Indulgent Macaroni Cauliflower Cheese with Truffle Oil

I love Macaroni Cheese and Cauliflower Cheese and so combining the two makes an even more sense.  Adding the truffle oil to this dish makes it even richer and I think it works a treat. Serve as an extravagant side dish with a roast. Or, as a main course suggestion,  serve it with some baked tomatoes and fresh rocket. 

Ingredients, which serves 6 people:

1 Cauliflower, broken into fleurettes (I think that's what they're called)

300g Macaroni

100g Mature Cheddar, Grated to go on the top

150g cream cheese. I used Quark on this occasion

1 table spoon of horseradish

3 teaspoons Truffle Oil

Seasoning: Salt, Pepper and Nutmeg

For the cheese sauce:

75g butter

3 tablespoons of plain flour

2 pints of milk

200g Mature Cheddar, Grated

Method:

First make your cheese sauce and let it cool on the side.

Cheese Sauce:

1. Melt your butter in a non stick pan. 

2. Whilst still on a low heat, stir in the flour so that you have a smooth paste. 

3. Gradually add your milk

4. Then add your grated cheese and season well with Salt, Pepper and Nutmeg.

5. Stirring regularly, bring the sauce to the boil until it thickens.

6. Once it's done, cover with cling-film (so that it doesn't form a crust on the top) and let it cool, ready to pour over your macaroni and cauliflower.

Then cook the Macaroni and Cauliflower. Cook the pasta for 3 minutes less than it says on the packet. The cauliflower only needs about 4 minutes cooking, so add your cauliflower pieces to the pasta water 4 minutes before the pasta should finish cooking (probably about half way through).

Drain in a colander and pour over cold water so that the pasta and cauliflower do not continue cooking. Once cold, place the pasta and cauliflower in a large baking dish.

To the dish, add your horseradish, truffle oil, cream cheese and seasoning of salt, pepper and nutmeg. Stir everything together.

Then pour over your cold cheese sauce mix and make sure it's stirred in evenly and top with your 100g of grated cheddar. 

Bake for 40-45 minutes on 180 degrees centigrade until golden brown on top. Once cooked, let it stand for 5 minutes before serving.

Amazing(ly Simple) Artichokes

Artichokes are one of my favourite comfort foods and let's face it, we need as much of it as we can get at this time of year. They also look so majestic and impressive without really having to make much effort.  Ideal for a starter, you can basically just boil them and serve. 

Billy and I recently went to Brighton where my highlight of the weekend, as well as our tour of the Royal Pavilion, was dining at the Hotel du Vin. We shared this artichoke starter which was simply presented and served with two dipping sauces- one was a hollandaise sauce and the other a garlic butter.

 I liked the no fuss presentation with the mini copper pans. You could easily do something like this at home for a dinner party. However, my recipe is even easier:

Ingredients:

• 1 Globe Artichoke per person 
• Garlic to put in the boiling water (about half to one clove per artichoke)
• Juice of 1 lemon- about a quarter of a lemon per artichoke, depending on your tastes
• Salt and pepper
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• White or Red wine vinegar
• Butter

Method:

• Cut of the stalks of each artichoke and any damaged outer leaves
• Boil them for 20 minutes (unless they're the small ones in which case 15 minutes will be fine) with 2 whole garlic cloves in the water. Depending on how many artichokes you're boiling, I'd allow half a clove of garlic more for every additional artichoke you do.
• Drain and place in a bowl, putting a clove at the bottom of each bowl to add flavour to your dipping juices. This is optional.
• Season with plenty of salt and pepper
• Squeeze over some lemon juice (about a quarter of lemon per artichoke).
• Then pour over a generous glug of Extra Virgin Olive oil and a dash of White Wine Vinegar.
• Finish with a knob of butter which will melt into the artichoke.
• Then get stuck in, using the juices in your bowl to dip your leaves. Place a bowl in the middle of the table to discard your leaves and choke.

I like the theatre of eating an artichoke this way: peeling off each leaf and dipping it in the sauce to eat off the fragrant flesh. Then, taking your time and eventually getting to the heart (you need to remove the spiky choke with a spoon) with which you can mop up the remaining juices in your bowl. By the end of the dish you end up with a mountain of discarded leaves and messy fingers as there's no sophisticated way to do it. For me it's the perfect interactive starter and it's so easy to do. 

Not one to do though if you're absolutely starving and in a rush as it lends itself to eating slowly and/ or sharing.

Christmas Cranberry Gin

I wanted to do a few home made Christmas gifts this year and what better than a Christmas tipple. My friend Sarah gave me a recipe she found in a magazine, which of course I've now lost. But I tweaked the recipe slightly anyway so see below how Billy and I made this rather pleasing looking drink.

Start by pricking each cranberry. Yes this is as tedious as it sounds. However, it's necessary for the gin to go in and the juice to come out. Then put the cranberries into your sterilised bottles. Divide as evenly as possible and if you have smaller bottles as well then fill as much as you can. Then add your orange and lemon  peels.

Put your sugar into the gin and stir it until the sugar is dissolved. Then using a funnel, pour the sweet gin into the bottles until full.

Seal and keep in a cool place for two weeks, after which you can pop it open and enjoy however you wish. Think I'll be doing a classy G & T with ours!!

Ingredients (makes 2 and a half litres of gin)

300g Fresh Cranberries
2 Litres Gin- It doesn't need to be that great a Gin. And, you might not need to use all of it.  The size of your cranberries and the bottles you use might mean that quantities slightly differ. As I packed my bottles with lots of peel (because I liked the look), I ended up with a bit of spare Gin. You can always add some more peel to this and make up and extra bottle. It looks great even with just the peel and no cranberries. 
Zest of 2 oranges and 2 lemons, sliced nice and thinly.
400g Caster Sugar to dissolve into the Gin

Filo Fiorentina: Like the Pizza but in a Filo Case

On Friday nights, I've started to go swimming after work. Such a nice way of finishing the week and leaving all the stress behind. Mind you this Friday was hardly stressful: a recce around London for my current job, ending up at the Park Plaza hotel in one of their penthouse suites. I'm not complaining!

Not with this view! Anyway, going back to the swimming, I used this time to come up with my roast recipe. Partly because I was hungry, I started thinking about pizza. And, my favourite pizza is the Fiorentina. I love the baked egg on the top.

I wanted to do an open Filo tart, using the Fiorentina Pizza ingredients. Instead of doing the tomato layer on the bottom, I thought that doing the spinach and goats cheese layer on the bottom would mean that it wouldn't go soggy.

Start by preparing the spinach filling: Saute a clove of garlic in olive oil. Then add your spinach to the pan, salt, pepper and nutmeg to season. Let this cook for 5 minutes with the lid on. It'll be very watery and so you need to (in a sieve) drain off all of the excess water. Make sure you really press the spinach against the sieve so that there is really no excess water coming out. I keep this spinach juice in a Tupperware as a stock in the freezer but if you don't want to keep it then discard it.

Once the spinach has cooled, add your goats cheese and mix it together. This will be the bottom layer of your Filo tart. You also need to toast a good handful of pine nuts to throw over the top at the end. For the tomato sauce layer, I made a rich sauce of my own but you could buy a nice Italian pasta sauce and use that instead. It mustn't be too wet that the only thing.  Leave all of your Filo fillings to one side for later. Now preheat your oven at 190 degrees centigrade.

Then prepare your Filo pastry cases: Melt some butter and brush the inside of 6 ramekin dishes and around the tops with it. On a board, put your first Filo sheet. Brush with melted butter and place on the next sheet. Brush again with melted butter and cut into squares (roughly 15cm x 15cm depending on your ramekin). Then, stuff (gently) each ramekin with a square of prepared Filo. Bake for 10 minutes and then take them out of the oven. Let them cool and take each case out of the ramekins.

You're then ready to put together your Filo case. Compile your tart starting with the bottom layer of your spinach mixture. Followed by the tomato sauce. Make sure you leave enough room for the egg to go on top- I'd say don't fill the case more than two thirds. Bake for ten minutes on 190 degrees. Then crack one egg on each Filo tart and bake for another 10 to 15 minutes until the egg whites are cooked.

Season with salt and pepper and sprinkle on some toasted pine nuts. Top with peppery rocket and serve as you like. I served it with some roast potatoes, a light gravy and a crunchy green salad. It's the kind of dish that could be served as a wintry roast with veg and gravy,  but could also quite easily be a summery lunch dish with a light salad. Either way I think it looks impressive and you already know the flavours work a treat together.

Ingredients (Serves 6):

Jus Roll Filo Pastry, 6 sheets. I only used 4 sheets but you could, if you wanted layer up three sheets instead of 2.
Butter to melt and line Ramekin dishes and to brush over Filo pastry
200g fresh Spinach
70g crumbly goats cheese
Rich, thick tomato sauce, either homemade or bought. I threw in some sun dried tomatoes as well.
Salt, Pepper and Nutmeg to season
6 free range eggs
Handful of pine nuts, toasted
Rocket to go on top
You'll need 6 Ramekins as well.