Moroccan Carrots

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If you – like me – always end up with a bag of carrots in your fridge then this is what you should make with them.

I love this – and it is so easy.

Boil and simmer some carrots and when they are tender drain them and let them cool right down. Then make the dressing which as just enough ginger and garlic to give you a bit of heat but not too much that it overpowers the carrots.

Mash the carrots a bit (I didn’t as I didn’t have a masher! – I just blitzed them for 5 seconds in a Magimix) and dress the carrots in the dressing and top with mixed olives, feta and coriander (cilantro in the book) and optionally some spring onion (scallions) and preserved lemons.

This really is a keeper – and I can’t imagine not having this every week. There’s loads left over too (there’s only the two of us) so we’ll have the rest for lunch at work.

Hopefully the dressing with infuse even more with the carrots and it’ll be even better!

One Good Dish – David Tanis

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I was drawn to this book by the dish on the cover – Radishes a la Creme.

The books is from the US I think as they refer to Scallions (Spring Onions), Beets (beetroot) and everything is in imperial and cups. Not that this matters at all. Everyone should have cups and imperial measures anyway!

I’ve shortlisted these recipes from the book as ones I’d like to make:

Gorgonzola and Walnut Crostini
Cucumber Spears with Dill
Moroccan Carrots
Radishes a la Creme
Polenta ‘Pizza’ with Crumbled Sage
Red Beet salad
Seaweed Salad with Sesame Dressing
Quick Scallion Kimchee
Save Your Life Garlic Soup
Egyptian Breakfast Beans
South Indian Cabbage with Black Mustard Seeds
Just Wilted Arugula
Steamed Asian Greens
Slow Roasted Tomatoes
Swiss Chard Al Forno
Scorched Sweet Potatoes and Onions
Parsley Salad
Sweet and Salty Nut Brittle

I expect to make at least half of these in the coming weeks. The seaweed salad appealed to me the most but required me to find a specialist ingredient supplier. Try souschef.co.uk for anything you can’t find in your regular online supermarket. I found all sorts on there!

Diana Henry – a Change of Appetite

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Cooking for a week from one book doesn’t necessarily mean the book is any good. On paper this book shouldn’t have been any good because it was given to me as a cast off.

What I tend to do is go from cover to cover and write down everything I think I’d practically like to make in a week.

I only sieved through pages 1 – 180 and picked the following recipes from ‘a Change of Appetite’:

Feta and Orange Salad with Honeyed Almonds
Greek Yoghurt and Apricot Ice Cream
Asparagus Veneto Style
Artichoke and Ricotta Salad with Honeyed Preserved Lemon Dressing
Middle Eastern Leeks with Yoghurt, Dill and Sumac
Spring Barley Couscous with Harissa and Buttermilk Sauce
Shaved Vegetables with Lemon and Olive Oil
Middle Eastern Yoghurt Bread
Grapefruit and Mint Sorbet
Nectarine, Tomato and Basil Salad with Torn Mozzarella
Goats Cheese and Cherry Salad with Almonds and Basil Gremolata
Turkish Spoon Salad with Haydari
Raspberries with Basil and Buttermilk Sherbert
Roast Tomatoes and Lentils with Dukkah Crumbed Eggs
Celeriac, Radicchio, Fennel and Apple Salad with Hazelnuts
Carrot, Cabbage and Apple Salad with Caraway
Roast Pumpkin and Jerusalem Artichokes with Agresto
Cavolo Nero and Bulgar Pilaf with Glazed Figs
Watercress and Carrot Salad
Kisir
Indian Spiced Spinach and Mushrooms with Black Lentils and Paneer
Pliaf of Mixed Grains, Sweet Potato and Fennel with Avocado Cream

I only stopped because there was definitely enough to make in one week. I’ll go through the rest of the book another time.

After shortlisting everything I want to make we then decide what we actually want the following week applying the logic that we need 4 evening dishes and 5 lunchtime dishes and maybe a few extra. We then try and order all the ingredients on Ocado.

There are number of recipes on the list above that I haven’t made yet – but I will.

I’d say this book has a very good selection of recipes for all types of cook – and that most of the recipes are pretty easy to make. You certainly won’t be slaving in the kitchen for hours. Nothing I made in this book took me more than an hour. Half the things I made were just throw it together in a bowl and eat straight away. Perfect for work where you don’t usually have much more than a microwave.

In summary, I’ll be making recipes from this book regularly. It has plenty of no meat, low-carb recipes and most of the ingredients are readily available.

Turkish Spoon Salad with Haydari

Posted on March 21, 2014 by tenuoustoaster

What’s a Turkish Spoon Salad.

Well it’s a lot of fine chopping I can tell you.

Tomatoes, Romano Peppers, Red Chilli, Shallots and Cucumbers. All chopped and mixed with Harissa, olive oil and white wine vinegar.

After throwing in lots of mint and parsley this really does make a really fresh and tasty salad.

It was it bit spicy for my fiancé but I liked it that way.

The Haydari isn’t dissimilar to Labneh. It’s a kind of goats cheese you make with Greek yoghurt and lemon juice which you strain in muslin for 24 hours. Haydari is accented with dill, green chilli and sumac.

This is a very nice salad if you have time to make it and remember to get the Haydari on the day before.

Another keeper from Diana Henry

Right now to get ready for a night of Rock n Roll dancing!

Food Blogging

Posted on March 21, 2014 by tenuoustoaster

My future wife encouraged me to start a food blog.

Since November I’ve been cooking pretty much every day (apart from when we go out) and photographing everything for recollection. This was part of a New Years Resolution to make something once a week from a different cookery book that I already owned.

Google+ was really taking off internally where I work so I ended up posting the pictures in the office. I’m not sure what I was trying to achieve other than making my colleagues salivate whilst eating their microwave ready meals or the not so great sandwich from the sandwich guy.

But, she figured it’d be better to talk a bit more to a wider audience than just posting pictures at work. There has also been talk of us creating an App – but that’s another story.

The trouble with blogging – as I found when I used to blog about ale – is you end up feeling an overwhelming responsibility to please your audience rather than doing what you want to do.

I’m having this issue at the moment. What’s best?

My current approach is to strip a book – scan the book – shortlist some recipes and make them – photograph them – and say whether I would or wouldn’t make them again.

But! Does that please an audience. Does the audience want to see regular variety? You start questioning whether what you set out to do is what you should actually be doing.

As an example, the first three books I stripped were by Yotam Ottolenghi. He is the master as far as I am concerned and I think I pretty much made everything from his three books ‘The Cookbook’, ‘Plenty’ and ‘Jerusalem’. More specifically I only made the Vegetarian dishes from these books (I’m not vegetarian by the way – just preferring it for now).

So how do you blog? Do you mix it up? Or do you force feed your audience three weeks of Ottolenghi? How good do your pictures need to be?

At the moment I’m not sure. As I backfill the recipes I’ve made since November I’ll let you be the judge. You’ll see pretty much only Vegetarian food for now – as we are trying to prove something that I will talk about another time.

All I know is I’ve already gone out and bought different plainer plates so the food looks better. And I always use Camera+ on the iPhone with the Clarity and Miniaturise filter to make them look a bit sexier.

Nectarine, Tomato and Basil Salad with Torn Mozzarella

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I chose to make this for lunch today because the weather in the UK couldn’t make it’s mind up. Hints of sun – but too cold to be summery.

This salad is very summery. Smells of summer and tastes wonderful.

You needs ripe nectarines and tomatoes or it will just taste unpleasant. I got mine from Natoora.

If you can cut fruit you can make this.

The balsamic and olive oil dressing really brings it to life.

While there are ripe nectarines out there I’ll be making this. Definitely a keeper.

Diana Henry’s book is proving very useful this week.

Cavolo Nero and Bulgar Pilaf with Glazed Figs

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Cavolo Nero and Bulgar Pilaf with Glazed Figs

This is a nice hearty dish.

It takes somewhat more effort than most dishes I embark on midweek – but it is worth the effort.

After sauteing some Fennel and Onion and Garlic you add Bulgar Wheat and stock.

While that’s on the go you glaze some figs in honey and balsamic.

And while that’s on the go you blanch/boil some trimmed Cavolo Nero.

If you get your timings right it all comes together after about 30 mins – and then you mix it all up and coat in some squeezed orange.

Cavolo Nero is a wonderful vegetable and really makes this dish.

We found the leftovers tasted even better the next day.

Another lovely dish from Diana Henry’s – a Change of Appetite

Feta and Orange Salad with Honeyed Almonds

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Feta and Orange Salad with Honeyed Almonds

We eat a lot of salads now. This one is very easy.

Aside from the vegetable preparation you simply throw all the ingredients together and toss in the customary salad dressing.

Another great dish from the Diana Henry – a Change of Appetite cookbook.

Middle Eastern Leeks with Yoghurt, Dill and Sumac

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My future mother in law bought ‘a Change of Appetite’ by Diana Henry and decided it wasn’t for her.

I took the book off her hands – and made this:

Basically you steam some leeks, make a yoghurt sauce (which also contains Dijon mustard and garlic) and dust it with Sumac.

Personally I’d halve the garlic and the mustard. The leeks get a little lost otherwise.

Definitely a keeper

Shelf of books

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Do your cookery books just gather dust? Mine were. Now they are not!

I’m moving onto a boat soon and it dawned on me that there was no room for my cookery books. I have over 400!

My future mother-in-law probably has twice as many cookery books as me and they are also dust gatherers!

So a plan was this:

de-spine all my cookery books
scan them to PDF
toss the pages – or turn them into paper briquettes

Now, when you de-spine a cookery book you end up looking at every page of the book. And when you look at every page in a book you end up wanting to make things.

I love cooking, so I ended up selecting 10 things per week from de-spined books – and made them!

This blog will showcase the things I’ve made and the books they are in.

I hope you enjoy it.