Recipe corner: labneh with roasted tenderstem broccoli

Of COURSE it was the case that on one of the hottest days of the year I should have planned an evening meal that required a lot of time spent cooking. Just as on a similarly warm day a few weeks ago, I went to a pastry making class (at Betty’s Cookery School and it was tremendous fun, albeit attempting flaky pastry in 20 degree plus heat is rather messy). My sense of timing has always been admirable. 

Anyway, last Saturday night we had sort-of mezze. I say sort of because the dishes and flavours were taken from a range of cuisines and thrown together in what I would like to think was a fusion (rather than confusion) of gastronomic experiences. But I fully concede I might be deluded on that point; never let it be said I achieve authenticity in my cooking. 

We had D’s amazing Merguez sausages, roasted and served with a simple houmous and a few whole chickpeas for texture. We had Ottolenghi’s iman bayaldi, a stewed aubergine dish that I’ve been meaning to make for ages. We had za’tar flatbreads. And we had roasted broccoli on labneh. 

So, this latter dish was inspired by two things; a perusal of the original Moro cookbook, and a starter I ate at the late, lamented Reliance sometime last year. (For those not au fait with the Leeds pub scene, The Reliance was a fantastic gastropub and Leeds institution, and the menu was magic for interesting vegetable based dishes).

Even if you don’t try this particular combination, I’d urge you to give labneh a go - so easy and SO delicious. It found it to be similar in taste and texture to Boursin cheese; my next batch I am going to combine with cracked black pepper and smear all over a baguette. 

Ingredients

For the labneh (first stage):

300g full fat Greek yoghurt

Generous pinch of salt

(Second stage):

Small clove of garlic

Spring onion, finely chopped

Salt and plenty of black pepper

For the garnish:

100g trimmed tenderstem broccoli spears

Tbsp olive oil (plus extra for garnish)

Tbsp flaked almonds

1-2 tbsp pickled jalapeño chillis, roughly chopped (optional)

Serves 2 as part of a mezze spread or side dish

Making labneh is incredibly easy but you will need a large bowl, a muslin cloth, a wooden spoon and room in the fridge.

Line the bowl with the cloth and spoon in your yoghurt. Add salt and stir through. Then, gather up the sides of the cloth and tie round the handle of the wooden spoon (other kitchen implements will work too), which you have laid across the top of the bowl, so that you end up with a little money bag of yoghurt, suspended over the bowl. The bag should not touch the bottom of the bowl. 

I feel like I have repeated the word bowl too often in that paragraph.

Leave overnight in the fridge. Mine was suspended for about 22 hours in total and I thought the consistency was perfect but the longer it stays in there, the firmer it will be.

When you come to make the dish, preheat the oven to 180 degrees and toss the broccoli in olive oil and seasoning. Once the oven has come to temperature, you will roast for around 20 mins.

Drain any liquid from the bottom of the labneh bowl and remove the cheese from the muslin cloth. Beat lightly to loosen and then you can add any flavouring you wish. I kept this relatively simple by stirring through a little garlic, a spring onion and lots of seasoning. Spread the labneh on a serving plate.

Lightly toast the almonds in a dry frying pan over a low heat.

When the broccoli is roasted and the ends beginning to look a little charred, remove from the oven and place on the labneh. Drizzle over a little olive oil and sprinkle on the almonds and jalapeño chillies (if using).

Note: if you’re not a fan of crunchy broccoli, you may wish to blanche the spears in advance of roasting.

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...

Meal planning: veggie (or is it cheese?) week

We decided to have a meat free this week.  It is something we do from time to time just for fun.  I'm sure all of us are aware of the importance of eating fewer animal products from an environmental point of view and, in general, I don't think we're too bad but there is always room for improvement and a week of veggie dishes always acts as a salutary reminder of how possible it is to eat well without the inclusion of meat or fish. The thing is that we've definitely ended up quite cheese heavy!  

Monday: root vegetable and pearl barley soup with bread (and cheese)

Tuesday: Cacio (cheese) e pepe

Wednesday: Mushroom risotto (finely grated cheese stirred through at the end)

Thursday: Saag paneer (cheese), Punjabi dum aloo and rice

Friday: "Fish" finger sandwich...with halloumi (cheese)

Saturday: Vada pav and Punjabi Kadhi with onion bhajis (wot, no cheese..?  But wait...)

Sunday: Aubergine CHEESEcake

Now, I am all for cheese in all its forms but...maybe next time we need to aim for vegan week?  Or, at the very least, get a few vegan options in there?

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).

Recipe corner: carrot, tomato and feta soup

A beautiful soup is a wonderful thing and I haven’t posted a soup recipe for AGES.

It was partly, perhaps, a reaction to Weight Watchers (where zero point soup, aka joyless, fatless veg purée) is heavily endorsed that I had all but stopped making the stuff. But one day, after yet another disappointing pot of ready made supermarket offering, fishing around for the one, desultory chunk of chicken in what purported to be chicken soup, D pointed out that we should really go back to doing it ourselves. He’s right; given that one only has a finite number of meals, why waste your time on crap?

Here then is a delicious, sweet and summery concoction, courtesy of Nigel Slater. I did mine slightly differently to him in that I blitzed the carrot element to be quite silky smooth (I like a smooth soup) and then stirred the tomatoes through to add texture at the end. The carrots were the mellow backdrop to the peppery, sprightly basil flecked tomatoes with a final zing from the feta. Lovely. I must admit, I also used a bit less oil than he recommended. Weight Watchers habits die hard...

Ingredients

Tbsp olive oil
Large onion, roughly chopped
400g carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
Litre of very dilute veg stock (I used a tsp of Bouillon powder in total)

Tbsp olive oil
500g cherry tomatoes, quartered
Garlic clove, peeled and lightly bruised
Small handful basil leaves, shredded

To garnish:
120g feta cheese, crumbled
Basil leaves, torn
4tsp olive oil

Serves 4

Place a nice, large saucepan over a low heat. Warm the oil and then cook the onion until pale and soft. Then in go the carrots with a hefty whack of salt and pepper to cook slowly for a further 10 minutes. Pour in the stock, bring to a gentle simmer and allow to bubble away for half an hour until the carrots are soft. Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly before blitzing to a smooth purée with a stick blender (or in a processor). This can all be done in advance.

Shortly before serving, put the quartered tomatoes in a second pan with the oil and garlic and cook down, over a low heat, for 10 minutes or so until you have a sweet mush. Season, stir through the basil and then add to the carrot mix and heat the whole gently.

To serve, garnish with the crumbled feta, some torn basil and a drizzle of olive oil.

Recipe corner: Saag paneer (spinach and paneer curry)

Of all the British Indian Restaurant curries, saag paneer is one of my all time favourites and I think that I’ve finally come up with a home version that is good as any I’ve eaten out. I’d be the first person to say that I am not versed in authentic Indian home cooking. My recipe, detailed below, is a mash up of several others that I have collected like a spice loving magpie. In fusing these dishes together, I’ve probably created something as inauthentic as you like but, my view with cooking is that the most important question is always: “Does it taste good?” as opposed to: “Is this how my grandmother’s grandmother made it?”

NB: Since both of my grandmothers’ grandmothers were probably Irish peasants, I can’t imagine that they were concerned with much more than boiling up enough potatoes to keep their families fuelled.

Right - let’s talk the recipe. It may seem like something of a faff to cook, and spice, spinach and paneer separately and, if so, make the spinach as written and then just bung the cubed paneer cheese in at the end and stir well. You don’t even need to fry the cheese really, I just like the little additional texture that it gives.

Also, as with all curries, this one will benefit from sitting around in the fridge for a couple of days while all the flavours get to know each other. What I would suggest is, making the spinach in advance then spicing and frying the paneer fairly last minute to really maximise that lovely textural contrast mentioned above.

Some more top notch food photography for you...

Ingredients

For the spinach:

2 tsp rapeseed oil
Tsp dried fenugreek seeds
Medium onion, finely chopped

Generous tbsp of tomato purée, mixed with 120ml boiling water

2 cloves of garlic, crushed
Fresh ginger (equivalent weight to the garlic cloves), grated
0.5 tsp chilli powder
Heaped tsp cumin
Heaped tsp ground coriander
0.5 tsp turmeric
Heaped tsp garam masala
Generous pinch of salt

225g frozen spinach (around 6 “pucks”)

For the paneer:

120g paneer cheese, cut into small cubes
Tsp rapeseed oil
0.5 tsp each of: ground coriander, cumin and paprika
0.25 tsp turmeric
Generous pinch of salt

Serves 2

Start with the spinach. Heat the oil, gently, in a large pan and add the fenugreek seeds. As they start to brown off and smell a little toasty, add the onions and fry until they are softened but not brown.

Next, in goes the diluted tomato purée and the rest of the spices. Mix well. Keep the heat nice and low and simmer everything together for about 5 minutes.

At this point you can add the spinach. Again, mix well and stir gently to allow it to melt and combine with the ingredients. Turn the heat down low, low, low, cover the pan and cook for 15-20 mins. You will need to check and stir frequently. If it is drying out, add a splash of water.

Place the paneer cubes into a large bowl, drizzle over the oil and sprinkle over the spices. Toss to combine.

To finish the curry: heat a dry frying pan over a gentle flame, add the cubes of paneer and cook, regularly shaking and turning, until start to go crisp and golden on all sides. Stir through the spinach before serving. The whole thing can be done in advance, paneer and all, but for maximum flavour and texture, make the spinach slightly in advance and stir the paneer through at the last minute.

MPM: 7th January 2019

It’s 2019 mes amies! And how has it started off for you? I am not going to spend my first meal planning post of the year whingeing so I’m just going to say it is Sunday evening, my cat is on my knee and I had the most AMAZING steak ever last night. Reader, Google reverse searing. It will change your life.

This makes it clear that I’m not doing Veganuary. While I wholeheartedly applaud any of you who have risen to this particular challenge, I am just going to come out and admit that I love animal products far too much to ever give them up. We buy the best quality that we can possibly afford but even so, my refusal to give up eggs, cheese, steak, smoked salmon...(continue list ad infinitum) probably makes me selfish. I certainly intend this year to make renewed efforts to ensure that a high proportion of my meals, particularly during the day, are meat free.

Let’s look at meal planning then. I’m going to brunch with some work colleagues on Saturday (and, by brunch, I mean extended piss up) so I’m assuming I won’t need supper. D has a Ginger Pig pork chop in the freezer that he plans to devour. Elsewhere:

Monday: roasted spiced squash and red onions, couscous with olives, goats’ cheese. We have some beautiful Yellison leftover from Christmas that I am excited to use.

Tuesday: soup

Wednesday: more goats’ cheese, this time combined with some beautiful green veg and lemon to make a zingy risotto.

Thursday: we’re going to use some homemade Merguez sausages to do a spicy twist on a toad in the hole, with harissa onions.

Friday: monkfish with Romesco sauce.

Sunday: we’ve been bumping a Diana Henry miso chicken and sweet potato traybake for weeks now and, dammit, we’re doing it this week.

Happy cooking all!

Recipe corner: cumin spiced rice salad with lime and herbs

I will never tire of my coronation rice salad but this is a great alternative that requires very few ingredients and certainly things that I always tend to have knocking around. It’s possible that you might not have any fresh limes in your fruit bowl (as gin and tonic aficionados this is not a problem we experience) - lemon would probably work too.

Don’t skimp on the fat in the initial cooking stage - this will lightly coat the grains in lieu of any other dressing. I sprinkled some pickled red chillies over the portion that I took for lunch (see below. Also note my pretty, pink lunchbox. Could I be more of a cliche girlie girl?) These were an excellent addition.

Ingredients

30g butter
Tbsp vegetable oil
Red onion, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
Tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp chilli flakes
150g basmati rice
300ml vegetable stock

Zest and juice of 1 lime
Large handful of soft green herbs (mint, parsley, coriander...)

Serves 2-4 as a side dish

Melt the butter and oil together over a medium to low heat. Once melted, add the onion with a decent pinch of salt, cover, and turn the heat right down. Cook until very soft, about 5-7 minutes.

Add the garlic and dried spices and cook for a further 2-3 minutes until fragrant.

Stir through the rice so well coated in fat and spice, then pour over the stock. Bring the pan to a gentle simmer then cover again, put the heat on its lowest setting and cook for 5 minutes. Then, turn the heat off altogether and leave covered for a further 5 mins, at which point the rice should be cooked through.

While the rice cooks, chop together the herbs.

To finish the salad, stir through the herbs, lime zest and juice. Serve at room temperature.

Recipe corner: Courgette and halloumi cakes

We're trying to get back into the habit of Sunday brunch because it is a very lovely habit to have.  The main issue that I have with Sunday brunch is that it usually takes place quite early - certainly early enough that I want to limit the number of processes involved and my exposure to things that are sharp and hot.  This one, while not immediately screaming of breakfast foodstuffs, actually fits the bill pretty well because you can get the cakes prepared the night before and, actually, they benefit from a few hours chilling and firming up in the fridge.

The original recipe was a Gordon Ramsay one which I have, as is ever my wont, tweaked a little bit.  We topped the little cakes with a poached egg and a drizzle of Sriracha hot sauce to make it brunch appropriate.  I reckon they'd be nice as a light, summery main meal with some sort of salad and grain, or even whacked in a bun to make a vegetarian alternative to a burger.

It doesn't really need saying but, just in case someone has stumbled on to this accidentally, excuse the bloody awful food photography.  I succeed in making everything look terrible,

Ingredients

Courgette, coarsely grated
Carrot, coarsely grated
120g halloumi, grated
60g (about 1 slice from a standard, thick sliced loaf) bread, reduced to crumbs
15g Parmesan
Zest of 1/4 small lemon
Tsp oregano
Egg
Flour, for dusting
Tbsp vegetable oil

To serve (optional):
2 eggs
Hot sauce

Place a sieve or a colander over the sink and, inside, layer up the courgette and carrot gratings (is this the word?) along with some generous pinches of salt.  Set aside for half an hour or so.

Meanwhile, in a large bowl, place the grated halloumi.

Blitz your bread into crumbs using a small processor.  Add the roughly chopped Parmesan along with seasoning and the oregano and blitz again to form fine, cheesy crumbs.  Tip this into the bowl alongside the halloumi and grate in the lemon zest.

When the vegetables have had sufficient time to give up some of their water content, give them a quick rinse and a thorough wring-out.  Pat them dry on a bit of kitchen paper and then whack into the bowl, along with one egg.  Mix thoroughly to form a sort of loose, colourful dough.

Lightly dust a large plate with flour and then dampen your hands, which will make it easier to form the cakes without the mixture sticking everywhere.  I got six little patties out of this amount, but makes as many as you wish depending on how you intend to serve them.  When the patties are formed, put on the floured plate and turn over a couple of times to lightly coat.

Cover with cling film and chill in the fridge for at least an hour.  If you're cooking them for breakfast then overnight is perfect.

When the time comes to serve, heat the oil up in a good, non-stick frying pan (alternatively, we have taken to lining the base of our pans with non-stick baking paper.  If you do this, you can dispense with the oil altogether, or you can brush it lightly over the surface prior to cooking).  Fry the patties for around 5 minutes on the first side then gently turn over and cook for a further 3-4, until a decent crust has formed and they are warmed through.

If you are serving these with a poached egg then be sure to have the pan of water ready boiling when the cakes go in to fry and just drop the eggs in for the last couple of minutes of cooking.

Serve according to taste.

Recipe corner: a couple of broad bean ideas

A friend of mine at work has an allotment.  Lucky chap.  I love the idea of an allotment, although suspect that the reality would be altogether dirtier and more tiresome.  Anyway, recently he brought in a load of broad beans that he had grown and now needed to use, all of which were gratefully received by his colleagues.

But the truth is, I was unsure as to what to do with them.  I have cooked broad beans before but wouldn't call myself a fan particularly.  However, it turns out that I love broad beans when they're shmushed up with other stuff.  Who knew?

First a word on cooking and preparing.  The first job is to remove them from the pods - this was D's responsibility and was easy enough to do in front of the TV.  Once the beans have been podded, you need to bring a pan of water to the boil, pop them in and simmer for two minutes, then drain and run them under the cold tap until they are cool to the touch.  Now they need to be squeezed out of their little grey jackets.  This, again, is an easy enough job to do albeit slightly tedious - again, I would recommend accompanying with a podcast or an episode of "Gilmore Girls" (current Netflix obsession).  We stored the beans submerged in cold water in the fridge until the time came to use them - I'm not sure whether this is necessary or not.  It did not do them any harm.

Broad bean dip

This recipe is loosely based on the ingredients list for Waitrose's pecorino and basil dip which is a household favourite.  I was really pleased with the balance of flavours that I got here - the broad beans were enhanced but not overwhelmed.  This was an utterly delicious taste of summer.  Although we just had it on tortilla chips, I would also eat it as an accompaniment to a main course - I can imagine it being delicious with a nice piece of trout.

Ingredients

70g broad beans, weighed after shelling

2 tbsp sour cream
1 tbsp mayonnaise
20g Parmesan, finely grated
8-10 mint leaves
Tsp chopped dill
Squeeze of lemon juice
Half a clove of garlic fine grated

Bring a pan of water to the boil, add the beans and simmer gently for 2-3 minutes until nice and soft.  Remove from the heat and drain.

Meanwhile, put all the other ingredients into a mini blitzer (I swear by my Kenwood one.  We use it all the time and the day it breaks we will be straight out to replace it).  Whizz them together so that they are all well blended.  Season lightly.

Add the broad beans and whizz again until smooth.  Check the seasoning and adjust to taste - perhaps add a touch more lemon juice which should really help the flavours to sing.

Serve as a dip or a sauce or just eat with a spoon.  It really is that good.

Broad bean and pea crostini

A Jamie Oliver recipe, very slightly tweaked, this makes a perfect summery snack or starter.  Quantities are rather vague - this is easily adapted depending on the amount of people you have to feed.

So preheat your oven to around 180.  Slice a baguette, brush slices with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and bake until crisp - probably 10-15 minutes depending on how much of a beast your oven is.  Set aside to cool.

Bring a pan of lightly salted water to the boil and then add a decent size handful of podded, shelled broad beans and another of peas and simmer for around 5 minutes until nice and soft.  Drain and return to the pan.

Using a masher, lightly crush together the vegetables: you want them to retain some texture.  Then, throw in a good splash of olive oil, a squeeze of lemon and a flurry of grated Parmesan.  Stir through and check the seasoning.  I personally enjoy a good hit of black pepper here.

Spread the cooled crostini with cream cheese and then top with the broad bean and pea mix.  For us, this made six very generously topped crostini but I reckon it would have gone further were we not such greedy minxes.

Recipe corner: A spring frittata

I always think of frittata as the slightly coarser cousin of the omelette. An omelette, to my mind, is a delicate, buttery thing with minimal ingredients. A frittata is far less rarified and a fantastic way to showcase whatever produce happens to be in season (or lurking at the bottom of the fridge). I once read that it is not the done thing to treat a frittata like eggy waste disposal but (and I feel the same way about pasta bakes) sometimes throwing in whatever you happen to have on hand produces a thing of great beauty and, even if it doesn’t, it will be perfectly and agreeably edible.

For all that, here a little bit of advanced consideration has been applied to produce something that sings of the season. I first saw a recipe for this particular combination in a Waitrose magazine, but have tweaked the method slightly to suit.

Cook's notes: if you asparagus is very slender, you probably don’t need to worry about pre-cooking it but we've been getting some MONSTER stalks here. You could switch out butter for oil if you don’t want to faff around with melting it but I do happen to think that when butter and eggs are brought together, good things are bound to happen. With regards the herbs, I used dill because I love it, but any of the softer, milder, greener herbs (parsley, basil, even mint) would also work – your rosemarys and sages and thymes would probably overwhelm. Your frittata dish could be a large, ovenproof frying pan or a cake tin (NOT loose bottomed) would work fine - I plumped for a 24cm Le Creuset pie dish which was PERFECT.

Ingredients

250g new potatoes, thickly sliced
Bunch of asparagus
15g butter
Tsp dill
Heaped tsp wholegrain mustard
6 eggs
75g Gruyere cheese, grated

Serves 2 - 4

Heat the oven to 180 (160 if, like ours, your fan oven is somewhat enthusiastic).

Put the new potatoes in a large pan, cover with cold, salted water and bring to the boil over medium heat.

Meanwhile, prepare the asparagus by snapping off the woody ends and chopping each stem into 2-3 cm lengths. Set a large bowl of ice cold water to one side. Once the water has come to the boil, set a timer for 6 minutes and, once it goes off, add the asparagus to the same pan for a further minute. Then you can drain and put straight into the cold water to stop the cooking.

Melt the butter (the microwave is probably the easiest option for this). Using a pastry brush, thoroughly coat the inside of the dish.

Drain the vegetables, pat dry and evenly distribute across the bottom of the dish.

Whisk the eggs, season well and stir through the mustard and the herbs. Pour over the potato and asparagus mix and then place in the oven for 15 minutes. Remove, sprinkle over the cheese and return for another 15 minutes or until the top is golden and bubbling and the frittata is cooked through.

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.

Pass the hemp...

I seem to be accidentally turning into a health food person.

Exhibit A: the spiraliser.  I love the spiraliser!  It gives me a profound sense of satisfaction to use.  Yesterday, I added spiralised courgettes to my pesto pasta and spiralised carrot to my salad.  I find myself eyeing up items in the fruit and veg aisle wondering what else I can make into pretty ribbons.

Exhibit B:  my lunch today includes nut loaf and lentil crisps.  The latter I only picked up because I liked the sound of the creamy dill flavour, but turns out that I quite like the texture of the crisps themselves - a bit poppadum esque.

Exhibit C: D and I are currently slightly obsessed with spelt bread which we have been purchasing in Waitrose, such that I am researching recipes so that I can make it at home.  It has a subtly, nutty flavour and it ROCKS.

A book deal featuring 100 ways with lentils and tofu much surely be in the offing...

Meat free musings

Well, we went a whole week without eating any meat or fish at all.  And, for the most part, what a delicious experience it was!  While I am not now having some sort of Damascene conversion and eschewing animal flesh forever (I ate a smoked salmon sandwich yesterday and it was lovely) I certainly am now more aware than ever that it is perfectly possible to eat delicious food that happens to be vegetarian (as opposed to vegetarian food that happens to be delicious).

One thing I noticed was that the range of veggie friendly food on the go is a bit lacking.  I work away from the office on a Monday and tend to pick up a sandwich in good old M&S.  In this instance, unless you were a fan of cheese or egg, there wasn't much there, especially in comparison to the plethora of chicken based options.  Fortunately, I love cheese and egg, but it felt a wee bit uninspiring.

The only meal where I positively missed the meat was my vegetarian Sunday roast.  I made a carrot and cashew nut roast from this recipe which was delicious (I had some cold for lunch today with salad and homemade coleslaw - lovely) but, for all the onion gravy and roast potatoes and buttery braised cabbage, it just wasn't quite the same.  I would rather have had chicken with perhaps a slice of nut roast fulfilling the role of the stuffing.

Which leads me on to my next point - that just because you're eating vegetarian food, your calorie consumption is not necessarily going to go down.  The nut roast is a case in point - the recipe serves 4-6 with a quarter portion coming in at something like 15 pro points (which would be somewhere in the region of 600 calories).  That's higher than for a decent sized portion of lamb, the fattiest of the Sunday meats, and significantly higher than a good helping of the leaner chicken, turkey or pork.  I also found myself eating more cheese than I might do in the normal course of things - probably because I really like cheese and, when it came to meal planning, it kept springing to mind as a natural protein source.

I think only one of the meals that we had was entirely vegan - Nigella Lawson's tomato and pea curry with coconut rice.  I really enjoyed this, although am slightly ashamed to say that D and I both commented on how nice the tomato curry would be as an accompaniment to some  spiced lamb cutlets.  Sigh.

All in all though, a success, and a salutary reminder of how it is not only possible but actually pretty easy to go meat free if you need to.  D will be serving up his meat free week at the end of February and it will be interesting to see how we compare - he tends to be a more adventurous cook than I, so probably less cheese and more spice.  I'm sure that there is a Spice Girls joke to be had there somewhere...

Recipe corner: Turnip spaghetti with garden pesto and Parmesan cream

We got a new toy for Christmas. Now, don't worry, I'm not about to go all mung bean and green juice on you but I have to say I LURVE our new spiraliser. For one thing, it reminds me of a Play Doh factory. For another, it is a fun way to incorporate vegetables into dishes. And for yet another, it allowed us to recreate a dish that we ate at Restaurant Sat Bains last year and which I nominated as one of my plates of the year.

I'm really proud of our approximation. It tastes pretty close to the real thing but is as easy as anything to make and involves consuming a huge portion of veg. That is not to say that is particularly diet friendly - the pesto requires a fair amount of oil and there is a decent whack of Parmesan...however, as ever, I think it worth it.

A word on the pesto - the recipe is vague and that is because it is really all about using the herbs you have to hand in the proportions that taste good to you. It will probably be different every time you make it, and that's OK. We make ours in a little Kenwood mini chopper (which, incidentally, is another kitchen gadget that is well worth a purchase - we use ours practically daily) but at the restaurant, it was made in a pestle and mortar at the table for added theatre. Either method works well.

Ingredients

For the pesto:

A good big handful of green herbs - any you like. Tonight, for example, we used safe, thyme and rosemary with a little bit of basil and parsley. It's a question of what is available and what you like.
Olive oil - up to 100ml
15g finely grated Parmesan
Fat clove of garlic
Half a slice of bread

For the Parmesan cream:

1 onion, roughly chopped
15g butter
Bay leaf
100ml dry white wine
200ml chicken stock
30g Parmesan
2 tbsp fat free Greek yoghurt

For the spaghetti:

One swede (spiralised) (celeriac also works, and Sat Bains used kohlrabi if you can get hold of that)
Small knob of butter

In a mini chopper, or pestle and mortar, reduce the herbs to a thick paste, then add the garlic, Parmesan and bread to thicken. Drizzle oil until you achieve a relatively loose consistency. Set aside.

Melt 15g butter in a small pan, add the onion and a hefty pinch of salt, cover and turn the heat down as low as it will go. Sweat for 10-15 minutes, making sure it does not colour. While this is going on, make up your chicken stock and finely grate the Parmesan.

When the onion is meltingly soft, add the wine and the bay leaf and turn up the heat. Reduce until nearly all the liquid has gone and then add the chicken stock and crank up the heat a little more. Reduce by about a half and then pass through a sieve.

Return the liquid to a gentle heat and stir through the Parmesan until melted. Now remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly before stirring through the yoghurt. You may still get a few white solids floating about in the liquid but fret not, just pass back through the sieve. Set aside.

Spiralise your swede and bring a pan of salted water to the boil. Add the veg and cook for around 4 minutes until tender but still with a certain amount of bite. Use the microwave to warm the Parmesan cream and to melt a small knob of butter.

Drain the swede and drizzle over the melted butter and season. Spoon the Parmesan cream into the bottom of the serving bowls, then the buttered spirals of Swede, and finally, a good dollop of the pesto (you will probably find that you have some left over which can be kept in the fridge for a few days). Eat, reflecting that not all health crazes are bad, especially when they are such excellent vehicles for butter, oil and cheese.

Meal planning Monday - we're going veggie!

I feel that I should begin this post by stating that I am most emphatically not a vegetarian nor do I have any desire to be one.  I love meat and I love fish.  I do, however, fervently believe that I have a responsibility to buy the best quality meat and fish that I can afford and do my bit to ensure that the animals who end up on my plate have had the best possible life.

Now, as we all know, this can get expensive.  And rather than compromise on quality, I'm happily prepared to compromise on quantity.  Vegetarian food can be absolutely gorgeous.  No, strike that, food that happens not to have constituent animal parts can be absolutely gorgeous.  I don't think we need to delineate between "vegetarian" and "not-vegetarian".

D and I have both agreed that it would be a good thing to build up our repertoire of veg based dishes.  To this end, we have both designed a week of vegetarian meals.  And this is mine.

One thing that I did learn was that I could never be vegan - I'm using a lot of cheese this week!  But I'm genuinely looking forward to this menu plan and am curious to see whether we get to the end and crave burgers for breakfast!

Here's what I've gone for:

Root veg spaghetti with herb pesto and Parmesan cream (this is actually a repeat of a dish we cooked last week which was all kinds of amazing!  Hopefully, I'll share the recipe once we've made it again)
Portobello mushroom "burgers" with Halloumi
Tomato and pea curry with coconut rice and an egg pepper fry
Baked gnocchi with blue cheese and spinach (we have some Christmas Stilton which needs using up)
Carpet picnic of home baked baguettes, mushroom pate and a Scottish cheese selection
Home made pizza topped with caramelised red onion and goats' cheese served with salad and a winter slaw
Carrot and cashew nut roast with roast potatoes, root veg mash and creamy leeks and peas

More meal planning fun over at Mrs M's.

Recipe corner: I take enormous pride in my asparagus and goats' cheese tart

I had such a proud moment last weekend.  Well, two if you count the rather pathetic pride I took in going for a walk.  Let’s not shall we – just between us friends let’s pretend that I’m not so needy that I require praise for enacting the basic human function of putting one foot in front of another for a prescribed length of time.

Anyway, the other proud moment was – I made a tart!  With pastry and filling and everything!  From scratch!  And it was scrummy and didn’t have a soggy bottom and didn’t leak and it made a fantastic spring supper.

Now, this is notable for two reasons.  The first is that, as long time readers who have held on through the various ups and downs of the scales and my emotional stability respectively will know, my cooking mojo upped and went a little while ago and has proved a slippery little bugger ever since.  Hence my recent ode to sandwiches and the lack of many recipes on the blog this year.  So me getting back in the kitchen is always worthy of a mention these days.  But the second is that pastry is one of those things that I’ve never really tackled.  Like bread, pastry makes me furrow my brow in…not fear exactly, but certainly a little trepidation.  I think it’s because whenever you see someone on television make either bread or pastry they say something along the lines of “It’s nowhere near as hard as you think it is!” or “There’s no need to be scared!” which…I don’t know, it just sows the seed of doubt doesn’t it?  Plus the fact that my Mum makes the best quiche ever in the history of the world gives me some pretty high standards to which to aspire.  But, nevertheless, I had some asparagus in the fridge and a yen for an asparagus tart.

Look Ma!  I made pastry!

I knew that I wanted the pastry to be savoury and crumbly – perhaps flavoured with Parmesan for extra saltiness.  And I knew I wanted the asparagus to be softly suspended in a custard with just a hint of nutmeggy, peppery warmth so that the iron flavour of those beautiful green shoots would be predominant.  And I quite fancied a scattering of goats’ cheese on top – a young, fresh goats’ cheese that had a touch of lemon to it for some much needed acidity.  And so that is what I made.  Warm (not hot) from the oven, it was perfect with some crispy garlicky roast potatoes and a lightly dressed salad.  Cold, it made a most excellent lunch.

 

Ingredients

140g plain flour

85g butter, cubed
3-4 tbsp cold water
75g Parmesan, finely grated
Salt, pepper, whole nutmeg
Bunch of asparagus
4 eggs
140ml skimmed milk
125g soft goats’ cheese

Serves 6, 9 pro points per portion

OK, first pastry.  Deep breath.  The one thing I have gleaned from years of intensive foodie telly watching is that when you make pastry, everything needs to be cold.  So, I chilled in the fridge at every stage.  First – measure out the flour, the butter and two thirds of the Parmesan into a large bowl.  Put in the fridge, alongside a glass of water for half an hour.

Now you want to combine the fat and the flour.  I used the Kitchen Aid paddle for this but you could equally just rub it in with your fingers.  If you do, try to make sure you use just the finger tips.  When the mixture resembles dry sand, add the chilled water a tablespoon at a time.  Again, I did this in the mixer but you could equally use a spoon or a palate knife.  When it looks like it is thinking about coming together, use your hands to form it into a ball – if it is damp enough it should do this without effort but, equally, without feeling sticky.  I found it took exactly four tablespoons of water.  Wrap in cling film and return to the fridge. 

During the second chill, prepare your asparagus – snap off the woody ends and slice in half lengthwise.  If it is particularly thick you may consider blanching it for a minute or so just to take the edge off (blanche – plunge into boiling water, then remove and transfer immediately to a bowl of cold water, or run the cold tap over until cool to the touch).

Now – rolling the pastry out.  I used a Rachel Allen tip which is: instead of rolling out on a floured work surface, roll between two sheets of cling film.  This worked beautifully and means you don’t risk adding to much flour to the mix and upsetting the ratios in the pastry.  Transfer to a 20cm diameter tart dish.  Trim any overhanging ends and use the trimmings to ensure that there are no holes and that the crust is even all the way around.  Return to the fridge for a final half hour blast.  Preheat the oven to 180.

Using baking parchment and beans or rice to line, bake the case blind for 15 minutes then remove from the oven and bake for a further 10-15 minutes until pale gold.  Pause for a moment to congratulate yourself on your skill.

Beat the eggs briefly and then add the milk and whisk again until a little frothy.  Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. 

Sprinkle the remaining Parmesan on the base of the case, artfully arrange the asparagus and then pour over the egg mix – carefully to avoid overflow.  Finally, crumble the goats. cheese on top before returning to the oven for around 35 minutes until puffed and golden.  Allow to cool to just-slightly-warmer-than-room-temperature before serving.

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