Communication

Hi everyone

Just wanted to say hello after a bit of an absence. To be honest I wanted to write a post a couple of weeks ago but it was going to be terribly whiny and I couldn't bring myself to send it. Unfortunately we'd had a bit of a disastrous meal when I took my mum out for Mothers Day and, seriously, all I've wanted to do ever since is complain! I really must write to that pub and tell them (life's even got in the way of a good moan!)

On the brighter side I was lucky enough to go to the Vegetarian Cookery School a couple of weeks ago and spent a day making Italian food. I love Italian food and the delicious but simple nature of the techniques and ingredients were genius. Janifer and Helen were brilliant and it was great to spend the day with them. When I got home I got straight on to eBay and managed to get an Imperia pasta maker for a great price, last weekend I made roasted butternut squash tortellini. I ended up with so much extra pasta dough that I made some tagliatelle and I had that tonight with some pesto. Fabulous!

For a simple Sunday dinner this weekend I cut an acorn squash in half, hollowed it out and filled the cavity with a vegetarian sausage mix (something I rarely use). I then roasted the squash for an hour or so until it was nice and soft.

More foodie writing soon...

Pie and cleansing

So it's been National Pie Week here in the UK. Pies have been popular for thousands of years and were designed as a way to easily contain ingredients for consumption later on. Pies and pasties have been especially popular in the UK as a way for working men (farmers, sailors) to take a meal to work with them, meat and potatos - staple foods - are simple to hold together in a pastry cake along with some gravy to eat on the go.

I rarely eat pies and pasties due to the calorie count of the pastry but I went shopping with my mum and the store was celebrating Pie Week so I gave one a go. This particular pie contained sweet potato, goats cheese, onion, spinach and garlic along with a smattering of sesame seeds over the top of the pastry. I must admit that it was utterly delicious! A one off treat admittedly but lovely for a change.

After all of the naughtiness my body needed some goodness! For tea I made a nice big plate of stir-fry veg with garlic and served it up with a small pile of rice noodles and shoyu sauce. Healthy, lovely and vegan!

Breakfast grains and Caribbean beans

This week has been one of experimentation. I've been inspired by various blogs and websites and mind-worms to get on and experiment with certain things. Some of which I'll write about in greater detail when I've gathered more information (tofu, tempeh and other protein products are the general theme!)

I've had a pack of red quinoa in the cupboard for a while now and wasn't too sure what to do with it. After the barley revolution last month I decided that quinoa for breakfast isn't too scary a thought. I boiled up the grain (2 cups water to 1 cup quinoa) with some ground nutmeg and ginger, kept the boil rolling for a few minutes until most of the water was absorbed and then removed from the heat until the rest of the water had been soaked up. This has made 4 breakfasts with the quinoa kept in the fridge and then half a cup reheated each morning and then served with nuts and fruit (in this case a mix of pistachios or walnuts, berries or banana).

Carribean beans came about because I found a jar of cook-in sauce in the cupboard that was nearing its use by date. I rarely buy sauces but this one appealed to me at the time and has been sat around for months waiting for its time to come. That happened this week. I was looking for a quick-n-easy dinner solution that would cook itself while I was exercising. I emptied 3 cans of pre-cooked beans (black-eyes beans, chickpeans and kidney beans) into a casserole dish and added some diced squash then covered it all with the Carribean 'Reggae Reggae' sauce, added an extra jar full of water and popped it in the oven for 40mins at 200 deg C. I only ate a third, which was a LOT of beans, and the rest has been frozen for future use. The sauce was really spicy and if I'd had more of an appetite it would've gone beautifully with some white rice. Photo to follow...

Tasty snack

Today has been a fairly non-eventful day in terms of cooking. Doing the early morning dash to work, packed-lunch thing means that from 6am-6pm Monday-Friday I'm nowhere near the kitchen. Breakfast was, however, a delicious mix of fruit (blueberries) with barley and yoghurt along with some pistachios. Lunch was a grab-from-the-freezer homemade soup (in this case, spicy parsnip) and some crackers n fruit. Soup is my favourite lunch and yes, I even indulge in the summer despite the strange looks that I get from colleagues when I'm enjoying this traditionally cold weather treat!


I wasn't in the mood for much when I got home from work as I was running late and planning to do some yoga - this plan got scuppered when I was reminded of the David Hockney documentary being shown on BBC2! I did manage to defrost one of the sweet potato burgers I'd made last week and served it up with some shallow-friend halloumi shavings, sun dried tomatoes and a side-dish of rocket. Fairly simple and low-brow but utterly delish!

No cooking at all for me tomorrow as I'll be out - going straight to the cinema to see "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" after work. Looking forward to some light-hearted comedy and a brilliantly talented cast (just hope the film is as good as the trailer!)

Cook-fest Sunday

This week saw the annual feast-ival that is Shrove Tuesday. Even people without any religious belief go crazy at this time of year because they simply MUST have pancakes! As I had a dinner date I missed out on the celebrations but made up for it today. This pancake (laced with vanilla) was served with blueberries and syrup - delicious!

My parents came to lunch and Sundays with them equals a traditional British roast dinner with potatoes, veg and gravy. Mum and I are both veggies and I always try to make something that she wouldn't make herself or expect. The inspiration for today came from here. I used half of the basic recipe minus the egg, half the breadcrumbs, and instead of using a loaf tin I pressed the mix into greased muffin moulds to make 'puddings'. The lentils created a nice crisp shell with a lovely gooey inside, the overall feel was surprisingly light and, well, puddingy. I'll be sure to make this again but I'll probably experiment a bit with herbs and spices to see how much this can be changed-up. With sides of roasted potato and roasted cauliflower, carrot and sauteed leek this dinner really was a hit.

Tagines

Today I was lucky enough to have a friend visit for lunch, I love cooking for her because she is so open-minded and happy to eat vegetarian food. I took this as the perfect opportunity to make a tagine - one of my favourite dishes as it's so healthy, easy to make and full of flavour.

The great thing about tagines is that most of the effort is made simply preparing the vegetables and then you can pretty much leave them to do their thing. This one, like the majority of dishes, has sauteed onions as the starter ingredient to which is added spices (turmeric, cumin, paprika, cinnamon stick and bay leaf) and chopped garlic. After that the recipes are fairly flexible, I like this one which has sweet potato, butternut squash and carrot. Covered with stock this is left on the hob until the vegetables are tender, the key is to make the pieces fairly small - (preferably bite-sized) so they don't take too long to cook. Softer vegetables (aubergine and courgette) and fruits (dates, apricots or raisins) can be added towards the end of the cooking time as they will only take a few minutes. For a bit of extra heat a deseeded, halved chilli can be added to the cooking water but removed before serving. Authentic ingredients that can be added are preserved lemon (halved and with the insides removed) and pomegranate molasses - these can be bought in some supermarkets or speciality stores.

To accompany this I cooked up some giant couscous grains but fluffy regular couscous is just perfect to accompany any tagine.

Barley for breakfast?

I've been following Monica Shaw's Twitter feed for the last few days and was pleasantly surprised when she Tweeted a breakfast which included barley. I must admit that my week day breakfasts are pretty dull affairs as they're generally grabbed on the way out of the door or eaten at the office so this gave me a queue to jazz things up.

Here it is, the barley breakfast platter:

pearl barley (cooked and cooled)
yoghurt (in this case Yeo Valley organic limited edition passionfruit flavour)
chopped banana
cashews
prunes

So many textures on one little plate! The flavours go really well together and the basic components of barley, fruit and nuts are infinitely interchangeable. I've also seen an idea of wild rice for breakfast which I may give a go another time.

Tomorrows crunchy lunch

It's very rare that I make a meal this close to 'rabbit food'. I really fancied making some houmous for tomorrow so I took some chickpeas and whizzed up a job lot:

1 tin chickpeas (garbanzo) - drained and rinsed
1tsp tahini paste
1tsp lemon juice
1 clove garlic - crushed
1/2tbsp extra virgin olive oil

All of the above in a food processor, just add water til it gets to the right consistency. Served with raw red pepper and carrot sticks. Delish!

Roasted veg with lentils and halloumi

Pretty much what is says on the tin:

Carrots and parsnip cut into chunky strips - slow roasted without oil
Puy lentils - boiled in stock for 25mins
2 slices of halloumi cheese - fried in olive oil

Stacked on a place and served with love