Tag archives: cheese

Spinach, Sweet Red Pepper and Ricotta Lasagne recipe

Another recipe shamelessly stolen from The Waiting Room but changed slightly, serve it with sesame potatoes and some garlic bread to wipe the plate.

Ingredients – Makes enough for 6

Olive oil

4 sweet pointed red peppers, deseeded and cut into large chunks

3 red onions, sliced

1 large onion, sliced

3 cloves of garlic, minced

250ml of vegetable stock

500g organic spinach

250g ricotta cheese

Dried egg pasta sheets, I used 15

300ml of good bechamel sauce, make your own if you want!

300g of vegetarian mature cheddar cheese, grated

Freshly grated nutmeg, don’t use ready ground

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C, slightly lower for a fan assisted oven.

Add a little olive oil to a large roasting tray and place in the oven for a few minutes.

Place the chunks of red pepper and all the red onion in the roasting tray, turn the veg to cover in the hot oil and place in the oven for around an hour, turning every 15 minutes or so. Keep an eye on it in case it starts to burn.

Remove the roasted red pepper and onions from the oven and set to one side.

In a large pan, gently fry the onion in a little olive oil for about 10 minutes then add the minced garlic.

Stir and fry for a few minutes until the onion is soft but not brown.

Add the vegetable stock and the spinach, stir until the spinach has wilted.

Add the red pepper and onions to the spinach mix along with the ricotta and give it all a good stir.

Add half the cheese to the bechamel sauce and stir to combine.

Layer the mix in a deep oven dish alternating between that and the pasta sheets, I did three layers ending on a layer of pasta.

Pour the bechamel and cheese mixture on top of the pasta and sprinkle the remaining cheese on top of the sauce.

Grate as much nutmeg over the cheese as you like!

Bake in the oven for about an hour, make sure the pasta doesn’t burn but the cheese goes brown and gooey!

Cheese and onion pie recipe

Quick and easy cheese and onion pie, it can be eaten hot or cold! Day 4 and 5 of Veggie August, we had it with Sesame potatoes!

Ingredients

1 onion, peeled and chopped

500g of your favourite mature cheese, grated

1 large free range egg

2 x 450g bags of shortcrust pastry mix

Method

In a large bowl combine the grated cheese, the egg and the onion.

Make up the shortcrust pastry as instructed and roll out into two sheets large enough to cover the base of a dish and cover the pie.

Place a layer of pastry on the base of the dish, add the cheese, egg and onion mix and top with the other sheet of pastry.

With the tines of a fork press the edges of the pastry down, trim the edges with a knife and cut a hole in the middle of the top of the pastry.

Bake in an oven at 180C until the pastry is golden brown.

Sweet potato and Jarlsberg crumble recipe

Another recipe stolen from the lovely people at The Waiting Room and tweaked slightly. It easily makes enough for 6 or 4 very hungry people!

Ingredients

600g of organic sweet potatoes, the larger the better

2 or 3 red onions

200g of grated Jarlsberg cheese, or Gruyere, well, anything you want really!

½ pint of double cream

1 tablespoon of French mustard

Freshly ground black pepper

15g of jumbo oats

15g of pumpkin seeds

15g of sunflower seeds

10g of wholemeal flour

20g of strong white flour

75g of unsalted butter

Method

Preheat oven to 200C (reduce if you’ve got a fan oven).

Peel the sweet potatoes and slice either with a mandoline or sharp knife so they’re  3-4mm thick

Do exactly the same with the red onions.

Place alternate layers of sweet potato, red onion and cheese in a large baking dish until you’ve used all your ingredients, try to end on a layer of sweet potato covered in cheese.

Add the French mustard to the double cream and season with freshly ground black pepper, pour over the layered ingredients.

Mix together the oats, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and flours into a crumble mix. Sprinkle over the top of the layered ingredients.

Break the butter up into chunks and dot over the top of the crumble.

Cover with foil and bake for an hour, remove the foil and then return to the oven for 30 minutes. Keep checking occasionally at this point, you don’t want the crumble mix to burn!

Serve with rosemary and garlic potatoes and your favourite coleslaw.

Butternut squash and blue cheese risotto recipe

“Amazing” is the only word I can use to describe this, the risotto is creamy yet ever so slightly salty from the cheese. The recipe below made more than enough for 4 (probably enough for 6) so I had left overs for lunch the next day.

Ingredients

  • 1 big organic butternut squash (the one I used was 1.4KG)
  • 1 tablespoon of olive oil
  • Ground black pepper
  • 1 large organic onion
  • 75g of unsalted butter
  • A bottle of white wine (You can drink most of it)
  • 1.5litres of vegetable stock
  • 300g of soft blue cheese (I couldn’t find Gorgonzola so I used Saint Agur)
  • 500g of risotto rice

Method

  • Preheat oven to 220C (reduce if you’ve got a fan oven).
  • Peel, halve, deseed and slice the butternut squash, drizzle with the olive oil and season with ground black pepper.
  • Place the seasoned squash on a baking tray and bake in the oven until soft (40 minutes was enough for me, turn the squash after 20).
  • Remove the squash from the oven and chop into bite size pieces.
  • Add the butter to a large pan and melt over a medium heat.
  • Finely dice the onion and add to the pan, cook until soft.
  • Add the risotto rice, stir until coated in butter.
  • Add a small glass of white wine, stir, drink the rest of the bottle.
  • Turn the heat down to low.
  • Add the stock, one ladle at a time, stir continuously until the rice has taken up the liquid then add another ladle of stock until it’s all gone. Now is probably not the time for a game of Angry Birds, you need to stir all the time and not let the rice stick to the pan. This will probably take half an hour.
  • At the very last minute add the chopped butternut squash and stir.
  • Break the blue cheese into chunks, add it to the risotto and stir.
  • Check the seasoning, you probably don’t want to add any salt but fire away with the black pepper!
  • Serve with some freshly baked focaccia and more wine.