Chestnut mushroom tartlets

Shame on me for not posting more mushroom recipes lately! I have no explanation for how this could've happened, as mushrooms have been my most favourite cooking ingredient ever since I've been a vegetarian. Today I can hopefully make this a little bit better by sharing my mushroom tartlet recipe with you. Serve these to your friends at parties or take them with you as a snack on the go. I might make something similar for the upcoming (is it too early to even mention?) Christmas parties.

This recipe makes about 20 tartlets.

Ingredients

320 g shortcrust pastry

1 tbsp olive oil

4 small shallots

2 garlic cloves

4 large chestnut mushrooms

8-10 small tomatoes

Salt

Ground black pepper

Sage

Thyme

50 g mature cheddar

Method

Chop the shallots, garlic and mushrooms. Heat olive oil in a pan and cook the shallots and garlic soft. Add the mushrooms for a few minutes so that their excess fluid evaporates. Season with salt, ground black pepper, sage and thyme to taste.

Grate the cheese and prepare the pastry. Out of convenience I used a ready made pastry, but a homemade one would also be great here. Roll the pastry out thinly and cut small circles from it with a cookie cutter. The size depends a little bit on your muffin case size. Place the pastry circles into the muffin cases so that there will be a small edge going up the sides.

Slice the tomatoes and put a slice or two onto each pastry cup. Then fill them with the mushroom and shallot mix and finally the cheese.

Bake the tartlets at 180C for about 20-30 minutes until the pastry is baked crispy and the cheese has melted into golden brown goodness.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Pepper nuggets

This week I have been determined not to go food shopping yet, and just cook with the stuff I have in the fridge and my cupboards. My dry cupboard is quite well equipped, but I thought it's better to use these things more rather than to have the cupboards full. I also have some fresh veg and of those I wanted to use the romano peppers first.

I sometimes use this brainstorming approach to cooking and just dig a bit around in my kitchen to check what I have and what I could use. I'm still indecisive about today's dish, but yesterday I created rather successfully some pepper nuggets.

Most ingredients in this recipe are interchangeable, so this is a perfect dish to get creative with. The aim is only to get a dough firm enough in order to be able to create the nugget shapes. I chose baking instead of frying as the shapes can be maintained more easily and they are less fatty.

If you got curious, read the simple instructions to make no-nonsense vegetarian nuggets.

Recipe for about 10 nuggets.

Ingredients

2 pointy yellow romano peppers

3 tbsp soy flakes

1 tbsp soy sauce

1 shallot

2 garlic cloves

1 cup grated Cheddar

1 egg

1 cup semolina

1 tsp Herbes de Provence

Sprinkle of salt

Sprinkle of ground black pepper

Method

Grate the pepper and Cheddar with a cheese grater and chop the shallot and garlic finely.

Let the soy flakes moisten for a few minutes. The pepper should be moist enough to moisten the soy flakes, but also add some soy sauce on the flakes.

Simply mix all ingredients in a bowl. Add the semolina little by little to get the right texture.

Shape nuggets from the dough. I chose the triangle shape for mine.

Bake the nuggets on baking paper at 200C for about 30 minutes until the surface is crispy and browned.

Enjoy with a nice dip. I had again spicy tomato chutney powered by Jack Ratt cider.

That was all, so easy!

Your VegHog

Roasted mini aubergines with a snack board

Do you really need anything else for lunch than a snack board full of beautiful products? The answer is no. I don't know how you feel about this, but I do prefer a cold lunch to a warm meal in the middle of the day. If I'm supposed to work and pay attention after lunch, then a cold light lunch is the best option for me.

Yesterday I assembled these things together as a snack board for two persons, and it had a little bit of a Mediterranean feel. On that board there was nothing else to be cooked than the roasted mini aubergines, and they are easy.

Cut the mini aubergines in half. Pour three tablespoons of olive oil into a roasting tin and one teaspoon of oregano on the top. Put the aubergines there and mix first cut side down and then turn them cut side up for the roasting. Roast them at 220C for about 10 minutes until tender and golden brown. The aubergines can be eaten either warm or cold.

Serve them on a board of snacks, and you can have whatever you like there. These are the items I had on my board with the roasted mini aubergines:

• green olives
• emmental cheese
• roasted pepper antipasti
• aubergine caviar
• green heirloom tomatoes
• olive bread
• baguette

Do you ever make this kind of lunches, and if so, what are your favourite food items to use then?

Your VegHog