Chorizo, Feta and Spinach Pie

I'm not a huge fan of silicone bakeware and kitchen utensils.
I bought a potato masher that just skidded over the surface of a pan of potatoes and took a huge amount of effort to make not-very-smooth mash. I replaced it with a metal one which glides through the potatoes like a knife through butter - much more efficient.
I then tried a silicone piping bag. It was quite large and I filled it with buttercream to pipe a big batch of cupcakes. The more I squeezed the bag the longer it seemed to stretch and hardly any icing came out of the nozzle - exhausting and had to transfer it all to a few disposable piping bags and it was much, much easier to pipe. A silicone spatula is about the only utensil I've found useful. I can't get to grips with silicone cake moulds either - just doesn't seem right to me and pastry is so much crisper when cooked in a tin.
So, for this tasty chorizo, feta and spinach pie, it's no surprise that I've resorted to my tried and trusted metal flan tin. Filo pastry is often described a low-fat alternative to other pastries, but I have to say it tastes so much nicer and bakes much crisper and flakier when brushed with generous amounts of melted butter! If you've never used filo pastry before, keep it well covered with cling film or a damp tea towel to prevent it drying out and only remove one sheet at a time as you work with it. You won't need a whole pack for this pie but any leftovers can be well wrapped and frozen for up to 1 month.

Makes one 23cm diameter pie
Serves 5-6
Takes about 1 hour

250g chorizo cooking sausages
200g spinach, rinsed and large stalks removed
200g soft cheese (can be low-fat)
200g feta cheese, crumbled
3tbsp chopped fresh parsley
Freshly ground pepper
5 sheets filo pastry (approx 100g)
50g butter, melted
2tbsp pine nuts

1 Heat the oven to 200C, fan 180C, gas 6. Place the sausages in a baking tin and cook in the oven for 10-15 mins until browned and cooked through. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool slightly.

2 While the sausages are cooking, place the spinach in a metal colander. Stand it in the sink and pour over a kettle full of boiling water until the spinach has wilted. Leave to drain and cool slightly
.
3 Place the soft cheese in a bowl with the feta, parsley and plenty of freshly ground pepper. There's no need to season with salt as the feta and sausages are quite salty. When the spinach is cool enough to handle, squeeze it in your hands to remove as much moisture as possible. Place the spinach on a chopping board and roughly chop. Add to the bowl and stir well to mix.

4 Line a 23cm diameter loose-bottomed flan tin with one sheet of the filo pastry, allowing the excess to hang over the sides. Brush the pastry with melted butter then place another sheet of pastry on the top, laying it at a slightly different angle to the first one. Brush with melted butter and place a third sheet of pastry on the top. Spread the cheese and spinach over the pastry, cut the sausages into pieces and scatter over the top, pressing them slightly into the cheese mixture. Fold the overhanging pastry over the filling and brush with melted butter. Ruffle the remaining two sheets of pastry, place on top of the pie and brush with the remaining butter.

5 Place the flan tin on a baking tray and bake in the oven for 10 mins. Scatter the pine nuts over the top and bake for a further 5 mins until the pastry is crisp and golden and the pine nuts are toasted (I added the pine nuts at the beginning and they did get a bit dark which is why I've suggested adding them after 10 mins). Serve warm or cold.

Shortbread Hearts

There are certain must-buy items for me on any trip to Ikea - candles, serviettes, a toilet brush, coat hangers and a couple of wine glasses. And then while I'm there a plate of meatballs and chips in the cafe always goes down well too. But of course there are always impulse buys such as a set of three heart-shaped boxes which found their way into my trolley on my lastest visit! Why I bought them I don't really know but I thought they'd look lovely with some some heart-shaped biscuits for Valentine's day. Hence this reason for this recipe. It's very easy and if you've got flour, butter, sugar and an egg in your kitchen you can get baking straightaway and be eating them within the hour. Serve them for a romantic dessert with a dollop of creme fraiche, raspberries and passion fruit or for a biscuit decorate with a drizzle of melted white chocolate and a few silver ball cake decorations. Dr Oetker's new Soft Silver Pearls are much easier on the teeth than traditional ones but they do contain beef gelatine so no good for vegetarians.

Makes 8 x 9cm hearts and 15 x 5cm hearts
Takes about 1 hour

175g plain flour
100g butter
75g caster sugar
1 small egg

1 Place the flour in a bowl. Add the butter and rub in with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. If you prefer to use a food processor, pulse the flour and butter together to form crumbs.
2 Stir in the sugar and egg and mix to form a dough. In a food processor add the sugar and egg just pulse until the mixture forms a dough. Knead lightly on a floured surface until smooth, wrap in cling film and chill for 20 mins.
3 Heat the oven to 200C, fan 180C, gas 6. Line 2 baking sheets with baking paper. Roll out half the dough at a time on a lightly floured surface to the thickness of a £1 coin. Cut out heart shapes using a cutter (I made two different sizes but you can make all the same size depending on the cutter you have), re-rolling the trimmings until all the mixture is used.
4 Bake for 8-12 mins, depending on size, until pale golden. Leave for a few mins until firm then transfer to a wire rack to cool. Serve with creme fraiche, raspberries and passion fruit with a dusting of icing sugar or drizzle with melted white chocolate and decorate with silver balls. The biscuits will keep for 3-4 days in an airtight container.

Very Easy Banana Muffins

A useful recipe to help with my mission to cut down on food wastage by using up those past-their-best bananas sitting in the fruit bowl that clearly no one is going to eat. In fact ripe bananas have a sweeter stronger flavour so are perfect for baking. Obviously this is not a recipe for hubby-who-hates bananas but the rest of us enjoyed them, especially warm from the oven when the tops of the muffins have a lovely crunch to them. Unlike other muffins, which are best eaten on the same day, the banana in this mixture helps to keep them moist for a good couple of days. For the lightest muffins don't over mix them, add the wet ingredients to the dry and just lightly mix together, it will still look a bit lumpy but that's fine. Then get them in to the muffin cases and into the oven asap. Very straightforward, very easy and very delicious.

Makes 11
Takes about 40 mins
75g butter
250g self-raising flour
1tsp baking powder
1/2tsp bicarbonate of soda
Pinch of salt
1/2tsp ground cinnamon
A good grating of nutmeg
115g golden caster sugar
2 eggs
125ml milk
1tsp vanilla extract
2 large bananas

1 Preheat the oven to 190C, Fan 170C, gas 5. Line 11 holes of a muffin tin with paper muffin cases. Melt the butter in a small pan or in the microwave then set aside to cool slightly.
2 Sift the flour into a bowl with the baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, salt and cinnamon. Add the nutmeg and stir in the sugar.
3 In a separate bowl, beat together the eggs, milk, vanilla and melted butter. Mash the bananas with a fork or potato masher. Add to the flour and spices and pour in the egg mixture. Stir lightly until just mixed but still lumpy. Spoon into the muffin cases, filling them about two-thirds full, and bake for 20-25 mins until well risen and springy to the touch. They'll keep for 2 days or can be frozen.
For an easy banoffee pudding, peel off the paper cases and serve the muffins with warmed toffee sauce sauce (dulche de leche) and cream.

Apple, Blackberry and Coconut Tart

Where have the last few months gone? I had every intention of posting lovely festive tarts and pies in November and December and then got bogged down with work deadlines, three birthdays in the family, oh and that event called Christmas. So here we are in 2013 ready to start again.
This year I'm on a mission to reduce our family's food wastage, not that we do waste much actually, but we can always improve. So with that in mind this tart came about after a last minute call from friends to come over for dinner on New Year's day, and me offering to bring a pud. It was my challenge to create a dessert from ingredients I had in the house. Nigel Slater always finds something interesting in his fridge (always beautifully wrapped in brown paper) to create a delicious supper so I thought I'd give it a go too.
I had some ready-rolled puff pastry in the freezer, a few apples and half a jar of Tiptree blackberry jelly (bought on visit to the Tiptree Jam tearooms in Tiptree, Essex, earlier in the year). I wanted to add a frangipane layer (almond, egg and sugar mixture) but didn't have enough almonds so mixed in some coconut to make up the quantity. And the result was, as Nige would say, rather good! We enjoyed it with creme friache but a scoop of ice cream or lashings of custard would also go down well.

Serves 6
Takes 35-40 mins
50g butter, softened
50g golden caster sugar
1 egg
25g ground almonds
25g desiccated coconut
1tbsp plain flour
320g sheet ready-rolled puff pastry
3tbsp blackberry jelly
3 eating apples, such as Cox's, cored and sliced
2tbsp flaked almonds

1 Preheat the oven to 200C, Fan 180C, Gas 6. Beat together the butter and sugar until soft and creamy. Beat in the egg then stir in the ground almonds, coconut and flour.

2 Unroll the sheet of pastry onto a baking sheet lined with baking paper. Spread the blackberry jelly over the pastry allowing a 1cm border around the edges.

3 Place the almond mixture, in spoonfuls, over the jelly and spread out lightly. Arrange the apple slices over the almond mixture and sprinkle over the flaked almonds. Fold the pastry border over to make an edge.

4 Bake in the oven for 20-25 mins until the topping is golden, the apples are tender and the pastry is cooked. Cut into squares and serve warm or cold.

Butternut Squash and Beef Pasties

The time had come to use the small but perfectly formed butternut squash grown on our allotment. Just the one you understand, well the total harvest was 3 but our allotment buddies had 2 and I had extra little gem squash (the round green ones in the pic).

I could have roasted it and used it in a roasted veg tart but that felt a bit summery. It was pouring with rain outside and a bit chilly and I wanted hearty comfort food, so I decided to put it into a pasty filling with some beef skirt. Beef skirt is a lean fairly cheap cut which has fantastic flavour, you'll get it from a good butcher but if you can't find it use rump steak instead.
The pastry is a proper pasty pastry recommended by the Cornish Pasty Association. It's made with strong flour and is a cross between bread dough and pastry, it becomes quite pliable and stretchy so you can roll it quite thin without it cracking and twists easily when you crimp the edges. The filling is raw so as the pasties cook all the flavour and juices from the vegetables and beef stay within the pasty, nothing is lost.
This is not a quick recipe, but it's not difficult either and is the perfect way to unwind and while away a couple of hours on a rainy November day.

Makes 6
Takes about 2 hours plus 1 hour to chill the pastry

For the pastry:
500g strong white bread flour
120g white vegetable fat (such as Cookeen)
25g margarine or butter
1 tsp salt
175ml cold water
For the filling:
450g beef skirt or rump steak, finely chopped
2 medium onions (about 200g), finely chopped
600g mixed finely chopped butternut squash and potato ( I used about half and half as my butternut squash was small, but you can use all butternut squash and no potato if you have plenty)
Plenty of salt and freshly ground black pepper
6 knobs of butter
1 egg, beaten

1 Place the flour in a bowl, add the white fat, margarine or butter and salt. Rub in the fat until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Add the water and mix to form a dough, adding a little extra water if the mixture is too dry. Knead the dough then wrap in cling film and chill for 30 mins in the fridge. The chilling time is important as the dough softens and becomes much easier to roll out.
2 While the dough is chilling place the chopped beef, onions, squash and potato in a bowl. Season with plenty of freshly ground black pepper and salt. Mix well.
3 Heat the oven to 170C, fan 150C, Gas 3. Divide the dough into six equal pieces and roll each piece to a round approx 23cm diameter. Pile one-sixth of the filling onto each round of dough, shaping it roughly on one half, leaving a 1cm border. Brush the border on one half with a little egg, place a knob of butter on top of the filling and fold the dough over to enclose the filling. Press the edges together to seal. Crimp the edge by starting at one end and twisting the dough edge along the pasty. Place on two baking trays, brush the pasties with beaten egg and bake in the oven for 45-50 mins until golden and crisp.

Tarte Tatin

The apple harvest is not good this year so all the more reason to make the best use the of the ones we do have. There's nothing like the crunch and flavour of a good Cox's Orange Pippin and that's what I've used in this classic Tarte Tatin which is another case of the simplest things often being the best. Just four ingredients - sugar, butter, apples and puff pastry and you end up with a delicious pud. Cox's are not overly sweet so they balance the sweetness of the caramel perfectly and when they cook they soften but don't turn to mush. Mush is good for some things but not for Tarte Tatin. The story goes that this tart was invented by the Tatin sisters in France. One of the sisters burnt some apples so they quickly covered it in pastry and popped it in the oven to cook. The resulting dessert was served to diners in their hotel restaurant and everyone loved it - hence the Tarte Tatin was born.
It's a forgiving tart, you don't have to be too precise with the pastry, however rustic it looks it's still great. You can change the fruit to pears, pineapple, banana or mango for delicious variations.
The main requirement is the right dish to cook it in, I used a shallow round Le Creuset dish which is ideal for making the caramel on the hob as well as baking the tart. If you don't have one you could use a frying pan suitable for oven use or make make the caramel in a pan then pour it into a good quality tart tin or shallow baking tin (not lose bottomed or you'll end up with a very sticky oven to clean).

Makes one 23cm tart
Serves 6
Takes about 1 hour

5 small Cox's apples, cored, peeled and halved
Juice of 1/2 lemon (optional)
100g caster sugar
50g butter
320g pack ready-rolled puff pastry

1 Coat the apple halves in lemon juice (if using) and set aside. Heat the oven to 200C, fan 180C, Gas 6. Place the caster sugar in a shallow 23cm diameter flameproof, ovenproof dish or pan. Add 3 tbsp water and heat over a low heat until the sugar has dissolved. Increase the heat, bring to the boil and simmer for about 5 mins until it turns into a golden caramel.
2 As soon as it turns a rich golden colour remove from the heat and add the apples. Turn to coat in the caramel them turn them all round-side down. Dot with pieces of butter. Place the sheet of pastry over the top, quickly trim with scissors allowing a few centimetres overhang. Roughly tuck the pastry in around the apples, taking care not to touch the caramel as it will hot. Bake in the oven for 20-25 mins until the pastry is golden and crisp.
3 Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 5 mins. Run a knife around the edges to loosen the pastry then carefully turn the tart out onto a plate, taking care as the caramel will be hot. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream or cream.

Sausage, Courgette & Leek Tart with Cheese Pastry

We're still gaily chomping through the courgettes from our allotment (well some of us a little more gaily than others), although I don't think there'll be many more now - hurray says hubby! We've eaten them every which way - stir-fried in garlic butter, mixed with pesto, in soup, in pilau, in curry etc etc and.... in this sausage tart. Cheese pastry really adds to the overall flavour of the tart, you can make it with bought shortcrust if you don't want to make your own but I'd add a sprinkling of Cheddar to the filling instead. I used the pastry trimmings to make some cheese straws sprinkled with a few pumpkin and sunflower seeds before baking - mmm, they were pretty delicious straight from the oven and didn't last long.  I found this enamel tin in a local hardware shop - a bargain I thought at just £1.99 - and perfect for a chunky, rustic tart like this.

Makes one 23cm tart
Serves 4-6
Takes about 1 hour plus 30 mins to chill the pastry

Cheese Pastry:
200g plain flour
Large pinch of cayenne pepper
Salt and freshly ground pepper
100g butter
75g mature Cheddar, finely grated
1 egg, beaten
Filling:
1 tablespoon olive oil or rapeseed oil
4 good quality pork sausages
1 leek, sliced
1 medium courgette, halved lengthways and sliced
8 cherry tomatoes, halved
2 eggs
150ml pot single cream

1 To make the pastry, place the flour in a bowl. Add the cayenne pepper and season with salt and pepper. Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs then stir in the cheese. Mix the egg with 1 teaspoon cold water, add to the bowl and mix to form a dough, adding another teaspoon of water if the dough seems dry. Knead lightly then wrap in clingfilm and chill for 30 mins.

2 While the pastry is chilling, heat the oil in a large frying pan and cook the sausages for 10 mins. Push the sausages to one side of the pan, add the leek and courgette to the other side and cook for a further 10 mins until the sausages are cooked and the leeks and courgette are tender. Cut the sausages into chunky slices.

3 Heat the oven to 190C, Fan 170C, Gas 5. Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface and use to line a 23cm tart tin. Trim off the excess and re-roll trimmings for cheese straws or biscuits. Line the pastry with a sheet of baking paper and top with ceramic baking beans or dried beans and bake in the oven for 10 mins. Remove the paper and beans and cook for a further 5 mins.

4 Place the leeks, courgette and sausage in the pastry case with the cherry tomatoes. Beat the eggs with the cream, season with salt and freshly ground pepper and pour over the filling. Bake for 20 minutes until golden and just set.