I’m not a fan of bread and butter pudding, though I’ve warmed to it somewhat over the years. (As a child, I considered it a personal insult when mum served it for dessert.)
And I’ve never seen the point of panettone – that overrated, inevitably stale and dry-as-dust, identity crisis of a cake-bread, whose packaging is the best thing going for it.
But bring the two together in the form of panettone pudding, and it really is a case of two wrongs making a right… Continue reading
With its bright, contrasting colours, and pomegranate seeds twinkling like little gems, winter slaw is a pretty salad.
I can find pomegranate seeds annoying. The amount of fibrous pit you grind through to release the juicy flesh detracts from my eating enjoyment.
But those pits are of no consequence in this crunchy riot of texture and flavour. Continue reading
These little roasted tofu cubes are dead simple to make.
The girls snack on them warm from the oven, they keep well in the fridge, and are a great addition to stir fries, Asian noodle soups, and salads. Continue reading
Mushroom risotto is excellent, warming winter fare. It’s dead easy to make too, aside from all the stirring…
This celeriac and dill soup has a wonderful nutty taste and velvety texture.
I usually stir through a splash of cream at the end, which gives it an added richness, but it’s perfectly nice without it.
Continue reading
Much of the pleasure of this salad is in the contrast of textures — chewy bulghur wheat, crispy beans, juicy beets.
Adding a hard-boiled egg makes it more of a meal…
Every Christmas, my sister-in-law made these salted almonds.
Even as a child, I didn’t have much of a sweet tooth, and I looked forward to salted almonds at least as much as the cherry slice, Nanaimo bars and shortbread. (Though maybe not the butterscotch fudge…) Continue reading
Unlike Halloween Thanksgiving still isn’t a thing in the UK. I still like to observe it, and each year we have a Thanksgiving meal with the same family friends.
I’m Canadian and they have American roots, so we diplomatically set a date between the start of October and end of November. We take turns hosting, and the travelling family brings the pies.
Tinned pumpkin still isn’t readily available in the UK, and on several occasions I’ve made my own purée from squash or sweet potato before baking the pumpkin pie.
Now that the Internet era upon us, I can order pumpkin purée online. This year I picked up an extra tin so I could make pumpkin bread. Continue reading
Chickpeas are swapped for black beans (and sesame for pumpkin seeds) in this delicious Mexican take on hummus.
Until last year, we had a corner-store/deli where I’d occasionally treat myself to a Jamaican patty for lunch.
Since it closed, I’ve been going without my patty fix, until it occurred to me that I could make my own.
Delicious warm or cold, Jamaican patties are great in a packed lunch or as an after-school snack. Having experimented with different fillings, curried beef and squash & corn are the clear family favourites. Continue reading
The idea for these delicious little tomato-vodka flavour bombs comes from from the Epicurious website, (via my godmother).
The original marinade involves sugar and vinegar (and is lovely). But as soon as I tried one, my thoughts turned to Bloody Marys. Continue reading
Sacristains are made by spreading a sheet of pastry with something tasty, slicing it into strips, then twisting each strip before baking. I usually make them when I have puff pastry to use up.
Sacristains can be savoury or sweet. These are made with tapenade, but I’ve made sacristains with pesto, mustard and grated cheese, sundried tomato paste, Nutella, cinnamon sugar… Continue reading
Red-red is a traditional Ghanaian bean stew that gets its name (and colour) from the tomatoes and palm oil used to prepare it.
The first red-red recipe I tried called for three types of chilli – fresh Scotch bonnet, chilli flakes, and chilli powder (plus additional minced chilli to garnish).
Despite cutting back significantly on the quantity of chilli (and omitting the chilli powder altogether), it was so blisteringly hot the girls were unable to eat it. Continue reading
I’d want to make this Armenian bulghur wheat salad for the name alone…
While itch is similar to kisir, using tomato sauce to hydrate the bulghur wheat places itch more in the realm of side dish than salad. Continue reading
For all its simplicity, spaghetti aglio e olio is easy to mess up.
It’s really important not to overcook the garlic – no more than the faintest shade of gold, or it will taste bitter.
It’s also important to measure the salt. Too little, and the dish is insipid – too much and it’s ruined. Continue reading
Georgia is a country I would love to visit. A friend traveled there a few years ago, and came back raving about the scenery, the people, and the food and wine.
Until I get the opportunity to visit Georgia myself, my taste buds will have to do the traveling.
There’s a good local Georgian restaurant we visit occasionally in the winter months for their rib-sticking fare like hachapuri (cheese-filled flat bread), hearty soups and casseroles.
(I haven’t tried a Georgian dessert – we’re always too full to consider even sharing one.) Continue reading
I’ve seen recipes for meringue roulades over the years, but assumed they were well beyond my baking abilities. My efforts to produce a passable Swiss roll were hardly confidence building.
But finding myself with a quantity of egg whites that needed using, I decided to give it a go.
Hummus is a staple food in our house – I whizz up a batch nearly every week. While we never get bored of hummus, adding a roasted beet to the mix now and then makes a change.
I prefer to cook beets by wrapping them individually in tin foil and roasting in a hot oven until tender. Boiled or grated raw beet work fine too. Continue reading
I’ve been making gypsy soup for many years. I have no idea why the Moosewood cookbook calls it “gypsy soup”, or what it means by “a spiced and delectable brew of Spanish and Dickensonian origins”.
Is it a reference to Linda Dickinson, one of the thirty-odd “Moosewood people” credited at the front? Or a mis-spelling of “Dickensian”? (Though what this soup has to do with Victorian England, social commentary, or sentimentality is anyone’s guess.)
Perhaps it refers to the length of the ingredients list?
The girls head back to school this week. As well as uniform shopping, label sewing, and form filling, it also means stocking fridge and pantry with packed-lunch-friendly food.
First up in the biscuit box this autumn… fruity bites.
Healthy (if you overlook the condensed milk), nut-free (coconut is permitted in our school’s “nut-free” zone), and durable enough to withstand a bit of lunch box rough and tumble, fruity bites fit the bill.
I first learned of the existence of Waldorf salad from Fawlty Towers. Like Basil, I had no idea what it was:
Customer: “Could you make me a Waldorf salad?”
Basil: “Waldorf salad. I think we’re just out of Waldorfs.”
But by the end of the episode – unlike Basil – I was pretty clear on how to make one:
Customer: “No! No cheese! It’s celery, apples, walnuts, grapes!”
Basil: “Right!”
Customer: “In mayonnaise!”
Basil: “Right!”
Mujaddara is filling, tasty and cheap as chips.
It was staple fare in my student years – along with mushroom barley soup (that stuff lasts forever), ratatouille, and the enticingly-named “lentil shit”.
I’d make a big pot of mujaddara one meal, then reheat portions in a frying pan with a splash of water (no microwaves in those days…) Continue reading
The blackberries are ripening early this year. I gathered two big bowlfuls this morning, plenty for a delicious blackberry-apple kuchen.
Potatoes and eggs are a winning combination, whether in potato salad, breakfast burritos, Spanish tortilla, or that British classic, egg & chips.
This potato and egg curry is further proof of concept.
Curtido is as far as it is possible to get from that innocuous, gloopy, overly sweet coleslaw that turns up uninvited on far too many restaurant plates.
There’s not a lick of mayonnaise for one thing. For another, this simple-looking cabbage and carrot salad really packs a punch. With only five ingredients, there’s little to soften the impact of that chilli powder. Continue reading
“When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.”
And when life takes away the cucumber you need to make Greek salad, make tomato, feta and olive galette?”
Not as catchy, but the principle is the same. Plus, it’s how this recipe came about…;-) Continue reading
Zaru soba – or cold soba noodles with dipping sauce – is one of my favourite hot weather lunches. During the summer, I often make a batch of dipping sauce in advance and have it chilled and ready in the fridge.
I prefer to cook the noodles fresh each time I want to eat them – but as long as you rinse them very well after cooking, they should be fine in the fridge for a day or two. Continue reading
Food dislikes are often arbitrary. Like many children, I held both spinach and feta cheese in low regard. But folded into a crackling jacket of phyllo pastry as spanakopita? I was all over those puppies. Continue reading
This is the potato salad I grew up eating. A sunshine-yellow mixture of potatoes and hard-boiled eggs, tangy with mustard and thick enough to spackle a wall.
The kind of potato salad that was served with a scoop and landed with a thud, compromising your precariously loaded paper plate. The potato salad of every barbeque, picnic and potluck dinner I ever attended. Continue reading
What I knew as fruit pizza growing up I recognise to be a pretty standard fruit tart.
Maybe it’s because the biscuit base was cooked in a pizza pan? The sweetened cream cheese we spread on top? Or the thinly sliced toppings (kiwi, grapes and berries rather than pepperoni, mushrooms and olives)?
We were relatively late to the Nutribullet party. But once I submitted to pester power and bought one, and we made up for lost time.
Nothing was safe from being blitzed into a drinkable state. Fresh and frozen fruit and vegetables, nuts, seeds, juice, avocados, oatmeal, ginger, yogurt, herbs, cold coffee, chickpeas, rice… they’ve all been taken for a spin.
Some combinations were a success; others left us gasping at their horribleness.
Eventually, I hit on a smoothie combination that works for me – spinach-pear-lime smoothie has become my go-to smoothie. I have it at least twice a week, and I haven’t tired of it yet…
This salad is a happy marriage of textures and flavours. Both the cauliflower and chickpeas are transformed by their time in the oven – the cauliflower becomes nutty in flavour, and the chickpeas acquire a wonderful crunch.
Then the yogurt-tahini dressing arrives to bless the union – and two distinctive, individual ingredients unite in salad harmony…;-) Continue reading
As a university student, spent a couple of summers working with a treeplanting crew in northern BC. Back-breaking piecework (we were paid 10 cents a tree), it involved dragging panniers of trees up a recently logged slope, stopping every couple of metres to stick a seedling in the ground.
Up before 6am after a lousy night’s sleep in a freezing tent, a bone-jarring ride in the back of a crummy, ten hours relentless physical labour, another tooth-rattling ride, a shower if you were lucky, dinner, and bed.
Ten – maybe fourteen days straight – before we got a day off to visit the nearest town. Lots of people didn’t last a week… Continue reading
I’ll often throw together a quick cabbage salad to serve with a sandwich or jacket potato. When I have fresh dill on hand, this cabbage dill slaw is one of my favourites.
Cabbage and dill always play together nicely. And the mustard-honey dressing is a change from the sharp vinaigrettes and sweet, watery mayonnaises that spoil cabbage salad for some people.
I haven’t made kolokithopita in years. This satisfying combination of courgettes, feta cheese and phyllo pastry was a regular summer visitor when I used to grow courgettes – along with pasta alle zucchini and chocolate chip zucchini bread.
Last week my younger daughter announced that she was going vegetarian for a month. I’m very happy to support her with this ambition – we eat plenty of vegetarian meals already, and when I do cook meat it is seldom the main event, so it hasn’t made much difference to what I serve her for dinner. Continue reading
This salad of cucumber and red chilli tossed in a zingy-sweet dressing takes minutes to prepare.
I like to give it a little time in the fridge – half an hour is enough – for the cucumber to get cool and crisp, and the chilli heat to work its way into the dressing. Continue reading
Sometimes it’s hard to know where muffin leaves off and cupcake begins…
Is it the method – a brief stir with a wooden spoon, instead of using a food mixer? The nod towards “healthiness” – wholewheat flour, oil instead of butter, fruit instead of chocolate chips, going au naturel instead of sporting icing?
These carrot cake-muffins don’t do much to resolve the issue. Muffin by method and ingredients, the end result is so delicious it feels disingenuous to consider them a breakfast food.
And that’s before you add a generous spreading of the optional cream cheese icing..;-)
Moros y Cristianos is a Cuban dish of black beans (Moors) and white rice (Christians).
In some versions, the rice and beans are cooked together – resulting in visually unappealing (though tasty) gray rice. I prefer to keep the rice and beans separate until the last moment to maintain the contrast of colours.
I reheat leftover rice and beans separately while I cook the onion and peppers, then stir it all together just before serving. Dressed with a splash of vinegar or lime juice, and a dash of hot sauce it makes a very satisfying lunch. Continue reading
Simple enough to have on the table in fifteen minutes, fancy enough to serve to guests – spaghetti al limone is a great recipe to have up your sleeve.
Like most dishes with few ingredients, quality makes a difference here – use the good olive oil, and a nice piece of Parmesan.
Having made spaghetti al limone regularly for twenty years now, my version has evolved somewhat from the original River Café recipe, and uses considerably less olive oil and cheese.
Hot cross buns – once an Easter-time treat – are available in the shops all year round.
I suppose it’s old-fashioned of me, but I prefer foods keep to their allotted place in the culinary calendar. Something special to enjoy at a particular time of the year – I don’t want mince pies in May, or hot cross buns in August.
The supermarket was selling four hot cross buns for less than a pound this week, so why go to the trouble of making them at home?
Ten More Bites 