Pizza Muffins

Fusion food at its best - pizza muffins! Giant ones at that. I'm never entirely sure where in the day muffins are meant to be eaten. I cooked up a batch for dinner Sunday night as we'd been out for lunch and these are a delightfully savoury number. Definitely not a breakfast treat but lunch? I think so. Warm from the oven they made a fab supper.

I am in the process of teaching myself to bake in the hope of opening a cafe that sells all manner of lovely salads and cakes to go with seriously good coffee and juices. It's harder than it seems - there is a requirement for precision that is simply not relevant for casseroles and soups, noodles and risotto. When it's a success I find it fascinating, when it fails I find it hugely frustrating partly because I hate failing and partly because I have insufficient understanding of the process to know where I went wrong and how to fix it. So I'm baking a lot and gradually improving.

In my quest for baking brilliance I bought the Australian Women's Weekly 'Bake' which is ENORMOUS and full of interesting recipes, some old familiars from my childhood like melting moments and coconut slice and some new things like this muffin recipe. I have made those as well a coffee walnut cake, an orange yoghurt cake and a spiced banana cake. Mostly the man takes them to work to share and get a little feedback. He is becoming very popular.

Pizza Muffins

Makes 6 but to make them again I would use a smaller hole pan and make 12

1 small red pepper
375g self raising flour
1 egg
310ml milk
80ml olive oil
60g coarsely grated cheddar cheese
20g finely grated Parmesan
60g seeded black olives, halved
35g sun dried tomatoes, drained and roughly chopped
2 tbspns basil, finely chopped
t tspns rosemary, sinely chopped
30g cheddar coarsely grated (extra)

Preheat oven to 200C/Gas 4. Grease a 6-hole texas (180ml) muffin pan.

Quarter the pepper, discard the seeds and membrane. Roast in a very hot oven, skin-side up, until the skin blisters and blackens. Put hot pepper into a bowl and cover tightlyw ith clingfilm for 5 minutes. Peel away the skin and then cut the flesh into strips.

Sift the flour into a large bowl. Stir in the egg, milk, oil, cheeses, olives, tomatoes and herbs. Do not over mix, a bit lumpy is fine. Spoon mixture inot pan holes, top with the slices of roasted pepper and then the extra cheese.

Bake muffins for about 25 minutes. Stand muffins in pan for 5 minutes then turn out, top-side up, onto a wire rack to cool.

These tasted great. I am beginning to enjoy baking so there will definitely be more - there's a whole chapter on muffins alone!

They are bigger than they look in this picture!

I wanted...I bought...I made

Really fancy making a raw mackerel tartare that I learnt to make the other day at a Total day out for a fishy Friday but there was none as the seas had been too rough so I crumbed and fried whiting and had it with jersey royals and salad, definitely asparagus for Saturday simply roasted with steamed potatoes and more salad, Sunday I would like spicy pork with rice and greens big fat pizza muffins after a fabulous lunch at Gastronomica, Monday I'm thinking noodles spicy pork rice and greens, Tuesday perhaps burgers and salad lamb burgers with the fabulous roast vegetable cous cous pictured above, Wednesday omelette with jersey royals the man was out so I made lamb burgers again only better with grated ginger, garlic and chilli and a salad of tiny greens from my garden.The joy of spring. Thursday I'm hoping for dinner out. Disappointed in that - the man is out (again!) so I'm planning pork chop soup which I love.

Borough was fairly tense Friday, a lot of the small traders are really concerned with what's happening with evictions and developments. Flour Power have now been given 30 days notice to quit for being too big?!

John was cheery as ever at the Ginger Pig though, and happily diced me some pork and I added lamb mince for burgers for a cheap total of £12.20

Then to Neals Yard for milk and bread - they now sell St John bread and it is endlessly wonderful - and yoghurt - £9.80

Coffee from Monmouth - £13

Veg from the organic stall - asparagus, a new kind of lettuce which I forget the name of but looks a bit like oak leaf, and some lovely garlic - £8.20

Needed Parmesan from Gastronomica so bought a small sheep/goat cheese as well - £16

Over to the Sussex fish stall to find the seas had been so rough Thursday they had no mackerel - so much for plans! Bought a couple of whiting which the monger kindly filleted for me - a bargain at £2

Eggs from Wild Beef - gone up 20p a dozen as the price of wheat continues upwards - £3.20 but still great value for lovely eggs

Sundried tomatoes from Borough Olives, a while since I shopped there and was served by a delightfully cheerful young woman - £1.90

Lastly olives from Turkey for a change - love their semi dried kuru sele, oily and salty and wonderful - £3

Spent £69.30 in total

Asparagus Lasagne

It is spring and the sun is shining practically daily and that is strange and wonderful after such a long cold winter as we've had. It is asparagus season and we have been eating it joyfully and mostly simply, just lightly steamed with a little melted butter and some cracked black pepper for a few weeks. I could happily continute to eat it like this for months.

Then I came across this recipe for lasagne and was instantly smitten. Not just because matching crisp asparagus with silky pasta is a kind of genius when you add cheese sauce, but because the sauce was made with chicken stock rather than milk and so has both greater depth of flavour and is lighter and more delicate at the same time. I used rocchetta for it's balanced rich creaminess but any spring like cheese would work a treat.

You could serve a salad after but it needs no accompaniment at all apart from a little crusty bread to guarantee that you mop up every skerrick of sauce.

The recipe comes from Jane Lear's blog and is an adaptation of an earlier version on Gourmet. She uses goat's cheese which would also be great, though not round ours as the man is not a fan.

Asparagus Lasagne

Serves 4

1kg asparagus, trimmed

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Coarse salt

60g unsalted butter

2 tbspns plain flour

400ml chicken or vegetable stock

½ cup water

200g rocchetta or other soft cheese, softened to room temperature and crumbled

About 1 teaspoon fresh lemon zest

About 1 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano or Gruyère, plus a handful for topping

1 box no-boil lasagne sheets, the best quality you can find

200ml double cream

1. Preheat the oven to Gas6/500ºF. Cut off the tips of the asparagus spears and set them aside. In a large bowl toss the asparagus spears with the olive oil, and spread them onto a rimmed baking sheet. Roast them 5 to 10 minutes (depending on thickness), stirring them around halfway through, until they are crisp-tender. Season the roasted asparagus with salt, and, when cool enough to deal with, cut the spears into fork-friendly lengths, about ½ inch or so.

2. Melt the butter in a medium pot, add the flour, and cook over moderately low heat, whisking, about 3 minutes. Whisk in the stock and water and simmer 5 minutes. Whisk in the crumbled cheese and lemon zest and season with salt to taste; whisk the sauce until it is silky smooth.

3. Skim-coat the bottom of a buttered 20cm square baking dish with a little sauce, then make layers of pasta sheets, sauce, roasted asparagus, and Parmigiano, ending with a layer of pasta. Scatter the uncooked asparagus tips on top. In a bowl beat the cream with a pinch of salt until it holds soft peaks, and spread it over the asparagus tips. Scatter that handful of Parmesan over the whipped cream and bake the lasagne on the middle rack of the oven about 30 minutes, or until it’s bubbling around the edges and golden on top. Let it stand 10 minutes to collect itself, then cut into slices and serve.

I wanted...I bought....I made

Went to a day of cooking and eating with Total - the Greek yoghurt people - recently and made this orange yoghurt cake with some of their lovely product after as I teach myself to bake

Back again after a couple of pleasurable staycations, one south via Wiltshire to Cornwall and Dorset and another to the lovely Suffolk coastal town of Orford to make the most of lots of bank holidays and, more surprisingly, endless (feels like) sunshine and blue skies. It is lovely this spring we are having.

To follow that mood, Friday night we are at the theatre to see I am the Wind, but only for a short show, so cold collation at home after will be the perfect way to round out the evening. Saturday I am making asparagus lasagne, an outrageously decadent idea I came across on the web. Sunday we are out to lunch at the endlessly fabulous St John so dinner will be simple, perhaps spiced chicken and salads which will be good for lunch for a day or two as well. Monday more theatre, this time Rocket to the Moon at the National the man was unwell so a simple supper at home with cold chicken and fennel salad, Tuesday a book launch for Tim Wilson's Ginger Pig Meat but may have a quick pasta supper after missed the launch but had the pasta, Wednesday the lovely Vicki is over to bleach my hair so think some Chinese would be good steamed meatball pasta after home made taramasalata, Thursday salad I think - nicoise in fact.

Friday the market is much more pleasurable than Saturdays, it's not so mobbed and the traders tend to be cheery rather than overwhelmed. Started at Ginger Pig where they were selling 45 day aged rump for £18.50 a kilo but I was only momentarily tempted, bought bacon, pork mince and a chicken - £22.40

Then to Neals Yard for milk, cream, yoghurt and bread - £7.80

Tony was his cheery self at his veg stall selling english asparagus 3 bunches for a fiver which was what I needed for my lasagne

From Gastronomica I bought fresh pasta, a rocchetta and some spring goat/ewe's milk cheese that is utterly lush - £18.60

Then to the Parma Ham company for their exquisite parma ham and a couple of balls of buffalo mozzarella - £10.80

Wandering around to find Richard at the Wild Beef stall I noticed a sign at the Mons stall saying it was their last week and sadly I've just heard that they have been evicted from the market along with The Ham & Cheese Company and Kappacasein, in fact a total of eight traders are out, as 'punishment' for also trading at Maltby Street. More here

Thankfully Wild Beef is still there - got eggs for £1.50

Then to Turnips in search of rhubarb - was rewarded with a huge bundle which cost, with a lemon as well, £3.86, and noticed on the way out they have Lincolnshire asparagus at only £1.50 a bunch - really good value

Food sorted I rewarded myself with a hot sausage roll from Ginger Pig as a late lunch - £3 well spent!

Total this week is £72.96

Pasta with tart greens and braised garlic

Late last summer I planted a couple of dozen brassicas - not with any real idea of what would happen but just to have something in the garden that didn't look entirely bleak.

Mostly they did nothing.

These plants had been dormant for months, surviving short days, cold nights, heavy snow, on and off frost, and the unwelcome visits of the neighbourhood cats. They simply sat in little dark green bundles, unmoved and unresponsive. Nature's way to cope with winter.

Then, just like in all the best tv gardening shows, they suddenly sprang to life. The days got a little longer, the air a little warmer and kerching! they were reaching for the sky and bulking out sideways, filling the available space. Amazing.

I must confess I did not know which would turn into what. I know there are four varieties - even I can see they are different collections of plants - but the magic of planting unlabelled things six months on is *surprise* and a big grin! The fastest to grow, and the first to be harvested, is curly kale, lovely matt green leaves belying their sturdiness by being all frilled at the edges.

I'm watching the rest. It is becoming apparent which are the cauliflowers - they are starting to have creamy white heads - small yet but growing. I'm fascinated - I have never before seen a cauliflower come into being.

This dinner was a celebration of the arrival of spring, a quirky mix of things from a recipe from the splendid table, another food mail I subscribe to. It's actaually an American radio programme which reads like it sounds amazing.

Pasta with tart greens and braised garlic

Serves 4

Note the recipe says braised garlic - you need nice big fat juicy cloves for this

500g greens, trimmed of thick stems and chopped into 5cm pieces,

Sauté and Pasta:

Good-tasting extra-virgin olive oil

½ cup water

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

8 large garlic cloves, cut into 1cm cubes – big chunks!

500g Orecchiette pasta, or other little ones but the ears are very cute

150g Italian fennel sausage, cut into 1 cm pieces

¼ teaspoon hot red pepper flakes, or to taste

1 tablespoon tomato paste

Finishing:

2/3 cup pasta water

½ cup toasted pine nuts or coarsely chopped hazelnuts

1 to 1 ½ cups shredded Pecorino Romano, or Ricotta Salata. Lacking either I used Parmesan

Have a large pan of salted water at a full boil, drop in the greens and boil, uncovered, 2 minutes, or until just tender. Lift out with a big strainer (you want to cook the pasta in the same vegetable water), drain, and set the greens aside. Keep the water at a bubble.

In a large sauté pan, pour enough oil to film the bottom. Add the ½ cup water with salt, pepper and the garlic. Heat over medium, cover and cook 8 minutes, or until the garlic is soft. Check that the garlic doesn't brown, adding a little more water if needed. Once the garlic is soft, scoop it out with a slotted spoon and reserve.

Have the pasta water boiling, then drop in the pasta and cook, stirring often, as you finish the sauté.

Have the sauté pan over medium-high heat and add the sausage. Sear it until it starts to colour, then lower the heat to medium. Cover the pan and cook the sausage about 5 minutes, or until it's no longer pink inside. Stir in the tomato paste and hot pepper and cook another minute, uncovered. Add the cooked greens and the garlic. Raise the heat to medium-high and sauté them for a few moments, tasting for seasoning. If necessary, set aside the sauté until the pasta is ready to be drained.

Before draining the pasta, scoop about 2/3 cup of the pasta water from the pot and set aside. Put the greens back on medium-high heat, add the pasta water and simmer a moment or two. You want them moist, but not soupy. Once the pasta is tender but still a little firm to the bite, drain it and add it to the greens mixture. Toss in the pine nuts and the cheese until combined, and taste for seasoning. Serve the pasta hot.

A word of warning - I tend to use lots of salt in the water to cook pasta which resulted in a fairly salty finished dish after I added pasta cooking water to the sauce.

Otherwise this was a great supper - lots of flavour and textures, little nubbles of toasted nuts and prickles of chilli and the garlic in the end is gently mellow. The greens were the best!

I wanted...I bought...I made

Fried rice from last weekend - liked the textured colour in this picture

Thinking fish for Saturday a brilliant rendering of a mushroom and spinach sauce to go with cod and new potatoes, lamb roasted for Sunday with an interesting chick pea and sweet potato salad amongst others, and hope to be out Monday home and cold and wet so venison stew from the freezer with mash and peas to bring us cheer. Tuesday will be spring pasta, Wednesday might be venison stew from the freezer kofta from the freezer with a dry curry of aubergine and onion that was a revelation, Thursday we are definitely out and Friday is the start of our holiday. YAY!

Sunny and not very busy - my favourite way to be at Borough. Started at Ginger Pig where John was cheerful to be working in sunshine. Baought a shoulder of lamb - which he kindly cut in half for me - £15

Then to Monmouth for Colombian beans - £12.50

Just milk and yoghurt and bread from Neals Yard - £7.25

Fancied fish - and the Sussex fish stall is slowly building a following with their fabulous fresh catch - bought a whole cod that the monger kindly filleted for me, and having tried a sample of his own smoked bass couldn't resist some of that too - £8

Eggs from a well holidayed Lizzie as well as a pack of beef sausages - £6.44

Couldn't resist a small tub of olives from Fresh Olive - was thinking my usual melange but tasted a few different ones and bought a mixed tub of creamy little green ones and quite small sharp black ones for a change - £3

Home on the bus - spent £52.19 - but veg and things to get

Giant 'Couscous' Salad

There has been some talk of frogspawn round my blog recently. I put it down to being an indicator that spring is here, reason for a heartfelt *yay!* all round. By extension I think frogspawn can only be a good thing, though others have worries. For example -

Why is my frogspawn a milky colour?

It's most probable that cold weather has caused this effect, and the frogspawn will probably not develop into tadpoles. Other hatched tadpoles will eat the jelly though, so nothing is wasted!

Will my goldfish eat my frogspawn and tadpoles?

In a word - Yes! Goldfish are carnivorous and will also eat newts eggs, dragonfly larvae and anything else that moves! A contirbutor to the Beautiful Britain site shares - Several years ago I put all the spawn in a tank and it all hatched.... when I thought they were large enough I put them in the pond and the fish ate the lot!'

Yet people warm to goldfish in a way they don't to frogspawn.

It is estimated that the average female frog can lay up t0 4,000 eggs at one go although many of these eggs will not survive to turn into frogs. After a period of a few weeks the baby frogs (i.e. tadpoles) will come out of the frogspawn. They will then eat the frogspawn that is left over for the first few days after they emerge until they move on to other foods. Frogspawn is a good thing in so many ways.

Spawn was on my mind again this week when I made an experimental new salad - the making of salads, and particularly the trying out of new ideas is a sure sign round ours that spring is most definitely here. My mother gave me a packet of giant couscous to try, but it was the start of winter then and so it sat, ignored and neglected, until this week.

I had read of this stuff but not actually tried it, and for some reason was convinced it would be sort of toasty crunchy. Couldn't have been less so, it cooks up as little shiny soft balls, hence the reminder of spawn. Giant couscous is sometimes referred to as jumbo couscous, Israeli couscous, Mougrabieh, Fregola or Pearl couscous, depending where in the Mediterranean you are. Essentially it is little pasta balls, and it's easy to believe it was originally intended as a child's food.

Foodista finds the history fascinating: rice was scarce during Israel's ten year (1949-1959) austerity period, so the prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, commissioned the Osem food company to create a rice-substitute, as rice was a staple for many immigrants. For this reason it is often referred to as Ben-Gurion's Rice. The original Israel couscous was indeed shaped like rice, much like orzo, but over time has developed its round shape.

I fancied it with aubergine - I fancy a lot of things with aubergine - and that was my starting point. Had a bunch of parsley in the fridge that needed using and some fresh mint happily sprouting in the garden. Such things speak of salad to me, so I checked the instructions on the packet and they suggested frying a little onion first then adding the couscous and hot water. Worked a treat but all sans crunch. Rummaged and found a big bright bunch of radish and salad success was imminent.

Giant Couscous Salad

This looks a lot for one salad but it is pretty quick and easy, and keeps well in the fridge for a day or two, not collapsing the way some pasta salads do

Makes 6 generous helpings

1 medium aubergine, diced into 1cm cubes
1 tbspn salt
1 small onion, peeled and finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
1 tspn chilli flakes
3 tblspn olive oil
250g packet of giant/israeli couscous
2 cups boiling water
1 bay leaf
6 tbspns chopped flat leaf parsley leaves
1 tbspn chopped fresh mint leaves
4 radish, thinly sliced
2 spring onions, sliced into small rings, green and white parts
2 tbspn lemon juice

Put the diced aubergine into a colander, sprinkle with salt and leave to drain for half an hour.

Fry the chopped onion in one tablespoon of the olive oil till the edges are golden, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and chilli flakes and stir for a minute. Add the couscous and stir to coat with the flavoured oil. Add the boiling water - but be careful it may well spit.

Reduce the heat to a simmer, add the bay leaf, cover, and cook for about eight minutes. The couscous should have absorbed all the liquid and be al dente to the bite. Tip into a large salad bowl, disccarding the bay leaf.

Lightly rinse the aubergine. Heat the remaining oil and fry the aubergine for a few minutes, till it is soft and tinged with colour. Add to the couscous, loosening the whole lot with a fork. Allow to cool.

Add the herbs, radish and spring onion and mix well. Add some of the lemon juice, taste and add more if it needs it. Add seasoning.

It was great as an accompaniment to quiche and simply gorgeous with grilled lamb chops next day, the small amount of mint adding a lovely freshness to the finished salad without overwhelming it.