'Chicken' & mushroom pie with cheesy mash

This is the ultimate veggie comfort food for me and is a really good one for families as the kids will barely know that the 'chicken’ isn’t really chicken! Ok so mine won’t allow a mushroom to pass their lips, but they do like the flavour, which I’m hoping will be a step towards eating them eventually! You could switch to carrots, sweet corn or whatever veggies go down better in your house though.

A lot of people tell me that they are either trying to reduce their meat intake or they suddenly have a veggie teenager, so they need more family-friendly vegetarian recipes. This is a great one to add to your menu if you want to start making changes to your household diet because it’s a take on a classic that’s a gentle introduction to anyone skeptical about vegetarian food. I have quite a few recipes on my site (linked below) that use meat substitutes like Quorn or soya as I’ve found that it’s a good way of getting the kids to eat veggie food without sending them into shock with Ottolenghi style salads (which would obviously be my choice of menu!). I’m hoping we’ll reach that goal by the time my daughter is 16… only 5 years to go!

Ingredients

• 1 large onion, finely chopped

• 20g unsalted butter

• 300g chestnut mushrooms, sliced

• 1 garlic clove, grated

• 300g Quorn pieces

• 2 tbsp plain flour

• ½ vegetable stock cube (I use Kallo low salt)

• 400-500ml boiling water

• ½ tbsp Dijon mustard

• 250ml crème fraîche (I used low fat, but full is fine too)

• 100g fresh spinach leaves

• 1 tsp sea salt

  Topping

• 1.4 kg potatoes, chopped

• 50g unsalted butter

• 2-3 tbsp milk

• 100g cheddar cheese, grated

• 1 tsp sea salt

• 25g parmesan, finely grated

Method

• Heat the butter and a drizzle of olive oil in a large pan. Fry the onion gently for 10 minutes to soften and then add the mushrooms for 5 minutes.

• Add the garlic, cook for 1 minute and then put in the Quorn pieces and flour, stirring well.

• Next crumble in the stock cube and pour in 400ml of boiling water. Stir in the mustard and then the crème fraîche. Gently warm the sauce for 5 minutes, but keep it on low as it will split if it gets too hot.

• Finish by adding the salt and a little extra water if needed to loosen the sauce, it should easily fall off a spoon - like a thickened gravy.

• Preheat the oven to 180ºc.

• While the sauce is cooking, peel the potatoes and chop. Boil for about 12-15 minutes, so they’re soft enough to mash, drain and allow to air dry for a minute.

• Mash well with the butter and milk, then add the cheddar and salt, mix well.

• Spoon the Quorn filling into a large oven proof dish (I used 24x33cm) and stir or layer in the spinach leaves.

• Top the pie with a layer of mash and sprinkle with parmesan.

• Put in the oven for 20-25 minutes. If you can see that the sauce is bubbling underneath, but the top hasn’t browned then place under a hot grill for a few minutes to finish off. Keep a close eye on it though as it will easily burn.

Tip

• Make the filling the day before to get ahead.

• Gently top the pie with mash - flatten on the back of a large spoon with a fork and then nudge off onto the filling.

• Meat eaters can swap the Quorn for chicken, just brown it separately first and then set to one side while you cook the vegetables. Add the chicken back in with the crème fraîche.

• Or if you don’t like Quorn use a tin of chickpeas, using same method as in the main instructions.

• More family favourites: Everyday chilli, Sausage spaghetti, Bolognese, ‘Chicken’ supreme, ‘Chicken’ pie, Creamy sausage, mushroom & spinach pasta, Tomato & mascapone sausage rigatoni

simple mushroom spaghetti

This is a super easy, but very tasty dish, that you can knock up in about 15 minutes. The secret is getting all the ingredients mise en place, so they’re ready to go and you can just chuck them together at the last minute.

I’ve written the recipe for two people as the kids aren’t that keen on mushrooms, so it would usually be something I’d make for me and Ralph. As it’s quick to cook I don’t mind making a different meal for the kids or it might be a night where I just stick a pizza in the oven for them!

Having said that, this time I fried some sliced broccoli in butter instead of mushrooms for Ella-Rose, so she had virtually the same as us. So you can adapt it to everyone’s vegetable tastes without too much extra work.

It’s another one of those back pocket recipes that you can cook anywhere anytime and adapt to your taste. You might fancy adding more parmesan, a little chilli, switching the veggies to greens, changing the pasta, or roasted tomatoes and basil. It’s one I keep returning to as it’s so delicious and I love the simplicity of the ingredients.

Ingredients

Serves 2

• 230-250g spaghetti

• 20g unsalted butter

• ½ tbsp olive oil

• 250g mushrooms, sliced

• 1 large clove of garlic, grated

• 40g parmesan, grated

• A handful of chopped parsley

• ½ tsp sea salt

• A good grind of black pepper

• Juice of ½ lemon

Method

• Heat a large pan of salted water and start cooking the pasta.

• Heat the butter and olive oil in a large pan and then add the mushrooms, frying on a medium heat for 8 minutes.

• Next add the garlic and cook for 2-3 minutes.

• Drain the pasta reserving a little water to add to the mushrooms.

• Stir 10g of butter into the mushrooms, allow to melt before adding 4-5 tbsp of pasta water, spaghetti, parsley, salt and 30g parmesan into the mushrooms.

• Squeeze over ¼ lemon and mix well.

• Serve with rest of the parmesan, ¼ lemon, a green salad and a glass of crisp white wine.

Mushroom risotto

Apologies to the person who asked for non-mushroom recipes recently, I promise there will be more fungi-less dishes coming up over the next few days! I wanted to share this as I love mushroom risotto and it’s a pretty straightforward recipe that you can knock together on any day of the week.

Also it’s surprisingly a dish that I can get my kids to eat without too much complaint. Admittedly they carefully pick out every mushroom, but even if they don’t eat them they’re used to the look and taste which I think is still quite important. They haven’t got used to the texture yet, but hopefully that will come.

I added some carrots and broccoli to their plates so at least they ate some veggies and we had a green salad. A good tip for getting your kids to eat things they don’t like much is to serve with (garlic or buttered fresh) bread. I find that mine will then revoltingly pile the thing they don’t love onto the bread and eat it that way!

Ingredients

Serves 4

• 300g chestnut mushrooms, sliced roughly

• Approx 1-2 tbsp olive oil

• 10g porcini mushrooms

• 40g unsalted butter

• 1 onion, chopped finely

• 1 stick celery, chopped finely

• 1 clove garlic, grated

• 150ml white wine or 100ml sherry or vermouth

• 300g risotto rice

• 700ml vegetable stock

• 50g parmesan, finely grated

• 3/4 tsp sea salt

• Squeeze of 1/4 lemon

• Handful of chopped parsley, optional

Method

• Warm ½ tbsp olive oil in a frying pan and cook the mushrooms on a medium heat in batches. Set aside each batch in a bowl once browned.

• While the mushrooms are cooking, boil a cup of water in the kettle, pour 50ml on to the porcini in a small bowl leaving them to soak while you get the risotto started.

• Warm the stock on the hob or microwave.

• Heat 30g of butter and a decent glug of olive oil in a wide low-sided pan, add the onions and celery, cooking gently for 15 minutes until soft, but not browned.

• Next add the rice, stirring well, after about a minute it should look slightly translucent at the edges.

• Then turn up the heat and pour in the wine or Sherry. Allow the harsh alcohol taste to bubble off and once the rice has absorbed the rest of the wine start adding the warm stock. I usually pour in about a ladle or 100ml at a time.

• After the first ladle, roughly chop the porcini mushrooms with a pair of scissors in the bowl and pour into the rice.

• Deglaze the mushroom frying pan with a little stock and add it to the rice, so you don’t waste that extra flavour. Then keep adding the stock slowly, each time it absorbed pour another ladle into the pan, stirring regularly.

• After 10 minutes add the cooked mushrooms and continue pouring in the stock for another 8 minutes.

• Check the rice is cooked (it should still have a little bite to it) and then stir in 10g of butter, 30g parmesan, salt, a squeeze of lemon and parsley if you’re using it.

• Serve with the rest of the parmesan, warm ciabatta and a green salad.

  Tip

• A note about stock - if I’m using a cube then I will double the amount of water recommended on the pack, so for this recipe I just used one cube for one litre of water. Otherwise you’ll end up tasting the stock cube rather than it being a savoury back note.

• I don’t always want to open a bottle of wine just for cooking, so I keep a bottle of sherry or Vermouth in the cupboard to use for risotto. It doesn’t go off like wine, so you can just use a glass as and when you need it.

• To make the risotto vegan, you could use non-dairy ‘butter’ and add a tablespoon of nutritional yeast and or a little oat cream instead of cheese. Top with pine nuts or pumpkin seeds.

• I use a Microplane or fine grater for the cheese and garlic.

Chestnut, mushroom & pecan roast

I know nut roasts are a bit retro, the original vegetarian alternative, but believe it or not they’ve come on a bit since those dense, claggy 80s originals. They’ve become a bit more imaginative since those days with less nuts and more veggies, sourdough crumbs instead of plain and added spices and herbs to make them a bit more interesting. I think the other thing that puts people off is the perception that nuts roasts are quite labour intensive, well, in this recipe I’ve tried to keep the chopping and ingredients to a minimum so it’s not too much work. You can also freeze a few slices so next time all you have to do is defrost!

The fact is this much maligned veggie alternative works really well in place of meat with a roast dinner. After mostly giving up meat last January, I’ve struggled to find a better stand in where roasts are concerned, yes you can buy a Quorn ‘joint’, but it’s never going to be as interesting as a slice full of veggies, spices and nuts; or be as nutritionally diverse.

I’ve tried a few recipes (Felicity Cloake, Jamie Oliver and BBC Good Food) over the last few months and taken inspiration from all of them to create this one. The mushrooms, chestnuts and pecans make a good rich base with a few veggies for freshness crunch and flavour, plus paprika and oregano for depth. I have used plain, rather than smoked paprika (which is used in a lot of nut roast recipes) as I think it works better with traditional British roast flavours.

If you’re making this for Christmas I definitely recommend you make my gravy too as they work perfectly together even if I do say so myself!!). Both can be made ahead and frozen, which is exactly what I’m doing as I’ll be cooking turkey and making a meaty gravy so I don’t want too much work to do on the day!

Ingredients

Serves 8

• 1 tbsp olive oil

• 1 large onion, finely chopped

• 2 sticks celery, finely chopped

• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

• 300g chestnut mushrooms, blitzed

• 180g cooked chestnuts, blitzed

• 1 tsp oregano

• 1 ½ tsp paprika

• 2 tbsp tomato purée

• 2 carrots, grated

• 100g fresh breadcrumbs

• 150g pecans, roughly chopped

• 150g mature cheddar, grated

• 1 tsp sea salt

• 3 large eggs, lightly beaten

Method

• Preheat the oven to 180ºc. Line a 2lb loaf tin with parchment, or I like to use a liner as they just slot in.

• Heat the olive oil in a large pan and add the onions and celery, frying gently for 20 minutes.

• While they’re cooking blitz the chestnuts in a food processor and then put in a bowl, do the same with the mushrooms - both should be a rough bread crumb like texture, so not pulverised! If you don’t have a processor, just chop finely.

• Turn up the heat a little and add the mushrooms to the pan for 10 minutes until all their water has evaporated and the mix is fairly dry.

• Then put in the garlic and cook for another minute, before adding the chestnuts, oregano and paprika. Allow the paprika to warm for a minute to release it’s flavour, then add the tomato purée mixing well before adding the carrots, breadcrumbs, pecans, cheese, salt and finally the beaten eggs.

• Spoon the mix into the tin, press it down reasonably firmly so it sticks together and cover with tin foil. Place in the oven for 30 minutes then remove the tin foil and put back in for another 15 minutes.

• Serve with my vegan gravy, roasties and lots of greens.