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."

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.

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

posted by Janice @ 21:26 10 Comments

Roasted Courgette, Tomato, Feta and Basil Tart

There was a bit of joking on Twitter the other night about how we should make one recipe that covered all the blog challenges, then we could have the rest of the month off!  I haven't managed to cover quite all the blog challenges with this post but it ticked off quite a few.

My courgette/zucchini plant has sucked up all the rain and produced some huge fruits, so although I had planned to make the Pea, bean and bacon tart from the July issue of BBC Good Food, I decided to adapt it to use the courgettes, hmmm maybe I could use some tomatoes too, oh and that half block of Feta cheese, so no need for the bacon and I'll make my own pasty instead of using frozen shortcrust like in the recipe...not much of the recipe left to be honest!

Roasted Courgette Tomato, Feta and Basil Tart

1 quantity of butter shortcrust pastry blind baked in a flan case (click through to the link for full recipe)

For the roasted vegetables
2 large or three medium courgettes/zucchini
8 small tomatoes, halved
3 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp salt

Heat the oven to 200C, slice or dice the courgettes into even sized chunks, halve the tomatoes.  Place the vegetables in a roasting dish and coat with the oil.  Sprinkle with salt and roast in the oven for 20-30 minutes until starting to blacken round the edges. Remove from oven and drain the juices into a bowl.

For the filling
100g Feta cheese, cubed
300ml double cream
4 large eggs
juices from the roasted vegetables
6-8 basil leaves
freshly ground pepper




Place the roasted vegetables into the baked tart case, top with the cubed feta and torn basil leaves.  Season with freshly ground pepper.
Beat the cream and eggs together and stir in the saved juices from the roasted vegetables. Pour over the vegetables and cheese and bake at 160C for 35 minutes until set and golden.

Roasting the veg means that the pastry doesn't go soggy and it makes a nice firm filling, very tasty indeed.

I'm entering this tart for One Ingredient, the July ingredient is 'The Tomato' and it is being hosted this month by Jacqueline at How to Cook Good Food who shares this challenge with Working London Mummy


 And..Veggie/Fruit a Month which is featuring the Zucchini for July and is being hosted this month by Cook's Joy



It is also Simple and in Season another challenge run by Jacqueline at How to Cook Good Food in patnership with Ren at Fabulicious Food



Okay, so far three challenges busted with one dish, now to the salad I served with the tart

Giant Couscous, Butternut and Walnut Salad

I've been reading about Giant Couscous, so when I saw a bag at the farm shop last week, I popped it in my basket.  Also in GoodFood July issue was this recipe which was perfect to try out the giant couscous.  This time I stuck to the recipe!


I hope the recipe will go onto the website soon and I can link back, but it is basically roasted dice of butternut squash which have been sprinkled with chilli powder (I roasted them in a separate dish but at the same time as the courgettes and tomatoes).  You cook the couscous for five minutes, then mix through the roasted squash and the oil it has been roasted in and add walnut pieces, the seeds and juice of half a pomegranate and juice of half a lemon with a handful of chopped mint.

What a lovely salad it was, the squash pieces were quite hot as I probably used more chilli than I should and used chilli flakes rather than powder!  However, as the couscous is bland if you ate it altogether, the heat was about right.  I loved the fresh juiciness of the pomegranate seeds, the green bite of the mint and earthy crunch of the walnuts.   I would definitely make this again.

And this recipe is for Bookmarked Recipes one of the challenges run by Jac at Tinned Tomatoes from an idea by Ruth from Ruth's Kitchen Experiments founder of the challenge.

Labels: basil, Bookmarked Recipes, butternut squash, courgettes, feta cheese, flan, Giant couscous, One Ingredient, pomegranate, quiche, roasted vegetables, salad, Simple and in Season, tart, tomatoes, vegetarian

posted by Janice @ 20:19 11 Comments

Strawberry Lemon Cake Dessert

This is a dessert idea for Simple and in Season for June which is being hosted this month by Laura at How to Cook Good Food rather than as usual by Ren at Fabulicious Food.

This is my second entry for June and simple is the operative word here. I had some strawberries left over from the strawberry tarts,  I also had some creme pattiserie and some of the strawberry jam glaze. Rather than make more tarts, I took some slices of lemon drizzle cake from the freezer, drizzled over a little organge juice, spooned the creme pattisiere round the cake, piled on the strawberries and topped with the glaze.  Like many simple ideas, it was excellent!

Labels: creme patissiere, dessert, lemon drizzle cake, Simple and in Season, strawberries

posted by Janice @ 15:00 6 Comments

Warm Rhubarb and Raspberry Meringue Trifle

After making the Iced Cranachan with Raspberry Coulis and Oat Crumble for Best of British, I was left with 3 egg whites, some Raspberry Coulis and a little Oat Crumble.  So I decided that I would combine these with some rhubarb and custard and create a warm trifle.


Warm Rhubarb and Raspberry Meringue Trifle

3 long stalks of outdoor grown rhubarb
1 tbsp caster sugar
4 trifle sponges
3 tbsp raspberry coulis (if you don't have any you can spread them with jam)
1 litre milk
2 tbsp custard powder
1 tbsp sugar
3 egg whites
125g caster sugar

1. Cut the rhubarb into even sized pieces and place in a single layer in an ovenproof dish or baking tray, sprinkle with 1 tbsp caster sugar and roast at 200C for about 10-15 minutes until soft.

2.  Place the trifle sponges in the base of an ovenproof dish, pour the raspberry coulis evenly over the trifle sponges and then cover them with the rhubarb and the juices that have gathered in the bottom of the dish.


3.  Scatter over the remaining oat crumble (optional).


 4. Make the custard according to the instructions on the packaging and pour over the rhubarb.

5. Whisk the egg whites until they are stiff, gradually whisk in the sugar until glossy.  Pile the meringue on top of the custard and bake in the oven at 160C for 30 minutes, until golden brown.

Labels: Best of British, custard, meringue, raspberry, rhubarb, Simple and in Season, trifle

posted by Janice @ 20:22 2 Comments