thehungryhobbit

[thehungryhobbit]

Pumpkin Pie Flapjacks!

Pumpkins are one of my favourite foods ever, so I thought I'd make something a little different to my usual pumpkin soup!

For the pumpkin pie topping:

¾ cup granulated sugar 1 tsp ground cinnamon ½ tsp salt ½ tsp ground ginger ½ tsp ground nutmeg 2 eggs 310g mashed fresh pumpkin (approx.) ¼ cup of single cream For the flapjacks:

250g porridge oats 125g butter 125g brown sugar 2 or more tbsps golden syrup (depending how sticky/gooey you want 'em)

Start of by steaming the pumpkin. Pumpkin seems to retain a lot of water and reduces to a mush like state, so stay away from boiling it for something like this! I’m not sure how long I steamed it to be honest, just keep checking and prodding it to see if it’s soft (it cooks pretty quickly!)

Lob all the flapjack ingredients in a food processor and blitz until they’re fully mixed together, but be careful not to over blend them because you want to keep a relatively chunky texture.

Grease a tin, tip the mixture into it, pressing it down into the corners and flattening it out so it’s all equal. Pop it in the oven at 180c and cook for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, mix the sugar, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, salt and the beaten eggs in a bowl until smooth. After taking the pumpkin out of the steam, I dumped it into a sieve and pressed down to get rid of any excess water (there will still be some from the steam!) add it to the bowl and give it a good stir. Add the cream and stir again.

Take out the flapjack and pour the pumpkin mix over the top, ensuring it is all smoothed out. Pop it back into the oven at 190c and cook for 30 minutes or until a knife stuck into it, comes out clean.

One mistake I possibly made with this, was not letting the flapjacks cool and set slightly before putting the pumpkin mix on top. It wasn’t exactly a problem, it just meant you can’t eat it straight away as it tended to just crumble and fall apart. The best way to avoid this.. Cook everything together as I've instructed, but instead of diving into it straight out the oven.. leave it out to cool a little, then pop it in the fridge so everything sets and you can easily cut out slices that bind together and don’t fall apart!

Enjoy!

[thehungryhobbit]

Quick Banana Cake

No 'before' or 'during' photos on this one I'm afraid, it's something I whip up fast for a little treat for my bearded bloke.

It's really simple, easy and tastes lovely!

What you will need:

125g butter

150g brown sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 egg, beaten

2 very ripe bananas, mashed

190g self raising flour

60ml milk

Handful of amaretti biscuits, smashed to tiny bits

Start off by greasing a average sized loaf tin, I don't usually line mine out of laziness and that I never have any baking parchment, but it's probably better if you do for easiness - so do that!

Melt the butter, sugar and cinnamon over medium heat until they are combined. Remove from the heat and add the mashed up bananas, give it a good stir! Now add the egg, stirring as you do so. Stir in the flour, making sure to mix it well so you don't let any lumps form.. Add the milk as you go along. Pour it all into the loaf tin, and take a handful of the smashed up amaretti biscuits, cover the top of the mixture (you can leave the biscuits out if you wish, we just like the crunch to go with the soft, moist cake.. and also amaretti biscuits are bloody lush) Bang it in the oven at 170c and bake for 35 minutes, or until a skewer or knife (whatever you want to use), comes out clean. Voila! If you were smart and lined the tin, tip it out and get ready for some deliciousness. If you are like me, struggle for a fair few moments, eventually propping it out with various spatulas.

[thehungryhobbit]

Hobbit Hole headquarters - our home

[thehungryhobbit]

Pumpkin and Parsnip Soup

What you will need:

4 large carrots 4 Parsnips Roughly half of an average sized Pumpkin 1 Onion 3 Garlic Cloves 2 Bay leaves 1 Vegetable stock cube Fresh marjoram and fennel Roughly 1tsp dried thyme 1/2 tsp fresh chives Salt and Pepper 1 tbsp olive oil

A nice and simple yet delicious recipe today. One of my own personal favourites - quite a random one I came up with last year after my mum grew a load of pumpkins and they were huge, I mean bloody huge as well.

Start off by cutting up your pumpkin into cubes and setting aside in a large bowl. 1 average sized pumpkin will do 2 big sauce pans of soup if that's what you want to use it for - otherwise there will be enough left over for a pie or whatever you want to make with it.

Begin peeling the carrots and parsnips, and cut them into small enough chunks/cubes as they take longer to cook than pumpkin - pumpkin quickly reduces to a pulp like consistency. Once you have these ready, cut up or crush your garlic and quickly dice your onion (or get your fella to do it because you have wimpy, weepy eyes like me without contact lenses in) and throw them both into a pan of heated oil. Fry until you can see them starting to soften up, and then lob the parsnips and carrots in with them as well.

Fry them for a few minutes just to get them going, then add the pumpkin and give it all a good stir to ensure everything is lightly coated in the oil. Add your herbages, along with the salt and pepper and stir well. Next, boil some water and add enough so that it covers everything, add the vegetable stock cube, along with the bay leaves and bring to the boil. Once it's boiling, reduce to a simmer for approximately 25 to 30 minutes, stirring occassionally, until everything passes the fork stabbing test! Once you're certain everything is cooked and nice and soft, take off the heat. Get your blender out (I use a hand held one - can't be arsed waiting for it to cool down to add to a covered blender) and blend it well enough so it is of liquid consistency but still has a lovely pulpy texture. Give it another good stir, and add more salt and pepper if needed! Now is the time to serve it, and ordinary bread won't cut it - fresh sourdough bread is the perfect companion to any homemade soup.. Especially if it's from 'The Cheddar Gorge' in Ashbourne, Derbyshire.

Voila! Enjoy.

[thehungryhobbit]

Turkey, Spinach and Butternut Squash Lasagne.

----------------------------------------------------------------- This is a long one so bare with it, you won't be sorry!

You will need:

500g turkey breast mince Handful of mushrooms, chopped into nice little chunks 1 yellow or red pepper, diced 1 butternut squash, cut into thin slices Marjoram, basil and thyme… fresh if you have it, dried if not 3 garlic cloves, crushed 5 cubes of frozen spinach, thawed and blended 1 tbsp green pesto (we get ours in a huge tub from Costco and it’s the most delicious pesto I’ve ever tried) 250g ricotta cheese 1 egg 6 lasagne sheets Salt & black pepper Olive oil (a seasoned one is awesome for this recipe, this is the one I used, purchased from the Farmers Market in Bakewell, Derbyshire: http://www.teresalambarelli.co.uk/product/peppercorn-and-rosemary-salad-dressing/ )

First thing I usually do is make the tomato sauce which is added to the turkey mix! Ideally a home-made sauce is much more rewarding than a jar bought from a shop, but if you genuinely cannot be arsed to make it yourself, then that is fine by me! But here’s how I make mine;

Tomato sauce:

400g can chopped tomatoes 1 onion, finely chopped 1 garlic clove 1tbsp olive oil 1tbsp tomato puree 1tsp sugar Pinch of dried basil and oregano Pinch of salt and a good amount of cracked black pepper (a favourite)

Heat the oil in a pan, lob in the onion and garlic and fry until softened. Add the rest of the ingredients and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and let it simmer for a good 5 minutes or so, stirring it occasionally. Once cooked, take off the heat and set aside so you can now make your turkey mixture!

Next, you want to cut up your butternut squash in a way where you can cut slithers off it as if slicing bread. This is basically so you can layer them like lasagne sheets. Right, then I used the lovely seasoned oil to brush over the slices, and popped them into the oven for at least 25 minutes at 200c (until they’re turning slightly golden and they’re soft enough to stab with a fork)

Whilst the squash is roasting in the oven, heat up some oil in a large pan and empty the mince and crushed garlic into it, cooking it until it begins to lose the pink colour, then add the diced pepper and chopped mushrooms, stirring them to ensure they’re all coated in oil. After a few minutes of cooking them, tip in your tomato sauce and reduce the heat to let it simmer while you get on with the other bits!

After thawing out your frozen spinach (you can use fresh if you want, I’m too lazy) pop it in the blender along with the pesto and blitz it to a sloppy paste. Put to the side!

In a bowl, combine the ricotta cheese with a whisked egg and add a pinch of black pepper. Mix well!

Everything should be coming together now, everything should be on the same level of cook-age! Time to get your dish out and begin layering… I generally like to do it like this (from ascending order)

Turkey mix Butternut Squash Lasagne sheet Ricotta mix All of the spinach mix Lasagne sheet Turkey mix Butternut Squash Last of ricotta mix Any Remaining turkey mix Lasagne Sheet White Sauce (see below)

(my mum taught me this recipe for macaroni cheese many moons ago!)

25g butter 25g plain flour 600ml milk Salt and black pepper 1tsp English mustard

Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add the flour and whisk until a paste has been formed. Take the pan off the heat and gradually stir in the milk to get a smooth sauce. Return to the heat and, stirring all the time. Add the salt, black pepper and the mustard and continue stirring. If the sauce is too runny, add a little more flour, whisking slowly all the while. If it’s too thick, do the same with adding a little more milk. The consistency is entirely up to your own preference, but once it’s on the lasagne it will turn thicker anyway. Or…. Just buy a jar if you can’t be bothered.

Okay, pour all of the sauce over the top of the lasagne, making sure to cover the sheets so they aren’t left dry. I use a halogen oven, so I generally tend to put it on about 170c for 40 minutes and see how it’s going from there.

If it's soft enough (fork stabbing test again) take it out and sprinkle that shit with a load of  cheese of your choice, and put it back in until the cheese is melted, crispy, golden and oh good lord just bloody tasty.

[thehungryhobbit]

Roasted butternut squash and mushroom risotto.

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What you will need:

1 Large butternut squash 3 Garlic cloves, crushed Good handful of closed cup chestnut mushrooms (bloody delicious) Unknown amount of olive oil! Play it by ear Couple pinches of dried sage Couple pinches of dried thyme and rosemary Sea salt and pepper for seasoning 3 Large knobs of butter 1 Large onion, diced 400g Arborio risotto rice 200ml white wine (the rest of the bottle for drinking to fend off boredom) 1 litre/1¾ pint of hot vegetable stock Good handful of grated parmesan cheese

First off, open your bottle of wine because this recipe took me 2 bloody hours (I did faff around a bit though)

Start by cutting up the butternut squash and scooping the damn annoying seeds out, and cut into large wedges – there should be 6 or 8 depending on the size you’ve gone with. Make some scoring in them (kind of how you see mangos cut up) and sit them on a baking tray.

Now get a small bowl, and add glug or 2 of olive oil, along with the crushed garlic (add less if you prefer, my fella and me love loads of garlic), salt, pepper, thyme and rosemary. Mix it up good… and with your hands, begin rubbing it onto the butternut squash. Once you’ve used the mix up and your squash is looking seductively oiled, bang it into the oven for a good 40 or so minutes at 200c, or until it is golden and soft. Once it is cooked, scrape the flesh from the skin and put it together in a bowl. Lightly mash it up with a fork, don’t bloody puree it though, you want some texture don’t you?

Here’s the tedious bit..

Next get a big pan or in my case, a wok, and heat up enough oil and a good knob of butter to fry the onion and mushrooms in. Fry until they begin to soften, and pour in the risotto rice. Stir for a couple minutes until you have coated them in the butter and oil. Add the wine, and stir the absolute hell out of it until the rice has absorbed it. Now add a ladle (or a dash of a jug like me) of stock, along with the sage and some salt and pepper and keep stirring.. Turn the heat down and keep it simmering as you continue to stir, adding more stock each time the rice has absorbed the last. After around 15 to 20 minutes the rice should be soft, but still have that bit of chewy texture to it. The consistency should be thick and creamy, add extra stock if need be as it can get too thick. The stirring is boring but completely worth the outcome. Keep stirring!! Keep testing the rice until you are happy with the softness of it.

Remove from the heat and add the butternut squash, along with the parmesan (save some to sprinkle on top). Add extra seasoning if need be. You can leave it to sit for a few minutes if you want it to be creamier but by that point you’re going to be ravenous like I was and start eating it anyway.