Chocolate Mousse

I've been feeling a little under the weather this last week and to treat myself today I felt like eating something a little sweet. I did contemplate making a cake or baking something, but instead decided on a simple mousse instead. Just because it's easy to make though, makes it no less delicious and chocolatey!

The mousse itself was nice, chocolatey and light so it was not too heavy and sickly. I think that next time I make this, I'll serve it with some fruit such as raspberries or strawberries (when they come into season) and potentially a double layered mousse made with white chocolate.

You can find the recipe I used here, I halved the recipe to make 2 portions (made with 4 smallish eggs).

What do you like to eat when you are feeling a little under the weather?

Green Garden Vegetable Pie

As a big meat lover, I always thought my plate would be a little lacking without the meat. I've been wanting to eat more vegetables in the hope that it would help us both to get a little healthier, as well as helping cut the costs of the shopping down. I needn't have worried about cutting the meat out though, as this recipe  was delicious. It had a lovely creamy cheese sauce, great tasting vegetables and a nice crisp cheese and potato topping. What more can you ask for?

There's no reason why you can't use leftover vegetables after your Sunday roast or any that you have laying around. It'd be a good way to use them up and taste good at the same time. 

This particular recipe serves 4 as a main, with good size portions. There's also no reason why you can't serve this as a side dish to a nice roast such as beef. As an accompaniment, I think this would serve approximately 6 -8.

The original recipe that I have adapted is here.

Ingredients:

50g butter

2 tsp mustard powder

600ml milk

200g mature cheddar cheese, grated

15g parmesan cheese (optional)

2 large potatoes, peeled and sliced into rounds

1 head of broccoli, cut into florets

1 carrot, peeled, cut in half and sliced

200g frozen peas

small bunch of chives, snipped

50g gluten free flour (I used Asda's Free From)

1 head of cauliflower, cut into florets

1 tsp of garlic salt

salt

pepper

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 220 C, 200 Fan, Gas 7 and boil the kettle.
2. Add the butter to the pan and melt, put the mustard and flour into the pan and cook for 1 minute.
3. Add the milk in little by little, stirring constantly to avoid getting any lumps. At this point you should also add the salt, garlic salt and pepper.
4.  When you've added all of the milk and the sauce thickens, you can take it off the heat and add most of the grated cheese to the pan. You just need a little put the side to sprinkle over the top of the dish later.
5. Preheat a large pan, put the boiling water into the pan and add the potatoes. Boil for 5 minutes, add the cauliflower, broccoli and carrot and cook for 3 minutes. Add the peas and leave for 1 more minute. You can leave for a little longer if you like your vegetables really well cooked through and soft.
6. Drain all of the vegetables and leave enough sliced potatoes to the side to cover the casserole dish. 
7. Add the vegetables, sauce and chives together and mix well. Put them into the casserole dish, cover with the sliced potatoes and sprinkle the cheese on top. You can also grate the parmesan on top at this point, if you are using it. 
8. Put into the oven and cook for approximately 25 minutes, until it is fully cooked through and nice and golden on the top.

We found that the parmesan gave the dish a little extra taste. This is definitely something that I would try again. Next time, we may try some chopped, fried bacon in for a different taste. 

Meal Plan 31/03/13 to 06/04/13

This week we have really tried to cut a lot of the meat out of our diets and replace it with vegetables, seafood and fish. We will not be cutting all of the meat in our diet, but we thought that it would be good to vary our diet more as we think we've been eating a little too much of it lately!

On the Sunday we went out for dinner and on one of the days we will be having leftovers. There are only 2 us, so tend to have plenty. Sometimes we take them to work for lunches.

Meal Plan for 31/03/13 to 06/04/13

Mediterranean tuna and rice bake

Sweet chilli prawn stir fry

Green garden vegetable pie

Aubergine parmesan

Lentil ragu

Leftovers

The shopping list below was checked on asda.com on 29/03:

Onions - £0.85

Carrots (500 g ) - £0.50

Celery - £0.89

Garlic (1 bulb) - £0.30

Red lentils - £1.28 (I actually bought mine from the local market for £0.60)

4 x boxes of chopped tomatoes - £1.50

Tomato purée - £0.55

500 g gluten free  spaghetti - £1.30 

Vegetable Stock Cube - £1.67 *

1 large aubergine - £0.50

1 low fat mozzarella ball - £0.83

100 g grated parmesan - £1.68 *

2 large potatoes - £1.50

200 g mature cheddar cheese - £2.00

1 head of broccoli - £1.00

Frozen peas - £1.60

Small bunch of chives - £0.60

1 head of cauliflower - £0.50

Long grain rice (500 g) - £0.40

1 jar sun dried tomatoes - £1.37

1 large courgette - £1.47 (this is approximate)

200 g Greek feta cheese - £1.00

Mixed salad leaves- £1.00

Sweet chilli sauce -£1.20

King prawns (380 g) - £5.00

1 can of tune in brine or spring water - £1.00 *

Total - £32.74

* These items are actually in my store cupboard or fridge already so I actually did not need to buy these.

Gnocchi with Broccoli and Parmesan Cream Sauce

Gnocchi is something that I used to love a lot, but since going gluten free it's not as easy as picking up a pre-prepared pack from the supermarket. This is quite possibly a good thing, as home made has a better texture and taste anyway but takes a little more time to prepare. With this in mind though, there's no harm with making double or triple the recipe needed and freezing them before you cooking, so that you can take them out and cook them any time you want.

The flavour of sauce was good, with a nice creamy taste and rich flavour coming of the cheese coming through. We did increase the amount of sauce made, as we made a little more gnocchi but found that the amount that it made was pretty spot on. You can always taste and add a little more crème fraîche if it is too rich, or add some more cheese if it is not rich enough.

Serves 3 - 4

The recipe for making the Gnocchi is is follows:

Ingredients

1 kg Maris Piper Potatoes

300 g plain flour (gluten free)

1 whole egg

1 egg yolk

1 tablespoon of olive oil

Salt and white pepper

Method:

1. Boil the potatoes, whole with the skin on for approximately 20 minutes for medium sized potatoes or until they are cooked through.
2. Leave the potatoes to cool, then peel the skins and mash the potatoes trying to ensure that there are no lumps (a potato ricer would help you here).
3. Add the flour, eggs, oil and seasoning, bring this together to form a dough. Put this onto a floured work surface and knead for 1 minute, adding a tough of flour if it is too sticky. 
4. Tear off a fist sized portion and roll out into a long sausage. Cut into inch sized pieces with a sharp knife. Put into indentations on the top with a fork and repeat until you have used all the dough. 
5. You would then boil the gnocchi, when it floats to the top of the water it is ready to eat. 

We used this recipe to serve and incorporated the cooking of the gnocchi with the broccoli in this recipe.

Note: We did double the ingredients in the sauce recipe, as we made quite a lot of gnocchi. As mentioned earlier though, you don't have to eat it all at once and it does freeze before cooking.

Wild Mushroom and Chestnut Cottage Pie

As we've been trying to put more vegetables into our diet and stop eating quite as much meat, this seemed like a really good recipe. It was actually my boyfriend who found and cooked this recipe, who assures me that it was fairly simple  and one where you didn't have to hover over the stove for the full cooking time.

The portion size of this is quite large and serves 4 people, but we found that you could probably get away with serving 6 with some more vegetables on the side. We'll freeze ours into portions and have some later in the week when we're having leftovers.

The flavour was earthy and rich with the mushrooms in the dish.  The chestnuts added a lovely nutty sweetness and made it that bit more substantial. 

The only change we made was to use a 390 g carton of tomatoes instead of 200 g. This gave the cottage pie a nice sauce, as we noticed some of the comments on the original recipe suggested that theirs came out slightly dry. If you don't want as much sauce as we had, you can always stick to the original recipe.

We're definitely meat lovers and every dinner normally comes with a hunk of it on the side of the plate, but we found that we didn't actually miss the meat in this recipe.  It's on the list to be made again, I can see this becoming a firm favourite in our household.

You can find the recipe we used here.

Gluten Free Crumpets

I noticed gluten free crumpets a couple of weeks ago and have been looking for an opportunity to make these. They're something that I love and I am looking for a cheaper alternative and also a way to cut out as much processed food as I possibly can. You can buy the Livwell crumpets for £1.98 (based on prices from asda.com on 25/03/13).

I was pretty pleased with the outcome of these crumpets and think they weren't bad for a first attempt. The texture was pretty close to a standard crumpet you'd buy in the shop and I think with a bit more practice, I could perfect them a little. 

I was also surprised at how little effort it took to make these and how little time to get the ingredients ready. They did have a bit of standing time, but this just means that you can get on with other things for a couple of hours while you get them ready.

The recipe calls for crumpet rings, but if like me you don't have any then you can use a tuna can and take off both sides with a tin opener. You can also get away with using the small tins of beans. They made for a pretty good substitute I think, if not entirely perfect.

They were lovely, toasted with some butter on and cheese melted over the top. A success in my book, so I will definitely be trying to make these again. You can find the recipe that I used here.

What's your favourite topping on your crumpet?

Meal Plan 24/03/13 - 29/03/13

This week we have five meals planned, I've decided to put down what we're having today as well in this menu as for us this came into the same budget. On one of the days, we will be having leftovers from one of the meals (there are only 2 of us, so we tend to have quite a few leftovers!). We normally leave 1 or 2 days without planned meals, as this helps us use up all of the leftovers in fridge / freezer.

All of the meals will be gluten free and we've made an effort to incorporate more vegetables into our diet. I do admit that the toad in the hole is a bit of a treat, but it's something that I've not had since going gluten free so I'm really looking forward to it.

I have some bananas that need using up and I have leftover nutella, so I think we'll have some of this as a light after dinner treat on sunday after our roast chicken dinner.

Meal Plan for 24/03/13 - 29/03/13

Roast chicken dinner with vegetables (runner beans, carrots, broccoli and roast potatoes)

Baked potatoes with tuna, sweetcorn and cottage cheese (I prefer cottage cheese with chives, but the boyfriend likes it with pineapple)

Gluten free Toad in the hole

Home made gnocchi with tenderstem broccoli in a creamy parmesan sauce

Vegetarian cottage pie with chestnuts and mushrooms

Leftovers (Cottage pie, Toad in the hole or Gnocchi)

The shopping list for this, verified on asda.com on 24/03/13 is as follows:

4 x Princes Tuna Chunks - £3.00

Cottage Cheese with chives £1.00

Cottage cheese with pineapple - £1.00

2 x 350 g mature lake district cheese - £4.00 (these are on offer)*

Butchers Selection Gluten Free sausages (8) £3.50 (or £1.80 per pack)**

Maris Piper Potatoes (2.5 kg) - £2.40

Parsnips (loose - 275 g) - £0.41

Asda jumbo baking potatoes - £1.50

Butchers Selection Whole Chicken Extra Tasty - £4.51

Onions (3 or 4 per pack) - £0.85

Swede - £0.68 (I think this was based on £1.00 per kg, this was pre packaged)

Runner Beans (160 g) - £1.00

Extra special tenderstem broccoli - £2.00

Creme Fraiche (300 ml) - £1.10

Shallots (450 g) - £1.00

Carrots 500 g - £0.50 (or you can get loose carrots)

Asda Jumbo Mushrooms (250 g ) - £1.15

Chestnut Mushrooms (250 g) - £1.00

Chestnuts (200 g) - £1.47

Marmite (125 g ) - £1.43

Clover (500 g) - £2.00
|Creative Cooks Mixed Mushrooms (Dried Oyster, Shitake and Porcini Mushrooms) - £1.98 ***

Total Price - £37.28 (Updated price as of 26/03/13)

* We will not use both of these, but as it will keep we will save this for next week. You can also freeze cheese.

** We will be freezing one of the packs of sausages, for use at a later date

*** Updated on 26/03/13 as we realised that we had forgotten these

We do already have some items in our cupboard such as flour, sweetcorn and parmesan.