Dinner for Two

Our 10th year anniversary dinner, 21st June 2007.

The theme was food that could be fed to your lover, tiny nibbles, finger food, dishes to share, nothing too heavy or intimidating.


Love Bites - amuses bouche of marinated olives in lemon and herbs and spicy baked chickpeas.


Nostalgia - on our first 'date' I made bruschetta like these.


Pierce my Heart - tofu skewered, with soft fondant potatoes and tender mange tout.


Pudding to share - Chocolate Apricot Gateau with Green Ginger Ice Cream.

More pictures on Paul's stream and recipes available on request.

Marathon Manda

In the manner of a runner preparing for the race tonight's dinner is just a big bowl of pasta. The sauce came from a bottle and the only innovation was a couple of teaspoonfuls of capers. It was o.k. and washed down with a half of red perfectly satisfying. Sometimes you just don't feel like cooking.

I have chosen the menu for the celebration dinner, we're having nettle soup, mock liver dumplings and buckwheat cupcakes. Yes, I am lying and the real menu will be revealed tomorrow.

Experimenting

An attempt at a posh pudding. It doesn't look too posh here, as the intention was to turn the set jelly out and cube it for service. The jelly would have done that but the cherries were too difficult to slice in the soft matrix and generally just wrecked the joint. Which was a pity but I ate it up anyway because it tasted nice.

To 500ml of almond milk add 2g agar agar powder and about 25g granulated sugar. Bring to a simmer over a gentle heat and cook for a few minutes. Pour into a mould adding fruits as desired. Sets within an hour but nicest well chilled.

For my dinner I turned to a Croq'soya burger, served with chips, fried onions, a tomato salad and a dill pickle. How unhealthy is that.

Stir Fry

Not a very inspired or inspiring dish but enough to prove I made myself a proper meal tonight.

I'm going to have to get a bit more creative by Thursday, Paul is back in France with me to celebrate our first 10 years together.

No Food Blog today

Used up all my calories on junk food and alcohol.

Pickled

If I told you what I had for supper tonight, I'd have to kill you. Suffice to say that white rice and tinned sweetcorn made an appearance.

However, I did do a bit of 'real' cooking today. I've been having cravings for cauliflower pickles, the sort of salty sour version that doesn't really know if it's a salad or a relish but a search of the shops revealed that the French have no interest in this product, not even in the guise of mixed pickles for antipasto (Italian cooking? What's that?).

I avoided buying a fresh cauliflower on the basis I might never get around to preparing it but as I still had far too many carrots in the cooler decided to make a second best option of pickled carrot slices.



These are fine served as an antipasto or as part of a mezze table, not too vinegary with a nice crunch.

For a 500ml pot like the one shown you will need:

Carrots, prepared to fill the jar, slightly overfill at this point as they shrink during processing. I usually use a fluted cutter to get crinkly pieces but didn't have it with me so have made straight slices at an oblique angle. Just chop the carrot into the sort of pieces you like to eat, making sure they're all about the same thickness.

Pickling liquid ingredients;
200ml white wine or cider vinegar.
135ml water.
40g sugar.
1 tbsp. salt (now I'm guessing that's about 20g, keep it flat)
10 peppercorns
1 or 2 cloves of garlic according to size and taste. Halve them if big.
1 green chili pepper (optional) split into two or three pieces.
1 tsp. fennel seeds /or/ use a sprig of tarragon when filling the jar.

1 tsp. olive oil for finishing.

Put all the pickling liquid ingredients into a non-aluminium saucepan (don't put tarragon in at this stage) and bring to the boil. Simmer for a couple of minutes and then drop your prepared carrot slices in. Bring back to the boil and cook gently for 4 or 5 minutes. The carrots shouldn't become soft, this is just to allow the flavourings to penetrate the outer layers slightly.

Use a slotted spoon to lift out the carrots allowing the juice to drain back into the pan and pack into your perfectly clean jar, distributing the garlic and chili pepper pieces throughout. Add the tarragon now if using it. Bring the pickling liquid back to the boil and simmer for another five minutes. Pour one tablespoon of olive oil over the carrots in the jar and then top up with the boiling liquid making sure all the carrots are covered and seal the bottle. Ready for use in a couple of days and will keep for a month refrigerated.

Thunderstorm Supper

Posting this evening in the gaps between large storms rolling in across the farm - I have to be quick because it's perfectly possible to explode computers in these circumstances as I have already proved.

So...



New potatoes, picked just before cooking (that is, in the rain and storm) boiled and served with pistou and capers, caramelised plum tomato and tofu in a saté sauce. Yes, this does fall outside my 'no-fusion' rule but if I'd layered it all up and called it Gado Gado no one would have been any the wiser. And I may just do that next time.

Burnt Offering

A dish of broccoli, gratineed with topping of breadcrumbs, ground peanuts and nutritional yeast. It's not an unmitigated disaster as it actually tastes quite good but firstly I burnt the topping by letting my attention wander and then, not realising that all my first pictures were out of focus, I ate a helping, so the dish looks rather depleted.

You don't need a recipe for this, just remember not to use milk, cream, butter or cheese in it or it won't be vegan.

Ingredients are Everything

Despite the tautology this is an essential truth in cookery. Without the proper makings the recipe can never be recreated. This meal is based, I can't tell you how accurately because it's been years since I looked at it, on a recipe in a book published by Cranks Restaurant. It's reliable, delicious and a standby that can be dressed up or down as the occasion demands, but you must have the right ingredients.


A stew of Potatoes and Chickpeas infused with Ginger and Saffron

Finely chop an onion and put it to melt down in a good glug of olive oil. Add plenty of finely chopped garlic and a good knob of fresh root ginger reduced to as much of a paste as you can. A microplane grater is excellent for this, use the fine gauge one and mind your fingers. Keep the lid on the pan and stir often to prevent browning.

Prepare some potatoes, I used new potatoes from our vegetable plot and only had to scrape them and chop into bite sized pieces but old potatoes work nearly as well. Peel them and make large dice. Throw them into the pan with the onions etc. and put in a good grind of black pepper.

You can use dried chickpeas, soaked and cooked until tender or tinned ones as I did. If using dried peas make sure they are recently harvested and do not add salt to the cooking water or they will be tough, tinned peas need to be well rinsed to remove the canning brine.

Add your chickpeas to the pan with enough stock or water to just cover the vegetables. This is a soupy stew and the broth is an integral part so you can err on the side of generous but don't make it too wet. Bring to a simmer.

Put a big pinch of saffron strands into the hot liquid. I know it's the most expensive spice known to mankind and hard to find in some places but you don't use it often. Give it enough that you can taste it or what's the point? Saffron always makes me think of seafood so I always intend to add some shredded seaweed as an experiment in this dish but as usual intention and ability are divorced and opportunity was missed again. Salt to taste.

Cover the pan and leave to simmer for 15-20 minutes while you do the washing up. O.k. you may not need to do the washing up, but I did. It's ready when the vegetables are cooked.

Bizarrely and unusually for France I have coriander leaf but not flat leaf parsley. The parsley is definitely better, chop some finely and sprinkle it over each serving.

My meal tonight was served with steamed broccoli dressed with balsamic vinegar which was no better than it sounds.

Croque Indienne

Not really a recipe, more of an accumulation.

A vegan sandwich in the style of the famous Croque Monsieur; lightly seared slices of thin tofu sandwiched with leftover Carrot Korma, the sandwiches dipped in almond milk with nutritional yeast dissolved in it and the whole thing fried.

Not terribly healthy and overall perhaps a little sweet but it uses up the leftovers and makes a tasty snack.

Carrot Korma

One of the problems with living here is not that vegans are misunderstood in France, although they surely are, but that living alone there are few dishes I can cook that will be just enough for one meal. Tonight's Carrot Korma is a case in point, the quantity I made would have served two or three greedy people with bread or rice, and probably provided a taste for six as a side dish.



The recipe is based on one that is on the web in several places in slightly differing forms - since I had few of the listed ingredients, really only looking to use up a large bag of carrots that won't keep much longer, I've freely adapted and produced something which is close in spirit but probably doesn't taste much like the other versions about.

Grate a quantity of carrots, this is possibly the most tedious part of the recipe, I used enough carrots to produce about two cereal bowls of grated vegetable.

Mince or finely chop three or more cloves of garlic and slice a long medium hot green chili into thin rings. I used one of the chillies I'd bought for the stuffed chili peppers on Friday. They weren't very hot without the seeds so for this dish I left the seeds in. If you have any ginger, I didn't, finely grate about two teaspoonfuls of that too, I really think it will improve the final product.

In a clean pan heat two tablespoons or so of a light oil and add a dessert spoon of mustard seeds, a good grind of black pepper and the garlic and chillies (and ginger if you have it). Keep the heat low and stir everything around until the mustard seeds start to pop, then add a teaspoonful of ground cumin (if you have seeds add them with the mustard seed), half a teaspoon of turmeric and a smidge, say a 1/4 teaspoon each of ground cinnamon and ground allspice. Mix up well and add the carrot, stirring everything together until the carrot shreds are coated with the spices. Cover the pan and leave on a gentle heat for about 20 minutes. Give it a stir from time to time.

When the carrot is soft and cooked add two tablespoons of coconut cream. This is another place where I've deviated from the 'original' which calls for dry coconut shreds at this point. I think that would be better but I have none. If I did use dried coconut I might be tempted to add just a little extra liquid. Salt to taste. Cover the pan again and allow to heat through for a couple of minutes.

I garnished my korma with pistachio nuts. Ideally served with indian flatbreads, chapattis or parathas tonight's dinner was served with some cooked green beans and french bread recovered by warming through in the oven.

How did it taste; pretty good but the chili heat was too much for me, even with this limited amount of peppers and I had to add some soy yoghurt to cool everything down.

Celebration Dinner 8-6-2007

Last night we had a dinner to celebrate Paul's visit for the weekend.


The starter was Stuffed Peppers; hot peppers filled with a tomato and peanut stuffing, baked in the oven with Palmiers, some plain, some flavoured with yeast extracts and a cooling cucumber salsa.



The main course; Daube d'Aubergines, a little stew of aubergines, tomatoes and red wine served with sauteed potatoes and haricots verts.



Pudding was simply cherries, served with Elderflower Champagne.

Paul took the pictures.

Two Courses for Thursday

This should have been an asparagus soup to use up a bundle of white asparagus I bought some time ago and haven't been able to finish since. I don't really like white asparagus but it was all that was available so I thought I'd give it another try. It wasn't worth the effort and when I'd finally decided to heavily process the rest in a attempt to get some enjoyment out of it, it had passed its best.

So this is a potato soup, and the none the worse for that, flavoured with onions and bay leaves, blitzed smooth and creamy and decorated with the best of the asparagus tips that I could salvage.

It's served with garlic bread and for pudding, baked apples stuffed with dates.

No Food Blog today

Too many leftovers again.

Veritable British Curry

Tonight's meal is an exercise in history. When I was young, curry, when it didn't come straight from the Vesta Packet, was a peculiar melange of muddled ideas about Indian cookery and the Raj.



France isn't terribly good for the things we take for granted in the UK, the range of spices is quite limited and the quality of what's available remarkably poor. I bought a jar of ground cinnamon the other day which I swear tasted of nothing at all, which was a disappointment because I'd promised myself cinnamon toast, but that's not important right now.

The lack of a decent repertoire of spices or green curry herbs means that making anything like a authentic Indian or Pakistani curry is way beyond my reach. However, I did find an acceptable Madras curry mix and with a carton of coconut cream, some potatoes, apples, prunes, tinned beans and peas created a meal redolent of my youth.

The flat breads are the left over flour tortillas, I cannot tell a lie.

Rice is Nice

There are those that would try to pass this off as a risotto. Actually it is closer to the sort of slop that inspired the attempt to improve my diet, or is it?

It can't be called a risotto for various very good reasons, primarily the rice is long grain and not the starchy short grained that gives such a creamy finish and gentle pudding-y look to the accepted dish. Secondly, good risotto relies on its rice and excellent stock with just a very few other ingredients, a few mushrooms perhaps or some fennel, to give it a sophisticated simplicity. This rice dish is loaded down with extra veg. and I've used a commercial stock cube. Finally, and this is probably the killer, I allowed the finely chopped onion to brown, even burn, during the initial stages. In any good Italian kitchen this would have been discarded (along with the sous chef) as an unforgivable misdemeanour. I just carried on regardless.

On the plus side, I used an excellent white wine, a Muscadet Sevre et Main sur lie which tastes a good deal better than you might expect and as this is a vegan repast a dash of Marmite and nutritional yeast to substitute for the parmesan cheese.

It's o.k. but actually tonight I'm just going to finish the bottle of wine and never mind the comfort food.

Spuds and Fruit

I've been nibbling at unhealthy options all day and nearly didn't have the energy or hunger to make a meal this evening. However, at great risk to my figure I have knocked up a small collation for tonight's blog.



Rosy Potato Salad with Peanuts and Mint is made with red skinned Cherie potatoes boiled without peeling and then skinned when they are cooked. They are mixed with a little finely chopped onion and a peeled, deseeded and finely diced tomato. The dressing is made from my new favourite of a small pot of soya yoghurt, half a teaspoonful of Dijon mustard and just enough tomato ketchup to make it nice and pink. Pile into a dish and sprinkle roasted peanuts and mint slivers over it.

Orange and Date Cocktail is exactly what it says it is. Spend a little time making tidy segments of your large and juicy orange, catch all the juice as you work then mix prepared orange and juice with a handful of stoned and chopped dates in a pretty glass.

Fusion Wraps

Anyone who knows me even slightly will have heard my oft repeated rant against fusion cooking - I don't like it, I don't see the point of it and it is pretension at the table where none should exist - but I've fallen foul of my own rules here.

Tonight's dinner falls somewhere between a Mexican inspired dish and a Chinese spring roll as tortillas are used to enclose a stir fried vegetable filling seasoned with soy sauce and (in the absence of mirin) a dash of sherry vinegar. In fact the whole thing is a mess ethnically, made worse by reckless substitution of ingredients when the proper item was missing.

It looks pretty enough and makes a good dinner.

Slice your vegetables into long thin strips. I used aubergine, carrot and french beans left whole. Sprinkle with salt and leave to degorge for a bit, then rinse really well and squeeze the vegetables hard to remove as much moisture as possible.

Stir fry in a little vegetable oil adding finely sliced garlic once everything is nearly cooked. Grated ginger would have been an excellent addition but I hadn't any. Season carefully with pepper, good soy sauce and a splash of mirin, sherry or sherry vinegar. I thought the sherry vinegar worked well in mine.

Set the cooked veg to one side and heat the ready made long life tortillas in a non-stick or lightly oiled pan. It would be great to make my own or substitute a nice puffy chappatti but I can't bring myself to do it for one.

When the tortilla is hot, puffed up a little but still pliable, wrap a portion of veg and roll up. Continue until you have enough and eat. I served mine with some Taco Salsa. Well, why not?

Pasta

I find I'm slipping back into my old ways so I forced myself to make this very simple pasta with a sauce of tofu and artichoke heart.