Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Food’ Category

Green Lentils with Chorizo and Smoked Paprika

Posted in Food, Recipes, tagged , , , on April 27, 2011| 4 Comments »

A dish to see off the winter chill.
This is adapted from a recipe by Australian cookery writer Jody Vassallo and is a relatively quick all-in-one dish for small company.
It took me about 50 minutes from arriving back from the market to turning off the gas under the casserole.
Chorizo–sausage of the moment–to be eaten in moderation of course!

If made earlier in the day, you may need extra water when reheating it, as the lentils will continue to absorb the liquid–but it shouldn’t be swamped.

2 chorizo sausages–I prefer spicy ones–sliced into round chunks

2 tablespoons of olive oil

1 onion–chopped fine

1 carrot–chopped fine

1 stick of celery–chopped fine

1 small fennel bulb–outer casing and core  removed–chopped into small chunks

50 gms/2 oz pancetta or bacon–chopped

1 teaspoon of smoked paprika

120 ml/4 fl oz white wine

2 garlic cloves–peeled but left whole

a couple of bay leaves

250 gms/ 8oz green or puy lentils–the small grey-green ones–washed and drained

1 litre of water–with extra to hand

salt and pepper

a small bunch of parsley–chopped

Heat the oil in a medium casserole and fry the sausage and pancetta/ bacon until lightly coloured.

Remove and set aside on kitchen paper.

Add the onion, carrot, celery and fennel and cook these in the same sausage-informed oil for about seven minutes–until they too have lightly coloured.

Return the sausage and bacon to the casserole, sprinkle over the smoked paprika, add the wine, the garlic and the bay leaves.

When the wine has evaporated, add the lentils and  the litre of water.

Bring up to the simmer, cover and cook until the lentils are tender, about 20–30 minutes.

Season well and serve in warm bowls with the parsley sprinkled over and a swirl of olive oil perhaps.

steaming bowl of lentils and chorizo!

Read Full Post »

Mint Sauce with a difference for a Holiday Meal

Posted in Food, other sides to this life, Recipes, tagged , , , , on April 23, 2011| 2 Comments »

Homemade MINT SAUCE with apple and onion (goes well with roast lamb or lamb chops):

Meredith and I both grew up in houses in the fifties with mint in the garden.

Chicago and London–little did we know…!

The homemade mint sauce that went with the lamb roast at our house was tasty–my mother was a good cook!

Made with the traditional ingredients, as I remember–fresh mint, sugar and malt vinegar.

In this version an apple (not sugar) provides the sweetness in the sweet-and-sour sauce, which cuts the richness of the lamb.

This is included in my book Delicious Dishes for Diabetics, to be published in the UK in August and the US in November.

Leaves from a large bunch of mint

An apple–peeled, cored and roughly chopped

A small onion–quartered

Mix these ingredients in a food processor–not too finely; it should have  texture.

Then add salt and a good splash cider vinegar.

Taste it for balance before leaving it in the fridge to marinade for an hour.

Bring it back to room temperature and taste again before serving.

Read Full Post »

Spicy Chickpeas–lightly sautéed.

Posted in Food, Recipes, tagged , , on April 21, 2011| 7 Comments »

We had these spicy little numbers yesterday for lunch–with grilled strips of marinaded chicken breasts and swiss chard leaves sautéed with garlic and olive oil.

This is adapted from a lovely book of recipes by Australian cookery writer Jody Vassallo, which I found at Café Plum in Lautrec in French (it sells books as well as coffee, and feels Parisien!).

1 16 oz/450 gm  tin or bottle of cooked chickpeas–drained, rinsed and dried (it’s important to dry them well– kitchen paper comes in handy here).

1 clove of garlic-crushed to a paste, with a little salt

1 tsp each of smoked paprika, cumin powder, white pepper powder, coriander powder, cayenne powder, dried thyme, dried oregano and salt–(or as many of these as you can muster!)

2 tablespoons olive oil

Put the garlic, spices and dried herbs in a bowl and add the salt.

Mix these together thoroughly with a fork.

Add the chickpeas to the bowl and turn them over to coat them in the mixture.

Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan.

When the oil is hot add the chickpeas and roll them about in the oil–they should ideally lie in one layer.

Cook them over a gentle heat for 10 minutes, until they colour and crisp up.

They were delicious with:

A chicken breast each–cut into thin strips, seasoned and marinaded in olive oil for an hour.

Then cooked on a hot grill plate for a couple of minutes each side.

and

A large handful of swiss chard leaves (or spinach) washed and most of the water shaken off it, then sautéed in 2 tablespoons of olive oil with 1 clove of  garlic sliced very fine.

Heat the oil in a pan you can cover.

Fry the garlic until it starts to colour.

Carefully add the chard, a little salt and turn it in the oil.

Cover the pan and let the chard reduce until it is tender.

The excess water makes a little sauce, but if there’s too much just drain it off.

I arranged it all on a single plate and we fought for the last chickpea!

Read Full Post »

“I just found lunch…!”

Posted in Food, other sides to this life, Recipes, tagged , , , , on April 18, 2011| 8 Comments »

…Meredith says, as she comes into the kitchen from the courtyard, clutching a plastic flower pot with 4 eggs nestling at the bottom.

“Omelettes!”.

“Where did you find them?”

“In the pigeonnier!”

Madame Arcarti*, our eccentric-looking hen,

has been keeping her ‘laying’ spot a secret since she ended her brooding marathon a couple of weeks ago. She’d sat on potentially fertile eggs brought over by our neighbour Flo for well over a month–to no avail.

This instinct to hatch out the young chicks is impressive, but borders on the obsessive. In the end–fearing for her well being (she barely took time out to eat)–Meredith gradually reduced the number of eggs available until there were none and our hen resumed her other instinct–which is indiscriminate weeding in the garden.

We began to wonder where she was laying, since there was no sign of an egg in the little hen house, one of her usual dropping zones!

Sketch by Hope James, illustrator of my cookbook

The pigeonnier, on the corner of the courtyard, is where three visiting hens, parked with us over the winter, had done their laying.

They are now happily relocated a few miles up the road, but Madame Arcati hadn’t forgotten!

Omelette with cheese and herbs

( from my book Delicious Dishes for Diabetics)

for 1

2 free range eggs

a little olive oil or butter if you prefer

1 tablespoon freshly grated parmesan

a pinch of fresh herbs–chopped fine; parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, mint, tarragon, chives–any one of these or a mixture

salt & pepper to taste

Heat your omelette pan gently before adding the oil or butter.

It should be hot when you add the eggs.

Whisk the eggs lightly in a bowl.

Add a little salt and pepper and a pinch of the herbs.

When you are ready to make the omelette add the oil or butter to the hot pan. (I always use olive oil.)

Add the egg mix and cook over a high heat.

With a wooden spoon tack round the circumference of the egg mix, releasing a little of the liquid each time to build a quilt-like texture to the cooking omelette.

Sprinkle on the cheese

Take the pan off the heat when you have a creamy and scrummy looking item that looks just cooked.

Fold it over as you like, sprinkle extra parmesan over it and serve immediately.

A green salad is all you need with it.

* Madame Arcarti is named after the meddling medium from Noel Coward’s play Blithe Spirit–played so memorably in the film by Margaret Rutherford.

Read Full Post »

A saucy tuna lunch for two

Posted in Food, Recipes, tagged , , , , on April 12, 2011| 1 Comment »

the ingredients--I forgot the sunflower seeds!

This is based on an early Nigel Slater recipe, and is a good standby for lunch–we had it yesterday, when I found very little else in the fridge!

 

2 small/125 gm pots of non-fat yogurt

1 dessertspoon (for Americans, a scant tablespoon) Dijon mustard

1 dessertspoon white wine vinegar–if you can find it with tarragon all the better

2 dessertspoons olive oil

A small bunch of chives–chopped

A dessertspoonful of spring onions (scallions)–chopped

salt and pepper

190 gm tin of tuna–drained and broken up with a fork–(the amount of tuna is a matter of choice; I reckon about 75 gms each)

1 tablespoon dry roasted sunflower seeds (gently brown the seeds in a small frying pan [with no fat] )

There are two ways of making the non-fat yogurt thicker and more interesting.

If you have a square of muslin, place it in a sieve and the sieve over a bowl.

yogurt in muslin

Carefully empty the yogurt into it and–as in the photo–

yogurt ball

gather the material together and gently squeeze out about 60 ml of whey (liquid).

If there’s no muslin to hand, empty the yogurt straight into the sieve placed over a bowl and let the whey slowly drip out for about an hour. (Leave the bowl in the fridge while this happens.)

Meanwhile, empty the tuna into a bowl, add the herbs, the spring onion, the sunflower seeds, a scant tablespoon of olive oil and a twist or two of pepper.

Mix these ingredients together.

When you are ready, discard the whey and put the thickened  yogurt into the empty bowl.

Whisk in the mustard, combining it well with the yogurt.

Add a scant tablespoon of olive oil and the vinegar–blending well.

Season lightly with salt and pepper.

ready to mix...

Fold the tuna mix into the yogurt and combine well.

Adjust the seasoning, before

...and mixing.

serving with a green salad.

tuna salad --ready to serve!

Read Full Post »

Don’t eat the daisies…!

Posted in Food, other sides to this life, tagged , , , on April 9, 2011| 3 Comments »

…OK, but what flowers can I eat?

Johnny-jump-ups, nasturtiums and I discover today…

…the flowers from our Judas tree (Redbud to Americans).

…which is almost in full bloom here–a magnificent sight.

Legend has it that this was the tree from which Judas Iscariot hung himself. The flowers turned from white to blood-red in shame. It’s more likely that the name derives from the hills of Judaea in the Middle East, where this tree is commonplace.

The flowers have a lemony citric taste–I’m going to try them in a salad tomorrow!

Read Full Post »

From my cook book–Delicious Dishes for Diabetics

Posted in Food, Recipes, tagged , , , , on April 8, 2011| 2 Comments »

…which is published on August 4th in the UK and in November in the USA, comes this recipe adapted from one of my favourite British cooks, Nigel Slater.

Salmon Fishcakes with dill and grainy mustard

I have always loved fishcakes. Must be the comfort food factor kicking in–but they usually contain 50 per cent potato, not ideal for those like me with type 2 diabetes. This recipe solves the problem by leaving the potato out! The dill and the grain mustard make the fishcakes special. They sometimes serve as a tasty starter, but today with our friend Mitch–who is working here to fix the drainage system at the back of the house–we’ll have them as a light lunch as it’s hot.

If you keep them small and cook them quickly, they’ll be crisp and brown on the outside and still succulent inside.

Yogurt sauce

2 x 125 ml pots low-fat yogurt

1 tsp grain mustard

good pinch of chopped dill (from the main bunch)

salt

The Fishcakes

400 g/1 lb salmon fillet – skinless and checked for bones

white of an egg

1 tbsp chickpea flour – of course, plain flour works as well

1 tsp grain mustard

juice of ½ lemon

bunch of dill – chopped fine

salt and pepper

2 tbsp olive oil

1. Mix all the yogurt sauce ingredients and refrigerate until you

are ready to eat.

2. Cut up the salmon fillets in roughly equal-size pieces. Put

these in a mixer and pulse three or four times. Avoid working

them too much and producing slush at the end. You could

just cut them up in small pieces if this suits better.

3. Put the salmon in a bowl. Turn in the egg white and the flour,

and then the mustard, lemon juice, and the dill. Season with

salt and pepper.

4. It’s a good idea to taste the mix for seasoning at this point –

the dill and the salt should come through.

5. Refrigerate if not using immediately.

6. Heat the oil in a frying pan and using a dessertspoon scoop

out a dollop and make a ball. Put this in the pan and flatten

it gently.

Cook on a medium-high flame, crisping and

browning the outside while making sure the interior cooks

through.

7. Serve with a fennel salad and the mustardy yogurt

dipping sauce on the side.

Meredith goes for the fennel salad!

Read Full Post »

Bee Happy!

Posted in Diabetes, Food, other sides to this life, Recipes, tagged , , , on April 7, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Alice–our mushroom supplier earlier this week–just arrived with a hive full of displaced bees.

“You’d better stay inside, Robin, you might get stung!”

I’m happy to continue having my honey-free breakfast in the kitchen.

Meredith and Alice, dressed in their protective costumes, carry the box of bees out to the end of the garden.

!

Alice seems confident they will be happy in their new setting–and she is often right about things.

Yesterday she’d brought round another bag of morel mushrooms–‘miffed’ perhaps that I had not followed her advice about using creme fraiche in the cooking of the first lot. (I didn’t have any.)

“Has he bought creme fraiche?” she asked. Meredith nodded in the affirmative.”Eh voila!” and left the second bag for supper last night. She was right–they taste good with a tablespoon of cream amd a twist of fresh ground black pepper added to the pan.

morels with cream

She thinks the field across the road will be a rich source of nectar for them this year, with much buzzing contentment.

“The fascinating process of making honey begins when the bees feast on flowers, collecting the flower nectar in their mouths. This nectar then mixes with special enzymes in the bees’ saliva, an alchemical process that turns it into honey. The bees carry the honey back to the hive where they deposit it into the cells of the hive’s walls. The fluttering of their wings provides the necessary ventilation to reduce the moisture’s content making it ready for consumption.”*

Happy bees would be better than discontented bees when I’m working in the tomato patch close by, in a month or two.

The danger zone?

“The vexed question”

Honey promoting web sites are keen to be positive about the vexed question of honey and diabetes, pointing out that it is a better option than sugar and sugar substitutes.

Because honey is generally thought to be health promoting, a little everyday is a good idea–even for people with diabetes, they argue.

* more than you need to know perhaps about HONEY–but useful nonetheless.

Read Full Post »

Trout Escabeche

Posted in Food, Recipes, tagged , on April 6, 2011| 4 Comments »

A hot weather dish–it was 22C/71F in the courtyard today.
This is adapted from a cook-heroine of mine,  Marcella Hazan.
An elegant starter or a light lunch with a salad.
A good dish for company as it is prepared beforehand.
“Escabeche” —explained

Ingredients 

4  fresh medium trout–gutted and cleaned

8 tablespoons olive oil

4 tablespoons flour–I use chickpea (avoiding processed white flour)

for the marinade:

The peel of an orange–chopped

Half a pint/250ml white wine

Juice of 2 oranges

Juice of one lemon

Half a medium onion–chopped small

2 tablespoons of parsley–chopped

Salt and pepper

unsuspecting trout

Wash and thoroughly dry the trout.

trout--floured for frying

Spread the chick pea flour on a large plate and turn the trout in it to coat well. Tap the excess flour off the fish.

trout--frying

Heat the oil in a large frying pan and fry the trout  for about 5 minutes on one side and a minute less on the second side. Then lift it carefully out of the pan and into the marinading bowl.

bowled trout waiting for the marinade

Cut through the skin in two places on each side, without damaging the flesh.

To assemble the marinade:

In the same oil in which you fried the fish, sauté the onion until it colours.

Add the wine and chopped orange peel;  let this boil for a few seconds.

Add the two juices, the salt and pepper and the parsley. Let this simmer for a few seconds before carefully pouring the contents of the pan over the trout.

trout--bathing after frying

The trout should bathe in the sauce overnight if possible, or at least for a few hours–to let the flavours mingle and inform.

trout-- prét à manger

Bring it back to room temperature if it’s been in the fridge and gingerly remove the skin on both sides–preserving the wholeness of the fish with its head and tail–for the look.

Read Full Post »

“Third Time Lucky” Curried Leek Soup

Posted in Food, Recipes, tagged , , on April 5, 2011| 2 Comments »

One of my mother’s favourite phrases was “when at first you don’t succeed, try, try again!”

For my first go at this very simple soup a couple of days ago I used the popular French Caribbean curry powder called colombo.

It is very mild and gives a beautiful light yellow finish, but it didn’t taste quite right.

I tried Madras curry powder yesterday, which worked better–but was still too bland.

So–“third time lucky?”–another mantra from my youth.

Here goes–with a mix of individual spices!

Let’s hope it has more of a kick–more of “a back story”– than the previous two efforts.

for 4

.75k/1.5 lbs–leeks–using mainly the white and pale green parts

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 oz butter

Half a teaspoon each of:

cumin, coriander, English mustard powder (substitute a little more cayenne if you don’t have it), turmeric and a pinch of cinnamon, cayenne and salt.


1 litre/1.75 pints vegetable stock–I use organic stock cubes

Prepare the leeks by cutting away the damaged brown tops and trimming the root ends.

To wash them effectively, cut them down centrally from the top to just above the root and wash thoroughly to clear any muddy residue.

Slice them finely.

Heat the butter and oil in a large saucepan.

Add the sliced leeks (keeping back a small handful for the topping) and turn them over in the oil and butter.

Sweat them gently for 5 minutes.

Sprinkle over the spices, mix them in and cook on for a couple of minutes.

Add the stock and bring it to the boil.

Simmer gently for 15 minutes.

Let the soup cool a little before liquidizing into a smooth finish.

Gently sauté the  handful of leeks you kept back in a little oil or butter.

Drop a small spoonful of cream, creme fraiche or beaten yoghurt in each bowl, topped off with a pinch of the sautéed leeks.

We had this third version for lunch. Not as beautiful as the two earlier attempts, but markedly  tastier.

The verdict was positive!

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »