I turned the too-soft butter beans from the other night’s dinner into this impromptu dip. You could easily make it with a tin of butter beans instead. Definitely one to make again – it will be a nice change from the girls’ regular lunch of hummus-olive-pitta sandwiches. Continue reading
Once I’d decided to make nachos, knocking up a batch of margaritas was a no-brainer. For the first round, I followed the family recipe in Fern’s Food – 3 parts tequila, 2 parts Triple Sec, and 1 part Roses lime cordial. Drinkable, but too sweet for my palate – and didn’t quite tick the margarita box either.
For the second round, I went 2:1 tequila to Triple Sec and replaced the lime cordial with freshly squeezed lime juice… and it was just right. Salud! Continue reading
I was going to steam some mange tout to accompany the salmon phyllo parcels, but decided to shred them into an Asian-style slaw instead. I just go with whatever vegetables I have on hand – cabbage, carrots, peppers, bean sprouts, celery, and daikon radish are all options.
I usually add grated ginger to the dressing as well, but I thought the fish had that base covered. Continue reading
At the supermarket yesterday, I saw a pack of twenty cherries on sale for £3.99. That’s 20p a cherry! Growing up in British Columbia, we ate delicious Okanagan produce all summer long – especially Bing cherries, peaches and tomatoes. My grandmother’s cherry tree produced so much fruit she could scarcely keep up with it, and she dried bucketfuls of cherries each year.
Stopped at the Iranian grocers on the way home and picked up two kilos of cherries for £7 – a much more reasonable price. We scoffed half of them straightaway, after which I made this cherry sorbet. The recipe comes from David Liebowitz’s cookbook, The Perfect Scoop. Continue reading
When I went to make Lyra’s packed lunch for her multisport club this morning, I found we were out of bread. Not even a freezer-burnt pitta or bagel that I could call into service… Instead of getting dressed and walking to the corner shop, I decided to bake something.
This basic white loaf is dead easy to make. It uses instant yeast, has a single rise in the pan while the oven preheats, and bakes in about half an hour. From a 7am start, I was able to pack her off with her sandwiches at ten to nine. Continue reading
Of the three or four potato salads I make regularly, this pared-back French version is my favourite. With only five ingredients, quality matters – small salad potatoes, a grassy olive oil, fresh herbs, and tarragon vinegar (though a nice white wine vinegar works too). The original recipe comes from Nigel Slater’s Real Food. Continue reading
Martini, mɑːˈtiːni/, noun. A cocktail made from gin (or vodka) and dry vermouth, typically garnished with an olive or a twist of lemon. (Oxford Online Dictionary)
So strictly speaking, this isn’t a martini at all, but a frosty glass of vodka-spiced fruit pulp. It is also delicious, and just the thing to mark the start of the school holidays. (For me, that is – Lyra had a J2O…) Continue reading
It always makes me happy to find a culinary use for things – like strawberry tops – that would otherwise be wasted. And when you read that more than 500 British children a week are admitted to hospital to have teeth extracted as a result of too many sugary drinks and fruit juices, it makes me even happier that my girls seem satisfied to drink this strawberry water. I wouldn’t call it a recipe – I’m pretty sure I just saw a picture of this on Pinterest and worked things out from there… Continue reading
And with this caipirinha recipe, we bring 2014’s World Cup food project to an end. The whole family has enjoyed the variety it has introduced to our family meals – without it, we may never have shared a communal bowl of pounded yam for our lunch, or discovered the amazing deliciousness of those peanut-coated Nigerian suya or Colombian barras de limón.
That’s why we’ve decided that we are going to continue trying new recipes from around the world. Not at the same pace as the last month – more like once or twice a week. I’ll post them here for anyone that’s interested, and maybe by the time World Cup 2018 rolls around, we’ll have eaten something from every country that has competed in the qualifying rounds… Continue reading
I served this cabbage salad along with the panqueqas de carne for our Brazilian World Cup dinner – something fresh and healthy to balance out all that meat and cheese. I found the recipe on the Two Little Chefs website. Continue reading
I was surprised to notice that the recipe I’d found for chismol didn’t contain any chilli. But when I looked at a few others they had little or none, so I stuck with the version on the This is Honduras website. Nova loved this salsa, and polished off the leftovers with a spoon after we’d finished the baleadas. Continue reading
This puréed beetroot salad is another recipe from Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian cookbook that I’ve been making for years. We eat it with blini, and with oatcakes as an appetizer before our Burns Night haggis. Continue reading
For our Portuguese World Cup meal, we had caldo verde. I served it with some Ponte Nova cheese, chourico (Portuguese chorizo), Portuguese bread and pastéis de nata for dessert. Continue reading
These are very easy to make — Lyra often does them by herself once I assemble the elements for her. Continue reading
I sometimes knock together a super quick bowl of miso soup by boiling water in the kettle, pouring it into a cup with a teaspoon of miso paste, then adding some chopped tofu and green onion. But it’s still easy – and tastes a lot better – when I take the time to measure the ingredients. I use a recipe in At Home With Japanese Cooking by Elizabeth Andoh. Continue reading
Expecting better things of Spain, I put them on day 22 of our World Cup menu plan. This recipe takes about three minutes to make –– about as long as it took Spain to crash out of the World Cup…;-)
Nova has never liked gazpacho much, which dragged the family score down considerably. Continue reading
Gallo pinto is the national dish of Costa Rica, making it the right choice for their World Cup dish. I was originally going to serve it for lunch with a fried egg on top, but we were all feeling a bit egged out. The fried plantains were a good way to go as well. My gallo pinto looks more brown and mushy than the pics I’ve seen. I think this was because I used freshly cooked rice, which was still soft and absorbent, instead of leftover cooked rice. I followed the recipe I found on The Hot Plate website for this meal. Continue reading
Fifteen years ago, I tried making the drink from pineapple skins in Delia’s Summer Cooking, and it was horrible. This time I followed the instructions on Laylita’s Recipes, and it came out much better. It has a subtle pineapply flavour, and is excellent with a shot of rum. 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 recipe evolved through my attempts to recreate the salsa served at the Topanga Cafe in Vancouver. 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 