chives – Food That We Make

Creamy Butternut Squash, Chive, and Pine Nut Tagliatelle.

hannahnicklin — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 22:08:05 +0000

Properly delicious, this. The first time I made it I was a little underwhelmed and found it a little stodgy, but the magical addition of a little white wine into the cooking lightens and sharpens the flavour perfectly. Big filling, warming dish, which but for the pine nuts is pretty cheap, is certainly simple, and vegan.

So, how to:

Prep: 10 mins | Cook: 25 mins | Serves: 4
Nutritional info: 494 kcal, 32g carbs, 28g fat, 12g protein

Ingredients pic (less the wine, and pictured for one)

Prep the onion, garlic, weigh out the other things, make the stock, and cube the butternut squash to approx 1cm cubes. Be careful not to slip with the knife on the squash. I do this all the time. Unfun.

And then, before you start, toast your pine nuts, watch them carefully in a dry pan and brown all over, then tip out.

Next, melt the butter in a large pan, add the onions, soften, and then add the garlic and stir for a couple of minutes. Here are some pictures in case you can’t imagine how that looks:

Next, add the cubed squash, stir around for a couple of minutes, then add a good splash per person of white wine. Let that reduce a little, then add the veg stock (it should just about cover the squash), add the nutmeg (to taste), bring to the boil, and simmer gently until the squash is soft. MEANWHILE

Start the water boiling for the tagliatelle, and about 5 minutes in chuck it in the water with a bit of salt. When the squash is soft and lovely, blend it with 1/3 of the chives, and return to the pan with the cream, stirring through. (NB. I later discovered it was better to blend with the cream and then heat through)

Once the sauce has warmed through, hopefully the pasta should be done, add it to the pan, with 2/3 of the pine nuts, and 1/3 of the chives. Mix together

Then dole it onto plates, scattering the remaining chives and pine nuts over the top.

Doesn’t look mega appetising, but it’s warm and filling and tasty. So, y’know, whatevs.

Mushroom spelt barley ‘risotto’

hannahnicklin — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 22:10:58 +0000

Technically this isn’t risotto, because it’s not made with risotto rice (arborio, in fact), but HF Whittingstall uses the word ‘speltotto’ or something which is a portmanteau that makes me feel a bit odd, and that I can’t type without paying attention. So let’s just call it ‘risotto made with spelt barley instead of rice’. It requires less thinking. This is actually based on a GoodFood recipe, but it’s not very generous, and isn’t detailed enough (I think) for people who probably aren’t all that used to cooking with barley, so it’s taken me about 5 attempts to tweak and work this out to the point at which I’m happy to offer it to you to make. Don’t expect this to taste the same as risotto, which is a subtler texture, but this is really tasty in its own right, and the texture of properly cooked barley is actually really satisfying, sort of the same feeling as mushrooms, now I think about it. Anyway, give it a go, spelt is cheap and proper good for you. Nice ‘good’ carb replacement for the ‘bad’ kind, too. Vegan if you replace all the creme fraiche with soya cream.

The only thing to mention before we start: soak the barley, that’s the key. Seriously, this makes all the difference. Chuck some water over it as you slosh milk over your cereal and leave it until dinner. I’ve always shied away from prep before you actually cook but this isn’t prep, it’s watering some grain. It makes the stuff edible. Please do it. You don’t need to make the same mistakes I did.

Prep time: 10 mins (1 of which happens a few hours in advance) | Cook time: 35 mins | Serves: 2
Nutritional info: 297kcal 45g carbs 18g fat 12g protein

Ingredients pic:

First off, at least an hour before, and ideally in the morning, chuck some cold water over the pearled spelt. It will eventually look like this:

Then before everything else, pour boiling water over the porcini mushrooms and allow to rehydrate

meanwhile, prep all the veg. Then heat the oil over a medium heat, and add the onion and garlic and soften for 5 minutes or so.

Then add the mushrooms, and cook stirring often for 2-5 minutes more.

Then, drain the barley, and add to the mushrooms, stir for half a minute or so, then add the wine, stirring as it reduces

quickly pick out the porcini from the soaking liquid, and add 50ml or so to the mushrooms/spelt. Add more of this to taste along with the stock (next bit) if you like.

Then chop the porcini and add to the mix

Then, like you would with a regular risotto, add the hot stock in batches until it’s all been absorbed

Season, if needed. Then add the creme fraiche and a splash of soya cream (or just about 80ml pp soya cream if you’re vegan), then 2/3 of your chopped chives, stir through, serve.

garnish with the rest of the chives, and maybe a bit of veggie parmesan if you want. (Not included in nutritional info)

Seasonal Vegan Green Risotto

hannahnicklin — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 20:22:18 +0000

So I’m always making lovely creamy risottos on here with liberal amounts of creme fraiche or brie or butter or parmesan and although you can probably find replacements for those things, I thought I should make (and try!) a proper meant-to-be-vegan one. So here it is, and doubly well meaning with stupidly seasonal broad beans and herbs cut from my over-grown (and mostly dandelion and potato plant ridden) balcony garden. Although not in the ingredients or nutritional count I should also admit to having chucked a bit of soya cream in at the end, if you’re tracking nutrition 40ml or so should up it by 49kcal 2g carbs 4g fat 1g protein. Still pretty healthy, like. Based on a Rose Elliot recipe. So, here we go:

Prep Time: 5 minutes | Cook Time: 35 minutes | Makes: 2
Nutritional Info: 462 kcal, 83g carbs, 5g fat, 10g protein

Ingredients: GREEN THINGS

soften the celery and onion in the olive oil

meanwhile, make up you stock, bring it to simmer, and boil the broad bean/s for 4-5 mins until just tender, remove and set aside

When the onion and celery is softened add the risotto rice and garlic, stir around for a minute, then add the wine and reduce until absorbed

Add the stock a bit at a time, stirring throughout until you’ve used all the stock or until the rice is tender, this should take 25-30 mins

Add the spinach, petit pois, chopped herbs, and broad beans, stir through until spinach is wilted, season and tip in a little soya cream if you fancy it.

Serve!