Meat Free Monday: Pea & smoked cheese bruschetta

I've been watching the latest Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall series, River Cottage Veg Every Day. Lots of very good ideas for meat-free meals and some interesting looks at the way different cultures use veg in their diet. The thing that makes me less enthusiastic about it as a series is that so far it has all been focusing on summer veg, and as I try to eat with the seasons that's a bit tricky in November.

One dish that did catch my eye, however, was this lovely broad bean and smoked goats cheese bruschetta.

Shortly after I watched the program, I found myself standing in front of the Artisan Smokehouse market stall, and was able to buy some smoked goats cheese. I knew the bruschetta could become a reality.

I couldn't get fresh, local broad beans, and I don't like frozen ones, so I made it with frozen peas instead. I toasted slices of sourdough, then rubbed them with a clove of garlic and drizzled with a little olive oil. I piled on my pea puree and topped it with crumbles of the lovely smoked cheese. A grinding of black pepper and lunch was ready.

Sneak peek: Zebra cake

Trial run for a larger project... watch this space...

Cinnamon buns, cornbread and plum cake, oh my!

I've been quite up front about my love of a good breakfast. I have never denied my passion for bacon and eggs, eggs benedict, omelettes and the gamut of savoury dishes that can be eaten with piles of buttered toast and copious coffee.

But from time to time I have an itch that bacon can't scratch. I want something sweet and if at all possible sticky and a bit, well, cake-y, for my breakfast. Something more like these:

I have a spreadsheet of recipes that I intend to try, ideas that I am working on and themes or events for blog posts. It currently contains 182 dishes that I haven't yet written about, and 8 of those are variations on cinnamon buns. Every time I see someone blog about a cinnamon bun I am helpless before it and add it to the sheet. This, actually, doesn't follow any of those recipes. It's Paul Hollywood's iced fingers dough with some vanilla bean paste kneaded in, spread liberally with freshly ground cinnamon, butter and dark muscovado sugar & sprinkled with the zest of a lemon before rolling and slicing into 12. The glaze is a variation on Peter's cream cheese glaze, using the juice of half a lemon instead of vanilla.

They were delicious.

They were also surprisingly well-behaved and kept very well. We ate the last buns 5 days after baking and they were still soft and tempting.

This buttermilk-blueberry breakfast cake recipe has also been sitting in my spreadsheet for ages, waiting for a good moment. My only variation for this recipe was to use some lovely little plums (I think they were Marjorie's Seedling) cut into quarters, instead of the blueberries. The usual tossing-them-in-flour trick didn't work, so the fruit was all down at the bottom but the flavour was excellent.

This not-very-promising-looking bowlful is a classic example of not judging a book by its cover. This is Marion Cunningham's custard filled cornbread, as written about by Orangette. I can't find that recipe on her site, so you'll have to buy the book. Anyway, it's one of those magic things, where you pour cream into the middle of a batter, and it all floats into the middle while it bakes, creating a thick, rich, custard layer. It begs for maple syrup. It's divine, but next time I think I will add a good grating of nutmeg to the batter, to really play up the glorious custardyness.

Steak & chips

There are some days when only red meat will do. While you could argue for roast lamb or slow-braised osso bucco, for me, on those red meat days, it really just has to be a steak. There is something about cutting a slice off a big hunk of dark red meat, slightly crusted on the outside but yielding in the middle, that is deeply satisfying.

I hardly ever order steak in restaurants because we cook steaks at home better than most of them do and, it has to be said, at a more reasonable price.

Notable exceptions, where the steaks are always good: the Rose & Crown in Harefield, Gaucho in Hampstead and Hawksmoor (my new favourite).

How you take your steak is very personal, it has as many variations as how you take your tea. The cut, thickness, the precise degree of doneness, the seasoning: all must be judged to a nicety. And that is without addressing the question of sauces, marinades and rubs. My sister in law, for example, loves steak. But if you were to serve her a lovely rare t-bone, with the outer edge of fat melting and the inner flesh just warmed, she would run away screaming. Her steak is a filet, not too large, cooked beyond medium but not absolutely well done.

Until recently I would have said I was a confirmed rib-eye girl, with sirloin as a back up. I like a strong beef flavour, but "melt in the mouth" is not really a selling point. While I have all my own teeth I want to take advantage of them and enjoy a steak I can actually bite, although I don't want meat so stringy that I need toothpicks at the table. Rib-eye has a nice balance of flavour and texture, plus it is usually the mid-priced steak which is good.

Then, I discovered the onglet. I can't remember what triggered it, but Paul announced that he was interested in trying some of the more obscure steak cuts. He felt it was a challenge to his skill as the family's chief wielder of fire and knives to take on a cut that is often described as difficult to cook.

When I went to place my order, I was delighted to discover that onglet is actually very affordable, which was pretty damn exciting in these economic times, but it also added an incentive for cooking it nicely.

As we'd decided to push the boat out on a steak dinner, we felt that it should be really, really nice. Our potatoes were pretty much the only outdoor crop that worked for us this year, so home grown maris piper chips seemed to fit the bill. Skin on, blanched for a minute in boiling water then allowed to dry out a bit before being fried twice in duck fat (once at 120C and once at 180C), then sprinkled with salt and chopped rosemary, these chips were superb. Particularly since I'd never made chips from scratch before...

We opened a bottle of wine from the cellar. In the years we've been carrying it around it had developed into something much finer than anticipated, all butterscotch and soft cherries.

The steaks were cooked for 4 minutes a side in a hot blue steel pan (Paul wants me to say good things about his pan. He really likes it) then seasoned simply with salt and pepper and allowed to rest with some finely diced red onion pressed into the surface (would have been shallots if I'd had any) while we made an onion and red wine reduction to serve with them. We sliced the steaks across the grain to serve them.

They weren't melt in the mouth, but they were much more tender than I had anticipated, with an excellent, long beef flavour. This is now definitely my go-to steak at home, but it is more challenging to cook than a regular steak, so it'll take a while before I order one in a restaurant.

Hot and sweet: more chilli sauces

I promise you that this is my second last post about this year's chilli harvest! Even though I still have 2kg of Twilight chillis in my freezer, they will all end up as one of 3 sauces, so after this there is nothing more to say on that subject. The very last chilli post is going to be exciting though. Really.

So, I think it is already pretty well established that my hot smoked chilli sauce is awesome. It is. You should try a drizzle of it on fried eggs and fried rice. However, it is also very, very hot and not everyone likes things quite that incendiary. I wanted to make a sauce that was punchier than the gloopy commercial sweet chilli sauces, but mild enough to be slung around with wanton abandon.

It's with some chagrin that I admit that this sweet chilli jam recipe is awesome, because it is a Rachel Allen recipe and I really cannot stand her on TV. My only changes to the recipe (and you knew there would be changes!) were to use 4 unseeded chillis instead of 2 seeded, and to cook it for a shorter time so that it was a pouring sauce consistency rather than a spooning jam. If you were making this with a vegetarian in mind, I'd use light soy sauce instead of the fish sauce, but you could just use some salt instead.

Each batch makes about 2 jars, and I am about to make my third batch - it'd be terrible to run out.

Of course, once you have a supply of sweet chilli sauce, you need vehicles for eating sweet chilli sauce. I do love the kitsch old block of Philly, topped with sweet chilli and coated in coriander leaves, served with Jatz crackers if at all possible. I adore the Australian pub way of serving potato or sweet potato wedges with bowls of sour cream and sweet chilli. But you can't live on dips and wedges alone, or so I am told. We have also dunked delicious chicken and courgette fritto misto in ramekins of this sauce and added a layer with the sausage meat in home made sausage rolls.

Eating sweet chilli also provided a very good excuse for making cheese croquettes (to access the recipe you need to be of legal drinking age. Weird). These cheese croquettes were one of my very favourite things at Epoque, the Belgian beer cafe in Sydney that I used to frequent. I recently found out that Epoque has gone into receivership, which is really shocking, so I urge you to go and buy a beer and some croquettes to show some support for an institution.

Having nailed the regular sweet chilli, I was lying back feeling pretty smug when I was hit by inspiration. My veg box had presented me with a punnet of plums, but we'd been eating too many desserts so I didn't really want to bake anything with them. Using the same recipe, with the same alterations, but also substituting plums for the tomatoes, would give me something good, I thought. When the plum puree, which was a pale yellow colour when raw, hit the saucepan I realised that there was something missing and chucked in a couple of star anise. Pretty quickly as it cooked the colour from the skins spread through the sauce to make it the appetising purple/red colour that you want from a plum sauce.

Again, very successful. Nicely balanced between sweet, hot, salty and tangy, with a subtle spice from the ginger and star anise. A piece of cinnamon wouldn't go astray either. And do you like my new jam labels? They were a birthday present - you'll be seeing more of them!

Served with barbecued pork shoulder steaks (the ones, leftovers thereof, that ended up in my miso stirfry) and a green salad with a vaguely oriental dressing, it is absolutely delicious. With spring rolls dunked in, sublime.

Pork miso noodle stirfry

This bowl of noodley goodness came about by happenstance. Paul had bought 3 packs of outdoor-reared pork shoulder steaks because they were cheap. We barbecued them with some lapsang souchong tea leaves on the coals for a gentle smoke, and then had an enormous amount of leftover meat.

I decided I wanted to make a stirfry, but I didn't want to do my usual soy/cornflour based sauce for it. A tub of shiro miso was sitting in the fridge. There was baby bok choy in the veg box. I love it when a plan comes together.

This stirfry was extremely good, and an excellent use for leftover meat, but I actually think it would have been as good or even better with some crispy tofu puffs through it. As ever, the important things about a stirfry are to have everything prepared before you start and have the wok/pan really hot before you add the oil.

Pork miso noodle stirfry (made 3 hefty portions)

Splash of veg oil

1 onion, sliced

3 cloves of garlic, sliced

1" knob of ginger, julienned

2 carrots, peeled and sliced into planks

1 red pepper, cut into chunks

1 bunch baby bok choy, sliced

1 handful sweet potato noodles, soaked in hot water

500g leftover pork steaks, sliced across the grain (or leftover chicken, turkey, tofu puffs, or just add a big handful of roasted peanuts at the end)

2 tbs shiro miso

2 tbs mirin

2 tbs reduced sodium soy sauce

1 tsp sesame oil

Combine the miso, mirin, soy and sesame oil in a small bowl.

Heat a wok or large frying pan, then add a good splash of oil. Add the onions and stir fry until beginning to catch and take colour. Add the garlic, ginger, carrot and pepper, keep it moving until the peppers are beginning to soften. Add the stems of the bok choy, because they need a little longer than the leaves, then add the drained noodles, bok choy leaves, leftover meat and the miso mixture. Stir fry until everything is well-coated in the sauce and it's all cooked through but with a bite to the veg and piping hot.

I am sharing this with Ruth at Presto Pasta Nights! It's too good to keep to myself.

Pumpkin tart and cinder toffee for Halloween

I think my pumpkin carving skills are coming along nicely. There is a definite improvement from 2010 and I'm worlds away from 2009! Not only have I managed a bit of detail in Urchin's stripes, I have her surprise at mice escaping from her. At some stage I will post the video I based the pumpkin on - it's hilarious, the mouse bites her and runs away.

I'm so excited by pumpkins at the moment. As far as I am concerned they are the best thing about this time of year - little glowing beacons in the grey autumn weather. They don't really understand pumpkin in the UK, so you tend to only see watery orange carving pumpkins rather than the ones that are really good for eating. My favourite is the bluey green skinned kabocha, but I generally end up using butternut because it is much easier to come by!

Anyway, this delectable tart is from Joanne's blog. I used creme fraiche instead of almond milk for the custard, more gorgonzola (100g), brik pastry instead of phyllo (because that's what the supermarket sent me) and added a grating of nutmeg (because I am incapable of making anything cheesy without a grating of nutmeg). It was at its best hot from the oven; the following day the filling was better but the pastry had lost some of its crispness.

This cinder toffee left me as surprised as Urchin when confronted with a mouse. One of the girls at work is American and had been lamenting the lack of autumn-themed candy and so forth in the shops here, so I thought I would make something for the office that was all about the season. I found this recipe on Not Quite Nigella for a spiced maple brittle that I thought sounded just the ticket. My only change was to use pecans instead of almonds. But rather than forming the thin, crisp sheets of brittle like the picture showed, the bicarb frothed it up into an airy honeycomb and it set like that. It wasn't a problem, but it was a surprise!

Unfortunately it was so sweet that even the most hardened dessert eaters at work were a bit scared of it and were defeated by a single chunk, so I have quite a lot leftover. I have a strategy for those leftovers, which may be blogged about in the future, depending on how well it goes.

You may have noticed that I have buttons in the sidebar now for following me on twitter and facebook - I haven't quite got a handle on twitter yet, but I am sure my every utterance will be fascinating and worth following.