Cheesy. Easy. Homely. Quick.

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Food painting artwork

30 x 30cm oil on canvas. A nod to the fairy tale of Goldilocks and the three bears and the bowl of 'just right'.

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The meatless meals recipe - Super Easy Goldilocks Mac and Cheese

Once upon a time I used to make a roux to thicken the cheese sauce of my mac and cheese. Now, I am not fond of unnecessary steps or waiting about for my food and so at some point I tried 'cheating' using a judicious amount of cornflour to thicken the sauce. It's much quicker and no, I could not tell the difference.

After trialling many many variations, this is my version of 'just right' mac and cheese. The thickness of the sauce is 'just right'. The cheesiness is 'just right'. The amount of sauce for the quantity of pasta is 'just right'. And it's quick, which is just right for me.


200g uncooked pasta (macaroni!)
1 1/2 teaspoons butter
1 cup milk
1 1/4 cups grated tasty cheese (88g) For extra cheesyness, use 1 1/2 cups cheese (105g) but I think this is a bit strong
1 tablespoon cornflour
salt and pepper to taste


Cook pasta, drain and set aside.
Melt butter in a pan on low-medium heat.
Add most of the milk to the butter. Reserve some for mixing with the cornflour later.
Add cheese to the pot as well. Mix.
In a cup or small bowl, blend or whisk the cornflour and reserved milk.
When most of the cheese has melted, add the cornflour mix to the pot and whisk until thickened.
Take off the heat, add drained pasta into the cheese sauce and mix well.

Serve. Salt and pepper to taste.

The sauce takes 5 minutes to make. Mac and Cheese takes 5 minutes to eat.

 

 

For 2 

Satisfying. Cheesy. Rich. Chunky.

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Food painting artwork

30 x 30cm acrylic on paper. The paper is no ordinary paper, it is textured Hahnemuhle 300 gsm 100% alpha cellulose which is acid-free fibre of vegetable origin.

Three cheeses equaled three bovines in my mind and as I have a fondness for petroglyphs, or rock art, I indulged here with a three cow pie in a rock art style, with a hint of the blue veins of blue vein cheese for good measure. This piece is really something in real life with loads of texture and a shimmery effect from all the colour shades which was really hard to catch.

By the way, all the food painting artwork is available to own in the Official Art Store.

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The meatless meals recipe

Cheese, cheese, cheese. This is a dairy fest with a handful of vegetables. Based on the River Cottage 'Leek & Dorset Blue Vinny Tart', this has evolved into full blown deep pie, or tart for purists, with far more cheese and versatile with the veg. It's a bit of a 'clean out the bottom of the fridge' meal and it tastes fantastic. I think the key to the flavour is using a blue vein cheese you really quite like.

shortcrust pastry at least 25x25cm, stretched to fit a deep 23cm pie dish
1 medium to large leek, washed well and sliced fine
solid (not leafy) winter veg to total 400g including the leek, chopped in small bite pieces - broccoli works well, also consider turnip, swede, carrot, pumpkin, cauliflower, celeriac
250g cream cheese
250ml/1 cup water
1 teaspoon honey
a few cracks of black pepper
100g blue vein cheese, grated or chopped small
200g other cheese such as tasty or feta, in chunky cubes
4 eggs

Pre heat your oven to 180C and if you prefer your pastry cases baked blind, then prepare this first.
Put the leek, winter veg, cream cheese, water and honey in a pot.
Heat gently to melt the cream cheese into a sauce, then simmer very gently until the veg are softened. The idea is to have them mostly precooked before going into the pie.
When the cream cheese vegetable sauce is ready, remove from the heat.
Add a few cracks of black pepper to taste and the blue vein cheese. Mix and let the cheese melt.
Let the sauce cool for a few minutes and in the meantime, take your pastry shell in a pie dish, and fill it with the other cheese cubes.
Thoroughly mix the eggs into the sauce.
Pour the sauce into the pastry shell on top of the cheese cubes.
Bake at 180C for at least 40 minutes or more until the sauce has set. It should be firm like a quiche.

Makes a pie 23cm diameter and 5cm depth which serves 6-8 with sides. 

Versatile. Easy. Homely. Cheesy.

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Food painting artwork

30 x 30cm acrylic and pen on paper. The paper is no ordinary paper, it is beige textured Hahnemuhle 300 gsm 100% alpha cellulose which is acid-free fibre of vegetable origin.

'What is the cow for?' The cheese. 'And the dots?' The lentils. 'Oh.'

Sigh. This was going to be a dot painting. When you cut yourself a slice of this loaf, you will see why. Except that in researching and generating ideas, I came across so many wonderful rock art pictures of cows that I changed my mind. Did you know that there is an entire body of rock/cave art in the Libyan Sahara that is so sophisticated that seen out of context it looks just like modern semi-abstract caricatures? I was happily blown away and this cow is in the style discovered.

By the way, all the food painting artwork is available to own in the Official Art Store.

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The meatless meals recipe

This is one of those meatless meal recipes that works really well in a meat and three veg type dish. It's also yummy cold and on sandwiches. 

9oz / 255g dry lentils

or

390g cooked lentils

6oz / 175g tasty cheese, grated

1 1/2 onions, diced

some cracked black pepper

1 1/2 teaspoons in total of dried rosemary, sage, thyme - use any or all of these

3oz / 85g dried breadcrumbs

3 eggs, beaten

2 1/4 / 68g butter, melted

Cook lentils if using uncooked ones.

In a large mixing bowl, mix cheese, onion, pepper, herbs and lentils.

Then add breadcrumbs, egg and butter. Mix well.

If the mixture is too sloppy it's ok to add more breadcrumbs.

Grease a loaf tin (approx 7 x 10 x 20cm) REALLY well, or line it with greaseproof paper. This is to make the loaf easy to remove as it has a nasty habit of sticking to the bottom of the tin.

Press the mix into the tin. It needs to be well pressed down otherwise it crumbles apart.

Bake for 1 hour at 170 C

Leave to stand and set for 10 minutes after taking it out of the oven and before trying to remove it from the tin.

Slice and serve!  Feeds 4-6, with other veg.

Creamy. Easy. Light. Cheesy.

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Food painting artwork

30 x 30 cm acrylic on canvas. Surreal and slightly magical childrens book interpretation involving a spinach forest on a stormy night overlooked by bright cheese stars. I did say surreal didn't I?

By the way, all the food painting artwork is available to own in the Official Art Store.

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The meatless meals recipe

This is an aromatic Indian spinach and cheese dish. Many versions of palak paneer include tomatoes but this one is a tomato free zone. Although I am somewhat over Indian cuisine after ODing on it while living in the UK, this is one that I'll happily eat anytime. It does help that it's not arseburningly hot and not overstuffed with onions.

250g spinach, washed thoroughly and chopped fine

1/2 cup stock

1 large bay leaf

3 teaspoons garam masala

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon powder

a pinch to 1/4 teaspoon chilli powder, or just enough to give a hint of warmth for you

2 cloves garlic, chopped fine

1 1/2 teaspoons cummin seeds

1 tablespoon oil or butter

1 teaspoon grated ginger

100g haloumi or paneer cheese cut into 1 or 2 cm cubes

3 tablespoons creamed cottage cheese or cream

Simmer the spinach on medium heat with HALF the garam masala, all the cinnamon, bay leaf and stock for 20 minutes or until this has all broken down into a thick sauce. Puree this if you want.

In a separate frypan, lightly fry chilli, garlic and cummin seeds in the oil/butter just until the garlic begins to golden.

Add this fried mix, the rest of the garam masala, ginger, haloumi and cottage cheese to the spinach sauce and stir through.

Salt to taste.

That's it!

Serves 2 on rice.

Homely. Filling. Versatile. Cheesy.

Food painting artwork

30 x 30cm oil on canvas. Inspired by the wonderful modernist Australian artist Margaret Preston. She is best known for her woodcuts but I also really like her stencilled paintings of 1953. Such rich and Australian colours. Such patterned linework. Such enjoyable brush texture.

One weekend we had some friends come up to stay. The plan was to go for a long hike during the day and have dinner together afterwards. So Simon cooked his favourite meal, which is this vege lasagne, ahead of the weekend as we knew we'd be too tired to cook after a day of walking through the bush. It was only after our friends arrived that we remembered that one is both a genuine Italian and a raving carnivore who loathes vegetables. But there was no time to prepare a new meal once they'd arrived. We were terrified to present such a signature Italian dish to an Italian. And a bastardised vegetarian version at that! 

So what happened? Our raving carnivore Italian friend loved this lasagne and went back for seconds and wanted the recipe and proclaimed it was even better than the one his mother makes! Not bad...

2-3 tablespoons olive oil

1 carrot, finely diced

1 medium onion, finely diced

1 medium zucchini, finely diced

250g mushrooms, finely diced

8 cloves garlic, peeled

700g tomato

1 small onion

30g fresh basil leaves, roughly torn

1 cup dry sherry or white wine

2 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella

40g grated parmesan

35g butter

1/4 cup flour

2 cups or 500ml milk

dry lasagne sheets

baking dish 18x28cm or 7x11 inches

Preheat your oven to 190 C

Put the medium onion, carrot, zucchini and mushroom in a fry pan with the olive oil and cook until soft. Make sure it doesn't get crisped.

While the above is cooking, put the garlic, tomato and small onion into a blender and puree.

When the veges are thoroughly cooked, add the puree to the pan and the fresh basil leaves and half the sherry or wine too.

Simmer until reduced to a medium thickness. You don't want it to be too thick as some liquid is needed to cook the dry lasagne sheets. Better to be too thin than too thick.

Put the liquid from the sauce into the bottom of the baking dish. Try and avoid putting veg in this layer as they only burn.

Then add the first layer of lasagne sheets.

Divide the sauce into three and spread a third on the lasagne. Follow this with half a cup of mozzarella and a light sprinkling of parmesan.

Add another layer of lasagne sheets.

Repeat the sauce, cheese, sheets step twice more so that you have three layers of sauce and cheese. At the end of this step you should have bare lasagne sheets ready for the final topping which is a thick and cheesy white sauce:

Melt the butter in a pot and add the flour. 

Mix into a dough and take off the heat.

Add a little milk and stir until the milk is fully absorbed. 

Repeat until the first cup of milk is used.

Return to the heat. Stir continuously and slowly add the remaining milk. A whisk instead of a spoon is handy here.

Then slowly add the remaining sherry or wine. 

Keep stirring. The sauce will thicken gradually.

When the sauce is nicely thick, add the remaining cup of mozzarella.

Pour all this cheese sauce on top of the lasagne. Mmmm. Lots of cheesy goodness.

Put the completed lasagne in the oven for about an hour. It is done when the pasta is cooked and the top is golden.

Remove from the oven when done and let it stand for 10 minutes. This makes it much easier to cut and serve.

Feeds 6-8 people.

When you've made this a few times, try experimenting with using other vegetables or adding chilli etc as it's a very versatile recipe.