So here we go with last night’s dinner, Gnocchi and Salmon Bake. First of all, it serves 4 as a main dish alone, and 6 if you wanted to serve an accompaniment such as salad. So you’ll need the following for that quantity, or more or less depending how many you’re cooking for. Prep time 5 minutes (or more if you’re me!) Cooking time: 15 minutes

-1 x 400g bag young spinach leaves
-200g mascarpone cheese (yummy!)
-zest and juice of 2 lemons
-1 x 75g packet of dill, chopped
-salt and freshly ground black pepper
-300g smoked salmon
-500g fresh gnocchi
-75g Parmesan cheese, grated

Ingredients - Gnocchi & Salmon Bake

Here we go – the recipe is very quick and easy to follow. I’ll write it down as I was given it, but I kind of did things in a random order so I could clean as I went and because the Mr wasn’t home from work.

1) Preheat the grill to high and bring a pan of water with a big pinch of salt to the boil

2) Make 2-3 holes in the bag of spinach and put it in the microwave at 800W for 2 minutes to wilt. If you don’t have a microwave, then steam the spinach until slightly wilted

3) Put the mascarpone cheese into a saucepan and add the lemon zest, juice and dill, and season with salt and pepper. Stir over a low heat until the mascarpone has melted, then add the wilted spinach and flake in the salmon. Keep the salmon pieces quite big.

The goodness goes into the pan!

4) Put the gnocchi into the boiling water and cook for 3 minutes. Drain and return to the saucepan and then stir in the salmon sauce. Pour the lot into a baking dish and cover with the grated Parmesan. Grill for 3-5 minutes until the top bubbles and is golden brown.

Dinner is Served!

Et voila! Simple as and it was SO yummy. We’ve got the rest in the fridge for dinner later after Mr DCB gets home from football. We hope you enjoyed the recipe, why not hop on over to Handmade Thursday and see what everyone else has been up to this week.

I’ll leave you now with a piccie of my other handiwork – not handmade by any means, but it was hand put together today by my own fair hands, following instructions and using tools. I’m very proud of it as normally all of this gets left to the hubby. Here’s hoping for a lovely long British summer!

Our new patio furniture!

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So here we go. Preheat the oven to 200C and in the meantime, take your salmon fillets (1 per person) and place them into a non-stick baking tray. If you don’t have a non-stick one, grease it. Trust, ok? Jab the salmon fillets a couple of times with a sharp knife.

For the topping, take a handful of basil leaves, probably around 2-3 tablespoons and chop them finely. Place in a bowl and add approximately 7-8 sundried tomatoes, also finely chopped. Finally, take half a tub of ricotta cheese and add to the bowl, mixing well with the tomatoes and basil. Season to taste.

Next, add the mix to the top of your salmon fillets. I gave up trying to be tidy and just got my fingers stuck in – it’s MUCH easier than trying to use spoons/spatulas/knives. Once all the mixture has been spread on top of the fillets, top it off with breadcrumbs. Place into the oven and bake for around 25 minutes, or until it looks done.

As random as this sounds, it is really rather tasty. We served it with steamed broccoli and some new potatoes. And a couple of glasses of white wine, but please don’t tell anyone about that…! I may also have just had a Magnum choc-ice for pudding. Oh dear – a week to go until I hit a Florida beach and I’m eating like a beached whale. Ho hum.

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Here’s what you need:

-25g/10z butter
-2 large red onions, finely sliced
-2 tbsp light muscovado sugar
-2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
-flour, for dusting
-450g puff pastry, thawed if frozen
-100g/40z feta, crumbled
-175g/60z black olives, pitted and chopped
-1tbsp extra virgin olive oil
-shredded basil leaves, to garnish

Step 1)
Preheat the oven to 200C/Gas 6/fan over 180C. Heat the butter in a pan and add the onions. Add a pinch of salt (I forgot that bit!) and fry for about 10 minutes, until caramelised. Now I’m not sure what really constitutes caramelised – by the time I was done, the onions were very soft, had lost some of their colour and didn’t smell as pungent as the raw version. Add the sugar and balsamic vinegar and cook for a further 5 minutes, until the juices are reduced and syrupy. Leave to cool. *Note: it doesn’t matter if you go over the 5 minutes, it’s just a guideline

Step 2)
Roll out the pastry on a floured surface and use to line a 30 x 22cm/12 x 8.5in Swiss roll tin. I would recommend greasing your tin with just a bit of butter even if it is non-stick – I tend to find pastry has a stickability all of it’s own at times! Cover with the onion mixture and scatter over the feta and olives. Season and drizzle over the oilve oil.

Step 3)
Bake for 15-20 minutes until the pastry is risen and golden and the base is crisp. Scatter over the basil leaves and cut into wedges. Serve with a green salad.

I would say this is a very easy dish to make, and it’s fantastic that it can go in the oven and cleaning up can be done whilst it cooks (huge bonus for me!). If you are a pastry connoisseur you can of course make your own but I don’t have the inclination just yet to be going down that route. If anything you can leave it in slightly longer to make sure the base isn’t too soggy and definitely don’t make the mistake that we did of eating it with new potatoes first time around. It looks deceiving but is quite a large portion. You could even get away with serving this for 6 portions instead of 4, perhaps as a starter. Enjoy!

Apologies for the darkness of piccie, my phone camera was a bit off-colour. Home made tart!

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What you’ll need to make 4 servings:
550g of salmon fillets (I only used about 480 but it was still plenty)
1 broccoli crown, cut into florets (about 250g)
300g Yeo Valley Organic Fat Free Natural Yoghurt
1 medium egg, beaten
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
Grated zest and juice of 1/2 lemon
3 tbsp white breadcrumbs

Salmon and Broccoli Bake ingredients

As you can see from the piccie, I used shop-bought breadcrumbs. Of course you can use your own, but since we make our own bread, it’s a complete sin to use fresh bread to make breadcrumbs and believe me, it doesn’t last long enough to go stale to justify using it for crumbs!!

Start by pre-heating your oven to 200C, gas mark 6. Take your salmon fillets and place them skin-up in a shallow pan, a frying pan will do fine. Cover them with cold water and bring to the boil. Then, lower the heat and poach gently for 10-12 minutes until just cooked through. You’ll be able to see once they’re down as the flesh will lighten and the skin will start to come away. Remove from the cooking liquid and flake the fish. Arrange in the base of a shallow dish.

Poaching broccoli and steaming salmon

Whilst the salmon is poaching, you’ll also need to steam the broccoli. If you don’t have a steamer, I can really recommend the adjustable ones you can get from John Lewis, they’re stainless steel, around £6 and fit inside any pan. A most genius invention and means you get the best from your vegetables without the need to boil them. Add a little water to the bottom of a large pan, place your steamer in and add the florets. Steam for 4-5 minutes until tender and then layer on top of the salmon.

Layered salmon topped with broccoli, awaiting sauce

For the sauce, whisk together the yoghurt, egg, mustard, zest and juice of the lemon and season, before pouring over your salmon and broccoli mixture. Finish by scattering the breadcrumbs and bake for 20-25 minutes until the topping is set and golden.

The finished product!

You can serve with whatever you like, but we had it with new potatoes and a glass of wine ;o) It EASILY makes 4 portions, so I’m really pleased that when I get home on Monday I can just heat it up and don’t have to think about dinner! Per serving is calorific at 430 but it also has 37.8g of protein so if you’re exercising it’s the perfect post-workout meal

When the office used to be located at Edgware Road, I was thoroughly spoiled with the opening of a very swanky Waitrose just a minute away. This was always the “treat” of supermarket shopping – we used to live within a 5 minute drive of a Tesco and Sainsbury too, so spoiled for choice and never gave a second thought to the fact that the rest of London may not be as well-catered for. And then we moved.

It seems that south-east London has been completely swallowed up by Sainsbury and I couldn’t even tell you where the nearest any-other-kind-of-food-shop is. I know there’s an Asda somewhere near Clapham, but if I can’t walk to it and it’s not a 5 minute drive away, I’m not interested (as you know if you live in a big city, something may be 3 miles away, but the reality of heavy traffic means that that 3 miles equates to 45 minutes driving).

When our office moved too we were all ecstatic. Gone the heavy traffic, rude people, smells, noises and general chaos of Edgware Road. Yet London Bridge seems to be strangely lacking in anything other than M&S Simply Food shops. Of which there are two. Both poorly stocked unless you want to eat sandwiches morning, noon and night for the rest of your life. And even then you’d better buy them by 10.30 in the morning.

We’d heard rumours of a Waitrose, but disheartened by a trip to “the other side of the river” we couldn’t be bothered to go. Until today when in my newfound domestic goddess status, I have resolved to COOK. And if I want to COOK, then I have to find something other than an M&S Simply Sandwich or a Sainsbury to hunt down ingredients. So armed with our little map, off Charlotte and I trekked, across Tower Bridge and through St. Katherine’s Dock to the beautiful haven of a well-stocked foodshop. I make it sound like an expedition – it’s not even 10 minutes walk away and it’s an incredibly beautiful walk at that.

Don’t get me wrong, if I was a millionaire then I’d never set foot inside a supermarket. I don’t particularly like what they stand for and would far rather spend all my money in Borough Market. But my money would probably only get me half a pea at Borough Market so I have to settle for Waitrose. I know that by comparison they are at the top-end of the spectrum and I couldn’t justify doing my foodshop there every week but oh, I DO love it. So there, I’ve confessed – I’m a supermarket snob. Are you?

Spinach, Sage and Potato Soup

2 red onions, chopped / 3 garlic cloves, crushed / 15g fresh sage, shredded / 2 large potatoes (about 500g/1lb20z), diced / 1.4l vegetable stock / 250/90z spinach leaves

1) Fry the onions over a low heat for 5-6 mins until softened slightly. Be careful not to let them stick to the pan as you are not using oil or butter. Add the garlic, sage and potatoes, cover and cook over a very low heat for 10 minutes.
2) Stir in the stock, bring to the boil and cook for 5 minutes. Add the spinach and cook for 2 minutes. Transfer the mixture to a food processor or blender and whizz until smooth.
3) Return to the pan and heat gently until warmed. Season to taste.

This made 4 bowls of soup so we refrigerated it and it tasted just as good reheated.

Spicy Vegetable Curry

This is a recipe which is actually meant to be eaten with chapatis (flatbreads) which is yummy once you’ve finished detox, or you can have it with rice. But honestly, it’s so substantial that eating it on its own is perfectly fine.

300g/10oz sweet potatoes, peeled and roughly cubed / 400g can peeled plum tomatoes / 400g can chickpeas, drained / 1/2 tsp dried chilli flakes / 2 tbsp mild curry paste / 100g/40z spinach / 2tbsp chopped fresh coriander

1) Cook the sweet potatoes in boiling water for 10-12 minutes until tender. Meanwhile, put the tomatoes, chickpeas, chilli flakes and curry paste in another pan and simmer gently for about 5 minutes, stirring all the time.
2) Drain the potatoes and add to the tomato mixture. Stir in the spinasch and cook for a minute until just starting to wilt. Stir in the coriander, season to taste and serve

This serves 4, depending on what size portion you have. If eating it without rice or chapatis, you may want a little more, in which case you can always keep the leftovers, throw in another can of tomatoes the next night and it becomes a chunky soup!

English Garden Salad

500g/1lb2oz new potatoes, sliced thickly / 350g/120z runner beans, sliced / a bunch of spring onions, chopped / 240g tub sunblush or sun-dried tomatoes, drained / a good handful of fresh mint leaves, roughly chopped / your own homemade French dressing

1) Cook the potatoes in boiling water for 7 minutes. Add the beans to the pan and cook for a further 7-9 minutes, until the potatoes and beans are just tender.
2) Drain the vegetables and rinse under cold running water to stop them cooking. Shake the colander to get rid of as much water as possible, then top into a large bowl. Add the onions and tomatoes and mix well.
3) Add most of the mint and dressing and toss everything lightly together. Tip into a serving dish, drizzle with a little more dressing and scatter over the rest of the mint.

Chinese style stir-fry

This can really be made up as you go along, depending on what kind of vegetables you like. I tend to use some broccoli florets, baby sweetcorn, peppers etc. In place of noodles you can use beansprouts. Simply heat some soy sauce in a wok or deep-sided frying pan and then stir fry the veggies over a high heat for a few minutes. Add some more soy sauce, some Chinese 5 spice (you can get it from a supermarket) and a little bit of vinegar if you feel like it.

Hopefully these give you some ideas/inspiration, if you have a great recipe with salad or vegetables only, I’d love to hear it