Saffron chicken and Herb Salad

Posted on May 13, 2020 by tenuoustoaster

Another epic salad from Ottolenghi’s Jerusalem cookbook, this fresh plate of loveliness really hit the spot for lunch today. Wednesday’s are just meetings, meetings, meetings, and fitting in eating is a real challenge.

I think the title of this dish is a bit misleading. I think I’d rebrand it as ‘Roast chicken breast with an orange, honey and saffron glaze – served with a fennel and herb salad’. OK – maybe that is too long winded, but at least it is clearer!

In reality the chicken breast is simply roasted in the oven, and an orange glaze is poured over it when it is ready. The salad is not really just a herb salad, more a fennel salad with some herbs; definitely more fennel than anything else!

The orange sauce is the only thing that takes any time with this dish. Once that is on you can get everything else done with ease. Preheat the oven, season some chicken, roast it, rest it, break it into bits. Slice some fennel, add some mint, coriander, chilli, lemon juice and olive oil – and that’s done too.

The orange sauce is a segmented orange (take out all the pips) with some honey, as much saffron as you can spare, and a small amount of water – which you boil then simmer for an hour until it is all ‘glazey’.

Once the chicken has rested, pour over the glaze then toss it all together and eat. Really really easy.

This is a keeper and I think ANY white meat or fish or even Tofu might work with this sauce and salad. I liked it so much I will probably make it again later with the other parts of the chicken and perhaps serve it with another side.

Hummus kawarma

Posted on May 11, 2020 by tenuoustoaster

Hummus, (or houmous as I always thought it was spelled when I bought it pre-made from the supermarket) is one of our go to snacks. I’m really not one for sweet snacks; I’ll always choose a savoury snack over a pudding. I’ll often use up carrots or celery or leftover bread by dipping it in a very quickly prepped hummus.

When I make it ingredient proportions vary. Quantities of lemon juice, tahini, garlic and olive oil vary depending on availability. Sometimes I’ll use a different bean to chickpeas – but not very often. Sometimes I even add carrots or butternut squash but the pure unadulterated hummus is always the best. This recipe from Ottolenghi’s Jerusalem cookbook calls for dried chickpeas soaked and boiled in bicarb. Suffice to say I didn’t do that – which may seem like a surprise given the amount of effort I put into the Gado Gado Satay Sauce – but I have so many cans of chickpeas and for me this is an impromptu snack – not one I want to put any effort into.

What I did make properly was the kawarma topping. This is simply some chopped lamb neck with all the spices and herbs! Black and white pepper, all-spice, cinnamon, nutmeg, za-atar, mint and parsley are all mixed together with a little white wine vinegar and marinated before being fried off in butter and oil.

The recipe also calls for a lemon and green chilli dressing but I’d run out of lemons and my Ocado order wasn’t coming until the next morning. Never mind – maybe next time.

Freya made some flatbread naan to go with the hummus. She made them with some left over yoghurt and pea dressing from the pasta dish we had the day before. They were pretty yummy but I have no idea how she made them!

The addition of the lamb made this snack into a meal for us and we ended up skipping dinner. All that bread – it was pretty filling. Saying that I’m pretty sure we demolished a tub of low calorie ice-cream later in the evening!

Salt and Pepper Tofu – Two Ways – sort of…

Posted on May 11, 2020 by tenuoustoaster

These two dishes are essentially the same – just subtly different. Both are salt and pepper tofu, just the accompaniments differ. But why so much tofu?!

Even before lockdown we planned all our meals at least a week in advance. We had bought three packs of tofu to cook meals from the ‘itsu 20 minute cookbook’ – my favourite of the ‘really really quick’ meals books I own.

Due to skipping a couple of meals and the ‘leg of lamb that lasted 4 days’ saga we skipped the tofu meals in favour of food that was closer to expiry. Obviously you can’t do this forever – tofu has a lifespan too – and we ended up with out of date tofu!

Whilst watching Australian Masterchef Season 12 (it’s on – watch it – it is sooooo good) one of the competitors made a tofu dish where they served it cold, pressed, uncooked, raw basically. I wasn’t impressed – so I decided to come up with something myself.

All I have done here is press the tofu for an hour, toss it in white pepper, sea salt and cornflour and fried it until a little bit crispy. Using white pepper allows for a more subtle peppery flavour – black pepper can be overpowering if you use too much!

The one on the left is fried in left over pork fat (from a dish I made the other day) and the one on the left if fried in olive oil. The pork fat one was much more crispy – but obviously far less vegetarian.

The one on the left has pickled red onion (slice and leave in white wine vinegar), sushi rice, steamed broccoli, cucumber and red chilli – and a little herby sauce (left over from another meal).

The one of the right is just boiled new potatoes, hard boiled egg, cucumber, radishes, braised red cabbage, more pickled red onion – and a Satay sauce from the Gado Gado recipe from Ottolenghi’s Plenty cookbook. The meal is almost the Gado Gado recipe but it is supposed to have green beans, bean sprouts, croutons and crispy onions – which I didn’t have to hand. I will try it again when I next plan some meals. The addition of the crunchy stuff will definitely make this a better meal.

The Satay sauce took forever to make – and I’ll talk about this another time. Suffice to say it took at least 90 minutes to make, is very very nice – and was more spicy than I expected.

One more pack of tofu left! Let us see what we are having later today!

The ‘Get You Through the Day’ shake.

Posted on May 5, 2020 by tenuoustoaster

Sometime back in December 2019 I decided that 2020 was gonna be different for me. I was going to lose weight and get healthier. Most of 2018 and 2019 was spent consuming a lot of food and even larger quantities of alcohol and I somehow had crept up to 91kgs – which might not sound like much but I am pretty short.

2020 I vowed to not drink any alcohol and was going to lose 20kgs. 125 days into 2020 I haven’t touched a drop. I have also lost 20kgs. Now I weigh 71kgs. Yay for me!

Anyone that has known me for any length of time will know that I am a semi-professional yo-yo dieter and will inevitably put weight back on – but so far so good.

These people that know me will also know I am a bit obsessive and when I say I am going to do something I do it!

My new regime, with a few exceptions, is this shake for breakfast and nothing else until 7pm when we have dinner. Lately 100+ days in I have had the odd sausage sandwich for breakfast; especially if we have some bread that has seen better days, but as a rule this shake is all I need.

There are slight variations, but generally, get the big Nutribullet cup, 1/3 fill with frozen dark fruits (it must be frozen), add a banana, a peeled orange (or grapefruit, once I did 3 limes), a scoop of Protein Works, and a small amount of water. Then blitz!

Sometimes I add a frozen spinach puck, sometimes I add a splash of Vimto or Ribena, and when there are vegetables in the fridge crying for the compost bin, they go in too. I rarely throw stuff away.

I used to add milk instead of water – but it really isn’t worth the calories or the potential to miss out on cups of tea – especially during lockdown where you only get milk every 2 weeks!

This can keep me going all day. I never get tempted to snack, and just go about my day without a thought for more food – until dinner time, where I just eat a regular meal.

I’m not suggesting anyone else does this. But this worked for me, and has changed the way I now eat.

Pizza Bianca with potato, anchovy and sage

Posted on May 1, 2020 by tenuoustoaster

I think I’ve cooked every recipe from Yotam Ottolenghi’s Simple cookbook. It is in my top 5 go to books for quick stuff. Itsu’s 15 minute meals is another.

During these tricky times – where we are getting our food once every 2-3 weeks – we are planning meals from one cookbook at a time. Ottolenghi’s Simple was last week’s book of choice so we made this incredibly easy pizza.

I appreciate flour is hard to come by at the moment, but this one doesn’t need much. The base is just yeast, flour and water mixed together, lightly kneaded then left under a damp towel for an hour to double in size.

The base is smeared with a paste of marscapone, anchovy, sage, lemon zest and spring onions, the thinly sliced new potatoes popped on top, and finally the grated pecorino. Go crazy with the black pepper – it really makes a difference. And cook it properly! I made 2 – the second one was so much better for leaving it in the oven for longer.

Perhaps my oven wasn’t hot enough for the 9 minutes that it was supposed to need. But it was better for having 12+ minutes – and I have one of those fancy Bake-Off ovens!

I can’t recommend this pizza enough as long as you have the ingredients. For some reason we always have left over anchovies in our fridge, sometimes 2 or 3 jars at a time, as we are notorious for always buying all the ingredients without checking what we already have!

Green Mimosa Salad

Posted on February 11, 2016 by tenuoustoaster

Brrrr…. it was chilly last night – and again this morning.

Living on a boat comes with its own share of fears. Sinking – obviously is the big one. But at this time of year flooding is another. You only have to watch the London Boaters forums to spot boats capsizing; boats becoming untied from their moorings and boat owners suffering thousands of pounds of damage due to the weather.

On Tuesday we had to have all our ropes loosened for fear of the boat being pulled over by the extraordinary rising tides. Yesterday, in response to the very high tides on the Thames, the Thames barrier was raised and the risk of flooding to areas of London was removed. For us. No damage and no issues. Phew!

Pleased that I’d come home to a safe boat I got the stove going, and set to making this very simple yet unusual dish for our dinner last night.

A traditional mimosa salad is a layered salad with a grated egg yolk base. This isn’t that. This really is quite different – much like the Quinoa risotto isn’t really a risotto!

Taken from Anna Jones – A Modern Way to Cook – this recipe uses the dressing that is usually made with the mimosa salad and dresses tenderstem broccoli and asparagus instead. The eggs are kept separate and don’t see the dressing until you eat it!

The dressing is simply a Chardonnay White Wine Vinegar, olive oil, dijon mustard and a finely chopped shallot, seasoned well. To this you add your lightly steamed broccoli and asparagus – and then some thickly sliced avocado.

Meanwhile, some hard boiled eggs are grated, seasoned, and mixed with creme fraiche and lemon zest. You can then either stir in some chopped dill – or keep it separate like I did.

There’s nothing else to this dish. It is very simple and very tasty. It’s visually very pleasing too.

Make sure it is seasoned well or it is in danger of being a bit bland. If you don’t have tasty enough avocados (they can be a bit tasteless this time of year) squeeze half a lemon over them to pep them up a bit.

I loved it – but didn’t feel as full up as I have from other meals. Maybe I was just cold. It was very cold last night!

This week has been a week of very simple dishes. This was done in less than 30 minutes. Tomorrow I have more time so I plan on spending a bit more time in the kitchen. I’ll be making the last three dishes I’ve chosen from Anna Jones’s book and then I’ll move onto something different.

Winter Root Soba Noodles with Pickled Greens

Posted on February 9, 2016 by tenuoustoaster

Last night was pretty hair raising wasn’t it. 50MPH winds! The boat was all over the place. But I still managed to make this for dinner. Fortunately the wind died down by bedtime so it wasn’t a frightening night.

Over a year ago I bought a load of Black Soba noodles from Amazon and when I saw this recipe in Anna Jones – A Modern Way to Cook – I figured this dish just had to be made.

Serving this I figured I really need some different coloured bowls. Black Soba Noodles in a black bowl isn’t the best way of showing off this dish. I’ll go on a little hunt for some nice big bowls of varying colours.

This is a pretty simple dish. It can be done in 20 minutes easily – depending on your knife skills because the only real preparation is the julienning of the beetroot and the carrot and grating a bit of ginger.

Whenever I go to the shops I buy this big lump of ginger and throw 90% of it away once it’s changed to some weird blue colour. Yesterday I saw this tiny thumb sized piece and popped it on the scales in Morrisons – 3p! How cool is that!

If its fresh, buy it when you need it – and only what you need. It’s false economy otherwise.

Anyway, you fry a little grated ginger in some olive oil and then add your julienned beetroot and carrot and a little water. Wait for the water to be absorbed which softens the vegetables a little bit and then put to one side. That’s a five minute job.

Meanwhile cook the Soba Noodles as per the instruction. I just dunk mine in boiling water – leave for 5 minutes and drain them. They are pretty quick and it’s very easy to overdo them.

Also meanwhile, pick the stalks off some kale and shred it with your hands. As I’ve said before Morrisons already do bags of shredded kale, they just don’t take the stalks out – it makes all the difference to spend five minutes tidying it up. Over the kale pour some brown rice vinegar, maple syrup and a little salt. Scrunch it all up with your hands and leave it for 5 minutes. That’s your pickled greens done.

Finally you add a little more maple syrup, tamari (dark soy sauce), sesame oil, juice of a lime and some black sesame seeds to the winter vegetables and then throw in the Soba Noodles and give it all a good mix. And that’s it.

Serve it like I did with the pickled greens alongside the noodles (and a little chopped coriander garnish) and you have yourself one very tasty dish.

This dish is going to make it into my ‘make it regularly’ list. I love the simplicity and the contrasting textures. I kept my beetroot and carrot crunchy rather than over softening them – and the crunch of the vegetables is awesome alongside the noodles and the pickled kale.

The only real shame is the way the purple from the beetroot bleeds into the carrots making them a bright red. I guess this could be solved by doing them separately but them that’s more washing up! You could also have used normal soba noodles rather than black ones – but I think it is quite striking.

There are so many flavours in this dish and it is very filling and satisfying. I love kale. I really love beetroot. It’s a winner for me.

We chomped through ours whilst watching ‘Friday Night Dinner’. If you haven’t seen it – you must! You’ll wet yourself laughing. It certainly took our mind off the weather outside.

Bacon Granola

Posted on February 5, 2016 by tenuoustoaster

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve made this – and many thanks too to Nigel Slater. This recipe comes from his latest book ‘A Year of Good Eating’.

Ordinarily I would probably have missed this recipe – but chance brought me to it. Previously I had not owned any of his cookbooks – I just wasn’t drawn to them – I think I was put off by the long narratives and story telling – but how foolish I had been.

I happened to buy a cookbook from an actual shop (rather than Amazon) as a last minute Christmas present but decided after I got home that the cookbook was totally inappropriate and not suitable for human consumption. The book seemed to be popular simply because the authors thought it best to swear their way through every recipe. Anyway I took it back – got store credit – and chose the Nigel Slater book instead.

What a great decision that was!

As luck would have it I had a spare couple of hours to kill one day while picking up my daughter. I sat in a pub with a pint and worked my way through this book, page by page, checking out every single recipe.

If I’m honest I think I will probably make everything from this book – excluding maybe a small handful of fish dishes that don’t interest me – but this was the very first recipe in the book.

Sounds weird doesn’t it – bacon granola!

In fairness it isn’t granola at all. But who cares. We have it at least once a week. It fulfils Freya’s desire to have a bacon sandwich – but she doesn’t get the bread and she’s still satisfied.

It’s so easy to make – and you can modify the recipe based on what you have to hand – that said I rarely deviate unless I run out of almonds.

Simply buy a packet of smoked streaky bacon, cut it into little pieces and fry it in a pan with a good chunk of butter until it gets crispy (but not too much). Having the pan up high helps this – and means you get it made a lot quicker. There’s nothing worse than making this when it’s only 1 degree on the boat and you’re wearing little more than a dinosaur onesie!

Once the bacon is done you throw in some rolled porridge oats. Stir these in so that soak up the juices from the butter and the bacon and then add whatever makes you happy. Here I’ve added cranberries, skin on almonds, hazelnuts, pumpkin seeds, chia seeds and sesame seeds.

I’ve added other nuts with equal success; I’ve also added popped quinoa and used up pots of those ‘pour over the top of salad’ nut and seed pot things that people sometimes buy you. I reckon you could tip pretty much anything from a Graze box into this (excluding the chocolatey things!).

Give it a good old stir to warm it through. I’ve usually turned the pan off before I add all the other stuff but I use cast iron cookware and it keeps its heat for ages.

Serve it with a dollop of really good creme fraiche.

I don’t think you’ll ever have a better breakfast – although we’ve also had it for lunch and probably at least once for dinner!

It’s so easy – really quick – all in one pan – and give you a warm tummy and lots of energy to keep you going through the day.

Radish and Avocado Salad with a Chia Tahini Dressing

Posted on February 3, 2016 by tenuoustoaster

Another great dish – especially if you like radishes – is this one from Julie Montagu’s Superfood cookbook.

Again crazy simple – but for me this one is only good within 30 minutes of making it. Leave it too long and the dressing loses itself in the salad ingredients – to the point that you wouldn’t even know it was there. So make it – and eat it straight away.

All you do is chop and slice stuff; some radishes, a couple of red peppers, a red onion, a spring onion, and an avocado. To this you add a handful of kalamata olives (I removed the stones from mine), and a handful of torn or chopped coriander and the dressing.

The dressing needs to be blended. It’s made up of chia seeds, tahini, cumin seeds, lemon juice, parsley, tamari (dark soy sauce), honey, salt and chilli powder.

I bought myself a new toy over Christmas. The NutriBullet just wasn’t good enough for breaking down things and is so frustrating to empty and clean; so I bought myself a high speed blender that was more up to the task. I now have an Optimum 9200 – which is a strong contender to the Vitamix and almost half the price. It blitzed through those ingredients in seconds and is far easier to clean, empty and use!

Anyway, I digress. The dressing is poured over the salad ingredients and then you simple toss them together and serve.

As I said before the dressing on this is amazing; but if you’re making it in advance (for your lunch perhaps), keep the dressing separate and pour on at the last minute.

This is a great salad; full of crunch and flavour – I loved it and will be making it again.

Cabbage, Carrot and Flaxseed Coleslaw

Posted on February 3, 2016 by tenuoustoaster

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In the rush that was Christmas I bought two cookbooks. One I already had – but I needed to get over the £20 spend to get free delivery on Amazon so I also bought ‘Superfoods’ by Julie Montagu.

There had been a lot of chatter about Superfoods around that time – especially when one team on the Apprentice had an embarrassing moment misunderstanding what Superfoods were all about.

A quick flick through the book got me excited. Unlike other healthy living books this one generally gets by with using easy to get ingredients. Proof of the pudding was this dish.

The Cabbage, Carrot and Flaxseed Coleslaw is in the ‘Sides’ section of the book – and the recipe is enough for 4-6 people – but we just ate it as a main.

It’s incredibly easy to make – much like most of the recipes in the book – I think I had it made in less than 15 minutes. And there’s no cooking either; it’s all completely raw.

All you do is shred a savoy cabbage and a purple cabbage, grate some carrots, finely slice a red onion and toss into the mix a handful of mange tout.

To the coleslaw base to add a dressing made up of olive oil, garlic, dill, Dijon mustard, apple cider vinegar and the juice of a lemon.

Mix it all together and serve with a generous sprinkling of flax seeds.

If you can’t find flax seeds buy linseeds. They are the same thing.

This salad was amazing on its own and would be the perfect accompaniment to any other dish I think – maybe a BBQ once the weather gets better in 6 months time!

Loved this book – and loved this recipe – thoroughly recommended!