Memorable meals

Ever had a meal that really stuck in the memory?

You try to recreate it at home, you find opportunities to return to the restaurant. You hope it will live up to the almost mythological status it has attained in your mind.

A happy collision of right place, right mood, right order.

For me its not necessarily the flashiest of meals. In fact, it almost never is. Just an inspired combination of superb ingredients allowed to speak for themselves.

Barbequed fish on the beach in Malaysia, served with rice and a lemongrass sauce. Sitting at a little table as the night fell on an island you could walk across in half an hour. I've been trying to recreate that lemongrass sauce for nearly 10 years. Simple, delicious, and perfect for the time and place.


A meal-deal of calamari and french fries with a mini bottle of prosecco; A winter picnic for a late lunch on the dock at Burano on new year's eve. Dry and subtly sparkling the wine was an inspired addition, cutting through the grease and lifting the meal from just another fish'n'chips to something we still reminisce about 2 years later.


Langoustines in Scotland. Caught that day. A mountain of them dished up in the harbour-side pub with freshly baked bread, garlic butter, and free-flowing wine. Sticky fingers. Pouring with rain outside, but snug and cosy in. I'm looking out for an excuse to return.

Scampi and chips from the fish market on the dock in Bergen. The perfect seasickness cure. Caught that morning, battered and fried in front of me, then straight into a box to takeaway. Salt and vinegar, and beautiful Norwegian surroundings. I'm looking for a reason to take Dan to Norway, just so that he can experience them. An unlikely reason for a holiday, but it'll do!


Then those meals which are delicious and memorable, but for some reason don't ever attain that lusted-for status. Looking at my list above, it could simply be that they're not fish!

Thin and crispy Italian pizza topped with smoked swordfish, rocket and wonderful milky buffalo mozzarella. Sitting in the autumn sunshine with nothing to do but relax for the rest of the day. Chicken with spices and dried fruit in a french restaurant that was really all about the wine. A sweet white I would never normally choose, but the perfect compliment to the food. Fresh bread rolls spiked with chocolate and strong espresso for breakfast in Dubrovnik. A meal of many courses in a restaurant carved into the rock in Matera. Wonderful and surprising - the host chose a selection of local specialities for us. My stomach hurt but it was worth it! My first ever taste of fresh buffalo mozzeralla. Gorgeous.

So many of the meals are really holiday memories...Of course I have my favourite bites and haunts closer to home. But perhaps because they are more easily attainable they are just that - favourites rather than legends.

Pickles, pears, and puddings

Well the weekend cookery didn't quite go to plan as I forgot to buy chocolate for the chocolate dipped fruits. They will have to be done later - maybe on Christmas eve.

However, I did manage to make a lovely crumbly vanilla fudge without 1. burning the whole of the bottom of the saucepan 2. burning me 3. setting off the smoke alarm 4. swearing. It was even edible!
I felt this to be a significant achievement.

I also experimented with a new pear recipe. I think pears are my favourite fruit.
Well, actually that's not true as I love strawberries more, but they're certainly my favourite autumn/winter fruit.
I've been exploring ways to preserve them for nibbling throughout the year. A few weeks ago I tried drying them in a cool oven, which was pretty good. They turned out chewy, a bit grainy, and very very pear-ish. Nice.

Over the last week or so the BBC have been running lots of Christmas food & drink programmes. In all honesty they're a bit irritating on the whole, but I did watch the Hairy Bikers christmas programme last week, where they made pickled pears. I'm not usually bothered about pickles but the combination of spices in their recipe sounded lovely so I gave it a go this weekend. I made half quantities, as 20 pickled pears seemed a little excessive for just 2 people. They'll be ready to eat in a week, so I'll keep you posted on whether they're edible. They smelt like vinegary mulled wine as they cooked, so I have high hopes.



On the otherhand, my jar has sprung a leak, so I hope that being 100% air tight isn't crucial to the recipe.
I do rather like the Hairy Bikers recipes - their baking programme was good last year and I like their sense of irreverance. Did you see the wedding cake they made? So fun.


But I digress; here's the link to the recipe.
I also fancy having a go at their pretzels recipe. We saw some proper German-style pretzels in Merano, in Northern Italy when we were there this autumn. They were massive and doughy, rather than the biscuity variety we get here. Could be interesting to try.

Also this weekend, my very first attempt at roast beef and yorkshire pudding. The perfect dinner according to Dan. Feeling smug at acheiving perfect yorkshires on the first attempt I decided to use the remaining batter the next day and do sausage and mash with yorshire puds. Sadly it seems that it was beginners luck. The pudding still rose but it was somewhat soggy in the middle. Ah well, you win some,you lose some....

Christmas

There's something about the last week or so before Christmas which puts me in the mood for baking. I want the smell of cinnamon and ginger and citrus wafting through the house and snowy dustings of sugar and flour on the kitchen surfaces.



I made my Christmas cake a couple of weeks ago, to Nigel Slater's recipe, and this weekend I will need to put the marzipan on it in readiness for icing on Christmas eve. That will be my contribution to the family Christmas food as I know my parents never have time to make their own cake. I have to confess I've never made anything for the Christmas meal before - my job has always been to peel, stir, chop, and lay the table. This year I'm spending Christmas at Dan's parents' place, but I still wanted to do something helpful for the Greenaway family Christmas preparations. So the cake won't be there until Boxing Day, but who needs Christmas cake on Christmas Day anyway?! After all that other food the Christmas cake always ends up being a post-walk Boxing Day nibble.

I'm breaking with tradition and doing mulled white wine on Christmas Eve this year. I had it at the Christmas market in Lille last December and it was lovely, so I'm going to recreate it at home with a bottle of Riesling, apple juice, cinnamon sticks, orange peel and a sprinkle of other Christmas flavours. Yum scrum.


I like to make foodie Christmas presents where I can, although I do worry that despite the fact that plenty of thought and effort go into them alot of people might consider homemade items to be a 2nd class Christmas present. Nonetheless, I'm taking the risk and baking this weekend. Tubs of miniature shortbread biscuits for my new neighbours, dried pears and apricots dipped in milk and dark chocolate as semi-healthy festive nibbles, and a second attempt at fudge. Christmas is the only time of year when I fancy sweeties.


The fudge has disaster-potential written all over it. Last year I tried to make fudge and all I ended up with was a very burnt saucepan which took 2 days to clean. Its taken me a year, but I'm now good and ready to do battle wth the sugar syrup again. Lets hope I can succeed on the 2nd go, as I don't think I would have the determination to go for 3rd time lucky!
Wish me luck.....

UPDATE
The fudge worked! My neighbours said they finished it in one sitting because they liked it so much. They might just be flattering me, but its still nice of them to say so.

Messing with tapas

I decided to get my recipe in early this week. I'm meant to be running the pre-Christmas cross-country race in Hook Norton on Sunday, so doubt that I'd be feeling like cooking anything that requires attention on sunday afternoon. 6 1/2 miles of up-hill muddiness will do that to a girl!

So, last night's dinner was a slightly amended and beefed-up tapas recipe: Cod and mustard seeds. I upped the amount of fish and ham to make it a main meal rather than a tasting dish. It was lovely - a real winter warmer, comfort food dinner. Perfect for a cold night, and it was certainly that!

Cod and Mustard seeds serves 2 as a main meal

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
300g potatoes - peeled and diced
2 slices serrano ham - shredded
1/2 red onion - thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves - finely sliced
1 red chilli - deseeded and finely sliced
300g white fish - skinless, cubed
100ml vegetable stock

Put the cubed potato in a pan of cold water, bring to the boil and simmer for 3-4 minutes. Drain.
Heat the oil in a heavy based frying pan, add the mustard seeds. When they begin to sizzle and pop add the onion, potato and ham. Cook at a high high for a couple of minutes, stirring frequently, then turn the heat down to medium and continue to cook for 8-10 minutes until the potatoes are browned and almost tender. Keep stirring frequently.
Add the garlic and chilli and stir fry for a further 2 minutes.
Add the cubed fish and cook for 2-3 minutes until the fish is opaque.
Add the stock, salt and pepper. Cover the pan and leave to cook without stirring for 5 minutes.
You can add a handful of grated cheddar cheese to the top and of the dish and briefly heat it under a hot grill if you like.
Serve.

Just one note: as cod is one of the fish we're not meant to eat due to worries about overfishing I used pollack instead.


For a current list of which fish to avoid because of sustainability issues take a look at the Marine Conservation Society list here
And for a list of alternatives to try click here

up to date!

I've caught up!

My post here is what I cooked this weekend - Zanzibar chicken.

And very tasty it was too. I got the recipe from the BBC website ages ago but hadn't tried it out. Here it is.
It was quick, which was handy as I have been ill this week so didn't fancy making much effort. It was easy - even better. And it was filling, nutritious, tasty, warming. A keeper.

I think it would be just as good with chunks of white fish instead of chicken, and I would be inclined to use cubes of skinless chicken in future rather than putting in whole joints of the meat. That would make it even speedier.

I had intended to make sweet potato pie for pudding, but after having had a tummy bug for a couple of days I wasn't feeling the need for a two-course dinner, so that one has been postponed.

Further forays into Latin American cooking

....Guacamole. Not technically cooking, just lots of chopping, mashing and mixing.

I don't like avocado. Not at all. So I should probably explain why I bothered to make this.

Firstly our vegetable box yielded an avocado this week.
Secondly it was a busy week so the thought of a no-cook recipe was distinctly appealing.
Thirdly, in homage to Carisa's love of Mexican food.
And fourthly, I wondered if I might like avocado this time.

I think that's enough reasons. My guacamole recipe, taken from a cook book stolen from my mum (sorry Mum) turned out nothing like the green goo you buy in the shops.



I don't think I will be eating avocado on its own anytime soon, but I'm not averse to making this guacamole again. The combination of crunchy red onion, zingy lime and the softness of the avocado was quite pleasant. It made a good addition to what I very loosely describe as prawn fajitas (really just stirfried prawns, peppers and onion with a bit of tomato sauce and some mexican-inspired spices wrapped in a soft tortilla).

I wouldn't go out and buy avocado, but if it makes an appearance in my veg box again I will not be completely disgusted. Progress of a sort I suppose!

Guacamole

1 avocado
1/2 red onion - finely sliced
1/2 red or green chilli - deseeded and finely sliced
1/2 garlic clove - crushed
grated zest 1/2 small lime
juice of 1 small lime
100g fresh tomatoes - deseeded and diced
1 tbspn chopped fresh coriander
1/4-1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1-2 teaspoons olive oil
salt + black pepper to taste

Cut the avocado in half and prise out the stone from the middle.
Scrape the flesh out of 1/2 of the avocado and mash it with a fork. Add the onion, chilli, garlic, lime zest, tomato and coriander and mix it all together.
Next add the cumin and seasoning and stir through before drizzling the olive oil over the mixture.
Peel the rind off the remaining half of the avocado, dice the flesh and mix in with the other ingredients. Squeeze the lime juice over.
Leave to stand for 15 minutes to let the flavour develop before serving.

I think my next Latin recipe will have to be Brazilian cheesy bread. I remember Yu Chen getting me some from a Brazilian cafe at the end of the Oxford Road in London when they were still warm from the oven. Although not usually a major fan of cheese I did enjoy these. I spotted the recipe in my Cuban book last week, so watch this space. I need to find Tapioca flour first though - anyone got any ideas where that can be bought?

Souffles

I thought souffles were meant to be tricky beasts, but this recipe was super-simple. Naff photo - sorry about that! Once again, I was hungry, so it was just a quick snap before I gobbled my dinner!



I love the fact that it seems so impressive, but was actually easy to make. I had extra high levels of smugness for this dinner as they were goats cheese souffles made using my very own home-made goats cheese. Oh my goodness, even I hate me when I read that sentence back!

We had them with smoked haddock and leeks, but that could be changed depending on the season - I think they would be lovely with tomatoes in the spring, or with prawns, white fish and peas for a lighter fish pie.

But seriously, SO EASY!

Goats' Cheese Souffles
Enough for 6 small souffles or 4 larger ones

150g soft goats cheese
1 teaspoon cornflour
3 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
Salt and black pepper
Freshly grated parmesan (optional)

Butter 6 oven proof ramekins. Set oven to preheat to 200C.
Mix the goats cheese and cornflour together thoroughly with a wooden spoon (don't know why it has to be wooden, but figured I should obey the commands!).
Separate 2 of the eggs and mix the yolks into the cheese mixture until it is smooth and well amalgamted. Put the whites into a large bowl and set aside for now. Add the oregano to the cheese mixture, as well as the salt and pepper and stir in.
Separate the 3rd egg and put the white in the bowl with the other 2 egg whites. (You won't be usig this yolk, so you could just use it in some other recipe or have an extra egg yolk in your scrambled eggs the next day.) Add 1/2 teaspoon salt to the egg whites and then whisk them with an electric whisk until they form soft peaks. Fold them carefully into the cheese mixture with a metal spoon. Don't be too heavy handed or over mix or you will knock all the air out of the egg and the souffles won't rise properly.
Spoon the mixture into ramekins, sprinkle the tops with parmesan chees if you want (I didn't for mine but did for Dan's, both were tasty). Place the ramekins on a baking tray and bake for 10-12 minutes until well-risen and slightly browned.
Serve immediately. They start to sink quite quickly once they come out of the oven, so you need to dish them up and get them on the table reasonably fast for the full impact of perfectly risen souffles.

PS I'm realising that the recipes that I've been most excited by as I've progressed through the weeks have definitely been the ones which I think are going to cause problems and then are easy. They must appeal to my lazy side - maximum impact with minimum effort.

Cuban cooking

I've been going on and on about wanting to go to Cuba for ages now, so this year Diane bought me a fantastic Cuban recipe book for my birthday. It is packed with lovely photos of the country and the people who live there, as well as some exciting sounding recipes.

I've had the book sitting on my shelf since August, and although I'd looked longingly at the pictures I hadn't actually cooked a single one of the dishes until this week. The recipes seem pretty authentic, which I think is fantastic as it gives a wonderfully evocative sense of how people might actually cook in the country, but it does make some of them quite tricky to do in the UK as we obviously don't have all the same ingredients readily available.

This week I was determined to use the book for its intended purpose, and flicking past whole roast piglet (a little impractical I felt, although maybe I'm being unambitious?!) I decided upon pork meatballs stiffed with quail eggs in tomato sauce.

Have you ever had a quail egg? I hadn't, but I found them in the shops fairly easily, and I was charmed by their prettiness - a lovely blue tinge to their shells and speckled all over with brown freckles.


The recipe called for them to be hardboiled and peeled. They were fiddly little buggers to peel! I got there in the end though, and they were certainly a lovely added touch to the meatballs. I did adapt the recipe slightly from the one in my book. A year or so ago I made this recipe for lemony meatballs which suggested just cooking the meatballs in tomato sauce without pre-frying them. It tasted good and cut out an extra step in the cooking (I'm all for simplifying) so I always do that with meatballs now. If you want to fry them though, go ahead!
I served this with rice and some spinach. It might work with pasta, or just a chunk of nice fresh bread. Please don't be daunted by the fact that this recipe looks long - its actually easy!

Here's the recipe (including my changes); enough for 2 people:

9 quail eggs (hardboiled and peeled)

For the meatballs:
1 garlic clove (crushed)
1/2 onion (sliced)
200-225g pork mince
1/2 beaten free range egg
1 slice of white bread (crusts cut off)
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
pinch ground cloves
about 1 teaspoon dried oregano (or a tablespoon of fresh if you have it)
salt and black pepper to taste

For the tomato sauce:
400g tin of plum tomatoes
100g passata
1/2 onion (sliced)
1 garlic clove (finely sliced)
salt + pepper to taste, plus a teaspoon dried oregano

Put all the ingredients for the tomato sauce in a pan together and cook over a low heat while you make the meatballs. The sauce can happily cook away for anything up to an hour (not that it will take that long to make the meatballs!)as long as you give it the occasional stir, and perhaps add a little water if its getting a bit too thick.

Turn oven on to heat up to 190C.

Put all the meatball ingredients for the meatballs into a food processor and blitz them to combine. Then take a small handful at a time (about the size of a golf ball), flatten it in the palm of your hand, place a quail egg in the middle and wrap the meat mixture around it. Repeat until you have 9 meatballs and have used all the mixture.
Place the meatballs in an oven proof dish and spoon over the tomato sauce which you have had cooking away. Its best to use a dish of the size where the meatballs fit reasonably snuggly in the base rather than having lots of room around them. Cover the dish and place into the preheated oven. Bake for 40 minutes.

The taste test:
I loved the flavour of the cloves in this - I would never have though to add that myself, but it enhanced the flavour of the pork.
The quail eggs were beautiful - a richer taste than hens eggs, but so small that it definitely didn't overwhelm the other flavours.
I realise that the pictures below do not make this look appetizing! What can I say? I was hungry so I just took a quick snap and ate! Don't be fooled by my poor photography - its delicious!




The meatballs could be roasted or fried and served cold as part of a picnic meal, a bit like scotch eggs, or served warm with or without the tomato sauce as part of a tapas-style dinner.

All I've got to do now is actually make it to the country! I've got my eye on this tour. I even have some vouchers. Fingers and toes are all crossed for the hope I might finally make it this spring.

Also this week: Dauphinoise potatoes with obscene amounts of double cream. Dan was a very happy boy!



They didn't last long.

Sugar monster

This week there was a programme on TV which highlighted just how much sugar there is in the average breakfast cereal. I didn't see it myself, but when Dan started checking the sugar content on labels I figured it must have been quite shocking!
There are a few articles around about it: see here for one example.

A few months ago after many years of being a toast eater for breakfast I switched to muesli. Given that I generally run about 25 miles a week and cycle about 30 miles I figured that my joints and bones could probably do with a little extra help of some milk in the morning. My muesli's sugar content was quite high as it has quite a lot of dried fruit in it, so it sort of passed Dan's steely-eyed scouring of the food packets, but it wasn't ideal. One outcome of all this label reading was that it made me realise it would be pretty simple to make your own muesli to your own exact taste.
Obvious I know, but I'd just never thought to do it before. So, homemade muesli this week.

I suppose I shouldn't really count this towards the project as its not really a recipe, more of a free-style little of this, little of that, BUT I'm going to anyway. Afterall, I've never made it before so I think it qualifies!

My Muesli:

100g jumbo porridge oats (toasted by dry frying for a few minutes in a hot non-stick frying pan, stirring regularly so that they don't burn)
25g hazlenuts (toasted as above)
25g sunflower seeds (toasted as above)
50g dried apricots
30g sultanas
Shake of cinnamon - have I mentioned how much I love cinnamon in the winter? I put it in everything!

I toasted the oats on their own, then the hazlenuts and seeds until the seeds started to pop, chopped up the apricots a bit. Threw it all into a box and gave it a good shake.

It made enough for 5 or 6 breakfasts - I usually add a chopped banana and some fresh berries along with the milk.

BUT - a note of caution! I think there may be nothing quite so terrifyingly wholefoods-ish than homemade muesli. Such an offputting thought that I may have to never make it again! Next thing you know I'll be sporting the amazing sartorial combination of jesus sandals with socks...

Week 10!

I am quite surprised that what started as a vague resolution to do one new recipe per week has actually reached its 10th week, and still going strong. In fact, I'm finding myself actively seeking out new ideas in my recipe books even when I've already done my recipe for the week. Its definitely reawakened my interest in cooking.

I think I'd got myself into a bit of a food rut - not that I was living on takeaways or ready meals or anything like that, but I was cooking the same few dishes week-in, week-out. Easy, but it gets boring after a while.

I haven't been buying any extra ingredients these last few weeks, but I've just used what I have in the cupboards in a more varied way. It helps that since we moved house we've had a vegetable box delivered each week from here. This forces me to be a bit more inventive as you don't know what you're going to get that week until it arrives on the doorstep. Sometimes we get things I would never have added to my shopping list (celeriac, corn on the cob, avocado) so I've had to find recipes to suit the vegetable selection. Its forced me to try vegetables I didn't think I liked - avocado being a case in point - and I've become a master vegetable soup maker!

In honour of week 10 I attempted quite a few recipes over the course of the week:
Steamed Italian chicken spirals with hazlenut pesto and pasta
Spinach gnocchi
Japanese steamed prawn custards
Shahi Murg (a creamy chicken curry)
Soda bread

Actually none of them were particularly tricky, and it was a bit of a cold, wet weekend so there wasn't a hell-of-alot else to do! (except DIY. Yuck!) No photos I'm afraid, as it was after I realised that I'd lasted 10 weeks that I started taking the odd snap of my 'masterpieces'.

Let's see if I last another 10 weeks on the culinary experimentation experience!

Soda Bread

This is much quicker to make than a normal loaf of bread. It has a slightly sweet taste and a texture closer to cake than most breads. It was nice warm with a bowl of soup (I had roast squash and red pepper soup with it) and kept well until the next day, but I wouldn't recommend keeping it much longer than that.

250g plain flour (not bread flour). I used 75g wholemeal, 175g white.
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
2 teaspoons soft brown sugar
200ml live yoghurt

Heat the oven to 230C.
Sift flour, salt and bicarbonate of soda into a mixing bowl.
Add the sugar, then stir in the yoghurt and bring the mixture together to a dough with your hands. (This is another one where you get messy - its usually the way with baking!)
Kneed for a minute or so until its smooth, shape into a tall ball and place on a greased baking sheet.
Cut a deep cross in the top of the dough - going almost all the way through the ball of dough, but not quite.
Bake for 12 minutes at 230C, then turn the oven down to 200C and leave for another 15-20 minutes.
Allow to cool for about 15 minutes before serving.

Minding my P's and Q's

Parkin, Pesto, Quince.

Not all together!

Parkin, because it was bonfire night the week I attempted these, and Parkin is Dan's childhood-nostalgia bonfire night fix.


Except the recipe I tried was very old-fashioned and treacley. Dan remembers it as more ginger and golden-syrup and less treacle. I'll try the another recipe next time I feel inclined to try making Parkin and see if I can get closer to what he remembers. Still, what was left over after we attacked it on bonfire night went down well with my colleagues in the office on monday!

Pesto for no reason other than that we had a load of basil in the fridge which needed using. Yummy mixed with a little tomato sauce on gnocchi. Much nicer than the shop-bought jars. But the I suppose that shouldn't be surprising since anything fresh is usually better than something made in a factory and then left sitting in a jar for ages.

Now, the quinces.
This was because of my photography tutor John, who taught me on a darkroom course a couple of years ago. John has a love of quinces, jam in particular. I had never even heard of the fruit until I did that course, and this week I saw them for sale for the first time ever. They were in a metal bin at the farm shop - funny little fluffy things, like hard yellow pears. On impulse I bought a few. I had no idea what I would do with them or how you eat them.

Once at home I found a recipe for pear and quince compote in my Kitchen Bible (not me being facetious, it really is called the Kitchen Bible ), which took care of 2 of the fruits. I was a bit perturbed by my quinces not going a lovely ruby colour when stewed like the picture in the recipe book, but they tasted very yummy served slightly warm with a scoop of vanilla icecream, so I assume I just had a different variety of quince.
As I chopped, peeled and cored the quinces for the compote it became very obvious that they are not a fruit which you eat raw. The taste is so sharp it almost makes you wince (unintended rhyme!) and they're as hard as wood.
Ok that's an exaggeration, but you get my point.

I couldn't quite face chopping, peeling and coring the final quince. They were pretty awkward to work with because they were so hard. Baking seemed the way to go - 20 minutes or so in a medium oven (about 180C) softened the fruit up beautifully, making it easy to chop and mix with sugar for adding to a crumble at a later date.

I loved the flavour of quince. It tastes old-fashioned. Somewhere between an apple and a peach perhaps. I don't quite know how to describe it. Yes, its a pain-in-the-arse to prepare - certainly not a low-maintenance fruit. But I think they're worth it once in a while.

Thank you Mr Oliver...

...both for saving me from awful boredom on the long train journey from Glasgow to London, and for making Dan very happy.

Let me explain:
Dan's starting to get interested in the project. Not enough to get involved in the cooking you understand, but enough to put in a few requests. So far; bonfire toffee, treacle pudding, parkin, dauphinoise potatoes, and eggs benedict.

The week in question I had spent from thursday in Glasgow at a conference. I hadn't visited the city since I was child, and was pleasantly surprised by it, despite getting soaked every time I stepped outside. But I digress...
I was getting an early train back to London followed by a short break before my chiltern line back to deepest-darkest Oxfordshire. 7:55am on a rainy saturday morning didn't seem like a time to be breaking out the laptop and working on the train, so it had to be a magazine. Sadly, there wasn't much of a selection at the station. I had already read the ones I like for that month (I had been on the train quite a bit over the previous weeks!), and couldn't quite bring myself to part with my money for most of the others on display. So I was left with the Jamie Oliver magazine. Whilst this would not usually be my chosen reading material I figured that at the very least I could flick through and then donate it to my nephew who loves Jamie, thereby earning major favourite-auntie points.

One month later the magazine has taken up permanent residence in my kitchen, so no points for me. It is packed to the gills with great recipes, including eggs benedict! I bought some smoked ham, english muffins and white wine vinegar between trains the same day, and on sunday morning we had very decadent eggs benedict for breakfast. I've never had them before, and they're very rich so unlikely to be a regular treat, but tasty. Also, it turns out that hollandaise sauce really isn't difficult as long as you pay attention and don't rush.



So, thank you Jamie Oliver.

Incidentally, in case you should be under the mistaken impression that everything I've tried cooking has been a success, we had venison stew this week too. Seriously the most disgusting thing I have ever made.

not cheating with cannellini

So, flatbread felt like cheating.
Cannellini and mint dip was all new though. And given that Bethan loved it and asked for the recipe, here it is:

3oz dried cannellini beans
1/2 clove garlic
1/2 bunch chopped spring onions
1/2 handful of fresh mint leaves
1 tablespoon of tahini
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1-2 tablespoons lemon juice
salt & pepper

Soak the cannellini beans in cold water over night. Then drain and rinse and put in a heavy-based saucepan covered in cold water. Bring slowly to the boil, then allow to boil rapidly for 10 minutes before reducing the heat, covering and leaving to cook for 1 1/2-2 hours until the beans are tender.
Drain the beans and put into a food processor with all the other ingredients - or mash it all up together with a potato masher - blend, but don't over process as its nice to have a bit of texture to the dip.
Transfer to a bowl and cover. allow to cool for at least an hour at room temperature before serving.

Making bread

My Mum's birthday provided the family with the perfect excuse to get together for dinner at my older sister's place. To lighten the cooking work I promised to make the starter. Dips and flatbread seemed to fit the bill, so I made houmous again (never in 30 years then twice in a week!), a cannellini bean and mint dip, and Nigel Slater's flatbread.

Once I got started on the bread I have to confess to feeling a bit fraudulent for counting it as a recipe-of-the-week: it was fundamentally the same as normal bread, except for the addition of olive oil and that it only needs one rising period. Oh, and its shaped differently.

A brief explanation here:
My Dad has been making bread every saturday morning for my whole life. As little kids we "helped" - a tradition which my nephew and nieces continue. Even as surly teenagers the smell of fresh bread would have us fighting with enthusiasm over the crusty end of the warm loaf at saturday lunchtime.
A couple of years ago, growing frustrated by the lack of quality bread available in the shops, I though 'How hard can it be?!' and took up the family habit of making my own.


The following is my preferred method, reached after a few months of experimentation. Any kind of bread flour will do - I have successfully used just white flour, half-and half wholemeal and white, spelt flour etc etc. My favourite is about 1/2 wholemeal or spelt - 1/2 white flour.

Bread
550g bread flour
15g fresh yeast (or about a teaspoon dried yeast)
330ml water at blood temperature
1 teaspoon salt

Roll up your sleeves and wash your hands - they're going to get stuck in!
Dissolve the yeast in a little of the warm water.
In a separate bowl mix together the flour and salt, then pour in the dissolved yeast and mix it together with your hands. Gradually add the rest of the water mixing it in until the mixture forms a soft dough. It shouldn't be too sticky - if it is sprinkle it with a little more flour. Don't rush this and be aware that sometimes you will need a little more water, sometimes a little less. The absorbency (hmm is that a word?) of the flour will vary depending on weather etc. It takes a little while for flour to fully absorb the liquid, so if you rush and add all the water at once you could end up with an overly sticky dough.
Turn your dough out onto a floured surface and kneed for about 10 minutes until it is smooth and silky.
Put it into a clean bowl (I usually just wipe out the bowl I mixed it up in), cover with a teatowel or put inside a clean plastic bag (I usually just put it inside a Sainsbury's bag) making sure there's space above the dough for it to rise without sticking to the cover. Leave in a warm place for an hour, or a little longer if your yeast is a bit old or the room not very warm.
after an hour or so, punch the dough back to knock the air out of it (quite theraputic!) and kneed on your floured surface again for a few minutes. Then shape the dough into a roll and put into a bread tin. I use an 800g size silicon tin. This has the distinct advantage of being naturally non-stick so I don't have to grease the tin. If you have a metal bread tin (I think purists probably would prefer you did) then grease it well before you put your bread in.
Leave your dough in the tin in the warm place for a further 1/2 hour until it has risen to the top of the tin again. Preheat the oven while it rises - as hot as your oven will go; typically 220-230C.
Bake the bread for 15 minutes at this temperature, then turn the oven down to 205C for 10 minutes. After that take the loaf out of the tin and bake for a further 5-7 minutes at about 190C. You can try putting a tray of hot water in the bottom of the oven while cooking to make it slightly steamy if you want - it is meant to help the bread form a better crust, although the jury's out.
If the bread sounds hollow when you tap the base it is cooked.

Sorry the picture is a bit rubbish! This loaf was made with about 200g malted bread flour, 300g wholemeal. It didn't rise as much as a loaf mixed with some white flour would, also it was pretty cold which inhibits the rising a bit. It was tasty this morning for breakfast with some nice strawberry jam.



This isn't the method my Dad uses. He is far more thorough than me, using a starter rather than just mixing the yeast in straight away. He ends up with a bread with a more open texture, but this is a quicker method which can be cooked in the evening after work (as long as I get home on time!). If I start the process at about 6:30pm then the bread comes out of the oven before 10pm. Lovely fresh bread for breakfast!
I think people are daunted by making bread as it seems time-consuming, but actually most of that time is just waiting for it to rise. You don't have to watch it! Go and watch TV, cook the dinner, have a bath - whatever you would normally do in the evening. The other good thing about bread making is that its very forgiving. If the dough ends up rising for a bit longer you will still end up with a good loaf.

Food foibles

There are certain tastes you are expected to grow into as you get older. Dark chocolate, for example, or olives. A full-bodied glass of red, strong dark coffee. All of these I adore. They are grown-up tastes. To be lingered over and savoured, but too intense to tempt one into over-indulgence.



Smelly cheese, so ripe it oozes definitely makes it onto the list, but this is a taste I just can't seem to acquire. When I mentioned this is a previous post, Carisa was has horrified and it got me thinking - Isn't it interesting how, even as adults, we still all have certain food foibles?

I'm well aware of the ridiculousness of eating raw fish with enthusiasm but being unable to force myself to eat a mushroom.


I've eaten a whole bowl of snails (actually rather nice - a bit like mussels), but I'd rather go hungry than eat anything with mayonnaise on it.



My complete failure to see the point of condiments remains a source of puzzlement to Dan, and makes buying a sandwich tricky. (Next time you buy one see if you can find one without mayonnaise, mustard, salad dressing, or cheese - see, its not easy!)
Apparently I've been this way since childhood. My mother still shudders at the shame of me declaring at a friend's house that I wouldn't eat food with 'guck' on it. I was 5 years old.

As a child I had an allergy to beef and dairy products and I still tend to avoid both. I don't understand the lust a good steak inspires in people - give me fish or seafood any day - and all I see when I look at a latte is a tummy-ache.
I love fresh, flavoursome fruit and vegetables, interesting herbs and spices, and the satisfaction of a plate popping with different colours and tastes. A little good-quality meat (I'm a terrible snob about meat) and as much fish as I can decently manage.

Whilst this all sounds horrifyingly healthy, I do have to confess to having a terribly sweet tooth. My current object of obssession are the Hummingbird Bakery's muesli bars. Sound's healthy doesn't it? They're not. I'm pretty sure there's condensed milk, butter and sugar in there; so sweet it almost makes your teeth ache, but soooo goooooood! The irony of eating super-healthy, low cal, low fat, blah, blah, blah all day, only to scupper the whole thing with one innocent-looking sweet treat is not lost upon me.

But I'm sure cake should count as a legitimate food group.

Moroccan flavours for winter warming

When I went to Morocco I didn't get to taste a single morsel of the food. I was playing on a cruise ship, we docked for less than 24 hours and I had to be back on the ship for rehearsals at lunchtime. What a shame that now seems.



This week's recipe was Moroccan roast lamb, so I decide to keep the theme running and have a go at homemade houmous too.
The lamb was good. Roasted with butter, garlic, and cumin, and served with couscous and roast Mediterranean vegetables. The only problem with it was that on a cold British sunday what you really want with roast lamb is rosemary, garlic, gravy and roast potatoes. A good dish for a springtime meal though I think.



The houmous on the other hand, I was proud of. Made from scratch, including soaking the chickpeas overnight, it was firmer and less oily than the shop variety. I expect that canned chickpeas would be absolutely fine, but it seemed not quite in the spirit of the project to use them. At least not the first time.

Houmous
100g dried chickpeas
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tablespoon tahini
1-2 garic cloves - crushed
Olive oil
Salt and black pepper

Cover the chicpeas in cold water and leave to soak overnight.
The next day rinse the chickpeas, put in a heavy bottomed pan, cover in cold water, bring slowly to the boil. Skim off any scum that forms on the surface, reduce the heat and leave to simmer with the lid on for 1 1/2 - 2 hours until the chickpeas are tender.
Drain, reserving a bit of the cooking liquid. Put into a food processor with the lemon juice, tahini,garlic and seasoning and blend until smooth. Mix in a little olive oil and some of the cooking water until the houmous reaches your prefered consistency.
Taste and adjust to your own preferences - personally I like my houmous fairly lemony but not too oily. I also added a little sprinkle of paprika at the end. A few toasted cumin seeds are also a good addition.
Enjoy!

Cheeeeese!

Idly browsing the internet trying to figure out how to make semifreddo (see Italy post) I found out that its meant to be really easy to make soft cheese.
At this point, I should point out that I'm amphatically NOT a fan of cheese in general. In fact, the only cheese I like is the kind that doesn't taste like cheese - mozzarella is good but so far no other kind has taken my fancy. However, I wanted to have spinach and ricotta cannelloni for dinner, and that definitely needs cheese, so I decided to try making it...

Soft Goats Cheese

Take 2 pints of milk, heat it to 185F, stir in a sprinkle of salt and the juice of a lemon until the milk curdles. Strain through cheesecloth, then once most of the liquid is gone wrap the cheesecloth up round the cheese (don't squeeze it!), and hang it in a cool place (I put it in the fridge) to continue to drain for 4-6 hours. Unwrap the cloth, and hey presto!, you have cream cheese.

When I mixed in the lemon I was really convinced it wasn't working. In my ignorance I was expecting proper lumps to form at that point rather than the little flecks which actually are the sign of curdling. Still, I went with it and set about straining.
Realistically, unless you have a particular penchant for 1970s fashions, I doubt many people have cheesecloth in their house. I just doubled over the muslin I'd bought for straining my damson jelly and used that, which seemed to work fine. Amazingly, as soon as I started pouring the liquid into my muslin-lined colander I could see the cheese beginning to collect, which was heartening. After a few hours draining in the fridge all those little flecks ended up creating 175g of soft cheese - I found the ease of the whole thing quite exciting, which may mean that I really need to get a life, but who knew it would be so simple to do?!

What was even better was that I actually liked it. OK, so I probably won't be eating it by the plateful, but a little here and there will definitely be acceptable.
By-the-way, I used goats milk, but I assume cows milk would work equally well.

Parents for dinner

My parents were due to visit for lunch and for a nosey around our new place. I felt like the occasion deserved a bit of cookery-effort, and with the weather feeling distinctly autumnal something a satisfying but not too heavy seemed the order of the day. To my mind there's nothing more comforting than pastry. I find the process of making it strangely soothing, and the golden glow of the finished product does lift the heart a little. About six months ago I ate my very first salmon-en-croute, and remembering the wonderful textural contrasts of flakey pastry, nutty wild rice, and soft salmon, as well as my new love-affair with dill, I decided to have a go at making it.

Now, every recipe for salmon-en-croute tells you to use puff pastry. But, smart-arse that I am I decided to use shortcrust.
Rookie-error.
Even though I rolled it out really thin it made the dish a bit too heavy overall. So, definitely puff pastry in future. On the otherhand, I loved everything else about the dish. The salmon was soft and was enhanced by the dill and spinach, while the rice added a bit of welcome bite. we had it with little potatoes, a watercress salad and a yummy bottle of Riesling.
A bit time-consuming, but perfect fuel for the country walk that followed.

Salmon-en-Croute (enough for 4 people):

375g puff pastry
splash of olive oil
2 reasonable sized shallots
450g skinned salmon fillet
Juice of 1 small lemon
Large bunch of fresh dill
salt and pepper
115g mixed basmati and wild rice (pre-cooked)
Handful of wilted spinach
1 egg - beaten

Preheat oven to 200C/Gas Mark 6.
Cut off 1/3 of the pastry and roll it out into a rectangle. (Wrap the other 2/3 in cligfilm and put in frisge). Place onto a non-stick baking tray, prick all over with a fork to stop it puffing up too much in the oven, then bake for 12 minutes or so until golden. Set aside to cool.
Make the filling:
Fry the shallots in a little olive oil over a low heat until soft. Set aside to cool.
Place the salmon in a bowl, squezze over the lemon juice, scatter the dill over the top, drizzle with a llittle olive oil, and season with salt and pepper. (Do this no more than an hour ahead or the lemon will start to 'cook' the salmon.)
Combine the cooked rice and shallots. Season to taste.
Assemble the dish:
Spoon the mixture over the cooked pastry base, spreading out towards the edges. Place the wilted spinach on top in a thin layer, then put the salmon fillets on top of that. Spalsh on a little of the marinade liquid and discard the rest.
Roll out the remaining pastry until it is slightly larger than the base. Lift it and place over the partly-assembled dish. Trim off the corners of the pastry and tuck the sides underneath the cooked base.
Brush the top of the pastry with beaten egg, then bake at 180C for 30-35 minutes until golden. Allow to cool for 5-10 minutes before serving.

...and so to Italy

A late september trip to Italy meant that the recipe challenge was put on hold for a week, but I resolved to keep the spirit of the project alive by making an effort to try foods I had never had before...and what a place to do it! Italy in the early autumn sunshine - surely one of the loveliest places to be.



Some memorable meals included a smoked swordfish pizza with fresh buffalo mozzeralla and rocket, pear-filled pasta with a walnut sauce (delicious, although due to its slight sweetness you definitely wouldn't want more than a handful), black pasta stuffed with courgette and basil with squid and smoked bacon, hazlenut torta, and Dan's new favourite; vanilla semifreddo with peach compote. Gorgeous!



Less fancy favourites -
Paprika crisps! Why can't we get these over here? They're amazing!
Goats' cheese, ham and fresh crusty bread sitting on the top of a mountain pass in Switzerland.
Fresh apples from Merano. I have never seen so many orchards in one area.

Just a little postscript - we saw these quite a few times around Italy. I definitely want one! How cool?!

So why blog?

I'm a control freak.
Lets get that out in the open right from the start.
I like lists and projects and having a plan.
After recipe-of-the-week had lasted a few weeks I realised that it was here to stay for a while and so I needed to keep track of recipes tried. Partly so that I remembered what I had already made and also to remind me whether it was any good and any alterations for next time.
I started by scrawling it down on paper. But as the list got longer that became annoying.
Then I started a computer-list, just in word, nothing fancy.
But then around about week 10 I decided to do it properly. As a child I had scrap books, which I loved working on, but a blog seemed a more modern and immediate way to keep track of my progress.
I might just have to try and do a scrap-book too though. There's something lovely about recipe books handed down through the generations. It would be wonderful to start one and hope it is treasured in future years - but only the recipes that actually work can go in there! This blog will be warts and all.

Incidentally, this week's recipe was Lamb kebabs. Tasty, and good to make as I got to use my griddle pan which I bought from the Le Creuset shop in the Swindon outlet village a couple of years ago, and only used 2 or 3 times since. It seemed like a necessary addition to the kitchen at the time, but I have had a guilty conscience about it sitting in the cupboard largely unused. Halfway through cooking, when waving a tea towel around under the smoke alarm, I remembered that it is nearly always easier to grill things than cook them on the griddle pan.

Jelly and nostalgia

On a roll from last week's jam experiment, and with a massive bag of damsons from my parents' trees, this week I attempted Damson Jelly.
It took a while because you first boil up the fruit, then strain it through muslin for several hours, then boil it up with sugar. So although its not in any way labour-intensive, it does take pretty much the whole day to get to the finish point.
Except, for me, it took until the next day to get to the finish point because the jelly didn't set on the first attempt.
Turns out I was over-eager in potting my jelly and should have let it get to a hotter temperature first. So back in the pan it went the next day, and it did set on the 2nd attempt. Phew.


Then for a bit of nostalgia. Last Christmas we took a day trip on Eurostar to Lille for the Christmas market.


It was one of those crisp cold December days, so after a bit of wandering round Lille we found ourselves a cosy cellar-like bistro for lunch. The only thing on the menu were gallettes. Now I may be ignorant, but I didn't know what gallettes were before that point. They were a revelation. Savoury buckwheat pancakes, with a leek ham and cheese filling, served with a pichet of local cider. Absolutely perfect.
Back in the UK, I searched high and low for buckwheat flour, to no avail. So I had to substitute wholemeal. Not quite the same, but a reasonable result nonetheless.
I had never made pancakes of any kind before so this was a learning curve. The first one was a disaster. Soggy, and disintegrated! The second was not much better. But I did manage to get a couple of decent examples done after a bit of swearing and persistence. Filled with onion, ham and cheese they made a yummy weekend lunch.
I later found out that the french always say that the first pancake is "pour le chien" (for the dog), so clearly I'm not alone in struggling with pancakes. Which is comforting.

Here's the recipe (makes enough for 3 or 4 gallettes):

75-80g flour (wholemeal or buckwheat)
1/2 beaten egg
200ml cold sparkling water
10g melted butter
pinch of salt

Combine all ingredients and whisk together with a fork until smooth and runny.
Cover and leave to stand in the fridge for at least 2 hours. I found that its still good the next day.
When ready to cook your gallettes, remove the mixture from the fridge. Beat with a fork for a few minutes, then heat a small amount of oil in a frying pan. Ladle in some gallette mixture, swirl around to make it as thin as possible and cook for a few minutes. Loosen the edges with a pallette knife (or a fish slice if you're like me and don't have a pallette knife), then flip and cook on the other side. set aside and keep warm.
Repeat for all the mixture.
Make whatever filling you fancy.
Heat pan again, add the gallette, spoon your filling in, fold gallette over to cover your filing. allow a minute or so to get warm through.
Serve.
Yum!

Rhubarb and ginger

Apparently there has been a massive surge in sales of jam-making equipment this year. I feel a little grumpy about this, as if there's one thing I hate its to be part of a trend! Nonetheless, I have made jam this year.
I started my jam making with an unsuccessful attempt at blackberry jam last year. What can I say?...I was a trendsetter!


Problem was, the jam was too hard to spread easily (we ate it anyway, of course!), so this year I bought a jam thermometer before I made a second attempt.
After a yummy and spreadable strawberry jam I was feeling confident, so when I was sent the instructions for rhubarb and ginger jam I resolved to give it a try.
And it worked!
The result was tangy with lovely little surprises of stem ginger throughout. Definitely one to do again when rhubarb comes into season. And a great alternative to marmalade, which I just can't stand.
Find the recipe here.

How it started....

It all started with a book.

Specifically, this book:

So I suppose, technically, it all started with a blog. Which seems rather modern to me, although I'm aware I'm a few years behind the times.

Having been recommended the film of the book of the blog by another blogger (are you keeping up?!) I decided to start with the book. I still haven't got round to the film, but that's beside the point. At about the halfway point of the book I had a sudden realisation that I have a rather large collection of cookery books. They take up a whole shelf. And yet, the majority of the time I cook the same few meals.

I decided to start a PROJECT.

Since I had no desire to cook my way through an entire recipe book as Julie did I resolved instead to cook at least one new recipe per week. It seemed manageable, and even with a couple of weeks off through the year that would mean 50 new recipes in a year. I do like a nice even number, so that sealed the deal!

Here goes....