A salad to make your tastebuds, and eyes, sing

Posted on January 16, 2012 by Louise

The frost is here, the snow about to arrive and although I love that blue-sky-white-ground contrast I’m starting to crave bright colours and tastes. I’m also in need of some winter salad inspiration. My defaults are red cabbage, apple and Gorgonzola and roast squash with goat’s cheese and thyme. But I’ve rather overdone it on the cheese lately so I want something completely different. Browsing through the new Riverford book I came across a recipe for Middle Eastern coleslaw: a mix of red and white cabbage, red onion, carrots, coriander leaves, sultanas and pomegranate seeds dressed with orange juice, olive oil and sumac. I have now tried two adapted versions of it: one, with the very few ingredients I had available: chopped red cabbage, grated carrots and raisins with the dressing and this, the second, closer-to-the-original version with the added coriander, pine nuts and pomegranate seeds. Both were delicious, very simple and just full of very-much-needed colour and taste. Make this for lunch instead of that flat sandwich; it will lift your spirits a lot further. Continue reading →

Posted in Everyday and Sunday, Salad recipes, Vegetarian recipes, Winter vegetables | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

Dorie Greenspan’s Vietnamese chicken soup

Posted on January 13, 2012 by Louise

Fed up with all that heavy food? Yes, me too a bit. Probably that second, or was it third?, slice of blue cheese tart that did it. This gorgeous Vietnamese soup is the perfect antidote to all of that buttery, floury heaviness and just right for refreshing the palate and brain after a few weeks of stodge. I have made Thai soup lots and lots of times and, although the basic ingredients aren’t that different, I have to say I prefer this. It might have something to do with the star anise and white pepper, which are always included in every Vietnamese recipe I have tried and though the latter isn’t my favourite ingredient, the former is becoming one. My best friend told me that she put a couple of anise in the beef mince she was cooking for her shepherd’s pie, post reading about it in Heston Blumenthal’s new book. I tried it cold and the anise added warmth to the flavour, if that makes sense. It does something wonderful to this soup too. Continue reading →

Posted in Around My French Table, Dorie Greenspan, Soup recipes, Wheat-free | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Lovely, simple blue cheese tart

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Louise

One of the banes of living alone, or of cooking for one or two, is leftovers. Most of the time a recipe for four or six can be scaled down to two or three but, when it comes to baking, whether savoury or sweet, it pays to make something you really love because you’re going to be eating it for a couple of days. Did someone say ‘freeze it’? Yes, but I find that once something has been in my titch of an ice box I lose the will to eat it; food that goes in never comes out alive. When was the last time you thought ‘ooh can’t wait to eat that defrosted soup/steak/muffin’? Frankly, I’d rather cook a new one. Freezers in my world are for ingredients (stock, lime leaves, chillies, butter) not finished dishes. So it’s always a joy to find something, like this tart, that bears repeat eating.
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Posted in Cheese recipes, Egg recipes, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Recipes from magazines and newspapers, Vegetarian recipes | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Improving sausages and mash

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Louise

Sometimes, in fact a lot of the time in my case, all we want when we get home is something familiar, something that requires very little thought and yet is immensely pleasing. For me, in the winter, that often means sausages and mash with some onion gravy. It’s a few-step wonder: put sausages in frying pan sans fat, cook quickly on all sides to colour then more slowly to braise and remove all traces of pink. Peel and chop potatoes, boil and mash. Peel and chop onions, add to cooked sausages with some stock or wine and a spoonful of grainy mustard. Let simmer until gravy has thickened. Serve on top of the mash. However, although I can almost cook this with my eyes shut I am always, as with any form of cooking, looking for ways to improve on it, ways to make it both easier and more interesting. Continue reading →

Posted in Appetite, Nigel Slater | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Curried parsnip soup…no, come back, it’s really delicious and healthy!

Posted on January 6, 2012 by Louise

This soup could have been designed for January detoxes. Wheat- and dairy-free (well, if you use olive oil for the sautéeing), it is still comfortingly thick and warming without being loaded with fat and potatoes. Yes, the parsnips are starchy but the apple and spices lighten them and you don’t need to eat much of it to feel full. I would never have thought of putting spices with parsnip but they work well together and once I’d made Delia’s version I spotted very similar recipes in Canteen‘s cookbook and in one of Sarah Raven’s so it’s in good company. You may find that it’s a bit too thick for you after blending so thin it down to your liking bearing in mind that the grated apple will lighten it too. A rare example of something being both hearty and healthy.

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Posted in Delia Smith's Winter Collection, Soup recipes, Vegetarian recipes, Winter vegetables | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Baked not stirred: risotto the easy way

Posted on January 5, 2012 by Louise

It’s post-Christmas leftover central in my fridge right now: there’s blue cheese and Cheddar, too many carrots and parsnips for one person to eat, result of a rather ill-fated decision to succumb to red ‘reduced’ stickers and three half-opened pots of cream. So although I am in the mood for a stew, or a casserole, I am being good and sticking to my ‘use everything up first’ mantra. Which means that even if I am eating something relatively unhealthy, like this risotto, I can still feel the virtuous glow of thrift. Continue reading →

Posted in Cheese recipes, Delicious magazine, rice recipes, Vegetarian recipes | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Back to school baked Vacherin recipe

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Louise

Back to school…could they be the three most hated words in the English language? And why is it that, more than twenty-five years after my last BTS experience, the return to work in January still resonates with the impending horror I felt at 16? It must be something to do with cold buildings, damp clothes and the thought of exercising in the depths of winter, all of which, alas, I still experience, and dislike, two decades later.

This then, despite what everybody else is saying and doing, is a time for comfort and treats, not a time for excising all such pleasure from our diets by giving up alcohol, wheat, dairy, chocolate, sugar…or whatever else is currently perceived as ‘bad for you’. However, since the one thing I am willing to give up after the flaying I gave my credit card in December is spending, I am devoting my January blogs to warm, cheapish cosy food, the sort of food you won’t mind staying in with, the sort of food, for example, that the Swiss and the French always serve you in mountain chalets after a hard, cold day’s skiing, snowshoeing or snowboarding. What I really want, in fact, is raclette but since raclette is really just a French way of saying melted cheese and the necessary grill is not often found in kitchens north of the Channel, an oven-baked cheese, such as the delectable Vacherin Mont d’Or sort is a perfect substitute. Vacherin is only around till April so it’s worth making the most of it but if you can’t get it, or it seems too expensive, Camembert, as Mr Nigel Slater points out in Real Food, is a perfect substitute. Continue reading →

Posted in Cheese recipes, Fast food fixes, One pot, Wheat-free | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

…and my blogging year ends

Posted on December 24, 2011 by Louise

Last year I discovered the secret to true relaxation, at least these days. I was spending Christmas in the States and not only could I not use my iPhone, not without incurring huge charges anyway, but I also decided to stay off my computer. I kept away from my emails, Facebook, the newspapers online and all of my usual time-wasting activities on the internet. It was easily the most relaxing week I have had in years and, although I am at home this year and completely within reach of all things virtual, I have decided to repeat the experience and switch off again. So this will be my last post of 2011, my 146th to be precise, but I will be back early in the Olympic year of 2012 with lots of bright ideas for getting through the grimness of January. I wish you all the best for Christmas and the New Year and look forward to cooking for you, and being read by you, again in 2012.

Posted in Just to let you know | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Christmas begins…

Posted on December 23, 2011 by Louise

Today has been a day devoted to food. I am spending Christmas with friends, so I thought I’d better make some contributions. First I soaked fruit for the second Dundee cake of the week (Delia’s), made mince pies (Delia’s mincemeat; Dan Lepard’s sweet shortcrust pastry) then croquants (Dorie Greenspan) to use up the egg whites left over from the pastry. This was followed by my first ever attempts at a) gravadlax (Simon Hopkinson’s), b) an Alsatian kugelhopf (back of a French postcard; I fear this is not going to be a success) and c) malted vinegar rye bread (Dan Lepard again) to eat with the gravadlax. I cooked from 3pm to 8.30 when I realised that I had run out of yeast for the malted rye bread and went in search of it.

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Posted in Web inspiration | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Rib-sticking, warming and filling leek, potato and bacon bake

Posted on December 20, 2011 by Louise

The oven is your friend I wrote yesterday, even when the washing machine is not. This time last year my roof terrace was being ripped up and replaced to stop it leaking into my neighbours’ kitchen (it started the day, yep the very day, that they brought their first baby home from hospital). Now my washing machine has decided to take a turn, marking (thankfully rather lightly) their living room ceiling; why now I ask myself, why four days before Christmas? Oh how I long to live in a house, where I can only flood myself and nobody else. Continue reading →

Posted in Potato recipes, Seasonal store cupboards, Winter vegetables | Tagged , , | Leave a comment