Rice Salad with Nuts and Sour Cherries

Posted on October 15, 2014 by tenuoustoaster

Wow I haven’t updated this blog for months. Shame on me! But I have been busy honest!

Freya and I got married, and joined a Gym, and started a film club, and basically upped our social life by a factor of a billion.

I just haven’t been cooking properly – at all. Until today!

I resolved on Sunday that we can’t keep eating out, and just eating halloumi wraps every time we come home from the Gym and trawled through my new favourite book – Plenty More by Yotam Ottolenghi.

I shortlisted 12 dishes, ordered all the ingredients from Ocado and threw this together in about 40 minutes.

It’s pretty straightforward, cook some rice, then drain it and let it cool down. While it’s cooling, cooks some pine nuts and almonds in a little oil until they start to brown and let those cool down. Also cook some quinoa and let that cool down. While that’s cooling, fry some onions until they are part crisp and part soft.

Once your onions are done, toss all the above in a big bowl (very big bowl – this made loads) add the onions, sour cherries, rocket, parsley, basil and tarragon, garlic and lemon juice and toss the lot together with some added lemon zest and olive oil.

As you can tell this is a cold-ish salad. It’s best to leave this for a while as you want the lemon juice, garlic and the herbs to work their magic and for the flavours to penetrate into the rice.

I absolutely loved this. It’s the first proper meal I’ve made for a month I think! And there’s loads left for lunch tomorrow!

Celeriac Soup with Goats Cheese Cream and a Walnut and Green Pepper Salsa

Posted on June 19, 2014 by tenuoustoaster

Soup? In the summer? Are you mad?

Well no – but whilst looking through the fridge for left over ingredients from last week’s book, I saw that I had some leeks and a whole celeriac.

Denis Cotter has a recipe for Celeriac Soup in his book ‘For the Love of Food’ and it is pretty simple. I had all the ingredients – so why not ! All I lacked was the white wine – which I again ‘borrowed’ from Freya’s mum.

This soup also has a goat’s cheese cream and a green pepper and walnut salsa. Without it I’d have said this would have been bland. But these two additions really make the dish special.

For the soup, you fry some leeks and some garlic until soft, add a whole celeriac (diced) and a potato (also diced), and start the boil with 100ml of white wine.

Once that’s absorbed, add some vegetable stock and cook until the vegetables are tender. Took 30 minutes for me.

Blitz the soup in your favourite blitzer. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg and serve. Easy!

The best bit though is the toppings:

For the cream, mash some goats cheese with some double cream. Simple

For the salsa, chop a green pepper really small, do the same with walnuts, and add in some olive oil and parsley. Just as simple.

We loved this. We ate it whilst watching ‘The Darjeeling Limited’, feeling we had earned a deserved rest after packing up all our stuff for the boat.

We ate the leftovers the next day cold – and to be honest it was just as nice cold. Soup’s don’t have to be hot you know.

Tonight we unofficially move onto the boat. Officially that will be at the weekend!

Denis Cotter – For the Love of Food

Posted on June 11, 2014 by tenuoustoaster

I wasn’t really successful getting through all the recipes of ‘The Modern Vegetarian’ – mainly due to some very long days at the boat, and lots of packing distractions for Freya’s parents. I was also a bit of a muppet and got excessively enthusiastic about packing – and packed all the food in the larder into a box and took it to the boat – rendering a lot of the recipes impossible to make!

That said, I’ve made most of the stuff I said I would – I just haven’t blogged it yet! I will – soon – promise!

So this weeks book I’ve decided not to find myself 10 recipes but limit myself to say six! If I get them all done I’ll pick some more.

The book is Denis Cotter’s ‘For the Love of Food’. This is a totally vegetarian cookbook. The Guardian say he’s ‘the best vegetarian chef in the British Isles’. Fair praise!

I love this book. I’ve cooked from it before and lots of the recipes are nice and simple. Many of them are very similar – especially the salads – but the slight differences between them make them very unique.

There are some challenging recipes in this book – I just haven’t chosen any of them for the coming week. I’ve got way too much stuff to do. And it’s Fathers Day on Sunday – where I’ll be out most of the day at Paradise Park in Hertfordshire with my six year old daughter.

For the coming week I am making:

spiced sweet potato pancakes
spiced halloumi on a warm puy lentil, spinach and beetroot salad
couscous salad with fresh apricots, broccoli, feta and a minted tomato dressing
sugar snaps with garlic, cherry tomatoes, shallots and basil
salad of roasted courgette, green beans and puy lentils with coriander mint and yoghurt dressing
salad of leeks, hazelnuts, fennel and watercress with a blackcurrant balsamic dressing
celeriac soup with walnut and green pepper salsa and goats cheese cream

Don’t they all just roll off the tongue. Denis doesn’t come up with pretty names for his dishes – he just tells you what’s in the dish!

This was one of the books that really inspired me to get into cooking again. Check it out – I think you’ll find the same.

Fresh Borlotti Bean Cassoulet

Posted on June 10, 2014 by tenuoustoaster

Does anyone know where to get Fresh Borlotti Beans? I don’t so I couldn’t really make this as per the recipe. If I’m honest I only chose this recipe because I found a couple of tins of them whilst packing up our food as part of our house move and figured I could swap them out without much fuss.

This dish is also from Maria Ella’s ‘The Modern Vegetarian’ – and was pretty easy – and is really just one of those ‘throw it all in a pan’ affairs. The end result is ‘posh beans on toast’ (if you serve it with toast!).

This was nice and quick and took me less than 30 minutes to make – although the recipe suggests that the longer you leave this to infuse the more tasty it will become! We ate really late last Sunday (when I made this) so the flavours didn’t have a chance to infuse. That said the leftovers were definitely more tasty when we had them at work the following day.

To make this you simply fry celery, onion, carrot and garlic (all diced very small) into some olive oil. Once soft add bay leave, sage and oregano, the beans (I used two 400g tins), chopped fresh plum tomatoes (I had a lot of Heritage ones that were very very ripe so I favoured these) and cook.

Now ordinarily in the recipe you would add water to cover the beans and cook for 50 mins or so. But my beans were already cooked so I didn’t bother with this step. I just added enough water to keep the consistency of my beans similar to that of a tin of baked beans.

When it’s all ready you remove from the heat – add lemon zest and lemon juice and some basil and serve with some toasted bread.

As quick dishes go – this was very quick. But I did cheat. This would take far longer if you used fresh beans.

This is quite a nice go to dish if you’re short of time. And it is far better than a tin of baked beans!

Butternut Squash Barley Risotto

Posted on June 10, 2014 by tenuoustoaster

It seems like ages since I posted something. I’ve been cooking – I just haven’t had the time to post the reviews!

Moving house and moving onto a boat all at the same time is a recipe for disaster. Especially challenging when you still have to go to work, and your new mooring is a very long way away from where you live. That said, only two weeks left and all these issues should be over!

Anyway – back to the cooking. This is another recipe from ‘The Modern Vegetarian’ by Maria Ella. I’ve made this before. I think in November last year and my memory of it made me want to make it again.

It’s not quite as spectacularly bright and colourful like the Spinach Pearl Barley Risotto I made some time ago – but it is as tasty.

One thing I noticed this time round is butternut squashes all look the same don’t they! But do they taste the same? To me, this risotto didn’t taste as ‘squashy’ as the one I made before. Maybe squashes aren’t really in season in May/June – and lack the taste of an autumn one.

One thing I’ve taken away from this recipe is ‘why use rice’. I’ve never found rice particularly fulfilling. You eat it – you get full – bloated in fact – you go do something and half an hour later you’re hungry again. Barley is a super substitute. It has three times the carbs, five times the protein, three times the calories and a whopping ten times the fibre. Basically you’ll get more energy from it – and you it’s better for you !

There are many steps to this recipe – and it seems very long winded – but it isn’t – and it is worth it.

To make this you peel a butternut squash, and put the peelings with some onions (peel and all), garlic, carrot and water in a big pan and boil it up to a stock.

Obviously you could cheat here and just use Bouillon or a vegetable stock – but for the effort, and the fact that you have the waste product anyway it seems silly not to. I think in hindsight here you could pep up your stock (if your squash isn’t that flavoursome) with something like that Knorr vegetable stock concentrate.

While that’s reducing down from something like 2 litres to 1 litre, you prep your squash. Dice and roast the end with the pulp with lots of olive oil. I did mine in a halogen oven (hence the round ring).

Next, fry off the other end of the squash in a pan. I messed this up last time I made it by not reading the recipe properly – I ended up roasting the whole squash. To be honest I don’t think it makes the blindest bit of difference. You fry the squash with shallots (I used some left over spring onions) and some spices.

Once you’ve done that – the prep is done.

From here on it’s all plain stirring. Fry the barley, some onion (I used red onions for added colour and the fried diced butternut squash and add some wine to get it going.

Once the wine is absorbed, gradually add your butternut squash stock – risotto style – ladle at a time until each ladle is absorbed. This took around 30 minutes for me.

Once the barley is to your liking (I like mine to have some bite) add the roasted squash (which you need to puree first) – and then some parmesan cheese (how much is up to you!).

I think this is a yummy, filling, wholesome dish which fills you up and leaves you full. I didn’t go overboard with the cheese – but you could if you wanted to – depends on how you like your risotto. I like mine to be a little sloppy and still have some of the liquid unabsorbed.

As I already said this dish is a little more labour intensive but it is worth it. Give it a go!

The Modern Vegetarian – Maria Ella

Posted on June 3, 2014 by tenuoustoaster

After all the stresses and rushing around of last week I can now get back to doing what I like best – cooking!

Now our boat is moved (which went without a hitch) the pressure has really lifted and rather than eating crazy late every evening I can focus on getting home from work at a reasonable hour and taking my time preparing some really nice food.

My book of choice this week is ‘The Modern Vegetarian’ by Maria Ella.

I’ve cooked from this book before – and was very impressed with the general simplicity of the recipes and the impressive flavours, textures and colourful dishes that I’d selected. Sadly I hadn’t blogged or photographed any of them – but the general opinion was that everything from it was very good. So I’ve decided to cook from the book again.

The recipes I’ve selected are a mixture of those I’ve made before (and loved – especially the beetroot ones) and a few new ones that I’d missed first time round.

This week I plan to make (in no particular order)

Carrot pancakes with Houmous and a Feta Salad
Smashed Pea, Dill and Feta Crostini
Butternut Squash Barley Risotto
Spiced Swiss Chard with Butterbeans and Couscous
Fresh Borlotti Bean Cassoulet
Beetroot Tzatsiki
Spiced Caramelised Onion and Beetroot Bulgar Pilau
Beetroot Keftedes
Greek Beetroot Salad
Parmesan Polenta with Poached Eggs and Roasted Feta
Puy Lentil and Feta Tabouleh
Fennel Salad
Braised Broad Beans with Lemon and Dill
Rosemary and Butternut Squash Polenta Chips
Rosemary Popcorn
Dino’s Greek Peas

That quite a lot to make – but all the dishes are quick and easy. The four beetroot dishes are part of a ‘flavours of beetroot meze’ which is really quite special.

As always I’ve steered clear of nearly all the rice and pasta dishes and dishes with lots of cream – just because I want to keep my weight down and because I eat late most nights and don’t want to go to bed on a very full stomach.

This is definitely a book to own if you are vegetarian. You’ll certainly make most of the dishes in this book over time. The photography is really good too.

Dates and Turkish Ewe’s Cheese

Posted on May 22, 2014 by tenuoustoaster

After three days of eating bread and cheese (our go to lazy eating solution when we are at the boat) we got back to work and made this for lunch.

Another Yotam Ottolenghi recipe from the book Plenty. This very simple salad is both very quick to make and incredibly tasty. I think it looks pretty awesome too.

I can’t imagine many people will find Ewe’s Mozzarella in their local supermarket. Ottolenghi himself goes to a cheese specialist not far from his restaurant in London. I used a good quality Buffalo Mozzarella as I didn’t have the time.

Ottolenghi does this a lot. A green thing, a nut thing, a fruit thing and a cheese thing – with a dressing. And I have to say it seems to work everytime (except with Verjus !).

This one is rocket, mozzarella, almonds and Medjool dates. The dressing is olive oil and pomegranate molasses. There’s some basil and dill in there too.

I love this – very fresh – very summery – looks beautiful – and got me back in the mood for cooking again.

Lovely.

Asparagus, fennel and beetroot with verjus

Posted on May 22, 2014 by tenuoustoaster

Just when I thought Ottolenghi was infallible – I made this.

On paper it was going to be great. Three of my favourite ingredients are beetroot, asparagus and fennel – and they are all in this dish. And they all require no cooking (unless you’ve roasted some raw beetroot).

Actually – it’s worth making the comparison here between the shop bought stuff that has been prepacked – and buying raw beetroots and roasting them. The stuff in the packet just doesn’t have the flavour and generally has a very high water content – it’s a poor imitation of the real thing.

Often books ask you to boil them in water – or roast them wrapped in foil. I do neither. I simply top and tail them – put them in a Halogen oven and roast them – with no oil – just as they are – until they are tender – which generally takes 40 minutes. Let them cool – peel them – and they will be so tasty and not at all wet.

Anyway – back to the recipe. There are only two other ingredients to this recipe. Pinenuts – which you toast at the end – and Verjus.

I first saw Verjus when I watched Australian Masterchef. The Australian format of Masterchef is far superior to the UK version – far more engaging – and you really get to know the competitors and the hosts/chefs. Anyway – on the show they visited the farm of Maggie Beer. She used verjus in one of her recipes and sung its praises so I was curious to get some.

Verjus is a highly acidic juice made by pressing unripe grapes, crab-apples or other sour fruit (says WIKIpedia). This is quite an understatement – it’s MEGA acidic and sour. I tasted it before I carried on with the recipe!

The recipe wants you to reduce 320ml of this very sour juice down to 3 tablespoons – 45ml. So make it even more sour and acidic. I have to say the result was intense.

I’m quite well known at work for liking really sour sweets – and really salty liquorice. I’ve yet to be defeated on the sour sweets – but I reckon the reduction of this verjus could be used to create a monster! It was probably the most sour thing I’ve tasted. Maybe there are different sournesses (is that a word) of Verjus – I hope so – otherwise I’ll never use this ingredient again.

The dish is essentially all the prepped vegetables with the Verjus dribbled on top – and then dressed with the pinenuts and some dill.

Neither of us liked it – it was too sour. It was like having all the moisture sucked out of your face. Not good. Such a shame because the Fennel and the Asparagus were very good before the dressing (chef’s snacks!).

Oh well – you can’t win them all.

Sweet Potato Cakes

Posted on May 22, 2014 by tenuoustoaster

From the time consuming – to the incredibly quick and easy!

You may have noticed I haven’t been posting much lately. We’ve been so busy trying to get the boat finished. We are moving it next Thursday from Maidenhead to Brentford – a two day voyage along the River Thames – by two absolute novices in the piloting of a boat. Our best efforts so far include Kayaking up to Bourne End – and almost causing a passenger boat collision on the canals of Amsterdam in a Pedalo!

I’ve always liked Yotam Ottolenghis myriad pancakes (note the correct use of the word myriad! – not a myriad of…) – he has many variations on a theme – this one I like – mainly because I really like sweet potatoes.

We’ve been packing up our cottage this week as well – getting all our stuff together – and that included looking in the freezer and seeing what we had in there. Quite frankly not very much. A couple of frozen meat based dishes which have clearly been in there for more than six months (we’ve not cooked with meat since November), some ice-cream (obviously) and a bag of frozen sweet potatoes and a bag of frozen butternut squash – both cubed.

With time not on my side – nor energy – I’d spent most of the day making steps for the outside of the boat from 3.6 metre decking boards (so was exhausted) – I simply tipped both bags of frozen veg onto a roasting tray – drizzled with Olive Oil and roasted for a good 30 minutes.

After letting them cool and draining off any liquid (of which there was very little anyway) you mix the roasted vegetables with flour, spring onions, a chilli, some soy sauce and a little bit of sugar. I Magimixed mine – which was maybe a little brutal – I think a potato masher might have done just as good a job.

You then make small burger sized patties and fry them in butter. I made 16 I think. In 2’s.

I served mine with a yoghurt dressing made from greek yoghurt, soured cream, lemon juice, olive oil and coriander.

These were really yummy, and really quick, and required very little effort. Just what I needed – I had little desire to be fine chopping stuff with Global knifes – and have a tendency to clip my fingers when I’m too tired.

It’s a shame the photo isn’t that exciting. These are really tasty – but don’t look like anything special.

Black Pepper Tofu

Posted on May 22, 2014 by tenuoustoaster

It’s #VeggieWeek this week. Check out the lovely food being posted on Twitter.

I’ve made this recipe before – from Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty – but it was way too spicy and way too salty for Freya – so I ended up eating the lot. I shortlisted it again for this round of recipes – but toned down some of the ingredients so that it was a ‘sharing plate’ rather than something all for me.

I think it looks really classy.

When you look at the ingredients for this recipe you’ll realise what I mean. There are 8 red chillis, 12 garlic cloves, 5 tablespoons of black pepper, 3 tablespoons of ginger, and 12 shallots. Hopefully Ottolenghi won’t tell me off for giving out the quantities here – but it does make you think ‘gee that’s gonna be hot’!

I used 4 chillis, 6 garlic cloves, 3 tablespoons of pepper, half the ginger – and kept all the shallots. It was still too hot for Freya! I probably would have used more pepper but my pepper mill decided it had given me enough ground pepper already and refused to give me more than 3 tablespoons. And that took me nearly 20 minutes. Next time I’ll be smarter and use my pestle and mortar.

It’s amusing that the recipe says this is quick to make. I don’t think it is. You have to fry to tofu in small batches so as not to steam them:

Then you have to drain them and let them stand while you do the sauce:

You then make the base by frying the dry ingredients (above) in butter:

and then you add the sauce to the fried ingredients:

which is essentially three types of soy sauce.

Once that’s all done you return the tofu to the pan, reheat and serve.

I love this dish – it’s so tasty and the tofu is really crunchy, having been dusted in cornflower and fried at quite a high temperature.

I love hot food. I love chillis, and I love those bottles of ‘dare to try me’ sauce. I have lots of them! As I’ve said before though with recipes that call for chillis; it would be nice if they said how hot the chillis should be – or how big – because there is such a wide variety of size and heat. You could end up making very different dishes every time.

I don’t think Freya will ever like this one as it is just a little bit too spicy. Fortunately we’d already had some quite nice Sweet Potato pancakes so she didn’t go hungry. There was quite a lot left over (I’m not an animal!) so that was my dinner the following day too !

There was a lot of washing up after this. All the prep bowls, the cast iron frying pan for the tofu, my lovely Al Clad Tagine for the sauce – and all the utensils. Not a quick dish – but a very tasty one.