We ate this along with our Uruguayan chivito sandwich. Russian salad is one of those dishes that is served round the world (with the exception of Russia?) Lyra eagle-eyed the small flakes of tuna and took against it, only eating a few bites, and scoring it a measly 3 out of 10. Continue reading
I occasionally make the veggie version of Chilean corn pie from the Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant. This original meat-based version turns out to be very tasty as well. Actually, neither of the girls liked it much – I think the relative sweetness of the corn topping put them off. Ideally, the topping should have firmed up a bit more – I added extra milk while blitzing the topping mixture, which was probably a mistake. I made it following a recip on the Quericavida website, which I adjusted slightly. Continue reading
Chile’s version of salsa. Looking at a few recipes, the key elements are tomatoes, onion, garlic, cilantro and vinegar. I stuck with my version of the recipe from Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant, which I’ve been making for years. It keeps for several days in the fridge. Continue reading
We all liked the contrasting textures of the avocado and celery in this Chilean salad. Recipe from The Latin Kitchen website. Continue reading
This Algerian recipe for m’touem b’marqa hamra (meatballs and chickpeas in garlicky red sauce) is awesome. Meatballs are a bit time consuming, but worth the effort for this dish. I found the recipe on The Teal Tadgine website, and followed it pretty much as written. It claims to serve four to six people, but if it had made more, the four of us would have eaten it. Continue reading
These are the pancakes my mum used to make, which I included in Fern’s Food. We’ve played around with different recipes over the years, but have pretty much settled on this one now. Continue reading
We ticked Ghana off our World Cup list with this dish of oto and hardboiled eggs. Traditionally eaten for breakfast, I opted to serve it for lunch, when I thought it might get a better reception. We ate with our hands, scooping up little clumps of oto and squashing them together, and added to the overall experience. I definitely liked it more than the rest of the family, none of whom scored it more than five. For the recipe, I looked at a few versions and came up with my own version. The Skinny Gourmet website goes into a lot of detail about how oto is often served for birthday or wedding breakfasts, and includes pictures of it being prepared. Continue reading
We had this tiramisu for dessert on Italian World Cup night. I don’t follow a recipe for this — I just thin a tub of mascarpone with cream, flavour and sweeten it to taste, then layer in a bowl with coffee-soaked biscuits or cake, and top with grated chocolate. The longer it sits, the better it gets… Continue reading
I served pizza and tiramisu for our Italian World Cup meal. I sometimes make a double batch of pizza dough and freeze half, which makes homemade pizza an easy weekday option. I copied the dough recipe from a magazine many years ago… Continue reading
When Lyra asked me what meal I would choose if I had to eat it every single day for the rest of my life, I picked Greek salad. As it is, definitely eat it at least once a week. Continue reading
Australia’s World Cup dish was always going to be pavlova – a great favourite of both girls. I don’t follow a recipe for this, but go with whatever fruit, dairy and number of eggs whites we have to use up. I just add twice the volume of sugar to the volume of egg whites, and it always turns out fine. Continue reading
For the lamb souvlaki, I used a marinade recipe from chef Simon Rimmer. I left the meat in the fridge overnight, and just whacked it onto skewers and the barbeque when I got back from work in the evening. Continue reading
I adapted this recipe from the one I found on the Celtnet website. Continue reading
I’ve always found the idea of cooking mussels a bit scary, but they were the obvious choice for our Belgian World Cup dinner. (Either that, or a jumbo box of Leonidas…) Turns out they were pretty straightforward and quick to prepare, even though I bought twice as many as we needed – especially as Lyra ended up eating dinner at a friend’s house, and Nova ate only one… Expecting to be tied up with the mussels, I opted for oven chips – which were a bit meh. Continue reading
Tonight’s dinner comes from Iran – chicken fessenjoon (chicken cooked in a pomegranate-walnut sauce) – served over steamed rice. While I was seeking out dried golden plums at the Persian grocers, I picked up some dried limes as well. I broke a couple up in the mortar before steeping in boiling water to make a delicious lime tea. This recipe is from the Food 52 website (with minor adjustments). Continue reading
Easier to eat than regular meusli, and a cold alternative to porridge in the summer months.
Apparently it was “invented” by the Swiss doctor Maximilian Bircher-Benner, a pioneer of holistic health, who served it to patients in his sanitorium. Continue reading
Welsh rarebit, should possible have gone for something with a more clearly English, but I didn’t… This Guardian article on Welsh rarebit was a good source of info, and I mostly followed their recipe. Couldn’t believe we could need as much cheese topping as the recipes suggested, and even after cutting it back quite a bit, I had more than enough. Served it with a watercress and avocado salad that I found on Epicurious. Continue reading
About a month before World Cup 2014 started, Adam became obsessed with collecting Panini stickers of all the competing teams. He engaged Lyra in his pursuit, and I eventually got drawn in as well, helping him maintain his own/swap/need lists for the Facebook trading group, posting envelopes, and feeling a worrying sense of satisfaction when we finally received a Ben Halloran sticker in the post from a man in Monmouth and completed the Australia team.
Our older daughter Nova was completely unmoved by the football fever gripping the rest of the house. Thinking about how to make the World Cup a whole family event, I came up with the idea of cooking something from each of the 32 competing nations over the course of competition.
In the group stage, we will try to eat a country’s food on the day they are competing. I’ve made some predictions about which teams are likely to advance, but no doubt we’ll end up eating some meals dedicated to teams after they’ve gone out.
We’ll be scoring the dishes as we eat, to award our own World Cup winner for 2014…
Refried beans are very easy to make, and taste so much better than the tinned ones you can buy. Continue reading
This recipe evolved through my attempts to recreate the salsa served at the Topanga Cafe in Vancouver. Continue reading
This is very tasty and dead easy – one of those dishes that are almost too simple to be called a recipe. Continue reading
If there’s one recipe that stands out as a clear family favourite, it would definitely be chickpea pasta soup. I’ve been making this soup for years, and we haven’t tired of it yet. It’s easy to make, smells wonderful while it simmers, is delicious to eat, and tastes even better the following day.
It’s a great dinner to follow a big Sunday lunch, but filling enough to be the main event as well. It’s vegetarian, and popular with most kids I feed it to (aside from the odd garlic hater). I clipped the original recipe from the newspaper a good ten years ago, but it’s evolved into our own version. Continue reading
Ten More Bites 