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.

Wholesome and tasty

Then first accomplishment of the day was to finish what I'd started on Monday night. In the end the planned sausages became burger patties as the mix was definitely more of a burger consistency. I was surprised by how well these turned out I must admit. Here is the recipe:

400g sweet potato, diced
1 medium carrot, diced
50g halloumi, grated
1/2 leek, finely sliced
1 egg
1/2 tbsp dried parsley
1/4 cup breadcrumbs
seasoning
flour to coat
olive oil

Method: boil, drain and mash both the sweet potato and carrot. Fry the leek until golden. Mix all ingredients together except the flour (although if the mix looks wet flour can be added to thicken it). Chill for 30mins. Shape into patties and coat with flour, shallow fry in olive oil.


The second accomplishment was a large pan of sopa de maize (sweetcorn soup). I attended a Mexican themed supperclub at the Vegetarian Cookery School in the autumn and this was one of my favourite dishes. Low-fat and tasty this recipe has only been published via the VegCS Facebook and Twitter feeds. I served a portion of this piping hot garnished with a small amount of cream and coriander as well as a side portion of homemade corn tortilla chips. Without the cream this is entirely wheat free and vegan.

Research day

Today I've been busy collecting recipes to try and also looking through the hundreds that I've already got stored on my computer to 'try later'. Unfortunately I ran out of time while making dinner so I'll have to finish that dish tomorrow or Wednesday (it needed some chilling time so it will be chilling for a while!) If that works I'll be posting the recipe here on Wednesday evening when I have more time.

Until then - happy eating!

Halva Heaven and Barley revisited

Well a breakfast jazz-up is exactly what's been achieved this weekend.


The second attempt at something new came from Sumayya (aka Pukka Paki). She and Monica had made some semolina halva and compote, again I was fascinated. My first, and last, experience of halva was of it in its cake form back in 2003. At the time I was lodging with a vegan who occasionally binged on chicken and chocolate, yep she really was a "vegan"! I wasn't sure of it at the time so that's where my experimentation ended. Over the years my tastes have developed and when I saw this breakfast-version I decided to give it a go. The recipe can be found on Sumayya's blog (link above) and is incredibly easy and ridiculously delicious. I love cardamom probably more in sweet dishes than savoury ones so this was ideal for me. I upped the cardamom and vanilla a little and went on the lower end of the sugar scale. There is still plenty of last years rhubarb in my freezer so that made a perfect compote with some fresh ginger and star anise. Sprinkled with ground almonds this is an utterly delightful breakfast.

That was yesterday. As I was out for lunch there was no experimentation with my home cooking but I had a bean chilli with rice and tortilla chips. I was glad of the warming spices on such a cold day.


Todays breakfast was a revisit to the delights of barley. If you're going to bother cooking this grain at all it's best to do more than you need - that length of cooking time needs to be worth it! Thankfully it's great for a myriad of uses such as salads, risotto, stuffed vegetables and now breakfast! This mornings delight:

barley
yoghurt
blueberries
chopped walnuts

Roast dinner with my parents followed later (7 vegetables along with roasted potatoes and a butternut squash & nut roast courtesy of mum). I must be full of vitamins!

Exotic extravagance

In total contrast to yesterdays dinner this one became a labour of love and took quite some time to prepare. My boyfriend and I were meant to be going out to a new Indian restaurant but unfortunately he's come down with a bad case of 'man flu'. Naturally I was disappointed but decided to cook myself an Indian-inspired meal anyway.

Intrigued by Monica Shaw's article on savoury pancakes I was particularly interested in the recipe for besan cheela. I didn't have any ground coriander or ajowan but I did pop in some asofateda in its place.

Looking for something to go with these I reached for my 'Green Seasons' cookbook by Rachel Demuth. I'd been meaning to make the !Indian spiced chickpeas for a while so I cooked up a batch, luckily I had all of the ingredients to hand. Knowing that I was going for an Indian theme I'd picked up a mango when I went shopping earlier and made some of Janifer's fresh mango chutney as well as some khadi (spiced yoghurt dip) - recipes for both of these also in 'Green Seasons'.

An awful lot of effort for a dinner for one but everything complimented each other and my initial disappointment at being home alone disappeared. The meal was rounded off with a slice of wheat-free, gluten-free, cake that I made this afternoon along with a very large cup of tea