Veggie restaurant food: a rant

I’ve been a veggie for 25 years. In that time I’ve seen vegetarian food go from lentils 12 ways, to shelf after shelf of veggie food in the supermarket. These are good times indeed for vegetarians. Back in the day asparagus came in tins and squash was something bright orange in a bottle that rotted your teeth. As far as we’ve come, I do wish restaurants would catch up.

I eat out at a variety of different restaurants and cafes, from really posh places (this is very rare) to high street chains and independents. A good 90% of the time I look at the menu and realise that the veggie option is more often than not a lazy afterthought.

This week I had a Christmas meal at a reasonably swish local restaurant. My meal was a starter of beetroot and goats cheese tart (the tart was just a circle of burnt pastry) and a spinach and feta filo pie which was almost inedible, the pastry was thick and burnt. I left it. I don’t really like pastry, let alone burnt pastry, two courses of burnt pastry.

A few weeks ago I had a veggie “burger” in a trendy burger place, it was a slab of halloumi. I like halloumi, I love halloumi, but just a slab of it in a burger bun is a disappointing cheese sandwich I could’ve made at home. The chips were nice though.

Every menu seems to have the same selection of veggie options –
Lasagne
Veggie burger
Pasta with tomato sauce
Risotto, usually mushroom
Something containing blue cheese
Something containing mushrooms

Is there a chefs’ law which states “thou shalt offer vegetarians blue cheese and mushroom options only”, I really hope not, I can’t stand blue cheese and I can’t eat mushrooms because they make me ill. Seriously, why so big on blue cheese? There are approximately 8 squillion different kinds of cheese out there, there’s more to life than Stilton.

Is it so hard to think beyond crappy filo pies, slabs of cheese and lasagnes? I know a lot of chefs look at vegetarians in a disdainful, disparaging way, but if we’ve got the money in our back pockets and we want to spend it eating your cooking, why won’t you serve us up something decent?

I’m not asking for the world, I’m just asking for a little bit of excitement on my plate, not the lazy “that’ll do” option. So down with burnt filo pastry, soggy lasagnes and blue cheese and mushroom monstrosities. You can do better, I know you can.

The Truth about Pasta with Pesto

If you have a small child you may already be familiar with the exotic thrill of a plate of pesto pasta for a small child. One plate is rarely enough for my own small boy. In light of his excessive fusilli with pesto stirred through it obsession I did some extensive research and found these 8 entirely true facts about Pesto Pasta!

1. Pesto is more expensive than gold. Even “value” pesto is equal in price to solid silver. Probably.
2. If you’re under the age of ten, pasta with pesto has the same addictive qualities as crack cocaine.
3. Pesto pasta is equally delicious served hot or cold. Other serving suggestions include fresh from the kitchen floor and from down the side of the sofa cushion with extra fluff, all equally delicious.
4. Pasta with pesto makes an ideal breakfast, dinner, tea, supper or midnight snack.
5. It is physically impossible to eat too much pesto pasta. I know, I’ve seen it happen.
6. Pasta with pesto is the secret to world peace. Maybe. If it can keep a four year old happy and in quite a pleasant mood, just imagine its impact on the Middle East.
7. You can spend the day lovingly creating the most nutritionally balanced, organic, free range, delicious meal in the world. But pasta with pesto will always be better.
8. Pasta with pesto does not count towards your five a day. Dammit. Why is that? It’s green, it totally should!

This post is NOT sponsored by the pesto marketing board.

How to make a really easy Train Birthday Cake

Children’s birthday parties can be fairly hard work, with lots to remember, from party food, party bags, games, music, costumes and cake. I’m all for making life easy (and on a budget), so this year instead of buying an expensive cake we opted to make our own. The small boy wanted a train birthday cake to go with his train birthday party and who am I to argue?

To make this easy train birthday cake you will need:
Three rounds of sponge cake (as described below)
Half a jar of raspberry jam (approx), or strawberry if you prefer
Two tubs of Betty Crocker Vanilla Buttercream icing
Three tubes of smarties
Bigjigs trains (see below)
One cake board (or big enough plate)

Hubs is the baker of the household, so I asked him to make three layers of sponge cake. Use your favourite and foolproof sponge cake recipe (his used 8 eggs to give you an idea of the amount of sponge we made) you want to make three round sponge cakes baked in a 25cm tin. Once baked they need to be around an inch tall.

Once the cakes are cool, put a blob of the buttercream on the cake board and place the first layer of sponge on top of that, this helps to anchor the cake to the board and stops it sliding about. Spread a layer of jam on top of the first layer. Carefully turn the second layer upside down and gently spread the flat bottom with the buttercream and sandwich in top of the jam layer.

On the top of the second layer, spread evenly with more jam and then spread buttercream on the upturned bottom of the top layer of sponge, put that on top. You should have a three layered cake in front of you which from the bottom goes…
Blob of buttercream
Cake
Jam
Buttercream
Cake
Jam
Buttercream
Cake

With me so far? Good. Now you’ve got all your layers stacked carefully, spread the remaining buttercream over the top and sides of the cake. Don’t worry about it being prefect, if you aim for the rustic look it’ll be fine. I created a wavy effect with a palette knife and the sides were rough but fully covered. If you want you can make the buttercream smooth.

Bigjigs make a sort of pick and mix name train set, I bought mine from my local toy shop Giddy Goat Toys. I bought the carriage and the letters of his name for £2.25 each, which cost me just £9 in total. This was much cheaper than buying a proper train and carriages and much more personal.

I gave them a little wash, though they’d been in a sealed box, then using a little blob of the buttercream “glued” the removable letters onto the carriages and pressed the train into the thick buttercream in the top of the cake.

Tipping the smarties into a bowl I then wrote his age in smarties on the top of the cake, then I used the remaining smarties to edge around the bottom of the cake. I was pretty pleased with my efforts.

If you do this the night before the party and leave it out uncovered overnight, the buttercream should firm up slightly and make it easier to transport. On the morning of the party I wrapped it loosely in foil and it sat in my knee in the car on the way to the party. On arrival we unwrapped it and there were no buttercream smears on the foil and it still looked good. Phew.

The cake tasted really good, but hubs does make beautiful cakes. We had lots of lovely compliments about it. It sliced into approx 24 slices, which was more than enough for a kids party.

Our lovely and quite huge train birthday cake was a really big hit, a few people thought we’d bought it (ha, always a compliment) and the small boy was really, really pleased with it and proudly showed it off to his friends. It’s a really easy way to make a simple sponge birthday cake a little bit special.

How to make a really easy train birthday cake

Malteser Spread & other MARS Munchies

If you live in a house with boys, foodstuffs, especially biscuits seem to mysteriously evaporate, whole packets of them, in minutes. I am of course grateful for this, without the evaporating biscuits my bum would be even bigger than it already is. I was thankful therefore when MARS sent me a lovely hamper of biscuits and sweet treats to keep some tummies filled during hungry half term.

In the hamper were a bag of Milky Way cookies; a bag of Galaxy cookies; a bag of Bounty cookies; a pot of Malteser spread (yes, such a thing exists), a packet of MARS cake bars and a huge Galaxy treat cake.

Naturally the cookies evaporated on sight, I did manage to sneak a nibble. They’re available from Tesco’s and if you enjoy a freshly baked cookie, then I’m pretty sure you’ll enjoy them.

The Galaxy cookies (£1.30 for 4 from Tesco) were large and full of decent sized chocolatey chunks, not too crunchy, nicely soft and an enjoyable cookie. The small boy naturally went a little bit berserk over the Milky Way Cookies (£1 for 10 mini cookies from Tesco), which rather adoringly had not chocolate chunks, but chocolate stars, these were smaller but made up for it by having an extra few in the bag. My favourites were the Bounty cookies (£1 for 4 from Tesco), which were large, packed with chocolate chunks and full of coconut. A Bounty bar is too coconutty for me, but this was just the right amount, not too sweet either. I’d definitely buy these again.

The thing we all got most excited about was the jar of Malteser spread, chocolate spread liberally peppered with little malty Maltester balls. It’s meant to be spread on toast or slathered on pancakes or similar, but I made butterfly cakes and used it instead of buttercream.

They were a huge success, the cakes were yummy with just a nice amount of chocolatey hit. Everyone loved the little crunchy pieces of Malteser. For me it is quite sweet so I’m not sure I could eat it as a spread, but hubs who has a sweet tooth loved it and would probably spoon it directly into his mouth from the jar if I let him.

The MARS cake bars (£1.65 for 5) were soft sponge topped with chocolate and caramel were for me the slight disappointment, they were lovely and disappeared quickly once the packet was opened, but for me I love the chewy nougat in a MARS bar and I missed that in the cake bars. I would buy them again though since the boys loved them so much.

The Galaxy treat cake (£7 from ASDA) was also a hit. It serves 15 so would be great for a party or as a treat for the office. Chocolate sponge topped with chocolate buttercream and little Galaxy pieces, there is nothing even potentially disappointing about any of that. We scoffed it with some friends when they came for a play date and it was enjoyed equally by parents and children.

If you haven’t already you need to get your hands on the Malteser spread, it’s brilliant for topping cakes with and I’ll always have some in the cupboard for baking emergencies, though I may need to hide it from my greedy boys.

Note: We were sent these products free of charge for review purposes, all images and opinions are our own. Thank you to MARS for fuelling our half term fun.

What’s your “can’t be bothered” tea?

As the clock struck 5pm, two hungry boys looked at me expectantly. They wanted feeding and I had neither an array of exciting ingredients, nor the motivation to throw them together to create a delicious and nutritious meal.

I am largely a cook it from scratch girl, but with a lazy streak. I’ll cook double the amount of chilli and freeze half for a lazier day. Tonight I was all can’t be bothered, so I threw together a pan of pasta and pesto and we all chowed down. There are worse things to eat, but it was a meal of fuel rather than fancy, but that was fine.

Afterwards I sat down with my iPad and tweeted this…

I was interested because I can’t remember a time before pasta and pesto, it kind of arrived on the culinary scene just as I toddled off to uni and formed the basis of many, many meals there. So much so I couldn’t eat it for about three years after I left. My tweet brought a small flurry of responses…

There are some pretty interesting responses here. Easy stuff on toast and pasta six ways seems to be the order of the day. I wonder if it’s just me who feels a bit of parental guilt about not providing a meal containing seven vegetables and an organic, free-range source of protein. Sometimes a family with full bellies is all that you need to call a meal time a success.

It’s hard to make time to prep and cook a from scratch meal every night, it doesn’t matter what Jamie Oliver says, I defy him to cook a meal with a child clinging to his leg screeching “but I’m hun-grreeeeee”. A mid-week can’t be bothered meal is nothing to feel bad about. Honest.

What’s your favourite can’t be bothered meal? I am genuinely interested.

Bangers for Bonfire Night with Grandad’s Sausages

Being one of those funny vegetarian sorts, I frequently enjoy a Quorn sausage while my meat eating boys scoff down seemingly vast quantities of porky sausages. The boys eat sausages at least once a week, it’s an easy meal and when the small boy is feeling fussy it’s something I know he will eat. Tonight being Bonfire Night and falling slap bang in the middle of British Sausage Week, we had to have bangers for our bonfire tea.

We were given a sample pack of seven different flavoured sausages from Grandad’s Sausages, a family business based in Bury, Greater Manchester. In our porky packet of pleasure (sorry, not sorry) were their traditional British Pork; Olde English; Lincolnshire; Cumberland; Pork & Welsh Leek; Pork & Somerset Apple and Pork & Fiery Chilli. Grandad’s Sausages also make Pork & Crushed Garlic; Pork & Bury Black Pudding; and Pork & Cranberry, but we didn’t get to try them.

I always cook my sausages the same way, probably the heathens way, on a baking tray in the oven, shaking the tray frequently. With cheap supermarket sausages the tray fills with fat and it makes me gag a bit when I clean it. With good quality butchers sausages usually there’s hardly any fat, and these sausages were very lean, but were they lean on flavour too?

Being unable to sample any sausages, I was reliant on the boys tastebuds and their ability to communicate to me the joy of the sausage. This is where the plan fell down, with mouths stuffed with sausages they told me they were “nice and sausagey”, other gems included “meaty” and the pork and fiery chilli was “hot but not melt your face hot”. So there we go folks, suspect the Michelin guide will be knocking on our door any day now to snap the boys up as new inspectors for next year.

For me it’s a good sign if their plates are clean and they were. I asked them post-sausage what their favourites were. Hubs went for the chilli, my Dad went for the pork and apple and the small boy said “sausages”, so that went well. All were deemed a success and I’d happily serve them again to the boys and anyone else who sat nicely at my dining table.

What better way to celebrate British Sausage Week AND Bonfire Night, than with a plate of rather lovely local Grandad’s Sausages.

Ready for School with Ready Brek Easy Sachets Porridge

Autumn is here and there’s a definite nip in the air. I want to send my boys out for their busy days with something warm in their bellies, something which will give them energy and keep them full and fuelled until lunchtime. Ready Brek are launching two new flavours which are part of their easy sachets range. They sent me both flavours for us to try, their new gingerbread and chocolate flavours as well as the traditional original porridge.

The Ready Brek Easy Sachets are very simple to make up, just tip the sachet and the required amount of milk into a bowl and microwave for 90 seconds. It’s really quick and easy, ideal for busy mornings and the race to get ready and out of the house without being late for work or school. Cards on the table, I’m not a porridge fan but the boys are, so I had two very willing expert testers and I even dipped my spoon in to sample.

Chocolate flavour – this was an all round big hit, it’s tasty Ready Brek but chocolate flavour. It’s delicious and feels more like a treat than a porridge. The boys loved this, even I finished my bowl, which shows just how moreish the chocolate flavour is.

Gingerbread flavour – The boys liked the gingerbread, it wasn’t too gingery for the small boy and it had a delicate ginger flavour. I think this is the perfect porridge for autumn and the run up to Christmas. Personally this wasn’t gingery enough for me, but I like a strong, strong ginger flavour, for me this would be excellent with a little drizzle of stem ginger syrup.

The Original flavour – This is the traditional Ready Brek we all remember from our childhoods. The flavour and consistency haven’t changed, it’s just much, much quicker to make. They boys variously enjoyed theirs plain, or with a dollop of jam, a drizzle of honey, or a spoon of nutella. I like that with the original you can dress it up whichever way you like.

I like that a warm, tasty breakfast is so quick and easy to conjure up, and I like knowing that the boys are leaving the house in the morning with something warm inside them, which should hopefully set them up for the day.

Review: Personalised Baker Days Letterbox Cake

Organisationally I’m quite rubbish. I used to be a project manager which forced me to be professionally organised, but at home I was and remain a shambles. This unfortunately means that gift buying is always, always, always done at the very last minute and in a bit of a panic. I was asked to try a Baker Days letterbox cake, which seems like the ideal and personalised solution to my present buying woes.

We were asked to choose a Halloween themed cake which we could personalise with our own words, though you can choose from almost any themed cake imaginable. We liked the spiderweb cake design which we customised with the words “Spooky Creepy Scary Boo!” But you could choose whatever message you wanted. It was really easy to order and was delivered within a few days, though there are various delivery options available depending on how disorganised or organised you are.

Baker Days

Our cake arrived through the letterbox in excellent condition. Tightly packed in a cute keepsake tin. The cake is presented in a box with a little packet of party balloons and blowers with a personalised greetings card. Honestly if someone sent me a little personalised cake in the post; cutely presented like this for my birthday or another occasion; I’d be delighted. It’s such a lovely looking, thoughtful gift.

We decided to share the cake between us for pudding after Sunday lunch. The cake was enough to cut into four fairly generous pieces or eight smaller bites. The sponge was light and the icing was sweet but not too thick. It was a nice slice of cake. The cake we had was 5 inches in diameter; larger cakes are available and you can also choose chocolate or fruit cake if you’d prefer. They also make a range of personalised and themed cupcakes which look super-cute.

Baker Days

The letterbox cake starts at £14.99 plus postage and packing. It includes a greetings card, a keepsake tin and the balloons and blowers. I think it’s a lovely gift to post to someone; especially if you’re always a bit last minute like me. I like that it’s personalised and that it’s a little bit of fun. I think it’s a great idea and it’s definitely on my last minute panic present buying list.

Note: I was sent this cake from Baker Days for review purposes. All images and opinions are my own.

Easy Recipe: Plum Jelly – preserving summer

With three established plum trees in our garden we suddenly get quite popular at this time of year; people popping round on the off chance they can take a bag home to turn into a duff or a crumble or a sponge. This year has been an exceptionally good year for our plum trees and we couldn’t give the fruit away fast enough so I made a batch of plum jelly.

We used to be keen picklers and preservers (before we became parents), so I decided to make a batch of plum jelly. It’s very simple, you don’t need mad skills to make it, all you need is time and patience.

Recipe: Plum Jelly - preserving summer

Ingredients:
4.5 lbs of ripe plums (any variety)
1 pint of water
1.5 lbs of preserving sugar

Method:

Halve the plums (you don’t need to remove the stones, I left most of them in, but if it popped out easily then I discarded it), and place into a very large pan. Pour in your water, put the lid on the pan and cook until the fruit has fallen apart, this should take about 10-15 minutes.
Set up your jelly bag, if you haven’t got one of these don’t worry, you can put a sieve over a large bowl, line the sieve with a clean piece of muslin, this will work just as well.
Once your plums are cooked, gradually ladle into the jelly bag or lined sieve and leave (preferably overnight) to drip. Don’t be tempted to squeeze the juice out as this may result in a cloudy jelly. You should get around 2 pints of juice from the plums.
Put your plum juice into your very large pan with the preserving sugar and stir until the sugar melts into the juice. Turn the heat up and bring it to a low rolling boil. It’s better to take this slow and steady, than rush it and push it too far. At this stage put your clean jars in the oven to sterilise them.
You should carefully taste the jelly at this stage to see if it needs any more sugar. This will vary depending on the ripeness of the fruit; remember you can always add but you can’t take away, so keep tasting. Personally I like a slightly tart jelly.
Keep an eye on your plum jelly, keep stirring and you should feel it start to thicken. Scoop any foamy scum off the top (this is just impurities from the fruit and the sugar, it’s not harmful at all) and discard.
Take a cold plate (if you put it in the fridge to chill, that’ll help) and put a dribble of the plum jelly on. Leave it to cool and if it sets to the consistency you want then your jelly is ready to be put in the jars; if not keep stirring and testing the jelly regularly.
When it’s ready, carefully remove your jars from the oven; (they will be incredibly hot) and pour in your plum jelly. We use a wide necked funnel for this; but filling a jug and pouring it into the jar works just as well. Work quickly and carefully and get the lids on your jars while everything is still hot.

Leave to cool and and then it’s ready for slathering on crumpets.

plum jelly

Personally I like to put my jars of jewel coloured jams and jellies away until the winter months. It’s lovely to open a jar of something homemade, special and evocative of summer; just when you need the sunshine memory the most. But then I’m sentimental like that.

If you enjoyed this recipe, you might also like to try my No Churn Plum Ice Cream.

Easy Recipe: Plum Jelly - preserving summer

Review: Ambu Tree Marinades

With the barbecue season in full swing we were optimistically sent some fresh Ambu Tree Marinades to try; then the heavens opened and it rained solidly, Noah’s Arc style for days. Thankfully you don’t really need a barbecue to try the marinades out so we got stuck in.

There are three different flavours of Ambu Tree marinade; Mild Tandoori, Spicy Tandoori and Chinese Five Spice. Ambu Tree use freshly roasted and ground spices which really pack a flavour punch, they are also gluten and dairy free and contain no food colouring or harmful additives. The marinades are chilled, so need to be kept in a fridge, but they generally have pretty long dates on them and will keep for a few weeks in the fridge.

The pots look small, but they do go a long way, they say each pot is enough for 4-6 people and I think that’s about right.

To use, I sliced up a large chicken breast, put it in a plastic box, added about two teaspoons of the mild tandoori marinade and coated the chicken. I did the same with the spicy tandoori marinade (we wanted to do a taste comparison). Because I’m veggie I just coated a Quorn fillet with each and I put all the boxed chicken and Quorn in the fridge for a few hours to, erm, marinade.

I cooked some in my griddle pan, the others I fried in a drop of oil. You could easily bake or barbecue them too. I served the tandoori chicken and Quorn in pitta bread with salad and homemade raita.

The mild tandoori was a really big hit, really flavoursome, there was some spice but it was a gentle, warming heat. The small boy (he’s 3) loved it and cleared his plate. The bigger boy (he’s 39) who is a spice junkie, preferred the spicy marinade. I enjoyed them both, but the mild was definitely my favourite. It was like no home marinade I’ve ever had, it tasted really authentic and complex, but also really healthy too.

The next night I made a stir fry. I marinaded the chicken and Quorn in the Chinese five spice. This was a bit runnier that the tandoori marinades, which were more paste like in consistency, it did make it easier to coat the chicken strips and it probably went a little bit further because of the consistency. Like before I fried the chicken and Quorn in a little bit of oil. I then topped each plate of veggie stir fry with the chicken or Quorn strips.

I really enjoyed the Chinese five spice marinade. It had a beautiful, deep, authentic flavour, I imagine duck would be fantastic marinaded in this. It wasn’t spicy hot, it was a wonderful blend of flavoursome spices which we all enjoyed.

The Ambu Tree Marinades were a bit of a revelation to me. I’ve tried a few similar mass produced marinades before but they lacked a bit of marinade mojo and were a bit gloopy and artificial. These Ambu Tree Marinades are so packed full of flavour and fresh tasting, a little really does go a long way. The little pots are available from their online shop at £3.85 per pot. They’re gorgeous and I hope they’ll find their way to my local deli soon.

Note: I was sent the Ambu Tree Marinades for review purposes. All images and opinions are our own.