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.

July 4th - Moist chocolate cake. 365 days

My eldest son had his third 21st birthday party - but he didn't want another birthday cake...so I just made him what is basically our fall back birthday cake.  It is called "moist chocolate cake" and it is usually filled with jam and whipped cream, sic.

Once again, this is not my picture, but one I filched off the internet, but it's similar to the domestic version.  I also made a larger quantity of it last week, and iced it with white chocolate ganache and filled it with raspberry jam.  This was for my father's birthday - and it went down well on the whole.  It works well as a larger size, but this recipe is good for the regular 7 or 8 inch cake pans.

Mix 200g plain flour, 2 tbsp cocoa, 1 tsp bicarb, 1 tsp baking powder and a pinch of salt.  Add 2 beaten eggs, 2 tbsp golden syrup then 150ml milk and 150 ml veg oil.    Mix this to a nice smooth batter, then share between 2 lined tins.   Bake in the oven at Gas4/180 degrees for about 35 mins.  

These cakes do tend to rise excessively in the middle, so try and squash them down a bit when you take them out to cool - put them upside down on the cooling rack, it helps.  If you are too much of a perfectionist you may not enjoy it.   When cool fill with anything you like - you can sprinkle orange juice, liqueur or anything nice over the cakes, jams are good inside, I like apricot, any icing you like, ganache, fudge icing, whipped cream, and decorate with toasted almond flakes, or toasted coconut flakes or hazel nuts - whatever you fancy.  The cake stays moist for days, but it's never lasted that long with us.

What I ate

After the afternoon cooking marathon (stew, tomato sauce, stock and cake) I didn't feel like eating much, so I had the leftover cheese mousse and its sauce, plus a dollop of rather watery ratatouille.  I think the tomatoes I used were too watery; they come from a local hothouse business called Thanet Earth and are grown hydroponically - which is I suspect something to do with it.   The men ate stuffed pasta with the roast tomato sauce - which was a success.  I'm trying to eat less (not none, but less) carbohydrates just now, so I didn't.

Friday July 3rd - Colin Spencer's cheese mousse

Colin Spencer was for a while the Guardian's cookery columnist - and he was a vegetarian.   One of his columns was about mousses and this cheese one - which is more like a loaf - really appealed to me.

I belong to a book group and one day a member suggested we had our meeting at lunch time in her garden.  I brought a cheese mousse,. because it's vegetarian and everyone else was bringing ham and chicken and pudds.  It went down very well.  I didn't take a picture of it - and the images of "cheese mousse" on Google are ridiculous - this is what it looks like though:

This is of course a madeira cake, which is what it resembles most.  It is basically a very firm souffle, and the recipe is approximately as follows.  You need to start it the day before you want to eat it. 

4 oz butter, 4 oz flour - melt together and make a roux.  Then add about 6 oz double Gloucester cheese and some mustard powder and let the cheese melt into the mix (alternatively use Sage Derby cheese and a couple of sage leaves - if you can find the cheese).  Separate 6 eggs, beat the yolks in the mixture, season with salt and pepper (nutmeg can be good, extra Parmesan if the cheese lacks flavour, more cheese even).  Whip the egg whites stiffly - and fold in to the cheese mixture.    Line a loaf tin with backing parchment and bake in a medium oven (Gas 4/180 degrees) for 25 minutes.   Then turn off the oven and leave to cool.  Allow to stand (and settle) for a day, then serve in slices with a sour cream sauce.   Traditionally this should be 1 pot of sour cream, with 1 tablespoon of crushed green peppercorns, but I don't much like that.   This year I added some finely chopped chives, parsley and spring onion and a few grinds of mixed pepper to it and it was very nice and complemented the cheese loaf rather better.

What I ate

At lunch: cheese mousse, very good coronation chicken made by my friend Betty, Anne B's tabouleh, delicious, Bernadette's wensley dale and tomato tart - also excellent, and some fruit, and a sliver of my strawberry tart.

At supper:  Left over harira from the previous evening, green salad.  

365 Days of Food

Because I am so intermittent about this blog, I thought I would start to try and write it in a more disciplined and constructive way.  For my own interest, I thought writing about what we cook and eat every day would be illuminating.  And perhaps a bit boring.   So I will try and illustrate it as well.

Firstly, I don't cook every day; sometimes I am weary and don't find the prospect of the stove a reviving one.  Secondly I am rather constrained by what "they" will eat.  They are male and like meat, one actively hates fish, and there is a limit to the amount of veg I can cook.   Thirdly, often I have cooking jags when I cook a lot of things to get ahead (for example, yesterday I cooked a stew, roast tomato sauce, ratatouille, chicken stock and a chocolate cake, on Thursday I cooked a cheese mousse and some pate sablee and creme patissiere and on Friday I used the pastry and custard to make a French strawberry tart.   It may be that I won't cook at all tomorrow.  As a result, I will post a recipe every day, but it won't necessarily be that day's recipe.

Here we go then -