0 Potato, spinach, pea and basil soup - a tasty vegan feast

Another week has passed and we have another soup recipe for you, this one does have some reseamblence to shrek's swamp but trust me its very tasty and great for making when you hardly have anything in the cupboards. For the sake of economy I use frozen peas and spinach and there is no waste either.

                     

Vegan as it contains only vegetables, however if this isn't important to you then its delicious served topped with freshly grated parmesan cheese or swirled with creme fraiche or yogurt.

Thickened by blending half the ingredients in to the soup its low in fat and containes no flours or grains so its gluten free too.

What you need

• Onion - peeled and chopped
• 2 potatoes - peeled and diced
• 3 blobs of frozen spinach
• 1 cup of frozen peas
• Vegetable stock
• Salt and pepper
• A little olive or rapeseed oil
• Handful fresh basil

What you do

• Fry the onion and the potato in a little oil add the vegetable stock to the pan, simmer until softened
• Add the frozen peans and frozen spinach to the pan and bring back to the simmer and the spinach is defrosted. Add the basil 
• Now blitz half the pan with a stick blender until smooth and retaining some chunky vegetables for texture.
• Taste and season with salt and pepper as necessary.
• Serve piping hot

We are linking up to "Eat your Greens" over on Allotment 2 Kitchen , the challenge being to cook with a green vegetable and for the recipe to be vegeterian.

Detail: Potato, spinach, pea and basil soup - a tasty vegan feast

0 Lancashire Hotpot - made with love and a perfect winter dish

I love Lancashire hotpot and as a born and bred Lancastrian so I should, its the perfect frugal comfort food which will happily blip away in the oven whilst you get on with other things. Requiring minimal effort you can still deliver a wow dish for your supper (or in a Northerner case tea) table.

I decided recently to experiment with different ways of cooking the dish and in my opinion this is the best method so far, ideal served with a green vegetable or just the traditional accompaniments of pickled beetroot or red cabbage.

What you need

• Diced lamb pieces (ask your butcher whats the best and cheapest)
• 3 large white potatoes 
• 1 large white onion - peeled and roughly chopped
• 3 carrots - peeled and chopped
• Lamb stock ( I use essential cuisine - the best in my humble opinion)
• Splash of Worcestershire sauce (use gluten free brown sauce if necessary)
• Cornflour
• Thyme and rosemary - finely chopped
• Salt and pepper
• A little rapeseed oil

What you do

• Pre heat the oven to 160c
• Heat the oil in cast iron casserole dish
• Fry off the lamb pieces in batches until lightly caramelised
• Remove from pan to plate
• Fry in the same pan the onion and carrot until slightly golden, add the lamb back to the pan and add a tablespoon or so of cornflour.
• Stir and add the herbs and sauce, remove from the heat
• Stir again and top the vegetable and lamb mixture with potato slices
• Pour enough lamb stock to just be visible on the top of the potato topping, put lid on casserole dish and place in oven for 1 hour and 30 minutes
• Once the time has passed the vegetables with be tender and the meat cooked, remove the lid and place back in the oven for another 15 -30 minutes until the top is golden and slightly crispy.
• Serve immediately with a green vegetable (cabbage / kale is nice) and traditional hotpot accompaniments

Detail: Lancashire Hotpot - made with love and a perfect winter dish

0 Sumac roasted potato wedges

For the last couple years there has been an increased interest in the food of the Israel, Turkey, Libya and Tunisia and the near middle east, personally I think  this is  mainly due to works of  Yotam Ottolenghi. He has brought a new flavour palate to the UK, so much so that sumac and z'atar now  routinely appear on most supermarket shelves. We enjoy sumac sprinkled on oven baked potato wedges which have been tossed on little olive oil and roasted for about 40 minutes until soft and golden, delicious served with a garlic yoghurt dip or as a side dish.

Detail: Sumac roasted potato wedges

0 National Vegetarian Week and Greenhalghs

Greenhalgh's Butter pie served with brown sauce

This week is National Vegetarian Week  a great celebration of vegetarian food. One great Lancashire delicacy is a great dish for vegetarians and that is Butter Pie. A pie that has its history firmly fixed in Lancashire and the area surrounding Preston in particular as a economical and nutritious meal for catholic mill workers. Butter pies are still produced by a number of local north west bakeries to satisy local demand, one of which Greenhalghs recently approached me to review their butter pie, obviously as a connoisseur  of the butter pie I was more than happy to undertaken this task.

A butter pie has a filling of potatoes, onion and butter, plus a little seasoning this is all in cased in a shortcrust pastry parcel, happily all the fats in Greenhalghs pastry are of vegetable origin so no worries there if you are vegetarian  I found the freshly baked pies to be delicious, juicy and tender and the pastry having just the right amount of crumble combined with melt in the mouth filling. Some people may think a pie with only potato, onion and butter in its filling would be a little bland, but far from it in a Butter pie the potato flavour comes to the fore. It is also nice that the pie has potato slices which create a nice texture rather than a mush I have seen in other butter pies.

Most high streets in the North west have a Greenhalghs so its easy to pop in and stock up on this great tasty vegetarian snack , especially during National Vegetarian Week.

                                           
Alternatively if you are feeling creative you could always make you own , check out the recipe in the popular posts.

Detail: National Vegetarian Week and Greenhalghs

0 Cheesy potato topped chilli

This is another recipe which uses Tasty Creations ready made Lancashire Cheese sauce, in need of a quick warming supper dish and not having much time to make it, I raided my stash of frozen goodies. I found a pot of Tasty Creations sauce and a couple of pots of homemade quorn chilli, so out they came, with the frugal addition of a couple of par boiled potatoes and this dish was born. Pronounced delicious by Mr Lancashire Food it certainly hits the spot on a cold winters night.

Ingredients

• Tasty Creations Lancashire Cheese Sauce - thawed
• Quorn chilli - made to this recipe but using quorn instead of mince and vegetable stock
• 3 large white potatoes, peeled , sliced and parboiled until tender

Method

• Pre heat the oven to 180c
• Place the chilli mixture in your oven proof dish, covering the whole of the dish
• Place the drained potatoes on the top of the chilli mixture in an even layer
• Pour oven the tasty creations sauce
• Place in the oven and bake for approx 25 - 35 minutes until golden and bubbling
• Serve accompanied with a fresh green salad if you are especially hungry.

Detail: Cheesy potato topped chilli

0 Leek, Potato and thyme Soup

This is my standby soup recipe, deliciously warming and comforting and a great anecdote to when you need the equivalent of a hug in a bowl. Outside its been bashing down with rain and even when it stops raining its raining leaves as autumn is well and truly well under way. Leeks are fairly easy to grow in the garden and even if your yield is disappointing you normally can rescue enough leeks for soup.

Ingredients

• 3 large potatoes - peeled and chopped in to chunky cubes
• 3 leeks, cleaned and chopped into rings
• Vegetable stock about 500ml
• Thyme - dried or fresh
• Salt and Pepper
• Butter

Method

• Melt the butter in a large saucepan
• Add the leeks and chopped potato and cook gently until slightly softened
• Add the thyme and enough vegetable stock to cover
• Bring to a gentle simmer, cover and cook until the vegetables are tender
• Now liquidise half the soup ( I use a stick blender), by doing it this way you still retain texture
• Add more water / stock if too thick and bring back to a simmer
• Taste and season
• Delicious served with homemade bread

I am entering this into the Simple and Seasonal challenge hosted this month by franglaiskitchen for Fabulicious Food

And also in Herbs on Saturday October hosted over at Lavender and Lovage 

Detail: Leek, Potato and thyme Soup