Veggie Headliner Act Archives - Woodsmoke and Wild Strawberries

LIGHTNING CURRY

January 13, 2016 by natalie Leave a Comment

This is a super-fast post, because I can’t seem to string together more than 15 minutes in front of the computer these days. I also slashed the tip of my thumb open on my mandolin making the sprouts recipe earlier this week and it hurts to type. This recipe was a rip-roaring surprise of a success last night and the 2, 5 and 7 year olds ate ADULT portions of it. Crucially for children, it is mild, but far from dull as it is very aromatic. I know my kids are not the norm, but I believe that if you expect a lot from them, they will deliver. I held my breath with my back turned as they first tucked in, and lo and behold, they did not complain, far from it!

I will come back and replace my iphone pics with high-res. photos to accompany this recipe when I next make it as this one doesn’t really do it justice. I instagrammed yesterday evening’s results and whole load of people asked for the recipe. I ate the leftovers for lunch today with my husband, it was so tasty, although I confess it was spiked with chillies for our palates and worked wonderfully too. You know something is good when you eat it several meals in a row with no complaint. I think you could substitute the chicken with sweet potato or tofu and make it veggie… I’ll give it a whirl and let you know.

I call it lightning curry as:

it can be made in a flash (literally the time it takes to cook the rice)
it is like a dazzling lightning bolt of golden energy beaming right in to your winter kitchen, eradicating doom, gloom and viruses.
it can almost qualify as a non-vegetarian detox style dish and is most certainly healthy if not vegan therefore is could technically be part of a weightloss programme (“lightening”, geddit?)

The short, basic formula for any easy, fast curry is as follows:

chop everything before hand
make a curry paste with herbs, spices and roots in a chopper (or use shop-bought)
fry onions (a bit like soffritto)
add paste to onions
add meat or main star ingredient to onions
sear main ingredient to seal in flavour before adding liquid
pour in liquid (be it stock, water, coconut milk)
bring to boil
THEN add tender veg (or else they will become mush)
turn off heat and season
garnish well with something pretty and colourful eg. chillies / spring onions / coriander (cilantro)

The detailed version, for this curry however, is:

The curry in the photo was a mild version in its original incarnation, but it morphed in to a spicy one once my husband and I were having it as left overs on day 2. If you like heat, then use chillies. If not, this is a great recipe, as unlike when I use quality, shop-bought Thai curry pastes, you get to decide on how spicy you want it to be. The cooking time of the rice (if you use a rice-cooker) is more than sufficient to get on with the rest if you use a chopper to mince up all your spices and roots etc. We use a rice cooker a lot in our house - I used to think they were just another unnecessary piece of kitchen kit, until my husband brought one into my life after being converted to its wisdom during a stint living in Asia. In actual fact I have grown to really appreciate this gadget very recently on discovering that I can cook dried beans or split peas in a fraction of the time and even then, they no longer give me bloating nor do they retain that grassy, overly "al dente" chalkiness that can make them so unappealing. The other advantage is that I can be on the school run or whatever, while the rice-cooker bubbles away, basically leaving it to get on with things. If I have understood correctly, a rice-cooker is not a pressure cooker, but the seal in the rice cooker somehow amplifies the cooking speed and thoroughness. Secondly, if you want to prepare ahead, you could chop your meat and marinate it in half the spices as much as a day in advance if you fancy (I did not, and it was still wonderful). The other half is best fried over with the onions and the marinated meat/spice mixture then added. Whenever you cook meat, be sure to let it come to room temperature before cooking as otherwise it will clench up like a scared mollusc and end up tough and chewy. The thermal shock on the muscle-fibres makes them shorten, whereas if you don't subject, it to unnaturally extreme spikes in heat, it yields and becomes tender. With this in mind, remove your meat from the fridge at least 15 minutes before you want to throw it in the pan.

The Brussels Sprout Recipe to trump all others

December 22, 2015 by natalie Leave a Comment

This photo is a version in which sprouts are mixed with a variegated white and green curly kale. This one deep bowl about 25cm across served 4 generously as a side.

I started writing another post, as I often have done, but relegated it to the unpublished pile because it was too depressing and too contemplative. If on the other hand you feel like a shit parent and want to feel better, and I receive requests to indulge in my self-deprecating open-kimono self-shaming I will gauge interest and may post after all. For now I won’t be a buzz kill at such a festive time of year.

All you need to know in terms of what has been going on since my last post is:

Baby has had all sorts of A&E visits of late due to a variety of bonks, scrapes and daredevil endeavours.
I turned 40 and had a shit weekend (mainly due to grief)
Have no childcare for the last 6 weeks at all so am losing my shit with the kids as they have been off for the best part of a fortnight and are trapped inside an awful lot, thanks to this unfestive, misery-inducing December mild drizzle.

Now that the scene is set, I am going to share with you a recipe which is the culinary equivalent of the mildly irritating saying that goes: “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!”. This recipe transforms the much maligned, often bitter sprout in to a real delicacy. I get why the sprout has such a bad rap; it is so easily cooked wrong. In stressed and rushed hands, it can be over-cooked and then turn mealy, mushy, metallic and sulphurous, a little ball of poison, all bitterness and obligation. From childhood (in the UK at least) we are encouraged to imbibe something verdant in brownish-sea of animal protein and rich trimmings on Christmas day, and once a year out they have come, the little balls of misery. Since the 80s there have been huge leaps as a nation in our cooking prowess, knowledge and open-mindedness, and even kale has finally gone from awkward wallflower to the nerdy popular superstar at the gastro-party. If we can eat kale, we can eat sprouts, and this recipe is basically a way to combine and transform pretty much any combination/ ratio of the following arse-kicking, cancer-fighting, alkaline forming, green cruciferous vegetables eg:

Sprouts
Pointu /Savoy Cabbage (even a white cabbage but it would look slightly less green and inviting, although the texture would withstand this kind of preparation and cooking)
Cavolo Nero / Tuscan Kale
Spring Greens / Collard Greens
Curly Kale (any colour)

The key to this recipe’s success is this:

DO NOT OVERCOOK THE GREENS!! A few minutes stirfrying is all that is necessary – they must be wilted only, not cooked through. This ensures they do not turn bitter and mushy. It is like steering a boat into dock in that you need to turn off the power (heat) before you reach “doneness” as there will be residual heat carrying the greens along that can make them overcook.
Use greens with intrinsic toughness and bite (as listed above), that are compact and that can withstand fine slicing. The flavours work well with all cruciferous veg (broccoli, cauliflower etc) but not all can be finely sliced and still look good and maintain a firm texture.
Slice the greens as finely as you can stand. I have lost many an edge of a thumbnail in the deployment of my mandolin (so frequently and painfully so, that I have a high-end version, with finger guard on my Christmas list – like this.). Slicing finely means that you can essentially eat the greens raw and they will still be delicate and tasty enough. This also give them volume and lightness and allows the flavours to reach even the hidden depths of the vegetable pile.
Make it on the spot, all can be prepped in advance, but they need to be stir-fried 3 minutes before serving. I made this at a friend’s house who was hosting us for Thanksgiving, as one of our dinner contributions and it was quick and painless, as I had all the ingredients pre-sliced and arranged to go. [Incidentally, the other guests asked for the recipe (even the anti-sprout militants) saying it was the tastiest sprout recipe they had ever tasted.]

Fresh turmeric in the foreground, ginger in the background

For years I made sprouts with pancetta and chorizo and chesnuts, but these are much lighter and more appealing when paired with all the other foods normally served at Christmas. In fact I eat this all the time once the sprouts are in season, even if slicing them is quite literally, a chafe. Fresh turmeric root is one of the planet’s most potent super-foods and fights cancer and a battery of other diseases. Amazingly it is now quite widely available. I can get it at my local market and on Ocado. It is responsible for the crazy lime-green colour of the sprouts in the photo and it has a wicked flavour and aroma too. If you cannot find fresh turmeric, or you can’t face an Ottolenghi-length quest for ingredients, you do not need to use ALL the spices I suggest. I often make these with only garlic, ginger and lemon zest.

Here you go:

If we can eat kale, we can eat sprouts, and this recipe is basically a way to combine and transform pretty much any combination/ ratio of arse-kicking, cancer-fighting, alkaline forming, green cruciferous vegetables eg: Sprouts Pointu /Savoy Cabbage (even a white cabbage but it would look slightly less green and inviting, although the texture would withstand this kind of preparation and cooking) Cavolo Nero / Tuscan Kale Spring Greens / Collard Greens Curly Kale (any colour) If you are serving to children, hold the szechuan pepper and chilli. The quantities of turmeric, garlic, ginger etc. can be adjusted according to your taste. After years of laboriously using a knife to slice my sprouts, I have moved on to a mandolin for really fast and fine slicing. Take care of your fingers though! I imagine you could use a slicing attachment in your food processor for similar results, but the slices should really be not more than 2-3mm thick. THIS IS KEY: DO NOT OVERCOOK THE GREENS!! A few minutes stirfrying is all that is necessary - they must be wilted only, not cooked through. This ensures they do not turn bitter and mushy. It is like steering a boat into dock in that you need to turn off the power (heat) before you reach "doneness" as there will be residual heat carrying the greens along that can make them overcook. Use greens with intrinsic toughness and bite (as listed above), that are compact and that can withstand fine slicing. The flavours work well with all cruciferous veg (broccoli, cauliflower etc) but not all can be finely sliced and still look good and maintain a firm texture. Slice the greens as finely as you can stand. Slicing finely means that you can essentially eat the greens raw and they will still be delicate and tasty enough. This also give them volume and lightness and allows the flavours to reach even the hidden depths of the vegetable pile. Make it on the spot, all can be prepped in advance, but they need to be stir-fried 3 minutes before serving.

Sugo al pomodoro classico (classic tomato pasta sauce)

November 3, 2015 by natalie 3 Comments

Sugo rosso classico

Classic tomato sauce aka sugo.

There is no reason any non-native Italian shouldn’t be able to make an authentic, reliable, tasty, easy go-to pasta sauce. I advise you to just shrug off the casual snobbery / subtly xenophobic tendency that fellow Italians have, where they are deeply suspicious of any other nationality making anything from their classic culinary repertoire.

This classic red sauce will cause disagreements in every household and by my estimation is probably the primary source of initial rifts between daughters-and-mothers-in-law as there are as many recipes for it and opinions on it as there are families in Italy. Often but not exclusively, each family hands their recipe down from mother to daughter (and of course sometimes son, look at Bottura, Carluccio, Contaldo, Locatelli et al) in this way for generations. it’s not a secret recipe usually, it’s just a basic survival skill in all families an a very polarizing one at that. Some don’t diverge from a minimalist, purist version (tomato, olive oil, garlic and salt and maybe (oooh!) a single basil leaf) – my friend Ute calls it “sugo finto” in her house (which means “fake sauce” and recommends this particularly with fresh, seasonal summery tomatoes – I will provide her exact recipe soon… others will only approve of a soffritto base and then the addition of tomato. To give you another example of a totally valid yet surprising departure from the majority of recipes – from a bona fide, card-carrying Sicilian friend of mine, Elena who is a paediatrician living in the UK called her mother in a panic when pregnant in order to get the exact recipe for her sugo such were her cravings. She used to make her own (just one of her mother’s variations) but the nostalgia component was insurmountable as she craved a particular recipe which had no soffritto or oil at all involved in the cooking. Controversially Elena’s mother’s recipe involved boiling the tomato and carrot and celery and onion without the initial frying off, just the combining and boiling of all the ingredients and the addition of fresh, raw extra virgin olive oil just before serving….

The Basics: Soffritto, my umami – how I love thee, let me count the ways!

October 3, 2015 by natalie Leave a Comment

I can’t keep up with writing up the volume of things that I think can be useful / interesting to share on here. Sometimes I master something new and I think – wow, what took me so long? There are countless other elements like broths and stock, and bread dough that I can pull together and which make the rest of my cooking more tasty, more flexible, more interesting. It is definitely a confidence thing, being able to make any kind of soup, sling any fish of any size and shape in the oven and to not have to consult a recipe book or double check the correct oven temperature, the ability to eye progress and adjust, how to pre-empt ‘doneness’ by bearing in mind the residual heat a dish contains before you serve it… At last, turning 40 a month from today, I actually have that elusive ‘feel’ for things – both in the kitchen and without. It is as if the culinary trajectory runs parallel to other elements in life: you become seasoned with a patina of firsthand exposure, layer upon layer of trials and tribulations borne of personal effort, time and experience that not matter how beautiful and fresh the greenness of youth may be, it simply cannot match it.

Recently I realized that I can make caramel by eye, and a few months back I mastered something that seemed so unfamiliar and Anglo/French and faux-grand that I thought it would be fiddly but it really wasn’t: roux and by extension, béchamel. Then my friend Brooke said: “i feel I could do with a real intro in to the basics… like how to make a roux, or a soffritto as these things crop up all the time…”. So I’m going to include this and many others on here, with hyperlinks so that you can refer to these recipes when they crop up as a subset of another recipe. I would also be very open to suggestions (grateful) at what to include in the basics section, as I think different families and cultures have a particular “house style” and a different way of approaching things and therefore everyone has their ‘essentials’ list. My take on cooking is that to be a successful intuitive cook (ie. someone broadly competent and comfortable in the kitchen), it helps to learn some of the extensive culinary alphabet. For me, coming at this cooking lark from a definitely Italian angle, soffritto is definitely one of the basic building blocks.

Soffritto is one of those things that Italians assume everyone beyond the confines of Italy must familiar with, as it is a ‘starter’ and enhancer of simply so many dishes. I use soffritto to make variations of “shepherd’s pie” and “cottage pie” that I would otherwise never be tempted to make for my family. My childhood memories of eating Shepherd’s pie and its relatives, is one of a dark and muddy 2 dimensional gristly meat base taking its colour from bovril or bisto granules. We do use stock cubes in our house, and Bouillon powder, but there is nothing that can compare with the savoury and wholesome tang that comes from frying over a little pile of diced vegetables. The classic soffritto I am referring to is basically a sepia take on the Italian flag:

Celery (green)
Onion (white)
Carrot (red – sort of!)

I have often heard that celery is rich in umami and this must be why it is a key vegetable in soffritto. Apparently Parmesan is also rich in umami (no wonder Italian food is so addictive and why I end up using so much of these ingredients in my own cooking). Anyway, carrot has sweetness, as does onion once golden, and combined they produce that perfectly synergistic collision of several of three of the five key tastes once you throw in seasoning ie. sweet, salty and umami. According to Wikipedia:

Many foods that may be consumed daily are rich in umami components. Naturally occurring glutamate can be found in meats and vegetables, whereas inosinate comes primarily from meats and guanylate from vegetables. Thus, umami taste is common to foods that contain high levels of L-glutamate, IMP and GMP, most notably in fish, shellfish, cured meats, mushrooms, vegetables (e.g., ripe tomatoes, Chinese cabbage, spinach, celery, etc.) or green tea, and fermented and aged products involving bacterial or yeast cultures, such as cheeses, shrimp pastes, fish sauce, soy sauce, nutritional yeast, and yeast extracts such as Vegemite and Marmite.^[26]

Many humans’ first encounter with umami components is breast milk.^[27] It contains roughly the same amount of umami as broths.

There are some distinctions among stocks from different countries. In dashi, L-glutamate comes from sea kombu (Laminaria japonica) and inosinate from dried bonito flakes (katsuobushi) or small dried sardines (niboshi).

It would seem that most food cultures try and access that umami perfection but I had never consciously realized that the flavours I am drawn to most (many of the apparently eccentric elements in my store cupboard such as dashi, bonito, kombu, and less eccentric more widespread ones such as fish sauce and yeast flakes) are precisely things that boost flavour in this category. Umami is said to ‘magnify’ taste, which to me seems like a cook’s cheat, a way to just make things taste more, taste better. Retroactively I feel less of an obsessive saddo for making my own fish stock and faffing around pouring it in to my baby weaning cubes and freezing it for future use as in fact I am just lusting after umami in my cooking. To me it makes the world of difference but I get it that for a lot of people making stock is just a bridge too far in terms of hassle sometimes… In which case I highly recommend soffritto as it gets you a lot of the way there in terms of amping up the taste of many a dish.

A soffritto can also contain garlic and chilli, (especially in Abruzzo) and in Italy we often use celery leaves rather than the stem. This is probably due to the fact that the celery you find there is much more leggy and hardy, over all much greener and more wiry (when you buy it at a real market) than the water-rich, virtually albino variety found further north. For this reason you may find that your frying time varies, depending on water content.

Lastly, when I make a pasta sauce for the kids and I want to morph it in to something more compelling and more dashing with heat and oomph, I will often slice up a clove or two of garlic and give it a gentle fry with some fresh chillies (or dried if that’s what you have to hand) and then heat the sugo up in the two-ingredient soffritto before adding to the pasta. Soffritto is also the key to tomato sauce, most of my risotti, the key to making an amazing Ragù and basically anything you care to make with mince. Look no further:

Slice off one edge to stop the carrot rolling then slice the removed edge and the remaining carrot into 3mm-deep slices…

In turn flip the slices on to their sides, slice them up lengthways in to matchsticks and then once more slice these matchsticks crossways (perpendicular) to create tiny chunks…

cut the stems of celery in to pieces roughly 10cm long and one inch across, then ribbon these in to long matchsticks as you did with the carrots…

then slice these crossways into small cubes

remove the core of the onion, peel it and flip it over for slicing finely…

chop the slices perpendicular to the onion layers and little chunks will be the outcome

place the vegetables for the soffritto into a heavy-based pan and fry gently in enough oil to cover the bottom of the pan and coat the veg… be sure to add the garlic once the onion starts to turn golden, not before or it will burn and ruin the flavour.

This recipe is a soffritto that would be suit a sugo that would serve c. 10 people (made with 2-3 x 700g bottles of passata). Simply halve this amount for a regular 2L saucepan size. You don't need to weigh your veg unless you want to, it may be helpful first time around, until you 'get you eye in'. I know a large handful of each vegetable is a good measure for me, and should occupy most of the bottom of the sauté I use, once dropped in and spread thinly and evenly across the breadth. Sorry to delve in to detail with the chopping technique, but it makes a whole word of difference to your speed and outcome. You could of course use an electric chopper appliance but it doesn't make cubes, it makes little chiselled pieces of varying size so your veg don't fry very reliably. I have done this many a time with no qualms, when horribly pressed for time.

You can also, if you are the kind of person who in your more manic moments likes to batch cook and store for a rainy day, you can make an industrial amount and preserve it in jars…

All you do is up the quantities of the above veg in proportion, (you might want to skip the garlic as then you have the option of adding it without too much hassle when needed), salting it (1 part salt to 4 parts veg, in weight – 1:4). In Italy they often advise the following:

1/2 kg rock salt

1kg carrot

1kg celery

1kg onion

2 tbsp fresh parsley / thyme (I don’t recommend basil as it doesn’t keep well at all so is best added fresh).

… Make sure these are, as ever, all finely chopped and then sprinkled with the salt and allowed to sit for 10 minutes in a large bowl. The veg are then strained and patted dry and then mixed with olive oil so as to be thoroughly coated, and then spooned in to glass jars (sterilized if you prefer, but I never bother) and covered over with more oil. Make sure you bang these jars firmly on a tea-towel on a work surface to allow any air-bubbles to escape, then top up again with oil, so that unlike an iceberg, no single point of the soffritto mix is surfacing above the oil. Close with a lid and store somewhere cool such as a cellar or fridge or shed for a month or more. When my aunt does them they keep for months!

As you use the jars, but perhaps don’t finish them, simply top them up with more oil to create an air-seal and continue to store. Voilà! Next time you are making something on the hoof, no faffing with peeling and chopping, two heaped tablespoons and you’re done. Just be sure not to add any more salt to your final dish as the preserving salt will be quite potent.

Going through the motions and Trio of Cauliflower and Broccoli Cheese

September 29, 2015 by natalie 6 Comments

Although not many of you like to comment on here in person, (perhaps I have shy friends? Perhaps I am too vehement and I scare you off with my diatribes?) but I do get an awful lot of lovely feedback and also requests (via facebook, dm, sms and in person) from friends and acquaintances to share recipes of things which I share on Instagram. And it has been soooo gratifying to be on the receiving end of these. Especially so because I felt so sheepish sharing anything at all at the outset. I mean, does anyone care? I feel like these days everyone feels that their opinion counts, regardess if they have any credibility / expertise in the field and (worst aspect of all) there being no barrier to entry. Anyone can have a blog or be on Twitter or whatever – so you never know if you are just another annoying bit of static clogging up someone else’s life or whether there is a place for your contribution/perspective. I find this a horrifying thought. Normally I am (was) one of those lurkers just abstaining from joining the other lemmings navel-gazing and sharing it on the ‘interweb’. Sharing anything on Instagram – which I am relatively new to – I began to do reluctantly and purely as a stopgap, because I realized that I cook so much but am unable, due to time constraints, to publish it all on here. A mere fraction of it is actually written up and thoughtfully presented – perhaps about 5% of what is bubbling away under this roof any given week. Until I started snapping away at the stove and on my worktop, I never actually realized how much weekly cooking that amounted to, and that was only the stuff I remembered to shoot. It is also a reminder to me that I am, in some way, being productive even if it often feels the reverse. Instagram has also served as a surprising testing ground for what people are interested in eating and cooking for themselves: the feedback is instant and is shaping this blog in its infancy, which feels very positive in that it is living in the moment, it is current. Although it often results in the derailment or postponing of planned posts, it does divert me towards not just what I think may be, but what really is appealing to others and this in turn is exciting as it means engaging with a quiet community, despite the interaction not being face to face. It also means things are new and surprising, and topics organically arise rather than being fabricated. When I was writing this unpublished blog (for my sanity and the kids’ posterity) back in the Spring, I shuddered at the thought of having anyone peek into the chaos and intimacy of my daily life. But then my good friend Daphne, over one of my lunches, piped up with “what is the point of a blog if there is no audience? I mean, isn’t that the point? To share and react and have a dialogue?”. On the other side of the coin there is my husband who is extremely private and sceptical albeit very encouraging towards me, (I mean he got me into this blogging lark in the first place) who always needles me good-naturedly by referencing the famous tree falling in the forest – when no-one is there to hear it has it really fallen? eg. does the food we eat have any value if it is not Instagrammed, if noone is there to virtually see / “like” it? Ultimately we both know we enjoy the food and eat this way regardless of our audience but it is key to not become a slave to outside approval. They both have point.

With children to please – and, contrary to what it may appear I often don’t please my children at all with my culinary offerings – you can see why every micro-hit of appreciation from others is so addictive, so eagerly lapped up! My husband, who is trying to get me to unplug from technology at night and to be more present (I see his point and appreciate his concern for my welfare) doesn’t see that most of my mum-friends are most active at night when their time has fewer demands upon it and that they, or rather we rely on our cyber-friendships because we are a fellowship of mutual supporters, mothers struggling against the relentless “rinse and repeat” of daily child-rearing.

And this is the thing that I have come only very recently to understand:

…Our lives are lived in tiny modest, little increments, not attention-seeking flashes of public, marketable glory. Going repeatedly through the motions, whether they are “please hang up your coat” or “please eat your broccoli”, “have you finished your homework”, “please go and practise” – much like the Tiger Mom’s rule of 10,000 hours, eventually means that after apparently countless, relentless, seemingly empty and unappreciated gestures made in the hope of shaping your precious charges, these seemingly ineffective gestures, suddenly appear to have garnered value. Except it hasn’really been sudden at all, we just suddenly notice it, that is all. It has been the slow growing fruiting of our labours, we don’t immediately see the fruits of our labour or the progress we are slowly making. It may feel soul-destroying during the apparently invisible growth period because it appears that nothing is happening – we can all hear our enemy voice “what is the point?” and then, it suddenly catches up, just when you are at your lowest ebb and feel like throwing in the puke and tear-stained towel. Yoga is like this, also parenting and perhaps also giving birth…and they are three of the most rewarding things in life that I can think of. It is almost like a retroactive sprint that occurs to restore your faith in humanity after months, years of apparent going through the motions, of mindlessly repeating yourself of trying and trying and returning to the coal face. It is not dissimilar to when your first kid is not able to read and you sit there with them, countless bedtimes, and yet you think at the outset: “will he / she ever get there?”. With your first child you can’t even picture it. Same with potty training and sleeping through the night. Looking at your child and not seeing them grow on a daily basis doesn’t mean they aren’t growing, it is simply that for those closest to them, those in the eye of the storm, the changes are too subtle, too minute, to be easily detectable, but they are cumulative, they are real and they are there. But then maybe the season changes and you find yourself dusting off a pair of long unworn winter trousers and – it seems to have happened so suddenly – those trousers are just too small. There are tiny little increments in which we are living that are easily ignored or overlooked and which are in great contrast to the constantly revolving door of high-impact-instant-gratification-goldfish-sized-attention-span-heavily-filtered-overly-styled nuggets we are becoming accustomed to when scrolling on social media. Our obsession with instant gratification is making a chasm open up between “IRL” (in real life) ACTUAL living, breathing moments our and our online personae. No wonder we feel like our efforts are failing when they aren’t. We are too busy actually living and not necessarily documenting our own lives. AND THAT IS A GOOD THING!! The naked eye, much like the soul, doesn’t always see the progress being made and I have to remind myself of this. Scrolling back through my 70-odd instagram pictures lets me enjoy the otherwise immediately extinguishing trail of phosphorescence that is bringing up and feeding my lovely children. I used to love (and still do) any tv show that indulges me with ‘before’ and ‘after’ shots or accelerated time lapse photography of things being improved (Changing Rooms, Extreme Makeover, America’s Next Top Model etc.) it is like crack to me, someone who is constantly frustrated by all I don’t feel I achieve in one day. It is a hard line to walk, this dipping one toe in to social media and documentation, while the other toe is in the other camp, actually being present and doing without appreciation or thanks or yardsticks. There is a febrile sort of tension that many of us are struggling with: the living vicariously through technology on the one hand and the being present, the actual living of the very moment in which we exist. Then again feeling the need to immortalize, create umpteen time-capsules for every precious experience because everything feels so fleeting, when only a couple of generations before us, our very own ancestors were lucky if they had a family story passed on from mouth to ear or a single dog-eared photo of their wedding day or loved one. We no longer seem to appreciate the minutae of daily drudgery, or harbour the notion that it could have any positive elements. Well I am trying to, I want my kids growing up knowing how to make their own beds, do the dishes and sort their own laundry and manage their affairs. The thing that keeps me cooking (…documenting, photographing) is that I do honestly enjoy creating something beautiful, and then connecting with others emotionally through it. It may take time but for me it is not work, it is play. This is the antidote to all the other pressures and niggles of life. I can make things look appetizing (because to me they are) but it is not a fabrication, it is just a little tweaked with a filter here or there, in reality, with the smell and shared with my beloved it is even better. Just as it’s hard to find the middle ground between virtual and present, it can also be hard to be positive and not annoying, authentic but not boring and moany (plenty to bore with and moan about). I don’t want to create a moan-blog, nor an airbrushed one… I have a post pending following a terrible evening last week, and I can’t bear to read it and am not sure anyone else will either. Much like me sharing my terrible pregnancy snap however, chances are that, when I find the right tone (not the tone I adopted while hammering the keys in anger) I may share it too, because I have a blatant contempt for the overly curated lives represented on most social media and blogs. This is one of my favourite articles right here on the subject. I clearly have acquaintances like this and in the spirit of my very own basest of rubber-necking instincts I can’t bear to unfriend them because I cannot resist the so totally un-self-aware post-modernism, the black humour that they provide, the contemptuous grunts and guffaws they elicit from me.

Anyway back to the task in hand: Souped up Broccoli/Cauliflower Cheese. One very pertinent, interesting and thought-provoking interaction was thrown up by my instagram proffering of this broc-cauli cheese baked dish. It followed a thread initiated by an old school friend on Facebook, to whom I shall refer as NG, that had us all wading in. She had made a frankly gorgeous-looking ‘Spinach, ricotta, dolce latte & Parmesan gluten free lasagne’. She captioned it with : “Took me ages. And I bet all my coins that the children won’t eat it ???”

12019821_10156086815955554_4303231736515069056_n

this is a piece of it here direct from her picture…

I mean who in their right mind, wouldn’t eat this? the answer was: “Well one ate it, the other one did the ‘I don’t like it!’ without even trying it”

For those who feel like a lone soldier battling it out with your kids, here is the rest of the thread. If you just want the recipe, skip to the bottom…

ME: some things you just do anyway because if you wait for acknowledgment / appreciation you will be forever disappointed. The fact is that you are awesome! Start as you mean to go on. LOTS of my stuff gets rejected. It is a slow battle of attrition. If your expectations are low then that is what they will stretch to!

NG: I needed to hear that today!! Xxxx

ME: I think people assume that because I cook certain things for my kids that I am just lucky with them… the fact is that I get really down sometimes and after a knock back I try to get up again. I feel like it is another part of my job, to not give in and acquiesce to every whim / barrier. You know what? Enjoy it with your husband. Tell them that’s their choice: bed or lasagna! I have had to send middle one to bed with two bites of supper many a time. In our house trying is mandatory and noone is allowed to make horrified noises or they get a time out. Some days are great and others a nightmare!

NG: I’m feeling horrible right now as one is screaming for me to make a 3rd meal…. yes I think you’re right …. And I need to be a bit stronger!! X

ME: Just try and stay strong. Tell them that there is one meal and they have to adapt. Has he even tried it? That is the first step. “The new rule is that everyone tries everything they are asked to with no fuss or a time out” It has to be a proper mouthful, chewed and swallowed at our house. At first if it is a totally new unusual thing then I don’t insist they eat the whole meal, but if it is just a permutation of something they like, eg. Pasta baked instead of boiled, then I have no patience and they have to have at least 6 mouthful and we negotiate this number. If it is something I know they should like then I tell them they make no sense and there is a stand-off. EIther they have 30 mins to eat half and if not they go to bed with no pudding or substitutes! Lots of tears for them (and me).…having said that it is fish fingers tonight! : )

NG: I am going to live by this from now on. It’s where I started out and somehow it got lost frown emoticon xx… Natalie has laid the rules out and I am now going to follow them… Tiredness and the daily grind gets to us all I think. At least we all know from the older ones that everything is a phase and everything passes…. Group Hug now! ??

FRIEND OF NG: Looks amazing…tell the ungrateful sods that I’m coming for dinner every night to eat their dinner and they can go to bed hungry!!! x x

This touched exactly on the notion that we try and often feel we fail to get our kids to be good eaters. I personally think it is an acquired skill, like sleeping and good manners, and that some are naturally easier eaters and sleepers and some a nightmare but that real, positive progress can be made with all of them regardless on all these fronts. It is the same idea that underpins much new thought on talent vs effort and how we praise our kids. Anyway, a few days later I had to follow my own advice with the broc/cauli bake…

I had (as usual) been seduced by the veg at the Farmer’s Market (see wistful veg still life photos of last week) and found myself not so much in a chard overkill mode but in broccoli and cauliflower overkill mode. I confess it does make me feel righteous and wholesome to cart back a trolley full of greens, (just like putting on yoga pants can make you feel fitter even when you don’t get around to any actual yoga). Since I then feel bad throwing anything left away, I force myself to use it up any which way, and then by necessity it finds its way onto the kids’ menu.

In this instance, all three put up an initial fight but ended up consuming quite a lot but all adults who came in contact with it devoured it. I will also be repeating this regularly because to quote what I told my son :”broccoli and cauliflower kick cancer’s butt! They are from a family of greens that are some of the healthiest things you can eat and I will keep serving them, even if you complain”. I then did a little dubbed “kick ass” sound effects with accompanying gestures and he eventually ate 75% of his bowl. I also held off serving the fish fingers until I had deemed they had eaten a satisfactory amount. I felt flat but in retrospect, when sitting in bed later that night, I was glad I just went ahead and did it. I need to keep going through the motions and they will eventually respond!

Now here’s the recipe, admittedly inspired by a Jamie Oliver I saw way back, but with the addition of purple cauliflower and romanesco and pine nuts and anchovies and stuff… Mmmm. I will put up some super-duper snaps when I am not rushing next time I make this dish, so for now Instagram ones will have to do… at least they are “before” and “after” shots which, as you know, I personally find quite helpful : )) As soon as a recipe has no picture, I start to doubt whether I am doing everything wrong – you? Anyway, whether it is a recipe or teaching your kids how to eat, the trick must be to simply repeat going through the motions, practise, practise, practise and in the end it will all be good!

Here are some pics to help you follow the recipe:

You can throw parlsey or thyme in to this roux to give it extra flavour…

Look how beautiful! I forgot that I used purple sprouting broccoli in this version, and it works so well in a baked dish because it keeps its ‘bite’

The aromatic herbs like thyme and marjoram and oregano are the perfect fit with other strong flavours such as the anchovies or the Comté cheese you can see here…

This is the buttery, herby mixture in to which I threw the breadcumbs pre-topping…

the nut, breadcrumb and herb topping, melding together nicely…

and this is it, pre-oven but already gorgeous with a fine scattering of cheese below and above the nut crumb topping…

as you can see it didn’t last long enough for me to take an intact ‘after’ shot…

As with all my recipes, the herbs / veg / seasonings pretty interchangeable! You will see similarities to my chard recipe but you could also use leeks and potatoes for this. This dish can be "vegetarianised" of course, just skip the anchovies and opt for capers and choose the right, animal-friendly cheese. Also you can make it gluten-free by using gluten-free bread or skipping the breadcrumbs altogether. It is still utterly fab with just the pine nuts and almonds. You can also make it nut-free and it will still be wonderfully tasty. For this recipe, these quantities filled a large oval dish measuring 25cm x 35cm. I reheated it in the oven the following day and ate as a main dish and since the cauliflower had been left satisfyingly crunchy the first day, it withstood a second heating really well and was still very tasty. If your kids like it, it also withstands shovelling into a hotpot for school packed lunch the following day. Basically this is a classic bake recipe in which you fold your puréed broccoli into your anchovy-and-garlic-enhanced white sauce and pour it over the raw cauliflower, top with cheese and crunchy bits then blast in a medium oven. You will find that the cauliflower underneath the crispy top, will still have a nice bite to it and not be mushy and sulphurous. This is key!

Jumbo Veggie Blini

September 23, 2015 by natalie 1 Comment

I know these look like they should be sweet, with their candy colour-scheme but in actual fact they are savoury veggie-purée pancakes – for a toddler lunch on the go… the pink ones are beetroot, carrot and sweet potato, the green are courgette and spinach, but you can make them with pretty much any veg.

Being a parent has taught me to stick to my guns and do things my own way. Whether it be your parents, in-laws, friends or the health visitor, there is always a mainstream line of action being touted and it doesn’t always fit with your reality. Statistics are based on averages and these are a good guideline but often let you down because noone is an average person all of the time.

One of the first ways in which I had to throw mainstream advice to the wind was when my babies decided to sprout teeth terribly early. They weren’t born with them – which can happen, apparently! (some say there is a correlation between early birth and teeth appearing) – and mine were on the early side of normal, but anyhow, there they were, my first two babies had 4 teeth by the age of 3 months. Even though I knew from my mother that I had got mine quite early, it still came as a shock when I felt those first points coming through while breast-feeding (I know). In essence the teething meant a year or so of very disturbed moods and sleep for them – and therefore me – but it also posed a specific issue when it came to weaning and self-feeding that I just hadn’t expected and for which no-one had prepared me. There are actual some practical considerations (read “risks”) when your child has teeth yet no skills in eating. Not only have they not had the practice or developed the fine motor skills required for chewing and swallowing, they also don’t have the molars to grind and chew their food once in the mouth. You really run the risk of them choking, and there is not mention of this in mainstream family health and advice. I remember feeling totally behind the curve on the BLW (Baby Lead Weaning) – an acronym that I had to look up online, bashfully at the time. It baffled and frustrated me then and still irks me – in how it is touted as a panacea for feeding and weaning – to this day. The statements from the NHS were along the lines of “let your child explore and feed themselves” (*yawn*) “and top up with breast milk where possible or formula”. Apparently human breastmilk is lighter and more digestible by the infant than formula therefore it requires more regular and round the clock feeding. Tie this in with teething at a young age and you get a picture of the 4 years of almost entirely broken sleep I was getting. There was no footnote for families like ours where the babies were big and heavy from the get-go, ravenous and betoothed, impatient and insomniac… I had huge hungry babies with huge, gorgeous pneumatic cheeks and huge curious eyes, who quickly pulled off the breast and craned their fold-decorated necks, manoeuvring their huge crania to see what everyone else was eating. They were hungry ALL the time. I just couldn’t keep up. When I did give up in and turned to weaning, at only just 5 months or so (scandal!!) to try and up their food intake in the hope of improving their sleep, on cue I was on the receiving end of plenty of disapproval that I hadn’t held out as far as the almost arbitrarily observed 6-month mark. I bore criticism from the health-visitor that my children’s BMIs were worrying (90the percentile and over for weight), and was told with conviction that it was a fallacy that feeding would improve their sleep. I really had tried every other line of approach and felt I had no other real choice. So rotund were they (even exclusively breastfed) that I had to prop them up for they were not even able to sit up well unaided. I had to buy them short bloomers for three year olds to wear as trousers and or leggings and tights otherwise their clothing was so restrictive they couldn’t sit with their legs apart. When I adhered to the “guidelines” which purported that the fool-proof method was not to spoon-feed and relentlessly puree, but to cheerfully present the child with an array of interesting textures and colours of food pieces that they would gingerly explore and gum and hurl to the ground, they grimaced and cried with frustration and then, famished, refused to nap. They also precipitated a number of “oh my God she’s choking, hang her upside down!” moments. The issue was mainly mechanical: My kids could lop off whole bites with their razor-sharp, new little front teeth instead of gumming their food into a digestible slop – only then to find that they had no molars to grind the food down in to manageable pieces once in the mouth. Too frequently for comfort they would turn mute their airless little rosebud mouths frozen in a horrifying O shape, panicking and going blue. They were a risk unto themselves unless I spoon-fed them or broke their food into minuscule particles once they could pick bits up on their own. There was an agonizingly slow phase between 5-8 months when they were bored of the boob, bored of puree and inefficient at self-feeding. Food had to be chewy enough to become sloppy with saliva or shredded very small. Every blueberry and every grape had to be squished manually by me, toast sliced into match stick thin battons. By the time my 3rd baby was around 9 months old, of necessity, I had bloody-well nailed a handful of perfect meals that dispensed with much of the fuss and this was one of them…

Lunch. This iteration is made with carrot, broccoli, sweet potato, chard and herbs.

These pancakes are so versatile. From the time they can start feeding themselves they are a godsend. My youngest is still – despite our attempt at intervention – napping at 11.30 like a little Swiss clock. This means he is sleeping over lunchtime (so inconvenient if you want to go out at the weekend!) and upon waking is ravenous and miserable unless he has a fast, light lunch beforehand, often consumed in the stroller while out and about. These are the perfect solution. Also, I defy anyone, even adults, not to enjoy them when slathered in cream cheese, humous or a plume of coconut or regular butter. They are basically jumbo blini’s for kids. In fact, in composing this piece, I remade them for the baby’s lunch and I am eating one myself as I type (see pic). Also, parenting will change what you appreciate in the short term somewhat – delicacy and refinement might take a backseat and practicality and convenience might get the upper hand… these pancakes encapsulate what many of us as parents appreciate: versatility, wholesomeness, endless customization to suit one’s needs and tastes, without compromising too much on flavour or something that is not visually appetizing. They are fab to have in your arsenal because:

they retain their moisture pretty well and so are great toasted second time round, and are almost as good reheated as made fresh
they keep for 3 days in the fridge if you store them in an airtight box or ziplock bag
they can be used as a snack or as a full meal so over the course of a few days I may serve them a few times in different guises, meaning means that they really reduce the net amount of food prep, cooking, washing up you have to do
they are still pretty tasty when eaten cold, whether plain or dressed
they are highly portable as they keep their shape and are easy to wrap in clingfilm or foil
they can be made into a sandwich and therefore are brill to eat in a pram or car seat as they don’t make many crumbs and mess
nutritionally speaking are the whole “package” (whole grain carbs, vegetables, protein, fibre, vitamins and minerals)
they can be made in countless permutations of the basic recipe with whichever vegetables and pulses and herbs you happen to have to hand

Today when I remade these to test my measures and quantities for this recipe, I used roughly a brimming soup-bowl’s amount of raw vegetables (about 500-700g of veg) equivalent to about 2-3 cups of pureed veg (and herbs if you desire / have them to hand) – basically a mismatched rabble of veg that I had kicking about in the fridge drawer:

A clutch of ribbons left over from this week’s famous chard (I know, I had LOADS of it)
A medium sized sweet potato
2 and half carrots in assorted colours
4 decent little florets of broccoli (about half a head of broccoli)
a couple of small florets of romanesco cauliflower and purple cauliflower
I had jumbo bunches of herbs in the fridge this week so I used a table spoon of fresh sage, another of fresh of parsley and a little pile of fresh oregano

Usually I make these utterly by eye, as over the years making mistakes I have come to realize that the quantities change according to the levels of moisture in the vegetables you pick. I know some people hate cooking this way so today I will share what worked for me as a rough guideline. Please be aware that sometimes I have to throw in a sprinkling more flour or an extra egg (if they are small) or more milk or a bit of stock to puree my veg and so I might end up with 12 pancakes one time and 8 another. I was out of Khorasan (Kamut) flour today so I used wholemeal spelt and amazingly they were still fine, light and succulent. Kamut flour is the most like plain flour in these types of recipes and works a dream, with the added benefit of having a lower GI and higher protein level and, if you ask me, much more flavour.

The basic principle to adhere to is essentially this:

You can use lentils and other pulses, tubers and root veg, brassicas and anything from the gourd family (courgettes, pumpkin) and spinach and chard and pretty much any vegetable that is not too acidic or especially watery (eg tomato). All the veg you select to combine can be boiled or steamed in the same pot, starting with the hardest veg cut into inch chunks and then staggering the introduction of the more delicate veg in to the pot as cooking continues.
Use some kind of sour binding liquid eg. buttermilk or milk curdled with lemon or lime juice (I explain how it is a doddle here) or milk with the addition of yoghurt as it makes them infinitely more manageable, tender, tasty and light (I have no idea how the chemistry of it works)
Use at least a couple of good sized eggs, as these help give the pancakes retain their elasticity and shape and stops them falling apart when cooked and handled (I will investigate if chia seeds are a good substitute for vegans and those allergic to eggs like my goddaughters).
DO NOT FORGET THE BAKING POWDER! I usually put in a couple of teaspoons as the veg and alternative grain flours are quite a bit heavier than normal unadulterated plain flour
Don’t over mix, a few lumps are preferable to a smooth and uniform mixture, this prevents them from being tough and rubbery
Unless you have a baby under 1, then season a little with salt (it makes a world of difference)
The consitency should be like that of lightly congealing oatmeal or porridge or thick Greek yoghurt, ie. should drop off a spoon with a plop and a delay of a second or two. Too runny and they will be soft and fall apart, too dry and they will be mealy and hard.
Make sure you cook them on medium to high heat until they bubble and these turn into little holes. They are then ready to flip.

Here we go:

Basically you can use most vegetables and pulses to make these - but this is one recipe where you will have to be flexible because it will really depend on what you have to hand and modifying the moisture / dryness accordingly as all vegetables varieties and species vary greatly. Even the same vegetables will have a different outcome depending on how big, perky and fresh they are, and when in the season you are using them, as moisture content will vary significantly. The only rules to respect are : 1. that the consistency resemble that of congealing oatmeal or thick Greek yoghurt and 2. that you have a teaspoon of baking powder for every cereal bowl's quantity of veg so that they don't end up too flat and hard You can thicken up your mixture / batter when necessary by adding flour (and a pinch or two of baking powder) or by adding more vegetables that are water absorbent (lentils, potatoes etc.) You can loosen your mixture by adding milk or an extra egg or by gradually stirring in the buttermilk. I find that small variations in flour or buttermilk vs. egg doesn't radically affect the outcome as these pancakes are very forgiving. I also love to add frozen peas or sweetcorn to the mix as they are great for introducing texture and interest.

Once they are tender and a knife pokes through them easily, blend till smooth.

Add your other ingredients little by little…

stir and combine gently. Don’t overmix. Here you can see in this picture that a touch more buttermilk / liquid is required.

proceed with cooking! little bubbles should appear on the surface if the temperature is right. When these burst revealing a hole measuring 2-3 mm across then they are ready to flip.

Otto did some food styling and sat Flynn Ryder / Eugene in the shot…

Decadent Chard Gratin

September 16, 2015 by natalie Leave a Comment

voila’: the marriage of veggie virtue and cheesy decadence

Since I posted this picture on Instagram and Facebook I have had a load of requests to provide the recipe for my Chard Gratin. I usually don’t have time to photograph my meals with a tripod and stuff so Instagram has been a godsend. Having said that it is not a vehicle for actual recipes. Please forgive the image quality… but here is the recipe.

The back story is that the other day I had trouble shutting the fridge because I had two huge bunches of chard spilling out of the veg drawer. I had whizzed round my local farmer’s market (which I have done almost every Wednesday since 2006) and bought too much – because first I bought from my usual stall as it looked lusty if imperfect and I felt in the mood for chard. Then I saw better chard at another stall, it was less gnarled and less stalky and not white chard but red – so I bought it there too… and then to my annoyance on a little way I saw an amazingly kick-arse rainbow-coloured bunch at a third stall. It was the super-model of chard. It was an utter firework of ochre and magenta and forest green and was so tender and unblemished that I had to get it too. Sometimes I can be so superficial that I will buy a thing for its beauty alone. I also went to the market hungry which is not recommended. In any case I knew I would find some or other use for – probably a soup or something that would wilt it all right down it and since I felt a detox was imminent I just paid up and hurried home.

After a few attempts at steaming it and serving it with just olive oil and lemon zest, maldon sea salt, pepper and garlic, my husband protested. Sighing: “It’s too much like hard work. It feels like punishment… like chewing on tin foil. Ugh.” At this point I realized I had to come up with a better, more lovable recipe.

In my mind I was thinking melted cheese makes everything better, especially for blokes. I had a sexy image of a “gratin / tartiflette-style” dish but I had no idea if it would work. Alternatively a soup. To check I thought I’d see if I could find any in my vast cookbook library. I flicked through about 5 books – fyi, Hemsley and Hemsley had not one chard reference in the index – which I found rather surprising. Sarah Raven’s “Garden Cookbook” (which I LOVE) had both a soup with coconut milk which appealed to me – but which was overruled by my husband – and a one pot dish which was a chard gratin with mussels (latter optional). I had recently made my first bechamel (I know, I know) to give a more comforting, luxurious layer to a potato topping for my shepherd’s pie. (It actually tastes nothing like a British shepherd’s pie and more like a ragu’ al bolognese with mince as the key ingredient and potato gratin on the top, I’ll provide this recipe shortly) and was utterly taken aback at how easy bechamel is to make. Raven’s recipe called for cream on the chard and also Parmesan and a browning sesh under the grill. I didn’t have any cream and I liked the idea of something rich-seeming but not so dairy-tasting so figured I could hybridize and rustle up my own chard gratin with bechamel and then grizzle the cheesy bits on the top.

Anchovies breaking down into a wonderfully savoury sauce when fried in olive oil (and garlic)

What takes this recipe up a notch is the anchovy element. Even my American, anchovy-hating husband has come round to loving them after 10 years of me secreting them into dish after dish. If they are broken down by frying gently in olive oil, they disintegrate into a wonderful granular dressing and provide a wonderful stock-like flavour and savoury kick that very little else can match. As this it the only non-veggie element to the dish, when cooking for veggie friends I tend to flex in with capers in their stead. Capers don’t break up and dissolve like anchovies do, but when blitzed in a chopper or finely sliced by hand, are great for mimicking that salty, marine-like flavour and punchy tang.

Here are some step by step images of how various stages of the recipe should look:

Cut the chard stalks in to 1cm chunks then…

…add the stalks to the pan of salted boiling water and cover…

after a couple of minutes add the ribboned chard leaves to the boiling stems and cover again

gently fry your anchovies and garlic and chillies (optional)

…and then throw in with the drained and dried chard and combine well

make your roux… it will bubble and look like this. Don’t let it burn, stir it every now and then while the flour cooks through (4-5 minutes)

add the milk gradually, stirring it in as you go to give this creamy kind of texture.

You will need a baking dish (ceramic or glass or cast iron) that is approximately 30cm in diameter. I like to use anchovies - particularly chilli-marinated ones I have found on ocado and alsobrought back from my hols in Italy, but you can choose the less fiery option, or recreate it by using fresh chillies. I also have tried putting anchovies in the base for my bechamel roux and in the dressing of the greens for the base and find this is more to my taste, but you can skip doubling up on the anchovies if you are not that into them and just salt your bechamel instead. If you are catering for vegetarians, then capers are a good swap for anchovies. I tend to make my bechamel by eye, and if I have some left over, it does form a skin when cold, but it can be re-used the next day if you remove this and whisk it back into to life with some love and heat. Incidentally, I have recently re-worked this recipe to finish of the remaining chard and left over bechamel and put a layer of finely sliced potato across the top and the bechamel and cheese on that. The kids ate it more willingly this way : )

Serendipitous Easy Courgette Flower Tart

July 15, 2015 by natalie Leave a Comment

I had some friends coming round for supper recently who had just had their third baby. They have three kids under three and none are twins! Much to their credit they were up for coming to dinner, it was very impromptu and there was some expectation management on their part: “we are going to be late, we won’t stay long as we have to get back for a feed”. So when I found myself dealing with some tantrums at home (not my own) earlier that evening I suddenly ran out of time to do a pud (my least favourite element of any meal) and a starter I thought it probably wouldn’t matter as they are good friends and would understand. I was hoping that my Thai Penang Curry would hold its own and then that I’d be able to throw some ice cream at them for afters but as our guests arrived I felt sheepish about the lack of apparent effort. My husband and I had put all our energy into juicing maybe 20 limes by hand for our home made margaritas (recipe to follow) and had hit the happy hour ourselves after the day we’d had….

Charred Cauliflower, Beetroot and Goats Cheese Salad

July 4, 2015 by natalie Leave a Comment

Explosive colour and nutrition!

It is clearly Salad Season. It has been stiflingly hot and muggy in the last few days, “The hottest day in 160 years in London” apparently. 36 degrees!

The secret benefit of this weather is that I am less inclined to nourish myself with tea and biscuits. Suddenly I am all inspired to use kale, kale, kale! and it doesn’t even feel like work!

The only drawback with this recipe was that I used an oven to roast the beetroot, so it made the kitchen quite hot and stuffy. A great alternative is to barbecue by placing around the edges of the grill when the fiercest heat has subsided and just let them come to, until they can be pierced easily, all charred and meltingly sweet.

As ever by dropping the cheese element, it adheres to the NORI protocol and also meets veggies’, vegans’, gluten-free requirements.

You can either barbecue or simply roast your beetroot. You can barbecue your cauliflower too, or shove it under the grill or dry fry on a griddle. The options are myriad. You could also cook the beetroots earlier in the day and set aside. The flavour is severely muted if you keep them in the fridge thereafter though. All the greens can be switched up with what is available. I used kale as I had some in the fridge. Rocket or any other deep green leafy lettuces of any description will work well. I reckon even broccoli florets or tenderstem at a pinch.

The beetroots were roasted with garlic and I just squashed it and incorporated it into the salad… it’s a great marriage of savoury garlic and sweet beets!

Punchy Potato Salad

July 3, 2015 by natalie Leave a Comment

I have a mental list of “nostalgia foods” that bring me back to a feeling from my childhood or other poignant, memorable instant. On this list are a number of foods that can be so evocative but which I am afraid of eating regularly lest they be a let down and overwrite my memories. This list is not exhaustive clearly, but it goes something like this:

linguine con vongole (inguine with clams) – my absolute last supper
melanzane alla parmigiana
marinated herrings with chopped hardboiled egg and onions
charred peppers with parsley (a typical dish we eat in Italy)
chicken broth with a scrambly egg and grated parmesan drop dumpling stirred throughout called “brodo con stracciatella”
roast chicken and potatoes all with garlic and rosemary
cauliflower sauteed in garlicky breadcrumbs
apple fritters with vanilla soured cream
bruschetta with plenty of oregano

…and somewhere on there right alongside Polish Wjejska sausage, is my mother’s take of potato salad. …

Recent Comments