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Kale & Pumpkin Orecchiette

Posted on December 14, 2019July 2, 2020 by flavourie

I made this recipe back in September just as the autumn was starting to make an appearance in earnest. And, despite it taking me a solid three months to get it up on the blog, thankfully all the flavours are still as relevant as we head into the end of one year and the beginning of a new one!

With some dishes I come up with, I wonder where a dish transforms from being a mere assemblage of ingredients into an actual recipe, and this is very much one of those dishes. So whichever it may technical set upon, the ingredients and method, such that it is, is noted below. But aside from all of that, this is the kind of dish that is pure comfort and joy. Don’t stimp on loading the roasting tray for the squash/pumpkin with endless cloves of garlic so that the kitchen is filled with that: the best aroma of all!

Ingredients (serves 2):

Enough Oriecchiette pasta for two people
1/2 Butternut Squash, peeled, deseeded and cubed into 1inch pieces
Lots of garlic – at least 5 cloves, in their skin and smashed
20g of blue cheese (Shepherds Store works well)
1 pack of Gubbeen streaky bacon, sliced into thin lardons
2 generous handfuls of seasonal kale, destem and tear the leaves.
Handful of toasted pumpkin seeds
Parmesan cheese
Olive oil, sea salt and pepper

Method:

Heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius, prepare the squash and arrange it on a baking tray. Toss in the smashed cloves of garlic, drizzle over a small amount of olive oil. Toss through and roast until the squash is tender. Turn once during cooking.
Bring a pan of well salted water to the boil, add in the pasta, a drizzle of olive oil and cook until tender. Drain and set aside.
Fry off the bacon until all the fat has rendered out and the bacon has gone crispy. Drain on kitchen paper and set aside.
Keep the bacon fat, and once the squash is cooked through heat up the bacon fat again and quickly cook the kale leaves until they have softened.
Into a large sharing bowl, add the drained pasta, squash, pumpkin seeds and the crumbled blue cheese, season with sea salt and black pepper and toss together.
Scatter about the kale, then crumble the bacon over. Finally, using a veg peeler, peel off some Parmesan cheese over the whole dish and serve immediately.

Enjoy!

Spooky Hallowe’en Feast for all the Family!

Posted on October 26, 2018April 16, 2020 by flavourie

I know, I know: Hallowe’en is “just for the kids”, but I know that we adults love it just as much as the little ones do! So I got to thinking, aside from the excitement of dressing up as ghouls and ghosts and heading out into the frosty night to go trick or treating, how lovely would it be add an extra little flourish to All Hallows Eve than to share a fun feast that all the family can enjoy together?

So for this year, why not give my Hallowe’en Feast a go – not only will the kids love it for the fun factor, but adults will love it because it tastes delicious too!

All recipes are designed to feed four, but can be easily scaled up for bigger gatherings!

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Turkey and Cashew Nut Parcels

Posted on January 18, 2016April 16, 2020 by flavourie

In January every year we ditch the heavy sauces, rich dishes and heavy carbs for a much lighter way of dining altogether. It’s a month that is screaming out for cleansing, fresh, zingy flavours. Reducing the meat (or using lighter alternatives) and really packing in the fish. Plenty of veggies, raw and cooked and swapping spuds for rice and noodles. Each time we do this, we try something new.

This time around we have been on a journey of discovery with Fiona Uyema’s simply excellent cookbook “Japanese Food Made Easy”. Aside from the trickiness that is unavoidable with regards sushi and sashimi, the book totally delivers what it says on the tin. You thought Japanese food was difficult? Not with this book in your arsenal it’s not!

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Veg Accompaniments for a Summery Roast Dinner

Posted on March 20, 2015April 17, 2020 by flavourie

As summer approaches, us Irish and Brits are faced with important food dilemmas like: is it too hot outside for a roast dinner or, how rainy does it have to be exactly before you have to abandon the BBQ?!

Well, in relation to the traditional Sunday roast I say to you: it is never too hot outside for a roast chicken dinner! Forget about trying to faff about with making the meat “different” – stick to its brilliant beautiful traditional self; instead take a sideways look at your veg and think about different ways to cook, prepare and serve up your veg sides to bring the roast back on the summery Sunday table.

The other day I roasted a chicken with lemon and tarragon. The sun was out, the dogs were toasting themselves nicely on the hot stones outside and I was most definitely not in the mood for roast veg and gravy. Instead I cooked panfried green beans with smoked salt, oregano and almonds; smashed new potatoes with chilli and garlic and a carrot slaw with cumin and coriander seeds, parsley, sultanas, lemon juice and rapeseed oil. Everything was a definite hit! See below the three very simple receipes and enjoy!

Smashed New Potatoes with Chilli and Garlic:
Steam as many baby new potatoes as you need or dare!
Once cooked through, take off the heat; put a frying pan onto a medium high heat and heat a good glug of olive oil (you’ll need more depending on how many spuds you have, but don’t make it very oily)
Whilst that is heating up, take a normal spoon and using the back of it gently push each of the potatoes to “smash them” – don’t be annihilating them now!
When the oil is hot enough, put the potatoes in the frying pan with half a finely chopped fresh jalapeno chili pepper and two small or one large finely chopped garlic clove.
Toss everything together, mind it until the potatoes start to colour and are warmed through again. Don’t let the chilli and garlic catch.
Place into a warmed serving bowl and set aside.
Fragrant Carrot Slaw
Peel two large carrots, top and tail.
Using a food processor, attached the grater blade. Put both carrots through the processor. Empty the grated carrot into a bowl.
Crush 1/2 teaspoon each of coriander and cumin seed, add that to the bowl along with a handful of sultanas for sweetness, the zest of one whole lemon and the juice of half; a handful of finely chipped parsley.
Season with freshly ground black pepper and a good sprinkly of Maldon sea salt flakes. Drizzle with rapeseed oil. Mix together well and set aside ready for serving.
Smokey Green Beans
Take a pack of fine green beans, top and tail the lot. Place in bowl and drizzle extra virgin olive oil over them along with a generous sprinkle of Maldon smoked sea salt and plenty of freshly ground black pepper.
Heat a pan. Don’t add any oil to the pan. When it is hot enough throw in the green beans complete with the oil and seasoning.
Toss the green beans ensuring they get some colour (don’t worry if they take a little). You want the beans quite al dente. Cook more if you don’t like them super crunchy.
A minute before they are ready, throw in a 1/2 tablespoon of finely chopped oregano and a good sprinkle of flaked almonds.
Toss everything together, finish with the lightest spritz of lemon oil and serve in a warmed bowl.
Bring to the table and serve up with your lovely juicy roast chicken. Serve outside in the sunshine with a well chilled bottle of Chablis; and Enjoy!

What to do with Leftover BBQ Sausages?

Posted on March 20, 2015April 17, 2020 by flavourie

We’ve all been there…a great BBQ was had by all, but there was too much food bought/brought and nobody ate as much as they thought they could handle, and as a result you have been left with a load of cooked sausages. What to do with them? There’s only so many sausage sandwiches one can eat after all! Well, I can help you out of your conundrun!

The recipe below is a variation of a “Pasta al Forno” dish that was published in Olive Magazine in 2013. I have included a note after this recipe on how to make the original which is also yummy and appears regularly in my repertoire for fast, tasty weekday food!

Ingredients (serves 2-4, depending on appetite!):

Cooked sausages (enough for two per adult) cut lengthways and quartered
1tsbp of fennel seeds
1 clove of garlic
2-4 dried chilli pods (depending on your need for heat!)
2 tblsp of tomato puree
1 400g tin of chopped tomatoes
1 large / 2 small red bell peppers
1 tblsp of fresh chopped rosemary (if you only have dried use 1/2 tblsp)
50g pasta per person
Some cheese for grating over: Pecorino / Parmesan / Gran Padano etc
Freshly cracked black pepper and sea salt to season
Method:

Place a pan of salted water on the heat for the pasta.

Dry roast the fennel seeds slightly for a few minutes, careful not to burn them.
Pop the fennel seeds, chilli pods and garlic in a pestle and mortar and bash together.
Heat a small lug of olive oil in a frying pan to a medium heat and pop in the fennel/chili/garlic mix. Cook off for a couple of minutes.
Add the tomato puree and mix in with the aromatics; cook out for a minute or two.
Add in the tinned tomatoes and cook for a couple of minutes.
Meanwhile prepare you red peppers by deseeding, taking out the pith and cutting into roughyl 2cm pieces. Add to the pan and stir.
Add in your chopped sausages, turn the heat down and cook through until bubbling.
If the sauce becomes a little dry, add some water a little at a time. I use the tomato tin to get any left over tomato juice as well.
Place the pasta in to the boiling water. In the picture below I have used wholewheat pasta, but any pasta you have will do as long as it’s not the miniature stuff!
Chop the rosemary and add to the sausage mix along with a decent grind of fresh black pepper and some sea salt to season. Stir and cook through.
Drain the pasta. Check the sausage mix for seasoning and adjust if necessary.
Pour the sausage mix into the pasta; mix together and serve immediately on warmed plates.
Grate over a generous amount of the cheese and serve with a simple leaf salad with lemon dressing to freshen the palate.
And Enjoy….!

NOTE:

The original recipe in Olive Magazine is for Rigatoni al Forno. Using pretty much the same ingredients but with fresh, high meat content sausages (I like to use Gubeen Italian Sausages to enhance the fennel seed and garlic flavours) and rigatoni pasta the following method would apply:

Deskin the sausages and place into a medium hot pan, cooking and breaking down the sausages as you go with the wooden spoon.
Then add the aromatic mix above with the rosemary; tinned tomatoes and puree, cook through. Add salt and pepper at the end.
Cook the rigatoni. Mix the pasta and meat mix together and place in a lasagne disj (or similar).
Grate 100g of Gran Padano over the top and then grill until the cheese melts and browns.
Al Forno literally means “from the fire” and this is where this dish is served straight from the grill / oven etc straight to the table still all hot and bubbling. People then help themselves!

Kale & Pumpkin Orecchiette

Kate Ryan