Courgette Tart

This has a bit to do with the recipe in the current Tesco magazine, and a bit to do with David Lebovitz' tomato tart recipe, and a bit of my own invention!

1 sheet ready-rolled puff pastry (or okay, make your own.  Be like that.  See if I care!  Me, I use ready-rolled).
½ quantity pesto (roughly)
½ tub goats' cream cheese
1 egg
½ roll goats' cheese (Lidl's Petit Chebra is what I tend to use)
1-2 courgettes, cut into thin slices.  I used a gourd-shaped one that was on special offer in Sainsbury's as well as ½ an ordinary one

Spread the pastry out into a baking tray.  Put the pesto, cream cheese and egg into a food processor

and blitz until smooth.

Spread this mixture on to the pastry base, then top with the sliced courgettes and bits of goats' cheese from the log.

Bake in a hottish oven - gas mark 6, 200C (180 C fan) - for 25-30 minutes. 

You can, of course, use tomatoes or other roastable vegetables (butternut squash?) in place of courgette.

I do wish I had discovered earlier how easy it is to put photos on my blogs - you can get them straight from your Android phone!  So if I think of adding my recipe while I am making it, I can photo-blog it.

Dundee Cake

I could have sworn I'd posted my version of this famous classic, but obviously not

200 g prunes, no stones.
150 g demerara sugar + extra for sprinkling
3 eggs
45 ml liquid (see note)
500 g mixed dried fruit ("Cake Fruit" in the supermarket), plus nuts if liked
250 g self-raising flour

Pour boiling water over the prunes and leave to soak for at least an hour (longer if they are very dried!).  Drain, reserving 45 ml of the liquid (see note), and place in bowl of food processor with the eggs, sugar and liquid.  Process until smooth.

Now transfer to a bowl, and fold in the flour and fruit (and nuts, if using).  Place in a greased, 7" cake tin.  Decorate the top with blanched almonds, if liked, and sprinkle with the extra demerara sugar.  Bake in a very low oven (Mark 1, 125 C) for 2½ hours.

Note: Although I usually the prune liquid, you can use more or less any liquid you like: milk, beer, cider, cold tea....  And if you use beer, you get to drink the rest of the bottle, which is always a Good Thing.

Aubergine pasta

One cannot, I find, eat asparagus every day at this time of year, although I do my best! I may post some recipes using asparagus later on. But today I decided to have a break, and make aubergine pasta, which is fairly quick, very easy and delicious.

1 aubergine, diced into ¼" chunks
1-2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tsp coconut oil (or 1 tbs olive or rapeseed oil)
1/2 tub soft goats' cheese or other cream cheese, as liked (cheese and chives very good, too)
100 g small pasta

Put the aubergine, garlic and oil into a frying-pan that has a lid, season it, and cook on a very low heat, stirring occasionally, for 15 minutes. Then turn the heat down even lower, as low as it will go, while you cook the pasta according to the instructions on the packet. When the pasta is cooked, stir it into the aubergine, and then mix in the soft cheese. Stir it through until the cheese has melted and coats everything, and then serve. Yum.

Omelettes, part 2

I don't pretend to make authentic Spanish tortillas or Italian frittatas, but they are very much easier than traditional French omelettes.  Quite apart from anything else, you can keep them waiting, and even eat them cold if you would like (if you get it right - and I find mine tend to fall apart - you can take them on picnics).

The idea of these omelettes is that they are stuffed full of vegetables. They have way more vegetables than eggs. Spanish ones must contain potatoes and onions, but may also contain things like peppers, chorizo (okay, that's not a vegetable, but hey?), tomatoes.... whatever.  Italian ones just contain vegetables.  It's probably not a good idea to use too many vegetables that render a great deal of juice when cooked, although one or two.  But choose a selection of vegetables that you like: onions, peas, peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes (cherry tomatoes work well), chunks of butternut squash, maybe chopped aubergine or courgette, maybe chunks of carrot or parsnip... maybe a root vegetable omelette would be nice (must try this!).  You might want a green vegetable omelette in the spring - perhaps peas (or mangetout if you can get them that haven't been flown in from Kenya), baby broad beans, broccoli florets, asparagus tips or maybe a green pepper.

Whatever, you chop your vegetables into small pieces, and cook over gentle heat in a lidded frying pan - use cooking oil of some kind.  Stir occasionally, but keep the lid on as much as possible to let the vegetables cook mostly in their own steam.  If you're using frozen vegetables, thaw and slightly cook them in the microwave.  If you're using bacon or chorizo or even mini-sausages, add them and cook them, too.  When the vegetables are cooked, pour on a couple of eggs that you have whisked until they are all one consistency, seasoned, and maybe added some grated cheese to.  Keep the heat low, and keep the lid on the pan.  Cook gently without disturbing it until the eggs are set through.  Cut into wedges and serve - perhaps with bread if you haven't used potatoes (I am incapable of eating anything eggy without some form of carbohydrate, a relic of having grown up in the 1950s!).

Omelettes, part 1

When you think of an omelette, what comes to mind?  For many of us, it's the iconic French omelette, filled, perhaps, with cheese or mushrooms, or ham.... but perhaps it's an Italian frittata or Spanish tortilla that comes to mind.  They are very different animals, and I like - and can cook - both, so I thought I'd do a post on each.  There is also a soufflé omelette, which is as eggy as the French kind, but cooked more slowly, like the Spanish/Italian kinds....

So for a traditional French omelette.  First of all, you prepare your filling - if it needs cooked, like mushrooms or tomatoes, then you cook it; grate your cheese, chop your ham or herbs.... 

One egg is possible, two ideal and three, frankly greedy!  Whichever you choose, choose a pan to suit, and for these purposes, a heavy cast-iron pan, Le Creuset or a clone thereof, is ideal.  It doesn't want to be too big.

Whisk your eggs until they are all one consistency.  Add salt and pepper.  Now heat your pan, and add a knob of butter.  The pan should be very hot, and the butter will sizzle.  Listen carefully, and as soon as it stops sizzling, pour in your egg.  Using a fish slice or spatula, pull the set bits away from the side, allowing more liquid egg to run underneath.  When it is just not quite set on the top, add your filling, fold it in half using the spatula/fish slice, and tip on to a plate.  Serve immediately with bread (and butter, if liked, and perhaps a salad).

Easiest pancakes ever!

I used to struggle dreadfully making pancakes, but these days I tend to make galettes au sarassin and we will have a "galette complete" for supper tonight, with eggs, lardons and cheese, and I shall add some mushrooms because I like them and a side salad. Anyway, they are easy enough, but this is even easier, full of protein and very delicious:

 Per pancake:
 c 50-75 ml water
1 heaped tablespoon gram flour.

 Er, that's it!

You can, of course, season this to taste with salt and pepper, maybe some chilli and garlic.... and if you want to make it really lush, add 1/2 tablespoonful of tahini.

Whisk this together thoroughly. Lightly grease a frying-pan, and cook in the usual way, over a medium-hot heat until the top surface looks dry, and then turn it over and cook for a further minute or so.

This is vegan and gluten-free; I have seen it called a "vegan omelette". You can fill it with things like tomatoes and onion, or sliced avocado, or whatever you fancy, really, but it's very nice on its own.

Edited to add: try spreading it with hummus and rolling it up! That is seriously lush....

Christmas Chocolates

I like making these - they don't have to be just for Christmas, of course.  They do very-nicely-thank-you for Easter, and I made truffles for my father's birthday.


I allow my chocolates to harden off on a silicone baking tray, which is beautifully non-stick.  I expect you could use baking parchment, or those re-usable non-stick liners they sell for cake tins.

You don't absolutely need moulds for the truffles - you can pour them into a shallow plastic dish and allow them to set, and then roll teaspoonsful of the mixture into little balls, perhaps dusting them with cocoa powder or chocolate sprinkles.

So. Makes 72 chocolates and 3 trays-ful of truffles

About 600 grammes really good quality dark cooking chocolate
About 100 grammes less-good quality dark cooking chocolate for the truffles (you can, of course, use the best quality, but it is less necessary)
36 stoned prunes
36 dried apricots
150 ml double cream
30-60 ml spirits of your choice (brandy, Calvados, rum... I used some cranberry-orange gin someone gave me last year)

Break 300 grammes of the fine chocolate into a bowl that you have placed over a panful of simmering water.  Allow these to melt, and stir to ensure they melt smoothly.  Now drop in the prunes, about 9 at a time, fish them out with a long-handled teaspoon, and place them on your baking tray.  Please buy a new packet of both prunes and apricots for this, and don't use the ones you've had drying out in the cupboard since forever!  You can always use them up in stews and couscouses if you're not fond of them as a compote.

When you have done all the prunes, add a further 600 grammes of chocolate, melt it, and repeat with the apricots, which are easier because they are rather more regular in shape, which is why I do them second.

Leave them on the baking tray to harden off. Meanwhile you have some chocolate left over, so dip a couple of prunes and apricots for yourself.  Then add the cream to what's left, and the booze, and stir thoroughly.  It will want more chocolate, so break in another 100 grammes or so (you can use the cheaper chocolate for this, if you prefer).  Once this is all melted and incorporated into itself, spoon into moulds (Lidl occasionally has them, but they are fairly easily obtainable from places like Hobbycraft) or into a shallow plastic box.  Harden off in the fridge. 

Then place each chocolate in a paper case (ubiquitous), and if you want to be grand, make up boxes of a mixture of the chocolates (you can get boxes in Hobbycraft and also on-line, but the postage was eye-watering so I went to Hobbycraft!), seal them and present them to your adoring friends and family!

Of course, if your family like milk chocolate or even white "chocolate" better than plain, no reason you can't use that instead - just make sure it is the best quality you can get.  I've seen all three cooking chocolates in the home baking section of the supermarket.  And you don't have to stick to prunes and apricots - I tried with spoonfuls of sultanas or cranberries, which were lovely although they did tend to come apart a bit.  You could also dip shelled whole nuts - almonds, walnuts, brazils, pecans....  And I expect, although I've not tried, you could dip other home-made sweets - fudge, caramels, even truffles (if you can be bothered to melt yet more chocolate!).

You need to let the chocolates harden about 24 hours, and they're probably best kept very cool, even in the fridge, until you give them away, but they do make a very easy last-minute Christmas present.

You can also dip fresh fruit - sliced bananas, grapes, mandarin orange slices, etc - but these won't keep so you have to eat them pretty much the same day (what a pity!!!).

Orange hash

A friend posted her recipe for sausage and leek hash. I remember loving corned beef hash as a child but, alas, the Swan Whisperer dislikes corned beef, so it doesn't feature on our menus.

However, when I came to make the hash, I found that I had only a few small new potatoes left.  I did have another bag, but it never "does" to mix two batches of potatoes, they always cook unevenly, and these were maincrop anyway.  But I also had some sweet potatoes, and then there was the end of a butternut squash that wanted used.  So.....

4-5 small new potatoes (of course you can use whatever potatoes you have, but about the amount that one person would eat), cut in half (or into bite-size chunks if you are using ordinary potatoes)
1/2 medium sweet potato, peeled and cubed
1/4 large butternut squash, peeled and cubed
1-2 leeks, depending on size, washed and chopped
1/2 packed Nuremburg bratwurst (the small herby jobs from Lidl) or other sausages of your choice, cut into chunks.
1 tbs olive or other cooking oil
Seasoning, as liked  (I used some pork seasoning I have from Tesco)
60-100 grammes grated cheese

Put the oil into a large, lidded frying pan, then add the potatoes and leeks, stir and let cook on a lowish heat for 10-15 minutes, then add the sausages, stir again, and leave for another 10-15 minutes.   Season, and stir the grated cheese through before serving.

This could be made vegetarian quite simply by omitting the sausages, or vegan by using cooked chickpeas instead of sausages and stirring through a tahini dressing, some peanut butter or some hummus (or even baba ganoush).  If you don't like cheese, leave that out but perhaps fry an egg and serve that on top.... all sorts of variations, just as I varied my friend's original recipe!

Cheese Scones

I had forgotten how good these were! My mother's recipe, so Imperial measurements, but have made an approximate translation.

8 oz (250 g) self-raising flour
1 1/2 oz butter (45 g)
4 oz strong Cheddar or other cheese (124 g)
3/4 tsp baking powder.
1/2 tsp each cayenne pepper and dry mustard powder
Pinch salt
Scant 1/4 pint milk (c 125 ml)

Grate cheese. Rub butter into flour and seasonings, mix in cheese and add sufficient milk to make dough. Roll out to about 1 cm thick, put on greased baking sheet, brush with milk and score into 6-8 pieces. Bake in hot oven (Mark 7) for 15-20 minutes. Let cool, split, butter and eat, preferably while still warm.

Butternut squash spread/dip

I first came across this as a meze when lunching at Whole Paycheck Foods Market in Kensington High Street, and thought it delicious.  It belongs to the same "family" of spread/dips as hummus, particularly the kind made with vegetables instead of chickpeas (see, for instance, this delicious courgette "hummus" recipe here and many similar ones, and one of these days I plan to try it with a large tomato instead of courgette), but uses peanut butter instead of tahini.  Of course, you can substitute tahini if you like, or any other nut butter, come to that!

I was cooking butternut squashs, so just cooked extra while I was at it.

1/4 butternut squash (approximately - you want 200-250 gr or so)
1/2 tbs olive oil, salt and pepper

If the bit of butternut you are using  has seeds in it, scoop them out and discard.  Brush the cut surface with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper, before roasting, skin side up, in a hot oven for about an hour.  Alternatively, peel and cut into chunks, spray with olive oil, and microwave for a few minutes until cooked, which is a lot quicker if you are cooking it specially.

When cold, peel and roughly cube the flesh, then place in a food processor and add:
1 tablespoonful of smooth peanut butter - ideally whole nut, with no added sugar.  Or tahini, if you prefer.
1 tablespoonful olive oil
1 tablespoonful lemon juice
(Optional) 1 clove garlic, crushed, or a sprinkle of garlic powder
Salt and pepper to taste
I also added 1 tsp fish sauce, but that does make it non-vegetarian, which might matter to some people; if it matters to you, or if you don't have fish sauce, leave it out or substitute a small amount of soya sauce or Marmite (you don't want a lot, just enough to lift the flavour,  not enough to make it taste!).

Blitz until smooth, and use as you would hummus or a vegetable dip.  Very nice, and an unusual flavour, I find.

Baked Eggs

When I was a little girl, my brother and I would be sent to stay with my paternal grandmother who seemed to like to have us overnight. Quite why, I don't know, because she only lived down the road, and could easily have given us back, but she seemed to enjoy our company without our parents on occasion! 

Unlike my mother, my grandmother had a gas cooker - town gas, in those long-ago days before North Sea Gas was discovered - and therefore felt freer to run her oven more than my mother did, and baked eggs frequently featured on her breakfast menu.  My mother never cooked them, so it was a treat for when we stayed with my grandmother.  Except when we were packed off to spend the night the night before we went on holiday. When she learnt that we were concerned about the quasi-inevitable car-sickness that would probably ensue on the journey, she gave us a breakfast she said was served at the Lord Warden in Dover before a Channel crossing, and nobody could possibly feel sick if they ate that.  It was only plain bread-and-butter and ham, but I seem to remember it did the trick!  (And I rather suspect that at the Lord Warden champagne was served, rather than the weak tea or milk we had!).

Anyway, baked eggs:

Per person:
1 egg
½ slice ham
½ a tomato or 3 cherry tomatoes, sliced or halved as appropriate (optional)
1 tbs milk
Seasoning, as liked

Put the ham and tomatoes into the bottom of a greased ramekin.  Top with the egg, left whole, and add the milk and seasoning. Bake in a moderate oven (gas 4, 180 C) for 15-20 minutes.  Eat out of the ramekin with a teaspoon, accompanied by bread, or toast, and butter.

Chilli Sherry and sauce recommendations

My grandmother used to make this, and use a teaspoonful or so to season soups, stews, etc.  If you have an empty glass bottle with a screw-top lid, do make some!

Fill the bottle about ¼ full with dried chilli peppers, and top up with cheap cream sherry.  Leave to infuse for about 3 weeks before using.  Top up with additional sherry when necessary.

Meanwhile, I should like to recommend Clothilde's magic sauce, which I made yesterday (the version with peanut butter) and found surprisingly good.  And I should also like to recommend this courgette hummus, recommended by Clothilde, which as far as I am concerned could replace mayonnaise very, very easily!

Summer Pudding

An English classic!

1 packet (750 gr) frozen summer fruit or fruits of the forest (or use fresh strawberries/raspberries/redcurrants/cherries in the proportions you prefer)
About 2-3 tablespoonsful of sugar
1 teaspoon cornflour stirred into 1 tablespoonful water
6 slices bread, crusts removed

Put the fruit into a microwaveable container with the sugar and cook, stirring every 2-3 minutes, until the fruit is thawed and the juices have run.   Stir in the cornflour/water.  Taste and adjust the sugar if necessary - remember you can always add some, but you can't take it away, and this pudding is not meant to be too sweet.

Line a 2-pint pudding basin with the bread, saving a slice for the top.  Pour the fruit into the centre, top with the remaining bread.  Place a saucer on top and weigh it down (use a couple of 400-g tins if you haven't any old-fashioned weights); refrigerate for at least 8 hours if you can.  Turn the pudding out on to a plate and serve with cream.

Frozen green orange tea

I ordered this in a coffee shop in Hamburg the other day when I was very hot. Not at all sure what to expect, but it was very good and refreshing, so I tried to recreate it at home:

1 peppermint tea bag
2 large sprigs mint
Several slices of lemon (I freeze 1/4 slices of lemon to go in tea, so just grabbed a handful of those) or lime
As many ice cubes as you can muster
Orange, apple or multi-vitamin juice

Make 1 cup of peppermint tea and add the mint sprigs, too - crush them for a bit of flavour.  Cool it down with the ice-cubes and lemon.  Add fruit juice to taste - and it might, I suspect, be very nice with some sparkling water, too.

Most refreshing.  Please note this is still a work in progress.....

Kate and Sidney

I know this is another two-posts-in-one-day, but there you are - my posts are like buses.  None for ages, and then two come along at once!  This one is specially for DBNY, who wanted a recipe.

1 tbs olive oil
1 large onion
1-2 cloves garlic (optional)
1-2 large carrots
1/2 punnet mushrooms
1 400 g tin tomatoes
1 beef stock cube or Stock Pot
The tomato tin full of water (or red wine)*
400 g stewing steak (or thereabouts)
200 g kidneys (ideally ox, but whatever you can get)
1 tbs flour (I used besan, or gram flour, which added a lovely flavour but didn't do much in the way of thickening)
Salt, pepper, mixed herbs, Worcestershire sauce

Peel and chop the onion, garlic, carrots and mushrooms, and fry in a little oil for several minutes, ideally until the onions are softened.  Meanwhile, mix the seasoning with the flour (not the Worcestershire sauce, of course, but....), and toss the cubed meat in it.  Transfer the vegetables to a slow cooker*, and then fry up the meat, stirring constantly, until it has browned.  Transfer this to the slow cooker, and add the tomatoes and water (and Worcestershire sauce, if using).  Leave cooking on high or auto for the rest of the day, and in any case at least 5-6 hours. Serve with potatoes or a hearty pasta and a green vegetable or two.  Left-overs even better re-heated next day!

* If you don't have a slow cooker, use an ordinary casserole dish and cook it in a slow oven for 2-3 hours.  You may well need more water than I used, though.

Unrepeatable soup!

This was so delicious, but it's very hard to find wild garlic in London which is why it's unrepeatable.  I did buy a bunch at my local farmers' market, but it was eye-wateringly expensive.  I am actually wondering whether spring onions (scallions) would work instead - after all, the French cook their peas with lettuce and baby onions....

1 bunch ramsons (wild garlic, bears' garlic)
Outside leaves from a Little Gem lettuce (or any floppy lettuce, really)
1 litre vegetable stock
About 100g frozen peas
2 tbs creme fraiche
A plank of Chinese noodles (or a large packet of instant noodles and discard the flavour sachet)

Boil the ramsons and lettuce in the stock for about 10-15 minutes.  Blend until smooth.  Add the peas and noodles and cook for a further 4-5 minutes.  Stir in the creme fraiche.

If you try this with spring onions, let me know how it works!  And if I do, I will update.

Carrot salad

AKA carottes rapées.

3-4 medium-to-large carrots, peeled and grated
2 snack pack boxes of raisins (the kind you give children who are low blood-sugar or bored)

The traditional dressing is lemon juice and olive oil, and when I made it this way earlier in the week I also added some honey as it was a little too sharp.  However, my preferred dressing is toasted sesame oil and balsamic vinegar, which doesn't really need anything else.

Put everything in a bowl and mix.  Keep in fridge.

Giant couscous salad

About 1/2 cupful giant couscous.  I got mine in Morrison's but if you can't find it, ordinary couscous is fine.
About 2 tbs cooked chickpeas (tinned is fine, but dried are nicer)
About 2 tbs sunflower seeds
About 1-2 tbs sultanas or dried cranberries
1 tomato, chopped
Chunk of red pepper, chopped
Handful of parsley, chopped.
You could also add a chunk of chopped cucumber, but I've gone off cucumber, so I didn't.
1 tbs lemon juice
1 tbs olive oil
I also had some tahini dressing that wasn't doing anything, so that went in, too.

Cook the couscous - if you're using the giant stuff, you boil it for 6-7 minutes like ordinary pasta; the regular stuff you just soak for 10 minutes in twice as much boiling water.  Drain and transfer to a bowl and mix in the rest of the ingredients.  Leave in the fridge for a couple of hours for the flavours to develop.  Serve with lettuce, flatbreads, hummus, olives, other salads..... 

Pesto

Have I ever posted my pesto recipe?  I am not sure that I have.  For me, pesto has to contain basil; I know there is such a thing as red pesto, made with sun-dried tomatoes, and people make pesto with all sorts of different green leaves, but for me, it's basil or nothing!  I will happily substitute walnuts or even peanuts for the pine nuts, and use a strong cheddar instead of parmesan, but it has to be basil!

A large quantity of basil - if you have a growing tub, give it a haircut.  A good handful.
1-2 tbs pine nuts, walnuts, or even peanuts
1 clove garlic
Large chunk - about 60 grammes or so - Parmesan, or maybe strong cheddar
1-2 tbs olive oil

Place it all in a food processor and blitz until it gets to the texture you like.  If it's too dry, add a little more olive oil.

Serve with pasta, and we like to save a little to have on bread next day!

Neither Kedgeree nor Kitchari

I had been toying with the idea of a vegetarian kedgeree - I adore kedgeree, but it's expensive and I don't make it often.  Anyway, a bit of research brought me to this recipe, only me being me, I wanted vegetables in and with it, plus we had loads of veg in the bottom of the fridge that wanted using!  Serves 4.  This recipe is vegan and gluten-free.

½ cup mung beans
1 tbsp cooking oil (I used sesame oil)
1 chunk frozen grated ginger (or grate your own!)
1 tsp turmeric
 ½ each asafoetida, cumin seeds, coriander seeds, as liked
1 leek, chopped
1 large courgette, chopped
3 tomatoes, peeled and chopped
½ cup basmati or other long-grain rice
500 ml boiling water
1 vegetable "stock pot" (or use 500 ml vegetable stock)
Salt and pepper to taste
Mango chutney to serve

Soak the beans for several hours.   Fry the spices and ginger in the oil for a minute or two, then add the vegetables.  Stir, and allow to cook for a minute or two.  Add the soaked beans and rice, and then stir again.  Finally, add the stock and adjust the seasoning.  Bring back to the boil, then reduce the heat to very low and simmer, covered, for about 20-25 minutes until the water is mostly absorbed.  Serve with chutney.

Leeks and ham au gratin

This is an old favourite.  It is traditionally made with chicory (endives) rather than leeks, but for St David's Day, which it is, one wants something in which leeks are a central feature, rather than an "also-ran". 

4 small or 2 large leeks, trimmed. If large, cut in half widthways.
4 slices ham - the nice kind, without added water
250 ml milk
1 heaped tsp plain flour
A very little salt (only a pinch - the ham will add a great deal)
Black pepper
Dry mustard powder
Knob of butter
c 75g grated cheese (cheddar, emmenthal, Parmesan, one of those bought mixes....)

Boil, or (preferably) steam the leeks until tender. When cool enough to handle, wrap each leek or 1/2 leek in a slice of ham.  Place side-by-side in an oven-proof dish.

Meanwhile, whisk the flour, milk and seasoning together and melt the butter in a saucepan.  Pour the milk mixture on to this and bring to the boil, stirring all the time.  Stir in half the grated cheese, then pour this over the ham and leeks.  Top with the rest of the grated cheese.  Bake in a moderate oven for 30-45 minutes.

This is traditionally served with mashed potato.

Chicken and mushroom curry

Yet another day when two posts come along at once!  I hadn't made a curry quite like this before, but it was very good!

4 chicken breast fillets
1/2 large or 1 small onion
1/2 punnet mushrooms
1 tbs olive oil
1 large tsp curry powder (or more, to taste)
Around 200 ml boiling water
1 Knorr chicken stock-pot
1 tbs coconut milk powder
Salt and pepper to taste

Fry the curry powder in the olive oil for a few minutes; add onions and chicken fillets, allow to cook for a couple of minutes and then turn the fillets over.  Add the sliced mushrooms, reduce the heat, cover and cook gently for about 15 minutes, until the mushrooms are all juicy.  Now add the water, stock and coconut milk powder, stir, bring back to the boil and simmer uncovered for a further 15 minutes.  Adjust seasoning. Serve with rice, and perhaps a vegetable side dish (see previous post).

Broccoli Bhaji

Our Chinese take-away has been closed for a couple of weeks, which meant the weekly take-away came from the local Indian place, which is slightly further away.   We ordered a vegetable thali, which was heaven, and which introduced me to the delicious dish called bhindi bhaji,which is made with okra.  I was going to make that this evening, but my daughter and grandson came to stay unexpectedly while their boiler was being replaced, and my daughter said she didn't care for okra, so I made it with broccoli instead. I thought it just a tad dry, but it tasted good!

1 tsp coriander seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp each asafoetida, tumeric (I didn't have any and so perforce left this out), garam marsala  and chilli powder (to taste, but that sort of thing)
1/2 large or 1 small onion, chopped
2-3 ripe tomatoes, chopped
1/2 large head of broccoli, reduced into florets and the stem chopped small.
1 tbs olive oil
Salt to taste 

Crush the coriander and cumin together in a pestle and mortar, and put them, with the other spices, into the olive oil which you have placed into a frying pan or wok that has a lid.  Allow to cook gently for a few moments, then add the rest of the ingredients.  Stir well, cover, and allow to cook gently for about half an hour, stirring occasionally.  Use as a side dish with curry and rice.

Cheese Pudding

I love this once in awhile; it's the savoury version of bread-and-butter pudding. 

3 slices wholemeal or granary bread
Large lump strong Cheddar cheese (75-100 g)
250 mls milk
2 eggs

Whizz the bread and cheese together in a food processor, as you would for a topping for a savoury dish.  Place in a greased ovenproof dish.  Whisk the eggs and milk together until smooth, seasoning with salt, black pepper and mustard powder.  Pour this mixture over the breadcrumbs and stir.  Leave to sit for a few minutes - 10 or 15 - and then bake in a moderate oven (Gas 4) for about 45 minutes.  I topped this with a sliced tomato, which was lovely, and it would probably have been even nicer if I'd saved some of the cheese to sprinkle on the top. 

Perfect opportunity for roasted veg, which can go in the oven on the shelf above!

Cauliflower cheese bake

½ large or 1 small cauliflower, cut into florets
2 medium potatoes, peeled and sliced
2 hard-boiled eggs, peeled
1 small tin sweetcorn (optional)
250 ml milk
1 heaped teaspoon flour
2 tsp olive oil or similar amount of butter
Salt, pepper, 1/4 tsp dry mustard powder
A little more butter and milk for the potatoes
c 60-100 g cheese, grated (should be 60 g but I'm greedy!)
If liked, a tomato or several cherry tomatoes, sliced or halved

Steam cauliflower florets and potatoes. Make a whisked or roux sauce, as preferred, with milk, flour, seasonings, oil/butter.  Add the tin of sweetcorn, if using, and half the cheese.

Place the cooked cauliflower florets into an oven-proof dish, and tuck the hard-boiled eggs in beside the handles (so you know where they are!). Top with the sauce, then with the potatoes you have mashed with the extra butter and milk (and seasoned), with the rest of the grated cheese and, if liked, the sliced or halved tomatoes.  Bake in a moderate oven for 30-45 minutes.

Cauliflower recipes

No posts for ages, then two come along at once. Mostly because we have, for the first time for ages, bought a cauliflower, and I have been thinking of my two favourite ways to eat it.  The first is very quick to make:

1 small, or ½ large cauliflower, cut into florets
Large chunk of butternut squash, peeled and diced
Small slab Feta cheese
1/2 cup (125 ml) by volume dry couscous
Olive oil
Rosemary or thyme
1 tin tomatoes      )
1 heaped tsp flour )

OR

1/2 punnet cherry tomatoes
2 tsp balsamic vinegar

Steam the cauliflower florets; spray the squash with olive oil and sprinkle with rosemary or thyme.  Microwave it for 4 minutes (you can roast it if you have time, which is nicer, but this is a quick meal).  Soak the couscous in 250 ml boiling water for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile make a tomato sauce by whisking the tin of tomatoes with the flour (seasoning it to taste) and then adding this to a saucepan with c 2 tsp olive oil; bring to the boil, stirring all the time, and ideally simmer for a few minutes.  If you prefer, you can make a fresh tomato sauce with 1/2 punnet of cherry tomatoes, pierced, cooked for a few minutes in olive oil and a dash of balsamic vinegar and then mashed!

Mix the squash, couscous and feta and served topped with the cauliflower and the tomato sauce.

Carrot, lentil and split pea soup

In the interests of remembering how I did it!

1 tbs olive oil
2 small onions, peeled and chopped
5 large carrots, ditto

1 tsp each cumin and coriander seeds, ground in a pestle & mortar
Pinch asafoetida
1/3 cup (approx  80 ml by volume) each of red lentils and  split peas
Salt, pepper, soya sauce
1 tsp tahini

1 vegetable Stock Pot
1.5 litres water

To serve (optional): 1 small tin petits pois and/or 1 small tin sweetcorn or equivalent amount of frozen sweetcorn

Pound the seeds in a pestle and mortar until they are powder.  Fry this, the asafoetida, the onions and the carrots for a few minute in the oil.  Add the rest of the ingredients, bring to the boil, and simmer for about 30 minutes, or until the split peas are soft.  Now run all this through the blender, put it back in the pan, add the peas or sweetcorn (if using) and bring back to the boil.  Taste, and adjust seasoning if necessary.

I do love the mouthfeel that both carrots and lentils bring to a soup.  And this was particularly good on an evening when nobody was very hungry, but we all wanted/needed a light meal!

Mulled Wine

Someone asked....

1 bottle cheap red wine
1-2 sachets mulled wine spices (or mix your own - cloves, cinnamon, mixed spice, nutmeg....)
2-4 tbs brown sugar
1 orange
1 tbs brandy per person (optional)

Put wine, spices and sugar into a saucepan, bring to the boil and simmer for ten minutes.   Some people boil the sliced orange in with the wine, but I prefer to put the orange slices in the mugs with the brandy, if using, and pour the mulled wine on the top. 

Instant Supper!

I didn't have my act together at all this evening, and the Swan Whisperer came in from Ice Dance Club at 8:30 pm and I hadn't even begun to think about supper.  In my defence, I had had rather a substantial snack earlier in the day.... 

So a quick trawl through the fridge yielded this, which really took no more than 7-8 minutes in total:

1 packet lardons
1/2 packet cherry tomatoes
Handful diced cheese (or grated, but I had some diced brought back from France - a mixture of Mimolette and Gruyère.  It was nice as it went all stringy, but if you don't like stringy cheese, use Cheddar!)
2 eggs

For the noodles:
1 egg
1/2 cup (125 ml by volume) buckwheat flour (or plain white or wholemeal flour, or even gram flour.  Buckwheat and gram flours are gluten-free, so suitable for those with coeliac or similar)
120 ml water
Salt and pepper

Pierce the cherry tomatoes and put them and the lardons into a saucepan and allow to cook gently.  Meanwhile put a second pan of salted water on to boil, and make the noodles by mixing the ingredients together to form a smooth paste.  It should be more paste-like than batter-like.  To make noodles, you really need a potato ricer - I have this one, which I use pretty well daily for mashed potatoes, mashed root vegetables and noodles (it comes with three different discs) and have done for some years now.
Put the paste into the tub of the ricer, using the disc with fewest holes in it, and press the noodles into the boiling water.  Bring back to the boil, and allow to cook for one minute.  Drain, and add to the saucepan where the lardons and tomatoes will now be cooked.  Add cheese, the two eggs and some pepper and stir until the eggs are cooked.  Serve at once.

Hummus

Although hummus (or homous, depending on how you care to spell it) is ubiquitous in supermarkets these days in a multiplicity of flavours, I like to make my own occasionally.  It's the one occasion where I do think tinned chickpeas are useful - I've increasingly moved to using the dried variety, only you do have to think about them in advance!

1 400-g tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1-2 tbs tahini (sesame seed paste, widely available in the World Foods section of supermarkets; but if yours doesn't do it, check your local Turkish shop)
1-2 cloves garlic (which you may, of course, omit if you dislike garlic)
1-2 tbs lemon juice
1-2 tbs olive oil OR 1 tbs olive oil and 1-2 tbs natural yoghurt

Seasoning to taste.  I went for Moroccan, and used a Moroccan seasoning mix from France, some Ras-el-Hanout, also from France, a few coriander seeds (couldn't find my cumin seeds; think they were lost in the Great Spice Rack disaster of a few weeks ago) and a little Harissa paste.

Put most of the chickpeas and the rest of the ingredients into a food processor and puree until smooth.  A tablespoonful of water or another tablespoonful of yoghurt or olive oil may help if the mixture is too thick for your taste.  Add the rest of the chickpeas just before you stop the machine, so they remain a little chunky.

Perfect with pita or other flatbreads, toast, or stirred through "slow-fried" vegetables.

Lemon marmalade

I seem to be unable to make the correct amount of marmalade each January, as either I have too much left when the Seville oranges come in again, or I run out, as I did last year and have this. As I am not very fond of three-fruit marmalade, finding it rather too sweet and lacking the "tang" or a proper Seville orange marmalade, I made lemon marmalade last year, and have done the same this year.

4 lemons and their weight in sugar, and the equivalent amount of water, or a little more (my lemons weighed 540 g so I used 600 mls of water and 600 g sugar).

Place whole lemons into a pressure cooker with the water and cook on HIGH pressure for 20 minutes, then allow to cool. Remove lemons from the water, then remove the insides, which you return to the water, and chop the peel as finely as possible. Boil up the water with the insides of the lemon in it for 5 minutes, then strain to remove the pips. Add the chopped peel and sugar, and heat gently until the sugar has dissolved. Then boil hard until setting-point is reached (about 5 minutes - lemons have a lot of pectin!).

Allow to cool for 10 minutes or so, then pot into heated jars, cover and seal. Keeps indefinitely, but you only need it to keep until you make proper marmalade again in January!

Onion Soup

4 large onions (I used 2 red and 2 white)
1-2 tbs olive oil
1-2 tsp Balsamic vinegar
1 tsp flour (cornflour if you need to be gluten-free)
1 litre water
1 Knorr Vegetable Stock Pot
Seasoning to taste

To serve:
Toasted cheese, ideally Emmental, ideally on a chunk of baguette (but ordinary cheese on toast will do); 1 slice per bowl.

Peel and slice onions and place in a heavy-bottomed pan with the olive oil and balsamic.  Cook on a low-ish heat for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.  When the onions are soft and colouring, add the flour and stir well for a few seconds until the flour browns.  Now add the water and Stock Pot (of if you are that way inclined, you could use a litre of your own home-made stock), adjust the seasoning (I used salt, pepper and soya sauce).  Bring back to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes or so while you make the cheese on toast.  Place a slice of cheese on toast into a big soup bowl and pour the boiling soup over it.

Vegetable Carbonara

2-3 potatoes, diced
1 packet lardons
1 leek, chopped
A bit of cabbage, also chopped ("just a nice amount")
2 eggs
About 50g strong Cheddar, grated
Pepper (the recipe won't need salt).

Put the lardons into a large, shallow casserole or frying pan and cook gently until the juices run.  Then add the potatoes, leeks and cabbage, cover, and allow to cook on a low heat for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are done.  Whisk the eggs together, and stir them and the grated cheese through the hot vegetables until the eggs are just set, like you do spaghetti carbonara.

Prune and Armagnac ice-cream

150 g stone-out prunes
200 ml boiling water
2 tbs sugar
2 tbs Armagnac
4-5 tbs Greek yoghurt

Put the prunes and sugar into a bowl; pour over boiling water.  Stir until the sugar has dissolved, then leave to cool and cook for 5-6 hours.

In a food processor or blender, blend the prunes, armagnac and yoghurt and as much of the prune juice as is necessary to make a fairly thick batter.  You can drink the rest but it is foully sweet (you need ice-cream to be sweeter than what you would normally eat).  Freeze as normal.

Vegetable Curry

This started out as a take on David Lebovitz' root vegetable salad, and sort of evolved!

2 tbs olive oil
1 tbs curry powder (or to taste)
Asafoetida, garam marsala, turmeric, to taste
1 onion
Several cloves of garlic
Chunk of swede
2 carrots
2 parsnips
1/2 red pepper
Chunk butternut squash
1/2 punnet mushrooms
3 tomatoes
Seasoning to taste (salt, pepper, soya sauce, maybe hot pepper sauce)
2 tbs hummus

Fry the first lot of spices very gently in the oil, while you peel and dice the first 5 vegetables (down to and including the parsnips).  Add these, cover, and allow to cook gently for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Now add the rest of the vegetable (also diced), stir again, and cook for about 15 minutes.  Season, and stir the hummus through it.  Serve with rice.

Gran's strawberry ice-cream

I haven't made this in years, and had forgotten all about it until I reread Clothilde's coconut ice-cream recipe, which is what I have made this week (substituting creme de framboise for the rum and adding some frozen rasps to make it a raspberry-coconut ice-cream).  So when I was buying the evaporated milk for this recipe, I bought a second tin, and a tin of strawberries, too, and this will be made very soon:

1 tin evaporated milk
1 tin strawberries

Whisk together (no need to puree too hard, it's rather nice with bits of strawberry in it) and freeze.  Couldn't be easier.

Although when I make it, I'll probably add 2 tbs creme de fraise (this is how you use all those fruit liqueurs you buy in France and seldom, if ever, drink when back in the UK!) as alcohol does seem to make ice-creams freeze better.

Edit: I did make this and it was horrible!  Tasted of evaporated milk!  Greek yoghurt is a much better idea!

Peach and butterscotch ice-cream

This didn't quite come out how I intended, but I don't actually care, it is very, very good!  Quantities for the peach bit are approximate - depends on how many peaches/how much yoghurt/etc, you have.

5 ripe peaches
3 tbs white sugar
About the same amount, or a little more, Greek yoghurt (depends how much you have!)
About 150 ml whipping cream
2 tbs peach liqueur (optional)

1 quantity butterscotch sauce using David Lebovitz' wonderful recipe (Please note that "heavy cream" is apparently whipping cream, not double).

Soak the peaches in boiling water for c 1 minute until the skins slip off easily.  Remove them, the put the flesh in a large bowl.  Blitz with a stick blender (or use a food processor) until you have a smooth puree.  Now add the sugar, yoghurt, cream and liqueur, if using, and continue to blitz until well mixed.  Chill thoroughly in the fridge, and freeze in ice-cream maker.

I meant to make the butterscotch sauce go through the ice-cream as a ripple, but either it wasn't quite cold enough, or the peach ice-cream wasn't quite as frozen as I'd thought, as it went a bit liquid, plus there was rather too much for the ice-cream maker. So I emptied most of the frozen peach into a freezer-proof bowl, and continued to work the ice-cream maker with the liquid remains; it didn't really freeze solid, but enough so I could add it in to the rest of the stuff. Of course we had quite a lot of tastes that night - but really, next day when I came to try it, it had turned into a sort of marbled-effect ice-cream, and was (and still is) seriously delicious!  Not quite sure if it's reproducible, though!

Lemon chocolate sorbet

I do own an ice-cream maker, but the bowl tends to sit in the freezer taking up space and the other bits do likewise on top of the fridge.  So when we got a new fridge-freezer recently the Swan Whisperer more or less said "Use it or lose it".

So I was half planning to make Clothilde's wonderful dark chocolate sorbet anyway, but yesterday a friend said that for her, one scoop of chocolate ice-cream and one scoop of lemon sorbet was a match made in heaven.

So I thought, well, why not lemon chocolate sorbet?  I cut back the water a bit from Clothilde's recipe, and upped the sugar in order to add the lemons.

3 unwaxed lemons
140 g granulated sugar
250 ml water
40 g unsweetened cocoa powder
80 g good-quality dark chocolate (70% at a bare minimum)
2 tbs limoncello

Either peel the lemons very finely (don't get any of the white pith) with a potato peeler or grate the rind on a lemon zester or equvalent.  Place into heatproof jug with the sugar, and pour the boiling water over this.  Stir well and leave to stand while you squeeze the lemons and chop the chocolate into as small pieces as you can be bothered.

Put the cocoa powder into a saucepan and strain the lemon water on to it.  Whisking and stirring all the time, bring to the boil, and, as soon as it boils up (don't let it boil over!), pour it on to the chopped chocolate (which you have, of course, transferred to the jug you originally used to steep the lemon peel).  Stir vigorously until the chocolate dissolves and you have a smooth fluid.  Now add the lemon juice and limoncello (you can leave this out if you don't have any, or if children are going to eat this, but all sorbets and ice creams are improved with a little alcohol in them), stir again, and leave to cool.  When cool, chill thoroughly in fridge.

Freeze in your ice-cream maker (or in a shallow tray, stirring every hour to break up the crystals) and enjoy!  I served with a peach-and-raspberry sauce (home-made) and some thick cream with limoncello which I'd happened to see in Tesco's earlier.

VERDICT:  Tastes absolutely lovely, but a little watery.  Not sure quite how to deal with that - perhaps make sure there is no more than 275 ml total of liquid, whether lemon juice or water, and then bring it all to the boil together, and strain out the lemon peel before adding the solid chocolate?  Or boil for longer?

It would be greedy to have a second helping, wouldn't it?


EDITED: Made this again last week (10 November) and altered it to about 250 g sugar to 200 ml water/lemon juice, which I brought to the boil, boiled hard for one minute, then added the cocoa powder, brought it back just to the boil (this was my grandmother's chocolate sauce recipe: 6 oz sugar, 1/4 pint water, 2 oz cocoa powder),  then added the chopped chocolate.  Much better - thicker, and less watery.  And rather too much limoncello so it didn't freeze quite properly, but was none the worse for that!

Mushroom Risotto

It feels like ages since I made risotto!  But it is so good, and easy (although time-consuming).  This was a mushroom risotto, but of course the variations are infinite.

About 5-10 g dried mushrooms
500 ml boiling water
1 Knorr (or Own Brand) vegetable Stock Pot
20g butter
1 tbs olive oil
5 small "pickling" onions (what I had - an ordinary medium-sized onion would have been fine)
2 large cloves garlic
2/3 punnet mushrooms
1/2 cup risotto-type rice (arborio or the one that begins with c whose name escapes me and I cba to look up!)
125 ml white wine
Seasoning to taste
About 60g Parmesan cheese, grated

Pour the boiling water over the dried mushrooms, add the Stock Pot (or stock cube - or make your own stock from scratch if you feel that way inclined), and leave to stand.

Peel and chop the onion(s), peel and crush the garlic cloves, slice the fresh mushrooms.  Put the fats into a large saucepan and add the vegetables.  Let them begin to cook for about 5-10 minutes.  Then add the rice, and stir until all the grains are coated with oil.  Now add the white wine and stir vigorously.  Leave to cook for about 5 minutes.  Add 1/2 the stock (let the dried onions, now reconstituting themselves, go in too - chop them if they are too big), stir, and letcook for about 10 minutes.  Add the remaining stock, and let cook for a further ten minutes - if it seems very liquid, leave the lid off, and it really is nicer if you can be bothered to stir it during this stage. 

When most of the liquid is absorbed and the rice is cooked, stir in the grated Parmesan and serve.  With or without a green vegetable, as you prefer. 

Bean casserole

My friend P is married to a Greek man and produced the authentic version of this wonderful dish at a party recently.  My version is less authentic, as I used cannellini beans, but if you can get proper Greek Giant beans (I haven't seen them dried here, only butter beans, which are not the same thing at all!), then so much the better.  I think this would have been even nicer had the ratio of beans to passata been higher, but I'm certainly not complaining!

About 3/4 cup by volume (c 180 g) of dried cannellini beans.  Or perhaps 250 ml (1 cup by volume) would be even better.
1 large carrot
1 red onion
1 carton passata (sieved tomatoes)
1 tbs olive oil
Seasoning - salt, pepper, garlic flakes (or use fresh garlic, but it's not in season just now and what is available isn't very nice, so I'm on the dried for now!), maybe a dash of soya sauce...

Soak the cannellini beans in water overnight.  Next morning, drain, rinse, and cook with fresh water in a pressure cooker for about 10 minutes.  Drain again, and place in the bowl of a slow cooker.  Add the rest of the ingredients, stir well, and leave to cook on auto until dinner time.  Fabulous!   I served this with mushrooms and new potatoes, and left-overs (there are a couple of spoonfuls) will go to pad out tomorrow night's mince.

Mum's mushroom pate

I've been meaning to post this for ages!  It is very good, makes far too much but it freezes well.

375 g mushrooms, sliced
3 tsp finely chopped onions (I used 1 small onion)
250 g butter, softened
50 g fresh breadcrumbs (2 slices!)
Lots of grated nutmeg
1 tbs chopped parsley
200 g reduced-fat cream cheese
2 tsp lemon juice (10 ml)
Scant tbs soya sauce (15 ml)

Melt 225 g of the butter, add onion and soften for about 10 minutes.  Add mushrooms, turn up the heat and fry briefly for a few minutes.  Stir in breadcrumbs and allow to cool.  Puree in food processor and then add the rest of the ingredients and work until smooth.

Fishpaste!

My mother used to get very irate when we called it "fishpaste".  "It is trout paté!" she would say, crossly.  But needless to say, "fishpaste" persisted.

You could use salmon instead of trout, and I think I fancy trying it with kipper or smoked mackerel, too.  This version, I had a slice of smoked salmon that wasn't doing anything, so it went in, too.

The remains of a cooked trout (the sort of amount which isn't enough for another meal, but too much to throw away)
1/2 pack low-fat cream cheese (c 100 g?)
About 75 g butter
Small sloosh tomato puree
Slice smoked salmon (optional)
Seasoning as liked.

Whizz it altogether in the food processor until it's smooth.  It freezes well.

Chicken, ham, leek and mushroom pie

Lots of cooked chicken - basically "Pick" the carcase of a roast chicken and chop the meat.
A similar amount of cooked ham, cubed if possible
1 leek
Small punnet mushrooms
About 20-25 g butter
250 ml milk
1 heaped tsp flour
2-3 potatoes
A little more butter and/or 1 tbs milk

Chop leek and put in saucepan with butter and mushrooms, which also chop if necessary.  Cover and allow to cook on a low heat for 6-7 minutes, until the juices have run.

Meanwhile, peel and steam or boil the potatoes, and mash with the extra butter and milk (and salt and pepper).

Whisk the flour into the milk and pour the result on to the leeks and mushrooms.  Bring to the boil, stirring all the time.  Now add the chopped meat, and transfer the lot into an oven-proof dish.  Top with mashed potato (or you could make your pie with a pastry topping, if you liked), and bake in a moderate oven for about 30 minutes.

Healthy Egg Muffins

I have a totally shaming taste for Sausage and Egg McMuffins from McDonald's.  Yes, I know.... but every once in awhile I indulge it. 

But because I really can't afford the calories too often, and because it's junk food, I rather love a healthy home-made egg muffin; and this is what I had for breakfast this morning.  If you can't bear microwaved eggs, then either fry your in a ring so they stay circular or poach them, but for me, the rubberiness of the microwaved egg is part of the charm!

1 wholemeal muffin
1 large Portabello mushroom
1 tomato
1 egg
Large pinch of grated cheese (I used pre-grated Emmenthal, but Cheddar works very well, too).
Salt and pepper, as liked.

Split and toast your muffin;  meanwhile peel the mushroom, dot with butter (or spray with olive oil or even Fry Light) and cook in the microwave for 1 minute.  Chop the tomato and put in a ramekin dish with salt and pepper (and the juice from the mushroom, which will have run on to the plate).  Microwave the tomato for 1' or 1'30".  Top with the egg and cheese.  Pierce the yolk of the egg.  Return to microwave for a further minute or so, or until the egg is cooked to your liking.

Now assemble the mushroom on top of half the muffin, run a knife round the edge of the ramekin and turn the egg/cheese/tomato out on to the mushroom, and top with the rest of the muffin.  You'll probably need a knife and fork to eat this with.

Okay, it's not McDonald's.  But it is very nice!

Red Pork

I had some belly pork in the freezer, and didn't really know what to do with it, but this seemed to be the way forward.  I borrowed from several different recipes, I'm afraid, and can't remember who to credit.

I quantity belly pork (I had two thick pieces, no idea how much they weighed), cut into cubes. 
1 tbs each sesame oil and stir-fry oil
2 tbs white sugar
3 tbs soya sauce (I used 2 tbs light and 1 of dark, it was only meant to be 2 tbs but I forgot I had the dark stuff)
1 tbs rice wine or cheap sherry (you could probably use rice vinegar but I had none)
A large clove of garlic, crushed
A chunk of ginger - I use those frozen cubes of, which are brilliant
Chinese seasoning - 5-spice, star anise if you have any, general Chinese seasonings....

Mix the soya sauces and sherry/wine/vinegar together and stir in the seasonings.  Crush the garlic, and if using whole ginger, crush that, too.

Heat the oil and add the sugar, and then cook until the sugar caramelises.  The smoke alarm will probably go off.  Add the meat, stirring fiercely, and the ginger and garlic, and when the meat is coated with the caramelly oil, add the liquids.  It will boil hard, so keep stirring. 

Then turn down the heat, and transfer to an oven-proof dish if it isn't already in one.  Turn the oven on low - Mark 2 at the highest - and put the casserole in there for at least 2-3 hours, if not longer.  Slow cooking is far and away the best for this dish.

It's rather rich, so serve with plain boiled rice and a boiled or steamed green vegetable.

Seville Orange Marmalade

Strange, I could have sworn I posted my recipe last year!  Well, perhaps not.

2 kg Seville oranges
2 kg sugar
2 lemons
2 litres water

(Do you see what I'm doing here - so it makes it easy to scale your recipe up or down, depending on time, energy, etc).

Place whole oranges, halved lemons and water in a pressure cooker, and cook at HIGH pressure for 20 minutes.  Let cool at room temperature, and wait until cool enough to handle (overnight is good).  I've always used a pressure cooker - I believe if you don't you need about 3 times as much water and you need to boil the fruit for about 2 hours, but I've not tried it so can't guarantee it.

Scoop out the insides of the fruit and, if possible, separate out the pips.  Chop the rinds into tiny pieces.  Put the pips into a small saucepan with some of the water and boil hard for 5 minutes.  Strain into the large pan into which you have placed the chopped rinds, the remainder of the water, and the sugar.  Heat gently while sugar dissolves, stirring frequently, then bring to boil and boil until setting-point is reached (somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes).  Test by dripping on to a cold plate.

Pot into sterilised jars, seal, and keep in a dark place until you eat it. 

Pasta and veg

This first week of the new year one often wants fairly plain food to make up for the excesses of the festive season.  This also had the merit of being easy!  Substitute vegetables as you choose....  Serves 2.

1 tbs olive oil
20 g butter
1/2 aubergine, finely chopped
1/2 punnet mushrooms, sliced
About 16 Brussels sprouts, peeled and sliced
2-3 cloves garlic
1 tbs low-fat cream cheese
1 tbs caramelised onion humus

Put the fats and vegetables into a wide-based frying-pan with a lid and cook on a low heat for about 10 minutes, stirring frequently, then leave to sit, covered, on as low a heat as possible for a further 10-20 minutes (it is very forgiving!).  Just before serving, stir in the cream cheese and/or hummus and then your choice of cooked pasta (or noodles!). 

Galettes au sarrasin (buckwheat pancakes)

Buckwheat pancakes are what you get for your main course in a French creperie - usually filled with things like grated Emmenthal, ham and a fried egg (galette complete). I absolutely adore them, and although I have just discovered that we have a creperie called Brick Box in Brixton market, I have never been there. We did go to a creperie in Lille last weekend, though.

I have long wanted to try making my own, and even bought some buckwheat flour when I was in France in May, but somehow never got round to it. I find making pancakes difficult, and never do except on Shrove Tuesday. But I decided it was feeble not to use the flour I'd bought, and we had a friend staying, so I gritted my teeth and googled for recipes. This one was the easiest and simplest of them all. I adapted it for 3 people, as follows:

200 g buckwheat flour (you can buy this at Wholefoods Market, I believe, and maybe even in Sainsbury's or Waitrose)
1/2 teaspoonful salt
500 ml cold water
1 egg

Whisk all this together and let it stand for up to 2 hours (frankly, I only let it stand 10 minutes). You think at first that it's going to be far too thin, but it isn't. I suspect that my vegan friends could leave the egg out without too many problems.

Heat a large frying-pan and grease it very lightly. Pour a ladleful of batter and juggle the pan so it covers the whole surface. Let it cook until it's nearly set on the top, then flip it over with a spatula to cook the other side. The smoke alarm will probably go off, but don't let that worry you! Put the galette on a plate or something in a low oven to keep warm, and repeat until all the batter is used up. I made 3 pancakes that were probably slightly thicker than is ideal, but they were very good.

I didn't dare try the traditional filling with an egg, plus it would have taken too long for the 3 of us, so instead I fried up some lardons, then added some vegetables and tomato sauce left over from the previous evening's meal. Smeared this mixture over the pancakes, added some goats' cheese, and folded them in half, then served with a very simple lettuce-cucumber-tomato salad. Delicious!

Pizza

I don't believe I've ever posted my pizza recipe - it may have been on my web page, come to think of it, but I don't think I've posted it here. Although I do buy pizza sometimes, I really like a home-made one.

250 g bread mix - in an ideal world something like Wright's sundried tomato and parmesan bread mix, although I didn't see that in Waitrose today so have settled for their oat and linseed one, to which I have added a teaspoonful of mixed herbs and a few chopped, sundried tomatoes.

1 onion, chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, crushed
A little olive oil
Sloosh of tomato paste
1 tin chopped tomatoes

Toppings, as liked: sliced red onions, chopped chillis, sweetcorn, sliced tomatoes, sliced mushrooms, pepperoni, ham..... and don't forget sliced or grated Mozzarella.

Make the bread up according to the instructions on the packet, and allow to rise (I use a bread maker on the "dough" setting). Meanwhile, start the onion in the microwave, or fry in the olive oil until golden. Add the crushed garlic and tomato paste and stir well, then add the tin of tomatoes. Season to taste - I like my pizzas fairly spicy so added some chilli/garlic salt as well as herbs and pepper. Bring to the boil, and allow to simmer for up to an hour to reduce.

When the dough is well-risen, knead it again, then roll it out to a square or circle or whatever is easiest. Place on a pizza stone or baking tray or one of those things with holes in it. Spread the tomato sauce on the top, then add your choice of toppings. Cook in a fairly hot oven for about 30-40 minutes.

Lemon Marmalade

Our jam cupboard was looking like Old Mother Hubbard's, so I have had a jam-making session. And we are rather low on marmalade, and my daughter has run out, so, following up on a conversation with her, I decided to try making lemon marmalade. You can't make proper marmalade at this time of year, of course, as the Seville oranges aren't available, and 3-fruit (sweet orange, lemon and grapefruit) can be fearfully over-sweet and tasteless. The only alternative is to buy a tin of Ma Made and make it up from that, which is one step up from buying it, but.....

So I made lemon marmalade, like this:

3-4 lemons. Weigh them, and take an equal amount of sugar, and an approximately equal amount of water. My lemons weighed 570 g, so I took that amount of sugar, and 600 ml water.

Put the whole lemons and water into a pressure cooker, bring up to high pressure and cook for 20 minutes. Allow pressure to reduce at room temperature. Fish out the lemons with a slotted spoon and let them cool. When cool enough to handle, chop them up such that the peel is in marmalade-sized chunks (I found slicing them lengthwise then crosswards worked best. Remove any pips.

Return the chopped lemons into the water, and add the sugar. Heat gently until the sugar has dissolved, then bring to a vigorous boil and cook, stirring continuously, for 5-10 minutes until it gels. Let sit for 10 minutes, then pour into hot, sterile jars, and cover.

Mushrooms and Stilton on toast

We ended up eating lunch at Pizza Express today with family and friends, so didn't want a big dinner. But we wanted a little something, so I made Portabello mushrooms on toast with Stilton:

All you do is peel a large mushroom per person and spray it with oil; microwave for about 1 minute (for 2 mushrooms), then put Stilton (or other cheese, but I like Stilton) on top of the gills and put under the grill until it melts. Serve on buttered toast!

Easy, quick and delicious!

I am neglectful!

I haven't updated this in a million years, but I haven't been cooking all that much that is different, to be honest! For instance, these will be our main meals next week:


Friday (tonight):
Roast butternut squash, couscous, feta cheese and cherry tomato sauce

Saturday:
Sausages, mash, baked beans, leeks (Husband's Saturday-night must-have!)

Sunday:
Bought pie, new potatoes, sprouts, peas.

Monday:
Fish pie, cabbage or sprouts.

Tuesday:
Veggie chilli with rice & grated cheese

Wednesday:
Either left-over fish pie or Chinese take-away

Thursday:
As Tuesday

Friday:
Probably oven fish and chips with battered calamari rings, a green vegetable and mayonnaise!

Looks remarkably unenterprising, but there are only so many meals in the week!

Pasta e fagioli revisited

This version was much nicer!

1/2 cup beans (I used black-eyed peas, as I had a packet open)
1 onion
1 large clove garlic
Sloosh tomato paste
1 leek
1 courgette
1/2 punnet mushrooms
Any other veg you have that want using (I used 1/2 head broccoli)
1 chilli pepper (optional)
1 tin tomatoes
c 400-450 ml vegetable stock (Knorr stock-pot)
100 g chunky pasta (I used those nice shells whose name I can never spell)
To serve: Parmesan cheese

At breakfast-time on the morning you wish to eat this, put the beans to soak in cold water. That evening, rinse them and cook them for 15 minutes in a pressure cooker, or as long as it takes in a conventional saucepan (at least 30 minutes, quite probably longer if the beans are older). Drain, and reserve. Put some olive oil into the pan (save washing up!) and add the chopped onions and garlic. Fry for a few minutes, then add the tomato paste. Stir well. Now add the rest of the vegetables, again, all chopped, and stir. Lastly, add the tin of tomatoes and the stock. Let simmer for about 5-10 minutes, then add the pasta and continue to boil gently until it's cooked. Serve in soup bowls with grated Parmesan.

This was much nicer than the slow-cooked version! Plenty to do the 2 of us twice.

Cheese Spread

Oh dear, is it really almost a month since I last posted? Going back to work is not good for my cooking - I tend to do what is quick and easy, rather than be adventurous I did try to make a cross between risotto and ratatouille in the slow cooker, but it was a Dismal Failure the first time, and mushy the second - I ended up having to add some beans to it to give it some texture!

Anyway, I am also making sandwiches 3 days a week (if I get around to it!), and this recipe is good for using up those odds and ends of cheese that have gone rather hard in the fridge.

30g butter
1 small or 1/2 large onion
2 small or 1 large tomatoes
1 clove garlic
1 egg
About 200g cheese of various kinds - grate that which is grateable, and chop or slice the Brie-types.
Seasoning to taste (Worcester sauce really works, if you're not vegetarian so can use it Failing that, try a dash of soya sauce in addition to the usual)

Chop onion and garlic and cook for 3 minutes in the microwave (if you don't use microwaves, skip this, and cook it in the butter very gently for about 20-25 minutes, unil soft). Add to saucepan with melted butter and peeled and chopped tomatoes. Cook gently until done, then add the cheese and let it melt. Finally add the egg and seasoning and stir until all is mixed together, the cheese is melted and the egg is cooked. Will keep for a week or so in the fridge, but keep it covered.

Lazy Mediterranean pilaff

This is a recipe I have been making for at least 25 years! It is normally made with chicken and in a conventional oven, but I had some thawed-out pork chops, so....

Serves 2

1 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
1/2 green pepper, chopped
1/2 punnet mushrooms, sliced
About 6 sun-dried tomatoes, chopped
12 olives (ideally fresh and black but I had to use bottled stuffed green, which weren't too bad).
1/2 cup - 125 ml - Basmati rice
About 350 ml stock (chicken if you're using chicken, vegetable if not; if you're my mother you'll probably use beef or something home-made!)
2 pork chops

Sear the chops in a little olive oil. Deglaze the pan with the stock. Put everything else in the slow cooker, stir well, put the chops on the top and pour the stock over. Turn on the slow cooker and let it cook while you're at work.

Swiss Breakfast

AKA Bircher Muesli. This is very like what we used to have at school; much nicer, in my opinion, than the cereal-type mueslis one can get these days.

Equal quantities (probably about 1/2 cup each) porridge oats OR muesli base, milk, orange or multi-vitamin juice, natural yoghurt.
1 apple, peeled and grated
Other fruit, fresh (ideally) or dried. I used a peach, an apricot and some strawberries. You can use frozen fruit, too, if you like - frozen rasps are good. If you want to use bananas, add them at the last minute or they'll go slimy. In the winter, sultanas or dried cranberries are very good. It needn't be the same twice!

Mix everything together, stirring well so that the apple doesn't discolour. Leave in fridge overnight. Will keep 2-3 days. Serves 3-4 people.

Pasta e fagioli

This is my take on what I understand to be one of those Italian peasant dishes that you basically make the way you like! It would be a lot quicker to use tinned beans, but might be a bit soggy.

1/2 cup each blackeyed peas and cannellini beans (or a 400g tin cannellini beans)
100 g small pasta (I used coquillettes)
1 400-g tin tomatoes
2 small or 1 large onions
2-3 cloves garlic
1/2 punnet chestnut mushrooms
1 medium courgette
Large sloosh tomato paste
About 300 ml red wine (I had some that had been open too long)
About 300 ml vegetable stock (Knorr Stockpot)
Seasoning to taste (I used herbs, Season-all, chilli salt, black pepper and a little soya sauce)

If using dried beans, soak them overnight, then cook in fresh water for about 30-40 minutes, or until tender.

Meanwhile, peel and chop the onion and start it in the microwave. Put a little olive oil and/or butter in a saucepan and add the crushed garlic and mushrooms; stir and allow to cook gently for several minutes. Now add the onions and tomato paste, then the vegetable stock (to mix in the Stockpot). Put all this into a slow cooker, together with the rest of the ingredients. Stir well, and leave to cook until supper time!

It was good, but the pasta slightly went to nothing. It might be better to be cooked on top of the stove, very gently, or in the oven. If you don't have as much wine to spare as I did, just use water, but it might want grated cheese on it. However, the combination of beans and pasta means that it is a complete protein as is.

Stuffed peppers

So easy it couldn't be easier!

1 packet risotto mix (I used Ainsley Harriott Asparagus & Leek as they were on special offer in Lidl a few weeks ago, and I always like Ainsley Harriott products as they are less salty than many/most prepared foods)
2-3 sweet peppers.
A little Parmesan cheese, shaved.

Prepare the risotto mixture as directed on the packet. Or you could make double quantities of risotto when you are making it and keep some specially.

Cut the top off the peppers and remove the insides. Put the risotto inside the peppers - if you have 3 peppers and only 2 of you, cut the smallest pepper in half lengthwise. Top with shaved parmesan, and put the "lids" of the peppers back on. Bake in a moderately hot oven for about an hour.

I served this with baked butternut squash, which I topped with rashers of bacon for the last 15 minutes of cooking time.

Courgette Crumble

Another old friend! Serves 2, but can, of course, be scaled up as necessary.

1 medium or 2 small courgettes (zucchini, if you're American!)
A little butter and/or cooking oil
1 clove garlic, crushed
2 eggs
60 g strong cheese, grated
1/2 cup uncooked white rice
2 slices wholegrain bread

Cook the rice the way you usually do. Meanwhile, slice the courgettes very thinly, and sauté with the oil, butter and garlic until soft. Mix with the cooked rice, the eggs, 1/2 the grated cheese and salt and pepper to taste. Make a topping with the bread and the rest of the cheese, reduced to crumbs in a food processor. Place in an oven-proof dish and top with the breadcrumb-and-cheese mixture. Bake in a moderate oven for about 30 minutes.

Pasta with more bits!

I think this technique of slow-frying (I can't think what else to call it!) is seriously brilliant; I do wish I'd discovered it long since. I've never cared for cabbage when it has been sautéed, always finding it too bitter, too raw-tasting, and have always steamed or microwaved it. But done this way, it was superb! I can see myself cooking more and more vegetables in this way, although I'm not too sure one could cook broccoli like this?

1 packet Lardons
1/2 sweetheart cabbage
1 large onion
Chunk of fresh goats' or similar soft cheese
100 g pasta

Put the lardons in a large saucepan or lidded frying-pan and heat gently until they start to render. Add the chopped onion and cabbage, and stir thoroughly. Cover, and cook over a gentle heat for 10-15 minutes, stirring regularly. Then lower the heat as low as it will go and let it sit and finish cooking for another 10-15 minutes. Meanwhile, cook the pasta as per usual, and then mix into the bacon and cabbage mix. Stir in the goats' cheese, if using (or you could add some grated Parmesan afterwards, or leave it out), and adjust the seasoning.

Tomato tart

This is adapted from David Lebovitz' recipe, and if you use bought, ready-rolled pastry it simply couldn't be easier!

1 packet pre-made pastry (I used pre-rolled puff, but you could use shortcrust if you prefer. Or you could make your own, but only if you are good at making pastry, which I'm not!)
1 quantity pesto.
1-2 really large and good quality tomatoes
1/2 roll goats' cheese (Lidl's Petit Chebra is perfect)

Grease a 9" tart tin, and cut the pastry to fit. Keep the trimmings - they can live to fight another day. Spead the pesto on to the pastry base, then slice the tomatoes and cover the pesto with the tomato slices. Put a slice of goats' cheese on the top of the tomatoes.

Bake in a hot oven - Mark 7, 220 C - for 30 minutes.

Pesto

1 quantity basil leaves (I grab a pot of growing basil from the supermarket and give it a serious haircut!)
2 large cloves garlic
2 tbs nuts (pine nuts are traditional, but expensive; use any unsalted nuts. I have been known to use salted cashews in a pinch!)
2 tbs olive oil

Put this all in a food processor and whizz until it's as smooth as you can get it!

Pasta and bits

Food this month has been a lot of experimenting, ever since I came back from France with one of those cookery magazines that you pick up in the supermarket. This one was all about using fresh cheeses on seasonal vegetables - lots of fresh goats' cheese, but also ordinary cream cheese, or even fromage blanc.

I've always made a "sauce" to go with pasta, and, of course, often have baked it in the oven as some variation on macaroni cheese. It's been a revelation to discover you don't actually have to make a specific sauce - you can just sauté, or I suppose even steam, your vegetables, add some fresh cheese, and you're laughing!

One of my favourites was based on a recipe in the magazine which called for you to stuff canneloni or similar with a mixture of fresh goats' cheese and chopped mint, and serve this on a bed of aubergine, which you have diced very small and cooked in a frying-pan with a lid for about 20 minutes with garlic, salt and pepper. This is a lovely way of cooking aubergine, which I had thought I didn't really like all that much - okay for a "filler" in a vegetable stew, but not so nice on its own. But this is lovely:

1 aubergine (size depending on how many people you want it to feed - 1/2 small one is fine for 2 people, I find), diced.
1 tbs olive oil (and it will ask for more, but don't let it be greedy!)
1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed
salt and pepper

Put everything into a frying-pan or wok that has a lid, and fry gently for about 10 minutes, stirring frequently. Now lower the heat as low as it will go, cover, and let it cook in its own steam for a further 10 minutes. Serve with pasta and fresh cheese of some kind (cream cheese, fresh goats' cheese, Boursin, ricotta, cottage cheese, even Paneer might be nice) which you have stirred through and heated gently. Chopped fresh herbs add greatly to this, too.

Fruit Cake

I don't know why Americans don't like fruit cake - this is delicious, moist, relatively low in fat, and keeps for ages! The nuts are optional, if you don't care for them, simply omit them.

120 g stoned prunes
500 g mixed cake fruit (DON'T buy the supermarket "Value" varieties - this is where it really does pay to buy the slightly more expensive kind. My mother buys the "Finest" range; I, meaner, buy the intermediate one)
3 eggs
150 g sugar
250 g self-raising flour
Pinch salt
Tsp mixed spice
Optional: 200g pack chopped nuts
Optional: Blanched whole almonds

Cover the prunes with water, bring to the boil, leave to cool. It makes the cake moister if you cover the fruit with tea (or perhaps lager or dark beer) and allow it to soak for 6 hours or so, but you don't have to do this. I added some spice to the tea, or you could use that Indian spiced tea.

Cream the prunes, sugar, eggs, and 3 tbs of the soaking liquid in a food processor. Transfer to a large bowl and fold in the sifted flour and then the dried fruit and nuts if using. Transfer to a greased 7" (18 cm) (cake tin and cover the top with almonds in a pretty pattern. Or not. Sprinkle with Demerara sugar.

Bake in a low oven (250 F, 125 C, Mark 1) for 2 1/2 hours.

Lentil Salad

3/4 cup (190 ml) Puy or other small green lentils
1 stock cube, tsp stock powder or gel pot
About 1/3-1/2 cucumber
1 bunch spring onions
125 g (roughly) Feta or similar cheese
2 tbs olive oil
1 tbs Balsamic vinegar

Cook the lentils in plenty of water with the stock added. They will take about 30-35 minutes. Drain, then stir in the chopped cucumber, spring onions and cheese. Add the oil and vinegar. Stir well and leave to cool before serving.

Summer rice salad

This is adapted from a Rose Elliott recipe.

1 cup Basmati rice (250 ml)
500 ml boiling water
Pinch salt

4 large tomatoes (best quality, please; ideally vine-ripened)
2 medium-sized avocadoes
1 large or 2 small bunches locally-grown asparagus

2 tbs olive oil
2-3 tbs lemon juice
Salt
Pepper
Dried garlic.

Put the rice in a large pan with the pinch of salt and the boiling water. Bring back to the boil, then reduce the flame to the merest candle, as low as possible, and leave undisturbed for 15 minutes (45 if you are using brown rice, which is excellent in this salad).

Meanwhile, stand the tomatoes in boiling water for 1 minute, then refresh, so that the skins slip off easily. Chop. Peel and chop the avocados, and sprinkle with at least 1 tbs of the lemon juice, to avert discolouration. Steam the asparagus, and then chop.

When the rice is cooked, let stand for 5 minutes to absorb any surplus water, then sprinkle with the garlic (the original recipe calls for you to crush a clove of garlic into it, which I usually do, but thought it would overwhelm the asparagus. Nevertheless, it does need a touch), salt and pepper, then stir in the oil and the rest of the lemon juice. Then stir in the vegetables and mix thoroughly. Allow to cool before serving.

Mum's Trout

My mother may be 83, but she is still a marvellous cook, and this is one of her specialities, so I hope I do it right. These are her instructions:

1 trout
Butter, salt, pepper, lemon-juice
Tinfoil

Butter the tinfoil and add salt, pepper, and lemon juice. Put the trout down on it, and add more butter, salt, pepper and lemon juice to it. Fold the foil so it encloses the tail section of the trout, but don't close it up so that the steam can escape. Bake for about 20 minutes at 180 C (in a fan oven) - that's 200 C in an ordinary one, mark 6. Open the foil to allow the steam to escape while it cools.

To serve cold, she removes the skin, and sometimes the spine as well ("But it never looks so tidy!") and covers it with sliced cucumber so the joins don't show. With little rolls of smoked salmon on the side, and perhaps some prawns as well (you'll be lucky, in this household - I don't eat prawns!). And lots of different kinds of salads.

Texas Caviare

I haven't abandoned this blog; it's just that I have been very dull about food this month, mostly because we are between holidays and the plainer the better! However, I have a family dinner tomorrow, and am making salad, and since some of my friends list had no idea what Texas caviare was, I thought I would post my recipe. Obviously, if you google, you'll see everybody else's take on it, and mine is a bit of a synthesis thereof!

3/4 cup (I do use American cups for things like beans; it's about 190 ml in a measuring jug) dried black-eye peas
1/2 small red onion
1 chilli pepper
1 yellow or red pepper
1 punnet cherry tomatoes
1 small tin sweetcorn (or an equivalent amount of frozen sweetcorn that you have microwaved)
3 tbs bought salad dressing - Italian dressing is the classic, but I only had honey mustard in a bottle, so used that!

Soak the peas overnight. Next day, rinse thoroughly and cook in plenty of water, boiling fairly hard, for about 30 minutes - they may need more if you have had the packet for awhile, so taste after 30 minutes and then see. If they are cooked, drain, rinse, and allow to cool.

Chop the onion and peppers and halve the tomatoes. Drain the sweetcorn. Mix everything together and let sit overnight for the flavours to mingle.

Pasta with asparagus, Parmesan and pine nuts

This was inspired by our recent holiday in Italy, Austria and Germany, where every restaurant offered a wide range of dishes containing asparagus! And most also offered wild garlic soup, too!

Serves 2:

100 g pasta (I used tagliatelle, but whatever!)
1/2 tbs olive oil
Small piece butter
1 tbs pine nuts
60 g Parmesan cheese, grated
1 bunch locally-grown asparagus

Cook the pasta as directed on the packet, and steam the asparagus (on top of the pasta, if you like, but I used a microwave steamer). Meanwhile, put the butter and oil into another saucepan, and when heated, add the pine nuts and toast gently for a few moments. Drain the pasta, and stir into this mixture, then stir in the Parmesan. Serve in bowls with the steamed asparagus on top.

More variations - Farmyard Macaroni

The French call toasted goats' cheese "Hot Goat", so I thought of calling this "Macaroni goat", but with the addition of the bacon, it turned into a farmyard medley! Serves 2.

100 g macaroni or similar pasta
1 packet (180 g) lardons
1 large leek
1-2 tomatoes
330 ml goats' milk
1 tbs plain flour
1 small goats' cheese (Le Petit Chebra, from Lidl)

Cook the macaroni according to the instructions on the packet. Meanwhile, cook the bacon in a saucepan (no need to add fat), then add the chopped leek and a couple of spoonsful of water, cover, and leave to cook in its own steam for a few minutes. Whisk the flour into the milk, together with some mustard or pepper (no need to add salt), then pour this mix on to the leeks/bacon, and bring to the boil, stirring all the time. Add the cooked pasta, and transfer to an oven-proof dish. Topped with sliced tomato and slices of goats' cheese, and bake in a moderately hot oven for about 30-45 minutes (it's pretty forgiving).

Lentil Curry

I hadn't been planning on having curry tonight, but my day was upset by a failure of UPS to deliver - was unable to get to the supermarket! So two vegan meals two days running (last night was a vegetable stew served with Tesco's quinoa/bulghur mix with tahini dressing stirred through).

2 tbs olive oil
2 tsp hot curry powder
1/2 tsp each garam marsala, turmeric and asafoetida
1 large onion
1 apple
1 banana
1 green pepper
1 courgette
1 carrot
1 tin tomatoes
About 3/4 cup red lentils (dhal)
350 ml vegetable stock
1 tbs coconut milk powder
1 tbs each sultanas and dried cranberries

Fry the spices in the olive oil for a minute or two, then add the fresh fruit and vegetables which you have previously chopped into small pieces. Stir well, and allow to cook until they almost burn, at which point add the rest of the ingredients. Season to taste - if it lacks umami, add a bit of soya sauce - and allow to simmer for an hour or so. Serve with rice, and natural yoghurt if liked (but obvs it's not vegan unless you use soya yoghurt!).

Variations on a theme

I thought this would be nice, but it was even nicer than I thought it was going to be!
Serves 2

1 small leek
1 small head cauliflower
2 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
2 "skinless, boneless" coley fillets
250 ml milk
2 tsp plain flour
1/4 tsp mustard powder
Salt and pepper to taste
About 30 g grated Cheddar cheese
100 g tagliatelli or other pasta

Cook the pasta according to the instructions on the packet. Separate the cauliflower head into florets and steam. Chop the leek, and cook in about 1/2 tbs olive oil (I added 2 tbs water from the pasta when it was hot). Thaw the fish until you can dice it, and chop the hard-boiled eggs. Whisk the flour, milk, mustard, salt and pepper together, and pour on to the leeks. Bring to the boil, stirring all the time. Add the fish and allow to cook for a minute or two. Then add the eggs and the drained pasta, and the cauliflower if there's room. If not, put the cauliflower into an ovenproof dish, and pour the rest of it over it. Stir well to mix. Top with grated cheese and bake in a moderately hot oven for 30 minutes.

Inauthentico

When you haven't got what you need, you need to make do with what you have! This is probably not risotto as Italians know it, but it is good!
Serves 4.

A little butter
1 large onion
1/2 pack chestnut mushrooms
1/2 small butternut squash
1 cupful arborio rice
Dregs of a bottle of red wine (about 1/2 glass, I think)
Roughly 1 litre chicken or vegetable stock
1 packet Feta cheese
Seasoning

Chop the vegetables and cook in the butter for a few minutes. Add the rice and stir until everything is well mixed. Add the red wine and stir, then add all the stock, bring to the boil and simmer gently for 20 minutes. Then stir, and if it's still rather liquidy, reset timer for a further 10 minutes. Meanwhile, chop up the Feta. Once the liquid is all absorbed, stir again, and stir in the Feta cheese.

Etta's Seafood Restaurant, "Brixton Village"

I clearly fail as a food blogger, as I so seldom have my camera with me.

The Swan Whisperer was taking me out for dinner to celebrate our wedding anniversary, and after much discussion and wandering round, we ended up at Etta's Seafood Restaurant in what is now poncily called Brixton Village, but always used to be Granville Arcade. The Arcades stay open late on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings, and there is no shortage of choice about what to eat. We could have had Japanese curry, or Thai, or several kinds of Italian, or general foodie-English, or vegetarian.... but in the end we chose fish. Most places appeared to charge between £7.00 and £10.00 for main courses, and this was no exception.

We were warmly welcomed - even though it is a fine Friday evening, the arcades were very quiet; I suppose Brixton just isn't used to eating there on a Friday night yet, as they've only recently started late night opening any time other than Thursdays. The café isn't licensed, but does operate a BYO policy, although as we hadn't known where we were going to eat we were unable to take advantage of this. So I drank fizzy water, and the Swan Whisperer had what was called tropical fruit juice but he said he thought was squash. Starters were £4.95 each - I ordered crab fitters and he ordered calamari rings, but as we had said we were going to mix and match, they came all on one plate, with mayonnaise and sweet chilli sauce for dipping. The batter was absolutely gorgeous - really light and crisp and delicious and seriously fattening.

I then opted for plain fish and chips, which were equally good - I did manage to leave some of the batter, which I thought was incredibly self-controlled of me, and the chips were lovely, thick cut, delicious. I couldn't eat them all, alas. The plate was garnished with what I always think of as West-Indian style salad - shredded lettuce, grated carrot and slices of cucumber (I think I have seen it at too many Church buffets, which is why I think of it as West-Indian style). And rather more coriander than I like - I don't exactly dislike it, I just find it rather overpowers everything else.

The SW ordered a mixed seafood linguine, which looked lovely if you like mussels and prawns and crab claws. I don't eat prawns, and only quite like mussels. The SW was quite convinced he had never had them before, but I'm sure he has. Anyway, he enjoyed it and cleaned his plate, although he was nearly as messy as The Boy by the time he was done.

All this came to about £30 for the two of us, with excellent and friendly service.

And on the way home we stopped off at the new ice-cream parlour in Market Row, which does a scoop of ice-cream for £1.75 with a cone for an extra 25p. And a topping, if you like. I had rum'n'raisin, and the SW had mint choc chip, both with caramel sauce. Very, very nice.... I do like rum'n'raisin!

Lentil Pie

This is a very old friend - an adaptation of a Rose Elliottrecipe.

1/2 cup red lentils (125 ml by volume)
1 onion, peeled and chopped
300 ml water or (preferably) vegetable stock
1 tbs lemon juice
1/2 tsp Marmite or 2 tsp soya sauce
1/2 pack mushrooms, sliced
2 large tomatoes, peeled and sliced
2 slices wholemeal bread
60 g cheese
(optional) 1 tbs sesame seeds

Cook the lentils and the onions in the stock for 20 minutes, or until tender. Meanwhile put the sliced mushrooms and tomatoes in the bottom of an oven-proof casserole, and sprinkle with salt and pepper, and perhaps some herbes de provence. Whizz the bread and cheese together until breadcrumbed, and stir in the sesame seeds, if using.

When the lentils are cooked whizz with the lemon juice and Marmite/soya sauce, and any other seasonings you fancy. Pour this mixture over the top of the tomato/mushroom mixture, and top with the breadcrumbs/cheese. Bake in a moderate oven for about 40 minutes.

Serve with salad or a green vegetable or two, according to taste.