Shepherd’s pie with turmeric mash

October 26, 2015January 25, 2020 ~ Corrie ~ Leave a comment

It always annoys me when people call a vegetarian shepherd’s pie a ‘shepherdless’ pie. It’s not like the meat equivalent has real shepherd’s in it. It’s stupid. Anyway, admittedly I haven’t made this pie for a while, but the weather’s being a wet bum-hole and I’m cold, so let’s mash and eat some potatoes.
This pie is easy to make but a bit more time consuming than I remember, so avoid making it after a stressful day at the office, like I did. Best to make it on a Sunday and eat the leftovers for lunch the rest of the week.
Oh and if you fancy watching a video of a cute owl getting stroked then click here. No reason, it’s just a bit lovely isn’t it. Enjoy!… I wish I had a pet owl.

Shepherd’s pie with turmeric mash
Serves 6 / Hands on time 1 hr / Total time 1 hr 20 mins / V ❄
You’ll need: A medium oven-proof dish around 22cm x 28cm
Filling
1 tsp rapeseed oil
1 white onion, finely chopped
500g Quorn mince,
2 medium carrots, peeled and diced
2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
¼ chilli flakes
200ml vegetarian red wine
500ml vegetable stock, I use Knorr
1 can kidney beans, rinsed and drained
3 handfuls of red lentils
1 tsp Marmite (optional)
Mash
800g white potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 tsp ground turmeric
4 tbs of semi-skimmed milk
knob of butter
Steamed vegetables and vegetarian gravy to serve

Method
1. Preheat an oven to 200°C/180°C fan/400F/gas mark 6.
2. Sweat the onions in the rapeseed oil for 5 mins until they start to soften (add a dash of water to help them steam). Add the garlic, chilli, carrots and the Quorn (refrigerated or frozen). Cook for a further 5 mins before adding the wine, stock, kidney beans, lentils and Marmite (optional). Bring to the boil and season with salt and pepper. Reduce the heat and cook for 45 mins, stirring occasionally until most of the liquid has absorbed.
3. Meanwhile, peel and chop the potatoes and boil them in salted water in a large saucepan for around 25 mins. Once soft, drain the potatoes and return to the pan but off the heat. Add a generous knob of butter, milk and start mashing with a masher. Once roughly mashed, add the turmeric along with generous pinch of salt and pepper and continue to mash. Add more butter and milk as required until you have a creamy yet firm mash. Put to one side.
4. Spoon the pie filling into a casserole dish and top generously with the mashed potato. Run a fork over the top of the mash to rough it up a bit and season with salt and pepper.
5. Cover loosely with foil and bake in the oven for 20 mins. Remove from the oven and put the grill on a medium to high heat. Remove the foil and grill the top of the pie for about 5 minutes to give the top a nice brown crunchy top (optional).
6. Serve with steamed seasonal vegetables and gravy.

If you’ve had a go at making any of my recipes, I’d love to hear from you. Follow me now @corrieheale and tag your recipe pictures using #corriesrabbitfood.

V– Vegetarian
❄ Suitable for home freezing once cooled. Consume within 3 months

Bean burgers

July 21, 2015January 7, 2021 ~ Corrie ~ 2 Comments

Cannellini & Gruyere Burgers — Cannellini bean burgers

Let’s be honest, the veggie burger hasn’t always had the best reputation. A knobbly eyesore precariously balanced on the edge of a barbecue and twice the size of everything else. Why are veggie burgers always so big? There is literally no bun on this earth (or at least in Sainsbury’s) that could accommodate such unnecessary proportions.
Also, most veggie burgers look like they’ve already made it half-way through the digestive tract before they’ve even made it onto the barbecue – my dad used to joke ‘you should just cut out the middle man and throw it straight down the toilet’ (haha, good one dad)… Although mine are no exception – someone even took to Facebook to comment that my burger looked like a ‘dried up old dog turd’. Bit harsh but I hear you.
But that is the nature of the veggie burger, it’s mushed up beans squashed between two buns and you know what, it may look like a something you might find at the bottom of a monkey cage but it doesn’t half taste good – especially covered in melted cheese.

Bean burgers
Makes 2 large or 4 small / Hands on time 30 mins / Total time 50 mins / V Vn Df ❄🌶
You’ll need: A hand blender or food processor, baking paper
1 tsp rapeseed oil
1 medium onion, peeled and finely diced
2 garlic cloves, peeled and diced
½ tsp smoked paprika
¼ tsp mild chilli powder
1 can of kidney or cannellini beans
3 wholemeal burger buns
50g bread crumbs (roughly an extra bun)
To serve (optional)
Your choice of vegetarian cheese, sliced red onion and tomato, Dijon mustard, ketchup, finely chopped gherkins and lettuce.

Method
1. In a small frying pan, fry the onions, garlic, smoked paprika and chilli powder in the oil over a medium heat. Add a dash of water, season with salt and pepper and sweat down for 10 mins with the lid on.
2. To make the breadcrumbs, tear up one of the burger buns and blitz in a food processor until you have chunky breadcrumbs. Put to one side.
3. Rinse and drain the beans before pouring into a large bowl. Season well with salt and pepper and add the roughly chopped coriander. Blitz with a hand blender or food processor until you have a firm paste. Preheat an oven to 220°C/200°C fan/425°F/gas mark and prepare a small baking tray with baking paper.
4. Mix in the softened onions and the breadcrumbs until you have a firm, moist mixture. If making 2 large burgers, scoop up half the mixture with your hands and mould into a round patty. Place directly onto a baking tray and repeat with the second burger. If making 4 smaller burgers, divide the mixture into 4.
5. Place the burgers on a lined baking tray and bake for 10 mins before flipping over and cooking for an additional 10 mins. Once cooked, top with slices of cheese and bake for a further 5 mins or until the cheese has melted. Place each burger in a buttered bun along with your desired relish and salad.

If you’ve had a go at making any of my recipes, I’d love to hear from you. Follow me now @corrieheale and tag your recipe pictures using #corriesrabbitfood.

V– Vegetarian Vn – Vegan Df– Dairy free 🌶– Spicy

❄ The burgers are suitable for home freezings before cooking. Wrap well in a few layers of clingfilm or store in an airtight container in the freezer. Add 5 minutes to cooking time if cooking from frozen. Consume within 3 months.

Summer coriander potato salad

July 4, 2015January 29, 2020 ~ Corrie ~ 3 Comments

My best mate Philippa and cousin Rose go mad for this potato salad. Philippa sneakily stocks her fridge with all the ingredients so I can make it for her every time I visit – cheeky mare. Rose on the other hand, is less subtle, she simply throws a tantrum at family barbecues when she realises I haven’t made it. So it must be good!

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with mayonnaise due to a rather traumatic experience. I once got covered head to toe in mayonnaise by accidentally dropping a bucket (yes a bucket) of Hellmans on the floor when I was a waitress. I tried scooping it up with kitchen towel but kept slipping and falling over in it, truly revolting. It took me a while before I could face eating it again – nothing worse than horrible hard boiled potatoes, swimming in a sea of mayonnaise. So, enjoy my lighter version and enjoy the praise you will undoubtedly receive. You’re welcome.

Summer Coriander Potato Salad
Serves 4 as a side / Hands on time 15 mins / Total time 30 mins / V Gf
1 kg of new potatoes, halved
2 tbs mayonnaise, I always use Hellman’s
½ red onion, peeled and finely diced
1 garlic clove, crushed
30g fresh coriander, roughly chopped
1 tbs butter
1 tsp of Dijon mustard
Salt and pepper
Extra virgin olive oil

Method
1. Bring a large saucepan to the boil seasoned with salt. Slice the potatoes in half but keep the smaller potatoes whole. Simmer for around 20 mins.
2. Meanwhile, finely slice the red onion as thin as you can and roughly chop the coriander. Crush the garlic and put to one side.
3. Once the potatoes are cooked, strain and submerge them in cold water for a couple of minutes to cool them down. Drain and put to one side to dry a little. Ideally you want them to still be warm but not hot.
4. Put the potatoes back in the saucepan and start adding the ingredients in stages, seasoning between each stage. Start by adding the butter until melted and season. Next add the mustard, crushed garlic and mayonnaise. Mix again (being careful not to break up the potatoes) and season. Add the red onion along with the coriander and give it another stir and season. Finally drizzle with extra virgin olive oil and top with a good grind of black pepper.

If you’ve had a go at making any of my recipes, I’d love to hear from you. Follow me now @corrieheale and tag your recipe pictures using #corriesrabbitfood.

V – Vegetarian.

Mum’s red pepper lasagne

June 28, 2015November 24, 2024 ~ Corrie ~ 7 Comments

Big news everyone… I HAVE A MAN COMING TO DINNER! Yes mum, an actual man, with a pulse and a head and everything. Although, if he has a weeping abscess on his leg, lets hope he keeps that information to himself, unlike my last date.
Was it a mistake to mention I had a food blog? Probably. Presumably his exceptions will be sky high, so that’s good. AGGHHH! What the hell am I going to cook him and what if it goes horribly wrong?! I’ll forever be known as ‘the food blogger who can’t cook and can’t kiss’… Not that I’m a bad cook or a bad kisser, in fact I’m an excellent kisser so not sure why I said that.
Anyway, I need to cook something safe, something I know and something I can prepare in advance to stop me getting frazzled like Robin Williams in Mrs Doubtfire. I don’t want to burn my tits.
Lets bring out the big guns, my mum’s tomato and red pepper lasagne. Now then, this aint no a regular lasagne, there’s no béchamel or mince, just a simple sauce of cooked down tomatoes and peppers. This was a week night staple in the Heale household throughout my childhood, until my mum had to give up dairy (selfish woman). Luckily my dad heroically stepped up and managed to cobble it together occasionally for my brother and I, thank god. In fact, it was the only thing my dad could cook apart from a jacket potato.
Over the years I’ve managed to cook it entirely from memory for all kinds of people, all of which have loved it. The sauce is easy to make but quite time consuming, so I recommend you make it the day before. Wish me luck! :S

Mum’s red pepper & tomato lasagne
Serves 6 / Hands on time 30 mins / Total 2 hour 10 minutes / V ❄
You’ll need: Rectangular oven-proof dish 22cm x 28cm and foil
9 dried lasagne sheets
24 tomatoes, cut into eighths
2 red peppers, de-seeded and finely chopped
1 tbs dried oregano
1 tbs dried basil
1 tsp sea salt
1 tbs extra virgin olive oil
300g mild/medium strength vegetarian cheddar, grated

Method
1. Slice off the core and roughly chop each tomato into eighths and put in a large pot, over a medium heat with a tbs of extra virgin olive oil. Meanwhile, de-seed and finely chop the peppers and add them to the tomatoes. Sprinkle over the dried herbs, a tsp of salt and mix well.
2. Bring to the boil (you may have to dig down to the bottom to see the juices bubbling away). Put the lid on and cook the sauce down for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove the lid and continue to simmer for a further 30 minutes stirring occasionally. Meanwhile grate the cheese.
3. Preheat an oven to 200°C/180°C fan/400F/gas mark 6. Once the sauce has thickened, take off the heat and start assembling the lasagne.
4. Oil the oven dish and start layering. Begin with a layer of pasta sheets (feel free to break the pasta sheets to fit your dish if needs be). Cover the lasgane sheets with an even layer of sauce (3 ladles worth) and top with an even sprinkling of cheese. Continue to layer like this a couple more times before topping with the last layer of cheese. Season with salt and pepper and cover loosely with foil (ensure the foil isn’t touching the cheese – you don’t want the cheese to stick and peel the whole top layer of the lasagne off).
5. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes before removing the foil and cooking for a further 10 minutes to brown the cheese a little. Leave to stand for 5 minutes before serving with a simple green salad.

If you’ve had a go at making any of my recipes, I’d love to hear from you. Follow me now @corrieheale and tag your recipe pictures using #corriesrabbitfood.

V– Vegetarian
❄– Suitable for home freezing before cooking. Wrap the lasagne well in 2 layers of cling film and 1 layer of foil. Defrost fully before baking.

HOUMOUS WEEK: Houmous Olympics

June 1, 2015July 29, 2016 ~ Corrie ~ 2 Comments

This week is houmous week. And why is it houmous week? Because I said so, hooray! This Middle Eastern, middle class delight has exploded (not literally) in popularity over the past decade and it’s not hard to understand why. So, join me and a few friends in saying a big thank you to the humble chickpea by eating as much of it as humanly possible. Over the next week I’ll be testing the chickpea to it’s very limits, I’ll be spreading it, cooking it, buying it, making it and of course eating shit tons of it, all in the name of science… Well not really in the name of science but that sounded good. Anyway, without further ado, lets kick off the festivities with a little contest I like to call ‘The Houmous Olympics’…

The Houmous Olympics:
My housemate and I are obsessed with houmous, we go through at least three or four pots a week. Our staple buy is currently ‘Sainsbury’s So Organic’ but think it’s time for us to broaden our houmous horizons and test some of the other major players on the market. Unfortunately, Aldi, Asda, Budgens, Co-op, and Morrissons will not be participating in this compitition because those supermarkets aren’t in Camden (and I wasn’t willing to get the bus to Holloway).

Each houmous will be tested by houmous enthusiast and housemate Isabelle, her boyfriend John, my best friend Johnny and myself. We’ll be judging the contenders on texture, value, flavour, eatability (yes I know that’s not a word but whatever) and… Oh that will do. Now, the contenders are:

1. M&S Houmous With Extra Virgin Olive Oil £1 (200g)

2. Lidl (Meadow fresh) £1 (300g)

3. Sainsbury’s So Organic Houmous £1.20 (200g)

4. WholeFoods (San Amvrosia Health Foods) £1.69 (142g)

5. Tesco Organic Houmous £1.05 (200g)

6. Waitrose Organic Rich & Creamy Houmous £1.25 (200g)

LET BATTLE COMMENCE!!!

(Also, I’m aware that I perhaps picked the wrong table to do this on)

In 6th place…
M&S Houmous With Extra Virgin Olive Oil
What a surprise, Isabelle and I thought this one tasted like dust and vomit. It had the texture of cake mixture and paste and it unpleasantly coated our mouthes leaving a lingering rapeseed flavour, not pleasant. But at £1 it’s very reasonable, so if you’re skint and don’t mind the taste of sick, this houmous might be the one for you. 1/5

5th
Tesco Organic Houmous £1.05
Not much better, a very mousey mayonaisey texture, which again left our mouths feeling unpleasantly caked. Not quite so flavoursome but had a bitter artificial aftertaste. Too much sesame seed paste and not enough citrus, pretty sickly. 1/5

4th
Lidl (Meadow fresh) £1
This one was easily the best value but the pot didn’t come properly sealed which bothered me. Made me think there was some kid out back with a bucket of houmous just slopping it into plastic pots. The texture was very loose and sickie but the flavour wasn’t bad, very nutty. I found the tahini flavour overpowering, John thought it tasted like dog food but Isabelle really liked it. Mixed feelings. 3/5

3rd
WholeFoods (San Amvrosia Health Foods)
I LOVED this one, I’ve been going out of my way to buy this houmous for years, however it doesn’t stand up as well as I thought it would. It had a very subtle flavour but a lovely firm but smooth buttery texture. However, at £1.69 for what can only be described as half a pot it doesn’t deliver on value. Mildly disappointing. 4/5

2nd
Sainsbury’s So Organic Houmous
Coming in at a very impressive second place is my household fave, trusted old Sainsbury’s. This houmous is moreish without being sickly, it’s subtle flavour make it an all rounder, a serious crowd pleaser. It has a smooth but firm texture, I could happily eat an entire tub like a yogurt. I know, I’m a monster. 4/5

1st
Waitrose Organic Rich & Creamy Houmous
Okay so this houmous is the clear winner and the king of everything. It’s perfection, it has a beautifully smooth texture but is ever so slightly loose. It’s rich and flavourful without being sickly and has a fresh citrus after taste. Well done Waitrose, best £1.25 I ever spent. 5/5