Photo with permission of the Nordic Bakery and Miisa Mink

I make no secret of the fact that I am a huge fan of the Nordic Bakery and I am delighted to have some Nordic festive recipes by Miisa Mink to share with you over the next few days.

Firstly these delicious looking dark rye canapés, the rye crisps are for sale at the bakery, and make the perfect vehicle for dippy canapé fillings!

Recipe: Dark Rye Chip Canapés

The recipes make topping for 2 – 3 bags of Nordic Bakery Dark Rye Chips.

Green Hummus

1 small onion, chopped
1 tbsp olive oil, for frying
5 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp tahini
1 – 2 gloves of garlic, finely chopped
2 tbsp lemon juice
250 g frozen peas, defrosted in room temperature
½ tsp sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
(2 tbsp water)
7 g fresh mint leaves, finely chopped

Heat up the olive oil and fry onion gently to soften.

Measure olive oil, tahini, lemon juice and half of the peas into a food processor or blender. Mix well. Add remaining peas gradually and mix well. Season with salt and pepper. If you use blender you may need to add water to soften the mixture to blend well.

Fill dark rye chips just before serving and garnish with chopped mint.

Smoked salmon spread

100 g smoked salmon, roughly chopped
80 ml cream fraiche
3 tbsp Philadephia cheese (or other soft cheese)
½ tsp Dijon mustard
7 g dill, finely chopped
freshly ground black pepper

Mix all ingredients in a small bowl and leave into the fridge for 2 hours or until you are ready to fill the chips. Fill the chips just before serving.

Spicy Carrot Rings

3 thick carrots (approx 120g each)
45g caster sugar
50 ml cider vinegar
150 ml water
1 tbsp honey
3 whole cloves
10 whole allspice
100 ml mayonnaise
½ red onion, finely chopped
5 g flat leaf parsley

Peel carrots. Cut them lengthwise thinly (1 mm). I use cheese slicer for this.

Put sugar, vinegar, water, honey, cloves and allspice into a saucepan and bring to boil. Let simmer for 2 minutes then add the carrot slices. Make sure slices are not sticking together and all carrot slices are well covered with liquid. Bring once more to boil and then take off the heat. Set aside with the lid on. The slices will cook al dente in the cooling liquid. Once liquid is cooled down you can put the saucepan into the fridge over night, carrots will marinate in the spicy liquid.

Fill the dark rye chips just before serving. Drain carrot slices. Spoon a little bit of mayonnaise onto a chip, then roll the carrot into a swirl. Finally garnish with chopped red onion and parsley.

Thank you to Miisa for letting my reproduce her recipes.  If you like this I thoroughly recommend the Nordic Bakery Cookbook.

Come back later in the week for two more recipes.

We are currently away, house and gerbil sitting in Cheltenham.   The last time I looked after gerbils was when I was 7 and had my school gerbils for the weekend.   Much to my disappointment one of them barely moved and slept for the entire time.   Very boring.   Then the following weekend, much to my mother’s relief that it was on someone else’s watch, it died.

These gerbils are younger and full of life, they belong to E’s seven year old niece H.   They are much loved and desperately wanted first pets.  It is an amusement to give them the cardboard inner of a loo roll and watch them frenziedly chew through it in about 30 seconds.

Having had the gerbils for a couple of months H put them into the (empty) bath to run around so their cage could be cleaned out.    H’s five year old brother (who is several inches taller than his sister) decided to climb into the bath to play with them.    You can probably guess what happened.   One of the poor unfortunate creatures was accidentally stepped on and squashed, and cue two hysterical children.    Fortunately a replacement gerbil was successfully introduced as a companion to the survivor.

Consequently the burden of gerbil responsibility weighs heavily upon me, and as much as I would like to put them into the exercise ball and watch them run around, the thought it bouncing down the stairs and the gerbils escaping fills me with horror and instead I treble check the cage is secure every time I walk past.

For this month”s random recipes Dom has set the challenge of cooking a random recipe from your favourite recipe book.  As I am not at home, I do not have my favourite book (which would be something by Skye Gyngell, Prepped or the Nordic Bakery Book) so I have selected a random book and made a random recipe from it.   The book I plucked from the shelf was A Feast for the Eyes, evocative recipes and surprising tales inspired by paintings in the National Gallery, by Gillian Riley, which I hope is suitably random?

I opened the book at page 73, and found Risi and Bisi, a simple risotto-eque dish with peas and flavoured with Parma ham.     Perfect for showcasing fresh peas.

Risi and Bisi

Serves 4

Ingredients

1 medium onion, chopped
1 tbs butter
1 tbs olive oil
400g (scant 3 cups) risotto rice
400ml (1 2/3 cups) good chicken stock, more or less
1 kg (generous 2lbs) fresh young peas (weigh before shelling) shelled
1 slice Parma ham, cut into small pieces
Salt & Pepper
freshly grated Parmesan to serve

Method

Soften the onion in the butter and oil.  Stir in the rice.  Pour over the stock and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, covered, for 10 mins.  Add the peas and Parma ham, bring to the boil again, and simmer until done, adding more stock if it seems to be getting dry.

Season with salt & pepper if necessary.   Take off the lid and let some of the liquid evaporate if it seems too runny.  Dot with a little butter just before serving with the Parmesan.

This was OK, but I feel could have been greatly improved following the usual method of making a risotto, adding the stock slowly, stirring as you go, rather than boiling with the lid on.    I also added garlic when frying the onion, and a good glug of wine.

In the spirit of taking part in more food blog events (which I wrote about yesterday) I am also sending this to Ren, at Fabulicious Food for Simple and In Season.

There is still time to enter this month’s Breakfast Club!  The theme is cereal!

I recently received an e-mail inviting me to a bloggers’ Philly lunch where celebrity chef, Ed Baines would be cooking some recipes from the Philadelphia Local Heroes campaign.     Philadelphia is a very useful fridge staple that I use in a number of dishes, both savoury and sweet, cooked and uncooked.    I had not seen the competition or I would have certainly have submitted my Philly, pesto, chicken pasta (recipe below) which is easy to make, and very child friendly.

We assembled in the rather lovely kitchen above, and were put to work cooking our lunch, with lots of helpful tips from Ed and Natalie, the  London local food hero and creator of the Philly leek risotto pictured above.

This was followed by Philly chicken.  Pudding was a mini Pavlova, topped with a Philly and icing sugar mix, which tastes delicious, and contains few calories than cream.

For another sweet Philly idea of the perfect cream cheese frosting, check out Ruth’s post here.

My Philly pesto chicken pasta is my favourite thing to cook when looking after small children, it seems that all parents of small children always have chicken fillets, cream cheese and pesto in the fridge.    It is quick and easy and children (and most adults) love it.   Add some frozen peas and corn to the pasta water when it is nearly cooked.

Obviously, vary the amounts below according to the age of your children.  For adults and less fussy children add some garlic.  Also works well with ham or bacon.

Recipe: Philly Pesto Pasta

(serves 2 children)

2 handfuls of pasta shapes
1 small chicken breast diced
Small glug olive oil
1 heaped tbs Philadelphia Cream Cheese
1 heaped tsp pesto
Handful frozen peas & corn
Sprinkling of grated cheese

Put the pasta on to boil.  Gently fry the chicken pieces in the olive oil for 5 mins, until cooked and just starting to brown.  Add the Philadelphia & pesto and stir until the cheese is melted.   Add enough of the pasta water to loosen the mix so it is at a coating consistency.

When the pasta is nearly done add the frozen peas and corn and bring back to the boil.

Drain the pasta and add to the sauce, serving with a sprinkle of cheese.

I am sending this to Presto Pasta Nights, hosted this week by Cassie the Kitchen Alchemist (together with an apology for sending a non vegetarian dish)

A tired me, and stern looking Ed Baines

Thank you to Philadelphia for a lovely lunch and for all the product samples.

Have I mentioned my love of smoked fish before? I am sure I have.  It’s delicious, relatively cheap, long lasting in the fridge which makes it a staple in the Fuss Free kitchen.

This pretty cream, pink and green dish was simple to put together and used up an open packet of smoked mackerel fillets, the remains of a bag frozen peas and the scrapings of a jar of horseradish sauce.   I find a very satisfactory delight in finishing up multiple ingredients in one dish, I am not entirely sure what this says about my character?  This is a very approximate dish – use what you have – I think a few handfuls of spinach stirred in at the end in place of the peas would work well.

Sending this to Presto Pasta Night #195 hosted by Ruth; the event’s founder at Once Upon a Feast!

Pea, Smoked Mackerel and Horseradish Penne (serves 2)

½ red onion – finely chopped
2 cloves garlic – crushed
Glug olive oil
Handful frozen peas
Pinch chilli flakes
Gug white wine or vermouth
zest of half a lemon
2 heaped teaspoons horseradish sauce
2 smoked mackerel fillets – skinned and flaked
Pepper and salt

As much pasta as you normally eat

Fry the onion and garlic in the olive oil.    Meanwhile cook the pasta.   When the onion is softened, add the peas, chilli, wine, lemon zest and horseradish and gentle simmer for a few minutes to defrost the peas.   When the pasta is cooked drain and add it and the mackerel to the onion sauce.   Stir through and season to taste.

This summer I have been getting an iceberg lettuce every week in my co-op box and frankly I am a little bored of them.   Nothing conjures up an image of an 1970′s salad more than an iceberg.     Add some pale watery tomatoes, celery and chunks of cucumber and a good dollop of salad cream and you have something straight out of the canteen of my 1970′s primary school in the middle of Kent.

I recently read an article by Mark Bittman on The Charms of the Loser Lettuces.  I was struck by a comment on one of the recipes, which pointed out that if icebergs were not so long lasting and virtually indestructible, they would not be so loved by supermarket buyers and thus available so cheaply and easily.  The rare and scare (and expensive?) iceberg would probably popular with certain groups of foodies.   I hope that my tastebuds are not solely governed by rarity value and cost, but I am sure that there are some foods out there that are more popular because of their rarity rather than the merits of their flavour alone.

But back to the humble iceberg, its hardiness and crispness make it ideal to cook, it softens, but retains some shape and texture not turning to mush.    In fact it actually tastes pretty darned good – I would even venture to say it is delicious!   It is buttery, nutty and subtly bitter.  Add to that almost fat free, low calorie,  cheap, easy to prepare (using only one pot)  and satisfying and I have a winner.        For the more ravenous, serve it as a starter – I would even produce this at a dinner party.

This is another contribution to my series of easy, economical and healthy recipes of what to do with the contents of the co-op “boxes” for the Food Co-ops and Buying Groups project run by Sustain – also part of the Making Local Food Work programme funded by the Big Lottery.

Braised Iceberg Lettuce (Serves 4)

1 Iceberg lettuce
Glug olive oil
1/2 mug vegetable stock (I used Marigold)
Handful frozen peas
Salt & Pepper (to taste)
Soy Sauce (to taste)

Cut the lettuce into quarters (through the stem so each segment stays together).  Add the oil to a casserole dish and fry the lettuce on all sides until it is starting to turn brown.   Add about 1.5cm / 1/2″ stock to the dish, put the lid on and turn the heat right down.   Simmer for about 15 mins, add the frozen peas, (here I left the lid ajar to concentrate the juices) and cook for a further 5 minutes.    Season with salt and pepper and serve.

This recipe is also delicious with a dash of soy sauce.     For a more substantial dish use more peas or serve with some crusty bread.    I imagine that you could also steam a piece of fish over the lettuce too.