Farmersgirl Kitchen

Friday, 8 November 2013

Kale, Pumpkin and Smoked Cheese Tart

I'm taking part in the Applewood Spreadable Blogger Challenge and this Kale and Pumpkin Tart is the first of three recipes I will be sharing with you using Applewood Spreadable.

In case you’re not aware, Applewood is a smoke flavoured British cheese hailing from Ilchester, Somerset and is a best seller, loved by many around the world and boasting 80% of the smoked cheese market. It was first created in 1965 and its unique smoky flavour, smooth and creamy texture and finishing flourish of sprinkled paprika, sets this hand-turned farmhouse Cheddar apart from other cheeses.

The new spreadable product is the latest, exciting new product from Applewood to join the existing range. This versatile new spreadable is an ideal cheese for today’s modern lifestyle – you can spread some over bread, stir into a variety of recipes and share with friends by dunking into various snacks.

Kale and Pumpkin Tart with Applewood Spreadable

1 28cm/11in shortcrust pastry flan case, baked blind
1 small pumpkin, seeds and peel removed
3 tbsp oil
2 small onions, sliced
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped

30g butter
1 tbsp oil
150ml double cream
4 eggs
100g Applewood Spreadable
100g grated cheese (I used cheddar but if you have Applewood Smoked, that would be even better!)

1. Make the flan case according to the instructions on the Frequently Used Recipes page.

2. Cut the pumpkin into even sized chunks add, mix with 3 tbsp oil and roast for about 30-40 minutes until tinged with brown and tender, leave to cool.

3. Heat 1 tbsp oil and 30g butter, gently fry the onions and garlic until soft and translucent, add the kale and stir for 3-4 minutes until it starts to soften, set aside to cool.

4. Place the pumpkin into the pastry case.

6. Top with the kale and onion mix.

5. Mix together the Applewood Spreadable with a little cream to slacken it off, then add the rest of the cream. Add the the eggs and beat into the cream mixture, season to taste and pour over the kale and pumpkin. Top with the grated cheese.

6. Bake at 160C for 40 minutes until the egg is set and the cheese is golden and crispy.

Serve with leeks and peas cooked gently in butter and a little stock.

The soft sweet pumpkin went well with the texture of the kale and the smoky cheese flavour of the the Applewood Spreadable was the perfect compliment to both of them. Although most of the ingredients in this tart are vegetarian, the Applewood Spreadable is NOT, so I would suggest that if you don't eat animal products, you choose to use Applewood Smoked Cheddar to get the smoky flavour in the tart.

I received samples of Applewood Spreadable Cheese and a hamper of food products to use in the competition, I have not been paid for this post and all opinions are my own.

Labels: Applewood Smoked Spreadable, cream, eggs, flan, Kale, Leeks, peas, pumpkin, tart

Monday, 15 April 2013

Seared Scallops with Leek Tagliatelle and Chilli Jam

I love scallops, they are a real treat and ideal to serve when you have friends or family round for supper. I found a recipe for Seared Scallops with leeks and lemon chilli butter on the BBC Good Food website and used that as the basis for my meal.

I'm eating fish twice a week for a Healthy, Happy Heart. You can find out more about how you can increase your Omega 3 levels and improve your health at the Fish is the Dish website.

I've never made a leek tagliatelle but it was really easy to do and very tasty indeed and, as it is steamed, you don't lose the vitamins either.

I really liked this recipe, but I already had some wild garlic butter in the freezer, and wanted to use that instead of the lemon chilli butter.

Wild Garlic

I added a teaspoon of Galloway Chilli Lime and Ginger Jam to the pan with the wild garlic butter after the scallops had been seared and caramelised.

This is Sheena, our local Chilli Queen from Galloway Chillies, at the Farmers Market where I bought a couple of jars of her lovely Chilli Jam.

The Chilli Lime and Ginger Jam with the Wild Garlic butter

I felt that the dish, as described on the website, wouldn't be substantial enough for a main meal, so I made some buttery mashed potatoes topped them with the leek tagliatelli, the scallops and the garlicky, buttery, chilli juices. The whole dish was an absolute delight.

I'm entering this recipe for Herbs on Saturday a recipe sharing blog event hosted by Karen at Lavender and Lovage.

Labels: Chilli Lime and Ginger Jam, Fish is the Dish, Leeks, scallops, seared scallops, Wild Garlic

Friday, 12 October 2012

Seasonal Cheese and Leek Flatbread Sandwich

Jacqueline has set us a slightly different challenge for this month's No Croutons Required, she says "I would like to focus on what is often served alongside soup or a salad. I am thinking of the humble sandwich. Toasted or plain, I would like you to come up with an interesting sandwich. The only stipulation is that it must be suitable for vegetarians."

Too few people understand a really good sandwich.James Beard

My Mum probably makes the best sandwiches, she always ensures that there was plenty of filling and that the filling goest right to the edge of the sandwich, the best way to achieve this is by cutting off the crusts. But I'm not going to make that kind of sandwich because ever since the early stages of the Great British Bake Off, I've been hankering to make some flatbreads.
I used the recipe for 'Magic Bread Dough' from Hugh Fearnly Whittingstall's River Cottage Veg Everyday.It's an interesting mix of strong and plain flour and something I haven't tried before.

There is plenty of dough to make several different flatbreads. For the dough for my sandwich I added some chopped rosemary. You can cook the flatbreads on a griddle but I put them in a hot (240C) oven for about 5-10 minutes.

This one is more like a pizza. I spread the dough with, one of my favourite sauces, Maggi Chilli and Tomato Sauce straight from the bottle. Then sprinkled over some grated Lockerbie Cheddar Cheese.

For the sandwich filling, I adapted Hugh F-W's Leek and Cheese Toastie from River Cottage Veg to lower the calorie count.

Leek and Cottage Cheese Flatbread Sandwich

15g butter
2 medium leeks, trimmed and finely chopped (white and pale green part only)
A couple of sprigs of thyme, leaves only
3 tablespoons of cottage cheese
1 tsp cornflour
50g cheddar
1 large rosemary flatbread
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Melt the butter in a frying plan and add the leeks. Cook gently until softened. Stir in the thyme. Mix the cornflour with some of the liquid from the cottage cheese and add to the pan, add the cottage cheese and warm through. Take off the heat and add two-thirds of the cheese .

Pile the leek and cheese filling onto one half of the flatbread and fold over, sprinkle over the rest of the cheese and place under a hot grill for a couple of minutes until the cheese melts.

Serve with salad

I served my sandwich with a Carrot, Cucumber and Apple Salad with chopped Pistachio nuts

To finish off, I'd like to show you the sweet flatbread that I made, using the basic dough a few dried apricots, chopped white chocolate and ground almonds.

After it was baked, I glazed it with honey and put it back in the oven for a couple of minutes.
I'm entering this for No Croutons Required run by Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes and Lisa from Lisa's Kitchen.

Herbs on Saturday run by Karen at Lavender and Lovage

and also for Simple and in Season, a seasonal challenge created by Ren Behan at Fabulicious Food, this month hosted by Franglais Kitchen

Labels: apples, apricots, carrots, flatbread, ground almonds, Herbs on Saturday, Leeks, No Croutons Required, salad, sandwiches, Simple and in Season, white chocolate

Monday, 9 April 2012

Chicken and Leek Pasta Bake

After all the Easter feasting, there are always the leftovers. I love leftovers the offer up the chance to experiment and create something from the bits and pieces that lurk in the fridge.

We had chicken on Saturday and Lamb on Sunday and as our visitors had to call off at the last minute, we have rather a lot of leftovers! The lamb has been made into a Shepherd's Pie and a Lamb Curry but the chicken needed to be used today, so I rifled through the fridge and found some leeks, spring onions, Dijon mustard and half fat creme fraiche.

Chicken and Leek Pasta (serves 4)

Meat stripped from 1 cooked chicken breast

Meat stripped from 1 cooked chicken leg

2 leeks, cleaned and finely chopped

3 spring onions, finely chopped

300ml of half fat creme fraiche

a couple of handfuls of frozen peas

juice of half a lemon

1 tbsp Dijon mustard

1 tsp olive oil

6 nests of tagliatelle

salt and freshly ground pepper

grated Parmesan or Gran Padano cheese to taste

In a large frying pan or saute pan, heat the olive oil and gently cook the leeks and spring onions until soft. Add the cooked chicken and heat through, add the frozen peas and set aside.

Cook the tagliatelli in a pan of boiling water until just cooked. Drain, leaving a little of the cooking water in the pan and set aside.

Add the creme fraiche, mustard and seasoning to the leek and chicken mixture and season to taste.

Mix the chicken mixture through the pasta and pile into an ovenproof dish, sprinkle over the grated cheese and put in an oven at 200C for about 10 minutes until brown and bubbling.

Labels: Bake, Chicken, Leeks, leftovers, pasta, peas

Sunday, 22 January 2012

Delicious Flamiche (Flemish Leek Tart)

My friend has recently been in hospital for major surgery, she is back home now and I went to visit her yesterday taking with me a lunch of this Leek Tart. The recipe is in the February edition of Delicious Magazine and not available on the website yet, but hopefully it will be once the March edition is published.

I have to say we were both mightily impressed by this tasty tart, the cheesy pastry and leek, creme fraiche and egg filling (I also added an 50g of cheese to the filling mix) was moist and the pastry was still crisp underneath - hurrah, no soggy bottom!

I accompanied the tart with a roasted tomato salsa. The cherry tomatoes were roasted because they were just not quite as ripe as I would have liked, so I drizzled them with olive oil and a little salt and stuck them in a hot oven for 10 minutes. Once they had cooled, I mixed them with diced celery, cucumber and coriander, poured in the remaining roasting oil and a little white wine vinegar. No photos of that I'm afraid as I was hurrying out the door to get to my friend's house for lunchtime!

Labels: cheese, creme fraiche, Delcicious Magazine, eggs, Leek Tart, Leeks, pastry

Saturday, 14 January 2012

Haddock Mornay Layer Bake - keen as mustard!

All of this little lot came to me from Kelly Atkins at Food Matters. They are working with Henry Harris and Grey Poupon to show the versatility of Grey Poupon Dijon mustard as an ingredient in cooking. Grey Poupon is one of the finest Dijon mustards, it’s the white wine in the ingredients that makes it superior to its competitors and the flavour it creates when used as an ingredient is very unique.

I opted to make a fish dish and only specified some spinach, the rest of the ingredients were a surprise to me a bit like doing 'Ready Steady Cook'!

So here is what came in my bag:
2 Haddock Fillets
260g bag of Spinach
220g Blue Stilton
300ml Creme Fraiche
2 Leeks
3 potatoes
215g jar of Grey Poupon Dijon Mustard

You will also need:
2 tbsp olive oil
75g butter
1 tsp cornflour
50g Gran Padano cheese, grated
100g mature cheddar, grated
salt and freshly ground black pepper

After much thought and some inspiration hunting through my cookbooks, I decided to make a layered bake.

Put 1 tbsp olive oil and 15g butter in a large pan, add the leeks when the butter begins to sizzle. Saute the leeks gently until they are soft and slightly golden. Tranfer them to an ovenproof baking dish, season with salt and pepper.

Put the other 1tbsp of olive oil and 15g butter into the pan and add the whole bag of spinach leaves once the butter begins to sizzle. Cover the pan (I used a sheet of foil and cook gently until the spinach has wilted, about 5 minutes.

Place the wilted spinach over the leeks in the ovenproof dish, season with salt and pepper.

If the fish has skin, remove the skin and cut the fish fillets into chunks and spread over the spinach and leeks. Season with salt and pepper.

Put a tsp of cornflour into a bowl and add about a tbsp cold milk, mix together. The cornflour will help the creme fraiche not to split when the dish is baked.

and now for the mustard, add a generous teaspoonful of Grey Poupon Dijon Mustard to the milk and cornflour and mix thoroughly.

Add the Creme Fraiche and the two chesses and mix together.

Spread the mixture over the fish and vegetables layers.

Peel the potatoes and slice thinly, parboil in a pan of boiling water for about 5-10 minutes until soft but not breaking up. Top the ovenproof dish with the potatoes. Melt around 20g of butter in a pan and brush the potato slices with the melted butter.

Bake in the oven at 180C for 30 minutes until the sauce is hot and bubbling and the potatoes are golden brown.

I was really pleased with the taste of this dish, you could taste all the ingredients but no one overpowered the others and the crispy texture of the potatoes was a nice contrast to the creamy sauce and soft vegetables.

Now the eagle-eyed among you may have noticed that I did not use the Stilton. I felt that it would have overpowered the taste of fish and I wanted the mustard to be the dominant flavour. However, I thought it might be nice to accompany the Fish Bake with a salad and a little Blue Cheese Dressing.

Blue Cheese Dressing

100g Blue Stilton

2oz cream cheese

1 tbsp mayonnaise

100ml single cream

Crumble the blue cheese, set aside about 1/3 of the cheese and mix the rest with the cream cheese until well blended.

Stir in the mayonnaise and the single cream, then stir in the remaining blue cheese.

Cover with cling film and chill in the fridge for 3 hours to blend the flavours

I made a simple Waldorf salad with Romaine lettuce, chopped celery, sliced apple and chopped walnuts, combined with the Blue Cheese dressing this was very good and a complete contrast to the fish bake.

I'm not convinced these are ideal parnters but the Blue Cheese dressing would make an outstanding dip to have with crudites as it really complimented the celery (especially when I was testing it out before serving!)

Labels: celery, cheese, creme fraiche, Dijon Mustard, fish, Grey Poupon, haddock, Leeks, lettuce, potatoes, salad, spinach, Stilton, waldorf salad, walnut

Saturday, 18 September 2010

Great British Waste Menu - my contribution!

No, I wasn't headhunted by Simon Rimmer and Richard Corrigan to join them on the Great British Waste Menu. However, it did remind me just how much food is wasted. I watched the programme with my Mum when I was visiting and when I returned home, I found that my neighbours had left me a bag of produce from their garden and I already had a few slightly wrinkly carrots in the bottom of the fridge.

Inspired by the programme, I looked around for a tasty way of using up the carrots, turnip (swede), leeks and potatoes. I found this recipe for Gratin of Carrots and Root Vegetables a few substitutions of veggies and I made a bechamel with milk rather than using cream. It doesn't look particularly pretty but it was very tasty and satisfying.

Labels: carrots, gratin, Great British Waste Menu, Leeks, potatoes

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