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Winter Lasagne

From: Linda McCartney’s “Linda’s Kitchen”, p. 92.

A colourful lasagne with tomato sauce, spinach and veggie mince.

Winter Lasagne from “Linda’s Kitchen”, p. 92. Photo by Almut Spaeth


As you may have noticed, I have started cooking recipes from Linda’s second cookbook, “Linda’s Kitchen” now. My challenge to try all of the recipes in her first book “Home Cooking” is almost completed (only some of the endless variations of veggie schnitzels or burgers left) and I needed some change.
I think this is the most beautiful lasagne I have ever seen. And also one of the most delicious. Light, colourful, lots of veg and lots of taste. Perfect.

Gluten-free: I used Schär’s gluten-free lasagne for this recipe- impossible to tell its gluten-free! Use gluten-free flour, such as rice flour, for the béchamel sauce.

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Chocolate Chip Cookies

From: Linda McCartney’s “Linda’s Kitchen”, p. 176.

Delicious Chocolate Chip Cookies with pecan nuts. Another favourite!

Chocolate Chip Cookies from “Linda’s Kitchen”, p.176. Photo by Almut Spaeth

These cookies melt in the mouth and will not keep long- unless you manage to hide them well. I used plain gluten-free flour from Doves Farm.

The picture was taken on a frosty morning in early March- do you notice the ice on the leaves and the table? Wonderful ice crystals and a beautiful time for a tea break outside.

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New Year Pudding

From: Linda McCartney’s “Home Cooking”, p. 162.

A perfect fruit pudding that also makes a great christmas pudding- a favourite! Quick to make (apart from the time it takes to steam) and delicious. Freezes well.

New Year Pudding. Photo by Almut Spaeth

I used 8 instead of 12 eggs and substituted the vegetable suet for 200g coconut oil.

Gluten-free: Use gluten-free breadcrumbs.

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Cranberry Sauce

From: Linda McCartney’s “Home Cooking”, p. 144.

An uncooked Cranberry Sauce with orange zest and juice.

Usually, fresh cranberries are very hard to find in the shops around here. So when I spotted some it was clear which recipe to try today 🙂
This cranberry sauce is really fruity with a tangy orange taste- perfect! Depending on the variety of cranberries you get, the colour of the sauce might not be bright-red but a little lighter. The taste is still great!

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Chocolate Soufflé

From: Linda McCartney’s “Home Cooking”, p. 157.

An oven-baked chocolate dessert that is best served with some whipped cream.

This is a very special dessert that tastes just great- another favourite!

I have reduced the sugar to 40g and did not sprinkle the soufflé with extra sugar before baking- this would just be too sweet. I also added a pinch of salt and used 4 instead of 5 egg whites. This way, there will also be no egg yolk left over (4 egg yolks used in recipe).
To make this easier to cook, simply mix the chocolate into the white sauce without having melted it before. It did melt well in the sauce and saved some work.

Gluten-free: I used rice flour, which worked well.

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Coconut Custard

From: Linda McCartney’s Home Cooking, p. 160

A lovely recipe for custard topped with coconut meringue.

My family just loves when I try out the sweet deserts from Linda’s book and this was just one of the surprises. The recipe is simple enough: Make some custard, top it with beaten egg whites, icing sugar and desicated coconut and bake in the over for 20 minutes. The result looks very impressive and would be great for a special family dinner.

When making the Coconut Custard, the custard started bubbling and spilled into the oven- next time I would make sure to put it on a baking tray to avoid cleaning the whole oven. Also, the custard was REALLY hot after baking, so it is best to leave it to cool for 10 minutes before serving.

To avoid having to “destroy” the lovely coconut topping when serving, use four individual ramekins.

Vegan: This recipe works well with soya milk and soya cream. For the meringue, use vegan eggwhite replacement or aqua faba (the liquid drained from tinned chickpeas)- works just as well as egg whites.

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Cheese Souflé

From: Linda McCartney’s Home Cooking, p. 94

A fluffy souflé with a lovely cheesy flavour- great served with a green salad or steamed greens.

With this recipe it seems that I have gone full circle: it was the first recipe I ever tried from this book when I bought it in 1992. Do not ask me why a teenager who does not have much experience with cooking would choose a souflé of all recipes as a first, but I remember that it did work well and that my family enjoyed it very much. Perhaps it helped that Linda wrote in her book that you need not be afraid of making souflés and that her children would make great souflés… who knows?

Anyway, I did make a cheese souflé today and it really was quite easy. As there was some Dutch pesto cheese (green!) in my fridge that needed using up, I made a green souflé which also looked very unusual but pretty. The pesto flavour was really nice in the souflé and worked well with the green veg we had to go with it.
I baked the souflé in a 2 pint souflé dish (Linda suggests a 1 pint dish) and it did rise way above the top of the dish. Luckily, it did not collapse or run down at the sides.

A delicious and quite impressive dish that is easy enough to make. Great to use up any leftover cheese.

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Hearts of Artichoke with Mushroom Sauce

From: Linda McCartney’s Home Cooking, p. 101

Boiled artichoke hearts, served with a creamy mushroom and tarragon sauce.

This recipe has been on my list to try out for quite some time, but I was a little afraid of preparing artichokes as I have never done this before. However, when I spotted nice-looking artichokes in a small vegetable store in town, I decided to give it a go.
With the help of the internet and Linda’s description, I managed to cook the artichokes sucessfully and my family and I enjoyed dipping the leaves into the sauce and eating the tender artichoke at the bottom of the leaves. The artichoke hearts are very small, so I would recommend to serve this dish as a starter and I would certainly also serve the leaves along with the hearts (in Linda’s recipe, the leaves are not used). Dipping and eating the leaves is a very social and nice start for a meal with friends or family!

Alternatively, you could serve the hearts of artichoke and the leaves with a mustard and honey vinaigrette- great for a summer dinner party.

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Tomato Pie

From: Linda McCartney’s Home Cooking, p. 128

A pie filled with cooked tomato and courgette, topped with a crust of beaten egg and cheese.

This pie is another one of the surprises in this book that is not easy to spot. Only when making it did I realize that there is no pie crust on top but instead a layer of beaten egg and cheese. This is not only really tasty but also very quick to make and saves you the trouble of rolling out some pastry to put on top. My parents (it was my Dad’s birthday!) and brother who came around for dinner loved the pie and named it “Ratatouille Pie”…. I think you could in fact add other ratatouille ingredients such as peppers, aubergine or even mushrooms to this recipe, depending on what you have in your fridge. Delicious!

Serve warm with a green salad- and be sure to make enough as this is so tasty 🙂

For a gluten-free pie, see my shortcrust pastry recipe.

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Watercress and Lettuce Salad

From: Linda McCartney’s Home cooking, p. 78

A fresh salad with sharp watercress and lettuce, with a mustard vinaigrette.

I had never actually tried watercress and it has been on my mental shopping list since I started my “cook all of Linda’s recipes project”. Yesterday, I visited a huge farmer’s market in central Hamburg with my daughter and found- watercress! I loved its sharpness and crunch and will certainly keep it on my mental shopping list 🙂

I thought that the onion and garlic were too dominant in the dressing and I would recommend using a very simple vinaigrette with mustard, olive oil and white wine vinegar for this salad.