roast a day or two before you actually want to make the flans.  I’ve found that if you roast them whole, then let them cool, it’s really easy to peel off the skins.  You don’t need to do all that putting them in a plastic bag thing, which is probably not so good for you anyway as the plastic molecules probably go into the red peppers.

Travel Photo of the Week 

This week the photo comes from the home of Bagna Caoda: the Piemonte region of Italy.  This photo is taken in Jouvenceaux, in Val di Susa. It  is actually Italian, although it has an incredibly french name!  The french border is 20 minutes away, and you can see forts on top of the mountains in the surrounding area which have been used for many years during various border altercations. Now it’s a peaceful place since the Italians and the French get along pretty well these days.

By Lisa Watson

Print Pin

Red Pepper Flan with Anchovy Sauce

Red Pepper Flan with Anchovy Sauce is an easy to make, very elegant starter. Find out how to impress your guests here!

Course Appetizer, entree

Cuisine Italian

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time 1 hour hour 30 minutes minutes

Total Time 1 hour hour 40 minutes minutes

Ingredients

For the Flans:

• 4 Red peppers Capsicums
• 4 Eggs
• 3 Tbsp All-purpose flour
• 1 tsp Salt
• Pepper to taste
• 200 ml Milk 1 cup

For the Sauce

• 10 -12 Anchovies in oil
• 5 -6 Tbsp Olive oil
• 2 Garlic cloves
• 6 -8 Capers
• Chives a small bunch

Instructions

• Put the peppers in an oven dish and bake whole at 180°C (350°F) for 45 minutes. Leave to cool, then peel off the skin, remove the green stem and scrape of the seeds with your fingers.  This step can also be done 1 - 2 days before you make the flans.

For The Flans:

• Heat the oven to 180°C (350°F) . Grease a muffin tray very well with butter or oil and cut rounds of baking paper to place in the bottom of each well. Fill a roasting pan with water so that it comes approximately half-way up the muffin cups.
• Put all the ingredients for the flan in a blender and blend them until you have a smooth mixture.  You can use a handheld blender for this step too.
• Pour the mixture into the muffin wells.
• Bake for 25 -30 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean.  don't worry if they puff up.  they will get flat as they cool!
• Leave them in the forms to cool down.  When they are cold, carefully slide a knife around the sides of each flan and gently prise them out on to a plate.
• The flans can be made a day in advance. Cover well and keep them in the fridge until needed.

For The Sauce:

• Peel and slice the garlic, then put all the ingredients into a small pot.
• Simmer on the stove at a medium to low heat for 30 minutes, stirring frequently.
•  Leave to cool a little, then blend until smooth.

To serve the flans

• Warm them for 5 minutes in the oven or 1 -2 minutes in the microwave.. Put each flan on an individual serving plate. Drizzle the anchovy sauce over the flans, then chop the chives and sprinkle them over the top .

Notes

The sauce can also be made a day in advance.  Just before using, heat it to lukewarm very gently on the stove-top. If you heat it in the microwave, heat it on a very low power.  I put it in for too long and destroyed the sauce and killed the plastic container it was in. Be warned!

When plating the flan, chop chives and sprinkle them over the top for an added "WOW!" effect!

 

 

An irresistible spaghetti sauce

When you don’t have fussy kids hanging around who only like pasta with sauces in which the main constituent is tomato (writing from bitter experience here), this sauce with dried beans, bacon and herbs makes a wonderful change. It suits long pasta, such as spaghetti or linguine perfectly. Even if you don’t have the fussy kid issue, this spaghetti is delicious and worth making! And don’t start to think about all the work of soaking the dried beans and then toiling over a hot stove to cook them for an hour, you can push that thought straight out of your head.  Canned borlotti or canellini beans work so well that I think it would be difficult to tell the difference between freshly cooked and out of a can beans.

Get ready to chop the herbs

The only kind of annoying bit of this spaghetti sauce is mincing up the herbs, well, at least it is in my opinion.  I hate cutting up rosemary leaves.  I really should invest in one of those automatic chopper thingies for herbs one of these days.  Anyway, we have SCREEDS of rosemary growing all over the garden; some of it in hedges, some of it draping over rock walls and some of it just going plain crazy.  I grab any opportunity I can find to use some of it, Last year , when I pruned it, I had a mountain of rosemary almost as tall as me.  It almost made me cry to think of how much money I could make if I were able to send it to colder parts of the world and charge two euros for a few little sprigs!

This spaghetti sauce is very flexible.  You can omit the spice by leaving out the peperoncino, or you can leave out the cheese, or even both.  The spaghetti essentials are the herbs, beans, olive oil and bacon.  It’s up to you!

To find out how to cook pasta like an Italian does, check out my handy guide.

Travel Photo of the Week

This photo was taken very close to where we live.  It’s on a part of the Cote d’Azur called the Esterel.  It’s a natural park and is full of red rock formations.  Apparently, when Africa and Europe split up, it’s a bit of land that Africa forgot to take with it.  It must been left in a box in the basement for many years, so now Europe’s decided to keep it as Africa obviously isn’t missing it. Can you imagine what would happen if Africa ever found out that Europe had secretly kept some of it’s most treasured possessions?  Maybe they’d destroy the Mediterranean Sea in the huge fight that would follow. That would mean we could just walk from one continent to the other, which would be pretty cool!  I digress!  So, the area is fabulous for hiking around and very picturesque.

By Lisa Watson

Print Pin

Spaghetti with Herbs, Cannellini Beans and Bacon

How to make a delicious sauce for Spaghetti with Herbs, Cannellini Beans and Bacon

Course entree, first course, Main Course

Cuisine Italian

Prep Time 20 minutes minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes minutes

Total Time 30 minutes minutes

Servings 2 people

Ingredients

• 200 g Spaghetti or other long pasta
• 1/2 Red Onion
• 75 g Bacon or pancetta
• 3-4 sprigs Rosemary
• 2 leaves Sage
• 10 g Italian parsley + a small amount for garnishing
• 150 g pre-cooked Borlotti or cannelini beans 1 cup
• 1 clove Garlic whole
• Peperoncino to taste
• 5 - 6 Tbsp Good olive oil
• 3 -4 Tbsp White wine
• Grated Parmesan Cheese to taste

Instructions

• Boil the pasta in salted water using packet instructions.
• Dice the onion and chop the bacon/pancetta into cubes or strips. Mince the rosemary, parsley and sage. Peel the garlic clove, but leave it whole.
• Heat 3 Tbsp of olive oil in a pan. When it is hot, add the garlic clove, peperoncino flakes and the onion.
• When the onion starts to become translucent, add the pancetta and herbs.
• When the pancetta has browned, add the beans. Add salt and peeper to taste.
• After 3 - 4 minutes, deglaze the pan with the wine (poru it in and mix everything together until it evaporates).
• Drain the pasta and add it to the sauce. Add the good olive oil and mix everything together.
• Grate parmesan cheese over the top and garnish with fresh parsley before serving.

Making fresh pesto takes no time at all!

Pasta with pesto is the fall-back meal in our household for when I can’t figure out what to make for a meal, or don’t have much motivation to cook.  It’s easy (especially if you get it out of a jar!), and nobody complains about it when it’s put in front of them.  Fresh pesto is astonishingly delicious, and is worth the effort to make it.  I already posted a recipe for it a while ago.  Actually, even making pesto fresh doesn’t take much effort if you have a little blender.  You just throw all the ingredients into the blender and whizz them into a mush. You can almost do that in the time it takes to yell, “DINNER’S READY!” and actually have everyone sitting at the table.  That can take a while, at least at our place, by the time each person says, “I’m JUST finishing…blahblah”.  Now I know why starting a sentence that way used to drive my Dad crazy (Belated sorry, Dad!!).

This pasta dish is a one pot meal

This pesto-smothered pasta recipe ups the ante a little, but is still very quick to make as you cook the vegetables with the pasta in the same pot. The added advantage is that you only have to wash ONE pot! The only little bit of work is cutting up the green beans and potatoes.  You should definitely make this pesto dish with spaghetti and not short pasta.  Don’t ask me why.  It just tastes better that way!  Make sure you chop the potato into quite small chunks so that the cubes almost fall to pieces to coat the spaghetti when they’re cooked.

If you don’t have time/the inclination to make fresh pesto, just use a good quality jarred one.  It’ll still taste good! The amount of pesto you add to the pasta depends a lot on how “pesto-y” you like your pasta with pesto.

And Now For Something Completely Different:

I’m very excited to share a link to a great blog on Italy and all things Italian written by a friend Margie Milkas, who is very passionate about Italy.  She recently compiled a group of photos from some of her favourite blogs on Italy and posted them on a great site all about Italy that she helps to edit called Italian Talks.  Go have a look.  If you ever had any dreams of visiting Italy, after looking at these photos from all around the country, you’ll be packing your suitcases immediately!

This week’s Travel Photo is from a town called Ragusa in Sicily.  It is the setting for one of Italy’s best TV series (in my opinion!) called Montalbano. Ragusa is an ornate town full of Baroque architecture.  It’s absolutely worth a visit if you ever make it to Sicily!

To find out how to cook pasta like an Italian does, check out my handy guide.

By Lisa Watson

Print Pin

Spaghetti with pesto, potatoes, and green beans

How to make Spaghetti With Pesto, Potatoes and Green Beans: a specialty from Liguria, Italy.

Course entree, first course, Main Course

Cuisine Italian

Prep Time 5 minutes minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes minutes

Total Time 20 minutes minutes

Servings 4 people

Ingredients

• 380 g Spaghetti 13.4 oz
• 1 medium potato approximately 100 g
• 100 g Green Beans (fresh or frozen) 3.5 oz
• 1/2 cup Pesto approximately 150 g

Instructions

• Make the pesto with fresh basil using this recipe, or use a good quality store-bought pesto.
• Boil water in a large pot.
• While you are waiting for the water to boil, peel the potatoes, wash them and chop them into cubes about 2 cm (1 inch) big. Chop the beans into segments about 5 cm (2 inches) long.
• When the water is boiling, add a small handful of large-grained salt, and add the spaghetti, potato chunks and beans. Cook the pasta, stirring frequently, as per the instructions on the packet.
• When the pasta is al dente, drain it, put it in a large bowl and add the pesto.  Stir it well so that the potato chunks break up slightly.

Notes

Serve while hot.  You can sprinkle grated Parmesan cheese over the top if you like.

The joys of scraping ice, cycling in the snow, and kale

It’s getting a teensy bit colder….not as cold as it should be at this time of the year, but cold enough to start making soup every now and then.  I feel cheated: I’ve only had to scrape ice off my car window twice so far this Winter!  Usually, it’s pretty much every day.  I actually enjoy doing it.  Probably because I now live in a place where it doesn’t get too cold.  I remember having to do it in Germany for months and cursing the fact that I had to get out of bed two minutes earlier every day to do some scraping.  Well, actually in Germany, I gave up on my car as it never wanted to start anyway and just slipped and slid my way to work on the snowy bicycle paths. Nothing like riding a bike on snow to wake you up quickly in the morning! But, I’m waffling;…this post is meant to be about soup and the kale I found the other day to put in it.

What’s so great about kale anyway?

So, I’ve been hearing about this wondrous green stuff called kale for the last few years. People rave about it and eat it as though it’s going out of fashion (or more because it’s in fashion, maybe!).  Anyway, a new greengrocer opened up recently near us and when I went to have a sniff around, lo and behold! I found some kale staring at me from the shelves!  I had to buy it of course, and then had to decide what to do with it as it lay gently wilting on my kitchen bench. In the same greengrocer I found some topinambour (Jerusalem Artichokes) which were another thing I’d heard about, but never really seen here, so of course, I bought some of them too.  All this impulse buying is a little dangerous, but it did get us to eat something new.  I also didn’t really know what to do with these tubers. So, what to do with vegetables when in doubt? Make soup!

The wonderful thing about soup

I chopped everything I had (vegetable-wise) up and threw in in a pot with some chicken broth and simmered it for a while, and yet another miracle (after the kale appearance) happened: once I blended it all up, it tasted really good!  I love soup!  It has so many possibilities for subterfuge. Anyway, the kale gave the soup a wonderful bright green colour. I’m still not sure that it’s worth all the hype, but I’ll be buying it again.  Maybe next time I’ll figure out a recipe to use first before going to buy it.  Actually that would make a great phone app: when you’re in the supermarket you point it at a fruit or vegetable and it gives you a recipe along with a list of ingredients you need to buy to make it. I’ll take a commission from whoever develops that one!

Travel photo of the week

I sprinkled on Piment d’Espelette at the end.  It’s a not very spicy chile with a smokey flavour that comes from the Basque Country area in the South-West of France. If you go there you can see strings of these chillis hanging up everywhere to dry.

And now for the travel photo of the week!  Since I’ve written about piment d’Espelete here, I thought I’d show you an area in France near where the powder comes from.  Unfortunately, I have no photos of the Basque Country to show you as we went there way before digital photos, so you’ll just have to take my word for it that it’s very beautiful!  This photo is from near Toulouse, in the Tarn region of France. It’s the South-West of France as well, so it will give you an idea of what the countryside is like there.

So, all that’s left in to say Happy Holidays!  I hope you all have a wonderful time doing whatever you are going to be doing.  See you all next year!!

By Lisa Watson

Print Pin

Kale and root vegetable soup

How to make kale and root vegetable soup

Course entree, first course, Main Course, Soup

Cuisine Mediterranean

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes minutes

Total Time 25 minutes minutes

Ingredients

• 1 Onion
• 200 g Jerusalem Artichokes 7.9 oz
• 200 g Pumpkin 7.9 oz
• 200 g Parsnip 7.9 oz
• 1 bunch Kale
• Chicken broth or stock cube with water - to cover
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• Piment d'Espelette to taste

Instructions

• Chop the onion finely and sauté it in 3 Tbsp of olive oil.
• Peel and chop all the root vegetables into cubes of roughly similar size (for even cooking).  Wash the kale, then cut it into strips.
• Add the vegetables to the pot, then cover with broth or water.
• Let the soup simmer at a medium heat for about 10 - 15 minutes until soft. (When you can stick a fork or knife through with little resistance).
• Take the soup off the stove and blend it with a handheld blender until smooth.
• Sprinkle with Piment d'Espelette (or another mild chilli powder) just before serving.

Even spinach haters like these

Spinach is one of those poor maligned vegetables that everyone loves to hate, but happily eats when it’s mixed in with other ingredients, such as eggs or cheese. Even my kids, who vow and declare that they detest spinach, gobble it up when it’s “hidden”. I put hidden in quotation marks as it’s obviously there, yet they eat it anyway and don’t complain as if I’m trying to poison them. These spinach and ricotta self-crusting mini quiches are a big mouthful to say for such a small thing.  I need to come up with a zappy name for them……anybody got an idea? Verdant Delices, Eggy Wonders? Just as long as there’s no mention of the word spinach!

Spinach quiches are great for any occasion

If you have a muffin tin, these spinach quiches are incredibly easy to make. There’s no fussy messing about with pastry. The most difficult thing you have to do is thaw the frozen spinach, or cook the fresh stuff.  The rest is just a matter of mixing all the ingredients together.  I made them for Thanksgiving as a side to the fabulous turkey (I’ll tell you about that beast another time).  They would be perfectly at home as a first course draped in an elegant robe of béchamel sauce, or as part of a crowd in a buffet at a party.  They make great finger food too.  The spinach quiches are really just all-round kinda guys. Though….maybe not for dessert….unless you’re into that sort of thing.

Do make sure to get as much water out of the spinach as possible before adding it to the egg mixture.  I stick it inside some paper towels and squash it as much as I can.  It’s not a very pleasant feeling, but it does get rid of most of the water.  If you have fresh spinach, boil or steam it and then after squeezing the water out (when it’s cooled down so that you don’t burn your hands), try to mince it up in as small pieces as possible.

With the holiday season coming up on us like a freight train, I hope this gives you an idea to make the preparation for it a little it easier.

Travel Photo of the Week

This week I thought I’d take you to California!  This is Malibu Beach in Los Angeles.   I’ve never seen a beach that was so incredibly wide, even when the tide was in!  In fact, the kids decided to run to go and see the water when I wasn’t paying attention.  When I did look around, I just saw them as tiny dots on the horizon, waaaaaaay down near the sea. It took a lot of slogging through the sand to get within shouting distance of them and tell them to come back.

By Lisa Watson

Print Pin

Mini Self-Crusting Spinach Quiches

These quiches are easy to make and great for any occasion.  Find the recipe on Italian Kiwi!

Course Appetizer, buffet, fingerfood, Side Dish, Snack

Cuisine French

Prep Time 15 minutes minutes

Cook Time 35 minutes minutes

Total Time 50 minutes minutes

Servings 15 quiches approximately

Ingredients

• 250 g frozen, or two large bunches of fresh Spinach 10oz
• 4 Eggs
• a pinch Nutmeg
• 1 tsp Salt
• Pepper to taste
• 100 ml Single Cream 1/2 cup
• 100 ml Milk 1/2 cup
• 100 g Fresh Ricotta 3 Tbsp

Instructions

• Thaw the frozen spinach and let it cool enough to squeeze it in a few paper towels to get as much of the water out as possible.  If you have fresh spinach, boil it for 5 minutes before draining and squeezing it. Mince up the spinach if it is not already in tiny pieces.
• Heat the oven to 180°C (350)°F.
• Put all the ingredients except for the ricotta in a bowl, then stir them until they are well mixed.
• Add the ricotta in small lumps and stir it in gently.
• Grease a muffin tray very well with butter or oil.  I cut little circles of baking paper out and put them in each muffin well.  This helps to unmold them after cooking.
• Fill the muffin wells until they are 3/4 full.
• Bake in the oven for 30 -40 minutes until the quiches are set and slightly browned on top.
• Leave them in the muffin trays until cooled. Run a knife gently around the sides of each quiche and carefully lever them out.
• The quiches can be kept in the fridge for up to 4 days.  To prepare the quiches for eating, heat them for 5 minutes in the oven.

What to do with all those zucchini

Zucchini, zucchini everywhere and not a recipe in sight……or is there? My kids and I grew zucchini plants from seed this year.  They’ve taken a while as the weather’s been all over the place, acting like a teenage girl who doesn’t know what to wear on a date: “Shall I go stormy and dark?  Shall I be light and sunny?  Or shall I give them a bit of both so that they don’t know what to expect?”.  Anyway, now, just a couple of days before we go on holiday, there are zucchini coming out our ears.  I’d been throwing them in pasta sauces, and putting them in places that they really have no place being (please don’t get smutty on me….I didn’t mean THAT!!), when I suddenly remembered that fritters are the way to the light.  They are so versatile that you can stick pretty much any vegetable in them and it comes out tasting great!

Fritters are very forgiving

So I set to work trying to remember the recipe my mother used to make when I was a kid and she made corn fritters.  It worked!  I also found some spring onions in the fridge that needed using up before we leave, so I minced them up and threw them in with the grated zucchini too. Fantastic!  Fritters can be seen as the seagulls of the fridge world.  They swallow up everything that you have left and are not sure what to do with.

Try not to go on holiday when the vegetables are ready

The worst of the whole vegetable garden thing this year is that I think our house-sitters are going to be the ones reaping the benefits while we’re away in Italy.  There are all types of tomatoes on the brink of ripening and even MORE zucchini bursting out like balloons that are all planning to be ready on the day after we leave.  I’m beginning to think that the vegetables do it on purpose as some sort of protest (we are in France, after all), as they didn’t get cared for enough in their younger months.

Travel photo of the week

Here’s something to get the travel bug working inside your head. This week I’m taking you to one of my favourite places in the world: Yosemite National Park in California. When we lived in California, we used to go there at least four times a year.  I miss it dreadfully still!

By Lisa Watson

Print Pin

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes minutes

Total Time 25 minutes minutes

Servings 12 -15 fritters

Ingredients

• 150 g 1 cup All-purpose flour
• 1 tsp Baking Powder
• 1 tsp Salt
• 2 Eggs
• to taste Pepper
• 120 ml 1/2 cup Milk
• 2 medium size about 200g/7oz Zucchini
• 2 Spring Onions

Instructions

• Mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl.
• Add the eggs and milk and mix in.
• Grate the zucchini. Blot it with a paper towel to get rid of excess moisture. Finely mince the spring onion.
• Add the vegetables to the batter and stir in.
• Heat a frying pan with a thin layer of oil in it.
• Pour tablespoons of the mixture into the pan once the oil is hot.
• Wait until one side browns and flip them over. Each fritter should take 3 - 5 minutes to cook.
• When the fritters are cooked, drain them on a plate with a paper towel on it.
• The fritters acan be eaten hot or cold.

Risotto with a difference!

This risotto with sausages and spinach has an extra special guest hitching along for the ride.  Instead of using the usual wine to make the risotto, you actually use beer.  It gives the risotto an extra depth of taste, especially if you pair it with good pork sausages. I added spinach to the risotto to make my kids eat something green, but it does actually go very well in the dish!  At the moment there are all sorts of spinach-type things popping up everywhere in the shops.  They probably should be popping up in my garden so I can go all Mother Nature on you and write “and the spinach I gathered fresh from my own garden….blah, blah”, but as I’m terribly lazy when it comes to gardening, all I can offer you is spinach grown in a local market-garden…..it’s almost like it comes from my garden, except I didn’t do any of the work, and I have to pay for it.

Why you should never give a student a home-brew kit for their birthday

This is a much more refined way to have beer.  I remember in my dark, far-off student days, when men were men and beer was free-flowing, some friends and I made the mistake of giving one of my flatmates a beer-making kit for his 21st birthday (turning 21 is a big deal in New Zealand. as years ago it used to be the age to start drinking and voting).  My flatmate, who shall not be named (you know who you are, Al!), took to beer-making with gusto and churned out gallon after gallon of revolting beer.  That being said, we drank the whole lot since we were penniless students, and even better we often dragged our couch outside into the front garden and sat in the sun drinking it (at this point all our parents should cover their eyes)….ahem, probably instead of going to lectures………luckily, digital cameras didn’t exist way back then so there are no photos I can show you of that time.  Instead, let me leave you with a photo of hundreds of sheep staring at you from my Dad’s farm.  That’s enough to make you feel paranoid that someone’s watching you and may even drive you to home-brewed student beer…..

Anyhow, enough about random sheep and drinking home-brew that’s not ready to drink….using beer to make risotto is less damaging to the liver, as the alcohol boils off, leaving the taste of the beer.  Try to use a stronger tasting beer to make the risotto, and not a lager, as it really does make a difference.

By Lisa Watson

Print Pin

Risotto with beer, sausage, and spinach

Risotto with a difference! This one is made with beer instead of the usual wine. It goes wonderfully with the sausage and spinach.

Course entree, first course, Main Course

Cuisine Italian

Prep Time 5 minutes minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes minutes

Total Time 25 minutes minutes

Servings 4 people

Ingredients

• 400 g Arborio or Carnaroli rice 2 cups
• Chicken stock stock cube
• 1 small Onion
• 4 Sausages approx 200g
• 250 ml Beer 1 small bottle
• 150 g frozen Spinach or 1 bunch fresh
• 40 g Parmesan cheese 4 Tbsp
• 1 tsp Salt

Instructions

• Put the chicken stock, or pot of water with the bouillon cube in it, to simmer on the stove top.  Chop the onion finely and saute it in olive oil in a second pot. When the onion becomes translucent, crumble the sausage and add it.  Stir the mixture until the sausage is browned.
• Add the rice and saute until it browns slightly.
• Add the beer and let it boil off.
• Add the frozen spinach, or chopped fresh spinach and 1 tsp of salt.
• Pour in enough water/broth from your simmering pot to cover the rice mixture. and put the timer on for 13 minutes.  Now, STAY THERE AND DON'T MOVE!!  As the rice is cooking, watch the level of the water.  As it goes down, add water from the simmering pot, one ladle-full (or cupful) at a time. Stir the rice often.
• As the time gets to around 12 minutes, start tasting the rice to see how done it is. The type of rice you have may vary the cooking times, so I'm being conservative here. If it's close to being cooked, don't add any more water and let the water in the rice boil off....and don't forget to stir it.....
• Add the Parmesan cheese and stir it in.

My love-hate affair with artichokes

It’s coming into artichoke season!  I have a love/hate relationship with artichokes.  I love to eat them but hate dealing with them: from the minute I pick them up at the market and they prick me with their nasty thorns, to the time when I’m trying to pull the tough outer leaves off (and again not get pricked!), to trying to get rid of the fluffy “choke” in the middle that seems to get its hairs all over everything.  By the time I’ve prepared them, I get to the edge of reason and throw them in the boiling water yelling, “DIE, DAMN YOU!!” at them.  Anyway……I do love to eat them, so every now and then I get them anyway.

Why you you always serve your guests a flan

This recipe for Flan di Carciofi (Artichoke Flan) is one of those things that you eat in a restaurant (flans like this are served often in Northern Italy) and think, “Wow!  This is so complicated and elegant!”.  I’ve always loved eating vegetable flans with cheese sauce whenever I get get them in Italy, but never tried to make them at home, as I thought that they would be FAR too difficult.  Well, do you want to hear a secret that I’ve just discovered? It’s actually super-easy, but looks really impressive! I decided to take the bull by the horns and actually do it myself.  This is the best kind of recipe there is to bowl over your dinner guests!  I made it with artichokes, but you can make the flans with any kind of vegetable you like, e.g. carrots, asparagus, broccoli, cauliflower: it is only limited by your imagination.

Hints to make a great flan

There are only two slightly tricky things in the making of this: one is not spilling the water on you from the pan the artichoke flans cook in when you pull them out of the oven (yes, that happened to me), and the other is that when you make the cheese sauce that goes with it, you have to keep stirring it all the time, otherwise you’ll end up with a gloopy mess (yes, that happened to me too).

I used Fontina cheese for the artichoke flans, but if you can’t find Fontina, I’m sure any other flavour-filled cheese that melts well, such as gruyere, or a good cheddar cheese, would work well. The flans can be cooked in advance and heated up later.  I reheated some that I had kept in the fridge for 3 days and they were just as good as fresh.  They can even be frozen (apparently: I’m trying that one out right now and will get back to you in a few days to tell you if it works). The cheese sauce has to be made fresh and just before serving, otherwise it congeals (take that one from me as the truth: yes, that happened to me too!). You can make individual portions in a muffin tin, as I did or make one big one.  They are very delicate to get out of the moulds, so keep that in mind if you decide to make a large one.

Travel Photo Of The Week

So, this photo has nothing to do with artichokes at all, and is not even of Italy, but isn’t it a beautiful place? This is the north-east coast of the island of Mallorca, just off the coast of Spain.  The graffitied building you can see on the left is an abandoned half-constructed house. The view from its terrace was astounding, which is why who-ever started to build it, chose that site in the first place.

By Lisa Watson

Print Pin

Artichoke flan with fontina cream

Flans are a wonderful way to impress your dinner guests, yet very easy to make.  Try this recipe for artichoke flan with cheese sauce

Course Appetizer

Cuisine Italian

Prep Time 1 hour hour

Cook Time 30 minutes minutes

Total Time 1 hour hour 30 minutes minutes

Servings 10 small flans

Ingredients

• 500 g Artichoke hearts 1.1lbs
• 4 Eggs
• 200 ml Milk 1 cup
• 3 Tbsp Parmesan Cheese
• 1 tsp Salt
• a dash Nutmeg
• to taste Black Pepper

For the Sauce:

• 100 ml Milk 1/2 cup
• 100 g Fontina Cheese 3.5oz
• 2 Egg yolks
• 1 Tbsp Butter

Instructions

For the Flans:

• I used frozen artichoke hearts this time, which just needed to be boiled for a few minutes to thaw them.  If using fresh artichokes, pare them down to the heart and stem, then boil them in water containing lemon juice until they are tender.
• Put all the ingredients (except those for the sauce!) in a bowl and use a blender to puree them all together.
• Grease a muffin tin well, and put little rounds of baking paper in the bottom of each well.
• Bake at 160ºC (325ºF) for 25 -30 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean.
• Leave them to cool for about 15 -20 minutes, then run a knife around the edges before turning them out (CAREFULLY!) onto a plate.

For the Sauce:

• Cut the cheese into small pieces.
• Put all the ingredients for the sauce into a metal bowl placed over a pot of simmering water.
• Stir continually until the sauce thickens.  This will take about 10 minutes or so, so be patient and keep stirring.  🙂
• Put the flans on individual plates and spoon the sauce decoratively on them/around them. (Don't forget to remove the little rounds of paper!). The flans can be reheated in the oven with no problem.