Vegetarian Sausage Rolls

Vegetarian sausage rolls - better than the meaty kind in my book! There are two variations for the filling. I have a weakness for sanitarium nutmeat so that will usually be my first choice of filling, but the chickpea and cannellini beans also work really well. Great snacks for a kids party, or for munching as an informal dinner on movie night.

This recipe makes about 20 mini sausage rolls, or 10 larger ones.
 

Ingredients

2 cups/ 500g mashed potato
2 cups beans/peas/lentils of choice [I find one cup each of chickpeas and cannellini beans gives the balance of not too dry or mushy] or 1 tin of sanitarium nutmeat.
1/4 to 1 tsp curry powder - to taste
1 tsp mixed herbs
1 cup of onion, fried (shrinks to about 1/2 cup)
season to taste 





2 -3  sheets of puff pastry

Method

Finely dice the onion and fry till translucent. Add in the curry powder and stir till combined. 
Mash or food process the beans/chickpeas or nutmeat.
Add the onions, herbs, and mashed potato into the bowl.
Mix together well with your hands.

Lay your thawed puff pastry sheets out. Cut into halves. Roll your filling into sausages/snakes and lay along one side of one half of the puff pastry. Gently roll the pastry and filling ensuring the pastry meets and slightly overlaps at the end of your roll. This seam forms the bottom of your roll. Press down gently to make sure your sausage roll is nicely shaped and the filling distributed evenly. Continue with other pastry sheets.

Cut your sausage rolls in half for large rolls, or in quarters for mini sausage rolls.
 
Bake at 200 degrees for about 20 mins or until the pastry is brown and crispy

Caramelised Potatoes

This is another of those nice-but-naughty recipes. Not especially healthy, but very tasty. This little side dish comes from Denmark, who were the hosts for Eurovision this year. In honour of our hosts we had a traditional Danish dish - ham, with kale stew, and caramelised potatoes. The sweet caramel potatoes went very well with the saltiness of the ham.

1kg Small potatoes, peeled
40g sugar
50g butter

Boil the potatoes until cooked.

Heat the sugar in a frying pan over a medium-low heat for 2-3 minutes until the sugar melts. DO NOT STIR THE MIXTURE. If you need to redistribute the melted sugar shake the pan. If you stir it you may crystallise the sugar.

Add the butter & When it starts foaming add the potatoes and coat them with the mixture. I find a pair of tongs and a spoon works well to do this.

Cook for a further 4-5 minutes until nicely golden and browned. Serve.

Lax Pudding (Salmon pudding)

This is a lovely way to use up leftover gravlax or smoked salmon. It is a terrificly warming winter dish - perfect for a rainy night. Another winner from Swedish cuisine!

You can make this in a large terrine, but I choose to make them as individual puddings. Took a little less tiem to cook that way, and they looked really cute in my little mini dishes!

Serves 8

Ingredients

250g new potatoes

2tbps butter
1 leek finely sliced
200g gravlax or smoked salmon finely sliced
2 eggs
 250ml milk
30 ml cream
handful of chopped fresh dill
salt and pepper to taste

method

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.
Cook potatoes in boiling water until tender. leave to cool
saute leek in butter until softened.
Thinly slice potatoes and place as a layer in the bottom of a terrine.
Add fine slices of salmon. then a layer of leeks.
Repeat until you run out of ingredients - end with a layer of potatoes.

Beat the eggs in a bowl, add in milk and cream and then beat together till combined. Season with S&P, the sir the dill through the egg mixture.

Pour the egg mixture over the terrine, and bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown with a set egg.

Spiced roast vegetables

I don't know where this dish originated, but we have been making it in our family for as long as I can remember. It is a mix of roast vegetables, smothered in olive oil and spices, and baked until soft. A perfect dish for autumn, especially if you have a bumper harvest of root vegetables and pumpkins waiting to be devoured.



This is a very easy dish to prepare, and one that is tasty enough on it's own as well as a great side dish for roasts.

Spiced roast vegetables

Ingredients
Desired amount of vegetables for roasting (we usually use a mix of any or all of the following: capsicum, pumpkin, sweet potato, potato, and jerusalem artichoke - though you are welcome to experiment with other veggies as well - onions and whole garlic cloves in their skin go very nicely)
olive oil - just enough to coat the veggies
pinch of salt
paprika
nutmeg

I usually use 1 generous tbs of sweet hungarian paprika with 1 tsp of nutmeg to about half a standard baking pan/roasting pan of veggies. You can add a little bit of heat with a little hot paprika, chillis, or cayenne pepper if you want it extra spicy. ;)

Method
Cut all veggies to around the same size and arrange in dish.
Sprinkle the salt and spices on top
Add a small amount of olive oil, and mix through the veggies until they are all lightly coated with oil

Place in a 190 oven and cook until veggies are tender - usually 40 minutes or so.
Serve!

Kluski

Pumpkin kluski with red cabbage

Kluski is a kind of generic name for dumplings or thick noodles in Polish. There are different types of kluski, but the ones my babcia and mum used to make most of the time were made of mashed potato and were oh-so-good.  Especially in soups, or just simply fried in a little butter the next day...

Babcia'sKluski
Peel 5 medium potatoes and cook in boiling salted water until tender. Mash them with a small amount of milk. While they are still warm mix in 1 egg, and enough flour from a cup of plain flour so that the dough comes together and is malleable and not sticky. The quantities of the flour will depend on how much moisture is in the potatoes, and even on the humidity of the room. Add it slowly until it comes together. Roll out thick snakes of the dough, cut pieces off, and shape them so they have a little indentation. Ok, I have to admit - I never shape them because I am lazy! But Babcias were always perfect and beautiful!

Cook in large pot of boiling salted water without crowding the kluski. As they float up to the surface remove with a slotted spoon. Serve them with soups, stews, fried with cabbage - or bacon, which was my mums favourite.!

My Pumpkin kluski
My version of kluski uses mashed pumpkin instead of potato - you need to add more flour, and usually another egg to get a good non-sticky dough. It is always softer and more sticky than the potato kluski. Instructions for making it are the same as for the potato. These are a little sweeter because of the pumpkin, and I find they go really well with red cabbage as a wonderful autum dish - the flavours work well, and the dish is just beautiful to look at!

Hungarian potato flatbread - KRUMPLIS LÁNGOS

KRUMPLIS LÁNGOS

Lángos is deep fried yeasted potato dough. It's delicious warm, rubbed with garlic, or topped with sweet chili sauce (though that is probably not a traditionally Hungarian version!) and spread with sour cream. It is also a great accompaniment to soups, stews, curries, or anything where you just want something to mop up the juices!

Lángos served here with sauteed capsicums and sour cream

1-3/4 cups flour
1/4 cup of  milk
1 tsp sugar
2 1/4 tsps dry yeast

mashed potatoes made from:
1 cup cooked potatoes
1/4 cup of milk
1-1/2 Tbsp butter
1 tsp salt




In a small bowl combine 1/4 cup of warm milk, 1 tsp sugar and the yeast. Leave for 15 minutes until frothy.

In the meantime make the mashed potatoes (cook potatoes, drain, add in milk, butter & salt, and mash).
Spread out thinly in the bottom of a bowl to cool. When cool add the flour and the yeast mixture and combine to a soft dough. Knead until elastic.

Cover and let rise for 1/2 hour. Punch down, knead lightly, cover, and let rise for another 1?2 hour.

Shape into 16 balls. Flatten and roll the balls into flat round shapes.

In a large pot heat 2 inches of vegetable oil. Carefully lower a flat bread or two (depending on size of pan) into the frying oil and fry until both sides are golden - should not take too long if the oil is hot enough. (If oil is too hot it will colour immediately but the inside will still be doughy). Cook all the flat breads and serve with your choice of accompaniments.