Recent eats: a vegetarian week

We've always been keen meal planners but lockdown has made us...well, bordering on the obsessive. We both pore over the spreadsheet which meticulously lists out what we will be eating for weeks in advance. We have a colour coding system. We have multiple tabs - for the current meal plan, the future meal plan, the archive meal plan, the freezer inventory and the shopping list - it's becoming ridiculous. But perhaps all of us have sought order and structure in strange places through this strangest of years. And budget wise, it really is astounding what a difference it makes.

Anyway, this is not a post in praise of meal planning per se, but it is a record of the week just gone which we decreed "Veggie week". Because sometimes, to shake things up a bit, a themed week is just the ticket.

We've done veggie weeks before, and always end up eating incredibly well although I do find that I have to try and avoid my natural compulsion to cover everything in cheese! 

Saturday - shallot Tarte Tatin. I came across this while browsing through an old blog that I used to follow, but the recipe is originally Gordon Ramsay's. I tweaked it ever so slightly by adding the tomatoes and goats' cheese to the top (or bottom) of the shallot layer before covering with pastry. I didn't quite understand the point of just dumping them on top at the end. 

It was something of a labour of love this, but I made things more difficult for myself by making my own rough puff pastry - using shop bought would have been more straightforward. Regardless, it was a delicious and beautiful thing and well worth the effort. Equally good warm from the oven and cold for lunch the next day. 

Sunday - shepherdess pie. I was so proud of this one! The lentil mix which formed the base was actually entirely vegan but still had a fantastic richness to it. To make: blitz or very finely chop one onion, two sticks of celery and four chestnut mushrooms. Put into the slow cooker alongside a small handful of soaked porcini mushrooms (along with the soaking liquid), four roughly chopped sundried tomatoes in oil, an undrained can of kidney beans, 80g of Puy lentils, a bay leaf and a decent sprig of rosemary. Then, whisk together 1.5 tablespoons of brown miso, a tablespoon of tomato ketchup and 240ml of boiling water, and pour over the pulse mix. Season, and cook on low for six and a half hours. 

At this point, if you choose to smother it with buttery, cheesy mashed potato and bake in the oven...obviously it was cease to be vegan. But it will be very tasty nonetheless (and am sure a non dairy mash would be almost as good).

Monday - refried bean and avocado quesadillas. I bloody love refried beans! I am also slightly obsessed with the TikTok quadrant wrap technique being someone who loves wraps but is incapable of eating one without tipping half the contents down her front. I do not have TikTok (I am not really sure what it is) but an explanation of the wrap "hack" can be found here, and it is very clever. And I can tell you that if your quadrants contain beans, cheese and avocado you will produce a delicious and very filling meal. 

Wednesday - ooh, now this was nice although written down it will sound a bit random and, indeed, the main point of it was to use up some bits and pieces that had been hanging around for a while. So, we had Gochujang noodles (using the dressing found in this recipe), kale stir fried with tahini, chilli and soy and boiled eggs. I ate the leftovers cold for lunch and found them to be even more delicious for a couple of days ruminating in the fridge. 

Friday - to finish the week, mushroom and halloumi "burgers". I have to put burgers in quotation marks because I object to the use of the word in this context and yet can't think of an alternative. Anyway, Portobella mushrooms were topped with a garlicky mushroom farce (just blitzed chestnut mushrooms and trimmings cooked down with garlic and a little thyme before being finished with a tablespoon of cream cheese to create a pate like texture) and baked before being served in buns with slices of fried halloumi and a caper mayonnaise garnish. Indulgent fare for Friday night, especially with a heap of homemade slaw on the side.

So, veggie week - done, with some very pleasing new recipes added to the repertoire. Even a committed carnivore like D had no cause for complaint - although he did proceed to cook pork chops for tea on Saturday...

Recipe corner: cheese and pepper chickpeas

Lots and lots of food writers are doing sterling work at the moment across all of social media, making loads of recipes and cook-alongs and tricks of the trade available to us mere mortals.  I have always been an avid Ottolenghi fan anyway (his book "Plenty" remains one of our most utilised) but he has had some fabulous stuff over on Instagram which he saves to his Stories. When he mentioned doing a sort of take on cacio e pepe, but with chickpeas, then I had to give it a go.

You will note that lockdown has not improved my food photography skills any.  Sigh.  Although I suspect it would be hard in any case to make a pile of gloopy beige chickpeas look attractive (not really selling it there, am I?)  Anyway, forget about the crappy picture, these chickpeas were DELICIOUS.  Look, so good it made me shout.  D was less enamoured and, of course, he is entitled to his opinion (he is WRONG.)  I suspect that the problem here was partly that I didn't quite get the sides right.  I served them with a tomato and chorizo couscous salad and flatbread which, while nice in their own right, weren't quite...there.  

Anyway.  My chickpeas needed less cooking and slightly more water than Ottolenghi's so I've included my timings and quantities on the below write up - a lot is going to depend on the peas themselves, the soaking, your oven...you just need to cook them until they are nice and soft and most (but not all) of the liquid has been absorbed so that you're left with a very slightly soupy texture that will thicken up into a silken, clinging sauce once the butter and cheese has been added.

Cacio e pepe should really just be about cheese and pepper so don't be afraid to be bold with the latter.  Since Ottolenghi himself supported the initial addition of garlic, I'm going to go one step further and chuck a couple of aromatics in at the cooking stage, but you could quite happily omit these.  Oh, he also originally suggested a couple of pickled chillies as a garnish.  I didn't bother as I had a bit of heat coming through from the couscous, but I think that they would be a lovely addition.

Ingredients

150g dried chickpeas, soaked overnight

Tbsp olive oil

4 cloves of garlic, crushed

Couple of Parmesan rinds

2 bay leaves

Sprig of thyme

750ml water

Pinch of bicarbonate of soda

50g butter, fridge cold

25g Parmesan, finely grated

Heaped tsp black peppercorns, roughly crushed

Serves 2

Preheat the oven to 180 (160 fan).

Take a pan large enough to hold all the soaked chickpeas comfortably and that will go in the oven - some sort of casserole dish is ideal.  Over a low heat, warm the oil and then fry off the garlic for just a minute or so, until the raw edge has disappeared from the smell.

Drain the chickpeas and add to the pot, tossing well in the garlicky oil.  Then throw in the rinds, the bay and the thyme and cover with 750ml of water and a pinch of bicarbonate of soda.  Bring the lot to the boil and then cover and transfer to the oven.

My chickpeas were cooked perfectly after just an hour in the oven - the original recipe called for an hour and forty five minutes.  I would suggest checking after an hour.  Cook until the chickpeas are tender and the consistency is still slightly soupy.  

Remove from the oven and discard the Parmesan rinds and the herbs.

Add the butter and the Parmesan in 4 lots, stirring well each time to ensure that they have melted completely.  The residual heat in the dish should do this without the need to apply any further heat from the hob.  Then finish by stirring through the black pepper and a pinch of salt (if needed).

Serve.  With...something.

Meal Planning Monday: 3 February 2020

Last night, I discovered the beautiful thing that is aligot. If you haven’t come across this before, it’s basically a cross between mash and a cheese fondue. It is staggeringly rich and (if you happen to like mash and cheese) staggeringly wonderful. Although you do end up, at the end, wondering exactly how you will ever move off the sofa again.

What with that and a delicious but rich meal out on Friday night (to celebrate pay day) we decided a relatively light, veg heavy week was in order for meal planning purposes, although we’re sneaking some pork belly in on Sunday as we happen to have a couple of ready pressed pieces in the freezer that require attention. And roast potatoes.

Monday: spinach stewed eggs. This is from Rachel Khoo’s Swedish recipe book and I think it is available online - I would urge you to check it out because it is lovely. We’ve had it as a brunch dish but I think it will also make a very satisfying supper. Don’t be tempted to leave off the garnish of lightly pickled onion, chilli and dill which lifts the whole thing to another level.

Tuesday: pasta with rose harissa, black olives and capers. We often favour a simple pasta dish on a Tuesday, and this one from Ottolenghi sounds like an interesting fusion.

Wednesday: a (very) old WW Foodie recipe - gnocchi with butternut squash. We’ve eaten quite a few gnocchi dishes already this year and think both of us are really appreciating the wonderful stodgy, comforting qualities.

Thursday: another Ottolenghi dish: roast aubergine with saffron yoghurt. I’ll serve it with a couscous salad pretty similar to this one here.

Friday: fish on Friday - kedgeree in this case.

Saturday: definitely a curry night, and a chana dal is locked in, but not quite sure what else yet. Possibly a second curry, possible a vada pav (spicy potato cakes squished into a bun).

Sunday: roast pork belly with a couple of seasonal sides.

Hope everyone has a splendid week.

Meat, then seven veg

Greetings Earthlings! The year is disappearing so fast and it has been the quietest ever on my little blog so my end of year report is likely to say must do better. Sigh.

We are not (that) long back from Berlin and we had a wonderful time - there’s definitely a post in that. And WW have, apparently, changed their plan again and I sort of want to find out how and then do a post on THAT but then...I suspect the WW ship has long since sailed for me. Perhaps I need to rename the blog - any bright ideas? Cooking with Cats quite appeals; then I would have a legitimate reason to stick up pictures of my beloved Minx for no particular reason. But as a name it doesn’t make any sense. Why would someone be cooking with cats? Are the cats actually helping out in the kitchen or just looking on reproachfully and bemoaning the lack of attention? Is it possible that the name would be open to misinterpretation and people would assume that I was making dishes out of cats? I mean, the Internet has its Dark Corners and I would hate to attract someone who would make that kind of assumption but...

Anyway, the meat in the blog post title refers to the food we ate in Berlin. Which was fab - I loved it! But wow, not a cuisine for vegetarians. To make up for it, we have just planned out seven days of entirely vegetarian meals. At this time of year, some of the veggie dishes that I am drawn towards are certainly too full of cheese and butter to count as strictly health food but that isn’t really the point of the exercise. I adore vegetarian food (although, for me, vegan will always be a bit too far) but I want to eat food that isn’t trying to pretend it’s something that it’s not if you see what I mean? Dishes that are glorious in their own right. Here’s what we’re doing:

Monday: roast root veg and pearl barley soup

Tuesday: pasta alla Norma - a gorgeous dish which combines a rich tomato sauce with aubergine, roasted until it just starts to melt through with a smoky flourish

Wednesday: “Arabbiata” pizza - basically, cheese and tomato but the tomato element is spicy with chilli as garlic. I’ll be topping this with lightly wilted rocket

Thursday: Ottolenghi’s ultimate winter couscous. Well, there had to be an Ottolenghi dish on there. And this is one of our favourites. The recipe is here if you don’t have a copy of “Plenty” on your bookshelves

Friday: Vegetarian dirty rice (another Ottolenghi dish) with corn maque choux (basically, sweet corn cooked in cream and spice).

Saturday: Mushroom curry, creamy chickpea and spinach curry, pilau rice, flatbread and Strictly on the telly. Bliss.

Sunday: Cauli cheese pie with mashed potatoes and Parmesan roasted parsnips. A cheese fest to end the week!

Back soon with...well, an account of Berlin (alternatively titled Pictures of Pork).

MPM: 6th May 2019

I genuinely don't know where this year is going.  May, already?  Bonkers! 

Anyway, we are currently dahn sarf with the family, so this is a pre-recorded message...


Meal planning this week proceeds thusly:

Monday: away from home.  Not sure what the plan is. 

Tuesday: back home.  Probably a lazyish tea.  We mentioned pasta pesto with salmon, which requires minimal effort and mainly storecupboard ingredients.  If we can't be bothered to go to the supermarket after the long drive back from Essex, it may just be pasta pesto.  That's OK with me, to be honest.  I like pasta pesto.

Wednesday: D is doing a variation (what form this variation will take has yet to be revealed) of an old favourite: pepper crusted tuna steak with cucumber and mustard "spaghetti".

Thursday:  I was keen to throw a nice veggie meal into the mix, so I've opted for Ottolenghi's shakshuka which I've been craving recently.  Homemade flatbreads on the side.

Friday: At D's request, fish and chips.

Saturday: Chicken schnitzel, Parmesan mashed potatoes and a creamy mushroom sauce.

Sunday:  I have some pickled rhubarb and ginger mix leftover from Easter Sunday and I've become slightly obsessed with the idea that it would work really well with duck.  So I'm going to make slow roasted duck legs with rhubarb.  Not sure of the sides yet, or how the dish will look, but if it works out well then I'll be sure to report back.

Hope everyone had a wonderful long weekend and happy cooking les touts!

MPM: 4th March 2019

In a vain attempt to recapture my blogging mojo I thought that I would do a meal planning post.  Meal planning has still continued chez nous over the last few months - some weeks have been more successful than others.  Some weeks I have been half woman, half Giant Hula Hoop.  What kind of monster invented the Giant Hula Hoop, by the way?  I'm obsessed with the bloody things and I've managed to make D obsessed with them as well.

Anyway.  Meal planning.  We have no plans this week - we're off on holiday at the end of March and are making vague attempts to be slightly frugal until then - so hopefully nothing should throw us off track.  Apart from Giant Hula Hoops.

Monday: soup.  A hangover from our 5:2 days, we've got into the habit of having a pot of soup on a Monday night.  It's quick, easy and a light start to the week.  I should really make my own but the whole point of soup night is the lack of cooking. 

Tuesday: Pancake Day!  We like our pancakes piled up in a stack, like the American style ones, and then served with crispy bacon, chilli flakes and lots of maple syrup.  Although lemon juice and sugar is always good too...

Wednesday: a recipe from Yotam Ottolenghi's "Simple" - fettucine with spiced cherry tomato sauce.

Thursday: mushroom risotto.  Keeps getting bumped, but I'm determined that it will get made this week.  If we've got any bacon leftover from Tuesday, I might bung some in for a bit of extra excitement.

Friday: smoked haddock rarebit with mashed potato.  I saw a contestant make this in the first round of Masterchef the other week and was immediately determined that I was going to do it too. 

Saturday: homemade pizza.  We haven't done this for ages, so it's about time.  D is planning to go entirely off piste, muttering about Merguez sausages, hummus, feta and pomegranate.  So I will keep mine super simple.  Maybe just a scant scattering of capers and chopped anchovies.

Sunday:  something with roast lamb.  Elaborateness levels to be determined by levels of energy and enthusiasm come Sunday.

Have a happy week all!

TWTWTW: Lazy, hazy, crazy

Well, we haven't done a that was the week that was post for a while, which means that the blog has been lacking in cute cat pictures, which will never do.

La Minx remains as beautiful and capricious as ever, as is the way with felines.  She, at best, tolerates and, at worst, cordially dislikes D despite our ongoing efforts but he forgives her because she is beautiful and has the loudest purr ever to emanate from a little cat.

Now, tell me, where on Earth has the summer gone?  I'm sure we had a few nice days back there in what - May?  June?  But the last few weeks have been terrible!  As regular readers will know, I am not a fan of the heat but the lack of blue skies and the constant threat of rain is becoming slightly depressing.  I feel like I should be talking about barbecues and summer salads but it's really more weather for stews.

Still, miserable weather notwithstanding, we managed to drag ourselves out this week when we went to a really fun Sipsmith gin event at Shear's Yard this week, which I will write about in more detail in another post; I was shocked to find that it has been two and a half years since we last went to that fine establishment (I wrote about it here).  Sadly, both time and money preclude us from visiting such local gems as often as we would both like - and given the continued pressures on independent establishments it's a real shame not to support them more.  Leeds recently lost The Black Swan which was an absolutely wonderful gastro-ish pub that is also mentioned in the above post which goes to show that even places that do everything right are at risk.

We had a few nights midweek where we were a bit lax about cooking for various reasons, but things have picked up this weekend, and for brunch this morning I finally got around to making shakshuka (pictured below with toasted, buttered brioche).

It's been on my "dishes I should really try" list for AGES and, guess what?  It really is worth trying!  I followed Yotam Ottolenghi's recipe, here because I liked the fact that it kept things pretty simple (I mean, in terms of additions to the stewed tomato and pepper mix.)  I can see how adding a garnish of feta, or herbed yoghurt or cooking some chorizo or something in with the vegetables would work well, but loved it just as it was.  It's great for brunch because you can make the sauce the day before (which probably improves the flavour anyway) and then just cook the eggs in the morning.  Although I have to say this: his recipe suggests that you make the sauce then divide it between four pans before cooking with the eggs.  This sounds like a lot of washing up to me.  I cooked the vegetables in a large, shallow, stove-top casserole dish and just broke the eggs into that.  Much simpler.

Recipe corner: An Ottolenghi yoghurt dressing to see you through the summer

It may seem odd to add, to the distinguished archives here on WW Foodie, a recipe that essentially a salad dressing.  For a start, the instructions are pretty much, “Place stuff in a blender and switch on”.  But I wanted to make a mental note of this particular dressing because D and I have come to the conclusion over the past few days that it is one of those things (like bacon, butter and cheese) that makes EVERYTHING taste better.

It’s an Ottolenghi recipe and he serves it as an accompaniment to leek fritters (the recipe can be seen in full here – the fritters themselves are lovely).  But we’ve drizzled it over salad, used it as a dip, added a dollop atop a pile of tagine and couscous and it just perks it all up.

D’s lunch today is a box of somewhat dubious looking cold leftovers – even these, he reports, are delicious when accompanied by a swirl of the magic green sauce.  So, with barbecue season fast approaching, I think that this might be one to have in the fridge at all times for splatting, spreading and dunking purposes.  The below makes one healthy sized batch that seems to keep quite happily in the fridge for at least five days. 

Cook’s notes: the raw garlic does make it quite punchy (perhaps avoid eating before a first date) but I see no reason why you couldn’t add a green chilli into the mix for some additional heat.  We used a Kenwood mini processor to make this – a kitchen gadget that I could not be without as it is perfect for chopping and blending small amounts is easy to use and, importantly, easy to clean.  Highly recommended (although please note that they do not sponsor me.  I’d quite like to be sponsored and provided with lots of lovely free stuff because I have no shame but Kenwood most definitively do not.)

 Ingredients

100g Greek yoghurt

100g sour cream

2 garlic cloves, crushed

2 tbsp lemon juice

3 tbsp olive oil

½ tsp salt

20g roughly chopped flat-leaf parsley leaves

30g roughly chopped coriander leaves

 

Open blender (or food processor).

 

Insert ingredients.

 

Close blender. 

 

Ensure blender is plugged in.

 

Press button to blitz.

 

When the whole is a uniform green, check the seasoning and then set aside ready for use.

MPM: 24th April 2017

There was no fasting for us last week (we were on holiday. At least, we were off work.  And we certainly don't need much excuse to avoid it).  I haven't checked the scales, but I suspect that a little bit of over indulgence over Easter will have nudged that needle up so we are back to two fast days this week with our nominated Days of Pain and Misery and Soup for Tea being today and Wednesday.

And, predictably, today has been rather horrid thus far.  I think fasting is made worse if you avoid it for a while.  My body has apparently forgotten just what it is like to be deprived of calories and gone into full on whingeing child mode.  I am filling up on fluids and reminding myself that tomorrow I can eat EVERYTHING.  As a psychological trick, it is surprisingly effective.

This is what the meal plan looks like this week:

Monday: soup

Tuesday: moussaka.  A Valentine Warner recipe that we originally intended to put together during the week that we Cooked his Book.  It was bumped but now it is back and I am very much looking forward to it, especially having seen Rick Stein eat moussaka on TV the other day (the Good Food channel are currently showing his Venice to Istanbul series).

Wednesday: soup

Thursday: er, moussaka again.  D is out for a team meal so I shall content myself with leftovers and trashy TV.

Friday: we're off to our beloved York to check out new-kid-on-the-restaurant-block, Skosh.  It had a fabulous write up in the Guardian recently, so we have high hopes.

Saturday: while in York we intend to visit an old haunt of ours, Henshelwood's deli, wherefrom we shall buy cheese, charcuterie and an eff-ton of their superlative chicken liver pate.  This shall all be consumed, carpet picnic style, on Saturday night with homemade bread and a yummy sounding Ottolenghi yoghurt and horseradish potato salad.

Sunday:  D is making pork and juniper sausages - a recipe of his own devising.  We shall probably end up eating these as sandwiches, with vestiges of the carpet picnic on the side.

And that's it from us this week - enjoy whatever it is you happen to be cooking and eating and have a FABULOUS bank holiday weekend!

MPM: 10th April 2017

I don’t want to speak too soon…but it looks as if spring has finally sprung!  Oh frabjous day – isn’t it amazing the difference a bit of sunshine makes to one’s mood?

A shortened meal plan this week.  On Friday, we’re heading out to The Black Swan at Oldstead, somewhere we’ve been wanting to visit for a while. And on Sunday, it’s off to see the family for roast lamb.  With two fast days in there as well, that does not leave a lot of days to be planned. 

Tuesday: Aubergine cheesecake with wild rice and salad

Thursday: Leftover night: cold roast chicken, spiced couscous, aubergine cheesecake and whatever else happens to be lurking in the fridge

Saturday: Home made pizza night!  I’ll be doing a pissaladiere with goats’ cheese and mozzarella and D is re-visiting his Chicken Caesar Salad pizza which he created for my birthday a couple of years ago.  Sounds weird but, if you like pizza, chicken and Caesar salad there is a lot to love

Short but, hopefully, sweet.  Have a good week mes amies!

Meal planning, goal setting

Apologies: it all went a bit quiet there.

Excuses time: I've been a little under the weather. So far this year I have had a poorly paw (TM Lesley) and a poorly tooth and now I am suffering with a poorly gallbladder. I say that I'm suffering - I tend to think that D has the worst of it since I've been in a foul mood and my appetite has been a bit all over the place which has impacted on our usual, stringent, food planning. The empty pad on the fridge has been rebuking me all week long. Also - busy with work, blah, blah, blah. I used to get more opportunities to write blog posts at lunchtime.

Anyway, the gallbladder will hopefully be whipped out at some point and in the meantime I need to man up. Firstly - a weight loss update. 1.2 lbs off this week which isn't bad considering that while I started the week eating very little (which helped with fast days), by the end I wanted to gnaw my own arm off. The goal setting of the title refers to the fact that I'd really, really like to hit the mini goal of two stone off by the end of April. It's definitely doable, but I need to keep focused and maybe tighten up a little bit on treats sneaking in to non-fast days.

So what are we up to this week? Well, our cookbook inspiration is being provided by the man himself Yotam Ottolenghi. We are hitting up his "Plenty More" tome for ideas; regular readers may well have heard me rave about "Plenty" in the past so I have high hopes for this. We're fasting Monday and Thursday, we're out for supper on Wednesday and D is out with friends on Friday so I'll probably have beans on toast (with cheese if I'm feeling particularly racy). Not much left to plan, which is a shame because there are loads of dishes in this book that I want to try...

Tuesday: tagliatelle with lemon and walnuts

Saturday: "mezze": dakos, grilled lettuce with farro and lemon, squash with chilli yoghurt and coriander sauce

Sunday: aubergine cheesecake

YUM! Have a fabulous week all - I'm going to occupy myself with planning the bribe (/reward) that I will deserve if I can hit my entirely arbitrary goal.

Meditations on a Sunday roast

Is there anything that we Brits love more than a Sunday roast?  Well, probably many things (is the most popular dish in the UK still chicken tikka masala?) but a Sunday roast is surely up there.  The country may be in total disarray, the economy in free fall but this is one proud British tradition that will surely never die.


The big question is, what is your joint of choice?  D and I have pondered the point for years.  There are so many aspects to take into consideration.  The side dishes - you can't have sage and onion stuffing with lamb now, can you?  The leftovers - we're big fans of the leftover lamb biryani but, equally, cold roast chicken or beef make superior sandwiches (especially if you happen to have some blue cheese knocking around to season the latter).  It's a tough call, but I think my heart belongs to the roast chicken. 

Thus it was, when D saw a mention in the Good Food magazine of a roast chicken to end all roast chickens, we couldn't help but purchase it.  The Thoughful Producer* seems to be a relatively new endeavour which is all about producing the very best quality, free range chickens.  I suspect that these birds get massages.  At £15.99 they are not cheap (you can order direct from their website but we got ours through Ocado to avoid paying the delivery charge) but we thought the resulting product was very good indeed, and without getting preachy, I do think that consumers have a responsibility to buy and eat the very best meat that they can afford.   It's worth bearing in mind as well that this was a BIG CHICKEN - we derived lunch for four people, a round of sandwiches and six portions of curry from ours - that's eleven meals at £1.45 per portion.  (Please note that this is not a sponsored post - we just really liked the chicken and wanted to share the love.)


Back to the Sunday roast, and, to match such a beast we had to bring our A game to the sides.  D produced some fantastic hasselback potatoes, which were a bloody faff to cut but a delight to eat.  He tucked thin slivers of garlic and flecks of rosemary into the slits in the potato and drizzled with oil; the result was somewhere between a roastie and a jacket potato, crispy of skin and firm of flesh. 

Peas were sautéed with pancetta and shallots and seasoned with the merest hint of dried chilli which only served to enhance their sweetness.  And we roasted hunks of cauliflower until they were beginning to char and then poured over a sweet-sour dressing which included honey, sultanas and pine nuts.  Puffy, golden Yorkshire puddings and a rich gravy, enhanced by the bird's own giblets added the finishing touches.


The thing with Sunday dinners is that you have to resist doing too many dishes to preserve your own sanity.  But I would have loved to add more here - a sage and onion stuffing, a root vegetable mash, crispy roasted kale, batons of sweet, sticky parsnips, sausagemeat.  The list goes on ad infinitum.  Luckily, Sunday rolls around every week so there is always another roast dinner on the horizon to which we can look forward.  If you have any tips for new dishes or recipes then I would love to hear them!

ETA: Yotam Ottolenghi has some lovely ideas for chicken side dishes that are a bit more exotic and summery than good old roast spuds - see here.

Recipe corner: "Surprise" tarte tatin

This is the kind of recipe that doesn't sound like it should work.  But Yotam Ottolenghi is a food writer who inspires trust and with good reason - this tart was absolutely delicious, both fresh out of the oven and after a couple of days reposing in the fridge.

 

The other thing is that it is not too bad on the points front.  Pastry is, of course, never going to be a low calorie food, but you can quite easily build it in to the daily quota with a bit of planning and by rolling it out relatively thinly.  I would suggest using a piece slightly heavier than specified below because you will need to trim it when fitting it over the topping.  But 120g was the amount we actually ended up using once those trimmings had been weighed out and so the amount I have used when calculating the points.

 

D was head chef for this one and he says next time he makes it he will double the amount of caramel to get a slightly thicker layer, so I've doubled the amount of butter and sugar specified in the original recipe below. 

 

Ingredients

 

200g cherry tomatoes

500g new potatoes

1 medium onion, sliced

120g hard goats' cheese

120g puff pastry

Tbsp olive oil

80g sugar

20g butter

Fresh oregano

 

Serves 4 generously, 13 pro points per portion

 

First you are going to dehydrate the tomatoes.  Slice in half, arrange on a baking tray, season and sprinkle with a touch of balsamic vinegar and put them in a low (about 120) oven for 30-40 minutes. 

 

Meanwhile cook the potatoes in boiling salted water for about 20 minutes, until tender.  Leave to cool, and, when possible, slice into discs. 

 

Cook the onion in the oil (reserving a little to grease the tart tin) over a low heat until soft.

 

Onions!

Potatoes!

Tomatoes!

Now all your component vegetables are ready, you can assemble the tart.  Start by using the reserved oil to brush over a 22 inch cake tin and line with parchment paper. 

 

Heat the butter and sugar together in a small pan over a high heat stirring briskly until they become a deep amber colour.  Pour into the cake tin and tilt it carefully so that the whole surface is covered and sprinkle over the oregano leaves. 

 

Layer the sliced potatoes over the caramel, close together as per the picture of the top of the post.  Then fill the gaps with the onion and tomatoes, and finally lay over the slices of goats' cheese.

 

Roll the pastry out into a disc that is about an inch larger than the size of the tin.  Gently lay it across the cheese and vegetables and tuck the edges in around the potatoes so they're nice and cosy.  Bake for 25mins at 200 and then turn the oven down to 180 and bake for a further 10-15 minutes until the pastry is puffy, golden and, obviously, cooked.

 

Remove from the oven and give it a couple of minutes to catch its breath.  Then you need to invert it onto a plate so that the caramel layer is topmost.  A certain amount of dexterity is required so ask a responsible adult / husband.

 

Serve, perhaps with salad.

 

 

 

Recipe Corner - Ottolenghi's black pepper tofu

Tofu with rice.  Nice, honestly.

It came as something of a surprise to me when my unashamedly carnivorous partner in crime came home one day with Yotam Ottolenghi's "Plenty".  It's a vegetarian recipe book you see.  Still more surprising was the number of sticky labels that the book sprouted when he went through deciding what he was going to cook.  

We've had a few dishes from the book now and all of them have been absolutely delicious - I'd thoroughly recommend it if you fancy trying some vegetarian cooking that even the staunchest meat eaters will enjoy.  One small point - Mr Ottolenghi is not shy about the amount of butter and oil he deploys in his dishes.  I've reduced it in the tofu dish that I've shared with you below - this is still a Weight Watchers blog after all!  

This tofu is scrummy.  It has such a worthy reputation doesn't it?  But it's lovely, a fantastic sponge for flavours and, as you'll note from the ingredients list there are a LOT of flavours going on here. I've reduced the amount of peppercorns slightly as I found the peppery heat slightly overwhelming when used alongside all those chillies.  If you're a heat fiend then leave the chilli seeds in.  I have a sensitive mouth and prefer them de-seeded.

Ingredients

400g firm tofu

Tbsp vegetable oil

Tbsp cornflour

30g butter

6 small shallots, thinly sliced

4 fresh red chillies, thinly sliced

6 garlic cloves, crushed

1.5 tbsp grated fresh root ginger

1.5 tbsp sweet soy sauce (kecap manis)

1.5 tbsp light soy sauce

2 tbsp dark soy sauce

Tbsp caster sugar

2 tbsp crushed black peppercorns

Small bunch of spring onions, sliced

Serves 2, 12 pro points per serving

Heat the oil in a frying pan.  Cut the tofu into cubes and dust wiyh the cornflour then add to the hot pan and brown on all sides.  You may need to do this in batches and it may well take longer than you think,  but patience is required here.

Now, wipe out the pan, return it to a lower heat and melt the butter.  Add the shallots, chillies, garlic and ginger and cook for around 15 minutes, stirring every now and then, until everything is soft and shiny. Now you can add the sauces, the sugar and the pepper.

Return the tofu pieces to the pan and toss gently to coat them in flavour without breaking them up.  Finally, stir through the spring onions.  Serve with steamed rice