Christmas Catch Up

December has been a crazy month for me, mainly because I work in a shop and anyone who works in retail at Christmas time will know that it pretty much takes over your life! Because of this I've been neglecting my blogging duties, and having adventures on my days off instead of writing posts. But never fear as I have collected up all my foodie adventures from December in to one huge post! Here we go...


Lush Christmas Party
As I just mentioned I work in a shop, a shop called Lush (have you heard of it? If not then you're missing out) and in the first week of December they let me make canapes for one of their events. We decided to have food and wine paring inspired by the active ingredients in Lush products for out Luxury Christmas party. So in the end I decided on (veggie) Parmesan and asparagus tarts inspired by the fresh asparagus is used in lots of Lush products and chocolate brownies, because they always go down well and cocoa butter is used in loads of Lush stuff. I think the canapes were a success, they all got eaten so that must be a good sign.

Hummus Bros
Have I ever mentioned that I suffer with really bad food envy, I spend a lot of time reading other food blogs and restaurant reviews and get so jealous, I feel like I need to go and eat the same food as soon as humanly possible. So after I read this post from The Vegan Butcher (my new favourite vegan blogger) I started begging vegan Emma to go to Hummus Bros with me. So off I went to visit Emma for the weekend, she cooked me an amazing vegan Sheppard's pie (I wish I could give you the recipe, but I don't think she even knows how she created the magic) and then the next day we set off to go to the Hummus Bros in Holborn. It certainly lived up to my hummus loving expectations, I had the fava beans and Emma had (evil) mushrooms. The hummus was so creamy and full of flavour (even better with a bit of the lemon and garlic oil poured on) and even the small potion size was enough for me! I would definitely recommend it for a quick vegan/vegetarian bite in London.

Demuths, Bath
A few weeks ago, after realising that we both had a week day off, my boyfriend and I decided to go on an adventure. It started off with going to London, then Amsterdam, then France. After getting extremely close to booking a hotel in France, we decided that it was probably the worst idea ever and I slyly moved the direction of our trip over to Bath, with the main intention of going to Demuths. It was our first trip to bath and after a horrible drive in the rain we arrived to the most beautiful hotel room I have ever stayed in, drank lots of wine, ate lots of bad food and had a good nights sleep (I also have to mention that they did an amazing vegetarian full English).

The next day we did a bit of Christmas shopping and touristy exploring (the baths, of course). Then went in for the main event. Demuths is like a vegetarian mecca, and has always been up there with Terre a Terre as one of the restaurants I would really, really like to visit. It had a lot to live up to and didn't disappoint, although I have to say it didn't blow me away like Terre a Terre, it was still an amazing experience. The actual restaurant is really cute and homely inside and instantly makes you feel comfortable. Scott and I both had the same meals, mainly because he's scared of vegetables and didn't know what to pick. We started with the Celeriac Veloute with a Ewe's Cheese Croquet and cavolo nero, which I absolutely loved, it was rich and creamy and perfect for warming you up after a long day of shopping. Scott, wasn't overly impressed (again, fear of vegetables) so I ended up eating both starters! Then for the main we had Applewood Smoked Somerset Cheddar Souffle served with red wine baked figs, tarragon dressed potatoes, walnut puree and a selection of winter greens from  the fields of bath, which really was something else. The flavours went really well together and it was like nothing I've ever tried before. Scott actually liked this one, so I didn't have to eat two main courses as well (sigh). Then for desert we had the Cashew coconut cream, which was unusual but I loved the gooey clementine middle contrasted against the coconut cream shell. Yummy! All in all, I would definitely recommend it for an amazing vegetarian meal if you're visiting Bath. 

Christmas Dinner
Every year I cook Christmas dinner for my friends, it started out as just me and 3 girl friends who were all vegan/vegetarian and has now grown in to everyone, meat eaters and all. After last years absolute disaster (I don't want to talk about it) I vowed never to do it again, but when it actually came to it, I just couldn't resist! This year was probably the best year ever because 1. I decided not to do anything fancy and just do a plain old roast dinner and 2. I had vegan Emma on hand to help me with the cooking, and she also made the AMAZING vegan main. So we had no started (:O) and then Emma's amazing chestnut, mushroom and port strudel (which I loved even though it contained mushrooms) Then apple crumble, followed by a silly amount of cheese. It probably is my favourite event of the year because it combines Christmas, food and my favourite people. 

Double Christmas Day
One of the perks of having separated parents is that I get to have 2 Christmas days and 2 Christmas dinners. Both my mum and dad are amazing cooks so I end up feel obese by December 27th. This year I got loads of foodie presents including the River Cottage Veg cook book, a pasta maker, loads of vegan marshmallow mix and a new Humming Bird Bakery book and I'm sure all these things will be inspiring many blog posts to come. I also finished my Christmas cake and can proudly say that it actually tasted nice and like a real Christmas cake, I will definitely be making another one next year! 

So Happy New Year everyone! I've made it one of my New Years resolutions to cook, eat and blog more so expect lots of veggie and vegan posts coming your way. It's been a great year for Hef's Kitchen and I couldn't have done it with out all of you lovely readers, so thank you! 


Much Love, 


Heather xx 

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Valentines

As it was our 4th valentines this year, and as I have no job and lots of time on my hands I decided to cook a meal. It's really hard to cook for both of us because, well I'm vegetarian and he's not. He's not very enthused about vegetarian food and just generally a fussy eater. But I decided on a caramelised onion and goats cheese tart for the starter, ricotta and spinach gnocchi for the main and strawberry and champagne topped brownies for desert.

Caramelised Onion and Goats Cheese Tart.

This is so easy to make, all you need to do it roll out some puff pastry in to any shape you want. Make up some caramelised onions by softening some onions, adding brown sugar to caramelise and then add some balsamic vinegar and a bit of water. Let it reduce and put it on the pastry, top with the goats cheese and the bake in the oven for about 20 minutes.

Spinach and Ricotta Gnocchi.

I went for this because I know by boyfriend likes pasta but had never tried gnocchi, I cheated a little bit and brought pasta sauce, because, well I couldn't be bothered to make any. But I used a recipe from a vegetarian women's weekly book (or something like that) and it was awful! It called for 960g of chard (what a ridiculous amount!), which I was going to substitute for spinach, and when i made up the gnocchi it was so runny I could never have used it. So I made it up as I went along and added flour ect! Here's the recipe (roughly!)

250g Ricotta

50g Spinach

50g Vegetarian Parmesan

1 Egg beaten

1/8 tsp Nutmeg

100g Flour

Serves 4.

Steam the spinach until wilted and remove excess liquid, chop finely and put in a mixing bowl. Add the ricotta, Parmesan, egg, nutmeg and flour and mix until its firm and well combined. Flour your hands and roll the mixture in to 12 balls and refrigerate for 30 Min's. Cook the gnocchi by boiling for about 2 minutes, until the start to float and serve with pasta sauce and a grating of veggie Parmesan cheese.

Champagne Strawberry topped Brownies with Mascarpone

Brownies always go down well, and I found a recipe for ones topped with champagne strawberries on twitter which sounded perfect for Valentines day. I used my favorite brownie recipe from the Hotel Chocolate 101 book, and used 85% good quality chocolate which made them extra rich! I usually use 70% and you can tell the difference between the two!

Topping

Strawberries

Icing sugar

Mascarpone

Vanilla extract

Champagne

Make your bownies then chop the strawberries and dust with icing sugar then pour over some champagne. Mix about 6tsp mascarpone with 2 tsp of icing sugar and a drop of vanilla essence. Warm the brownies in the oven or microwave and then top with the strawberries and pop some mascarpone on the side. I put some milk chocolate covered strawberries on as well just to make it extra indulgent!

My boyfriend got me this beautiful box of Artisan du Chocolat chocolates for valentines, which I was really happy about because I've been wanting to try them for ages! I've only eaten a few so far, but they are absolutely amazing! You can tell that everything is of the highest quality and the flavors are amazing! I'm trying to only eat one a day so that they last me a while, it's incredibly hard though!!

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Christmas Leftovers

Christmas always leaves tones of left overs, despite the fact we completely over fill ourselves! Most meat eaters are left eating turkey sandwiches, turkey curry, ect, ect. But being vegetarian I'm left with loads of vegetables to cook with (as my parents buy too much and don't cook them) and also a lot of cheese. And in keeping with my New Years resolution I used some to learn a new recipe, spicy parsnip soup. I was lucky enough to get some white truffle oil, which I have been putting on everything! (I would drink it if that wasn't completely disgusting) including the soup as it goes really well with parsnips. Most of the left overs went in to making different soups, but I also wanted to make a huge cheese feast pizza with all the different varieties of cheese, but they mysteriously went missing...

So here is the recipe I tried for the soup:

2 parsnips chopped

1tsp olive oil

2 knobs of butter

1 small onion chopped

1 garlic clove crushed

1/2 tsp of curry powder

enough stock to cover the vegetables

Chili garlic salt (to garnish)

White truffle oil or olive oil (to garnish)

(serves 2)

First lightly fry the onion and garlic in the olive oil with the curry powder until translucent. Then add the parsnips and the butter (you can use a vegan margarine if you want vegan soup) and cover for 10-15 minutes until the parsnips have softened. When the parsnips are ready, pour over the stock and bring to the boil for a few minutes, then remove from the heat and blend in a blender or with a hand blender. serve up and garnish with some chili garlic salt and truffle oil.

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Happy Holidays

A while ago I wanted to make some fudge, so I started looking on the Internet for a good recipe. I've made fudge numerous times, and I’ve always used the same recipe from my Nan’s super old cookbook. After looking on the Internet for ages I realised there were none that were quite like that recipe, so I decided to wait until I could copy it from the book. This book lives at my Dad’s house and is technically mine, and as much as I love it, I don’t trust myself to look after it (I somehow destroy everything I own). So for now I have to wait until I go to my dads and copy all the recipes out. The last time I made it was two years ago as part of Christmas hampers for people, so it felt apt to be making it again this time of year. After copying the recipe (but no instructions) down I happily created some lovely nostalgia with the smell and taste of the perfect fudge recipe. So here it is!

Ingredients:

60g Butter

450g Sugar

1 Small tin of condensed milk

¼ Pint of water

Fudge to me is basically a form of one pot cooking, so chuck all the ingredients in a large heavy based pan and heat gently until the butter and sugar have melted.

Then turn the heat up slightly and most importantly don’t stop mixing! Then you play the waiting game, carry on mixing and heating until the mixture turns deep golden brown. You can tell when it’s done by dropping a bit of the mixture into cold water, if it turns in to soft balls then it’s done. Or if you have a candy thermometer (destroyed mine) then heat it to 240 degrees Fahrenheit.

When you think it’s ready, remove it from the heat and beat well until it is thick and creamy. Apparently the more you beat it the grainier it becomes, because it encourages crystals to form. So beat for longer if you like it grainy, like me! Then pour in to a buttered dish to set.

I also tried my hand at making truffles today, they we’re slightly more successful than the last time I attempted it. As last time I just seemed to make some sort of yoghurt! Any way I used a Waitrose recipe. I’m definitely enjoying having some time off at the moment to make people homemade gifts.

I’m hoping to make some more sweets to accompany the candles I’ve been making! Well, I say making, I just got some old jugs from a charity shop and melted down some cheap candles to pour in them!

Happy Holidays!!

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Christmas!

So, it’s 8 days until Christmas and that can only mean one thing, food, food and more food! Tomorrow will be my annual Christmas dinner with my friends, which started out about 5 years ago as vegetarians only, but now, seems to have merged into a dinner for everyone. I must confess, although the meat eaters came last year my mum did the meat. So this will be the first year I have cooked meat! And it’s not like I never cook it, I sometimes do for my family or boyfriend, but nothing fancy. I went to look at the meat for the beef wellington I’m making and realised I way out of my depth! There we’re so many different cuts! Cooking meat isn’t my favourite thing to do, but I’m not one of those preachy vegetarians who hate the stuff. If people enjoy it then it’s just the same as me enjoying my vegetarian food. So today I am going to go shopping for the ingredients and start the prep, this is what I’ve decided on so far:

Goat’s cheese and apple salad

Beef Wellington or Butternut squash wellington

Raspberry brownie cheesecake

A shit load of cheese

I love the fact that everyone gets excited about food. Especially the cheese aspect, because I love cheese! And a good cheeseboard is the key to ending any meal successfully! This year everyone is bringing a cheese for the board, because last year one of my friends ending up spending as much on cheese as I did for the whole meal! I picked a truffle butter Camembert for mine, as it is just the best cheese I have ever had and I can’t really justify buying it otherwise because it is so expensive. Anyway I hope it all goes well and I’m sure I will be posting lot’s of lovely pictures!

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