Posted in Food, other sides to this life, Robin Ellis, tagged cooking workshop with Robin Ellis on September 14, 2012| 6 Comments »
A participant in the Cooking Workshop has suddenly had to drop out.
Sadly and painfully she broke her collar bone, in a bicycle accident.
Only three weeks away I know–it’s making me nervous!–but here is the link in case anyone can take up the place.
Posted in Food, other sides to this life, Recipes, tagged baked figs on September 12, 2012| 15 Comments »
Christy, my sister-in-law in LA, has a fig tree in her front yard.
She knows about ours in the courtyard.
It being the fig season–both sides of the Atlantic–she went looking for a fig recipe book.
She found Marie Simmons’ delightfully titled Fig Heaven and very kindly sent me a copy.
Our fig is laden down with fruit that plop regularly onto the thin plastic sheet we have put down to ease the labour of the daily clear-up.
What to do with all the figs? no good giving them to neighbors–they already have at least one tree and are thinking the same thing.
This idea shot out of the book at me; it’s a nice variant on the melon/fig and parma ham summer stand-by starter.
We served two figs each on a small bed of the ubiquitous rocket/arugula to lunch guests on Sunday.
for 4
8 figs–any type
8 thin slices of proscuitto
goat’s cheese (chevre)–divided into 8 pieces
olive oil and balsamic vinegar for drizzling and sprinkling
a handful of rocket/arugula
set the oven at 230C/500F
Posted in Food, other sides to this life, Recipes, tagged arugula salad, paola gavin, rocket salad on September 10, 2012| 13 Comments »
Rocket (arugula) is available everywhere these days.
It’s health giving properties are encouraging!
My supplier in Castres market on a Saturday morning is a generous soul.
I buy a hundred or two hundred grams (1.5 euros a 100gms) depending on our plans and every time she pops an extra fistful of green spears in the bag.
I protest–to no avail.
This policy often leaves late arrivals disappointed.
It’s the best looking and tasting rocket in the world–of course!
Well it is and makes a good base for this simple salad from Lombardy–spotted in Paola Gavin’s book Italian Vegetarian Cooking.
for 2/3
a couple of handfuls of rocket leaves
2 largish tomatoes (this green one is a green zebra)–not too thickly sliced
half a red onion–sliced as thin as you can manage
a few juicy black olives–de-stoned
a small goat’s cheese–in smallish pieces
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
3 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper
The assembly job
Posted in Food, other sides to this life, Recipes, tagged aubergine purée, aubergine/eggplant dip, Baba ghanoush, moutabal, Tahini on September 1, 2012| 24 Comments »
I think I’m falling in love with this dip!
Aubergines/eggplants are singed on a burner for a smoky flavor, then roasted in the oven until the flesh is completely soft and peeled. ( You can leave out the burner bit–just won’t be so smoky)*.
Things are added for regional variations–there are variations of aubergine purées all round the Mediterranean.
It’s a close cousin of Baba Ganoush—in some accounts they are interchangeable.
The main additions in this case are:
Garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, salt and sesame paste (tahini).
We’ll have it tonight spread on a small piece of rye dribbled with olive oil and a slice of ripe tomato on top–see below…
for 4
2 large aubergines (eggplant)
2 cloves of garlic
2 tablespoons of olive oil
juice of a lemon
3 tablespoons of tahini paste (usually available in jars at good grocery stores or health food shops)
1 teaspoon of salt
Meredith suggests a sheet of foil beneath the flame to help avoid a mess!
* Instead of burning it on the gas I also tried adding a quarter teaspoon of smoked sweet paprika to the purée–which gave it a smoky taste.
Posted in Diabetes, Food, other sides to this life, Robin Ellis, tagged Diabetes Research & Wellness Foundation*, sainsbury's magazine, Type 2 diabetes on August 29, 2012| 12 Comments »
Diabetes awareness is improving!
The supermarket chain, Sainsbury’s, publish a magazine and they recently ran a four-page spread on diabetes…
…which included an interview with me.
It’s a subscription magazine and unavailable free on-line; but we’ve cheated and photographed the interview!
If you click on it, you can test your juggling skill to read it!
AND
A UK diabetes charity* with a monthly newsletter asked me to contribute a piece for the September issue: Diabetes Wellness News Sept 12 0.5
(Scroll down to find my piece on pages 5, 6 and 8.)
*Diabetes Research & Wellness Foundation
Awareness is all.
The figures are staggering:
There are an estimated 80 million undiagnosed cases of Type 2 Diabetes in the USA and
800, 000 in the UK.
I had no symptoms–but a simple blood test revealed the truth.
Posted in Food, other sides to this life, Recipes on August 28, 2012| 9 Comments »
Morning’s harvest in my walking hat.
We had these last night for supper on the terrace–late, after the big heat had lifted.
I’d tried out a new courgette/zucchini recipe which was a complete failure! These tomatoes were supposed to be the accompanying vegetable.
In the end we settled for the tomatoes, a piece of toast with olive oil dribbled over it and a glass of red wine.
A light supper–as Nigel Slater puts it in the magazine article I found in an old notebook a couple of days ago.
The combination of olive oil, rosemary, garlic and parmesan is comforting and delicious.
for 2
10 medium ripe tomatoes–cut in half
2 cloves of garlic–peeled
2 stems of rosemary leaves–chopped fine
2 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper
3 tablespoons grated parmesan or more if needed
heat the oven to 200C/400F
Posted in Diabetes, Food, other sides to this life, Recipes, Robin Ellis, tagged aubergine, eggplant, Nigel Slater, recipe for aubergines, recipe for eggplant, roast aubergines, Tender cook book on August 22, 2012| 20 Comments »
Aubergines/eggplants–are piled high on the market stalls at the moment and I’m ever on the lookout for new ways to cook them.
Beautiful shiny black, purple and even white torpedoes, these enigmatic vegetables have always felt a bit daunting to me–where does one start!
Well yesterday I started with Nigel Slater’s heavy tome Tender (weighs in at 4 lbs).
He’s an English cookery writer with an air of the solitary about him and a touch of genius, who wrote about his childhood in a book called Toast.
Tender is the story of his urban London vegetable garden:
As the church bells chimed New Year’s Eve and fireworks lit up the night sky, I vowed to dig up my lawn and grow at least some of my own vegetables.
So far I’ve not dug deeply into it. Time to look again.
The section on aubergines is extensive–and this simple recipe leapt out at me.
We had these last night as a light supper with green beans (their ubiquity is beginning to cause comment!).
for two
1 large aubergine/eggplant–sliced carefully into rounds about a 1.5 cm/.75″ thick
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves of garlic–thinly sliced
1lb/450gms tomatoes–cut up with their juice
1 dried red chili–chopped roughly
salt and pepper
more olive oil as you need it
4 tablespoons grated parmesan
set the oven at 220C/425F
This is how much we liked them..!
Posted in Food, other sides to this life, Recipes, Robin Ellis, tagged courgette, courgette gratin, elizabeth david, Marcella Hazan, recipe, zucchini, zucchini gratin on August 19, 2012| 14 Comments »
Words to yesterday’s pictures!
This is a classic Mediterranean dish and everyone has a way to do it– as is clear from the comments left after yesterday’s Wordless Blog.
(I want to try a courgette parmegiagno this week–where the courgettes/zucchini are griddled as aubergines/eggplants are in the classic dish and then as here mixed with tomato and cheese).
Italian style because it’s inspired by a Marcella Hazan version and is a little different to the Elizabeth David’s French gratin in Delicious Dishes for Diabetics.
Posted in Food, Robin Ellis, tagged courgette/zucchini, gratin, summer squash, what to do with courgettes, wordless blog on August 18, 2012| 23 Comments »
Posted in Food, other sides to this life, Recipes, Robin Ellis, tagged Anchovy, garlic, nursery rhyme, Peck, pepper recipe, peter piper picked, pickled peppers, red peppers on August 16, 2012| 15 Comments »
Our friend Charlotte first served us this delicious dish of red peppers. The eponymous Percy is a friend of hers.
They were on the menu together with slow-cooked chicken breasts for Brian and Ren’s last night.
I checked my blog to see if I had already posted this recipe and found no reference.
Hooray, I thought, this will make a good post today as a starter or vegetable.
I googled Percy’s Pickled Pepper–thinking what a good intro the tongue twister would be–and up came my post from a year ago!
Percy Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers;
A peck of pickled peppers Percy Piper picked;
If Percy Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
Where’s the peck of pickled peppers Percy Piper picked?
Of course, Peter ‘s picking in the nursery rhyme–but Percy’s just as hard to say….
This year’s version:
for four
4 red peppers— cored, de-seeded and sliced fine lengthwise.
3 or 4 garlic cloves skinned and left whole.
12 anchovy fillets–chopped up
2 tblsps small capers
2 tblsps olive oil–plus extra for dribbling
pepper to taste
Heat the oven to 180˚ half-an-hour before you’re ready to eat.
Includes photo from the NEW Poldark series!
Robin Ellis 