Cookies and kitchen chaos....I'm back!

I don't care that this new (actually, refurbished) oven is the cheapest possible oven the landlord could have installed...it's just so wonderful being able to bake again!! Today the house has been filled with the smells of cookies baking, bread rising and chicken roasting - many of my favourite things!

You can see the results of the chaos for yourself, below. I do try very hard to be a tidy cook, and usually I am but then there are those occasions when it seems necessary, somehow, to use every possible dish and utensil in the kitchen. Today was one of those days. Ah well - at least making the mess was fun!



The bread was just normal white bread (which actually turned out remarkably well - great texture and just the right amount of seasoning) and I only made it because we were out of any form of bread in the house and couldn't be bothered going to the shops. But I've been pondering on getting into the Christmas spirit of late and decided that there could be no better way of channeling the joys of Christmas than by a spot of cookie baking and icing!

Just a standard dry biscuit recipe for this one - butter, caster sugar, egg yolk, vanilla, flour, and I added a little spice (all spice and nutmeg) just to give a hint of wintery-festivity to them. I rolled the dough out to about 5mm thick then used my newly-purchased cutters to make Christmas trees, shooting stars, snow-people (mine are rather gender neutral snow people as you can see by their ambivalent dress and accessorising, below), candy canes and stars. Slowly baked in a gentle oven and then iced when cool. Such fun!




Admittedly these wee candy-canes aren't the most professionally iced...none of the cookies are really. I don't have a proper piping bag set or a proper icer-contraption (sort of like a syringe-type device? Mum always had one...) so I was using plastic bags with wee holes cut in. Bit more of a challenge using them, let me tell you!






Said gender-non-specific snow-people. Don't you just love their jaunty hats and scarves?!

I think I'll take some cookies up to Glasgow with us when we go for Christmas but before that I'll go to a cake decorating shop (oddly, Darlington has at least 3 of these speciality icing/cake shops. A weirdly large number in a town which doesn't boast a proper beauty salon, fishmonger or cinema of consequence, don't you think? I have to admit this intrigues me more than a little...) Have you ever noticed how you can never get properly red icing when using shop-bought red food colouring? It infuriates me; especially so in the case of Christmas-icing efforts (honestly, who ever heard of pink decorations on Christmas trees?! So, I'll get some of that proper decorator's icing colour paste stuff and see if that makes a redder red.

But I'm quite pleased with this lot of trial-run Christmas cookies. I sang Christmas tunes while frosting and got myself liberally smeared in various sticky, sugary substances in the process. I've eaten little other than icing and raw cookie dough today which is potentially not the most well-balanced of diets, but I must say I do feel decidedly less-Grinch-like than I have been.

So - oven installed and working, cookies baked and iced, Christmas spirit activated...all in all a very successful Saturday!

Now, it's 11pm...time to clean up the kitchen chaos!

The oven has landed...

The day has finally come! The new oven is here! At last, at last! Now, granted it's the cheapest possible option the landlord could have gone with (according to the electrician) but so far it hasn't turned itself off during cooking so that's a major step up!!

I'm currently doing some cookie tests to see what the temp/speed etc is like (I plan to bake a couple of trays of biscuits at different temps and on different settings just to see what tricks this oven has up its sleeve!) Once the oven and I have gotten to know one another...then let the baking begin...!

Of pies and pasties

Cooking is one of those things that brings about all sorts of satisfying feelings...you feel pride in your beautiful creation, the delicious hunger of knowing that something truly yummy is about to be eaten, and there's also a sort of primal domestic goddess/conquering of a domain mentality too, I think..."I might not ever have a truly clean house, but by god I can, and will, cook tasty treats!" Well, here's a secret - nothing will make you feel quite so much the commander in chief of your kitchen as making pastry from scratch will. Now, I know, sudden visions of barking French pastry chefs with flour flying have popped into your head in a terrifying vision, but it's really not intimidating at all. It is, admittedly, something that does require a bit of practice to perfect, but it's definitely manageable, and no harder than bread making or baking.

I should make a caveat here and say, I have never attempted true puff pastry, for a number of reasons: while I'm a butter-fiend and have no problem with fats in general, there is something slightly troubling at being able to see that full pound of butter being used in the making of puff pastry - truly my arteries feel as though they are hardening just at the thought! But really puff pastry just seems too much of a faff. Perhaps, though, since I'm proclaiming all the joys of pastry-making, I should really put my money where my mouth is and give it a shot. Hmm...food for thought...maybe we can add puff pastry to that list of things I want to make once the oven is fixed (which, I'm assured, will be Friday between 10-12. You'll forgive me if I don't hold my breath...)

So, I make two kinds of pastry regularly. One is called flaky pastry (otherwise known as a sort of rough puff pastry) and the second is closer to a savoury short pastry. The difference is the latter has a higher butter content which makes the dough richer and thus 'shorter'. They both follow pretty similar processes and neither takes more than about 5 minutes to make. Now, many recipe books say that you can make pastry in the food processor, and this is technically true. But, I have to tell you that I personally think this never turns out quite as well. The food processor blitzes the butter too finely and it's hard to control the amount of mixing in the processor, both of which tend to result in a tougher, less-flaky pastry. Feel free to try this for yourself, but my advice would be to go with the grating method I describe below. It's less of a chore than rubbing the butter in (which is a pleasantly mind-numbing task, but does take a rather long time) but gives a pretty similar result. But, as I said, to each his own - invoke the powers of the processor if you must!

Recipe #1: Margaret's Flaky Pastry
(from Alison Holst...this is the first pastry I ever made and it's the recipe my Mum has used for as long as I can remember. It's great for free-form pies like pasties etc, as well as tartlets. You could use this for sweet recipes too - fruit tarts etc)

3/4 c plain flour
healthy pinch of salt (maybe make this less healthy if you're doing sweet recipes)
1/4 tsp baking powder
60 g cold butter (actually I freeze it wrapped in tin foil for 1/2 an hour. Makes it easier to grate and prevents it getting too soft before baking)
1/4 c milk
1/2 tsp vinegar or 1 tsp lemon juice

Fork the flour and baking powder to sort of fluff it up and mix together (you could sieve it, but why make more dishes?!). Grate the butter into the flour (or rub it in). Sour the milk with vinegar/lemon. Add most of it to the flour and mix. Use just enough liquid to make a dough that holds together easily. You don't want it too wet as this toughens it and also makes it a nightmare to roll out! This is the one aspect of pastry making which I think just takes a bit of practice to learn - you just have to try a few times to get a sense for what is 'right'. All flour absorbs liquid slightly differently, so you sometimes need more/less.

Squish into a ball, wrap in cling-film and chill in the fridge for 30 mins or so before rolling out and using. Bake typically in a 200degC oven until golden and your filling is hot.

Pastry Recipe #2: Proper Pie Pastry
(I think this is savoury short pastry. It comes from the Destitute Gourmet's recipe for meat pie and I think it is my favourite pastry. I love the flaky one above - as much because you can make it with so few ingredients - but this one is definitely richer). This makes enough for one very large family-sized pie, top and bottom. You can freeze pastry though, so I'd make it and freeze the rest for another time if you didn't use it. We tend to be rather greedy so do eat the whole lot!

2 1/4 c plain flour
170g butter (again, frozen for a while)
good pinch of salt
1/2 c cold water (important that it is cold - lukewarm or room temp starts to soften the butter)
egg for glazing (I'm a cheap-skate and because I buy free range eggs, I consider them a bit of a luxury item and don't like to waste a whole one on glazing pastry. You can use milk or cream and achieve a reasonably satisfactory result, although I admit it will always look glossier and more professional if you use egg wash)

Same process as above really. Fluff the flour with the salt, grate in the butter and mix/toss through the flour. Bring the mixture together with the water, being very careful not to overwork it. Press into a ball, wrap and refrigerate for half an hour or so. Roll out to cover your tin, fill, top, glaze and bake! Again, I'd bake it at about 200degC - maybe 190 if you have a fan oven.

A couple of points to note - never put a hot filling into pastry...this will make your pastry go soggy and it won't crisp up. If you're making a filling especially for a pie, then cook it ahead and let it cool down first.

Sometimes pastry shrinks when cooking. You can avoid this by freezing the pastry once you've lined the tin with it - just give it 15 mins or so in the freezer. Don't know how it stops the shrinking, but it does seem to.

And remember...leftovers ALWAYS taste and look better when ensconced in a crisp, buttery, pastry case!

Is this the ugliest vegetable ever?

I saw this odd looking creature (and his buddies) at a Farmer's Market a week or so back and just had to buy it! It's a celeriac, in case you're unfamiliar, and it's not a vegetable I've ever eaten before - and certainly not one I've ever cooked. But I've been making a concerted effort to try new fruit and vege of late, so the celeriac came home with me. It sat on the bench for quite a while as I really wasn't sure how to approach it, but in the end I went with creamy celeriac soup. Dull, perhaps, but I did want to actually taste the thing. And the outcome? A bit of a revelation, actually! A smooth, creamy, thick soup which smelled strongly of celery but tasted more like a slightly sweet and starchy carrot (I think). Even the lad liked it and he's very much anti-celery! Ugly vege will be on our menu more often I think!

And so to prettier vegetables...



This beautiful bouquet of black and green came from a tiny organic farmer's market in North Wales. It was positively pouring down when we came across the market in a village which consisted of maybe 5 houses, but it was such a lovely community event! It seemed like everyone from all the surrounding villages and farms had come out for the day, regardless of the downpour. I got the biggest carrots I've ever seen (seriously, one would feed 5 people for a week - they grow 'em big in North Wales!) and this bunch of cavalo nero...continuing my voyage of vegetable discovery! So far I've just made myself a potato, crispy onion and garlic (crispy because I got distracted while cooking!) and cavolo nero frittata for lunch which I grilled with chunks of camembert on top after cooking for a while on the stove. Goats cheese would probably work too but I had a camembert, so that's what I used. It was a proper sit-down lunch - the first I've had all week - and I really rather enjoyed it. What next for my bunch of brassica??

Pastry dreams

A list of things I'm dying to make...positively itching to make, in fact:

- Christmas cookies, complete with over-the-top festive icing
- this amazing hazelnut praline cake in Rachel Allen's Bake
- a chocolate truffle cake
- really good homemade bread including but not limited to - ciabatta, foccacia (normal and potato based), pita breads and basic white french-sticks
- flaky butter rolls (see BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/flakybutterbuns_81042.shtml)
- a propery savory pie with homemade light and flaky pastry that doesn't burn before rising and lightly browning


Sigh. Oh how I miss having an oven.


Also, note to self: crisps/chips for breakfast two days in a row (followed by little else throughout the day) will make you feel decidedly unwell by the end of the second day. Must make some proper muesli bars so I always have a 'proper' breakfast to eat when I'm running late. Oh, add muesli bars to the above list.

Another lunch on the hoof

I'm not sure why, but I seem to eat an awful lot of meals in a rush these days...either on public transport or on the way to catching some form of transportation. I'm a big believer in really making time for food, and I'm also an incredibly slow eater (really - every single family meal I was always the last to finish. I have to warm my plates to serve because otherwise my food is stone cold by the time I do actually finish) so I don't really like this new development. Still, a girl has to eat.

Anyway, today I somehow managed to run out of morning and suddenly I had exactly 15 minutes in which to make lunch, eat it and apply my makeup before running to catch my train to London. Since my makeup application today needed to be considerable (my skin has decided to play evil games and needed a fair bit of schlap to cover it up today!) that meant the food needed to be almost instant and needed minimal chewing! I had lots of eggs so that was obviously going to form the main foundation of the meal. I also had stale bread, a couple of mushrooms and a single rasher of organic dry-cured bacon. Scrambled eggs on toast would be quick to make, but I figured the toast would slow me down during the eating stage - having to use a knife etc. An omelette would be easy and quick but I needed carb of some kind since I hadn't had breakfast. What I ended up doing was chopping the bread into chunks and frying them in olive oil, throwing in the sliced mushrooms, a bit of garlic and sliced bacon. After getting it all crispy, I threw in the beaten eggs. It ended up as a sort of cross between an omelette (I'd been vaguely inspired by my stand-by potato omelette which takes a lot longer to make), french toast and a fry-up breakfast. Odd is probably the best description of the outcome. It certainly wasn't a glamorous looking meal, but it was remarkably edible and definitely sort of interesting!

Classes end next week which means no more travel to London for a few weeks. And I've put the hard work on the property management company so that the oven gets fixed this week...all of which means that I'll get a chance to make some decent, sit-down, chewable food very soon!

Bus-stop Bento

A while ago I read a lovely article on the New York Times food website, all about people making their own Bento boxes for lunch (see: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/dining/09bento.html). Bento boxes, for those who aren't familiar, are the Japanese 'lunch box', usually comprising of rice, pickled and raw vegetables and some sort of fish and/or meat. The article made them all look so pretty, and sounded even more delicious, and since then, I have been putting more effort into making my own lunches more appetising.

Last night, as I was packing my suitcase ready to head to London, my mind started pondering what to bring on the bus for my lunch. I'd forgotten to buy anything 'easy' at the supermarket and since it was a miserable wet night, didn't fancy heading out and buying supplies. In the fridge was some tortellini, but I didn't think that would be particularly appetising cold, some leftover soup (but I don't have a thermos), and one perfectly ripe avocado. Naturally this was going to have to be the basis of my lunch - it would be criminal to waste a beautifully ripe avocado, surely?! If I had tortilla chips in the house then I probably would have made guacamole and munched on that all the way down the country, but tortilla chips seldom last long in my house, so that wasn't an option. And then I remembered the sushi rice I had lurking in the back of my pantry cupboard...of course, I'll make some vegetarian sushi, I cried! Looking forward to the prospect of lunch the next day, I put the rice on to cook and started fosicking for other bits to pop with the avocado. Some crunch - thinly sliced carrots and some shredded iceberg lettuce - and some sweetness through slices of yellow capsicum. I was out of pickled yellow Japanese daikon, but that would have been a wonderful addition (must get more of that as it really does make homemade sushi taste much more authentic) and then I remembered I had a can of 'teriyaki' tuna...dubious sounding perhaps, but I had a feeling it might just provide the perfect sweet, salty and meaty compliment to the avocado and vege.

My lunch thus made and stashed, I went to bed feeling relatively calm and organised - not a usual feeling for me on a Saturday night these days! I even had a tube of wasabi and some pickled ginger to pop in the box. Amazing what you can find when you start searching the fridge for long-forgotten ingredients.

Anyway, I'm waffling, but I just wanted to show you my own wee Bento box...eaten at the road-side services bus-stop just south of Sheffield (photo a wee bit blurred because I took it with my cellphone camera and was attempting to do so surreptiously...so as to avoid looking like too weird a food-geek, you understand!).



Much tastier than Burger King or KFC which were the available options to buy, healthy and made from left-over bits lurking in the fridge and pantry...what more could you want from lunch?!

A sad sea of brown...

Well. The oven was fixed today, in a manner of speaking. That's to say; the guy did come and repair the broken fan (which we thought was the problem) but the damn thing is still not working properly! My rage is gone though...I've been worn down by the oven and all I feel is tired and saddened by it. The worst part is that I didn't realise that it was still broken until I started cooking.

I made the Earl Grey Tea Biscuit dough, then put it in the freezer to chill; chopped the fruit and mixed the dry ingredients for the cake - ready to bring it all together at the last minute before baking; made white sauce for the lasanges; and made the banana butterscotch muffins. The latter went in the oven first. My first clue that things were not altogether 'right' was when the muffins began browning to a crisp within 3 minutes of going into the oven. The clue was 2 minutes later when the oven switched its useless self off. Deep, weary sigh...

By this point I was committed to the whole baking afternoon so I just had to go ahead and make do. The sad, overly-browned effects can be seen above. Pretty damn irritated by it all really. On the upside, despite their bronzed edges, the Earl Grey Tea cookies are quite delicious! They are essentially a shortbread biscuit but so aromatic and fragrant - lovely! The recipe is below - yours should be considerably paler than mine once they're done.


Earl Grey Biscuits

1 c plain flour
1/4 c icing sugar
1/4 c granulated sugar
1 tbsp earl grey tea leaves (use teabags - 2 should be enough)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp water
1/2 c butter

Preheat oven to 180degC. Blitz dry ingredients in food processor (I don't have a proper food processor anymore, so I did this in the little mini-processor thing that came with the hand blender. Worked perfectly fine!). Add butter, water and vanilla and pulse until it comes together. Smoosch into a log, wrap in plastic and chill for at least 30 mins. Slice into thin rounds (about 1/2 cm thick, but by all means thicker if you prefer). Bake until slightly browned on edges (unless your oven is psychotic in which case keep a close eye on them and yank them out before they turn to tiny pieces of charcoal!!). Enjoy with a steaming hot mug of strong tea on a cold winter's day...or for dessert with good vanilla icecream and strong espresso in summer!

It's a big day today...

The blog has had a revamp, as you can clearly see...no real reason; just time for a change and a splash more colour. Hope you like it!

And, more importantly - big news...(drum roll please)...the oven is being fixed today!!! Many aborted attempts later, I am finally booked in to have the electrician come and repair the broken fan at lunchtime today. Oh, that he shows up and can reunite me with the world of baked goods...

And if he does, in fact, manage to repair the evil oven, my baking list to be completed is as follows:

Nigella's Butterscotch Banana muffins
Earl grey tea biscuits
Plum and apple cake
Lasange made with the leftover slow-roasted pork from dinner the other night


Watch this space...!

New cookbooks

I love reading, anything and everything, but I don't think any book excites me as much as a new cookbook does. Geeky, perhaps, but I love to read them and flick through, imagining the deliciousness to come. I'm relatively particular about cookbooks too...I don't enjoy those run-of-the-mill, straight-up recipe books (you know the ones - they fill the 'bargain bin' at your local bookshop and often originate from certain "women's" magazines) because I find them fairly soulless - and if the cookbook is lacking in soul, then surely the recipes will be too? But I do like recipe books written by one specific author whose presence is really felt throughout the book. Unfortunately in recent times this has meant largely celebrity chefs, and I don't really want to jump on that whole celeb chef bandwagon, but by the same token, I enjoy reading a cookbook which has a sense of the author about it. I like reading why a recipe has been selected for inclusion in the book, reading how guests at dinner parties have responded to the decadent desserts, and hearing how a recipe actually evolved. To me that makes the food seem much more real than the glossy, plasticky looking pictures other cookbooks contain.

So, this week I got two new cookbooks (there was a sale at the bookshop...). The first is Nigella's Express. I have to say that while I was originally a Nigella fan, I've become less enamoured by her TV show cookery - finding her need to wax lyrical to camera about each and every ingredient inclusion a bit much to stomach. But I do like her cookbooks. She has a wonderful style of writing and her love of food and cooking - without the poetic editorialising - really comes through in her books. Some people aren't aware that Nigella was a food writer - a restaurant reviewer, I think - before her meteoric rise to culinary stardom, and I think it is in her writing where she really stars. So, Nigella has finally joined my cookbook collection, and I welcome her to the fold!

The second book I bought is called Economy Gastronomy by Allegra McEvedy (who writes for the Guardian) and Paul Merrett. They actually had a tv show on the BBC earlier this year based on the book and its principles...these being, use what you have, don't waste stuff, cook things from scratch because it's cheaper, and generally stop wasting money! Their idea is that you can eat really well, but cheaply, if you are organised and put in a bit of effort. Now, I have to admit that a large chunk of my enjoyment in watching this TV show came from the sense of superiority I felt over some of the idiot families whose kitchen and cooking efforts were 'made over' by the cheffy duo (yes, I freely admit that part of the pleasure of reality TV is how much better about yourself it frequently makes you feel...come on, admit you feel the same way!) These families spent an exorbitant amount on food and were wasting horrendous amounts of both food and money, and in the show were taught how to do things more sensibly, while still eating really well. These are all principles that I tend to adhere to anyway (I could frequently be heard quipping, 'I bet they couldn't cut more than 5pounds at the most from my weekly food budget', while watching) - planning meals, using leftovers, making one recipe and then using it several times - so really in that sense, I didn't need the cookbook. But they do have some lovely recipe ideas that I'm dying to add to my repertoire, so I got Economy Gastronomy at the same time as Nigella.

The major challenge I have when buying new cookbooks, though, is actually making recipes from them! I tend to get all overwhelmed with ideas and inspiration and become completely incapable of deciding what to make! Silly, probably, but there you go. I'm still sans oven, too, which is limiting my choices considerably. When I make a decision, I'll let you know...!

What are your favourite cookbooks? And are they the ones you actually use? Which are the most food-splattered books on your shelf (because surely that's the mark of a truly brilliant cookbook)?

The New Books:

Nigella Lawson, "Nigella Express: Good Food Fast", Chatto and Windus: London, 2007.

Allegra McEvedy and Paul Merret, "Economy Gastronomy: Eat Better and Spend Less", Michael Joseph: London, 2009.

Pumpkins, inside and out...

As I said earlier, this week I decided to attempt gnocchi. I've never eaten it before, which seems odd, and I've obviously never made it. Traditionally (I believe!) gnocchi is made with potato, but I was planning to carve my first jack-o-lantern this weekend as well (it's Halloween today) so I thought I'd try pumpkin gnocchi instead - very autumnal, no? In searching for an appropriate (read: easy) recipe, I also came across one for "15 Minute Ricotta Gnocchi" which sounded too good to be true, so I made two types!

But first, meet Henry, my pumpkin! He wasn't easy to find, but was worth the hunt as he's a smooth-skinned, hollow, rotund specimen - perfect for carving (and clearly quite the wise-cracking pumpkin...).


Knives sharpened, band-aids at the ready, I began to hack into his orangey flesh...


And the finished Henry...I'm pretty happy with him actually! It was fun, if slightly sticky, work and I think he'll look very spooky tonight once it gets dark! Ooooh....


Anyway, the insides of Henry (along with some other squash, because most of Henry is actually still intact...though I do see a large amount of pumpkin soup in our future!) were roasted for the gnocchi, then mashed and mixed with the egg, flour and seasonings, and that's really it. The ricotta gnocchi did live up to its 15 min fame, although I have to admit that sadly, neither variety was met with rapturous applause. Andrew didn't really like either version (owing to the texture which he claimed was 'slimy'. Flattering...) and if I'm completely honest, while I didn't dislike it, it wasn't something that I'd go out of my way to eat again. Of course, having never eaten gnocchi at a restaurant, I've got no point of comparison, so I don't really know what it should be like! The instructions said not to add too much flour since you wanted to achieve a 'velvety' texture. I'm pretty sure that mine were velvety - I definitely didn't add too much flour - but I just wasn't inspired. Sad...I had such high hopes for this week's recipes! Ah well. Worth a shot anyway, since you never know when you're going to discover your new favourite food! And, I do think that if you are a gnocchi fan, then these recipes will probably appeal. They are pretty easy and certainly quick. And the flavours of the pumpkin one particularly were wonderfully autumnal.


Ricotta Gnocchi (recipe from Delicious:Days)

250g ricotta
1 egg yolk
1/2 tsp sea salt
30g grated parmesan
50-70g plain flour
(I also added about 2 tbsp finely chopped garlic chives)

In a bowl, beat the ricotta, egg yolk, salt, parmesan and herbs (if using) together. Add the flour and mix to just combined. I used the full amount of flour and it was still very sticky. THe original recipe said you could add more flour if you wanted, but the more you add, the heavier the gnocchi will be. Apparently heavy gnocchi are not desirable.
Mixture will be very sticky, so your hands are going to get a bit messy from now on.
Flour a chopping board thoroughly, then blob a good dessert-spoonful of the mix onto the board. Flour your hands and then roll/schmoosh the dough into a finger-width thick sausage. Cut into wee pieces about 1.5-2cm long and place each onto a well floured surface.

To cook: put wee pillows of gnocchi into boiling, salted water and cook until they float. This will take about 2-4mins. Serve with simple tomato sauce, and some parmesan.



Halloween Gnocchi

450g cooked, mashed/pureed pumpkin (I roasted mine first and then mashed since it intensifies the pumpkiny flavour)
sea salt to taste
1 egg yolk
100g plain flour
freshy ground nutmeg

Basically the same instructions as above, except you mix the egg, pumpkin puree, salt and nutmeg, before adding the flour. Roll out then cook as described above.

I served this with crispy prosciutto, roasted pinenuts and crisp sage with the scented olive oil (that the sage had cooked in) drizzled over. I definitely liked this gnocchi version better than the first - very rich and autumnal. If you're vegetarian, leave off the prosciutto! :-)

Autumnal, halloweeny, festive temptations

Just a wee heads up about my planned recipe attempt this weekend...pumpkin gnocchi! I've never eaten or made gnocchi (well, the latter goes without saying since I've never eaten it!) and since the oven is still out of commission and I'm stuck with stove-top cookery, I thought I'd make use of the abundance of pumpkins the shops have at the moment and give it a bash!

I'm also planning to carve my very first jack-o-lantern!

Stay tuned...

And something extra

If you make the mousse of the last post, you will find yourself in possession of 3 egg yolks and may be wondering what to do with them. I made garlicky thyme aioli to go on with our steaks and fries for dinner. Delish.

This mayo technique is one I was fortunate enough to find on Delicious:Days, where I believe they saw it on a late night tv ad. It's changed my mayo-making days forever!

Usually you'd use just one whole egg in this recipe, but I thought I'd give it a go with the egg yolks and it's fine...pretty thicky and fatty tasting, but I like that! You could, if you were so inclined, thin it out with a little milk or water.

It'll keep a few days in the fridge - great on toasted ciabatta, or blobbed on top of a roasted vege pizza (sounds weird, but trust me! You'll be addicted...)

Instant Garlic and Thyme Aioli

3 egg yolks (or 1 egg...or a combo?)
1 finely chopped fat clove of garlic (more or less depending on garlic-addiction levels)
1 tbsp (or so) of chopped fresh herbs (I used thyme and garlic chives but by all means change the herbs to suit you and your meal)
1 tsp dijon mustard*
1/2 tsp salt (you might add more after tasting)
juice of about a quarter of a lemon (again, add more to taste)
3/4-1 cup oil (I used a Sunolive oil which is mostly sunflower but with some olive oil - nice result. I think too much olive oil is a bit olivey, but use what you have or what you like!)

Put ingredients (in order listed) into the jug thingy that came with your hand-held blender.
Blend, lifting blender up slowly as you blitz. This will take about 3-5 seconds.
Taste and enjoy your instant aioli!


Before the blitz (apologies for blurriness...)


The magic starts to happen...(apologies for blurriness...this really does happen very quickly!)


Et voila!


*Actually, I didn't use dijon this time because I'm out of mustard. Mayo recipes always include mustard, and I've often wondered if it is key to the emulsion process or if it's just for taste...turns out, just for taste. You can successfully make mayo without mustard if you want. Good to know if, like me, you sometimes forget to restock the fridge!

Something new...with room for improvement!

So, after the whole Salmon Tikka debarcle of earlier in the week, I've become very aware that I need some new recipes in my repetoire...especially if I am going to presume to write about my cooking on this blog! With that in mind, I've set myself the task of trying at least one new recipe every week. I'm also going to try and take a photo of the results because A) I'd like this site to have more pictures, and B) I've let my photography attempts slip up of late too. I've been making excuses about being busy and not having the time or inclination for complicated cookery, but really when I get down to it, I cook in some format every day, so why can't I cook a new recipe at least some of the time? Broaden the ol' horizons and all that. Potentially there will be some horror stories emerging from this little adventure, but that's half the fun, isn't it!? (and as long as we have eggs in the cupboard and bread the freezer, there's always a back-up meal available if things go really pear-shaped).

So, anyway, yesterday was Andrew's birthday and earlier in the week he'd suddenly declared that he felt like strawberry mousse. He's a total chocophile, so the strawberry longings were a bit out of character. But since the oven is still out of commission (damned electrician who was meant to turn up and fix it today was a no-show!) and I couldn't bake him a birthday cake, I thought why not make strawberry mousse. That's my first new recipe for the week. Not precisely revolutionary, given that it has about 4 ingredients, but hey; from small acorns....!

The resulting mousse (recipe and pic below) was actually a little weird. It did this odd seperating thing in the fridge which looked pretty (darker pink on the bottom and fluffy light pink on the top), and the texture was just a bit fluffy for our liking. The taste was ok, but it was sort of just like strawberry clouds (which does actually sound rather lovely). It's ok, though, and I do think you could posh it up with some tuile biscuits or shortbread if you were having a dinner party. Although if you are doing that, you might want to serve smaller portions than the gargantuan ones shown in my photo...the only clear serving-type glasses I had were my wine glasses and they can take a fair bit of mousse! (also, using wine glasses leaves you drinking the rest of your Riesling out of a coffee mug which is not terribly classy. Since i was already covered in sugar, egg whites and cream, I wasn't overly worried about looking classy, but you may be more presentation-conscious!).

The original recipe is from the BBC's Good Food website, although I've adjusted the measurements since they gave them in ml which is frankly a little arsey for my liking (seriously - 141ml of double cream?? I measured it and it's half a cup people - let's just call a spade a spade, shall we?!)

Strawberry (or other berry) Mousse*

3 egg whites
50g caster sugar (that's 1/4c for those without scales)
300g strawberries, whizzed until smooth in food processor or blender (abt 1 cup)
1/2 cup (or 141ml!!!) heavy cream (normal cream for those who live in normal places where they only have one kind)

Whisk egg whites until stiff. Add sugar and whisk to make a glossy meringue-type substance.
Whip cream until softly whipped (be careful you don't over-whip. I think I did and my cream was a little reluctant to be folded gently into the egg and strawberry which resulted in a rather uniform colour/appearance. If you're after the swirls of strawberry through pinky mousse, you'll need to have very softly whipped cream. It'll still taste good if you over whip, just will look more like mine and not so gorgeous as it could be! Hmm, maybe my overly-stiff cream caused the lack of combining which ended up making it separate and be weirdly fluffy? Or maybe that's just how it's meant to be...)
Gently fold the berry schmoosh and cream into the meringue, spoon into serving glasses and chill.




* If you make this with other berries - which I think would be lovely - you might want to consider seiving out the seeds. That sounds like an awful great faff, and in most cases I wouldn't bother, but blackberries and raspberries are quite pippy

Well this is embarrassing...

Ok, I've just had a horrid feeling that I'd already written about the salmon tikka thing before...and, after checking, I've discovered that yes, I did post that recipe once already. (BLUSH!!) Am I tapped out already, after only a few months?! Sob. Clearly it's time for some new recipes! At least I added the vege dish to this one I suppose....

Me thinks it might be time for some coffee (to kick start my flailing memory!) and a browse of the cookbook aisle at my friendly local bookshop!

Lazy salmon supper

Easy, tasty, healthy and beautifully coloured with greens and pinks...perfect mid-week food as far as I'm concerned! This is inspired by a Tandoori Salmon dish that Andrew's uncle always orders when we go for curry in Glasgow. The tandoori curry paste that I've got though, is frighteningly fluro-pink coloured which freaks me out, so I used the much more normally-hued tikka pasta I had. You could use Korma or madras paste too, or make your own mix of spices if you're that way inclined (although that would rather defeat the whole easy/quick concept of this meal).

Salmon Tikka

2-3 salmon fillets (either organic or sustainably sourced and higher welfare preferably)
2-3 tbsp tikka masala paste or tandoori paste
Handful of baby spinach leaves, to serve
Raita (yoghurt mixed with cucumber and mint), to serve
Steamed rice and/or naan breads, to serve

Slice salmon fillets lengthwise into 1cm thick slices. Smear with the paste on either side and let them sit for 5-10 mins. Heat some oil in a frypan on high heat. Fry salmon for a minute then gently turn slices for another minute on the other side.

Serve a-top a bed of spinach, with the raita, rice and naan. Delish!

I also served this with a side-dish of Okra and Green Tomatoes...I love okra although don't cook with it terribly often so needed to do some googling for recipe ideas! During this search, the Southern US dish of fried green tomatoes and okra came up frequently. That requires crumbing and deep frying both, and while that sounds delish, it didn't really fly with my 'easy dinner' mood. Instead, I went for a more Indian-inspired combination of the two ingredients.

Okra and Green Tomatoes

1/4 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
12 okra (ladies fingers, bhindi), sliced into 1cm thick pieces
small handful of green cherry tomatoes, halved(or red - I just have some green ones left!)
1/2 tsp each of cumin and ground coriander (and chilli if you fancy)
1/2 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp sugar

Saute onion and garlic, add okra and fry 2-3 mins. Add tomatoes and cook another minute or so. Add spices, stir and let cook for about 4 mins until everything is cooked and the tomatoes have softened.

Israeli Couscous

I haven't done any cooking today (in fact, beyond inhaling a small bag of crisps and a muesli bar, I haven't really eaten anything since breakfast...which reminds me, I'm starving!) but I came across this recipe on a news website and thought it sounded delicious. I've never cooked with Israeli couscous - or even really seen it in shops - but I'm now intrigued. Has anyone cooked/eaten it before and if so, is it as good as it looks in this recipe/picture...??

http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/food-wine/2981656/Making-family-meals-fun

Fracking oven!!!!!!!

I really do love my new kitchen. I'm sure it's bigger than many others I've had, and it contains my prized (rented) possession...the dishwasher (yes, I have become a slave to modern consumer conveniences...and I'm not ashamed of it!) But it also unfortunately contains the world's most useless (fracking!!!) oven!! It feels me with such rage that I'm bordering on kicking it. Oh who am I kidding? I have kicked..several times. See, I come from the DIY school of physical brutality...if something is broken or faltering, my first instinct is to kick or hit it in the hopes that this will make it work again. And this technique does, on occasion, work. We had a tv for quite some time that would lose its picture unless you hit it to make it come back. When watching tv in bed (and no one could be bothered getting up) we'd throw shoes at it in the hopes of hitting it at the right angle and with sufficient force to make it come back on. In the end the tv died properly, and ok, that might have been because of the large hole that we'd ended up smashing into the top of it. Oops. Oh well...
Anyway, as I said, the annoying (godforsaken) oven was kicked the other night, but to no avail. The sodding thing: A. burns everything (and I know I do have many flaws in the kitchen, but burning things is not one of my regular failings!) and B. it turns its bloody (demonic) self off in the middle of cooking things!!! Arrgh! I was baking pizzas the first time this happened. The whole thing just shut down and then about 15 mins later came back on with a flash of blinking green lights ("oh, you've decided to play now have you? well that's just fine - I've already decided to make pasta instead so bollocks to you, you ridiculous excuse for an oven!") It also did it while I was making bread yesterday morning. Fortunately it hasn't turned itself off while I've been baking a cake, but I can only imagine that would effectively ruin a cake - causing collapses and all manner of enraging yelling. Makes life very frustrating when you love to bake and cook and your oven won't play ball, no?! Our property management company are a bit (entirely) useless too, so this is going to take weeks to get any sort of resolution on. Deep sigh, sip of wine...

In the meantime, expect to see a lot of stove-cooked meals in our house!

Actually, I haven't done a lot of cooking lately, because I've started two new jobs at opposite ends of England, so that's sort of killing my kitchen time. I must figure out a way of managing this though, because I miss having that creative outlet. Actually the one thing I am seriously considering is buying a breadmaker. I've always made a lot of our bread myself, and I love making it by hand - the hands-on beating and shaping of dough is fun (I think). Plus I'm of the personal belief that most mass-produced bread is utterly crap. It's even worse in the UK than at home - it's either doughy and so dense you could knock someone on the head with it, or it's already stale when you buy it. Either way, grotty and I'd rather do without. But unless I take to making bread late at night (which I suppose is actually a possibility, but it would require considerable organisation on my part, and that's really where I fall down in that idea), I don't think I'm going to have much time for dough. That fills me with quite a bit of sadness, I have to say, so I'm wondering if a breadmaker might be the way to go.

So tell me, can you still be creative with a breadmaker, or does it take all the fun out of bread-making??

Things I love about cold weather: #1

Soup!!

Say what you will about autumn and winter (and the Poms sure do - they make moaning a national sport), but I love it! It's warm and cosy inside, and when the weather is grey and bleak, you don't have to feel guilty that you're tucked up inside reading a book instead of being outdoors. I love the sound of rain on my roof and I love winter food. Cooking in winter is just so easy - you throw things in a pot, leave them for a decent length of time and when you come back, you've got perfectly cooked, warming winter fare that tends to taste even better the next day. Mashed potato, stews, dumplings, fruit crumbles...all things that make winter fabulous, as far as I'm concerned. But, the one thing I most look forward to in winter is having soup for lunch almost everyday. Simple perhaps, but definitely not boring! Last week I had mushroom soup all week (a hot contender for my favourite soup crown) but today I was hankering for something more vegie oriented. Below is what I did, and it turned out really well! It's the sort of soup that isn't really a recipe, and it probably should have beans of some kind in it rather than split peas, but I didn't have any pre-cooked or tinned beans, so I threw the peas in instead. Also, I usually prefer my soups like this to have big chunky pieces of vege floating in a soupy broth, rather than blitzing the life out of them, but if you're a smooth soup fan then by all means crank up the blender!

Jess's Wednesday Soup

1 onion, chopped
2 large cloves of garlic, chopped
about a cup of peeled, seeded pumpkin or butternut squash, cut into large chunks
1 parsnip, peeled and cut into similarly large chunks
2-3 carrots, cut into chunks
3 cups of vege or chicken stock
a few sprigs of herbs (I used rosemary and thyme purely because that's what is growing on my balcony)
a handful (literally) of split yellow peas
a squirt (probably about a tbsp if you wanted to measure) tomato paste/puree
1 cup (ish) of roughly chopped curly kale (or spinach maybe?)

Saute onion and garlic in some olive oil. Throw vege in as they are prepared. Add stock, herbs, peas and tomato paste. Simmer for at least 30 mins, but probably closer to 45 (so that the peas are properly soft). Taste and add salt to your liking. Add the kale, pop the lid on and leave it to simmer for another 10 mins. Pretty, hearty and delicious. Soup really is food for the soul as far as I'm concerned!

NB. I actually got impatient and hungry waiting for this to cook, so after about 35 mins, I put 1/2 tsp of baking soda in the soup. This probably sounds odd, and it was a wee experiment but it worked out just as I'd hoped. A friend of mine - Katrina - and I have had a couple of conversations about the role of baking soda (bicarb) in legume-cooking. In my recipe for felafel, you have to add some bicarb to the mixture because you don't pre-boil the chickpeas. I wasn't ever really sure why this was, but Kat thought it might help to soften the chickpeas. Hence, when I felt the split peas in this soup needed a wee helping hand (so that I could eat them sooner!) I added a small amount of bicarb to the soup. It fizzed and looked a bit weird for a minute, but once it calmed down, the peas softened almost instantly. Definitely a handy trick to know!

Tomatoes, tomatoes, everywhere...

It's autumn here in the UK (or Fall, as my American students would say) and along with the pretty foliage we are currently experiencing that wonderful end-of-summer treat, an abundance of tomatoes. My own tomato plants did admirably this year (considering how root bound the poor wee things were) but my friend Rosie's tomatoes have really gone crazy. I'm down staying at her place once a week, and everytime I go down there's a new pile of freshly picked tomatoes on the kitchen counter. While passata and chutney are all well and good, sometimes it's nice to do something a bit different too, I think. My mind immediately went to curry this week. In particular I had in mind that I wanted to try an eggplant and mushroom curry (not sure why those vege in particular, but that's what I fancied. Why question a determined mind?)

I did a bit of googling for tomato-based curries and came across one for a paneer curry which sounded really good. I tweaked it a bit (in addition to replacing the paneer with eggplant and mushroom, obviously) and the result was considered a big success by all of the willing taste-testers (namely Rosie and her sister, and myself!)

You could, of course, add paneer instead of - or in addition to - the vege, or use other vege or even pulses I'd say. And I think that if you're a butter chicken fan (butter chicken in the sense of NZ-style butter chicken which, as it turns out, is different to the butter chicken you get over here) you'll really like this sauce over chicken - or even over fish. Give it a bash - I hope you like it too!


Eggplant and Mushrooms in a Tomato Curry Sauce

1 tbsp olive oil and 1 tbsp butter
4 green cardamom pods, seeds removed and crushed
4 cups fresh diced tomatoes (or equivalent in tinned toms)
1/2 cup whole (unroasted) cashew nuts
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 scant teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
4 bay leaves
1 inch fresh ginger root, skinned and roughly chopped
4 cloves garlic, crushed and roughly chopped
1 green birds eye chili, stemmed and split in half (remove the seeds for a milder sauce)
2 tablespoons dried fenugreek leaves
1/3 cup double cream (that's just regular cream if you live in NZ and probably Australia. Weirdest thing ever the ridiculous range of cream they have in the UK)
1 tablespoon honey (or sugar I'm sure would be fine too!)

Heat oil/butter to medium heat, add cardamom and cook for 30 secs or so. Add other spices, ginger and garlic and the chilli - stir to combine and start sizzling. Add cashews, tomatoes and salt. Bring to a boil, add the bay leaves and simmer until it has thickened and reduced - about 15-20 mins, depending on how watery the tomatoes are.

Once sauce has cooked down, put into a blender and blitz until quite smooth - this might take a couple of minutes.

Heat some more oil/butter and saute a chopped onion until soft. Cook some eggplant and mushrooms until soft as well (or chicken if that's what you're using, or other vege of your choice). Add the sauce back to the pan, add the cream, fenugreek seeds and honey. Bring back to a simmer and heat through (or cook until the meat/vege are cooked).

Enjoy! And if you do try this and use it over something other than eggplant/mushrooms, let me know how it goes!

Dahl Soup

Well, as I mentioned, I’ve just shifted house, and now have a lovely new kitchen to play in! I had planned to make a fancy meal over the weekend to celebrate the big shift and new kitchen, and Kat’s suggestion of gnocchi was very appealing. However, in the event, I was just too damn tired to be bothered cooking anything much (I just managed a stir-fry on Saturday night because I had the ingredients in the house for that and really really couldn’t face going to the shop for anything else!) and then fish with wedges last night (lovely, but not exactly a revolutionary concept. Actually it was very good though – I used whiting which is a terribly unpopular fish over here, which means it is very cheap. They are so obsessed with the precious cod in the UK, and I think it’s horrid – almost always less-than fresh, over-priced and their obsession with it means that it has been over-fished. I’m delighted to have found a cheaper, fresher, more sustainable alternative! Anyway, I digress…) I’ve felt a bit poorly since the move (brought on by tiredness I’m sure), and I have just been craving the soothing warmth of soup. Yesterday when I was wandering around the supermarket in a bit of a daze, doing the week’s groceries, I saw a packet of yellow split peas and grabbed them. It’s not an ingredient I’ve ever bought before, but I had a suspicion that I could make a lovely soup with them. I didn’t have a recipe, although a bit of Googling brought forth a host of options.

The most traditional soup is pea and ham, but I didn’t have a ham hock handy (does anyone ever really have a ham hock handy?) There’s a very nice sounding French option called Faubonne soup which has celeriac and sorrel in it – but again, I had neither of those in the house. The Hungarians do a version with ham and parsnip, but we’ve already established I had no ham, and nor did I have parsnip. But, what I do always have are spices a-plenty. So when I came across a recipe called Egyptian Cream soup which has ginger, chilli, garlic, cumin and saffron in it, it sounded like just what the Dr ordered. Of course, saffron is about the one spice that I don't currently have in the cupboard, so I just threw turmeric in the mix for a bit of colour and in doing so, I seem to have shifted my soup from the banks of the Nile to the bustling streets of Delhi. In fact, I’ve decided to call this Dahl Soup because that’s exactly what it tastes like to me! It’s smooth, filling, creamy and spicy and has a gorgeous yellowy autumnal colour – just the thing when you’re feeling tired or blue!


Dahl Soup

300g yellow split peas, soaked in cold water overnight
1 large onion, chopped
1 medium carrot, chopped
1-2 large cloves of garlic, chopped
1 tbsp (ish) of fresh ginger, chopped
Good glug or two of olive oil
2 tsp whole cumin seeds
1 ½ tsp ground cumin
1 ½ tsp ground coriander
½ tsp ground chilli (I would have put in a whole fresh chilli, chopped, except I didn’t have any)
½ tsp turmeric (I put in a whole tsp but think it overpowered the other spices)
1.5 litres hot water plus a stock cube (or 1.5 litres of home made stock…I’d used all my frozen stuff before shifting, so it was a cube for me!)
Salt to taste (start with about a tsp and see how you like it – pulses tend to need a fair bit of salt I think)
Fresh coriander to sprinkle on top to serve

Heat oil over medium heat. Sweat onion and carrot. Once softened, add garlic and ginger (and fresh chilli if you’re using that instead) and whole cumin seeds. Cook a minute or two then add the ground spices. Cook for a minute then add your drained peas and stock. Bring to the boil then simmer for about an hour or until the peas are soft. Blitz with a hand-held blender thingy (or any other blitzing device) and serve with chopped coriander and whatever else you fancy. I had it with loads of garlicky croutons which was really yummy, but a splosh of cream or yoghurt would also be nice (as would a Naan bread for dunking!).

Shifting Kitchens

Apologies for not posting anything of interest recently! I'm shifting house and it's a hideous process which makes everything difficult, so there hasn't been a great deal of interesting food coming from the kitchen recently. However, the new place we're moving to has a lovely kitchen and I'm just itching to get cooking in it. The big question, of course, is what on earth should I cook?? Comfort-food classics (it's autumn, so think stews and soups with fresh bread) or shall I try a brand new recipe in a brand new kitchen? Any and all suggestions welcome and I promise a proper post on the First Supper!

Short, sweet and buttery...

Is there anything at all better than freshly baked bread, still warm from the oven, scoffed with loads of butter??

An evening with Julia and Julie, Meryl and Amy

Tonight we went to the movies. It's been a while, actually, since we went last, and I was rather looking forward to it. Actually this was the second time we'd attempted to go to see this particular movie - the first attempt being derailed by a rather tragic hair-related debacle. So tonight, hair straightened into submission, off we set for dinner and a movie. But this was not just any movie; this was Julie and Julia - a film I've been dying to see since I first heard the story had been made into a movie.

So, the premise (in case you don't know it, but I'm sure that any foodies would be hard pressed not to have heard of it at the very least in the lead up to the film's release), is that government secretary Julie Powell decides to give her life meaning by cooking her way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking (MATFC) by Julia Child in one year. She blogs about it along the way and in the end the Project became so popular that a book deal was signed (Julie/Julia - read it - it's hilarious!)

The movie takes Julie's story and splices it with that of Julia Child, based on a new biography chronicling the writing of Child's seminal cookbook. And the movie is wonderful. Actually no, the movie is lovely. Meryl Streep can't help but steal the show - she's over-the-top perfection in every joyous and heartbreaking moment (much as I imagine Julia Child was). The food is gorgeous and the film is definitely lovely. The problem for me is that the book (Julie/Julia, not MATFC) is not lovely. It's crass, delicious, smart and laugh out loud funny, but not lovely. And that's why I love it - it's why I've read it about 3 or 4 times. Julie Powell has disasters and dramas and her tales of woe (as well as being snortingly funny) are what then make her triumphs over the art of French cooking such a joy to read. I really don't think the movie was true to Julie, but for all that, it is a lovely flick and definitely worth an evening. You'll fall in love with Meryl/Julia.

A note though. Don't take your poor lad with you - he will find himself in a tiny minority amongst a majority of middle aged/elderly women! Poor boy. And then to top the evening off, your car will be hit from behind at an intersection on the way home leaving him fuming and you nursing a whip-lashed neck.

French food for us tonight I think! Bon Appetit!

Kitty's Tagine

Since moving to the UK, Andrew and I have spent quite a bit of time up in Scotland with his aunt and uncle (Kitty and Peter). These lovely people have been so warm and welcoming and I really feel like I do have some family over here, which is nice when I'm so far from my own family. Kitty isn't a big fan of cooking - in fact, I believe you could go so far as to say she hates it - but when we stay we always get lovely meals and this one in particular I really enjoyed. It was a Moroccan chicken tagine (although I should probably say Moroccan-inspired since I have very little experience with Moroccan cuisine and have no idea how authentic (or not) this dish is!) and I think it's wonderful. I also have a feeling that you could make it as a vegetarian dish using root vege in place of the chicken - or potentially even fish, although you'd want to add the fish at the last minute once the sauce was done. Not wholly sure about the fish, actually...it may be too sweet for that. Anyway, if you do happen to try this using something other than chicken, please let me know. I'd love to hear how it turned out!

Kitty's Tagine

1 kg chicken (or root vege...if you use a lot of pumpkin or sweet potato, you might want to hold back on the addition of honey at the end as it could end up too sweet)
2 tbsp oil
2 onions, sliced
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp tumeric
1/2 tsp chilli powder (or a whole fresh chilli, chopped, if like me you have no decent dried stuff)
1/4 tsp nutmeg

1 1/2 cups stock (chicken or vege, to go with whatever you are using in the tagine)
1 cup water
1/2 cup dates or dried apricots, chopped (I've only used apricots, but would love to know how the dates turn out)
1/2 cup almonds, toasted (I think the original recipe was for flaked almonds to be added at the end, but Kitty didn't have any when she made this so she just put whole almonds in with the apricots. I actually loved that - the nuts sort of swell and become quite meaty and flavoured with the sauce - so I now use whole in preference. Your call though - add flaked at the end if you prefer)
1/4 cup liquid honey

Cut up chicken (or vege) into chunks and fry in 1 tbsp oil until browned. Set aside.
Heat remaining oil and sweat onion and garlic until softened. Add spices and cook until fragrant.
Return chicken (or vege) to pan with water and stock. Simmer for an hour with lid on.
Remove lid, add fruit and nuts (if using the whole ones) and simmer until thickened slightly. (Fruit will start to break down)
Stir in honey, taste and season if needed.

I like to serve this sprinkled with chopped coriander and rice, although couscous would also be lovely (and probably more 'Moroccan'). I have a sneaky suspicion that some type of flatbread would also be good served with this.

My favourite foccacia

This recipe is easily one of my most-used bread recipes. It's one that I photocopied from a cookbook of my Mum's, and I just love it. If you're into bread making, I urge you to try this next time you fancy a nice warm chunk of herby bread to go with some homemade soup or a hearty winter stew. It's also wonderful toasted or grilled the next day and topped with sweet, ripe tomatoes or with piles of mashed and salted avocado (or whatever you like on toast. Grilled garlicky mushrooms would be wonderful. Ooh and scrambled eggs with smoked salmon. I'm hungry...)

The secret to this is to knead in the olive oil after the first rising. That, it seems, is what gives the bread its wonderful density and richness. It also imparts a lovely olivey aroma. This part of the process is rather messy and squelchy, but fun if you like to play with your food! If you're using a bread maker, I guess you just add the oil after the first proof and let it knead it briefly again.

This makes 2 pretty decent sized foccacias, but I often just make half. Or make the full recipe and freeze it.

Foccacia*

1 Tbsp sugar
750ml lukewarm water
1 Tbsp dried yeast
1 Tbsp salt
1 kg flour (the original recipe says plain flour; I use strong bread-making flour. Use what you have and I doubt it'll matter)
75ml or 1/4 cup olive oil (I just use my light cooking olive oil here, but feel free to use half extra virgin. I suspect a really strong EVOO would be quite overpowering in the final bread)
handful of fresh herbs - rosemary is the classic, but thyme is lovely, fresh oregano would work too. Strip the leaves and finely chop (although I keep a few whole springs and leaves to poke into the top before cooking)
rock or flaky sea salt

Dissolve sugar in 1 cup of the warm water then sprinkle over the yeast and leave to get frothy
In a large bowl, mix the first measure of salt with the flour. When the yeast is frothy, add it to the flour and then add the remaining water (I like to rinse out the yeasty remains with the rest of the water). Mix to a dough.
Knead the dough until smooth and elastic. Place in a bowl, cover and leave to rise in a warm place until doubled in size.
Punch down and turn it onto the bench. Knead the olive oil into the dough a little at a time. It's quite slippery when you begin, but the bread 'takes' the oil after a while. You'll feel this happen. Just keep repeating (and adding some of the chopped herbs as well) until all the oil has been used.
Divide dough into 2-4 pieces (depending on how large you want your loaves to be. I've made mini individual foccacia rolls on occasion which work nicely as well. Suit yourself) and place on a greased tray or in a greased tin. Flat the dough with your fingers firmly. Cover again and leave to rise until doubled. Once doubled, brush lightly with olive oil, sprinkle with more herbs and the salt (or whatever other foccacia topping you fancy - olives, sundried toms - although these often burn - thinly sliced potato, sweet caramelised onions with thyme and some feta...go to town with your experiments!).
Bake at 220degC for 15 mins then reduce to 200degC for a further 20 mins. Brush or spritz the dough with water every 10 mins during cooking (and the odd splash of oil) - this will ensure a wonderfully dense crust.

Enjoy!

*this recipe has been borrowed from the Destitute Gourmet for whose recipes I am often very grateful!

Feasting Regardless of Travel Frustrations!

We've been away on holiday for a week or so, hence my absence from the kitchen of late. We decided this year - in our infinite wisdom ;-) - to go camping down further south in England. When I came to stay in England with my dad a few years ago, I stayed in late August/early September in Bath, and the weather was amazing. Hot dry sunny days and long summery nights. This was what I imagined our camping holiday would be like. It wasn't. Many dramas - weather related and otherwise - ensued, and while it wasn't exactly the restful holiday I'd planned, we did have fun and now that it's over, we like to look back and laugh at our misfortunes along the way. One of things which caused my partner Andrew to laugh most often was my cooking. Not because it was bad, I hasten to add, but because it was probably more ambitious than your ordinary camp cooking. I didn't think there was anything wrong with the menus, but other friends laughed outright when I told them our meal for the first night...lamb biryani with freshly made (at the campsite) naan bread. I'm not completely deranged, I do realise that this sounds a bit mad for camp-cooking, but there is a reason. I took frozen lamb chops from home for the biryani, and when I was taking them out of the freezer I noticed that I had some pre-made naan dough in there so I threw it in the chiller bag as well. Why not?! It actually worked remarkably well. I basically just fried them in a hot pan with oil, pulling them into vague shape rather than rolling them. Then I kept them warm in tin foil while I made the biryani (which, in fairness, is actually not a difficult meal - it's onions, garlic and spices, then meat or fish of choice, rice and water which you leave to cook by itself for about 20 mins. Actually very simple). The verdict? Campside naan bread were a total success! Sort of like Indian damper (you know the scone dough stuff you used to wrap around sticks and roast over a campfire when you were a kid?)

Aside from the Indian feast, my meals were fairly normal I think. The next night we had creamy smoked salmon pasta (sauteed onion and garlic, a lot of cream, parmesan and smoked salmon chunks stirred through hot pasta with some baby spinach leaves. What could be simpler?!) and stirfries other nights. Actually we had fajitas one night too, which were a big hit. And, in a nod to the more traditional camp cooking, one night we did have sausages in warm rolls, but I cooked some apple slices to pop in beside them and frankly it made all the difference. Just because you only have one wee gas ring to cook on, doesn't mean standards should drop!


Me cooking the infamous naan bread

Since we've been back I haven't done much of any great note in the kitchen, although I did make a pretty yummy plum cake yesterday which I thought I'd share. The recipe is one my friend Rach gave me for an apple sponge cake (she serves it warm as a dessert, but it's pretty good for a day or two afterwards as well). I had some lovely English plums in the fridge which were thrown in there before we went away in the hopes that they'd still be ok when we got back. They were ok, but past their best eating fresh date. Yesterday the time had come to do something with them, so why not a cake? In the apple version, the apple slices stay on top of the cake and form a delicious fruity crust, but the plums did their own thing. Some of them sank, some floated, and some hovered mid-way through the cake. The ones on the bottom went almost jammy and the ones on top are sweet and crispy - really quite good.

Rach's Apple/Plum Cake

125g very soft butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup milk
1 1/4 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
2-3 apples or 6(ish) plums, sliced but not peeled
Topping - 1/4 cup brown sugar and 1 tsp cinnamon mixed together

Place butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, milk, flour and baking powder in food processor. Beat on low to combine then on medium for 3 mins.*
Pour into greased cake pan (I use a brownie tin, but any cake pan will do. It'll be a thinner cake the bigger your pan - doesn't really matter).
Place slices of fruit over the top of the cake (in pretty patterns if you fancy, or just in lines if you're in a hurry for yummy cake!) Sprinkle over the topping evenly.
Bake at 180degC for 30(ish) mins or until it is firm in the middle.
Cool in tin then slice.

* If, like me, you don't have a food processor, just make this with the old school method. Cream butter and sugar, add eggs and vanilla and beat for a couple of mins. Add dry ingredients and beat together well.

Dumplings...

I've clearly been very lax with the recipes and cooking lately - I have lacked inspiration and inclination, more than anything. But today Kat got a craving for Chinese dumplings, and her talking about them got me craving them too! I promised her the recipe my Mum and I have used for years for steamed pork buns...actually I'm only listing the dough here because Kat is vegetarian, and also because I don't think you need to be limited by the idea of bbq pork in dumplings...there are just so many possibilities for what you could tuck inside these tasty treats!

Chinese Steamed Buns/Dumplings

3 cups of flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tbsp sugar
60g lard/vegetable shortening (if you're vegetarian)
3/4 cup warm water
1 tsp white vinegar
1/2 tsp salt

Sift the flour and baking powder into a bowl, stir in the sugar and salt. Rub in the fat, then add the liquids and knead to a fairly soft dough. Cover and rest for 1/2 an hour.

Divide dough into 10 - 12 portions and mould each one into a smooth ball. Roll out on a lightly floured surface to a 10 cm circle and moisten the edges slightly with water put a heaped teaspoonful of the (cold) filling in the centre of the circle and gather the edges together folding and pleating to make a neat join. Twist dough to seal and make into a wee round filled bun.
Place each bun, join-side up on a small square of greaseproof paper.
Place in a bamboo steamer, not too close together and steam for 10 - 15 minutes (adding a little vinegar to the water will help to keep the buns white).
Serve warm.


(this picture isn't mine, but gives you an idea of what they should look like. You could make them smaller if you wanted to, I guess).

I am starving - I'm off to raid the fridge and pantry!

Enjoy

(NB: Recipe adapted from Australian Women's Weekly Chinese Cookery from about 25 years ago!)

Lunch on the move

Sandwiches and I have always had a difficult relationship. While there’s something to be said for a sandwich made fresh with a piece of delicious fresh crusty bread, slathered in garlicky mayonnaise and a delicious filling, unfortunately, this is not the normal state of the sandwich. Frankly I would rather go hungry than eat a sandwich made yesterday with stale, sliced, processed bread, which has turned soggy with the inevitable slices of tomato. Unfortunately, when you’re traveling and have to rely on road-side service stations for food, this is the type of sandwich you’re likely to get. This week I endured a 7 hour bus trip down to London (and the matching endurance bus-trip home the next day, mores the fun) and to make sure that I wasn’t relying on soggy, stale sandwiches for lunch, I took my own packed lunch. And when you’re packing your own lunch, why restrict yourself to sandwiches? There are any number of other similarly portable foods which are infinitely more delicious and interesting than a tired old sandwich. I sought inspiration from Asia.

Fresh spring rolls were one of my favourite discoveries after visiting Thailand for the first time. Before going there I’d known spring rolls only as those wonderfully crispy wee packages perfect for nibbling (or scoffing in my case) with a beer or wine before a meal. Fresh spring rolls (which I think actually hail from Vietnam, rather than Thailand) with their springy texture and fresh flavours, were a revelation. One of the best things about fresh spring rolls is that they are so versatile – you can put any number of things inside their chewy, glutinous wrapper. If you’re seafood inclined, prawns would be a traditional filling, and although I don’t eat it, I think crab meat (perhaps with some avocado and cucumber…just to be truly unoriginal) would probably be delightful.

My spring rolls on the bus were vegetarian – a spicy mixture of cooked mushrooms with bean sprouts and yellow capscicum. The recipe for the filling is below – vary the quantities (which, if I’m completely honest, are entirely approximate anyway) to satisfy the number of hungry eaters you have, and if you like it spicier, then by all means add more chilli! I also (as you can see below) used rice vermicelli in my rolls as well as the vegetables. I do this to make the rolls more filling – more appropriate, say, for a lunch meal. But if you were making these as a pre-dinner appetizer, then they would be just as lovely with only the mushrooms and crunchy vege. It’s really your call.

Spicy Mushroom Fresh Spring Rolls

300g (ish) Portobello mushrooms, sliced
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 tsp chopped/grated ginger
½ onion, finely chopped
1 fresh red chilli, chopped (or 1 tsp sweet chilli sauce)
1 tsp sugar (only add this if you haven’t used sweet chilli sauce)
2 tsp soy sauce
10(ish? Rather depends how much filling you stuff inside each one. If you’re greedy like me, you will have less rolls but they’ll be fatter!) Dry round rice paper sheets
Chopped coriander
Bean sprouts
Cold cooked rice vermicelli noodles
Sliced cucumber/capscicum or carrot

Heat some sesame oil in a fry pan and add mushrooms. Once they have started to soften, add garlic, ginger and chilli. Fry until mushrooms are mostly cooked. Add soy and sugar (or sweet chilli sauce if you’re using that instead) and stir for a minute.
Cool.
Soften a rice paper wrapper in hot water, pat dry. Place a spoonful of the mushrooms, some noodles, coriander and vege just off centre of the wrapper. Fold bottom of wrapper up over filling. Fold in the sides and then roll up to enclose.

Dip in sweet chilli, sweet soy sauce or even peanutty sauce. They will keep in a chilled container for several hours…without going soggy!

Tasty Tortillas

To go with last night's refried beans, here's my homemade tortilla recipe. They are super easy and so much softer and more filling than the bought kind (and, incidentally, much much cheaper). These are flour tortillas - I've never made the corn kind, so if you had a recipe to share on that front, I'd love to give it a shot!

Flour Tortillas

2 cups plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/4 c oil
3/4-1 c tepid water

Mix flour, b.p and salt together in a bowl. Stir in the oil and mix through until it sort of looks crumbly. Add enough water to make a soft dough. Turn out and knead until smooth and elastic (about 3-4 mins). Put in a plastic bag and leave somewhere warmish for about half an hour. Cut into pieces (depending on how big you want your tortillas - I usually make about 10 with this amount). Roll a piece into thin circle - about dinner plate size if you can get it that big. Fry in a hot, dry, non-stick pan for a couple of mins each side...until they are just starting to get brown spots. Keep warm and soft in a clean teatowel.

These freeze well if you don't get through the whole lot at dinner.

Bean Fiesta

Mexican-inspired food is some of my favourite food...I love feasting on bowls of chilli and guacamole and salsa and fresh, warm tortilla chips and soft, fluffy burittos. It was one of my favourite meals when I was growing up - always a family dinner with all the various bits and pieces on the table, everyone helping themselves and generally making a very happy, content mess. But I have to say, going out for Mexican food has typically proven a real disappointment. Now, I'm sure if I went out for a Mexican meal in Mexico, or even in Texas or some of the other southern states of the USA, then I'm sure it would be a totally different experience, but in NZ (and so far in the UK) it's pretty disappointing. I always leave the restaurant feeling faintly dissatisfied and feeling pretty sure I could have made better at home. One area in which I think this is particularly true is in the refried beans realm. At most restaurants I've been to, refried beans have been a sad, grey, tasteless blob on the side of the plate - an after-thought that is supposed to make you feel as if you are getting some kind of 'authentic' Latin meal complete with 'authentic' accompaniments. I'm a big fan of the bean - chickpeas, kidney beans, haricot, lima, black-eyed beans...all good stuff - but even I struggle to get through the refried beans at restaurants. And I always feel so sorry for the beans...they could be so much more than that!

This is my recipe for refried beans and it bears little resemblance to the restaurant variety. Even former refried-bean haters will be convinced by this, and even dogged meat-eaters will come back for seconds. It's great served hot a-top tortilla chips, stuffed into a taco, wrapped in a buritto or piled on top of fluffy rice, slathered with guacamole and/or sour cream and with a sprinkling of grated cheese. But the leftovers are also delicious served cold as a dip with vege sticks and more tortilla chips. I hope you love it as much as I do, and hope that you can convert a refried bean hater or two...! Let the bean revolution begin, ole!

Refried Beans

2 Tbsp oil
1 onion
1-2 cloves of garlic
1 green capsicum (optional)
1 1/2 c red kidney beans (either use some you've soaked and cooked yourself, or a 400g can)
1 generous tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp oreganum
1/2-1 tsp ground chilli (or to taste)
1 tsp paprika (smoked paprika is good for a change sometimes)
About 1/2 c of water (if you used your own cooked beans, keep some of the cooking water for this)
2 Tbsp tomato paste
1 Tbsp wine vinegar
salt and sugar to taste

Chop onions, garlic and capsicum. Saute in oil gently. Add spices and fry for a further minute. Add the beans, tomato paste, vinegar and warm through. Mash with a potato masher (or if you prefer a smoother texture, stick it in the blender. I personally like it a bit chunkier, but to each her own!) then add as much liquid as you want to get a soft mixture - about the same consistency as hummus. Add salt and sugar to taste, and even a splash of lime or lemon if you fancy. If you have beans prepared (I keep a stash of pre-soaked and boiled beans in the freezer for this purpose...pour over boiling water to defrost and away you go) you can make this in under 10 minutes.

All it needs are some of the accompaniments listed above, plus a nice cold Corona or Sol lager with lime and you're good to go!

Michael Pollan: Defender of Food, Food lovers and Julia Child's legacy!

I came across this article on the NY Times website (you'll start to wonder if I read anything else these days) and it's really brilliant. I love this author - he's so critical (analytically speaking, although sometimes just critical too), and sharp and witty, and also soundly researched. His book - In Defense of Food (yes that is the correct spelling - Americans and their funny English!) - is wonderful and I wholeheartedly recommend it.

This article is fabulous - inspired, it seems, by the release of Julie/Julia and the reminiscing about Julia Child that seems to have prompted - and there are just so many quote-worthy passages I don't know where to start! Have a read yourself if you have time (it is lengthy...) but in the meantime:

"The BBC supposedly took “The French Chef” off the air because viewers wrote in complaining that Julia Child seemed either drunk or demented."

"But here’s what I don’t get: How is it that we are so eager to watch other people browning beef cubes on screen but so much less eager to brown them ourselves? For the rise of Julia Child as a figure of cultural consequence — along with Alice Waters and Mario Batali and Martha Stewart and Emeril Lagasse and whoever is crowned the next Food Network star — has, paradoxically, coincided with the rise of fast food, home-meal replacements and the decline and fall of everyday home cooking"

"Food shows are the campfires in the deep cable forest, drawing us like hungry wanderers to their flames."

(click the title to this post and it'll take you to the article...)