Moroccan meatballs

With all the Christmas roast meat I really felt like a different kind of dinner this week. A while back I spotted that a fellow Daring Cook had tried out a Moroccan meatballs recipe for our December 2010 challenge. In that version it was served with a poached egg (poaching was our challenge for the month). Looking for a slightly less rich dish after all the Christmas excesses I actually served it without the egg, but it would clearly be delicious with one. We had steamed rice and spinach instead.



The Moroccan Merguez Ragout recipe has a wonderful blend of spices, both in the meatballs and the accompanying ragout. I'm always going on about how much I like Moroccan and Middle Eastern food, so no surprise that I liked the dish, but Dan also particularly loved this, so thanks to Audax for a very delightful dinner!



Find the recipe here.

Cooking it by the book

A few months back a read a novel called Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel. Its a magical novel, unlike anything I've read before. It is a book infused with stories of family, food, love, frustration. Each chapter explains (in very vague terms!) a dish made by one of the main characters.

I thought that the Stuffed chillis in Walnut sauce sounded like they were do-able. Although the quantities and ingredients are listed at the start of the chapter, it is a little bit of a detective job to figure out the method.

So, here is my version of the recipe, with quantities cut down to a manageable size, method deduced (& guessed in places!), enough for lunch for 5 or 6 people:

2 - 3 bell peppers, halved, de-membraned & deseeded
Garnish:
1 pomegranate
10g cashews per portion
10g sheeps cheese per portion
Stuffing Ingredients:
300g minced pork
20g raisins or sultanas
50g blanched almonds
50g walnuts
1/3 can tomatoes
1/2 onion, peeled & sliced
1/4 peach, peeled & diced
1/4 apple, peeled & diced
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon chilli powder
salt & white pepper
1 tablespoon of fresh chopped parsley

Method:
Chop the nuts lightly, but don't pulverise them to a powder. You want to keep decent sized chunks and texture.
Fry the onion in 1 teaspoon olive oil over a medium heat until softened. Add the mince and cumin and keep it all moving until the meat is browned. Stir in the apple and peach, walnuts, almonds, raisins, chilli powder, and tomatoes. Stir it all together, add some salt. Let most of the liquid cook off.
Remove from the heat and stir in the parsley. Allow to cool slightly then spoon the meat mixture into the pepper halves. Pack it in quite well.
These can be kept in the fridge for at least 24 hours before serving.
When you want to eat, preheat the oven to 190C. Sprinkle 10g sheep or goat cheese on each pepper half. Bake the peppers for 25 minutes.
Remove from the oven and serve, either hot or cold, garnished with 10g salted cashews per person and a tablespoon of pomegranate seeds.



I served one pepper half per person for lunch, with carrots and sweet potatoes. The peppers were yummy, and definitely one to make again, but I would serve them with a different accompaniment next time. Maybe a dollop of yoghurt mixed with some mint, and flatbreads or spicey potato and sweet potato wedges.



Who'd have thought that a novel would offer up a gorgeous dinner recipe?!

Filo

Christmas being a family affair I am heading to my parents' place for Christmas. That means Mum has sorted out all the Christmas dinner, but I do like to contribute in some small way to the Christmas eats.
Last year I made a Christmas cake, but Mum was making one when I was there the other week, so that didn't seem a good idea for this year. Instead I decided to make some sweet nibbles, and I chose baklava: The reasoning was that I love it, I know my younger sister and my Mum both like Baklava, not sure about my Dad, but fingers crossed!

So today saw me melting a truly extraordinary amount of butter, trying to unwrap and divide up the delicate sheets of pastry, and generally having my first filo experience. All before coffee. Co-ordination wasn't too good!

I made a recipe from the BBC website (I really do use that a lot!) by James Martin, for Walnut and pistachio baklava. It had ginger in the syrup which appealled, plus I already had all the ingredients in the cupboard - a major advantage when the snow is as annoying as it is right now. I did forget to score the top of the pastry before it went in the oven, which was none too clever, but other than that I seem to have ended up with something which does resemble baklava.



The taste was more citrus-y than baklava I have bought in the past, and its less sweet too (although I did reduce the sugar quantities so that may not be due to the recipe!). It has a definite tendency towards falling apart, but then baklava always does, and it is deliciously crunchy.

NB: I didn't need anything like the amount of butter directed in the recipe - I only used about 2/3 or 3/4 of the amount, and I was being pretty generous with it.

As I was left with about 100g of filo pastry from the roll I'd bought I then had to find something else to make with it, and once again James Martin and the BBC came up trumps with a Banana, apricot and cinnamon filo parcel. It sounded like it would make a fab pudding for tonight. After my overly buttery baklava experience I adjusted the quantities slightly. Also, I generally like things slightly less sweet than in recipes, so I also cut down the amount of sugar and honey a bit. It all cooked up just fine though.



The best accompaniment would have been vanilla icecream, served on the parcels warm from the oven, but in the absence of any of that in the freezer I served it up with cream instead. A yummy, wintery, pudding. I do love cinnamon.

This post makes me realise how rarely I do sweet recipes. I really should do so more often.

TV dinner

We were idly watching Nigel Slater's Simple Suppers programme the other evening when all of a sudden I pricked up my ears. Why was this? Because he was demonstrating a duck recipe.

Now I really do like duck. And my hunt for the perfect duck recipe has been tracked on this blog. We've tried duck accompanied by mango, cherry, and plum sauces, but tonight it was Nigel Slater's Duck with honey and figs on the menu.

The recipe is very citrusy, with orange zest and juice and lemon zest included, as well as ginger. It certainly sounded like it would be a good pick-me-up for a cold snowy night. And it did prove to be a good dinner - the citrus was refreshing but not overwhelming, the figs went lovely and soft, and with the addition of rice steamed with star anise and pak choi it was filling and warming.



Find the recipe on the BBC food website here.

So all in all, Nigel did not let us down, but the favourite Duck accompaniment remains as cherries. Will anything ever knock that off the top spot I wonder?

PS One day I will start taking beautifully lit, perfectly poised, photos of the food I make. For the time-being you will have to continue to suffer my "snap and eat" approach to food photography! Sorry about that!

My Boyfriend is a Heathen

...As demonstrated by his choice of lunch on sunday.



Warm pork pie and mushy peas, all topped with a liberal helping of mint sauce.

Bleurgh!

I'm told its a Yorkshire thing.

Daring Cooks December Challenge

This month's challenge: Jenn and Jill have challenged The Daring Cooks to learn to perfect the technique of poaching an egg. They chose Eggs Benedict recipe from Alton Brown, Oeufs en Meurette from Cooking with Wine by Anne Willan, and Homemade Sundried Tomato & Pine Nut Seitan Sausages (poached) courtesy of Trudy of Veggie num num.

So, poached eggs....I didn't feel inspired, I confess. I do poach eggs rather a lot anyway, so it wasn't a challenge which pushed me to make something I wouldn't otherwise have thought of. On the otherhand, Dan is always a happy man when eggs benedict are on the breakfast menu, so he was in heaven!

So, ta dah! Eggs Benedict feature again.



I won't bother to describe the method again, but I did realise that I had been overly cautious with the butter the last couple of times I made hollandaise sauce, and that was probably the reason for it curdling. It worked better this time.





So that I'm not totally cheating (and that would not do!) I am planning to make chorizo and potato hash with poached eggs later this week - that will at least be a new recipe including poached eggs.

UPDATE: I have been poaching away, and eating lots of eggs. I think eggs might just be my favourite fast food. I tried out the Chorizo and Potato Hash recipe, and it proved to be a massive hit with Dan. I liked it too, so thumbs up all round for that one. Find the recipe on the BBC Good Food site here.

what to do with Tofu?

When I was little my older sister went through a vegetarian phase. Given that the period of vegetarianism broadly coincided with her worst teenage behaviour I rather suspect that the whole thing was thought up just to be awkward. However, my mum did go to quite a lot of effort to accomodate her, and some tasty discoveries were made.

On the otherhand, there was also tofu.

I don't quite know what made me decide to try cooking with it this week. Perhaps it was that my new cookbook (the Wagamama one) has loads of recipes which use it, but whatever the reason was, I decided it was time to cast aside some old prejudices and give tofu another chance.



I chose a flavoursome-sounding stirfry recipe in the Wagamama book, made an expedition to the chinese supermarket for tofu (a feat in itself given the icy state of the pavements!), and set to work on moyashi soba. And it was easy. Also the tofu was not bad - it took on the flavour of the other ingredients very well, and bumped up the meal so that it was filling. Definitely edible.

The failure in all of this was the fact that I had bought silken tofu rather than the firm tofu I should have used. This did mean that it disintegrated more than would have been ideal for a stirfry. Ah well, I'll do it right next time.

This left me with 200g silken tofu that I now knew would not be much use for stirfrying, but I do hate to throw food away. What to do with it?

A bit of googleing told me that silken tofu is often used in desserts, and is also quite a good egg-substitute, so I decided to make a mousse-ish pudding. My made-up recipe needs a bit of refinement, but we did both enjoy it as it was, so here it is (without final tweaks which may or may not come in time):

Dairy-free Chocolate Mousse with Apricots (for 2)
200g silken tofu
20g icing sugar
35-40g dark chocolate (I used a chocolate with orange and ginger, but any dark chocolate would work)
35g dried, ready-to-eat apricots

Mix the sugar into the tofu.
Melt the dark choclate in a bowl over gently simmering water. Once completely melted pour it into the tofu and mix through.
Divide the apricots between 2 ramekins. Spoon the chocolate-tofu mixture on top of the apricots. Refridgerate overnight. Serve.

NB: I like my choclate quite dark and slightly bitter, but if you prefer yours sweeter then add a little more sugar to the tofu.

PS I also made the smoked salmon salad from the Wagamama book this week. Seriously delicious. I wolfed it all down in about 5 minutes flat. Yum scrum! I would never have thought to put apricots, noodles and smoked salmon together, but it definitley works.

more middle eastern explorations

Sumac onions with hazlenut dukka, white fish, and couscous for dinner tonight.

And so, hurrah for the fact that I have found another use for pomegranate molasses! I bought it for making fesanjan a little while ago. It turns out it also very nice indeed with red onions.

I'm not completely convinced that the combination of the dukka, fish, and onions was the best use of the 3 elements, but I really liked them all individually. The dukka would be good mixed with olive oil and spread on sourdough toast, the onions would be fantastic with lightly spiced burgers or roasted vegetables. I used Tilapia for the fish, which was a nice firm white fish.

So a successful foray, with room for improvement. First time I'd used sumac too.

Here's how to make the onions (enough for 2):
Fry 1 1/2 thinly sliced red onions in approximately 2 teaspoons of olive oil. Fry them over a low heat until soft, then stir in approximately a teaspoon of pomegranate molasses. Turn the heat up and cook for a further 2 or 3 minutes. Stir through a teaspoon of sumac and serve.

Teriyaki Cod

Sorry to say that I had an uninspired week. Maybe it was the cold. Or pehaps just that we were away over the weekend, but I made one quite tastey, but a bit unexciting new recipe this week.

It was teriyaki cod with noodle broth, found on the BBC website, chosen purely because I had some cod in the freezer.

Find the recipe here. Its very easy, and a nice, quick week-night dinner. I suggest that you pimp your noodles with some ginger and garlic - its just better that way.

Winter warmers

First things first: a major announcement.
We have heating in our house!
After over a year of living in our cotswold idyll, including through the coldest winter in 30 years, snow, ice and seriously sub-zero temperatures, we finally have a heating system! Oh the bliss...

And to celebrate, particularly given all Dan's hard work on getting the radiators plumbed in, I gave Dan a free card to request any dinner he fancied this weekend just gone. He chose beef stew and dumplings.

Now, I don't eat beef. I'm allergic. So, I'm always a little anxious cooking it as I don't feel all that confident that I know how to do it. I found some instructions in the Jamie Oliver magazine though, so followed them to the letter to make a very rich-smelling beef and ale stew with dumplings.

Dan's parents also came over for Sunday lunch. Its strange how anxious cooking for Dan's parents makes me; they're lovely and uncritical but I still get a little stressed by it! But the beef stew went down a treat with all of them. Apparently it was the perfect dinner for a cold day. I can't vouch for the flavour myself as I had trout, but since they polished off the whole stew pot of stew between 3 of them I think its safe to say it was a winner!

I followed it up with rasberry and white chocolate souffles. I'd meant to make these a week or so ago but couldn't buy white chocolate in the local shop so just went with rasberries. The white chocolate did make them just a touch sweeter and slightly more decadent feeling.

Oh how lovely to have a chilled out weekend (no DIY!) in a warm-as-toast house. Ahhhhh....

Daring Cooks November Challenge

So... here we go with another Daring Cooks Challenge.
Dave and Linda from Monkeyshines in the Kitchen chose Soufflés as our November 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge! Dave and Linda provided two of their own delicious recipes plus a sinfully decadent chocolate soufflé recipe adapted from Gordon Ramsay’s recipe found at the BBC Good Food website.

However, I'm not really a chocolate puddings person, and the challenge did say that any sweet souffle was OK as long as it was a true souffle and you hadn't made it before. So instead I made rasberry souffles.

I followed this method (enough for 2 people):

Take 130g rasberries and heat over a gentle heat. Once they start to release their juices add a splash of water and 10g caster sugar. Cook, stirring occasionally for about 10 or 15 minutes until the sugar is dissolved and the rasberries have disintegrated. Set the pan to one side to cool.

Once the rasberries have cooled slightly push them through a sieve, discarding the seeds and pips. Allow the rasberry puree to cool.

Grease 2 ramekins with a little butter and then place about a tablespoonful of rasberry puree in the bottom of each.



When you're nearly ready for pudding preheat the oven to 200C.

Whisk one egg white until it holds soft peaks:



Then add 40g of caster sugar and whisk again until the mixture is glossy.

Next gently fold in the remaining rasberry puree using a metal spoon:



Spoon the egg white mix into the ramekins. Some people like to smooth the tops flat, but personally I like them a bit imperfect and blobby on the top:



Put them on a hot baking tray in the centre of the oven to cook for 10 minutes. Serve straight away.

Mine got scorched a bit on the top, but that didn't seem to adversely affect the taste.



Yum.



Souffles are a marvellous Recipe-of-the-Week discovery. They are pretty easy to make, quick to cook, delicious, and (depending on the kind you make) surprisingly low-fat.

banana soda bread

Branching out and looking for interesting, easy breakfast recipes I came across a banana soda bread recipe. It looked pretty simple to make, even pre-coffee, and I loved the idea of a warm banan=y bread with runny honey and a good cup of coffee for breakfast.

Just to help my fuzzy head out, I weighed the flour the night before - 50g each of white and wholemeal flour - added 1/2 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and 15g (about 2 1/2 teaspoons) of caster sugar and mixed it all together.

Th next morning I set the oven to heat up to 220C. Mashed 1 banana to a pulp, then mixed that and 125g yoghurt into the flour. (You could also add a splash of milk if the mixture is still a bit dry.) Kneed the mixture until it makes a smooth but sticky dough. Form into 3 round loaves and place on a greased baking tray.

Bake for approx 15 minutes.

Serve warm with honey.



I enjoyed these. Very banana-y.Definitely one to serve warm though - I don't imagine they would work cold. Soda bread has a quite cake-y, crumbley texture so I'm not sure how well they would toast. Tastey warm from the oven, and even my sunday morning sleepiness didn't make the recipe unintelligible so they must be easy!

This week's colour is green

Green...It's the new black.

And it was the theme of this week's cooking. First up I made Lamb koftas's with green sauce. This is an indian dish of mildly spiced lamb meatballs in a yoghurty-herby sauce. It was something I found here on the BBC website and I've been meaning to make it for a little while. It makes a good winter night dinner with its comforting blend of warming spices and the creamy yoghurt sauce. You can make most of it ahead of time so it can be made quickly when you're ready to eat. Its definitely a tasty dinner, but not extraordinary in any way in my opinion.

Then at the weekend I made slow-cooked courgettes with lemons and dill to have on toast for lunch. This was from the Riverford Farm cook book, and can also be found here on their website. It was very good. I love the distinctive flavour of dill, so perhaps its unsurprising that I enjoyed the dish so much.

Not green, but a new twist on an old favourite, was a goats cheese souffle topping for fish pie. It worked well. Dan really enjoyed it. Because the souffle only needs a short time in the oven everything else does need to be cooked before you put the topping on - it doesn't spend long enough in the oven to cook the other ingredients.

Hope you enjoyed bonfire night!

Halloween cookery

Surely, it has to be Pumpkin for dinner on Halloween night? Once we had waved goodbye to the last trick-or-treater we sat down to a dinner of duck with a plum and chilli sauce (very tasty - find the recipe here) followed by pumpkin pie.



The pie was lightly spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice. It was a good mix, and a comforting wintery pudding. I served it still warm from the oven with some cream.



Halloween duty done.



I have to confess that fruity pies are still my favourite, but I did enjoy this. It would definitely be a better portable pie for a picnic, whereas fruit pies go soggy and don't travel at all well.

Portuguese

I have never cooked Portuguese food before, but I came across a recipe for clams with pork the other week which sounded intriguing.

One of its main appeals was how speedy it sounded. Simply marinate the pork in a tablespoon of chilli sauce, some crushed garlic and a little salt. Stirfry it, add a squeeze of lemon, then a couple of handfuls of clams and cook (with a lid on) over a high heat for a few minutes until the clams have opened.

This was a Two Fat Ladies recipe. Well it was until I figured they were Fat ladies for a reason and cut the butter, oil, and lard down to just a little bit of oil.

We had this with noodles and a bit of kale. Tasty, zingy, quick.

Shame Dan had gorged himself on sausages (6 of them at 4pm - how greedy?!And what's wrong with eating lunch at lunchtime?) only a couple of hours before and hardly ate anything. That kinda pisses me off!

Mr McGregor

I am possibly not quite as bad as Mr McGregor since I didn't actually try to catch and eat Peter Rabbit, however we did have Rabbit Stew this week.



I spotted rabbit at the butcher's and bought some on impulse. The butcher said stew was the way to go with this particular specimen.

I'd never eaten rabbit before, and Dan had never had wild rabbit. Although he did tell me a charming anecdote about killing his pet rabbit when he was a kid and getting his mum to cook it for dinner. What a lovely boy I've ended up with.

Anyway, rabbit stew; it was quite tasty done to Jamie Oliver's stew recipe, although the meat was very lean so might be better in a creamy or yoghurt-y sauce in future. That would just keep it a bit moister I think.

The butcher did offer me a pigs trotter to go in the stew to up the fat content, but I felt that rabbit was enough new-ness for one meal. Couldn't quite bring myself to use a pig's foot!

Daring Cooks Challenge #3

Dolma/Cold Stuffed Grape Leaves

Our October 2010 hostess, Lori of Lori’s Lipsmacking Goodness, has challenged The Daring Cooks to stuff grape leaves. Lori chose a recipe from Aromas of Aleppo and a recipe from The New Book of Middle Eastern Food.

This was the October challenge from the Daring Cooks website. I was pretty excited to have a go since I love stuffed vine leaves.

First things first though; an expedition was required to find somewhere that sold preserved vine leaves. None in Sainsburys, or Marks&Sparks, or Tesco, or the Greek deli in Oxford. Hmmmm. Where next?

Fortunately I had a monday evening trip to London last week, and even more fortunately some elementary googling told me that there was a Greek Grocery on Moscow Road. The Athenian Grocery turned out to be a veritable treasure trove of yummy treats. I'll be back. But in the meantime, a packet of vine leaves in brine were procurred, carried across London, taken to a concert, and traipsed back to the Cotswolds via Oxford. I hope they enjoyed their evening out.

It was easy to make the filling for these, and they were easy to cook. The fiddly bit was separating the vine leaves ready to roll up without ripping them. I knew all those years of striving to unwrap my Cadburys creme eggs without tearing the wrapper would come in handy one day! Excellent training for separating preserved vine leaves. I did rip a few, but they were mostly OK, and there were more than I needed in the pack anyway. A few did spilt during the cooking or when taking them out of the pan, but they were mostly fine. The taste was good.



Given how much I like eating stuffed vine leaves I'll definitely make these again. I won't put quite so much filling in each one next time (must remember that rice expands with cooking!) and hopefully that will solve some of the issues of them splitting.
Now then...when am I next going to be passing Moscow Road in London?

Also, this Sunday I finally made Dan one of his very first recipe requests; Beef Wellington. I served it up with Dauphinois potatoes, which made him one very happy man. He ate too much though. In fact, he was so greedy that he had to lie on the sofa after to let his stomach recover. Although now I think about it, that was probably an elaborate ruse so get out of doing the washing-up.

Clams and jams

I had a weekend off! Hurrah!

That meant I had time to do some slightly more interesting cooking.

First up: clams. So much prettier than mussels and so much easier to prep (no scrapping off nasty beards and barnacles).
I steamed them with a combination of chilli, garlic and coconut milk and served them with noodles.

We'll gloss over the fact that I nearly gave Dan a heart attack because the (one) chilli was so hot. I'll be cooking these again next time I see them in the fishmonger. I'll try not to make my boyfriend cry next time (wuss!).



Then since I was a lady with far too much time on my hands this weekend, I made jam. Pear jam with dark chocolate sprinkles. Oh yes. I am a culinary genius. It was gorgeous!

Actually, I am not a culinary genius at all... this lady is.



I'm inspired to have more lazy weekends, and each one will start with fancy french bread and home made jams for breakfast.

When's the weekend? Is it here yet?

Argentina

My Dad tells an interesting story about being on a ship that docked in Buenos Aires. They were carrying coal, but the next cargo was to be grain. After unloading the coal in Buenos Aires they had about 48 hours to the next port in which to completely clean the hold of any trace of coal dust.
However, red wine was super cheap in Argentina, and the sailors got so drunk on it that they gave themselves alcohol poisoning and were completely incapacitated. Dad and the other officer cadets worked round the clock to clean the ship, staying up working for the full 48 hours straight. He was 17 at the time and had only been in the navy for a year. He swears that it was the hard physical work like that experience, as well as the poor food once you'd been at sea for more than a week, which meant that he stopped growing almost as soon as he joined the merchant navy.

But anyway, I digress. This week I made an Argentinian dish - Empanadas. Hence the musing on my Dad's tales of his travels. They're the South American version of Cornish Pasties! The filling was a combination of chicken, onion, leek, paprika, cumin, stock, pear, and peach. My fear was that the pear and peach chunks would make these wierdly sweet for a dinner dish, but the stock and spices balanced out the sweetness of the fruit remarkably well. I cheated and bought ready-rolled puff pastry for the outside; the ultimate in convenience! I baked the empanadas in the oven and served them with green vegetables and a few new potatoes, but if you made smaller portions they would work well with a salad for lunch.

My other recipe this week was to take advantage of the last of the wild blackberries which I had picked at the weekend; Blackberry and apple souffle.
I actually made blackberry, apple and pear souffle as I already had some stewed apple and pear in the freezer so it seemed sensible to use that rather than starting from scratch!

Here's the recipe (enough for 2 souffles):
Blackberry and Apple Souffle


(Sorry for the horrible picture - souffles sink fast once they're out of the oven so you have to 'snap' and serve!)

120g blackberries
1/2 apple
squeeze of lemon juice
10g sugar

1 egg white
30g caster sugar

butter for greasing the souffle dishes

Grease the souffle dishes with a small amount of butter.
Preheat the oven to 200C and place a baking tray in the oven to warm.
Peel, core and dice the apple. Place in a saucepan with a squeeze of lemon, 10g sugar, a splash of water and the blackberries. Heat gently until the apples break down to a pulp, then take off the heat and allow to cool a little. Press the fruit mixture through a sieve to make a fine puree.
Put a tablespoon of fruit puree in the bottom of each souffle dish and put the rest to one side.
Whisk the egg white until stiff, then add the sugar and whisk again until it is a glossy meringue-like mix. Gently fold in the remaining fruit puree with a metal spoon, then spoon it into the souffle dishes.
Put the souffle dishes onto the preheated baking tray and bake for 10-15 minutes until golden brown on top.
I suggest serving this with vanilla icecream.

For a man who claims not to have sweet tooth Dan does seem to have a definite enthusiasm for fruit puddings. This one was declared to be a keeper. He almost licked the plate!

Tiredness and coldness

Neither makes me feel terribly inspired in the cooking department.

A combination of late nights for work, poor sleep, and a half marathon have conspired to make me feel a bit drained of energy these last few days. I'm officially in a grump!

However, I have discovered a nice lunch salad recently which has made a good work packed lunch for a few days - continuing my exploration of Middle Eastern cooking I have been eating Persian rice and Pistachio salad. A bit more interesting than a soggy sandwich from the canteen!

Persian Rice and Pistachio Salad (for 1)

40g brown long grain rice (or white, I just happen to prefer brown in this as the nutty flavour complements the other ingredients well)
1 teaspoon grated orange rind
Pinch ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
15g dried fruit of your choice (sultanas or raisins seem to work well)
50ml freshly squeezed orange juice
A small amount of fresh mint leaves
15g shelled pistachio nuts
2 sticks celery - chopped finely
Small handful of salad leaves
Salt and black pepper

Put the brown rice in a pan with the spices, salt, and orange rind. Cover with cold water and bring to the boil. Simmer for about 30 minutes (top up the water as it is absorbed by the rice - don't let it dry out). Once the rice is cooked take the pan off the heat and stir in the dried fruit, pepper, mint, and orange juice. allow to cool for at least 30 minutes before stirring in the pistachios and celery. Serve with a few salad leaves.

A year in review

Given that I've been cooking a new recipe (at least 1) every week for a year now it seems like the right moment to review the high and low points of the Recipe-of-the-Week challenge.

Gallettes and Goats Cheese were early successes which I've made frequently throughout the year.
Other more than one-hit wonders:
Eggs Benedict
Mint and Cannellini bean dip (Bethan's favourite)
Goats Cheese souffle
Yorkshire pudds
Spiced red cabbage with apple
Salt and pepper squid
Dauphinoise potatoes (Dan loves this way of doing potatoes)
Cuban quail egg-stuffed meatballs
Guacamole - I never thought I liked guacamole, but the homemade one is great

Fruit in main meals has been a revelation - Salmon and mango sauce stretched our European tastebuds a bit far, but a range of Thai-style salads using mango were delicious, parma ham and figs has become a firm favourite, and both Duck with Mango and Duck with Cherry sauce were gorgeous.

Good week night dinners that have become regulars:
Steamed chicken spirals
Stroganoff
Fish cooked in yoghurt
Cauliflower risotto
Roasted new potatoes
Tomato and pepper eggs

Surprisingly good combinations:
Rhubarb and strawberries
Yoghurt can be used in cooking loads of stuff. Particularly surprising since I don't like yoghurt really.

Failures:
Crumpets. Boringly time consuming and fiddly.
Venison stew - the most disgusting meal of the year
Lamb stew
Aromatic Madura chicken

Occasion cookery which I enjoyed:
Christmas cake
Peanut caramel popcorn
Jam and chutney
Lobster!

Things I found an excellent recipe for, even if I have made them previously:
Bread
Custard

Things to refine:
Parkin
Steamed toffee pudding
Hollandaise sauce (not having good success rate with this of late! It keeps splitting at the last stages.)
Salmon en croute (try again using puff pastry)

Things I should definitely make again soon:
Terbiyeli Kofte (Turkish Lamb meatballs in lemon sauce)
Middle Eastern spinach with almonds
Zanzibar chicken
Crackers
Shahi Murg
Jerk Chicken
Torta di Spinachi
Aubergine Parmigiana
Steamed couscous with Fish
Frozen Yoghurt
Asian noodle salad with Cashew butter
Mexican one pot courgettes

Favourite recipe books:
A runaway winner, despite being a late addition to the shelf has to be the Riverford Farm Cook Book. Its simply excellent for lovely ideas for vegetables.
Silvana Franco has a great range of low-fat recipes that you'd never guess were low-fat recipes if you weren't "in the know".
Jamie Oliver has some lovely recipes and good tips but I don't find that his recipe books are all that user-friendly. I can't place my finger on why not. Perhaps its that they're very visual and chatty which is lovely for the coffee table, but a bit annoyng if you want clear instructions.
Angela Hartnett is fantastic, but unless you want to gain several stone its probably best to keep her dishes as occasional treats.

Lessons learnt:
Most recipes don't need as much fat or oil as they say.
Quite often poaching, steaming, or baking will do just as well as frying.
Often recipe books play it safe on amounts of spices - the quantities should be increased a bit if you like food to have a bit more punch.
I enjoy eating vegetarian meals fairly regularly, and they can be as varied and satisfying as meat/fish based dishes.
Meringues are unbelievably simple.
Homemade pasta definitely needs a pasta rolling machine.
A good fruity olive oil is worth paying more for. But keep it for moments when you can actually taste it - salad dressings, dipping bread.
I'm rubbish at making cakes.

Dishes still on the list:
Beef Wellington
Onion Bhajis
Chocolate steamed pudding with custard (Chocolate duff)
Cranachan
Rice Pudding
Semifreddo
Gravlax
Pear Jam

Future Ideas:
Make more Middle-Eastern recipes. I adore the warm spices and aromatic flavours that are used in the cuisine.
Explore some Japanese cooking. I might have to do this at times I'm eating on my own if I'm seriously considering tofu. Dan would be horrified. I've managed to get him to eat both lentils and pulses, but fear this would be a step too far!
Cook some old-fashioned recipes from Mrs Beeton's old fashioned cook book.

Shopping list:
Pasta rolling machine
Bread mixing bowl that holds enough douch for 3 loaves.
Icecream machine (a bit over indulgent - How often would I really use it?!)

Build a pizza oven in the garden!

Cooking from the 'Axis of Evil'

Ridiculous statement. I do hate that kind of label. "War on Terror" also bugs the hell out of me. You can't wage war on a feeling for God's Sake!

But anyway, even if it is from the 'Axis of Evil' (please read Iran) the Chicken Fesanjan recipe which we had for dinner tonight was very delicious indeed. So at least they're eating well over there while we make our stupid sweeping statements about their nation.

Fesanjan is a stew of coarsely ground walnuts, a lovely subtle but warming mix of spices (cumin, cinnamon, turmeric, cardamom) and pomegranate molasses (you can get this quite cheaply in Sainsbury's), with chicken and onions. I served it up with rice and spinach and a few fresh pomegranate seeds sprinkled over the top. You can use duck instead of chicken.

Must make more middle eastern recipes - I just love the mix of flavours.

I got the original idea to make this when I had Claudia Roden's Middle Eastern recipe book from the library. Sadly, I had to return the book, but it turns out the internet is full of recipes for this dish, so just do a google hunt.

Sorry - rather short post! Turns out training for a half marathon is rather tiring, so I don't have much energy just now! The run is on sunday.

Artichokes

Gosh. There's an awful lot of an artichoke you don't eat.

I peeled off an awful lot of leaves and chopped off a lot of stalk, then scooped out a lot of hairy choke before I ended up with really a rather small amount of artichoke heart to roast! It tasted good roasted in olive oil with a few potatoes, but is it worth the effort?!

Lobster - at last!

Week 52 of this project seemed to call for something extraordinary. Who'd have thought it would last a year?
And so, given that Lobster Thermidor was the first recipe onto the list it was time to finally cross it off.

Lobster is not a meal that you can just throw together easily - it required planning and skiving off work early to make it to the fishmonger before they closed. (I didn't think my colleagues would appreciate live lobsters crawling round the communal fridge all afternoon if I bought them at lunch time!)

So lobsters procured, I headed home to start the preparation.
Fortunately Dan had been away for a few days, so he wasn't there while I was preparing the lobsters. Which saved me from enduring him laughing himself silly when I jumped about 6 foot from shock when one of the lobsters wriggled as I picked it up. I'd put them in the freezer for an hour and expected them to be alot more lethargic than they were!

I decided to go with the Hugh F-W version of Lobster Thermidor, which uses bechemal sauce instead of double cream. I made a good thick sauce, then fried some shallots in a little butter until they were softened and added a glass of white wine. Once the wine had mostly reduced I added the bechemal and some tarragon, stirred everything together and allowed it to bubble for a minute or so. After that I seasoned it, added a pinch of cayenne pepper, and a small handful of grated gruyere. This can be set aside until needed.

So to the lobster.....I plunged it straight into a pot of rapidly boiling, heavily salted water, slammed the lid on and felt like a murderer.



It died fairly fast though, so I wasn't too badly traumatised. I don't imagine the lobster appreciated it much though. 12 -15 minutes later...voila...cooked lobster.



Then I had to dismember it - twist off the claws, crack them, and haul out the meat; cut the lobster in half, fish out the inedible bits; Mix the edible parts (including the claw meat) with the sauce made earlier, then pile it back into the lobster shells. Grate a little more gruyere over the top then whack it under a hot grill for 5 minutes.

I served it with crunchy bread and salad.



The occasion seemed to demand a fire in the room and a glass of champagne...




And then a treat for pudding. I have to confess that I didn't make it, but it was all the better for that. Passionfruit mousse cake from Patisserie Blanc.



Yum.

Yum Yum Dim Sum

Last night we had the best Chinese meal I've had in ages. Possibly ever. So although its not my cookery, I'm going to tell you about it anyway!

I had a race to run in Oxford after work and figured that it was more practical to have a meal out in town afterwards than to drive home and then start cooking late.

So, following up a top-tip we decided to go to SoJo; a very unassuming (and to be brutal, uninspiring!) looking place not far from the station. The word in cyberspace seemed univerally enthused, and everyone I mentioned it to in Oxford got a dreamy look in their eye, so it seemed worth a go.

You know the worst kind of chinese? The type that's swimming in grease? And where the noodles are soggy and over-cooked? And the flavours taste distinctly arificial? And you wake up the next day with a tummy that grumbles and is unhappy?
Well, SoJo is the polar opposite of all of that. It restores your faith in Chinese being interesting, flavoursome, and frankly delicious. Another thing - I would say that about 2/3 of the people eating at SoJo last night were Chinese, which is surely a good sign.

We shared a dim sum starter. I'd never had dim sum before, but I'll definitely be going back for more. We had a selection of steamed dim sum, and it all tasted fresh and delicious.



Then on to mains. Szechuan "Gan Shao" Seabass topped diced waterchestnut sauce for me - a pleasing contrast of soft textured fish and crunchy waterchestnuts, with enough chilli in the sauce to warm but not so much that it was uncomfortable. Dan had beef with aubergines and declared it amazing. (Whether he had more chilli I don't know, but it certainly cleared out the last of his summer cold sniffles!)

The portions were generous, but it was all so lovely that we just couldn't leave it...so we did go to bed feeling a little bit over full. Still once in a while that doesn't do anyone any harm I think! Next time I'm going back for a dim sum lunch. I'm already salivating at the thought.

Here's the link to the google page. The place doesn't have a website that I can find.

Seriously though - its my top tip. Go there!

More Riverford recipes

I'm still working my way through the Riverford Farm cook book which I bought in Devon. Its an amazingly useful book. I LOVE the fact that its full of fantastic ideas for vegetables.

So...ta dah! This week we had Mexican one-pot courgettes. I only made one amendment to the recipe, and that was enforced; the cream we had in the fridge had gone off so I used sheep's yoghurt instead.

Sorry, no photos - I was too hungry! We had our courgettes (cooked up in one-pot with cinnamon sticks, cloves, pepper, chilli, coriander and mint, yoghurt and tinned tomatoes) with pork loin chops and new potatoes. We both thought this would be great with chicken and rice, and possibly also good cold for work lunches.

It was easy. It was pretty quick. Low effort. Tasty. What's not to like?

I forgot to post last week's recipe - One of my Dad's recipe cards picked up in the supermarket a while back. It was lemon and basil chicken with pasta. It meant that we could have the first crop of peas grown by my own fair hands in our little vegetable plot.
Here's the recipe:

Lemon and basil chicken (for 2)

2 chicken breasts
Handful of basil leaves
Approx 50g fresh peas (or defrosted frozen ones)
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tablespoon yoghurt or creme fraiche
Enough pasta for 2 people

Dice the chicken then stir fry it until there is no more pink showing. Stir in all of the other ingredients. Season with salt and black pepper. I also added a pink of smoked paprika but you don't need to. Heat through. Serve with cooked pasta.

It was easy, quick, filling and refreshing on the tastebuds.

PS You will notice that a lot of my recipes recently have been low-effort quick dishes. My explanation (excuse?) is that I'm currently training for a half marathon in 4 weeks time. I'm spending silly amounts of time running, which doesn't leave a lot of energy for complicated cookery!
Next week marks the 52nd of this project, ie a WHOLE YEAR. Who'd have thought I'd keep going for so long? Lobster here I come......

How does my garden grow?

We came back from a week in Wales to some very bedraggled looking tomato plants in our little vegetable plot. However, they are still covered in a hundred weight of green tomatoes. Having fried our green tomatoes a week or so ago I decided to have a try at doing something else with them. If they all survive to ripeness I will be very pleased and surprised, but we will also have a ridiculous number of tomatoes. Using some up early on seems like a good plan!

Its preserving time of year, and Dan loves a chutney with his curry, so I decided to try my hand at Green Tomato Chutney. I started from Mrs Beeston's (ripe) tomato chutney recipe, but added a few small chillies to give it a kick and some sultanas for sweetness since the green tomatoes are a bit less sweet than their ripe version.

Initial 'licking the spoon' taste tests seem positive; its got quite a kick from the cillies, but the flavours are good. This could go with curry or as a dip with poppadoms.



I've also had a go at green tomato salsa, and we've had the fried green tomatoes again, but with chorizo instead of smokey bacon this time, which was a better combination.

In other news, we had mussels cooked in cider rather than the traditional wine. Pretty good, but I think wine is ultimately the better choice.

Daring Cooks Challenge August

May I present this month's Daring Cook's challenge; pierogi.



Bear with me here. I know they don't look that tasty.

Pierogi are basically a heavier version of stuffed pasta as far as I can tell, although they were described in the recipe as a dumpling. They seem to be a Polish thing. The filling was a free choice but was meant to reflect your locality. I went for garlic, basil, goats cheese and whizzed up courgette. It may be tenuous, but we have a lot of basil in the garden right now and courgettes seem to be in season. The stuffing mix was a bit too liquid really but just about manageable.

Given how like a heavier stuffed tortellini pasta this was, I made a tomato sauce and toasted some pinenuts to sprinkle over the top.


I think I'll experiment with other fillings. I have a hunch that roast squash, garlic and pancetta would be a good combo.

The really good thing about this dinner was that the work could be done in advance leaving just boiling the pierogi for when you are ready to eat.

The August 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by LizG of Bits n’ Bites and Anula of Anula’s Kitchen. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make pierogi from scratch and an optional challenge to provide one filling that best represents their locale.

Fried Green Tomatoes

but not at the Whistle-Stop Cafe.

As I mentioned in my last post I spotted the recipe for these in my new cookbook, the Riverford Farm recipe book. And how could I resist the recipe when I have a vegetable patch completely taken over by monster tomato plants covered in not-yet-ripe tomatoes?



Another lure of the recipe was the opportunity to finally crack open my bag of polenta; an ingredient I have never used.

So I picked tomatoes, dipped them in egg then polenta. Fried some streaky bacon, then fried the tomatoes in the bacon fat. DONE (as Mr Ramsay would say).



They would make an excellent side dish, or part of a tapas selection. The same method would probably be nice with ripe tomatoes too, and a hint of paprika or chilli in the polenta could be good.

We had the tomatoes with new potatoes baked in parchment paper - the recipe came from the same book. I'd never thought to bake new potatoes before, but you just toss a handful of new potatoes in olive oil, herbs, salt and pepper. Parcel them up with a couple of cloves of garlice inside some baking parchment and bake for about 40 minutes. Simples.



So the verdict on the new cook book is a resounding thumbs up so far. The verdict on the tomato growing probably should be deferred until we see if they survive until they're ripe, but at least we've had one meal from the plants, and they were pretty good.

A little trip to Devon

A couple of days in Devon last week was the perfect antidote to the 9-5 blues.



The scenery was quintissentially English, all summer prettiness and hazy lazy sunshine.

We ate fish and chips and too much icecream.



We walked along the seafront and picked which boat we would have if we were the boating types.



We went to concerts in the impressive Great Hall at Dartington.

I ate my first ever whole crab - cracked the claws myself and everything!



We napped in the afternoon. And had bacon for breakfast.

We discovered that we were only a few miles from the Riverford Farm shop - the recipe for rhubarb and strawberry crumble which I made in May came from their website - so we stopped by and bought some fruit and veg on the way home. Yummy. Their website is here.

Aahhhhh.....if only it had been more than just a couple of days.

My take-home treat? I have aquired a copy of the Riverford Farm cook book, which is chock-full of brilliant ideas for vegetables; something which I think is overlooked in the majority of recipe books. This week I will be putting them (and myself) to the test when I attempt Fried Green Tomatoes. My monster tomato plants are currently covered in not-quite-ripe tomatoes, so this seems the perfect recipe to get a sneak preview of whether they're going to be any good.

Moroccan Pancakes, completely ignoring the written recipe!

We had a vegetarian dinner tonight and Dan didn't even complain. I'm getting there - I'll win him round eventually!

It was a Moroccan recipe of stuffed pancakes, but given that I amended every constituent of the recipe I'm not sure if I should be counting it. Still, it was rather tasty, and I think the filling could be used for other dinners too, maybe mixed with rice for a pilaf style dish.

The filling was 1/2 onion chopped and fried gently until soft, then I added 150g spinach and let it wilt. I then chopped that all up finely and mixed it with some mashed up chickpeas (a 200g can should do it), a good handful of coriander leaves, 1 grated courgette and 1 beaten egg. Season to taste and add a shake of ground cumin and ground coriander.
I used 4 gallettes (which I have posted about before) and spooned the mixture in, wrapped them up and put them in a baking dish. I spooned 100g sheeps milk yoghurt over the top and baked them for about 15 mins at 180C.

(The original recipe used a bechemal sauce rather than yoghurt, no spices in the mix, and normal pancakes instead of gallettes.)

Daring Cooks Challenge No.1!

Ok, so I was rather excited to have a try at my first Daring Cooks challenge.
It was a great one to start on too - we both found it delicious and it was definitely something I wouldn't have thought of doing without it being suggested by someone else.

So, I am proud to present.......Asian Noodle Salad with Cashew Dressing



It was easy to do. I made the cashew butter and the sauce a couple of days ahead and it kept in the fridge perfectly well. The dinner was then the matter of about 15 minutes preparation - some light chopping and mixing and soaking of noodles. All quick and easy.

And here's the recipe if you fancy having a go yourself - I highly recommend it.

Yield: 4 servings

notes: You could add or substitute your favorite vegetables. Shredded cabbage, bean sprouts, and slivered carrots would make nice additions. The dressing is equally as good with peanut butter rather than cashew butter.

Ingredients:

Cashew Butter:
240 ml cashews

Cashew Dressing:
1 cm slice of fresh ginger, chopped
8 cloves garlic, more or less to taste, chopped
120 ml cashew butter
60 ml soy sauce
3 Tablespoons sugar
3 Tablespoons vinegar - I used rice vinegar
3 Tablespoons toasted sesame oil
75 ml water
Hot sauce to taste (optional) - I added a pinch of chilli flakes

Noodle Salad:
225g thin rice noodles
1 tablespoon olive oil
225g small or medium shrimp, peeled and deveined (I used large prawns as that was what they had in the village shop, so I actually used slighty more in weight)
1 large red bell pepper, cored and seeded, cut into thin strips
1 cucumber, peeled, seeded, sliced
60 ml sliced spring onions
60 ml chopped fresh basil
1 tablespoon chopped cashews (optional garnish) - I omitted these
Lime wedges (optional)

Directions:

1.Make cashew butter: Grind cashews in food processor for about 2 minutes until smooth.
2.Prepare cashew dressing: Combine ginger, garlic, cashew butter, soy sauce, sugar, vinegar, sesame oil, and water in food processor or blender. Process/blend until smooth. Be sure to process long enough to puree the ginger and garlic. The dressing should be pourable, about the same thickness as cream. Adjust consistency – thinner or thicker -- to your liking by adding more water or cashew butter. Taste and add your favorite hot sauce if desired. (If the cashew butter was unsalted, you may want to add salt to taste.) Makes about 360 ml dressing. Store any leftover dressing in the refrigerator.
3.Prepare noodles according to package instructions in salted water. Rinse and drain noodles. Set aside.
4.Heat oil in large non-stick pan over medium heat. Add shrimp to the pan and sauté for about 3 to 4 minutes or until opaque throughout. Alternately, cook shrimp in boiling water for about 2 to 3 minutes or until done.
5.Slice basil into thin ribbons. Combine noodles, bell pepper, cucumber, onions, and basil in a large bowl. Add about 120 ml cashew dressing; toss gently to coat. Add more cashew dressing as desired, using as much or as little as you’d like. Scatter shrimp on top. Squeeze fresh lime juice over salad or serve with lime wedges. Sprinkle with chopped cashews if desired.

The July 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by Margie of More Please and Natashya of Living in the Kitchen with Puppies. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make their own nut butter from scratch, and use the nut butter in a recipe. Their sources include Better with Nut Butter by Cooking Light Magazine, Asian Noodles by Nina Simonds, and Food Network online.

And in other news

Last week I cancelled my Vegetable Box.

I feel terribly guilty.

But, for the last few weeks the selection has been distinctly uninspired, and frankly tired looking. The final straw was a box last week containing mushrooms and tomatoes that already had some very interesting looking mould cultures growing on them, and a lettuce that was brown and slimy inside. Yuergh!

So, no more veggie box fridays.

On a more positive note, I signed up to the Daring Cooks so will be getting a new recipe once a month from them. I can't wait for my first one. It'll be great having a go at other people's ideas and hopefully forcing myself out of my cooking comfort zone.

Eggs eggs eggs

Guess what I've been cooking this week?.....

Yep. Eggs indeed.

Having acheived the roaring success that was Eggs Benedict (with a little help from Mr Oliver) it this week seemed like it was time to go beyond the omelette/fried/scrambled egg options once more.

So after a trawl through the recipe shelf two interesting options presented themselves. Although both billed themselves as breakfast dishes I thought they would do very well for week-night dinners.

And so, we have had Rick Stein's pithily titled Mildly spiced potato curry with cumin, black mustard seeds and coriander, topped with a poached egg, which was what it said really. A pretty good, quick, mild curry. I added a couple of handfuls of spinach (got to get in those 5-a-day somehow!) and I think it would be better with chopped boiled egg rather than poached.
And also Silvana Franco's Saucy Eggs and tomatoes.

Both were pretty good options for Veggie dinners, but I did prefer the Tomato Eggs.

And see - it even looked like the picture in the book!


Here's the method for the tomato eggs (for 1 as a dinner)

Take 1/2 can tomatoes and put in a heavy saucepan or deep frying pan
Add 1 clove of garlic (finely chopped)
Also add about 100ml boiling water, salt and papper, and a pinch of cayenne pepper.
Heat through stirring frequently until the tomatoes start to break down a bit.
Then add about 3/4 of a red bell pepper, cut into strips.
Allow to heat through on a gentle heat for about 15 mins, or until the peppers start to soften (the recipe directs you to grill the peppers then peel off the skin - I couldn't be bothered).
Make to hollows in the sauce mixture and break in the eggs. Leave on the medium heat until the eggs are cooked. I had the oven on anyway, so just finished off the eggs for 5 mins at 180C which sped things up a little.
Serve with bread or toast.

Summer berry madness

I love the time of year when summer berries come in season. I could happily gorge myself on strawberries and blueberries for breakfast, lunch, and tea when they're juicy, sweet and super-fresh. And here we are at last....proper summer time, with sunshine for days and days (hope I'm not jinxing it!) and berries everywhere.

So what's a girl to do when she's got over excited and bought too many rasberries in the market? Make jam of course!

I'm no jam-making virgin, but rasberry jam is one I've never made. I just prefer strawberry so I tend to make that. However, Dan's a rasberry man, and he's been resorting to stealing rasberry jam from his parents everytime he goes to visit. It was time to make him a stash of his own.



Its very simple to make, just as most jams are. The only tricky bit is gauging the right point to take it off the heat. I highly recommend a jam thermometer for this. It makes it a lot easier, and you will probably find that you use it more than you initially expect to. (Mine has been useful for making fudge and cheese too.)

Rasberry Jam
Use equal weight of rasberries and granulated sugar
Make sure you use a large saucepan as once the jam is boiling it will rise up alot.

Warm the rasberries through slightly until the juices start to bleed out.
Add the sugar and stir through. Turn the heat up and clamp your thermometer on the side of the pan.
Bring the jam to the boil, stirring occasionally to ensure bits don't stick to the bottom and burn.
Keep it on a fairly high heat until the jam setting point temperature is reached (it should be marked on the thermometer).
Remove pan from heat and pour into sterilised jars.
Allow to cool without the lids on for about an hour, then loosely screw on the lids and leave the jam to cool and set completely before tightening the tops.



But that still left some yellow rasberries and blueberries (I told you I got over-enthusiastic with my berry purchases!).

I bought a copy of Red Magazine to read on the train the other day. (Should I admit to that? Its hardly the most cutting-edge reading material!) Anyway, quite apart from whiling away my journey to and from London quite satisfactorarily, it also had a section on berry recipes. Whilst most were cream and sugar filled, of which I am not a fan (I like to keep my berries fruity), there was a suggestion for Wine Jelly with berries. I haven't done the taste test yet, but they were easy to make and seem to have set quickly.
I reduced the recipe sugar amount slightly and upped the fruit quantity.



Berry Jellies (for 2)
160ml white or rose wine
5g fine leaf gelatine
60ml water
50g sugar
150g mixed berries

Divide the berries between 2 glasses or teacups.
Put the gelatine to soak in a bowl of cold water & leave for 5 mins.
Meanwhile gently heat the wine water and sugar together, stirring to help the sugar dissolve. The liquid should get not hotter than hand warm.
Take the softened gelatin out of its water. Squeeze any excess water out of it and add to the wine mixture. Stir until the gelatine has dissolved.
Pour the wine mixture over the berries and put in the frisge to set overnight.



Serve with more berries on the side, or cream of you are a berries+cream person.

Hope you're enjoying summer!