Delicious Cheese & Vegetable Bake Recipe with Cathedral City #CheeseRules #LoveCheese

Love Cheese? Welcome to the Club!

Cathedral City, the nation's favourite Cheddar, has recently undergone a relaunch with brand new packaging and a new advertising campaign starring David Jason, based on those unwritten rules of cheese that Cathedral City fans will totally relate to. Cathedral City's distinctive, smooth creamy Cheddar is made using milk from dedicated West Country farmers in their Cornish creamery, making it the perfect cheese for cheese lovers, however they enjoy it.

From watching bubbling cheese in the oven, to eating that last awkwardly shaped bit of cheese when grating, to nibbling the crispy edge bits on a freshly baked lasagne to making multiple visits to the cheeseboard at a party - these are all habits that cheese lovers find irresistible. And with 66% of people surveyed by Cathedral City admitting to always having cheese in the house, there are lots of us who enjoy eating cheese in our own unique quirky way! 21% of people said they would choose cheese over social media, that sums up just how deep our nation's love affair with cheese really is.

I have to confess to being someone who finds it hard to go to the fridge without cutting a thin slither of cheese off the block to pop in my mouth. And those crispy bits that drip onto the grill pan when making cheese on toast are just too tasty to ignore. And the browned cheesy topping on a lasagne, a cheese topped shepherd's pie, nachos or enchiladas is just too delicious.  Italian dishes such as pizza and pasta have toppled curry as our new national favourite dish, thanks to their indulgent cheesiness.

My favourite cheese rule concerns cheese sauce. You can never put enough cheese into your cheese sauce, because the tastier the better! A rich, flavoursome cheese sauce makes any meal even more delicious. Just think of macaroni cheese or cauliflower cheese. Perfect comfort food.

What are your cheese rules? What do you find irresistible about Cathedral City Cheddar? I'd love you to leave a comment and share the cheese love!

In honour of the Cathedral City Cheese Rules, here is a recipe for a delicious family meal that includes a delicious mix of seasonal vegetables enrobed in a rich cheese sauce topped with Cheddar cheese and baked until golden brown.  One of the best things about this recipe is that you can adapt it to include any of your favourite vegetables, or to use up any veg left in the fridge if you are looking for a frugal meal time idea. A perfect dish for lovers of yummy cheese sauce.

Cheese & Vegetable Bake Recipe

with Cathedral City

Ingredients

1 leek

1 large potato

1 sweet potato

2 medium carrots

1 head of broccoli

6 white mushrooms

1 onion -sliced

4 asparagus stalks

2 cloves garlic - finely chopped

2 tablespoons of canned sweetcorn

1/2 vegetable stock cube

2 oz butter

2 oz plain flour

1 pint milk

4 oz Cathedral City Mature Cheddar (plus extra to taste!)

ground pepper

pinch of mixed herbs

2 oz Cathedral City Mature Cheddar grated

Method

Peel and chop the vegetables into bite size pieces, slice the onion and chop the garlic. Add the potato, onion and carrot to a pan of water with the stock cube added. Bring to boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Then add sweet potato and simmer for a further 5 minutes. Add asparagus, broccoli, mushroom, leek and garlic and simmer for a further five minutes until cooked through.

Meanwhile, make the cheese sauce. Melt the butter in a pan and stir through the flour. Cook gently whilst stirring for one minute then remove from heat and slowly whisk in the milk, a little at a time. Return to low heat and continuously stir until thickened. Add grated cheese, herbs and pepper and continue to stir until cheese is melted through.

Put the Vegetables into an ovenproof dish and add the sweetcorn. Pour over the sauce and top with more grated cheese.

Pop into the oven at 180 degrees centigrade and cook for about 25 minutes until bubbling and golden brown on top.

Perfect served with steamed cabbage for a wholesome, hearty and deliciously cheesy dinner that your cheese loving family will love. It's a great way to get vegetables into the diets of fussy eaters.

If you love cheese and want to join in with Cathedral City's passion for Cheddar, you can find Cathedral City on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/CathedralCity/ Here you can find a quiz to discover just what find of cheese lover you are from a passionate cheese lover to the ultimate cheese worshipper!

New Orleans Style Bean and Rice Casserole - a recipe for when it's cold outside

As part of the Veetee Rice Blogger Community, I have created a vegetarian recipe for a tasty, wholesome family meal for when it's cold outside. Using a pack of Veetee microwave New Orleans Style Rice, it is quick and easy to make a warming pot of Bean and Rice Casserole. It is a one pot meal, perfect for the winter, flavoured with the tastes of the deep South - chilli, smoked paprika and earthy kidney beans. The recipe makes a big pan full, perfect for feeding your hungry hordes!

New Orleans Style Bean and Rice Casserole

Ingredients 

2 red onions chopped

2 cloves garlic crushed

2 carrots chopped

2 potatoes chopped

1 sweet potato chopped

1 tin of chopped tomatoes with garlic and chilli

1 tablespoon tomato puree

300ml vegetable stock

3 cans of beans (kidney, aduki, chickpeas, butter, black etc)

1 teaspoon coriander leaves
1 teaspoon smoked paprkia

ground black pepper
(1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper for a spicier dish)

1 pack Veetee New Orleans Style Rice

150ml coconut milk

oil for frying

Method

Put onions into a large saucepan and gently fry for 5 minutes.

Add garlic and cook for a further 2 minutes.

Add chopped vegetables and fry for a further 5 minutes.

Pour in tomatoes, tomato puree and stock and bring to boil.

Reduce heat to simmer.

Add drained beans and corander and ground black pepper and simmer for 25 -30 minutes until vegetables are tender. (Add boiling water if it starts to boil dry.)

Microwave the rice for 2 minutes and add to the pan, stirring through.

Continue to simmer for a further 10 minutes until thickened.

Stir through coconut milk and heat through.

This dish is also great for the slow cooker. This is how I made it. Add everything except for the rice and coconut milk to the slow cooker and cook on high for 1 hour then on medium for 3 hours. Add heated rice and coconut milk and cook for a further hour until rich and thickened.

Food Saving Tips and Menu Planning Love Food Hate Waste

I have taken part in the Love Food Hate Waste campaign, which aims to raise awareness to encourage families to stop wasting food. Reducing food waste will have both an economical and an environmental impact, making it really important to both our pockets and the planet.

There are lots of ways that we can make the fresh foods we buy last longer by using savvy storage ideas, and there are loads of ideas for family meals that will utilise leftover vegetables and fresh produce, so nothing goes to waste at the end of the week.

                         


Menu planning really is a great way to manage feeding the family.  Having a range of meals in your repertoire and buying ingredients that can be used to make several different dishes, sees that nothing goes to waste.  It saves money, and being well organised, can save valuable time and effort too.

With some careful planning, today's waste can become tomorrow's ingredients.  Sauces, cooked vegetables, excess pasta or extra sausages can be incorporated into the next day's dinner. Any leftover meals can easily be boxed up and frozen ready to be reheated.  Much cheaper, nicer and healthier than buying ready meals!

Here is a recipe that I make at the end of the week, which uses up any vegetables I have left over.  It also uses a cheese sauce made using any bits of cheese left in the fridge.  It is adaptable and versatile and is really tasty!

                        


Find out more on the website at www.lovefoodhatewaste.com.

Nutty Mushroom Crumble Recipe

Gold from Flora is the new blend of butter and Flora, with a rich, creamy taste.  It is a versatile product, perfect for spreading, topping vegetables and potatoes or as an ingredient in baking or cooking.  Flora challenged me to come up with a simple recipe for an everyday family meal using Gold plus up to ten other ingredients and a £10 budget.  So, I came up with a recipe for a Nutty Mushroom Crumble, a tasty vegetarian meal.

The Nutty Mushroom Crumble has a delicious saucy, mushroom base topped with a crumble made using nuts, seeds and oatmeal.  (I used all ten ingredients plus optional seasonings to taste.)  Here is a video showing how I made it.

                         

I received a £10 voucher to cover the cost of the ingredients.

Slow Cooked Five Bean Chilli Recipe

I love my slow cooker.  It's taken me a while to see the full potential of my Crock Pot but I think I am now giving it the usage it deserves.  It is just so easy to throw the ingredients into the pot in the morning and then it is ready to serve up at dinner time with no further effort required.  The healthy, cooked from scratch meals are so easy to make and I feel like a domestic goddess (albeit fraudulently because it is just so easy to do!!)

Today I am making my lazy cook's Five Bean Chilli using Napolina beans.  Tinned beans are a main staple in our home.  They are convenient, nutritious and versatile plus I think they taste good too!

Ingredients

1 can of chopped tomatoes

1 carton of passata

2 chopped onions

2 cloves crushed garlic

2 teaspoons Gourmet Garden chilli

2 teaspoons Gourmet Garden coriander

1 can of Napolina butter beans

1 can of Napolina kidney beans

1 can of Napolina chick peas

1 can of brown lentils

1 can of Napolina cannelini beans

4 oz sliced mushrooms

1/4 pt of vegetable stock

(You can throw a bag of Quorn Mince into the pot an hour before serving if you like.)

Method

Literally throw it all in at 10am after the school run is done.

Serve it with rice and creme fraiche at 5pm when the kids are back home and hungry!  It's easy to make, nutritious, delicious and warming in this cold weather.

I was sent a selection of Napolina beans but the recipe is my own.  Napolina beans are priced at 79p a tin and are available from all good stockists.