Roasted beetroot houmous: a dairy free weaning recipe

Houmous is such an easy win when weaning a CMPA baby, naturally dairy free, high in protein, and every baby I meet who's being weaned loves it. I make it at every opportunity (not least for the egg replacer aquafaba - as seen in my meringues) for Harry as it's such a favourite of is. He loves it mixed with grated carrot in sandwiches, on toast for a quick and easy post swimming lunch, with veggies dipped in, or simply in a bowl to grab handfuls of (when I'm pretending not to look).

I make a few variations of houmous: roasted, or sun-dried tomato, aubergine - but hadn't tried anything else until lately when the beetroots in my Seed Pantry veg patch were ready to be harvested. M got me my Seed pantry box for my birthday, and I have to say I wasn't enamoured to begin with (ungrateful wife that I am), but it was awesome. I loved planting my seeds and growing my veggies - I still have some late French beans and spinach to pick before I need to dig our little raised bed over. My trip to River Cottage cemented just how much I've changed my opinion on growing veggies - talking to their Head Gardener and making my mental list of seeds for next year, I'm excited already.

My Barbabietola di Chioggia beetroot was beautifully candy striped, which did however, mean that the humous wasn't the vivid pink I'd initially expected, rather a muted, Instagram filtered type of pink. It had a delicate earthy flavour, which worked beautifully with some pre roasted garlic and a light olive oil. 

We enjoyed this with my home made dairy free flatbreads - the only problem about making food from your veg patch is that once the veggies have gone you can't make any more! 

This is one recipe you really do need a food processor or blitzer of some sort for. 

Roasted beetroot houmous
Dairy free
Serves 4-6 adults or 8 babies

1 tin chickpeas (brine drained and saved for egg replacer duties)
2 medium beetroot
2 cloves garlic
4 sundried tomatoes
Olive oil - I used 4 tablespoons, but it'll depend on your ingredients and personal taste. You may want more or less.
1 tablespoon tahini (optional - don't buy it specially - just add extra olive oil)
Juice of half a lemon
If making for adults, add a teaspoon or so of salt

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees
Scrub, and chop the beetroot into eighths, peel the garlic and drizzle with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil
Wrap in foil and bake for 45 minutes to an hour - or until the beetroot is soft
Leave to cool
Drain the chickpeas and sun dried tomatoes, and put in the bowl of your food processor
Add the cooled beetroot, garlic, and olive oil left in the foil parcel and blitz until a rough puree
Add another couple of tablespoons of olive oil, the lemon juice and the tahini if using, and blitz until slightly smoother - if making for adults add salt now

Flatbread recipe to follow when I manage to take pictures - I keep forgetting and we eat them warm!

When you're happy with the texture, you're done. I store this in a tupperware in the fridge. Much like home made pesto I make sure the top layer is covered with some fresh olive oil.

Simple summer essentials part 3: The colour purple - Beetroot and feta salad

Baby beetroot and feta salad

What am I up to now? Part three? I think so, if you don't count Meal Planning Monday as part one. Or maybe I should. Which would make this Part four. Oh, who knows. I've got pavlova, poached eggs and steamed asparagus and raspberry cordial or vodka/ gin (still undecided) yet to come.

So far in the Simple Summer Essentials we've had:

Watercress, basil and parsley oil: two ways

Mozarella and tomato salad: (also) two ways

And now Baby beetroot and feta salad. Which I can't take credit for thinking up, because it's everywhere. And when I suddenly though - oooh I know, that's what I'll do, I realised I'd remembered it from Jules' recent post. Dammit. I did think about doing something different, but the baby beetroot with mint and raspberry were so sweet and were calling, calling I tell you(!) out to be made into salad. No, really they were.

It's less of a recipe in my case, and more of (as this week is themed) a Simple Summer essential. Where the recipe lies in this case is in the dressing. Jules' dressing looks lovely, but if we're doing Pantry summer essentials then a simple French dressing has to be included. Mine was once based on a Delia recipe, possibly from How to Cook, but that was a long time ago. Years have passed since I've opened the book, much less looked at the ingredients, but that said, hers was the inspiration.

French dressing (used here on beetroot, feta, tomatoes, pea shoots and some cucumber)

1 garlic clove, crushed (or squished on a bread board using the flat of your knife and some salt)
Pinch salt
Black pepper
Sprinkle mustard powder (maybe half a teaspoon or so? And I often substitute this with made up mustard if I've run out of powder)
Good olive oil, maybe about 4 tablespoons
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar (I love this more than is probably healthy)
1 tablespoon white wine/ cider vinegar

Add your crushed garlic, salt, pepper and mustard powder to a clean, empty jam jar and haphardly beat it together with a fork
Add the oil and vinegars, put the lid on the jar and shake like billy-oh until everything mixes together
Add to salads and store in the fridge

Meal Planning Monday: The healing edition

After last week's slightly incoherent, rambly post about the ills of hospital food, I'm still at home and slowly getting back to full strength. I'm hoping to go back to work next week, but have to get checked out by the doctor to say that's OK first. Consequently this week features a lot of comfort food, as demanded both by the weather and by the slowly healing system of this poorly person.

Breakfasts are 0% Total Greek yoghurt with some lightly stewed eating apples that I cooked down this evening with about 100g of sultanas soaked in orange juice and zest. I'm planning on making some granola to add some crunch - apparently crunchy foods increase serotonin and I've been craving them since my release last week.

Lunches for me are another batch of Nigella's split pea and frankfurter soup, with a good spoonful of lazy chilli stirred through.

Dinners, as I say are full on comfort food. It's not so much about calories, but about needing that soothing unctuousness that comfort food provides. M has work and Welsh this week so I'm getting the slow cooker back out for a hearty, warming casserole:

Monday: Toad in the hole, mashed potatoes and vegetables

Tuesday: Chicken and sweet leek pie with vegetables- cauliflower and spring greens I think

Wednesday: Chicken, butternut squash and barley casserole - I'll blog this as it's a long standing recipe I've been using for years that doesn't seem to have made the blog as yet

Thursday: Leftover casserole

Friday: Apparently I said we'd find out when we got there which means my brain was addled after thinking up four dinners. The fact that I just had to ask M this is evidence that I really am not on form yet.

I should be getting beetroot in my veg box tomorrow so M has requested Jenny's Beetroot chocolate cake, and I have a bit of a craving (is it the crunch again?) for Eccles cakes, so will be breaking out my t&t Delia recipe. 

I've promised M a roast on Sunday as he's at archery in the morning, so will either do the slow roast pork from the other week, or go steady on the cauliflower in the week and do roast beef and cauliflower cheese. Oh I think I've just decided! Beef it is, with a mustardy crust. Yum.

Post hospital update

I'm attached to the sofa once more, laptop on, telly on - catching up on essential viewing. "The story of musicals" I'm looking at you.

Following on from my last post, I've returned home, still nursing the tail end of a migraine that had affected my occipital nerve (I think) and that was not responding to analgesia. A week of fluides and exceptional care has meant I really do feel better, even if I am still in pain and am incredibly fatigued.

Fortunately whilst I was away M stocked up the freezer with food - as a non foodie/ cook he perfers to 'throw and go' and looks for food that is unprocessed which can be cooked from the freezer. Normally I would bustle around the kitchen indignantly but I currently have neither the energy nor the inclination so will be working with those as they really are easier for us both right now.

Flavour is a huge thing for me at the moment, I feel a little like the hospital food has left a patina of flavourlessness in my system, that if I could I would scrub clean. Instead I'm trying to ensure that what I am eating is strong in flavour, be that irony spring greens from my veg box, or a bowl of Vanessa's Borscht with horseradish that I made pre hospital to use up the last of the Riverford beetroots that had been hiding in the fridge as I tried purposelessly to ignore them over Christmas. Somewhere in the bright colours, and strong flavours of the food I'm craving I am sure lies the way back to health.

Lying in my bed in hospital I was sure that I'd be well enough to bake when I went home, and was planning a sticky marmalade cake to take to the in-laws this weekend. As it is I'll be travelling up in my pyjamas and lucky if I manage to be awake whe we meet. So I'm guessing all baking exploits are on hold until I'm back on my feet a little bit more. I do have a Valentines cake up my sleeve that I was hoping to post pre St Dwynwen's day but the next week or two will do me. And then of course there's a birthday afoot... I was going to make another of Ruth's fruit cakes, but instead I've got another plan. Time and health permitting of course.

In line with a dear friend's New Year's resolution for me this will hopefully be the only hospital based post this year. Fingers crossed and all that. Onwards and upwards.

Beetroot purple, with chocolate cake

It scans beautifully with  the Paintbox lyrics if you remember that from your school assemblies. If not, youtube it. My favourite harvest song. Although it's a close run thing with the adaptation of We plough the fields and scatter from Godspell.

Now I should explain about the proliferation of baking posts this week. I was recently invited to a party. Kavey's birthday party. But, owing to my supreme levels of stupidity. No, really I'm not kidding. I wrote it down on the calendar as Sunday. So whilst I was happily baking my little heart out in the heat on Saturday, that was when the party was. This recipe was my second of two cakes I had planned to take, the lime drizzle from the other day being the first, and chocolate beetroot with a ganache topping being the second.

I've been thinking about adding beetroot to chocolate cake for a while now, I love it's earthy flavour, and have often wondered when I've heard other people saying that they've used it in chocolate cake, how it works - if it tastes beetrooty, or if cooking it out changes it in anyway. Well now I know. I was a bit naughty with this bake (well it was supposed to be for someone else) and bought the beetroot specially - you know me, I'd have waited until next year for it to come around in the veg box normally. Our little Greek grocers near my house sells huge cooked beetroots from a stainless steel bowl by the till so off Louise and I popped to top up on my shopping.

Because I don't use social media whilst I'm working, I often find myself in the position of favouriting tweets for later to read in hotel rooms, and this is how this bake came about, Jenny Eatwell had tweeted about it earlier in the week and it was the prompt I finally needed to try it.

When I realised what had happened with the party, I hastily turned my bakes into a Random bake of Kindness and gave half of each to Louise to take home with her. I take my thinking of others before myself very seriously I'll have you know. I also was a bit naughty and failed to mention he secret ingredient to Mark who wouldn't normally touch beetroot with a ten foot bargepole. He wolfed it down happily and I can safely say it was a hit.

I've amended Jenny's recipe slightly, as I tend to so here is what I did.

CHOCOLATE & BEETROOT CAKE (serves 10-12)

Ingredients

250g cooked beetroot, grated in the food processor 
125g softened butter
75g milk chocolate, broken into pieces (this should have been dark, but it makes Mark unwell so I wanted to see how it would work with milk)
300g soft dark brown sugar
3 large eggs at room temperature
225g self-raising flour (you're supposed to sift this, if anyone could find my seive that would be terrific)
a quarter of a tsp salt
50g cocoa powder (again this should be sifted... see above)

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 160degC fan/gas 4. Grease and fully line a non-stick loose-bottomed tin with baking parchment. 
2.  Grate, or blitz in a food processor, the beetroot until coarsely chopped. You are definitely not looking for a puree! Set aside.
3. Place a small saucepan on the heat with some water inside and place a bowl on top, so that the water doesn't touch the bottom of the bowl. Put the chocolate pieces into the bowl and melt by allowing the water to simmer, which in turn will heat the bowl, causing the chocolate to melt. 
4.  Beat the butter, sugar and eggs and until lighter and fluffy (as it's dark soft brown sugar you're using, it won't go completely pale as though you were using caster).
5. Mix in the melted chocolate, then fold in the flour, salt and cocoa powder with a large metal spoon.
6. Finally, stir the beetroot gently into the mix. I wish I had taken a picture at this stage as the pink beetroot looked beautiful against the dark brown mixture
7. Transfer the mixture to the cake tin, flattening out the top. Bake for an hour, or until a skewer comes out with just a tiny bit of cake mix still attached.
8. Leave the cake to cool for 10 minutes in the tin, then remove from the tin and place on a cake rack to cool completely.

I didn't ice it, but any chocolate ganache/ frosting would be a lovely addition, plus you could then decorate it. Again I was a bit worried about the quantity of chocolate and Mark as I wasn't sure if it would make him poorly, but I'd just realised I'd got the date of the party wrong and was having a bit of a huff.

This is definitely on my to make again list, it was great with ice cream, and then in packed lunches for the rest of the week, and the beetroot seems to cook down in some way so that it just adds a lovely fudginess to the cake - there's no trace of vegetabliness (it's a word) whatsoever.

Jenny found lots of recipes that used vegetable oil instead of butter, so it looks like this would be a fairly easy one to make dairy free (not egg free though) if you needed or wanted to. Certainly Green and Blacks dark chocolate always used to be dairy free - I don't know if it still is.

Salad Days: Beetroot, green bean and feta salad

The eagle (owl) eyed amongst you will notice that there is, no photo of this meal. That is because this is quite possible the least photogenic thing I have ever made. Literally. I always thought that casseroles with their brown colours and squishy ingredients were unattractive, but that was before I made this salad. To read the ingredients you would think (as did I) that it had the potential to be stunning, that the verdant greens of the leaves and beans would contrast stunningly with the white goat's cheese and ruby beetroot, all annointed by the faint pink blush of the dressing.

However what I ended up was a tasty mush of goats cheese squished over the beans and leaves, with the beetroot that bloody red that's almost black. The Chanel Rouge Noir of vegetables. I would absolutely recommend you make and try this salad as it is gorgeously tasty, but photograph the ingredients beforehand - do some tasteful arranging on a wooden chopping board, or worktop.

This recipe is a Riverford veg one. I came to it following the second delivery this season of beetroot. I cooked the first batch and left it in the oven to cool, wrapped in foil. At which point I promptly forgot about it for the best part of the rest of the week. Yes, my name is Penelope and I have scatty, slatternish tendencies. What a waste! I was so cross with myself as I love beetroot - there's something about the earthiness of the flavour that seems such a contrast to it's sweetness - which is why I've often used it in cakes, in a similar way to the courgette brownies I made here - which, oddly was also a Riverford recipe.

On a side note, what's quite nice about going back to that post is that my photography skills are actually beginning to improve - at least slightly!

So today Penelope's Pantry brings you... the world's least attractive salad:

Summer salad with beetroot, goat’s cheese + Frenchbeans

Roast or boil the beetroot - to do that, wash and trim them (keep the leaves for the salad) then place in a dish in a preheated oven (200 degreesish) for about 45 minutes. Riverford suggest adding water to the dish and covering with foil - but in the Pantry we fly by the seat of our pants and just wallop them in and take them out when they're softened. This will take about 45-60 mins, depending on size Oh and if you don't want to go out looking like you've committed murder, then wear clean marigolds, or latex gloves. Scrubbing with salt and lemon juice works if you ignore this advice. Said as one who knows!

Ingredients

300g mixed summer salad leaves

150g French beans, trimmed

200g cooked beetroot, cut into 2cm cubes

4 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp good-quality red wine vinegar or sherry vinegar

Salt + pepper

100g soft goat’s cheese, crumbled

Salad leaves - I used the beetroot tops and some bagged salad that had come in my Riverford box last week.

Method

1. Wash the salad leaves and dry well. Cook the beans in boiling salted water for 3–4 mins, until just tender, then drain, refresh in cold water and drain again.

2. Put them in a large bowl with the salad leaves and beetroot.

3. Whisk the olive oil, vinegar and some seasoning together to make a dressing.

4. Toss with the salad then sprinkle with goat’s cheese.

Step 4 is where I came unstuck. My goat's cheese didn't exactly sprinkle per se. More squished. Maybe you have a more gentle touch than me. Here's hoping yours doesn't turn out mushy as it's lovely, really fantastic contrasting tastes and textuertures.

I used the beetroot while still warm, partly due to time pressures, partly because that was what I fancied. As the other ingredients were fridge cold or room temperature this again made for a nice contrast.

The Riverford recipe suggests that this serves 4 as an accompaniment to lamb - but I had it as a standalone dish, but this meant it did 2 portions instead of the 4.

Other suggestions are to swap out the beetroot when it's not in season for butternut squash and I'll definitely be trying that, although I'll have to ask a beauty blogger for some help with nail polish names to match that!

Next up - some jams and excitingly my first jellies; plum, and crabapple and mint.  

Meal Planning Monday: A week at home!

I feel like I should preface this post with saying just how much I'm loving my new job. It's taking me to different parts of the country, meeting new people and trying new things. In this economic climate I recognise just how lucky I am as for so long I've been so miserable and stayed in a job that continued that. What it hasn't done thus far is let me have time to cook. This weekend however, I've blitzed the house, and whilst I have an empty fridge, the clean, ironed washing, and clean, tidy rooms will allow me the time over the next few nights to make some jam and jelly, turn museli into cookies for the office, and try some new recipes. Exciting stuff!

Breakfasts: fruit, yoghurt and a sprinkling of Grape nuts.

For lunches this week I'm going to make a rice salad with tofu, soy sauce and veggies.

Monday: Leftover cous cous salad (blogpost should be up on Wednesday) mixed in with prawns, pea shoots and feta

Tuesday: Beetroot, goats cheese and feta salad with roast chicken (peices if I get to the butcher)

Wednesday: Leftover roast chicken/ Sausages, sweetcorn and baked potatoes and salad

Thursday: I'm out Thursday night, but depending on when I get home and if I've eaten will either have an omlette or toast and marmite

Friday: We're off to Mark's parents for the weekend

I'm waiting on delivery of some Gourmet Raw brownies that I ordered last week. I know it's probably not the best introduction, but I've really got into Nakd bars of late and have been reading up on raw food. I eat a lot of fruit as you can probably tell and for snacking they're tasty, convenient and don't have that horribly processed aftertaste I find in a lot of cereal bars. I'm hoping the Gourmet raw brownies are similar, only slightly more decadent. Review to follow when they arrive. Not that I'm impatient or anything *taps foot*