Jerusalem artichoke and roasted garlic houmous

I love houmous. There's something so comforting and wholesome about it. But I hardly ever make it myself. Tonight I was thinking about what I could do with the rest of the jerusalem artichokes - I'd read that they're great pureed, so I thought - why not in houmous? The result was a very wintery, garlicky, nutty houmous. I'm going to have it for my lunch tomorrow with some left over roasted veggies and bread.

If you're not too sure about the flavour of the artichokes and would prefer a more subtle flavour, I'd recommend using one or two. It's really nice though - just experiment with the proportions of garlic, oil and lemon juice until you find the combination you like.

1 400g tin of chickpeas
between 1 and 4 jerusalem artichokes
between 1 and 3 cloves of garlic, skins left on
juice of about half a lemon
olive oil
salt and pepper

Peel and roast the artichokes and garlic cloves in a bit of olive oil. I prefer to do them slowly at about 150-160 degrees for about 40-50 mins to really let the flavour develop. You might want to take the garlic cloves out before this time though, as you don't want them to be too brown; just nicely soft.

Once they've cooled you just need to pop them in a food processor and blitz - add the drained chickpeas and garlic (according to taste) and keep blending. Add a bit of oil (I don't like to use too much because I think it can overpower the flavour, but again it's all down to taste), the lemon juice and maybe a bit of water to ensure the consistency isn't too dry. Season and taste - add a bit more of whatever you need and blitz again until it's the consistency you like. Very easy!

Onion, fennel and thyme pasty (with a bit of Jerusalem artichoke for good measure)

This was our Sunday tea this evening. It’s not actually a pasty at all but a tart really, however the cynics in my house couldn’t get past the poshness of a tart (my cooking is anything but posh) so we adopted pasty as a not-too-threatening name.

It’d be nice without the fennel too if you can’t get it, but when roasted it adds a real depth of flavour to the tart and is a little bit more interesting. I really liked the Jerusalem artichoke added – it’s got a lovely nuttiness to it. I roasted it then chopped it into smaller bits when it was really soft and caramelised.

You could also make individual tarts, use shortcrust pastry instead of puff (I’d like to try it with a wholemeal shortcrust), perhaps add some tapenade or sundried tomato paste, use a different kind of cheese (maybe try blue cheese – this would really work with the nuts and fennel, or perhaps feta if you want something a bit lighter and zingier) or even no cheese at all. This made 3 big portions (enough for two hungry people for dinner and some for lunch the next day).

Half a pack of puff pastry
2 onions (I used red, could use a combination of different kinds)
a bulb of fennel
about 3-4 knobs of jerusalem artichoke
olive oil
thyme (fresh or dried – I only had dried)
a handful of walnuts, broken into pieces
soft creamy goats cheese (or alternative as above) – as much as you like

Once you’ve roasted the veggies this is just an assembly job. I roasted the onions, fennel (both sliced fairly thickly) and artichoke (whole knobs, peeled) with some thyme, seasoning and olive oil for just under an hour at about 160 degrees.

Once that’s done, just roll out the pastry and draw a box around the outside with a knife (this is so the sides puff up nicely) and arrange the veggies (chop the artichoke into smaller pieces first, making sure you eat plenty of it while you’re doing so), nuts and cheese within the border. Then it just needs a little drizzle of olive oil and a twist of pepper and a hot oven for about 25-30 mins (my fan oven was about 185 degrees).