Pizza Sunday: Purple Sprouting Broccoli and Parmesan

Last weekend we decided to bring Pizza Sunday out of hibernation.

My Uncle Dave had given us some lovely purple sprouting broccoli hand grown in his allotment and we thought it would be great to put on top of our pizza.

During one of my bedtime reading sessions of The Flavour Thesaurus (this is a lovely book to read in bed. Very relaxing) I read that broccoli and hard cheese are a delightful combo, so I thought I'd put the block of Parmesan in my fridge to good use too.

I decided I'd try a wholemeal base this time and was going to use the amazing dough recipe from Country Wood Smoke but forgot to put the mix together the night before, doh. So instead I used our old boring recipe except used wholemeal flour instead.

The dough came out quite well, we gave it a quick blast on its own on the pizza stone before putting the toppings on to make sure it really crisped up.

We parboiled the broccoli for a few minutes and spread the base with a little bit of quark before topping with Parmesan and a bit of cheddar.

The pizza turned out pretty yummy. My only complaint was the quark went a bit solid, I thought it would be nice and creamy like the time I used it on a Pear, Stilton and Walnut pizza. Still, the flavours were great and the base was nice and crisp.

Bailey liked the pizza too. A success!

Maple Granola

Another item I decided to whip up for my Foodie Penpals match for April was a nice bit of home made granola.

She had mentioned that she quite fancied some quick snacky foods and I thought this could be a good breakfast solution. I also knew that she is an avid baker and I thought she could perhaps use the granola in some cookies or something.

I used the basic recipe from my Primrose Bakery Book for their delicious sounding home made Granola but adapted it a little to the ingredients I'd bought (turns out not enough dried fruit) and the fact that I fancied trying out what it would be like with a nice bit of maple syrup swapped out for some of the honey. I guess as long as you stick to the basic quantities of butter, syrups / honey and oats in this recipe though, you could put anything in. I would love to try some different combinations such as white chocolate and cranberry or blueberry.

Recipe
500g oats
100g almonds
A 75g bag mixed seeds
400g sultanas
170g unsalted butter
150ml clear honey
100ml maple syrup
2 tbsp golden syrup

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C. Start by mixing together the oats, seeds, almonds and dried fruit.

Transfer to a baking tray. I used greaseproof paper but wouldn't recommend doing that again - just the tray is fine.

Measure out the butter, maple syrup, honey and golden syrup into a saucepan.

Melt the contents of the saucepan together over a low heat until all the butter has melted and the ingredients are combined.

Pour the contents of the saucepan over the dry granola ingredients in the oven tray and mix well until all the oats are covered in a nice bit of the liquid. Place the tray in the oven.

Set your timer to go off every five minutes. Every five minutes, take the granola out of the oven and use a spoon to separate the granola and to ensure it's all getting an even baking.

Once the granola has an even colour, after about half an hour, take the granola out of the oven and leave to cool. It will go firm and lovely and crunchy.

Transfer the granola to an airtight container and you're done!

Rocky Road

My Foodie Penpal for April told me she was a bit of a snacker. So I thought I would make her some little individually wrapped snacklets for her to take to work.

I decided on Rocky Road because it is fun, tasty and indulgent plus it travels well and stays fresh for a while after you've made it.

Making Rocky Road couldn't be easier. Basically you are banging a load of stuff in a pan, leaving to set and Bob's your uncle.

However I like to think that once you've made a batch of Rocky Road you can let your imagination run wild - How does Rocky Road chocolate cheesecake sound? Or Rocky Road Ice Cream? Rocky Road Brownies? Rocky Road Milkshake? The possibilities are endless if you dare to dream.

Recipe:
Half a bag of pink and white marshmallows
5 chocolate digestive biscuit bars
400g milk chocolate
200g white chocolate

Start by snipping the marshmallows into quarters. This doesn't need to be neat as messy Rocky Road is much better than neat Rocky Road. You could buy the mini marshmallows but I bought big ones because Asda only had the mini ones in white, plus having gooey bits of marshmallow in your Rocky Road is great.

Chop the digestive biscuit bars into bitesize chunks.

Place a sheet of greaseproof paper in a baking tray. Arrange the bits of marshmallow and biscuit in the baking tray.

 Melt the milk chocolate in the microwave being very careful not to burn it.

Pour the chocolate over the marshmallow and biscuit, ensuring it's all evenly spread out.

Leave the chocolate in a cool place or the fridge to set.

When fully set, take the Rocky Road out of the baking tray and trim the edges off to make it look neat and to expose all the inside marshmallowy bits. Chop up the "off cuts" and sprinkle over the top of the Rocky Road to make a nice chunky texture. Melt the white chocolate and drizzle all over the top of the Rocky Road and the bits you've sprinkled on top. Ensure an even spread so that all the bits get stuck to the top of the Rocky Road.

Leave the white chocolate to set before chopping up and serving.

Parsnip and Curry Soup

This is going to be a quick and easy blog post about a quick and easy soup I made the other day.

Adapted from a Slimming World recipe I had knocking about, this Parsnip and Curry Soup is spicy and tasty.

It's also full of healthy and filling ingredients so good for you too. Great stuff.

Recipe:
2 onions
3 garlic cloves
1 tbsp hot curry powder
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp ground ginger
600g parsnips
100g potatoes
2 pints vegetable stock
A handful of fresh coriander
2 tbsp natural yogurt

Chop the onions and garlic and fry in a large soup pan. Add the curry powder and other spices and cook for a few more minutes.

Peel and chop the parsnips and potatoes. Add them to the pan.

Pour the stock into the pan and bring to the boil.

Reduce the heat and simmer until the potatoes and parsnips are completely soft. Remove from the heat and blend the soup up.

Season to taste. Pour the soup into bowls.

Chop up the coriander and sprinkle onto the soup.

Drizzle the soup with yogurt and serve.

Salmon Fishcakes

Fishcakes with a poached egg on top and Hollandaise. That is so three years ago. Well I don't care. It was a lovely sunny day the other Sunday and me and Bailey really fancied it so we decided to make it.

Only problem, finding an open fishmongers on a Sunday in South Manchester is nigh on impossible so we went into M&S in East Dids and bought some roasted salmon which was actually rather yummy. Would have preferred to buy from a local business and roast my own but ho hum.

As we'd spent the previous day eating a variety of calorie-laden food at Slattery's, I thought it best to make a bit of a healthy Hollandaise which turned out quite nice actually but if you're not feeling the burn of having eaten a serving saucer made of chocolate you could substitute the Greek yogurt in the below recipe for butter for a more traditional version.

Turns out Panko breadcrumbs was a good shout - crunchtastic. The dish turned out quite lovely. Glad we went for a little bit of what we fancied.

Recipe:

For the Fishcakes
3 medium potatoes
120g roasted salmon
8 spring onions
1 teaspoon dill
8 tbsp panko breadcrumbs

For the Healthy Hollandaise
3 egg yolks
The juice of 1 lemon
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
4 tbsp Greek yogurt

To serve
2 soft poached eggs

Start by peeling the potatoes. Cut each potato into quarters and boil in a pan of salted water until soft but still completely firm.

Drain the potatoes and leave to cool before mashing until free of lumps. Allow to cool completely.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C. Flake the salmon into the mashed potato.

Chop the spring onions into half-centimetre chunks and stir into the mash and salmon. Add some salt, pepper and the dill.

Form the fishcake mixture into four patties.

Put the panko breadcrumbs onto a plate and coat the fishcakes in the breadcrumbs.

Place on an oven tray that has been sprayed with cooking spray and place into the oven.

Allow to cook until the fishcakes are toasty and golden.

Meanwhile, prepare the Hollandaise by placing a bowl over a pan of boiling water over a low heat.

Add the eggs, the lemon juice and vinegar to the bowl and whisk until thickened. Add the yogurt a tablespoon at a time and remove from the heat.

Place two of the fishcakes onto each plate in a little pile.

Top with a poached egg and drizzle the Hollandaise on top. Serve immediately.