Fake soufflé was one of mum’s dinner party staples in the 1970s, but I remember she found the name embarrassing.
As if she was cheating her guests by not providing a “real” soufflé instead of this light, fluffy, delicious concoction.
I think fake soufflé could do with a rebrand. Continue reading
A zapiekanka is Poland’s answer to cheese on toast. Sautéed mushrooms are heaped onto a split baguette, covered with grated cheese and browned under a grill.
Zapiekanka is an excellent contender to represent Poland in our 2018 World Cup cook-off. Tasty (points all round), cheesy (ditto) and easy (extra points from me).
I even tracked down some Polish ketchup for authenticity. Its spicy sharpness was well received, and definitely worked in Poland’s favour.
The only thing dividing the judges was my younger daughter’s dislike of mushrooms.
Whenever I eat a tuna melt it takes me back to my childhood in northern BC.
One of my first friends had parents who belonged to the Royal Order of Elks. My parents weren’t remotely interested in joining clubs, but it looked pretty good to my young eyes.
Her parents got to march in the parade in bright purple jackets. And there were social events, like the summer barbeque or children’s Christmas party that I’d attend as her guest.
But what I liked best about the Elks was going to the lodge.
Kimchi and cheese probably seems an odd combination to most people.
Even today, I doubt the average Korean family eats much cheese, and kimchi is hardly a store cupboard staple in Britain (though it certainly is in this British home).
But in this global world, these two unlikely ingredients have met and fallen in love. Kimcheeze anyone? Sorry…
In an attempt to raise the tone, I quote the famous gastronome Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin:
The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of the human race than the discovery of a star.
I can still remember the first time I tasted cheese saganaki (pan-seared Greek cheese). Having finished university, my then boyfriend and I were spending the summer travelling round Europe before moving from Vancouver to Toronto so he could start a law degree.
Woefully misled by a guidebook called something like Europe on $10 a Day, we’d spent a lot of nights sleeping rough or on overnight trains, and buying cheap food in markets and bakeries to make our money go further. Greece was the first country we could actually afford to eat out.
In many years as a vegetarian, I’d never encountered a nut roast before moving to the UK. The veggie food I cooked was Asian in influence, and – bean burgers aside – dishes that deliberately replicated meat were unknown to me.
British vegetarian food in the mid 90s seemed all about producing veggie versions of sausages, meat pies and roast dinners. And in this pre-Quorn era, the nut roast reigned supreme. Continue reading
Mattar paneer is one of my favourite curries to make at home. It’s just never as fresh when you order it in a restaurant. The peas will have gone a bit grey and sad looking, and the paneer will be rubbery.
More often than not, they will have added cream as well, which seems unnecessary in a curry that contains cheese.
Healthy without being worthy, quick to throw together, spinach salad makes a great supper on a warm evening.
For a veggie version, omit the bacon or replace it with thinly sliced cauliflower florets. Continue reading
Still working my way through the dregs of the Christmas cheese, I decided to make these comté and rosemary crackers. (Why I thought we’d eat our body weight in cheese over the holidays, I now have no idea. Perhaps all those cocktails I was imbibing clouded my judgement…)
The crackers went down a storm with the girls, who had been a bit sniffy about the Comté, despite my efforts to pass it off as “French cheddar”. According to Lyra, they are “even better than Goldfish crackers”, which is high praise indeed coming from her.
It’s mid-January and I’m still incorporating Christmas leftovers into our meals…
When I discovered a forgotten wedge of Stilton at the back of the fridge, it inspired me to make this potato, leek and Stilton soup. While I’ve never really warmed (ha!) to vichyssoise, a bowl of this soup is my idea of a perfect winter meal.
Continue reading
While traditional enchiladas are rolled, in New Mexico they do things differently. Lightly fried corn tortillas are spread with sauce and cheese and stacked together, and often served topped with a fried egg.
This is my take on stacked enchiladas. I don’t bother frying the tortillas, opting to bake the assembled stacks in the oven instead. While they are very nice with just the traditional sauce and cheese, I often add toppings to each layer – mushrooms and olives, usually – to give the dish more substance. It’s important to slice toppings thinly so they cook quickly and the stack melds together in the oven. Continue reading
Tucked into the corner of my birthday veggie bag was something heavy, oval-shaped, and pale yellow. I lifted it out and laughed in happy disbelief – a spaghetti squash!
I adore spaghetti squash, and cooked with it all the time when I lived in Vancouver. But since moving to the UK, I’ve had it exactly once. When I arrived almost twenty years ago, it was very difficult to get any type of squash in the supermarkets. Over time butternut, acorn and kabocha squash have found a regular place in the produce section. but there have been less sightings of spaghetti squash than the Beast of Bodmin Moor. Continue reading
Mum made two kinds of grilled cheese sandwich for lunch. The first was a crappy, open-face sandwich that involved slapping a plasticky cheese slice on a slice of bread and melting it under the broiler. This was always adorned with a little ketchup smiley face.
The second kind involved two slices of buttered bread and real cheddar, and was cooked slowly in the electric frying pan until it transformed into crispy-melty-cheesy deliciousness. To my disappointment, we ate a lot more of the first kind… Continue reading
Done well, nachos are a wonderful thing. And when it’s so easy to do them well, it’s frustrating how often they are a disappointment.
Here are some tips, based on my experience of making nachos at home:
To my mind, the egg McMuffin is the best thing McDonalds has to offer. Even so, I’d far rather make one at home with a crispy fried egg, vintage cheddar, good quality ham and some chopped green onion. Now that I think of it, I’m not even sure that the girls have ever eaten a “real” one… Continue reading
Made these cheese and onion empanadas for our Ecuadorian World Cup meal. I was skeptical about the idea of sprinkling something savory with sugar, but it works. The recipe comes from Laylita’s Recipes, and goes into great detail about the different types of empanada dough. Continue reading
This Uruguayan sandwich is a monster. I looked at a few recipes for chivitos, eventually making it with less than half the meat called for. It still defeated everyone but Adam. This website goes into a lot of detail about how to assemble a chivito. 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
Ten More Bites 