When I was at BritmumsLive (yes this is an overdue post – ooops!) I met the people from Paragon Books and agreed to become a book buddy. I was sent away with two really lovely cookery books from their
Love Food Cookbooks range. When I say lovely I really mean it. These two books are filled with beautiful photographs of the ingredients required, the method for each recipe and the finished meals.
I have been looking through these two books regularly since I obtained them back in June, as I enjoy sitting down at my kitchen table with a cup of tea and looking at each page longingly!! However, it was not until the weekend that I actually decided to try a couple of the recipes. Surprisingly, I opted to try out the vegetarian book which if any of you read my blog will know that my OH is a meat eater, and complains if I give him food which is meatless!
I decided to try out a two of the pate recipes featured in the book and both were very easy and straight forward to make thanks to the step by step photographic method. I have to confess that I may have slightly changed each recipe based on what ingredients I did and did not have but I do that with all my cookery books!!
The recipes mentioned below are taken from the Vegetarian book but with a couple of amendments (eg. using peas, using pitta bread instead of ciabatta and garlic & herb cream cheese in place of goats cheese in the broad bean pate)
Ingredients
(makes enough for 4)
150g vegetarian low fat soft cheese
350g fromage frais
115g blue cheese (I used stilton)
55g dried cranberries, chopped
5 tbsp chopped mixed herbs eg, parsley, tarragon, chives
85g butter
2 tbsp chopped walnuts
bread for serving – I used pitta bread
Method
Beat the soft cheese and fromage frais together and then add the blue cheese, cranberries and herbs and mix
spoon the mixture into 4 ramekins making sure to smooth the tops
Melt the butter gently and once melted skim any foan off the surface and discard
Carefully pour the clarified butter over each ramekin and top with some walnuts
Place the pate in the fridge for at least 30 minutes until firm but I found it took longer than this.
Serve with your bread of choice
I dont like blue cheese so I made this for my OH who really enjoyed it
Ingredients
(makes enough for 6)
600g shelled broad beans
(I used some peas too as I didnt have enough broad beans)
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp chopped mint
pitta bread, toasted
3 tbsp garlic and herb cream cheese
black pepper
salt
Method
Add the beans and peas to a pan of boiling slightly salted water and cook for 3-4 minutes until tender
Rinse under cold water and then remove the skins from the beans
Place the beans, peas, oil, lemon and mint and some black pepper (to taste) into a food processor (or similar) and pulse to a chunky puree.
Toast the pitta bread and cut into slices then add the bean and pea pate to each slice and top with some of the garlic and herb cream cheese.
Serve straight away
This was really lovely flavour and even my OH the meat eater said he really liked it, so much so that I will be adapting it to add to pasta next time as a main meal.
Both books are a welcome addition to my kitchen and I plan to make many more of the recipes and the vegetarian one will help with my budget as many of the meals are low cost to make and of course very healthy. For more healthy options please see this list.
For more information reagrding these and other fabulous books by Paragon please visit their website
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Thank you xx
