Burrata with Lemon Mint Peas & Breadcrumbs

Full disclosure, I truly intended to share this dish with my roommate as a lovely late Sunday afternoon snack, however, when it was ready to be eaten she was enjoying a weekend nap and so I ate the whole thing myself. She later asked if there were any left overs (because I could have easily put half of this in the fridge) but I had to admit I'd just casually eaten half a bag of frozen peas and an entire burrata in one sitting.  

So I'm kinda done with winter and it looks like spring is finally springing but it always take a little while for the produce to catch up. So this is a cheats spring lunch in that two (peas and breadcrumbs) of the three main ingredients are frozen... but when the peas pop in your mouth with the fresh lemon and mint and you mix the creamy burrata with the crispy breadcrumbs, I promise it'll satisfy all your spring cravings.  

Stuff

burrata

1/2 bag of frozen peas 

juice of 1 lemon

handful of mint

handful of breadcrumbs

pinch of chili flakes

olive oil 

little bit of butter

salt & pepper

Steps

Steam or microwave the peas. Chop the mint. Once the peas are cooked, add in butter, mint, and lemon juice. Stir and season with salt and pepper.

Drizzle olive oil in a small pan. On a medium heat, toast the breadcrumbs with the chili flakes until crispy. Season with salt and pepper. 

Pour peas in a bowl, place burrata in the center. Scatter the breadcrumbs over the peas and cheese. Eat immediately. 

The Ginhound

Guys, my mother is coming to visit and I am ridiculously excited. My mum (cause we're British) is my favorite person. She has taught me many life skills, because of her I always keep a packet of smoked salmon in the fridge--it lasts forever and is perfect for snacking! My mum and I look the same, we talk the same, and we have the same real true unshakable love for gin. So in preparation for her arrival, I restocked.  

If you give a girl some gin, chances are, she'll want a mixer to go with it. And I had grapefruits in the fridge (my CSA has been really into "winter pick me ups," which aren't exactly local but, hey, they're still from small farms and it's a nice alternative to seven weeks of turnips). So it was time to make some greyhounds.

Greyhounds use a 3:1 grapefruit to gin/vodka ratio but I'm making this drink in honor of my mother, so I use a 2:1 ratio (plus club soda and some other extra bits to cut it). This is a lovely between season drink with the wintery citrus and fresh spring mint. It's incredibly refreshing, so it's perfect for sipping in the backyard as I wait for my mother and summertime to arrive. 

Stuff

juice from 1 grapefruit (2 parts)

gin (1 part)

few drops aromatic bitters

few sprigs of mint

club soda (to top off)

ice

Steps

Juice the grapefruit. Add juice, gin, bitters, and one sprig of mint to a cocktail shaker (or mason jar...) Add ice and shake. Strain mixture into glasses. Top off with club soda and garnish with mint. 

Mini Sausage Rolls

Mini sausage rolls are a British party snack similar to the American pigs in a blanket. They're a kids party staple that I've never quite grown out of because, let's face it, they're basically just meat wrapped in butter. They're easy to make and go down a treat with guests of all ages. I know this because we threw down for the Oscars at the end of February and these disappeared fast. 

I try not to eat too much meat but for a party or special occasion it's nice to treat yo' self. There are a couple of places I can buy decent meat, one close to work (Stachowski's) and close to home (Meats and Foods). They do excellent dogs/sandwiches as well, so if you're ever in DC--check them out.  

This recipe is insanely easy, mainly because I use store bought puff pastry. But hey, if it's good enough for Ina, it's good enough for me. Depending on the size of the party, I'll usually make a couple of batches ahead of time and then re-heat them before serving. Traditionally, sausage rolls are just sausage and pastry, but I always add a few extras because I'm not seven anymore and mustard is my jam.  

Stuff

1 sheet of puff pastry

1 pork sausage

spoonful of mustard

sprig or two of thyme

dash of worcestershire sauce 

salt and pepper

egg/milk (to glaze)

Steps

Preheat oven to 400F. Line a baking tray with parchment paper and lay out the pastry. Just below the center, spread the mustard in an inch think line all the way across the pasty. 

Take sausage meat out of its skin and and arrange in an inch thick log on top of the mustard. Drizzle worcestershire sauce over the sausage. Sprinkle thyme leaves across the pasty and lightly season with salt and pepper. 

Fold top half of the pastry over the sausage and press the edges together with a fork. Trim the edge to get a neat line. Gently slice the pastry log into inch wide segments and slash the top of each segment. 

Glaze the log with egg or milk. Bake in the oven for 30 mins or until pasty is golden and sausage is cooked. 

Once cooked, remove from oven, cut the segments apart, and place on cooling rack. These can be eaten hot or cold, but are best when they're fresh out of the oven! 

Sweet Potato Bowl

This came about one week night after hosting a soiree of sorts (aka a Golden Globes watch party) the previous weekend. My roommate made the most insane squash toast appetizer, she even made the frickin' baguette. Anyway, turns out we had more squash than toast, so there was a giant bowl of squash in our fridge all week (no complaints here). Since I wasn't about to make homemade baguettes on a Tuesday, we decided it was okay to eat the squash mash out of a bowl as long as we topped it with some greens and beans. It was insanely delicious and so the squash bowl became a winter staple. 

Seriously, if you ever have a kabocha squash, make it into a squash bowl. But if, like mine, your CSA is really into sweet potatoes, you can easily adapt the squash bowl into the sweet potato bowl, which is what I did last week. And it was so, so good. There's the heat from the chili flakes, the sweetness from the potato and the maple syrup, the bite from the vinegar... plus the earthy warmth from the kale, lentils, and paprika with the freshness of lemon, parsley, and goat cheese.

The technique for the mash (in the first link) is Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s and, of course, it's solid. So other than subbing squash for sweet potato and a white onion for a red one, I don't mess with it. We've used kale every time we've made this ('tis the season), but we've used different beans/lentils depending on what we had on hand. I reckon you could add in your protein of choice (although I've yet to test it with meat). 

Stuff

2 sweet potatoes

1 red onion 

1 bunch of Kales

1/3 cup of lentils

pinch of chili flakes

good pour of apple cider vinegar

splash of maple syrup

juice from 1 lemon

couple shakes of paprika 

goat cheese 

parsley to garnish

olive oil 

salt and pepper

Steps

Preheat oven to 425F. In a small pan, put the lentils on to cook. Chop the sweet potatoes into chunks, season with olive oil, chili flakes, salt and pepper and roast in the oven for 30 - 45 minutes (until soft enough to easily mash). 

While the sweet potatoes roast, slice the onion and sauté in a large pan on a medium heat. Roughly chop and rinse the kale. Remove cooked lentils from the heat and set aside. 

Once the onions are caramelized (about 30 mins), deglaze the pan with apple cider vinegar and maple syrup. Add the sweet potatoes to the onion jam and mash everything together. Remove from the heat and season to taste. 

Put the kale on to cook (I use the same pan I cooked the lentils in). Once the kale has started to reduce, add the lentils, lemon juice, and paprika to the pan. Stir and season to taste.

To assemble, put the sweet potato mash in a bowl, top with the lentil mix, and sprinkle with crumbled goat cheese and roughly chopped parsley. 

Good Morning Blue Nuts Smoothie

Breakfast is hard. It's early and I'm hungry. 90% of the time this results in me eating peanut-butter on toast, which I've been eating for breakfast for as long as I can remember eating things for breakfast. Occasionally I'll swap the peanut-butter for avocado, but this is an expensive east coast habit. However, when my lunch or dinner is going to be bread heavy, I try to avoid a toast breakfast. Enter my Good Morning Blue Nuts Smoothie. I've tried this a bunch of different ways but I like the 2 to 1 blueberry to raspberry ratio and the cashew almond combo. It's rich, but simple. Filling, but not heavy. Plus there aren't any bitter greens so no need for additional sweeteners. 

The main sweetener for this drink is the frozen banana. I like to keep a bag of peeled and halved bananas in my freezer for smoothies. When things freeze, their flavor becomes less extreme, so you can freeze bananas long past normal eating ripeness. In fact, the longer you leave them before freezing, the sweeter your smoothies will taste. If you're out of almond milk, you can add a handful of almonds in addition to the cashews and then use water to mix all the ingredients together. If you're out of almonds, go to the store. 

Stuff

1/2 a frozen banana

big handful of frozen blueberries

a few frozen raspberries 

handful of raw cashews 

unsweetened almond milk 

Steps

Break up half banana and throw in blender with the berries and cashews. Pour in almond milk until the solid ingredients are about half way covered. Blitz. Stir ingredients and add a touch more almond milk. Blitz again. Keep doing this until you reach your desired consistency. 

Pour the smoothie into a jar and then pour a little bit more almond milk into the blender. Shake or blitz to loosen all the smoothie goodness on the side of your blender and pour the last bit of mixture on top of your smoothie. Good morning, blue nuts. 

Yogurt with Winter Veg and Chimichurri

Full fat yogurt is the bomb. If you can, buy it local. Otherwise, make sure it comes from happy cows. Happy cows tend to eat a lot of grass, which can make the yogurt slightly yellow. So look out for that. Also, who has time for 0% fat yogurt? Like, what even is that? Once you have your yogurt, put it on everything. At least, that was my motto for a long time. Toast, grains, soup, roasted veg, fish, meat, curry, potatoes… everything I ate, I just dropped a dollop of yogurt on top of it. Fucking amazing.

But then I went to this scrumptious spot in Seattle and there was this yogurt, butternut squash, applesauce dish that changed my life. They didn’t use yogurt as a late addition or sidenote, they used it as the freaking base of the dish and I was like, game over, from now on I'm putting my yogurt in a bowl and dropping a dollop of food on top of it.

It’s winter, so my CSA is bringing me some gnarly looking vegetables right now. Once they're peeled and roasted though, they look great and taste even better. For this dish, I used half a kabocha squash, two carrots, and three golden beets. But pretty much any combination of winter veg will do, so just roast whatever you have on hand. Likewise, you can sub the chimichurri for pesto or another herb/fruit sauce.
 

Stuff

assortment of winter veg

drizzle of honey 

pinch of cumin

few shakes of oregano

big handful of parsley

big handful of cilantro 

2 garlic cloves

juice and zest from 1 lemon

big splash of white wine vinegar

olive oil 

salt & pepper

handful of pepitas 

yogurt 

 

Steps

Preheat the oven to 450F. Peel, deseed, and chop the vegetables. Arrange on a baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil and honey. Sprinkle on the cumin, oregano, salt and pepper, then mix together so the veg is evenly coated. Spread the veg in one layer on the sheet and roast in the oven for 45 mins, shuffle the veg around half way through.

To make the chimichurri, blend the parsley, cilantro, garlic, lemon juice and zest, white wine vinegar, salt and pepper in a food processor. As you blend, drizzle in olive oil until you get a loose pesto like consistency. 

Put pepitas in a small pan and lightly toast on a medium heat. 

Pour yogurt in a bowl, top with roasted veg, chimichurri, and pepitas. Drizzle with olive oil and season to taste. Eat while the veg is still hot and the yogurt is deliciously cool.