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 -