Wednesday, August 27, 2025

Celeriac Mash with Scallop Roe Butter

Celeriac Mash with Scallop Roe Butter is a delightfully fluffy side dish where nutty, celery-flavored celeriac combines beautifully with gorgeously buttery coral scallop roe.

Food Lust People Love: Celeriac Mash with Scallop Roe Butter is a delightfully fluffy side dish where nutty, celery-flavored celeriac combines beautifully with gorgeously buttery coral scallop roe.

It’s not a pretty vegetable – in fact, some would say it’s downright ugly - and perhaps that’s why celeriac is underrated. I like to use it in soups where it adds a delightfully subtle celery flavor and welcome creaminess, especially when pureed. 


But celeriac really shines when you mash it. It becomes fluffy and light, the perfect side dish to serve with any meal. 

As for the scallop roe, I know some people cook and eat them along with the scallops but I am not a fan of their texture. This recipe takes advantage of their wonderful flavor to "season" the celeriac and solves my texture issues.

Celeriac Mash with Scallop Roe Butter

If you can’t find celeriac where you live (looking at you, most US grocery stores!) you can certainly make this with your favorite potatoes. 

Ingredients
About 1 dozen scallop roe (1 3/4 oz or 50g)
1 3/4 oz or 50g butter, divided
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 celeriac - about 1.1 lb or 500g, before peeling
Fine sea salt
Ground white pepper

Optional for garnish: parsley. 

Method
Clean the scallop roe and cut off any dark or unsavory looking bits. I use only the coral-colored bits. 

Pan-fry the roe in a little of the butter for 2-3 minutes, stirring and flipping them as you cook.


Remove from the heat and transfer to a small bowl to cool, along with any butter in the pan. Use a silicone or rubber spatula and don't leave anything behind!


Add the lemon juice and cool water to a suitable sized pot in which to boil the celeriac. Use a sharp knife to cut the peel off of the celeriac and cut it into chunks. 


Add them to the lemon water as you cut them to stop them turning brown. 


When all of the celeriac is cut, drain the lemon water and refill the pot with fresh water to cover. Add 1 teaspoon fine sea salt. 

Bring to the boil and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 15-20 minutes or until a knife easily slices through the chunks.


While the celeriac cooks, add the rest of the butter to a small food processor along with the cooled roe. 


Process until smooth. Set aside.


Drain the water and return the celeriac to the pan and mash until smooth. 


Add in the scallop roe butter and stir well to combine. 


Season to taste with fine sea salt and white pepper.


 Garnish in a serving bowl with a little parsley, if desired. 

Food Lust People Love: Celeriac Mash with Scallop Roe Butter is a delightfully fluffy side dish where nutty, celery-flavored celeriac combines beautifully with gorgeously buttery coral scallop roe.

I served this with seared scallops and a small tomato and onion salad. 

Food Lust People Love: Celeriac Mash with Scallop Roe Butter is a delightfully fluffy side dish where nutty, celery-flavored celeriac combines beautifully with gorgeously buttery coral scallop roe.

Enjoy!

Welcome to the 18th edition of Alphabet Challenge 2025, brought to you by the letter R. Many thanks to Wendy from A Day in the Life on the Farm for organizing and creating the challenge. Check out all the R recipes below:




Pin this Celeriac Mash with Scallop Roe Butter!

Food Lust People Love: Celeriac Mash with Scallop Roe Butter is a delightfully fluffy side dish where nutty, celery-flavored celeriac combines beautifully with gorgeously buttery coral scallop roe.

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Monday, August 25, 2025

Pepperoni Pizza Muffins #MuffinMonday

Just like a slice of pizza but in muffin form, these pepperoni pizza muffins are great for breakfast, brunch, lunch or snacking. 

Food Lust People Love: Just like a slice of pizza but in muffin form, these pepperoni pizza muffins are great for breakfast, brunch, lunch or snacking.

Growing up, we didn’t have the ready option of take-out or pizza delivery or at least if we did, my mom didn’t take advantage of such a thing. If we wanted pizza, it meant going to a pizza parlor or baking it at home. 

Mom would use the Chef Boyardee pizza kit which included everything you needed, even a can of grated cheese to make a big rectangular pizza. Good memories, good times. 


Nowadays, whenever we make our fancy sourdough crust pizza at home, I think about how much I enjoyed that box kit pizza – special treat! - and how far we’ve come with options online and in the neighborhood to buy pizza. Despite those, homemade pizza is still the best! 

If you don’t have time for yeast dough though, these pepperoni pizza muffins will fill in beautifully.

Pepperoni Pizza Muffins

If you can’t find the julienne-cut sun-dried tomatoes, substitute the whole ones and slice them up! I found mine in the back of the pantry where they’d been languishing for a while. They darkened but still tasted good, so waste not want not but next time, once opened, I think I’ll pop them in the freezer to keep the color looking bright. 

Ingredients
1/2 oz or 14g sun-dried tomatoes, julienne cut
1 1/2 cups or 190g flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1/2 teaspoon Italian seasonings
3/4 cup or 180ml milk
1/4 cup or 60ml canola oil
1 egg
2/3 cup or 156ml pizza sauce, divide into 2, half for muffin batter and balance for topping
3 1/2 oz or 100g mozzarella, plus extra for topping, if desired
1 3/4 oz or 50g pepperoni, plus extra for topping, if desired

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and generously grease your muffin tin or use paper liners.

Pour hot water over the sun-dried tomatoes to rehydrate them. Leave for 10 minutes, then drain well.
 

Cut your pepperoni into pieces and grate your cheese.  

In a large bowl, mix together your flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, crushed red pepper and dried oregano.


Add the cut pepperoni to the flour mixture and use your hands to toss and coat so you can separate the pieces of pepperoni. 


Do the same with the grated cheese and then the drained sun-dried tomatoes. 


In a separate bowl, whisk the egg, milk, and oil together.


Add your wet ingredients to your dry and mix just until it is just combined.


Gently fold in half of the pizza sauce. 


Spoon the batter into your prepared muffin tin.


Divide the remaining pizza sauce between the muffin cups.  


Top with one pepperoni each, then some cheese and a pinch of Italian seasonings. 


Bake in your preheated oven for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
 

Allow the muffins to cool for a few minutes then remove from the muffin pan and cool on a rack. 


Enjoy!

Food Lust People Love: Just like a slice of pizza but in muffin form, these pepperoni pizza muffins are great for breakfast, brunch, lunch or snacking.

It’s the last Monday of the month so that means it’s time for my Muffin Monday friends to share muffin recipes! Check out the links below.

#MuffinMonday is a group of muffin loving bakers who get together once a month to bake muffins. You can see all of our lovely muffins by following our Pinterest board. Updated links for all of our past events and more information about Muffin Monday can be found on our home page. 




Pin these Pepperoni Pizza Muffins!

Food Lust People Love: Just like a slice of pizza but in muffin form, these pepperoni pizza muffins are great for breakfast, brunch, lunch or snacking.

.

Sunday, August 24, 2025

Bacon Cheddar Spinach Waffles

These bacon cheddar spinach waffles are the perfect savory breakfast or dinner, plain, buttered, with syrup or even topped with a sunny-side up egg. 

Food Lust People Love: These bacon cheddar spinach waffles are the perfect savory breakfast or dinner, plain, buttered, with syrup or even topped with a sunny-side up egg.

Despite the savory nature of these waffles, we very much enjoyed them with Pearl Milling (formerly Aunt Jemima) butter lite pancake syrup, which our family prefers to real maple syrup. I know, I know, it’s sacrilege to those from maple producing areas, but the taste buds can’t be convinced otherwise. We ate these waffles as breakfast for dinner one evening and the sweet syrup with the savory waffles was perfection.

Then, the very next morning, I popped a couple of the leftover waffles in the toaster and fried a sunny-side up egg to top them with, along with a couple of pats of butter. The runny yolk ran into the buttered waffle holes in a glorious way! Another fabulous meal. Highly recommend, 10/10.  Grilled tomatoes optional but they did go nicely.

Bacon Cheddar Spinach Waffles

My frozen spinach is whole leaf so I chop it into smaller bits once thawed. If your frozen spinach is already chopped, you can skip that step. Do not skip the step of pressing out excess liquid once it’s thawed. No cheddar? Substitute your favorite semi-hard cheese. In my Belgian waffle maker, this batter makes 11 square waffles.  

Ingredients
3 1/2 oz or 100g frozen spinach, measured frozen, then thawed
1 3/4 cups or 220g flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon double-acting baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda or bicarbonate of soda
1⁄2 teaspoon salt
a few generous grinds of black pepper
3 1/2 oz or 100g mature (sharp) cheddar
3 1/2 oz or 100g real bacon crumbles
2 cups or 480ml buttermilk
1/3 cup or 80ml canola or other light oil, plus extra for greasing the waffle maker
2 eggs

Method
Squeeze any excess liquid out of your thawed spinach then chop it with a sharp knife. 


In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients.


Grate your cheddar and add it along with the bacon crumbles to the dry mixture. Toss to coat.


In a separate bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, oil and eggs. Add in the chopped spinach and stir well to combine.


Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and fold until well combined. 


Preheat your waffle maker as per manufacturer’s instructions.

Using a pastry brush, grease your hot waffle maker with some canola or other light oil.
 
Pour batter into the center of the lower half of the waffle maker, being careful to leave room for when the batter spreads out as you lower the lid and also for when the waffle starts to rise when baking.


Close the lid and watch for the signal that your waffle is cooking. On my waffle maker, the light is red while it heats up. It goes green when it is ready for batter, red when it is cooking and then green again when the waffle is ready.  

I leave the waffles in just a little bit longer after the light turns green the second time so the waffles are nice and crispy.  But if you like them less crunchy, by all means take them out earlier.


Put the waffles single file on a pan in a warm oven to keep warm if you aren’t serving them to hungry hordes as soon as they are ready. 

Repeat the process until all the batter has become waffles. 

Food Lust People Love: These bacon cheddar spinach waffles are the perfect savory breakfast or dinner, plain, buttered, with syrup or even topped with a sunny-side up egg.

Serve them plain, buttered, with syrup or topped with an egg. Refrigerate any leftover waffles and rewarm them in your toaster or oven to serve. 

Food Lust People Love: These bacon cheddar spinach waffles are the perfect savory breakfast or dinner, plain, buttered, with syrup or even topped with a sunny-side up egg.

Enjoy! 

It’s Sunday FunDay and we are celebrating National Waffle Day which happens to be today! If you have a waffle maker, I suggest you do the same. Check out all of the links below.

 
We are a group of food bloggers who believe that Sunday should be a family fun day, so every Sunday we share recipes that will help you to enjoy your day. If you're a blogger interested in joining us, just visit our Facebook group and request to join.



Pin these Bacon Cheddar Spinach Waffles! 

Food Lust People Love: These bacon cheddar spinach waffles are the perfect savory breakfast or dinner, plain, buttered, with syrup or even topped with a sunny-side up egg.

.