The bucket list dinner

We have introduced film night to Kitchenfairies entertainment, and, because I can't resist a food ritual I have decided to match the food to the film.  Tonight it was "The Bucket List" - so I asked for bucket list food suggestions.  
The requests were BBQ ribs, bacon wrap shrimp and cheese souffle.  To these I added potato wedges and celeriac slaw.

The ribs take a while - overnight to marinate and then 2+ hours to bake.  I have written the "recipe" in order of process, so omit the bits you don't want, or add in your own bits.  The soufflé recipe has a page of its own.

Baked BBQ ribs

pork ribs
barbeque spice rub

brown sugar
BBQ sauce

Celeriac slaw

red onion
white onion
red cabbage
carrots
celeriac
lemon juice

potatoes
raw shrimp
smoked streaky bacon
garlic


1.  Mix together the barbeque spice, a big pinch of salt and a spoonful of brown sugar.  Massage this mix into the pork ribs.  Wrap in foil and marinade for up to 24 hours.
2.  Bake the ribs, in their foil, on a tray for 2 hours - at 200.
3.  Start the cheese sauce for the soufflé.
4.  Prep and chop veg for the slaw (finely slice onions, peel and julienne carrots and celeriac, shred cabbage) mix, spritz in the juice of 1 lemon, and add a big pinch of salt, mix well.  Cover and leave in the fridge until everything else is ready.
6.  Prep potato wedges, roast in olive oil for about an hour.
7.  Bake soufflé.
8.  Wrap shrimp in bacon, toss in olive oil and roast for 10 minutes.  I also roasted some with crushed garlic for the pescatarian.
9.  Take the foil off the ribs, slather with BBQ sauce, put back in the oven - on the foil, they just get stickier - bake for 5 minutes
9.  Serve, scoff … also serve mayonnaise for those who like their coleslaw creamy.

Celeraic, lentil and hazelnuts

Lovely autumnal vegetables all around, mix with with some tasty ingredients, and you can eat all sorts of delicious things - I think I read something along these lines by Ottolengi, but I wouldn't swear to it.  All ingredients available in Todmorden market (The Mediterranean Pantry, and the veg stalls)  Also, totally vegan.

Olive oil
Lemon
Celeriac
Carrots
Hazelnuts
Onion
Celery
Garlic
Green lentils
Vegetable stock
Dry white wine
Bay leaves
Thyme
Mustard
Baby spinach

1.  Peel the celeraic and carrots, cut into batons, spritz with lemon juice (to prevent discolouration of the celariac), toss in olive oil and roast for 45 minutes.
2.  Spread hazelnuts on a baking tray and roast for about 5-20 minutes.
3.  Put lentils on to boil with a couple of bay leaves and a spring of thyme.
4.  Sautee chopped onion and celery with crushed garlic in olive oil.
5.  When the lentils are nearly done (about 20 minutes), drain them and pick out the dry herbs.
6.  Toss the lentils into the onion mixture, with a splash of dry white wine and a cup of stock, simmer for a few minutes, so finish them off,  stir in a tablespoon of mild mustard.
7.  Turn the heat off under the lentils, stir in a big handful of baby spinach and let it wilt.
8.  Serve, put a bed of lentils on the plate, topple on the veg and sprinkle with roughly chopped roasted hazelnuts.
9.  Serve, scoff

Update - this made a fantastic soup zizzed up with some more veg stock then next day for lunch.

Baked salmon with tomatoes and capers, braised leeks and celeriac with little roasties.

The veg box presented leeks and celeriac, and we had some great salmon.  So, pulled this little number together.

Potatoes
Olive oil
Cherry tomatoes
Capers
Lemon
Salmon
Leeks
Celeriac
Fennel seeds
White wine
Black pepper

1.  Parboil the chunks of potatoes, drain and roast in olive oil.
2.  Halves tomatoes, add drained, rinsed capers, zest of half a lemon, and its juice.  Put into roasting tin with olive oil.  Plonk salmon on top, cover with foil, and roast for about 25-30 minutes.
3.  Gently sautee chopped leeks and peeled and strips of celeriac, add crushed garlic, a sprinkle of fennel seeds and some white win.  Simmer until celeriac is soft.
Grind of black pepper, and scoff.

Root vegetable nut crumble, with cabbage and peas

Recipe an adaptation of Leith's vegetable bible (or something similar).  Lovely, though, I think addition of a good tomato sauce would make it excellent.

Start the veg on the hob, but put the oven on to 180 after 5-10 minutes

So....

Olive oil
Onion, chopped
Celery, chopped
Celeriac, chopped into 1cm cubed (ish)
Turnip .. chopped into 1cm cubed (ish)
Potato - chopped into 1cm cubed (ish)
Mustard - 2 tsp
Garlic - 3 cloves, crushed
Apple juice (3/4 pint)
Veg stock, about a pint

Crumble topping

Oats
Pasrmesan
mixed nuts (hazelnuts, pecans, walnuts... today)
seeds
seasoning
paprika
olive oil

Serve with:-

Savoy cabbage
Frozen petit pois

1. Sautee onion and celery in olive oil, until a bit soft.
2.  Add chopped root vegetables, and turn over in the oil for a few minutes.
3.  Add apple juice and stock, garlic and mustard .... simmer.

Make crumble:-

Zizz parmesan, nuts and seasoning.
Mix into a bowl of oats, with a little GF flour
Glug in olive oil (about 5 tbsp), and seeds
Mix .... all oats should have a film of oil on them

Tip veg into oven proof dish.
Top with crumble.
Bake for 30 minutes

Steam cabbage, in last 5 minutes chuck frozen peas into water under cabbage steamer.

Simple, wholesome, bloody delicious - loads left for seconds .

we' re thinking about tangy tomato or rich mushroom sauce :)

Root vegetable cake, kale with blue cheese dressing, roast tomatoes

Saw something similar on Nigel Slater - he grated a load of root vegetables and used it as a crumble on a steak pie... and had loads of root veg from the box, so I thought I'd adapt it and give it a go.

knob of butter
splosh of olive oil
2 onions
garlic
2 potatoes
2 parsnips
2 carrots
1 celeriac
1 tbsp grainy mustard
juice of 1 lemon
grating of nutmeg
lots of black pepper

olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
chopped kale
blue cheese

tomatoes
salt
olive oil

1.  Grate ingredients for the root vegetable cake.
2.  Fry them in olive oil and butter until they're a bit soft.
3.  Add garlic, mustard, nutmeg and seasoning.
4.  Transfer to oven proof dish and bake for about an hour at 180.
5.  Chop tomatoes and chuck into oven, sprinkled with salt and drizzled with olive oil.
6.  10 minutes before serving, sautee onion until a bit soft- toss in choppde kale, add splash of water - cover and steam for about 5 minutes.
7.  Add cheese, recover, let steam and melt.  Stir in.

Chipati wraps - spicy chicken and salad

Had some lovely victims come for lunch, and set myself the challenge of making something health and tasty without having to go to the shops.  Now, those of you who know me know that this is not much of ask, because I always have so much stuff knocking about.  However, one of the victims is a small sort of victim, so I wanted something which he would find bits to like as well.  So, my inspiration was fajitas/ burritos ... you know the kind of thing.  Trouble was I didn't have any avocado, salsa, cheese or sour cream - or indeed tortillas!  But what I did have was chipatis, chicken, yogurt, carrots, celariac and red pepper.  So, I made these....  I made mexican spicy chicken for bigger victims, and some chicken nuggety ones with breadcrumbs for the tiny victim.

1 pack chapatis
3 chicken breasts
Mexican spices
3 tbsp natural yogurt
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tbsp olive oil
1 egg
2 tbsp flour, lightly seasoned
1 piece wholemeal bread, blitzed into breadcrumbs
1 tsp mixed herbs
6 carrots
Bunch radishes
1 small onion
1/2 celeriac
sesame seeds
mustard seeds
juice of 1 orange
Lettuce (cos and chinese leaf) shredded
1 red pepper, in strips
4 tbsp light mayonnaise

1.  Cut chicken breasts into strips.
2.  Mix mexican spices and garlic into yogurt and 1 tbsp olive oil, chuck in 2/3 rds of chicken - cover and put in fridge to marinade.
3.  Whisk egg, put seasoned flour on one plate, egg on the next and breadcrumbs mixed with herbs on a third.
4.  Cover the remaining chicken pieces in flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs - cover and put in fridge.
5.  Slaw - grate and mix carrots, radish, onion, celeriac - add small handful mustard seeds, some sesame seeds and orange juice.  Chill.
6.  Cut up other salad ingredients.
7.  To make up - fry chicken nuggets in olive oil, and marinated chicken in another pan with a tiny amount of oil.
8.  Wet sheet of greaseproof paper under the tap, scrunch it up, smooth it out, and wrap chipatis in it - microwave for 2 minutes.
9.  When chicken bits are cooked, drain nuggets on kitchen paper, pile everything on table and let victims make their own dinner.

A round of applause from littlest victim for his chicken nuggets, but he wasn't keen on the red pepper.  Bigger victims demolished most of the rest.  The carrot, celeriac slaw was the best bit for me.   Success, I say.

Monkfish & talapia on the BBQ

Marinaded monkfish and talapia fillets for 20 minutes, in garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, white wine, chili flakes and salt and pepper.  Meanwhile made celeriac slaw ( celeriac, carrot, apple - through mandolin (managed not to damage fingers this time), light mayonnaise, lemon juice, natural yogurt) ... and greek(ish) salad - little gem lettuce, rocket, red onion, tomator, cucumber, red pepper, basil, black olives, feta - dressed with olive oil and lemon juice).  Griddled courgette - marinade in olive oil, salt and herbs.  Grill monkfish for about 8 minutes, courgette about 6 minutes and talapia for about 6 minutes - on hot barbeque.  Served, today, with rice.  Primary victim had burgers, but the rest of us enjoyed the fish.  I prefered the talapia to the monkfish - but I'd do them both again.

Sausage casserole in giant yorkshire pudding

Victim number one - as cherished as she might be - does have a habit of ambushing recipes at the last minute.  Today is a case in point.  We had lovely italian herbed sausages in the freezer and shed loads of organic veg in the fridge.  Being Sunday, we were also due to feed the outlaws one of their few healthy meals of the week.  So - my plot - hearty sausage casserole with brown rice and cabbage.  (Sautee twice as many chopped/ sliced onions as you think reasonable, add crushed garlic, add sauages and move around until they have some colour - add chopped root (and other hardish) veg (celeriac, swede, some carrots - butternut squash), stock cube, tin of tomatoes, half a pint of water (ish) simmer)... cook rice, steam cabbage... delish.  But, I was interrupted by primary victim hankering for yorkshire puddings - ideally, start this about 40 minutes before you intend to serve. ... I managed to (amazingly), and I have to say it was an improvement on the intended brown rice - though probably nutritionally compromised! Recipe was from Nigella Lawson's "How to Eat" (referred to here ny her own people http://www.nigella.com/kitchen-queries/view/701).   Back to nutritionally compromised... - when I added up starter to pudding - victims had 13 of their 5 a day... so that can't be bad.  (Just for clarification - this wasn't the most impressive pud - (the best was round and very cloud like) but the gathered victims were too intent on tucking in for a photo shoot).

Now what do I do with all that extra brown rice?

Salsify, parsnip and bacon soup

An interesting concoction using veg from the organic box, with some bacon.  It had a lovely earthy flavour, with a sweetness from the parsnip.  Would make it again.  Saute onion, bacon pieces and celery in olive oil, add chopped salsify (when peeled keep in acidulated water until it goes into the soup, to prevent browning), chopped celeriac and chopped parsnip.  Add chicken stock cube and crushed garlic.  Simmer, about 20 minutes, zizz - good grind of black pepper. Sprinkle on parsley.  Yum.