Why there has been a delay

The last 365 days entry was 23rd August, on 24th my eldest son had a grim, but mercifully not too serious accident.  As a result I have not really been in the mood for food - and cooking has been kept to something of a minimum in the last three weeks.

In addition, I have been struggling with the Slimming World regime - after I lost a magnificent half a pound in the first week, I then put on weight after the second week, and I realised that it wasn't for me.  However, I think the discipline of turning up and being weighed is good even if the regime is no good for me.  So I will be doing it in a different way, eating Atkins, but being weighed every week.  I don't know if this will work, but it will be better for me than what has happened so far.

365 days:Pork and noodle stir fry

Stir fried pork and noodles is a nice idea, but I think I OD'd on the noodles.  On the other hand, an excellent filling dish for the hard up, except that it only uses pork fillet.  It should have used cabbage rather than bean sprouts, but the usual fussypants factors applied.

400g pork fillet cut into strips, fry in 1 tbsp sesame oil and 1 tbsp hoisin sauce until brown (I added the hoisin after this stage).  Add an inch of ginger root, grated and 2 crushed garlic cloves and lots of chopped spring onions.  If adding shreddd cabbage add it now.  Otherwise add a mug of water and some stock, and a tbsp of sherry and two tbsps of light soy sauce.  Cook for a bit until tender, then add a packet of beansprouts.  It will be soupy - but when you add the vast pile of cooked noodles this will be remedied as the noodles will absorb the sauce.

This was OK - the recipe said 175g noodles, but I flung in the whole packet.  I think it would be better with more vegetables (cabbage and bean sprouts and perhaps mushrooms)  I will make it again with fewer noodles.

365 days Friday, Saturday, Sunday

Oh dear - I have very little to report.  I went to the supermarket, fully intending to buy all the wholesome stuff I hate -and forgot.  Apart from smoked salmon.

Friday was unbearably hot, and cluttered up with events, visitors, breakdown of the hot water system, and so on... so finding time to cook one of the healthy recommended meals didn't happen.  So we went out and I ate all sorts of things - lots of chinese food which is full of unecessary sugar, and hidden fats.  On the other hand, the portions were fairly small, so we didn't completely pig out.

Saturday was also unbearably hot - so we went to the beach.  It was lovely.  At 5ish we drifted into a bar, and having not had lunch, decided to eat there.  We called the boys and told them to cook themselves stuffed pasta.  I had a nice plated of fish and salad.  It was delicious.  I awoke at 6 this morning ravenously hungry.

So, in effect I have not been cooking.   I am cooking tonight.  Recipes to follow.

365 days: Steady as she goes: pasta with broccoli

Spent the whole day writing, so decided would do pasta.  This was good - I was able to recylcle the stew from last night - with a bit of extra fresh tomato and shredding the beef, and mashing the carrot and shallot it came out rather like a good bolognese sauce.   In deference to my veggie diet, I ate a pile of broccoli, mixed with mashed anchovy and chili mixed in with the pasta.

This is a version of the more elegant orecchie con broccoli - a favourite Sicilian dish, which is now fairly well known.   It involves frying chopped garlic in olive oil, adding chili flakes, several anchovies, chopped. When the anchovies are melted, mix this with nicely cooked broccoli, pour on to the freshly cooked orecchie (conchiglie are a good substitute).   You do not normally put cheese on this dish, unless you are doing this recipe from supermarket magazine, in which case you probably also have to include capers, basil and pink peppercorns...but don't!

365 Days: Tuesday Risotto

I adore risotto - and I felt rather excited when I saw my new diet allows as much rice as you want.  Only one plateful I expect, I don't think they realise how much I love rice.   I don't think I've written about rice before, largely because for much of my life I'm theoretically on a sort of low-carb regime - not very regimented usually.  So I don't eat it often.

Having eaten a vast bowl of fruit salad for breakfast, I had a couple of greengages at one o'clock, so it was not surprising we were hungry during our trip to see the glass in Canterbury cathedral.  We then had a late lunch, and by this time there was no possibility of cooking the ox cheeks I bought yesterday.  So the answer to supper had to be pasta or risotto.

This looks a bit like my risotto - I just can't get into
the habit of photographing my food.

What I would love is dishes like pumpkin, spinach or mushroom, or gorgonzola risotto, or even risotto with raddicchio which I've had in Italy.  However, I am catering for Fussypants Central here - so I am restricted in what I can cook.  I made a version risi e bisi which is usually a rather soupy venetian risotto - mine is nothing like it really.

Chop a small onion or a couple of shallots and soften them in 30g butter, stir in about 300g arborio rice, chop up some ham into strips or squares and add that.  Make up a litre of hot stock (on this occasion I used a Knorr stock pot, because my own stock was frozen) and when the rice is suitably coated with butter add a little at a time, stirring it on a low heat until the liquid is absorbed, add a little more stock.  This is a nice slow process and cannot be ignored - if you fancy just standing and staring for 20 minutes, make a risotto.   With the second addition of stock pour in "a cup" of frozen peas, or more.   Continue stirring and adding stock, when the grains are at the consistency that you want to eat them, turn off the heat, add another lump of butter, and 15g or so of grated parmesan.  Cover the saucepan and leave it to stand for 5 minutes, then eat.   With more parmesan if necessary.   I also added some chopped parsley to this..      

365 days: Ox cheek

They keep going on and on about it, but it's never for sale anywhere, and when one tries to find a recipe for it they are all pretty much the same.  I found some reduced in Waitrose yesterday and today I cooked this - my version of the stew, feeds 4 terribly well.  As pictures of the cheeks might offend vegetarian sensibilities, I draw your attention to cut No. 18 on the handy chart below.  I'd also like to mention No.16 - what we call shoulder, and I think the French call collier - another excellent, shin like cut. Most of the other cuts are a mystery to me.

Use a casserole for this.  Chop up two ox cheeks into large cubes, fry in one tablespoonful of olive oil until browned, add a bayleaf and 3 crushed garlic cloves during cooking.   Remove meat, put 2 small chopped onions, 6-8 whole small carrots, 6 large shallots and a thinly sliced stick of celery in the pan, add 3 twigs of thyme.  Stir about in the residual oil, add more if you are not dieting and you feel the need.  Salt the vegetables and turn them until they begin to change a little.  Return the meat to the pan,  if you wish you could sprinkle it all with a tbsp of flour, I didn't.  Add half a small tin (a generous tbsp or two) of tomato puree, a tin of chopped tomatoes, a small (125cl) glass of wine, and enough stock to cover the meat and veg and add pepper.  Bring to boil and cover.  Put into low over, Gas 2 for 5 hours.  The meat will seem impossibly tough at this stage.  By suppertime the house will be fragrant, and the meat will be extremely tender.   Eat with, for example, pommes etuvees and broccoli or other green veg.

I can't tell you how good this was, although being on a diet may be bringing on hallucinations. I drank a very nice glass of Grignan les Adhemar with it.  Delicious.   See my Quotidiana blog for further details of this curious history of the re-branding.

365 days: The diet

It's one of those diets where you can eat almost anything you like except junk food - so quite like my normal diet - with minute quantities of oil, butter and cheese... so it will be disappointing.  But I will make an effort.

I did not start today - simply turned up and got weighed.  I had not planned nice diety meal and I was starving - so we had fish and chips - for the last time in a while I expect!

Diet recipes to follow no doubt!

365 days: Irish Apple Bread etc.

I have posted the recipe for this before.  It's a sort of cake, can be very moist and almost rubbery if you over do the apples, and quite cakey and fragrant if the apples are sparser.  It is dead easy and I thoroughly recommend it, especially if, like me, you have a rather over-productive apple tree in the garden.

Our apple tree is weird - the apples are early with tough, tanniny skin, crisp flesh which becomes very fragrant and almost perfumed when ripe.   However, many of the apples fall before they are ripe, others are subject to the depredations of the local parakeets, and most of them have worms.  They are therefore only edible when peeled, and may be cooked in all sorts of ways.  I usually make a vast pile of stewed apple and freeze it for instantish crumbles around the year.

The apples do make good apple bread - a pound or so will yield less, but the distinctive perfume comes through.  The original version from my grandmother doesn't have luxurious ingredients like almonds in.  Here's the recipe again.

8oz/200g  self raising flour
4oz/100g  granulated sugar
4oz/100g  butter (chopped into small pieces) or margarine
1lb/400g  cooking apples, peeled and sliced
1 egg
pinch of salt, 1 tsp baking powder,
milk to mix
blanched almond, optional,
brown sugar and flakes of butter for toping

Mix flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, add chopped butter, then mix in the apple slices with the egg and enough milk to make a smoother mixture.   Put into suitable tin, lined with baking parchment, sprinkle brown sugar on top, with flakes of butter and flakes of almond if liked (this is not in the original - this is a luxury version!).  Put in oven gas 5/190 degrees for about 30-40 minutes until brown and firm.  Allow to cool slightly, peel off parchment and cool on a rack to stop it being too damp.
.  

365 days: 24 hours later

Well, after 24 hours of only eating 2 oatcakes with cheese, I decided I felt a lot better, so I cooked.  I'd found this doable recipe - and that means one that (a) isn't predominantly carbohydrate based and (b) does not involve non-obtainable ingredients  and most importantly (c) will appeal to the household.  Actually Finn doesn't like chicken on the bone...or chicken skin - but never mind.

"Greek chicken" a la Sainsbury's (with my modifications)

Slice 3-4 red peppers and cut 2 red onions into 1/8ths.  Put a thin layer of olive oil in a baking tin which will be big enough for 8 chicken thighs.  (You could use 4 chicken legs instead, cooking might be a bit longer).  Turn oven onto Gas 6.  Crush 2 cloves of garlic and mix into the oil, add a tbsp chopped basil (Greek for authenticity - but not essential).  Get the veg in and mix around to make sure they've all got some of the oil mixture on them.  Then put the chicken thighs on top with salt and plenty of pepper.  Drizzle with about a tsp of honey...put into oven for 50 mins.   Then add a packet or less of halved cherry tomatoes, a lemon sliced in 8, and a handful or two of kalamata (or other) olives.  Cook for a further 10 minutes.

At some point in the process make the following sauce: 170ml greek yoghurt mixed with a few stalks of mint leaves and another tbsp of chopped basil, add juice of half a lemon, and 1 tsp honey, then add 1 tbsp good olive oil.  Serve the chicken with about 75g crumbled fetta on top of pitta bread with the yoghurt sauce over it.  I did rice and a green salad alongside it and forgot about the pittas.   I thought this was utterly delicious, but perhaps the fact that I hadn't eaten for 24 hours was a factor.  Anyway - this recipe's a keeper - and I at the leftover bits cold for lunch and it was still good.

365 Days: A pause

I think the exaltation of dripping in the last post must have done it.  For the last few days I have felt progressively weaker, I've been very unfit, and now I am aching in the places I used to play (as Leonard Cohen would say - although that may be a topographical rather than an anatomical reference).   When one's health goes into such a flat spin, one has to take drastic action.  I feel totally weird, and have no appetite for food - which doesn't of course stop me eating, just makes me feel less enthusiastic about cooking.

My plan is to fast for about 2 weeks - I will drink water, I will consume about 500 cals.  

Since you probably don't want to know what I am eating (roast veg, veg soups, fruit, water, coffee) I won't be writing a daily recipe.   However, I expect to be back on Sunday 30th August, when I shall be cooking pork cooked in milk for the Vale Square party.  So, that's something to look forward to!

365 Days: Dripping

Ok, so today we had brisket again - and it was very good - I put a chopped onion in the casserole and this improved the gravy - and I made a pan full of yorkshire pudding.  We all like the way we have Yorkshire pudding here - like a thick, soft savoury pancake, a rectangular slab of gravy-sponge... however, I suppose, given that the commercial yorkshire pudding one is sometimes served in pubs, has a texture quite like polystyrene, suggests that the Platonic Yorkshire pudding is not what we have.

I think this is partly because we are too impatient to wait until it gets crisp - although it usually has crisp edges - I cannot really believe it takes 30 mins to cook as some recipes suggest - when I was a child we used to use a bun tin and cook individual ones - this was a faff since it required putting a few drops of fat from the roast in each hole and then pouring in the batter.  These cooked in about 10 minutes.   Nowadays the chance of getting that much fat from a joint is absurd.  

When I was a child, there were usually two or three pudding bowls filled with dripping in one of the cupboards (not the fridge).  One for beef, one for lamb, one for pork.   The dripping was used for frying (sometimes) or slathering onto the next roast, with a handful of salt, et voila!  The British roast was ready.  The jelly was scopped out and eaten on bread together with salt, and some of the dripping.  Nowadays, when I save the meat juices I am lucky to get a ramekin full - and the layer of fat on the top is usually about a quarter of the contents, the rest being nice, winey, herby jelly.   In my mother and grandmother's pudding basins, the jelly could be a tiny smear at the bottom, that you were lucky to find.  Pork seemed to be particularly lacking in jelly - but provided a very nice, white dripping, almost lard I suppose.



Where has all this fat gone?  Of course we are all terrified of animal fat - even though it has largely been proved that (a) it isn't that bad for you (b) your cholesterol levels tend to be hereditary and/or laid down in early life.  Mine are nice and low.  So, yes, you can breed skinnier, leaner animals and that's clearly a factor (lamb now normally has more fat than pork).

Recently, during the Great Frugality, I tried to use some of my scant resources of dripping to fry meat.  Remarkably I found it added a depth of flavour that other cooking mediums lacked.  We have all been vaguely given the impression that olive oil is the correct default frying medium, although I tend to use rapeseed oil, unless I want an olive/Mediterranean dish.    This is why I rather wish I had more ample dripping.  It has a lot more depth and perhaps a subliminal comforting flavour of memories.

In this paean to dripping (or should that be an encomium?) I am reminded of the rather mean-spirited vegetarian who once said to me "the thing about meat is, you have to add so many things to it to make it taste good..."     She'd clearly forgotten what meat tasted like.  All you have to do with meat is add a bit of salt - other seasonings are available.  I should have replied "Oh yes, unlike quorn and tofu - which are delicious eaten on their own.!"

365 days: The full English

In the last few days I have hardly cooked, we have had so many AirBnB people that I've been too knackered, I went out on Friday - leaving the others with defrosted meatballs and some left over peperonata which they combined and ate with pasta.   On Saturday we had fish and chips, and tonight, overwhelmed with hayfever, I ordered a Chinese.

However, I did cook a full English breakfast this morning, and there is one "recipe" I could offer from that.

Our visitors ordered and paid for a full English, and this is what they each got:  2 chipolata sausages, bacon, blackpudding, mushrooms, tomatoes, fried bread, fried egg, baked beans and corncakes.   The unfamiliar object, the corncake, is a family staple since my childhood.  When my children were small it was something that you could usually feed them, and gave them some indigestible vegetable input.

Take a tin of sweet corn, add an egg and beat it in, add salt and pepper and then 2 tbsps of self-raising flour. Mix well, if very thick add a few drops of milk, but don't let it get too sloppy, it needs to be firmer than "dropping consistency".   Then drop spoonfuls of the mix into hot oil, shallow, not deep, turn once.   Very good with tomato sauce (important foodie note there).

365 days: Meat balls

A month in and I still haven't presented the meatball recipe.   We eat the bloody things all the time, because it's boy chow - dog whistle food almost.  I have tried various recipes and contents vary according to available ingredients.  I usually mix beef and lamb, or beef and pork and I make a large batch and freeze half of them for subsequent meals.

So about 400g beef mince, and 400g pork mince (this is the size pack the supermarkets sell); take 2-3 cloves of garlic, an onion, some parsley, all roughly chopped, put them into a blender and chop to a mush, add half the meat, whizz again, put into a bowl.  Take rest of meat, give it a quick blitz and add to the rest, add some breadcrumbs if you have any - not too many, say a cupfull maximum, lots of fresh ground pepper and salt, then some spices, I like cumin - about 1 heaped teaspoon. If you want them to taste Spanish add a spoon of smoked paprika or a bit of allspice, or ground coriander, or fresh coriander leaves if you have some that need using.  Use your hands to mix this all together and ensure the spices are worked in.  Roll the mix into balls, slightly flatten and put into a pan of hot oil.  They do not break up if shallow fried.  Turn them once and take them out.    Put a little oil in a saucepan and fry a couple of whole cloves of garlic, then add a carton of passata, add the meatballs, cook gently for about 20-30 mins with a lid on.  If you have some basil add before serving.   Or not? Serve either with steamed basmati rice or pasta, spaghetti is traditional in the US.  Or use in other things - e.g. on top of pizzas, or in lasagnes, or wherever meatballs are required.   They are nice cold too.

These are the meatballs they will be eating tomorrow when I'm out.

365 days: A fridge supper

No thought about cooking today - so had to hunt the fridge.  Shockingly, despite an Ocado delivery today, we had virtually nothing useful, i.e edible and appealing to all 3 of us (the cooked salmon wasn't used).

However, there were two saucissses de montbeliard (other smoked cooking sausages are available) aging cherry tomatoes that needed to be used, half a red pepper, parsley - so in the absence of any risotto rice I  made a sort of cheat's paella/risotto.

Fry two medium sliced onions in olive oil, or olive oil and butter, add a finely sliced red pepper and a crushed garlic clove and let them soften.   Measure a mug of basmati rice, sprinkle a few strands of saffron on it, add 1 1/2 to 2 cups of boiling water and bring back to the boil, add salt, put on lid and lower the flame, cook for 10 mins.  Then back at the frying pan, add cooking sausages in chunks (old lumps of chorizo could be used), then halve the cherry tomatoes, add them (a sliver or two of celery wouldn't be bad either), and then let them cook a little; frozen peas should be added round now and keep cooking and gently stirring.  Add salt and pepper - and a little smoked paprika if you have it.  When all the veg are soft and edible, put a couple of glugs of sherry in the pan and stir in.  If you have parsley, chop some and add that, then mix in the cooked rice, stir gently to get everything amalgamated and serve.

This was jolly delicious and tasted positively Spanish... 

365 Days: Strawberry Meringue roulade

Today's treat was strawberry meringue roulade, which I made for a friend's birthday - it goes quite well with champagne.

This is a Mary Berry recipe - I am not a great fan of the baking maven - but this is a very nice simple recipe which I did mess about with, by adding elderflowr cordial and reducing the amount of penitential yoghurt!.

First make a meringue with 5 egg whites, whip them until stiff, then add 10oz of caster sugar gradually, she says a teaspoon at a time, but we haven't got all day have we?, and a (heaped) tablespoon seemed fine.  Anyway, keep beating it in until it's nice and glossy.  Then put in a baking paper lined swiss roll tin - I think there's a pretty standard size - flatten with a palette knife and sprinkle with about 2oz of flaked almonds.   Put into a medium/hot oven Gas 6 for 8 minutes then reduce the temperature to Gas 3 and cook for a further 15 mins.   I went over the 8 mins, so had to open the oven for a bit to reduce the temperature quickly.

Remove the rectangular meringue from the oven and turn out onto a flat surface covered with baking paper.  Leave to cool.  Meanwhile slice up 250g/8oz strawberries and pour a tablespoon or two of elderflower cordial over it.  (or orange liqueur or kirsch or amaretto - this is my part of the recipe, MB doesn't do anything as daring as that!).   Then whip up about 200ml double cream until fairly stiff, and add a couple of tablespoons of Greek yoghurt, add more elderflower cordial if liked.    Spread the cream over the underside (the non-almond side) of the meringue, then line the strawberries along it in two or three lines, and roll the meringue carefully along the long side.  It will probably crack up a bit - which is why that puritan of perfectionism MB says scatter caster sugar on it... but I didn't bother - my one didn't look much like the one in the picture - it was a darker brown.  Actually I think mine looked a bit more appetising and had a lot more flaked almonds on it - but was less perfectly tubular.

365 Days: Monday, Tuesday

Ah, it's a food blur really - on Monday we had 2 doctors' appointments, a washing machine delivery and a friend to tea.   So I didn't cook supper.  I did make brownies though - and managed to burn them.  They were still quite nice.   I wanted to make coffee and walnut brownies, but Finn would not let me use walnuts as he doesn't like them.

This is a sturdy old brownie recipe that I have been using forever, it's perfectly acceptable, I tweaked it a bit.

Cream 3 oz butter or soft marge, with 9oz sugar (caster or soft brown) add 3 eggs, a tsp of vanilla essence or (tweak: a tsp coffee powder dissolved in hot water), at 6 oz of melted dark chocolate, then about 3-4 oz of chopped nuts and glaces cherries - any combination you like.    Add a little milk if this mixture seems too solid.  Put mixture into a paper lined baking tray.and put in medium/low oven Gas 4/3 for about 25-30 mins - but watch it - depends how thin the layer is.

I do not have pictures of the slightly charred offering sadly.

On Tuesday I went out to a delicious lunch at a wonderful newish Turkish restaurant in Canterbury called Alla Turca (I can hear the Mozart as I write that).   As a result I wasn't in a mood for cooking in the evening, but we had some mushrooms that needed to be used up.    I made 2 sauces - started with two onions and a lot of chopped bacon - or the French poitrine fume - then divided into two pans, added oregana, garlic, slivers of chorizo and a tin of tomatoes,. in the other pan, lots of sliced mushrooms, salt and pepper and half a teaspoon of fennel seeds.  When the mushrooms were cooked, I added some cooked peas (and put the other half in the tomato sauce).  Then add a bit of double cream to the mushrooms - this is an ideal recipe for using up any slightly dodgy cream that may be on the turn in the fridge.  Neither of these sauces take long - so both will be ready more or less simultaneously when you've cooked the pasta.

365 days: Sunday - coconut cake

I am writing this entry in advance, because I am pretty sure we will not be eating anything much on Sunday.  In fact I can almost feel a takeaway coming on, probably fish and chips.   BUT I am trying to adhere to a recipe per day so....

Coconut cake
This is basically a rather grand Victoria sponge.  It can be made by the one bowl method.

Soak 2 oz (60g) desiccated coconut in a little milk; put 150g self raising flour, 125 g soft marge or softened butter, 125g of caster sugar, 2 eggs, a teasp of baking powder and a little vanilla essence and finally the coconut in a bowl together and mix well.  Grease 2 x 7 in (17cm) cake tins and divide the mixture between them. Cook for 15-20 mins in a medium oven - Gas 4/180 degrees.    Cool on a cake rack and sprinkle with kirsch/fine old arak/any old fruity liqueur you want to use up.   Spread with either strawberry or raspberry jam - or if you think it's all going to be eaten, fresh strawberries lightly macerated in lemon juice and sugar or orange juice and sugar or whatever you like, or fresh raspberries or fresh mango pulp.  Whisk about 300ml (or a little less 250?) double or whipping cream, flavour with a few drops vanilla and a spoon of caster or icing sugar.  Spread part over the middle of the cake, put cakes together and use the rest of the cream for the top.   Coconut flakes, quickly toasted in a pan and allowed to cool, make a good topping, as does desiccated coconut similarly treated.

This is a very nice cake.  It is usually fairly moist, but can be a bit hefty sometimes.  The baking powder seems to help, as does moistening the coconut.

A handy guide to coconut dimensions - flakes on the left

365 days: Saturday: pulled pork. Again

I have a feeling I've written about pulled pork before.   Yes, I have, because we ate it about 15 days ago.  On that occasion I wished to feed my eldest son with it, but he unexpectedly went away the day before I cooked it.  So I did again today for his benefit.   On this occasion is was better, although it needed more ginger beer I think.  However, I kept the skin on (against the recipe's advice) but made sure I got the oven temperatures right.

On this occasion I knew I would not be wanting to cook - so, shock horror, we had ready made coleslaw, plus a green salad with a nice dressing I made, plus a request for "potatoes the way Dad does them."
So far my husband's cooking has not featured much in this blog.  There is a reason for this.  However, he is good at heating stuff up and doing French toast, spag carbonara, and fried potatoes.   This involves parboiling the potatoes, then frying them when they are cooked to a state of firmness just before they could be mashed.  They are shallow fried.  I do not greatly care for this method of doing spuds, but it's all right.  Much depends on the potato variety used I think, dull potatoes are not good for this dish.

To follow we had coconut cake which is a family speciality, made in honour of the eldest son's trip to the US.  I would like to say the meal was a raging success - but a certain atmosphere reigned, due to his anxiety about the trip, and the way that this manifests itself in anger towards others.

365 Days: Zucchini fritti - Friday

I had a nice lunch prepared for a friend who couldn't make it - salmon with cashew nuts (this is a simple recipe a bit like the Monty Python favourite "rat a l'orange" - "that's basically rat with a dirty great orange stuck in its mouth"... this was a couple of slabs of marinated salmon, fried and scattered with dirty great lumps of toasted cashew nuts).  I also made zucchini fritti - which are unbelievably simple and delicious.  I noticed that there are an enormous number of elaborate zucchini fritti recipes involving batter, breadcrumbs, parmesan, beer, panko breadcrumbs (for those of you who really care) - and probably, for all I know there is one that uses goat curd too)



Take a quantity of zucchini - cut off any manky bits (most of the elderly zucchini in my possession are well endowed with these) and cut them into large matchsticks/batons/julienne strips - anything roughly 5cm by 1-.1.5 cm.  Put in a colander and sprinkle with salt - leave for half an hour.     Fill a large frying pan with a depth of oil - not very deep, but enough to cover the strips without letting them float and heat the oil.  If you can afford it, use olive, but rapeseed is perfectly acceptable.

Give the zucchini strips a gentle squeeze, put on a clean tea towel to dry them off a bit, then toss them onto a floury plate, cook them in batches in the oil, allowing them to brown on both sides, turning as necessary..  Drain on kitchen paper - they stay hot for a while and are good eaten lukewarm dipped in mayonnaise - or just on their own, or as a side dish with something else.  I am thinking of serving them with drinks...they are just so nice.  My sons hate them.

365 days: Thursday - not navarin printanier

...that was what I'd planned to cook tonight, but today we went to a late Eid party at the Ramsgate Tandoori - and then went and had a glass of wine in the sunshine - and then realised that we had a lot of last night's quorn korma left...so we had that, and the leftover rice that we were too stuffed to eat...

Nevertheless, I did commit to doing a recipe a day, and I realise I haven't put down several recipes for things I have cooked, such as peperonata, and meatballs.

Peperonata

Slice two large onions and soften in a couple of spoons of olive oil; then slice 3 or 4 red/yellow peppers (you can use green if you like them) and several cloves of garlic.  Put in the pan with the onion and add a sprinkle of salt to help soften the peppers faster.  Put a lid over the vegs and cook down a little until they are getting soft.  Add a tin of tomatoes, chopped, and cook gently for 40 mins or so, checking it hasn't stuck.  If liked add some basil or parsley or freshly ground pepper - or all of these.    Eat hot or cold, very good with lamb, meatballs, chicken especially.  Or as a starter, or whatever...

What I ate
A very nice scrap of chicken curry, veg curry, rice, potato ball, a samosa, and a spoon of vermicelli pudding and some gulab jamun.     For supper, the quorn curry, leftover rice and half a Sainsbury's garlic and herb nan, which wasn't too bad, but not to be compared with the nan yesterday.  Feel quite full.  The quorn curry was really good and the quorn keeps its shape despite re-heating - I somehow expect it to dissolve.

365 days: Wednesday turkey sweet and sour a la Robert Carrier

This was Tuesday's supper.  Pork sweet and sour was one of the first "exotic" dishes I ever learned to cook.  My mother had a lot of cookery books (I think my father used to buy them for her).  There was, I think, a fairly old early Chinese cookery book, perhaps by Kenneth Lo, but I think this recipe actually came from Robert Carrier's Great Dishes of the World - which was one of the few illustrated cook books I had access to.  Now that I think of it, the reason I preferred The Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook (black and white photos) and Mrs Beeton's Household Management (late 50's edition - with colour pictures) was because I used to read them when I was young - and ironically I always wanted to eat dishes that involved an awful lot of fancy piping.  I say ironically, since my piping skills are laughable... I think it's lack of practice, but it could also be dyspraxia...

The Carrier book had quite a few pictures, but not all the dishes were illustrated - including some of the most memorable ones.  This is what I can roughly remember of the recipe -  for which I used rather tough belly pork (it should have been fillet!) - rather than this decidedly tender turkey breast.

The cover is roughly as I remember it, but ours rapidly lost its dust cover and was, naked, a terracotta coloured book with gold lettering.  It's available "used" from Amazon for around £25.00.  I have retrieved a copy from my mother's collection.

For a long time it was my ambition to go to the Carrier restaurant in Islington, which I used to live very close to.  I now cannot remember if I did, I have a memory of it - but did we go in to ask to see the menu and then decide we couldn't afford it? It was very grand style Colefax and Fowler decor - Louis XV rococco mirrors and chairs, a destination, rather than a restaurant.  I never did find out if the food was any good, needless to say, he wasn't in the kitchen himself, and I think the menu was more classic french than international - unless I am confusing it with Frederick's another great Islington institution of swollen poshness.


Turkey sweet & sour

With another substantial veg dish (I served stir fried mixed veg mixed with a lot of rice noodles) this should go around 4 people.

Two turkey breasts cut into 3-4 cm chunks, marinaded in a mix of dark soy (1 tbsp) and sherry or rice wine (1 tbsp) with chopped garlic and ginger.     Marinade for "a bit" - an hour seems good, less would probably be fine.   Then drain and roll in cornflour.  Deep fry until brown and drain.   Chop up 2 garlic cloves and about 1/2 inch piece of ginger root, don't worry about the peel, you'll be chopping it fine.  Slice an onion, a pepper (preferably red) into fine slices and take strips of carrot with a potato peeler, if you have a tin of pineapple drain that (keep the juice) and add about half the fruit.

Mix  1 tbsp light soy,. 1 tbsp sherry, 1 tbsp rice vinegar, 1 tbsp sugar with a heaped tbsp of tomato puree and 1 tsp of cornflour, mix together, add about half the pineapple liquid, if there's any marinade left add that too.   When ready to cook, fry the ginger and garlic in a little oil, then add slices of onion and allow them to soften slightly. Then add the fried meat, pour in the sauce mix let it combine and add the pepper, carrot and pineapple (if using).  The sauce should thicken slightly and it is ready as soon as everything is hot.  Obvs., if you like your veg limp, cook them first.     The flavours should be adjusted for sweet-sour balance.  Without the pineapple this mix is slightly sharp rather than sweet but still good.   Chinese take-aways serve it a lot sweeter than this.

365 days: quorn korma - 1 vegetarian meal a week

I doubt whether this is technically a korma - it's just a fairly mild curry with coconut milk in it.   I make it to keep us on the one veggie day a week straight and narrow.  I don't think we always succeed with this, but when we do we typically have pasta with some sort of sauce, or a pasta bake with mozarella and cheese sauce, or egg and cheese pie, or stuffed peppers, or risotto.  This practice is hampered by the fact that there is one member of the family who does not like eggs or mushrooms; we also have a certain resistance to lentils - which are part of one of our favourite dishes, meghdarra - food of the poor.  So, recently I have overcome my reluctance to use quorn - and chili with quorn and bolognese ditto have been appearing, helped by the fact that it's wondrously cheap.

Quorn korma
Take a small bunch of coriander, take off the top leaves and put aside, chop the stalks fairly finely; chop 3 garlic cloves finely, and about an inch of fresh ginger, a chilli and one onion.   Put these in hot vegetable oil together with 1-2 tsps of fenugreek seeds.   Stir until coloured.  Then add further vegetables, according to preference, for example a large sliced onion, a chopped pepper, a few fresh green beans (these can be added later on if prefered).  Add salt and let them soften a little, then add a bag of Quorn chunks - when these have begun to defrost add a can of cocnut milk and roughly the same amount of water, bring to boil, add green beans/mushrooms/peas etc.  and ground pepper.  Put lid on and simmer for 30 mins or so.  Add the fresh coriander leaves before serving with rice, nan, and all the usual paraphernalia, which in our case includes mango chutney, carrot and onion salad and cucumber raita.


This is what I am cooking tonight, which we can eat tomorrow, as it doesn't need much preparation.  What we are actually eating tonight is turkey sweet and sour with rice and stir fried veg and rice noodles.  At some point there will be even more oreo ice cream, but with the curry there will be strawberries with mango - bliss.

365 Days: Chocolate tart

Today I didn't actually cook (well, meatballs - see later) since I was going out.  However, I have listed a number of recently cooked dishes which haven't had accompanying recipes.  So here's the chocolate tart recipe (sorry all the sweet things so far have been chocolate based).

I used some leftover commercial shortcrust pastry for this *frugal!, but if I was doing it from scratch I would either do flaky pastry or pate brisee or sucree - either would be good.   So, line a 20cm flan tin or similar with pastry.  Then bake it blind.  I find using the dedicated ceramic beans is the best way to do this, line the pastry snugly with foil, put the beans in and make sure the foil covers the rim of the pastry, otherwise it tends to cook first.  Cook in a medium 4/5 oven for 15 mins, remove hot foil and beans and give it another 5 mins to crisp the bottom.

For the filling, melt 200g dark chocolate in a bowl in a saucepan of water,don't let the water get to it.  Towards the end, add 50 g butter (unsalted pref).  Meanwhile take 300ml double cream and add 2 tbsps caster sugar and whisk together, add the slightly cooled melted chocolate and beat together until shiny (this didn't take long), then add a couple of tbsps of milk to loosen it a little, amalgamate fully then fill pie crust with the mixture.  Chill for 2 hrs before eating.

Alternatively: This is not my recipe - I got it online, it's Jamie Oliver's, based on generations of French precursors no doubt.  Next time I do it I'll probably add orange zest and maybe some cointreau to losen it, or brandy instead of milk, or amaretto and add some crushed toasted almonds, or a layer of crushed amaretti on the crust before adding the chocolate... you could serve this with some very delicious baked/poached pears, possibly mocha/vanilla versions might be tried - whatever else goes with chocolate.  The chocolate is fairly firm, so you could almost make this is a tray bake and serve in slivers, perhaps with some luxurious florentine style topping - yes, I might try that next time - or praline or just a drizzle of white choc and gold dust to improve its appearance.  Oh, sorry, how could I have forgotten sea salt! Or caramels?

What I ate
Oatcakes with cheese,  lunch was leftover pork and bean stew, a leaf or two of overcooked artichoke; later a couple of meatballs I was cooking for the men, then a really dreary cheese and bacon panino at the Gulbenkian... I wanted fresh... they only had dull.  A spritzer - to compensate for the food!

365 days: pork and beans

During the lengthy excavation of the freezer last week, I discovered a cache of still untouched French sauciforms - notably saucisse de monteliard which is a nice smoked sausage which can be used in salad montebeliard (another day perhaps).  Also a lot of potrine fumee and more meguez than could be used in our dull supper the other day.  So on went the beans to soak, while I remembered my misgivings about eating pork and beans in the middle of summer - it didn't seem appropriate somehow.  However, as it happened, today was one of the coldest days this summer, with a nip of autumn and plenty of rain.  So it was the perfect supper.


Pork and beans.

Chop up some bacon/poitrine fumee and fry with two chopped onions and 3-4 cloves of garlic.  Add a sprig or two of rosemary and a bay leaf.   Then add a couple of slices of belly pork (or more) cubed, let them take a bit of colour, then add sausages, either whole of chopped up.   When they have all become acquainted with the heat and each other,  stir them a little, then add about some cooked haricot beans (no, not a tin, some that you have soaked and maybe boiled in the pressure cooked (* frugality!)).  Then add either a tin of tomatoes/ a tablespoon of  tomato concentrate and half a carton of passata, some of the liquid from the beans, lots of salt and pepper, any bits of leftover wine - salt and pepper - then put the lid on and cook slowly for about 2 hours.

To be honest,. I wouldn't say this was the most delicious pork and beans, I frequently do a more US variety, with syrup and mustard and worcester sauce.   This is more like a sub-French cassoulet, but without all the duck confit etc.  Maybe more rosemary, parsley, some thyme and more tomato.  It was good though, we ate it with rice and a green salad with vinaigrette to which I added some left over yoghurt * frugal...


What I ate
Lovely lunch party - cold ham, salads, mango and chili one being particularly memorable, plus some cheese, a piece of ginger cake and some home made lemon ice cream - plus way too much wine!

Pork and beans, rice, green salad, followed by chocolate tart.

365 days: don't waste food

Having hauled a lot of things out of the deep freeze, I am now faced with the task of cooking them.... so this morning I began a cooking session.

First in a burst of frugality I went through the fridge and decided what to do with the leftovers:
cold cooked chickpeas (they don't keep that long) - I fried an onion, some garlic, cumin and red pepper, then added the chickpeas, a spoon of tomato concentrate and about 4 fresh tomatoes, chopped, then some water to stop it sticking.  Cooked it gently for half an hour and then kept it to be eaten as a cold veg, but it could be re-heated.

Then I boiled beetroot.  I usually make a sauce for the beetroot which consists of a spoonful of fruit jelly (redcurrant, apple, quince, whatever) the zest or grated peel of half an orange, some orange juice, melted together, a squirt of vinegar too perhaps - you have to adjust the jelly/juice-vinegar ratio according to taste, lots of salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Then I did two artichokes that I'd been given - I am the only one who likes them, and I eat them with vinaigrette.  I made another batch of carrot soup too.

There were cold potatoes, carrots, peas and beans in the fridge - I cut them up added a chopped gherkin and mayo and made a reasonable version of a Russian salad.   We then had a very nice lunch of assorted salads; unfortunately, there is still rather a lot of it leftover, so we may be enjoying them for a couple of days.

Finally, the peppers had been there for about a week, so I made a peperonata.  The boys like this, but it will keep until Monday, when they can have it with meatballs.

This evening we are going to have duck legs, which are not, unfortunately, confit, because I haven't had the time or goose fat - and pommes sarladaise (I hope)  I haven't cooked this before.  This will be followed by chocolate tart.  I also made some bread, a fruit salad for breakfast, and, since the bananas were appalling, another lot of banana and coconut bread. (i.e. last week's banana muffins, but without the blueberries, and in loaf form).  This really was an epic day of cooking, since I also made a bean and pork stew for tomorrow and some more chicken stock..

Pommes sarladaises
The recipe I found was on a US blog - I don't think it's quite right.  Three very large potatoes, peeled and cut into coin-thick slices.  Heat a lot of goose/duck fat in a large, heavy bottomed pan, add the potatoes gradually, turn them over, and keep turning them as they go crisp.  Add 6 chopped cloves of garlic and keep cooking until they are all crisp.   At this point, I would add salt and pepper and chopped parsley, however, the recipe suggests adding 3/4 cup of water and continuing to cook covered.   When I cooked them this would have been unecessary, but I did it anyway.  I don't think it was necessary and I shouldn't have bothered,but I wanted to do it PROPERLY.  Anyway, it made it rather soggy and not very like the pommes sarladaises I ate in the Lot 8 years ago.

365 days: Bog standard food

This is what we ate for supper today, and it is not in the least interesting.   We ate some French merguez which I bought in a supermarche last time we were there, we ate them with potatoes that I had parboiled and then fried in the sausage oil.  I also made cauliflower and added chopped anchovies, gherkin, capers, parsley and dill.  I also cooked some peas, for Ned who doesn't like cauliflower.

It was dull meal really, but others were happy, because sausages and fried potatoes represent heaven.  Unfortunately, due to various rows, most of the food was cold, and this did not improve it.  However, M and I enjoyed a very good Pimm's before we ate.

No cooking! 365 days.

There was no cooking today.  I ate cheese and crackers at 12, then went out of a meeting, and came home a bit woozy from a meeting about a script - and then too pathetic to cook.   We were going to have merguez and potatoes, and possibly chocolate tart... but we had a takeaway curry instead.

Carrot soup

I made this the other day, and have only just got around to eating it.  I quite often make it.   The thing that really makes it is coriander stalks.

Chop up an onion and soften it gently in butter, peel and chop roughly about 500g of carrots, then add half a few coriander stalks and leaves, chopped.  Add 1 litre chicken stock (others are available - this is what I use) - and bring to boil.  Simmer gently with a lid until the carrots are soft.  Blend and taste.  Salt and pepper should be added at some point, more liquid (stock or water) can be added if it's too thick (it usually is, which suggests starting with more liquid).

Other possible ingredients include: parsley, shallots, tarragon (instead of coriander), a slosh of white wine or sherry, a little paprika, lemon juice, orange juice, anything suitable.    Eat it with a dash of cream, sour cream, yoghurt, creme fraiche...add some lemon juice to keep the colour bright.

What I ate today

I ate out - at Cardak in Broadstairs - probably the best Turkish restaurant in Thanet, and possibly the only one.  (Kebab shops don't count).

365 Days: Tuesday 21st Brisket of beef

This is a bit of a cheat really - because I was busy on my book I sent Finn down to dig out the recipe and the ingredients and get it all into the oven.  It took him 40 mins, with the remaining 20 mins (he's paid by the hour) he got ready the yorkshire pudding batter.  This may seem an odd dish for a weekday night, but I buy a "roast" of some sort every week and this week it was brisket - which is nice and cheap and tastes good.

Finn did it all very well and the beef and the yorkshire were excellent.  We ate them with etuvee potatoes, carrots, beans and broccoli.  We ate leftover scraps of cherry cake and oreo ice cream for pudding.

Brisket
Take a piece of brisket, less than 1 kg, and roll in flour that has been mixed with some powdered mustard, dried or fresh thyme, chopped garlic, salt and pepper - brown on all sides in a little oil (or dripping if you are lucky enough to have any.).  Then put into a pre-warmed china oven dish with a lid, pour in about half a glass of wine or cider and put into a low oven, Gas 2-3... It then needs to be cooked for  2.5 - 3 hours depending on size (larger means longer)... you can turn it over after an hour or so and baste it.

I am not giving you the recipe for Yorkshire pudding - which also came from Jocasta Innes' Paupers' Cook Book.  But suffice it to say, it worked perfectly.

What I ate today

All of the above, plus a couple of glasses of 2004 Fronsac - nice!

365 Days: Monday July 20th Kolokothukeftedes

When we were in Athens a couple of months ago I saw these on a picture menu...They sounded wonderful - and unpronounceable - after a week in Athens I could nearly say it.  It now trips off my tongue with great facility, but I think it's actually easier to make them than say it.

They were utterly delicious and I had them several times - and found they were not equally delicious every where; I have also eaten them in a Turkish restaurant, but I don't recall the Turkish name.  So, for the last few weeks I've been waiting for an excuse to make some.   I found a Greek recipe on a reputable looking Greek food blog here http://www.mygreekdish.com/recipe/kolokithokeftedes-fried-zucchini-balls-or-courgette/

My version was slightly different.  I used dill (about 1/3 of a supermarket packet) instead of mint, and about 200g feta, and I had quite a lot of sourdough bread crumbs, so I used half breadcrumbs and half the flour - they were utterly fabulous.  I seldom love my own food so much, but this was good.  We ate it with tzatziki.  I might do it again, the recipe made about 20 odd and could probably stretch if one gave everyone 3.  The recipe says for 8-10 - but it depends what you're doing it with.   I think perhaps they would be good as pre-dinner snacks with drinks.

365 days - Sunday - leftovers & cherry cake.

Had a lovely evening on Saturday - two friends came around, one is veggie, so it gave me the excuse to make kolokothukeftedes.... we had a fairly simple supper: big plate of the delicious courgette meatballs, with tzatziki, caponata, tomato salad, bread, followed by an Italian cherry cake - which was all right, but not too wonderful, and some goats cheese.

Today we went to the beach and  because I felt like death warmed up, M did the picnic and I just tottered onto the beach.   I had actually bought some picnic things on Saturday in preparation for this. I did think of getting a takeaway, but he pointed out that our fridge was full of stuff that needed to be eaten so we ate:

Chickpeas with pepper, tomato and chorizo,  deep friend new potatoes, caponata, pulled pork, coleslaw, salad, salami and assorted bits of pieces, followed by cherry cake.

I think I'll put the cherry cake recipe here anyway, although I found it a bit heavy.

Stone 650g cherries.
Cream 125 soft butter with 125g caster sugar; fold in 200g plain flour plus 1 tsp baking powder and a pinch of salt.  Separate 4 eggs, add yolks to cake mix with 1 tbsp brandy.   Beat egg white until stiff, use a spoon or two to loosen the cake mix, then fold in the rest.    Put the rather stiff hefty mixture into a well buttered 20cm tin, cover with the cherries and press down lightly.  .Cook in medium oven Gas 4 for about 35 mins.

Good with creme chantilly, or creme fraiche.

365 Days: Caponata

Caponata is a dish I make regularly - several times a year.  I love aubergines and because I know this recipe by heart it's the one I tend to revert to, rather than doing imam bayildi or baba ganoush instead.

This isn't exactly what my caponata looks like - all the Google images contained a sprig of basil, which isn't an ingredient in my recipe - which isn't my recipe of course but, approximately - Jane Grigson's.


For a nice bowl of it, which makes a good anti pasta for maybe 6 people, or more if you are doing a number of antipasti, this is the recipe.  It can be eaten hot or cold, and the flavour matures over a day or so.

Cut 2-3 aubergines and cut into large chunks, you can salt them and get the juice out if it bothers you, but I find it doesn't make any difference.  Fry the aubergines until soft, in a mix of olive and regular vegetable oil. Drain the aubergines on kitchen paper and put to one side.   Take the largest outer ribs of a celery head - about 6 or 8 of them and cut into chunks, throw into boiling water, bring water back to the boil and drain.   Take 2-3 onions and fry gently until soft and translucent, then add either a 400g can of tomatoes, chopped, or about 8 fresh, peeled tomatoes, chopped, cook together for about 10 minutes, then add 3 tbsps of wine vinegar and about 1 tbsp sugar, mix in and cook for a few minutes, then add the aubergines and celery and put a lid on.  Cook on a low heat, and check occasionally to be sure it doesn't stick (add a little water if it does).   Cook for about 40 mins.

Chop up several stalks of parsley and their leaves, and stir in, continue cooking for a couple of minutes, then chop up 5-6 tinned anchovies (this is optional) and stir in so that they can melt into the vegetables, finally add either a tablespoon or so of pine kernels or (sometimes I have both) a dozen or so stuffed olives, sliced.  

365 days - pulled pork

This was what we ate on Thursday night.  I have been trying to master it for a few years - and having achieved mastery last time, this time was less of a success - but I think I know what I did wrong - so this is the recipe that worked well.

Take a large lump of pork shoulder (recipe says remove skin), mix together 2 tbsps dark brown sugar, 1 tbsp salt, 1 tsp ground black pepper, 1/2 tsp mustard powder, 1/2 tsp ginger, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1 1/2 tsps paprika then rub the pork with this mixture and leave to stand for up to 24 hours (the recipe is also just as nice if you don't let it stand, and cook it immediately).    When ready to cook the joint, put over to Gas 7 - and put meat and any juices from it into a pot with a lid.,  Pour in enough ginger beer to nearly cover it and put into hot oven.  After 30 mins, reduce heat to Gas 3 and cook for a further 3 hours - baste with the juices occasionally, and turn it over at least once.     At the end of cooking time, pull pork apart from 2 forks and serve.

I usually do homemade coleslaw and potato wedges with this, a lot of people serve it in buns.   This recipe is quite sweet, which probably adds to its popularity.  I think a touch of powdered clove or allspice might add something to it, must try next time.

What I ate

Pulled pork, coleslaw, green salad, caponata.

365 days: banana muffins, caponata, pulled pork...

Quite a bit of cooking today.   Pulled pork, salted cashews, coleslaw, caponata, verdura cotta, pommes etuvees, etc.

Yesterday's sourdough was, as I feared, a disaster - I let it stand to long - the mixture - and it has become too sour.  Not sure if it's worth rescuing - think I'll make some conventional bread with dried yeast tomorrow for our visitors.  I'll grind up the sour dough into crumbs and use them sparingly... most of them will be in the freeezer for some time.  A shame, but a valuable lesson learned I think.  Perhaps I can dust a new starter with some spores of the old one.

Yesterday's muffins were pretty good - I would have called them buns years ago, but buns aren't fashionable, and as I made these in a 6-hole silicon brioche mould I guess they are more muffin than bun.   This recipe is based on my family's banana loaf recipe, which I have been messing about with for years.  This is also a frugality points recipe - because I used up two brown bananas and some very leftover blueberries.

So:  mash two old bananas, add 2 cups of flour (use basic mugs) or substitute half a cup of flour with dessicated coconut.then add a mug of soft brown sugar, about 4oz soft marge (oh use butter if you want, sprinkle on 1 tsp of bi-carb, add 2 eggs and some lemon juice (just a squeeze, lime is better if you are just doing banana and coconut.  Then mix them all with an electric mixer and add half a punnet (is that about 100g? 75g? ) and fold them in (you can add them before mixing if you like). If the mixture is very stiff loosen if with a little milk (a couple of tablespoons), then put them into whatever you use to make muffins (12 small ones) or buns (20? more?).   Cook in oven at gas 4-5 for about 20 minutes.  Chuck onto cooling rack and devour.

The banana bread recipe made a large loaf - and has an extra banana or two in it.  Also brazil or walnuts - about half a mug full, chopped, or anything else you like.  My mother once disgusted me by adding dates - urrrrgh - how could she?  My sister uses chocolate chips instead of nuts, and I suppose chopped caramels/toffees could be nice too, but these days I like coconut and plenty of lime juice in it.  Rum?

What we ate

Pulled pork, pommes etuvees, coleslaw, verdura cotta
Strawberries, whipped cream.

Drank::  Some very nice Sauvignon de Touraine.

Discovered some nice white tortilla chips, which are cheese flavoured and contain linseeds.
.

365 days Sausage fajita bake

Today I invented a dish, there were a lot of chipolatas in the fridge, so I chopped up 2 red onions, a yellow pepper, half a green chili, half a dozen cherry tomatoes and tossed them in lemon juice mixed with fajita spice and laid them on the bottom of a roasting dish (well, actually, it was an oval, blue Le Creuset dish - so a little more attractive).  Then a layer of sausages - uncooked - on top.   Cover this with some lumps of parboiled potatoes, drizzle with olive oil plus salt and pepper.  Bake at medium to high oven for about 20 minutes, stir it all up to ensure more of the potatoes get crisp and cook another 10-15 mins.

This worked quite well, for people who like fajita spice and sausages and potatoes - I love really good sausages, but this is very much the sort of dish I don't much like.  However the other members of the family like it a lot.  I would have added butternut squash and rather more tomato and pepper and left out the sausages, potatoes and fajita spice... But this isn't really an interesting dish - just a cooking method.  All sorts of ingredients could be substituted.  It would be less oily to toss the potatoes in the oil, rather than add it to the dish.

What I ate
Salade nicoise again, followed by a couple of teaspoons of oreo ice cream, and a bit of the antique strawberry ice at the back of the freezer.

I also made some very sour sourdough bread - and some banana and blueberry muffins.  Recipies later.

365 Days: Salade Nicoise

I don't like salad nicoise as much as I think I do.  Perhaps this is because the ingredients have to be really good to make it a great experience, perhaps it's because I don't like hard boiled eggs without lots of mayo.  Whatever it is, it is something I think I like, but am frequently disappointed by - there are plenty of things like that in life - and not just food!

The salad nicoise yesterday was ruined (no) by a lack of cucumber, I used a tin of tuna, about 5 anchovies, 2 hardboiled eggs, some left over green beans, lettuce,. tomatoes and spring onions.  I squeezed over a lemon and pour on some olive oil.  If you read Elizabeth David she will wag her finger at you about what should and shouldn't be included - black olives and capers and bottle artichokes are all good additions.  I had some of those too.  My first mother in law always put new potatoes in hers.   Maybe if I could find some really excellent tuna fish that would help...  


What I ate

Salade nicoise - the others had chili and rice; followed by Oreo ice cream.

365 Days: Oreo ice cream

I always have trouble with ice cream - it's delicious, but it freezes like granite.  I think this is because it is too rich.  It's especially true with fruit based ices because of all the water in it.  I varied my normal recipe on this one (and it is actually a recipe I just thought up myself) and added some egg white I had in the fridge.  I use an ice-cream maker, but obviously you can do it in the fridge, just giving it the occasional stir.  I loathe Oreos, they seem the epitome of artificial non-food (a biscuit version of the Pop tart).

..

Whip about 400ml double cream until in peaks; beat together a whole egg, about 2 tbsps sugar and an egg white or two, then amalgamate the two bowls, it should make the cream runny.  Put into the ice cream machine and mix until ready.  While mixing chop up one packet of Oreos (as rough or as fine as you like) and put them into the ice cream mix while it is still runny.    Usually you need to finish the ice cream in the freezer.  Take it out 10 mins before you need it.

Add-on goodies:  Brandy, rum, baileys; if you have any spare chocolate peel a few bits into the mix with a veg peeler, or put in some lumps of flakey chocolate.  Grated chocolate is too fine and doesn't really work.


What I ate

3 oatcakes with cheese on, coffee.
Scraps: last scrap of pork pie, a bit of ham, some left over chicken.
Supper:  A tuna steak with tomato, onion, olives, plus green beans.
The others ate egg and bacon pie.

365 days Sunday 12th July: The history of post-war Cook books; Roast Chicken

I look at recipes all the time.  I also have a vast collection of cookbooks.   In the abundant choice we have in the western world, about what we can eat, the ingredients available etc.  one could eat different things every day if one was so minded, but there are some things (such as Elizabeth David's hot strawberry mousse) that are so delicious that one wants to go back to them.

There is a sort of decadence about how we eat now.  Years ago, after the war, say, there was a lot of basic food, and cookbooks that were tentatively reminding younger women how butter was used.  People still tended to use margarine in cake making, and still had some frugal habits; recipies for offal abounded!  Then in the late 50's came Elizabeth David and suddenly the bourgeois housewife was confusing her greengrocer with requests for aubergines and courgettes   (ED suggests substituting "vegetable marrow" in ratatouille I think).  There were soon plenty of spin offs and endlessly simplified/anglicised versions of recipes.  What I shamefully call spaghetti carbonara is one such (it should not have cream in it).  Supermarkets, keen to sell more products, notably Sainsburys, produced little themed cook books "Party cooking"  "Italian cooking" "French cooking" etc.

In the 70s I think, the great Alan Davison was born from the sea-foam and came bearing his magnificent fish books (Mediterranean seafood and North Atlantic seafood) and set up the Oxford Food Conferences - and then there was Claudia Roden's book of Middle Eastern Food, and Jane Grigson writing in the Observer and throwing out the great works on Vegetables, Fruit and Charcuterie - as well as my favourite Good Things which contains the recipe for Biscuit Tortoni, and a number of other delicacies.   At around about this stage, in the early 1980s, I lived in Italy for 6 months and found that ED was shamefully inadequate in her Italian Cookery - fortunately Marcella Hazan, Valentina Harris and Anna del Conte came to the rescue with a series of wonderful books from which I cooked all the time...So, at that stage I was well set up - at the top of my game, still occasionally making something extraordinary, but basicaly revelling in a range of delicious, traditional foods from what used to be the Roman Empire:  Southern Europe, North Africa and the middle east.

Since I had grown up with curry (aubergines too), that was covered, and I'd learned an anglicised form of chinese in my teenage years from a 1960s book of my mothers.   My mother also had a tremendous cookbook collection - and I used to try out all sorts of things from that, but it is certainly true that those earlier attempts at reproducing foreign food were very anglicised.

So - in the 80s we had reached an interesting point - everyone had a potential for accessible, authentic foreign food.  I don't really know what happened in the 90s, since I was trying to persuade recalcitrant children to eat any food at all - and by the 2000s I had given up on any sort of fancy cooking since I was focused on finding things that the children and my slightly picky husband would eat.  If I had had any sense I would have fed them from Delia Smith - but I found her books a bit boring - and her recipies not enormously original - with one or two exceptions.

Meanwhile - back in the cookery books....
The celebrity chefs had arrived.  Some of them were ok and fairly down to earth (I like Jamie Oliver's Italian food book for example) but some of them were getting wild and wacky and while this was all fine for people who wanted to up their game and learn new techniques (I got as far as choux pastry and spun sugar - does humankind really need too much unreality?).  I will sadly never own the kind of equipment that allows me to make an espuma/ecume/foam of crevettes or whatever.  I can do pulled pork, but I doubt whether I will ever start smoking it myself.   Cooking had got harder, and curiously, fewer of us were doing it.

The supermarkets were having a field day - their strategy of taking traditional recipies and adding ingredients to them which weren't originally there, had paid off.  Now you couldn't make a bolognese sauce without someone suggesting it needed a bit of nutmeg, and perhaps a bunch of fresh basil too,.adding another £2.50 to your shopping, without much to show for it.

Today I was looking through this weekend's media  food offerings.  There was much that was familiar, there was an article on kohlrabi - probably the 20th article on why kohlrabi's more exciting than you think that I've ever seen, and I reflected yet again, that I had lived too long.  I cannot buy goat curd in Ramsgate, kohlrabi could be tricky - but I am surrounded by delicious fresh local fruit and veg, so why should I bother?   Like Simon Hopkinson I am going back to basics.   What most people enjoy eating is the delicious familiar dishes that they know; good chefs know what might be a good extra ingredient to really bring something out.  This is an ingredient that is there for a good reason, not added so that supermarkets can sell more of it.  The globalisation of English taste makes people conversant with flavourings they might not have used 20 years ago.  I get through an awful lot of cumin these days, and smoked paprika too.  So we are all jazzing things up a bit, making things nicer, without totally going wild.  Classic British moderation?

When I cook roast chicken I don't do anything radical, just this:

I cut up a lemon and squeeze the juice all over the flesh, then I put one of the lemon halves inside the chicken cavity.  I sprinkle salt and pepper on the bird, then rub it all over with butter.  Sometimes I sprinkle herbes de provence over it.   Sometimes I chop an onion and some carrot and put it under the chicken.   I put it first on a slightly high oven, Gaz 6 for about 20 mins, then I take it out - check that there's enough butter etc, and sling a drop of white (or other) wine over it to baste it.  Then I lower the oven to Gas 4 and cook for another 60-90 minutes depending on size.  I baste it occasionally and add more liquid if necessary.  When it's cooked (when juices run clear when you skewer a leg joint) you simply remove it and carve it.  The juice should be good enough to eat as gravy on the meat and veg, but feel free to mess around with flour if you want to.

There is nothing special about this.  It's just a matter of adjusting and compensating and checking that makes food better or worse.

What I ate

Lunch.  Pork pie - bit of, and cold ratatouille (yes, last week's ratatouille)
Supper:  Roast chicken, potatoes, squash and carrots.

The oreo ice cream wasn't ready.

356 Days - Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Strawberry jam

Oh dear,

as always with diaries, something happens.   This time it was a speed awareness test in Tunbridge Wells, a trip to my father's and a trip to Bath to a  memorial service.   I have not been doing any cooking at all, and am now exhausted and not feeling at all like cooking.

However, I still have one remaining recipie from last week's stockpile of cooking.   The last thing I cooked was strawberry jam.

I found a whole tray of strawberries at the farm shop for £3.60 - and I hulled them (if they are ripe this is preferable to the new fashion for simply slicing the tops of) and chopped up the larger ones.  Then I weighed an equal amount of sugar and poured some of it over them, to cover them.   I left them overnight.  The next morning I brought the now soggy strawberries to the boil in a tall saucepan, and when they were soft I added most, but not all the sugar, plus the juice of half a lemon.  I put the squeezed half lemon into the pan to add a bit of extra zip. If you add equal amounts of berry and sugar it is, to my thinking, too sweet;    I then boiled until I reached the "Jam" mark on the sugar thermometer, and then I boiled and tested and boiled and tested.   The "wrinkle test" is fairly well known, a tiny drop of juice on a cool clean plate, blow on it - see if it wrinkles slightly.  Push it with your finger, does it wrinkle?  Continue doing this until it does.  Then turn off the heat and put rapidly.

Jam making is much less messy if you have a jam funnel.  I usually ladle jam into a large jug and then pour it down the wide funnel into the jars.   My jar preference is to re-cycle old jars, get water soluble labels off with hot water, non-water soluble labels need scourers and all sort, possibly the "Sticky stuff remover" product, or nail varnish remover to disolve the gum.  This is worth doing if you have attractively shaped jars and are thinking of giving jam as presents.   The best way to get the jars ready is to run them through the glass cycle in a dishwasher if you have one, otherwise, wash them, rinse in very hot water and dry them upside down in a low oven.  This almost sterilises them!  Boiling water if you're not faint-hearted.

The jam was utterly delicious - and I think I'll probably make some more.  

What I ate
Thursday:  scraps, then after the course went home via a nice pub and ate a platter of fishy things and a nice seafood risotto.  I had a glass of wine too.

Friday:  I can't remember - bits and pieces mostly.  In the evening I heated up some rice and broccoli left overs and added the last of the mushroom soup making a very satisfactory mush.  I then drove to my father's and had a very strong g&t.

Saturday:  Due at a 2.00pm memorial service we anticipated cake perhaps.  So we had bacon, scrambled egg on toast and mushrooms.  I foolishly put a drop of milk in the scramble- makes if very soft... prefer not to do that again.     At the memorial I ate a cheese and tomato sarni, and 3 egg sarnis.  When I finally got home Ned had chosen snacks for me - sadly all wheatbased - so I ate the couscous to please him, but eschewed the pasta.  I also ate some very nice salmon pate with chili rice crackers and some tomato.  Not the most balanced and healthy diet, but not too bad.

365 days of food; Chicken stock, and others...

This is getting a bit desperate - but without chicken stock I would be lost.  It is true there there are some fairly decent commercial ones, and also that I occasionally make insipid ones, but on the whole there is more depth of flavour in a dish that's used a home made stock, and far less MSG!

So, open the freezer and drag out all the plastic bags full of old chicken bones.   Into a large, deep if possible, saucepan.   Fill it up with water and bring to the boil.   Ideally you should remove any scum that rises at this point and then add some chopped vegetables, typically carrot, onion and celery - but leek, turnip and I've used fennel are also good.  A bay leaf or two, some parsley stalks if available, and a few black peppercorns can be added.  Bring to the boil again, then reduce to a simmer - with or without a lid - but with the extractor fan going hard - for two or three hours.

Additional extras can include, the half lemon you stuffed into the chicken cavity, fresh herbs (thyme is good), bouquet garni is traditional, the last inch of white wine in the bottle on the side, I have seen tomatoes suggested, but I've never tried it (flying in the face of nature if you ask me!).   Anything you like that will add to the flavour without dominating it.

There are vegetable stocks too that can allegedly be made from peels and old bits of veg - I made one once, but since I'm not a veggie, I haven't really bothered since.


What I ate today

Today I had a lovely farewell lunch with my friend Liz in the really nice new Japanese restaurant.  We had a mix of vegetable and prawn tempura (butternut squash, courgette, aubergine, and asparagus), a sashimi salad, which was delicious - with two types of raw fish - and a vast plate of nilgri (which I know understand are the sushi with the fish strip on top.)   It was utterly delicious - and filling.  Now at 6.45pm I am thinking of supper and knowing nothing in the house will live up to it!   I have discovered you can order from there via Just Eat - and you know that I will be doing that soon!

365 days of food: Mushroom soup

Another risky thing - soup that hasn't been refrigerated - but this was saved.  I cooked it on Saturday, but didn't get to it until today.

I make this soup mostly in winter, but recently I've fancied mushrooms.   So, a couple of medium onions, chopped and fried in butter - the smell of this always delights me - much nicer than onions in olive oil... when they've softened a bit, with the aid of a good pinch of salt - add about a pound 500g of chopped mushrooms, more butter and salt to sweat them a bit - when the mushrooms are wilted, take a litre ice cream box full of stock from your freezer (what - you haven't got any?  What are you doing with your chicken bones then? Throwing them a-way????) and pour it into the saucepan.   Add pepper and any complementary herb (parsley, tarragon, etc) you like.  Lid on, bring to boil, simmer for a bit - say 25 mins.  Insert stick blender and grind away at the saucepan contents.  Swirl cream in bowls if you like.

That's it.

What I ate today

Mushroom soup was lunch.  In the evening I suffered from a 4 hour round trip to Hythe, which is normally only 50 minutes away.  Mark offered to buy fish and chips.  I accepted. They were delicious, but in spite of having bought a smaller portion than last time, I felt totally bloated.  TMI.  But wondering why.

365 days of food July 6th Ratatouille

I love ratatouille - but I always forget to put it in the fridge.  This may sound crazy, but the fridge is usually full of stuff so it's quite convenient to leave it in its pot at the back of the stove   Three days later it's covered in mould, or begining to ferment - or both.  You can remove mould but you can't undo the bitterness of the fermentation - sour dough is one thing, sour ratatouille is another.

Ratatouille - courtesy of Google images

So, the best method - fry the aubergines in chunks or slices in olive oil, remove, then fry the courgette slices' then fry the onions until translucent and add the peppers, some salt and get them to soften.  Return the other veg to the pan and add either a tin of plum tomatoes, or some peeled and chopped fresh tomatoes (you don't have to peel them) or some roast tomatoes. Then cook very gently for about an hour with a lid - stir occasionally.  At some point in the process any of the following additional flavourings can be added: a couple of garlic cloves, squashed or sliced, a bay leaf, a couple of leaves of rosemary, some fresh parsley and, only at the end, fresh basil.   Or not.  Sometimes I just like to cook it with nothing more than salt and pepper and prhaps a pinch of sugar for the tomatoes.  Then cool it and eat the following day when the flavours have matured a bit.

I will be totally honest and say I have never eaten a ratatouille more delicious than my own - but this is because (a) I don't know anyone else who cooks it (b) I never see it on menus, and I probably wouldn't eat it out because there'd be something more exotic on the menu.

The deliciousness is a product of good veg, good oil and "mindful preparation" - when I've screwed up it's because I didn't pay proper attention to it. Or I panicked and added water.  Watery rat is NOT nice - don't do it.  Just stir it a lot more.

What I ate today
I had last night's stew - warmed up and even better, with some pilau rice and plain boiled broccoli.  "This is delicious broccoli" I was told - I felt happy that someone else could value a plain boiled vegetable.  

365 days of food; Sunday 5th July STEW

I'm a big fan of stew - because you can cook it in advance and then it's there for when you don't feel like cooking.  However, I am not a big fan of the price of beef in the UK.  It was great when we went to France a few weeks ago, I bought stewing beef (neck/collar) - which works like shin (jarret) and some stewing veal for about half what they'd cost here.  This is because in the UK we have just discovered the cheaper cuts and thus they are no longer cheaper.   The French have always known about them.    When we first came to Ramsgate I remember butchers selling pork belly strips for 99p per pound - so about £2.20 a kg.   That was 12 years ago - pork belly is now about £5.99 a kg - I think this is a much higher rate of inflation than say, wheat products etc.

This stew was made from some "braising steak".  I do not buy this often (a) because it isn't as nice as shin (b) because it's more expensive - so why would you?  However it was reduced to £3.79/kg so I bought some.  I fried it in oil and it soon began to release a quantity of liquid which had a suspiciously vinegary smell.  I have had this experience before with UK supermarket beef - I don't like it.  The beef was also chopped into tiny pieces - to speed cooking I suppose.   Then I added some red wine, chopped onions, celery and carrots, bay leaves and rosemary, a tiny pot of stock and some water, and a lot of peeled, chopped fresh tomatoes.   It cooked very quickly - and this morning I tried a taste and lo, it was good!

If I'd had any I might have added some salt pork, because this sort of beef is a little dry often.  If I hadn't had a fussy male I would have put more wine in, some orange peel more rosemary and thyme and some black olives and done it au provencale but I didn't.   Anyway, we will have it tonight with pommes etuvees  so here's a bonus:

Take a quantity of small new potatoes, cleaned but not peeled; chop if they are larger.  Take a saucepan with a tight fitting lid - put in a large lump of butter, the potatoes and some fine salt, add garlic/rosemary/mint or other herbs.   Cook over a low heat, shaking regularly - don't open unless you smell burning.  Cook for about 20-25 mins, shaking regularly!  Serve at once.


What I ate

We went out for a late lunch, by 8 pm I wasn't really hungry, but I did the stew and spuds for the men - and drank some vin d'orange and ate some salted pecans.  They enjoyed the stew - especially F who is making new discoveries about tomatoes...I ate a small sliver of the chocolate cake afterwards, not really a healthy meal, but at least I ate less.

Elderflowers and strawberries

Last year - when I was having the frugality phase, I tried to make elderflower champagne.  It was a complete failure and has increased my resentment against Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall...I now have a great deal of elderflower vinegar, which, stored in large plastic milk bottles, is very useful for cleaning, especially when mixed to a paste with bi-carb.

Strawberries are something I adore, and I especially love strawberry jam - if it's home made.   On Thursday I was in the farm shop and they had a tray of strawberries - for jam - for £3.60.  I took them home, chopped them up and covered them with sugar - the next morning I made jam, and used the best ones to top the tarte aux fraises that I made.

I think getting 6 pots of jam and a tart, plus  some strawbs to put on the museli is quite good on the frugality monitor.