A hat trick of summer recipes

Recipe of the week...
... Trio of summer dishes

 - Recipe One -

Recipe: Squash & spinach rolls

Ingredients: 1 small butternut squash, 2 teaspoons vegetable oil, 200g frozen spinach, ½ teaspoon dried chilli flakes, 50g cheddar cheese, 375g pack ready rolled light puff pastry, 1 egg

Makes: 16

Time taken: 2 hours, plus cooling

Dietary: Vegetarian

- Recipe Two -

Recipe: Courgette, asparagus, parmesan & walnut salad

Ingredients: 20g walnuts, 2 courgettes, 2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil, 1 lemon, 125g asparagus tips, 85s watercress, 30g Parmigiano Reggiano

Serves: 4

Time taken: Half an hour

Dietary: Vegetarian

- Recipe Three -

Recipe: Roasted vegetable & chickpea salad

Ingredients: 1 red onion, 1 large courgette, 2 peppers (red & yellow), 1 sweet potato, 3 tablespoons vegetable oil, 1 teaspoon medium curry powder, 1 clove of garlic, 1 tablespoon cider vinegar, 400g tin of chickpeas

Serves: 6

Time taken: 1 hour, plus cooling

Dietary: Vegan

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Hi readers,

How are you all this week, lovely people? Are you well and getting on okay with your weekly routine? Managing to sleep on these hot nights?

I hope you’re doing good and enjoying the week as it flies by. We’re over half way already… which seems mad! As I write to you, readers, it’s a Wednesday afternoon in August and I’m a little tired. But the sun is shining, and I see blue skies and everything’s alright really. On the walk home from yoga last night we were treated to a pink sunset in Sheffield, it was big and mighty, and very pretty. Feast your eyes…

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- Food for thought -

This week, readers, I have a few bits and bobs to recommend for you. I’ve been…

Listening

To some new-to-me music

I made the time last week to sit for a couple of hours and search about for new tracks to jazz up my playlists – and I found some! There are a good few songs I downloaded which I’ve been tapping my toe to ever since. I’m enjoying passionate upbeat music this summer. The best of the bunch, six songs which I recommend you go look up, are…

Slaves – Cut and Run

Christine and the Queens – Doesn’t matter

Dennis Lloyd – Nevermind

Dirty Projectors – Break-Thru

Lenny Kravitz – Low

Trevor Hall – Sun / Moon (The Fruitful Darkness)

Watching

Sex and the City

Between this and Dawson’s Creek, which I also seem to be unable to stop watching, I’m enjoying some pretty light viewing lately! While I might not be feeding my mind, I’m loving a bit of 90s throwback TV time. My housemate has acquired a DVD box set with all the seasons of Sex and the City and we’re loving scenes which date it… like using a landline phone in a smoky night club to ring your answering machine at home and pick up messages from men! These are times I never knew, but I love it.

Reading

How to Stop Time by Matt Haig

I finished this just in the nick of time for book club last week! Our July read came in the form of some light fiction from an author local to Sheffield. In the book, we follow the main character who ages more slowly than others around him. He moves about often in order to avoid suspicion, but is a long life a good life if you can’t settle down and find a mate to share your days with? Not a bad read – it got everything thinking and we had fun discussing the book and the parallels between its messaging and mental health issues. Just occasionally at book club, we do wonder over intellectual matters which might actually be on-topic.

Enjoying

Running with company

On a mission for my work to do something (anything) charitable this year, I’ve signed us up to run 5k for the Yorkshire Wildlife Park Foundation in October, striking fear into the hearts of my colleagues who don’t run. And I’m now making enemies with talk of weekly jogs from the office to get some practice in! I’m sure they’ll come around soon. It was just me and my colleague Debbie on Monday for an inaugural Practice Jog About, and it was a hot one, but I really enjoyed running with a friendly face along and someone to chat to. We had fun.

Wondering

The less people the better, sometimes?

It may not be everyone’s idea of fun, but (other than a brief encounter with my dad to hand him some Squash & Spinach Rolls) I just spent this weekend with my Mr. We adventured to Matlock Bath and barbecued in the garden, we jigsawed and watched Star Wars on TV, we drank wine and played cards, and we watched Craig David swimming around his tank. I didn’t miss other people! It was quite lovely, really, to send a weekend with just my favourite human.

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- Feeding a friend -

Time for the good stuff – the food! I come to you with not one but three recipes this week, readers, as I got overexcited with the August edition of the ASDA Good Living food magazine in my hand, and decided to cook all sorts. My recipes this week, readers, are for squash & spinach rolls, a courgette, asparagus, parmesan & walnut salad, and a roasted vegetable & chickpea salad.

These make for great homemade summery dishes to add to a picnic or a buffet, or perhaps to take out into the garden for a BBQ? I cooked them one after another in a mega kitchen session on Friday, with the sun shining through the open window and Smooth Radio playing some classic hits.  

I really enjoyed getting stuck in with vegetable prep and having a pan on the go on every hob! If you have an occasion coming up to feed your friends and family, and you’d like to spend some time preparing proper home cooked grub to feed them with, then take a look through these recipes and you might just be inspired. I’m sure they’re appreciate your efforts, and homemade tastes better every time.

Roll your sleeves up and whizz together a hat trick of summer dishes, in just 20 simple steps…

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- Squash & spinach rolls -

Ingredients: 1 small butternut squash, 2 teaspoons vegetable oil, 200g frozen spinach, ½ teaspoon dried chilli flakes, 50g cheddar cheese, 375g pack ready rolled light puff pastry, 1 egg

1. Pour a cool drink, set some calming music to play at a background volume, throw a window open wide for fresh air, wipe your surfaces clean and gather together the ingredients. Then, heat the oven to 200°C.

2. Begin with some prep! Pell and deseed your butternut squash, then cut into small chunks. Crack your egg into a mug and beat with a fork. Grate your cheese.

3. Tip the chunks of squash onto a baking try and drizzle with the oil. Carefully transport into the oven and roast for 35 minutes until tender.

4. Meanwhile, heat 2 tablespoons water in a frying pan and add the frozen spinach. Cook over a medium heat, turning often, to thaw. Then remove from the heat and turn the hob off. Tip into a sieve and press out any excess liquid with the back of a spoon.

5. When cooked, tip the squash into a bowl and mash. Add the spinach, chilli flakes and cheese, then season with black pepper. Stir well and allow to cool.

6. Roll the squash mixture into to 2 x 30cm (ruler length) ‘sausages’. Halve the pastry lengthways, cutting it neatly using a small sharp knife, and brush with egg. Put 1 ‘sausage’ on 1 piece of pastry and roll the pastry over to enclose. Repeat with the other ‘sausage’.

ChefBeHere Top Tip: It depends how big your squash was, as its size will have had a bearing on how much filling you’ve produced, but you’re aiming for a 2cm pastry overlap. This helps avoid any spillage as your filling is less likely to burst free in the oven.  

7. Cut up into 16 rolls and space evenly on a baking tray. Make 2 cuts in the top of each roll, using your small sharp knife, and brush them with egg.

8. Carefully transport into the oven to bake for half an hour or so, until crisp and golden brown. Then, safely remove and turn your oven off. Cool on a wire rack for at least ten minutes so the filling isn’t molten inside – no burned tongues today! Then plate your rolls up and watch them disappear.

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- Courgette, asparagus, parmesan & walnut salad -

Ingredients: 20g walnuts, 2 courgettes, 2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil, 1 lemon, 125g asparagus tips, 85s watercress, 30g Parmigiano Reggiano

1. Pour a cool drink, set some calming music to play at a background volume, throw a window open wide for fresh air, wipe your surfaces clean and gather together the ingredients. Then, heat a frying pan.

2. As your pan heats up sneak in a little ingredient prep. Zest a lemon (saving the lemon as you’ll need its juice later on) and shave both your courgettes and asparagus tips using a vegetable peeler.

3. Dry fry 20g walnuts in the pan over a medium heat for 5 minutes, stirring regularly, until toasted. Switch off your hob and set the nuts aside to cool, then break into pieces.

4. Heat a griddle pan over a medium heat, or power up your George Foreman grill. In a bowl, toss the courgette slices in a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and the lemon zest.

5. In batches, griddle or grill the courgette for 1 minute on each side, until char lines appear.

6. In a large bowl, stir together 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil and the juice of your lemon. Season with black pepper. Add the shaved asparagus tips, along with 85g watercress and your charred courgette. Toss to dress.

7. To serve, artistically arrange the salad on a platter or in a serving bowl and scatter over the walnuts. Shave generously with parmesan cheese.

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- Roasted vegetable & chickpea salad -

Ingredients: 1 red onion, 1 large courgette, 2 peppers (red & yellow), 1 sweet potato, 3 tablespoons vegetable oil, 1 teaspoon medium curry powder, 1 clove of garlic, 1 tablespoon cider vinegar, 400g tin of chickpeas

1. Pour a cool drink, set some calming music to play at a background volume, throw a window open wide for fresh air, wipe your surfaces clean and gather together the ingredients. Then, heat the oven to 200°C.

2. Begin with some vegetable prep – peel your red onion and cut into 6 wedges, chop your courgette into small chunks, deseed your peppers and cut into chunks, peel your sweet potato and dice, peel and finely chop the clove of garlic, drain the tin of chickpeas then rinse in a sieve under a cold tap.

3. Tip all the vegetables on a baking tray and drizzle with vegetable oil to coat. Carefully transport into the oven to roast for 45 minutes or until tender and tinged brown at the edges.

ChefBeHere Top Tip: I’d check on your veg half way through cooking and rustle them about, to bring those from the edge of the tray into the middle, and vice versa. You’re aiming to cook them all evenly – so veg of a roughly even size, with a halfway stir, give you the best shot at a successful roast.

4. Meanwhile, to make the dressing, heat a splash of vegetable oil in a small saucepan over a medium heat. Add the curry powder and garlic, and fry for 1-2 minutes, stirring. Remove from the heat and turn the hob off. Whisk a tablespoon of cider vinegar and a tablespoon of vegetable oil into your mix, to make the dressing.

5. Once the veg have roasted, safely remove them from the oven and switch it off. Leave to cool for a minute or two, before tipping into a large bowl. Add the chickpeas and dressing to the bowl of vegetables, and toss to coat. Leave to cool properly and serve when bellies are rumbling!

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- Recipe round up -

What do you think, readers? Could you be tempted to give these recipes a try? Do they look like the kind of foods your friends and family might like to tuck into, with a buffet plate in their hand? Are they the kind of dishes you enjoy? Because, if you’re going to take the afternoon preparing each one, I’d hope you think with your belly and choose foods that you like!

I know not everyone has the time, energy and budget to lovingly craft homemade dishes for every celebration they attend – I certainly don’t – but if you’re inspired to go the extra mile sometime soon, I’d recommend every one of these dishes for you to try. I had fun making each one and they all came together really well, looking much like the pictures in the magazine.

Plus – no salt! I noticed it was missing from each recipe as I cooked, presumably on health grounds, and did consider chucking some in for less ‘healthy’ tasting food. But I didn’t – I stuck to the ingredients listed – and everything tasted great all the same. Thank you, ASDA, for taking it out on our behalves.

Readers – I’m sending good vibes your way for the rest of the week. Harness them and go achieve wonderful things! And do take care of yourselves… that’s very important.

Roast safely,

Hayley

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- Closing thoughts -

If you’ve been inspired to give these recipes a try, readers, whether I’m speaking to you on the day of this post or you’re reading some far out time in the future... please drop me a line to let me know whether it all went okay. I’d love to hear how you got on in the kitchen and your thoughts on these dishes. Plus, it’d be fab if you’re able to share any tips you have for success, or your suggestions to improve the recipes? Please send your wisdom my way.

Thank you for reading!