So, the latest news in my life is that I’ve decided to go veggie… or rather, I’ve actually gone “back” to being veggie… I’ve done it before, for various reasons, but this time it’s for keeps, and its just my personal decision. Fear not however – I still love cake, chocolate and all things gooey, so expect further recipe’s of the unhealthy variety, as well as the odd veggie special on here from now on.

Gnocchi has always been a  fave fodder of mine – I’m an unashamed carb fiend, and there’s not a chance in hell I could ever do a low carb hollywood style eating plan – I just get cranky and hungry… but on the other hand I’m also a lazy mare, and there’s no way you’d catch me handmaking gnocchi in the kitchen, so mine is strictly the packet version – if you’re somewhat more dedicated to cookery than me, then feel free to knock up a batch of the little potato/flour dumplings… or just pretend and open up a packet, a la MizzW.

As per usual, this recipe is not based on exact quantities, but taste – I love this combination, but if you like a more tomatoey style gnocci, just add more tomatoes etc…

So to start off, preheat your oven to a med/hot temperature, and get a non stick baking tray out.

Take about 5-8 cherry tomatoes per person (adjust to taste), and quarter each one, placing on the tray in a pile, sprinkle over a generous amount of pine nuts, and then cut up a couple of thickish slices of feta into cubes about 1cm square. Pile on top of the tomato’s and pine nuts and shake the tray a bit to mix – season with pepper, but you are unlikely to need any salt as feta has a saltiness to it anyway…

Place the baking tray in the oven and leave it for ten minutes or so, shake every now and again to prevent the pine nuts burning.

Fill the kettle, and put it in to boil, and place your gnocchi in a pan, when you’re pretty happy with how the tomato and feta mix is looking, turn the oven off but leave the mix in there to keep warm. Cook the gnocchi according to the packet intructions – usually they only take a couple of minutes, and you can tell when they are cooked as they rise to the top of the pan.

Drain the gnocchi, and return to the warm pan – add the tomato and feta mixture and stir through. If wanted add a spoonful of pesto – I like this both with and without the pesto.

A quick word about pesto though for Veggies – most pesto contains parmesan, which is non-veggie friendly, however Sacla’s organic version is veggie, so be sure to check which brand you pick up… non veggies can carry on regardless!

I usually serve this with green salad…

I love baking, but I’m not the keenest on “proper” cooking, mainly because the last thing I want to do when I get home from work is to start chopping and peeling veg and stirring sauces for interminable periods of time. However I also realise that while frozen portions of pasta sauce are a lifesaver, and that my freezer is essentially my best friend, there are times when I want to eat something that tastes like I’ve actually put some effort in…

These one meal parcels are a great way around the “maximum taste, minimal effort” dilemma for me, and they are also healthy, fat free (if made with skinless chicken), and best of all the only washing up is a plate….

As with most recipe’s this can be adapted to suit your own personal tastes/fridge contents.

Typical Contents of my Chicken and Veg Parcels...

Typically I’ll use a potato, or a few new potato’s (life without carbs is not for me, however if you are that way inclined obviously leave this out and substitute for more veg…), mushrooms, tomato’s, and a bit of mixed veg (this pack contained carrots, green beans, courgettes) but basically you can chuck anything you like veg wise in. I also prepare the chicken by removing the skin. Bang the oven on to a medium to hot temperature too.

Next prepare your parcel. This involves laying two sheets of foil across each other (like an “x”), and, if you have it, a piece of greaseproof paper in the centre.

Start off by chopping up your veg – I cut my potato in half and then slice each half into roughly half centimetre slices, as this seems to guarantee that they will be cooked in the same time as the chicken (nothing worse than hard spuds!), then slice up mushrooms and tomato’s. If you can be bothered put the “harder” veg, ie in this case, the potato, carrots and beans in a pan and cover with freshly boiled water for a couple of minutes – this starts them cooking, but it does involve having another pan to wash. Either way seems to work fine though…

Next tumble your prepared veg into the centre of your parcel, and season it all well – I’ll usually crumble a chicken stock cube over as well, but if you are watching your salt levels, then you might want to be a bit more imaginative with using herbs and spices.

Next lay over the chicken pieces, pour a couple of tablespoons of boiled water over the lot, as this will produce a sauce/gravy from the ingredients which you can pour over if you want, as well as making sure everything stays beautifully moist…

Once everything is in your parcel, bring the sides of the parcel together and scrunch the foil together so it’s all sealed in with no gaps – this doesn’t need to look pretty in any way, just maek sure its all sealed.

Place the parcel on a baking tray in the centre of the oven and bake for around 40-50 minutes – keep checking and ensure that the chicken is cooked all the way through. Obviously fan ovens will cook it faster, so adjust the time according to the temperament of your own oven…

Serve however you like – In usually put the chicken on one side of the plate, and pile the veg to the side, then pour a bit of the cooking liquid over the chicken.

Its a great filling, healthy meal and enables you to get a good few of your five a day in as well.

You could obviously also substitute different types of meat or even fish in the parcels, You could keep it fresh using citrus fruits to squeeze over instead of plain water, and obviously there are endless possibilities of which herb and spice combinations you use… Also if you are a vegetarian, you could use this method to prep your veggies to accompany a tofu dish etc.

You could also leave out the potato’s and bulk up the tomato content to make a veg sauce which would go well with pasta…

Hope this was helpful!

Sometimes in life, only chocolate will do. Combine that with baking and you’ve got a winner. Two recipes I’ve had recent success with (i.e. the results were scoffed within a couple of days by me and mine) are Chocolate and Cream Cheese Brownies (think the perfect fusion between a brownie and cheesecake), and Rocky Roads, which frankly need no explaination and barely require a “recipe” as such but I wanted to share my (current) fave version…

Rocky Roads.

These are perfect to make if you have limited patience with “proper baking”, as they take about half an hour then a bit of fridge time (although never tell the people you serve them to how easy these bad boys actually are – far better to allow them to think you are a domestic goddess for as long as possible). They are also pretty cheap to make, I got about 14 generous servings for about £5-6, which makes you wonder how certain coffee shop chains can charge so much for it!

Warning - Not Suitable for Diabetics...

As I mentioned there’s no real recipe for this – its more a case of finding the right combo of “rocky” bits that suit you.

• Melt about 300g of chocolate with half a block of butter (this is not a diet recipe I’m afraid), and a good couple of tablespoons of golden syrup or honey over a pan of boiling water. As for what chocolate you use, thats entirely down to personal choice – You can use dark, milk, plain or a combination and you can pay out for the posh “Green and Blacks” style stuff of go for the budget version. Make sure its chocolate you would buy to eat though – not that awful fake “cake covering stuff. You can actually also add in a bit of peanut butter if youn want at this stage, but thats entirely dependant on personal choice and the contents of your cupboards. And your concience. Luckily for me I don’t believe diets work, and take more of a “90% of the time I’m good, so the rest of the time I can have a treat” approach to life so I added a good dollop…
• Thats the tarmac or Road bit sorted… now for the rocks. Personally I think broken biscuits and marshmallows are a must. I dont usually eat digestives, so I just picked up a “value” pack and broke up around half the pack into bite size bits. For marshmallows I discovered mini marshmallows in the home baking section at my local Tesco’s so I’d assume they’s be fairly easy to get everywhere, although you could use big marshmallows of course if you wanted… You could also add some marashino cherries, or raisins should you like, but I decided not to because I don’t like dried fruit, and I had none in the house. Instead I decided to go further down the nut route, and added some smashed up honey roasted cashews to the mix.
• Other stuff you could add; little bits of turkish delight, more unusual dried fruit such as banana chips or dates, different types of biscuits such as choc chip cookies, dessicated coconut, peanuts, toasted oats etc… just go with what you love!
• Mix the rubble and the chocolate together – try to make sure all the rubble has a reasonable coating of chocolate. Line a deep tray with some clingfilm, and pour the mix in, pressing into the corners of the tray and then wrap over with the clingfilm.
• Refrigerate for about 4-5 hours, and if you have any, dredge it over with some icing sugar through a sieve, slice and devour.

Cream Cheese and Chocolate Brownies

These are something I’d choose to make on a day off where you have plenty of time to lick the used bowls do the clearing up. Time consuming and somewhat labour intensive but definitely worth it. The original recipe was from Nigella Lawson’s “How to be a Domestic Goddess”, but after making it a few times I’ve noted a few things that I’ve altered. Check out Nigella’s site HERE for more recipes by her…

• 125g dark chocolate
• 125g unsalted butter (although personally I dont feel it makes any difference if the butter is lightly salted – I’ve tried both, both were fine)
• 2 large eggs.
• 200g caster sugar
• 1teaspoon vanilla essence (NOT extract, which tastes very synthetic, must be essence which is a sweet thick syrupy substance, only a little is needed and it will last for ever)
• 75g plain flour
• Pinch of salt
• 200g cold soft cheese such as Philadelphia (I used the supermarket own version – absolutely no difference in taste)
• 20cm square tin (or similar sized)

Preheat the oven to gas mark 4/180c

Melt that chocolate and butter over a saucepan or hot water.

In a separate (small) bowl beat the eggs, sugar and vanilla extract together. Then in a larger mixing bowl sift together the flour and salt.

Take the chocolate off the heat when all melted and allow to cool slightly before beating in the egg mixture (allow it to cool or you’ll end up with a chocolate flavoured scrambled eggs mixture…), then add the flour and fold together until smooth.

Line and grease the tin you are using, and then pour half of the mixture in. Then top this with either thin slices or small blobs of the cream cheese (recipe demands thin slices, but for some reason I couldn’t do this without a cream cheese disaster being threatened so I settled for small blobs with the aid of two teaspoons), then top with the rest of the brownie mixture.

Bake in the middle shelf for 20 minutes, although I found this needed longer – around 30 minutes. When cooked the top will be slightly pale and dry, but the cake itself will still be slightly dense and fudgy in the centre, but not sloppy or runny…

Allow to cool, turn out and cut into squares. Prepare to be adored.