Spring Vegetable Soup with Pistachio Pesto

Spring vegetable soup with pistachio pesto

So this is the second of my pistachio recipes, as the obsession continues. I don’t often make soups, but every so often a recipe comes along that catches my eye and is delicious. I think I often find soups to be a bit nothing-y, especially for dinner, but this one has vermicelli and cannellini beans in it, which really gives it some bulk, and means it doesn’t leave you hungry. The pistachio pesto infuses through all the other ingredients, making a delicious nutty broth, which complements the freshness of the vegetables perfectly.

Soup Ingredients

1tbsp olive oil

1 leek

1 courgette

100g green beans

1.2l vegetable stock

2 large tomatoes

400g cannellini beans

1 nest vermicelli

Salt and pepper to season

Pistachio Pesto Ingredients

25g pistachios, shelled

25g fresh basil

25g parmesan, grated

3tbsp virgin olive oil

2 cloves of garlic

Salt and pepper to season

Delicious fresh ingredients

Begin by heating the olive oil in a large pan, and then finely chop the leek, beans and courgette. Once the oil is hot, add the leek to the pan and fry for 4-5 minutes, or until soft. Next add the courgette and beans and fry for a further 3 minutes. Pour the stock over the vegetables, cover with a lid and leave to simmer for five minutes.

Meanwhile, you can make the pesto. It’s the same recipe used in the gnocchi, and is very easy. Place all of pesto ingredients into a blender, and blend until you have a smooth paste (or a not so smooth paste if you like a more rustic, homemade feel to your pesto). Season with salt and pepper and then put to one side.

Finely chop the tomatoes and add to the soup, along with the cannellini beans and the vermicelli. Leave to simmer for another 5 minutes or until the vermicelli are cooked and the vegetables are soft.

Whilst the soup finishes cooking, why not have a read of this fab article by Laura Bates, the founder of Everyday Sexism. The article discusses how being sexually harassed in the street is not the same as being complimented, and that people should stop telling women to take it as a compliment when men wolf whistle at them or comment on their appearance. Given what a frequent occurrence this is in probably all women’s lives, it’s really important to recognise the problem, and how damaging it can be, especially when it’s brushed off by those who have never experienced such behaviour, and therefore have no idea how demeaning, threatening and infuriating it can be.

Once the soup is ready, ladle it into two bowls and then divide the pesto between them, and then tuck in!

Fried Gnocchi with Pistachio Pesto

Fried Gnocchi with Pistachio Pesto

This week I discovered a place near where I live that sells pistachios for very little money. I love pistachios, and bought rather a lot of them upon discovering what a bargain they are at this particular shop. Consequently, there is quite the pistachio theme to the next few recipes I’m going to post here, so I hope you like them as much as I do! However, whilst pistachios feature heavily in the upcoming recipes, they are all very different and delicious meals so I don’t think you will get bored. The pistachios I use in these recipes are of the roasted and salted variety, which I personally think are the only pistachios worth using, at least in savoury food. Although I am more than willing to be proven wrong, especially as this is the first time I’ve ever cooked with them!

This particular recipe is ridiculously easy, quick and delicious, so is perfect when you’re in a hurry and want something filling and tasty. I must admit to not having made my own gnocchi – I have done so before, and whilst it was delicious, it was also insanely time consuming and quite fiddly. On this occasion, therefore, I used shop-bought gnocchi, as while I’d rather spend more time cooking and use homemade ingredients, unfortunately my dissertation must take priority at the moment. That said, if you do decide to make your own gnocchi for this, then you deserve a large pat on the back for the commitment and effort!

As for the pistachio pesto, I personally think it is ingenious. I love pesto, but never make it because pine nuts are so damn expensive. Pistachios, on the other hand, are not! And handily, they work wonders as a substitute for pine nuts, and make the pesto slightly lighter and saltier, which suits me down to a tee. It also occurred to me that this pesto would be really nice, and a bit different, if you popped in a couple of anchovy fillets to the mix – another thing to try!

In this recipe, I’ve just given the amounts to make enough pesto for 2 people but you could easily make much larger quantities and keep it in the fridge, so you’ve got some handy if you need a meal at the last minute! I didn’t serve the gnocchi with anything this time around, but I do think it would go splendidly with a simple rocket salad, so maybe give that a try if you fancy it.

Ingredients (serves 2)

50g butter (salted or unsalted)

500g gnocchi

25g fresh basil, plus a few extra leaves to serve

25g pistachios, shelled

25g parmesan

4tbsp extra virgin olive oil

2 garlic cloves, peeled

Juice of half a lemon

Salt and pepper to season

Melt the butter in a large frying pan, and once melted, pour in the gnocchi. Give the gnocchi a good stir to ensure that it all gets a good coating of butter – this will help it to crisp up during cooking!

Whilst the gnocchi is cooking, put the shelled pistachios, parmesan, lemon juice, olive oil, and garlic into a blender and blend until you have a smooth, pesto-like consistency.

Give the gnocchi a stir every so often to ensure it cooks evenly all over. Whilst the gnocchi finishes cooking, you could have a look at these photographs of Maskull Lasserre’s wood carvings.They are quite unlike anything I have ever seen before, and the intricacy and delicacy of the detail is mindblowing, especially when you see the upclose shots of his carvings, and how they fit within the work as a whole. I thought they were real skeletons for a while, so for him to have carved them out of wood is really quite incredible.

Perfectly crisp gnocchi

Once the gnocchi is crisp on the outside, with patches of golden brown, it is cooked! Stir the pesto through the gnocchi, and serve with an extra grating of parmesan, and some fresh basil leaves. Happy eating!

Aubergine, Chickpea & Spinach Curry

Aubergine, Chickpea & Spinach Curry

This is a delicious, simple and easy recipe, perfect for a quick weekday meal when you want to put together something tasty and healthy. The flavours are subtle but work really well together, especially with the nuttiness of the chickpeas, and the richness of the aubergine. I served this with a crispy paratha on the side to mop up the leftover juices, but it would work equally well with some rice. And if you’re trying to be healthy, or just want a lighter meal, then the curry is just as good on it’s own.

Ingredients (serves 4)

1kg fresh spinach

4tbsp sunflower/vegetable oil

1 large red onion

400g tinned chickpeas

2 garlic cloves

1 red chilli

1tbsp coriander seeds, ground

1tbsp cumin seeds

1 large aubergine

400g tin chopped tomatoes

Salt and pepper to season

Put a pan of salted water onto boil, and once boiling, add the fresh spinach and cook for two minutes. Once cooked, drain away the boiling water and pour cold water over the spinach. Drain the cold water then squeeze the spinach gently to remove as much water as possible from it. Chop finely and put to one side.

Next, finely chop the garlic, chilli and onion. Heat the oil in a large, heavy-bottomed pan, and once hot, add the onion, chilli and garlic. Following this, add the cumin and coriander seeds and the chickpeas, and leave to fry for 3-4 minutes. Once the onion is softened and transparent, add the aubergine and mix well. Leave this to fry for a further 5 minutes, until the aubergine is slightly softened and has taken on some colour. Finally, add the tomatoes, spinach and a pinch of salt and pepper, then bring to a simmer, cover with a lid and leave to cook for approximately 15 minutes.

Whilst the curry cooks, you could have a look at the wonderful No More Page 3 campaign. This campaign, set up by the brilliant Lucy Ann-Holmes, is trying to get the Sun Newspaper (a particularly unpleasant British tabloid for those of you readers fortunate enough not to be from this tiny island) to remove the topless pictures of women that feature on page 3. This campaign has gathered huge momentum, and gained support from Girl Guides, Mumsnet and several of the big teachers’ unions in the UK. Page 3 is a demeaning, and misogynistic feature of the newspaper, that objectifies women and teaches young boys and girls to see women as sexual objects rather than equal human beings. Moreover, boobs aren’t news! The campaign has a petition, with 135,748 signatures at the time of writing, and could really do with more. If you agree with the campaign (and you don’t have to be from the UK to do so) please sign the petition. Banning Page 3 is such an important step in fighting for gender equality in this country.

By now, your curry should be cooked and ready to eat. Serve it with your chosen side, and tuck in. Bon appetit!

Chocolate and Walnut Brownies

Chocolate & walnut brownies

These brownies are deliciously moreish, and my go-to baked goods. I’ve tried many a brownie, and many a brownie recipe, over the years, but this one belongs to the lovely Nigella, and is far and away my favourite. These are not cake-y brownies (if you can even call cake-y brownies, brownies) and are not for the faint-hearted. These are dense, gooey and rich, with a crisp top and a moist, intense middle. The walnuts provide the perfect crunchy contrast to the soft brownie, and the nuttiness compliments the richness of the chocolate wonderfully. If you can stop yourself eating all of the mixture out of the bowl before it’s cooked, then these brownies are a quick and easy treat to whip up, and will never fail to please anyone who happens to pop one in their mouth.

Ingredients (makes 48 small brownies)

375g unsalted butter

375g good quality dark chocolate (70/80% cocoa)

6 large eggs

1tbsp vanilla extract

500g caster sugar

225g plain flour

1 tsp salt

300g chopped walnuts

Heat the oven to 180c. Line a large baking tray (33 x 23 x 5cm) with greaseproof paper, or foil which you then need to grease with butter or oil. In a large, heavy-bottomed pan, melt the butter and the chocolate on a low heat. Stir frequently to make sure it doesn’t burn. Once melted, take off the heat and leave to cool.

In a separate, large mixing bowl, beat the eggs, vanilla extract and the sugar together. Measure out the flour and salt, then add this to the egg and sugar mixture. Once cooled, add the chocolate and stir until everything is combined thoroughly and there are no lumps of flour of sugar. Finally, add the chopped walnuts and make sure they are evenly distributed throughout the mixture. Pour the mixture into the greased baking tray and pop into the oven for around 30 minutes.

Sometimes, and I don’t know why, these brownies take much longer to cook, so check on them after half an hour, and if they are still ridiculously gooey (yes there is such thing as a brownie being too gooey) then put them back in. If you are worried about the top of the brownies catching, you can lay a sheet of tin foil over the tray so they don’t burn.

Whilst the brownies cook, you could have a look at this man’s beardtastic blog, which is one of my new favourite things. It is a mad and fantastic idea – a man with a more than brilliant beard takes various items and puts them in his beard and photographs the effect, and then sometimes shakes his beard so they all come flying out, and captures this all on camera, in slow motion. It sounds silly and absurd, but don’t mock it till you’ve seen it – it’s hilarious and somewhat genius.

Brownies ready to eat!

Once half an hour is up, or your brownies are cooked, take them out of the oven. Leave them to cool for a bit, and then lift them out of the tray, and onto a cooling rack where you can slice then into (giant) portion sizes and then tuck in. Happy eating!

Black Olive Tapenade with Crostini

Black olive tapenade with crostini

This is more of a snack than a meal, but I made it the other day as a starter and loved it, so thought I’d just do a quick post about it so that all you lovely readers can make it too should you wish to do so. It can be served as a starter or nibbles at a dinner party, or simply as an afternoon snack when you are feeling peckish and want something other than your usual biscuit!

I know olive tapenade is very easy to get hold of in the supermarket, but the cheap stuff isn’t that nice, and it’s much nicer, and still very easy, to make it yourself. That way, you can choose the type of olive you want, and can decide how much lemon and anchovy you want to put in, as well as the texture of the tapenade. I don’t like mine to be too smooth, and making it at home means I can achieve a slightly coarser texture which I think makes it more interesting.

This is delicious served with crusty white bread, which you can either thinly slice and warm in the oven, so that you get homemade crostini, or just have as it is. If you don’t want to have it bread, tapenade is also delicious on little biscuits or crackers, take your pick!

Ingredients (makes enough for 4)

1 crusty, white baguette or baton

2 garlic cloves

5 anchovy fillets

3tbsp capers

Juice of 1 lemon

250g black pitted olives

3-4 tbsp virgin olive oil

Salt and pepper to season

Heat the grill in the oven to 180c. Finely slice the bread into thin rounds (about 1-2 cm thick). Lay the slices out flat in a large baking tray, and drizzle with a little bit of olive oil and a dusting of salt. Once the oven is hot, place these under the grill and leave for 3-5 minutes. They should become hard and crispy, but shouldn’t take on any colour.

Meanwhile, finely chop the anchovy fillets and garlic cloves. Place in a blender, then add the lemon juice and the capers. Blend until combined and smooth. Add the olives and olive oil and blend once more. How long you blend it for this time around depends on the texture you want to achieve. Finally, taste and season with salt and pepper.

Once the bread is ready, take it out of the oven and spread each piece with the tapenade, and you are ready to tuck in!

One more thing – I am aware I haven’t followed my normal rule of giving you something to do whilst the food cooks, but this is such a speedy recipe that really there was no need to, so you can just concentrate on eating and enjoying it!