Chips

A trip to the beach on the last day of July produced a dilemma. Should we stop for frites from a beachside vendor or head home and make use of our own hard won potatoes?

Sanity triumphed, delicious as frites are straight from the stall a lot of their appeal lies in their immediacy, achieved at some cost to quality and healthful practice. We cooked our own chips.

Note these are styled in the British manner, chunky, uneven to an extent, neither prissy matchsticks nor processed extrusions. Frying is in two operations, a first dousing in hot oil to seal the outsides and cook the middles, followed by a second immersion in the reheated oil to bring everything to a glorious golden brown.

We did make some concessions to the Continent; garlic mayonnaise (made with the Plamil vegan mayo) is an innovation worthy of adoption but at least some of the chips were doused in salt and vinegar to honour tradition.

jelly belly

Tonight's dinner was unmemorable, quinoa with a vegetable stew, reminiscent of 7 vegetables couscous but lacking any guts or authenticity, so that's not been recorded as it contributes nothing to posterity.

However, we did have a pleasant luncheon dessert; a Summer Fruits Jelly made with morello cherries and blueberries from the garden, simmered in a light syrup made with vanilla sugar and enriched with a few tablespoonfuls of Creme de Cassis. The jelly was set with agar agar, just 2g of the powder was sufficient to set a half litre of compote. Purists will note that agar powder is considered less good than the flakes as it is more heavily processed but it worked well for this recipe.

Gnocci in Tomato Sauce

Peasant food - something to make with a lot of potatoes and a lot of tomatoes. Distinctly filling and calorific, loaded with herbs, garlic and olive oil.

Make Gnocci from potatoes cooked with several cloves of garlic, mashed with a big spoonful of pistou and a glug of olive oil. The mash is then kneaded into a dough by the addition of flour and formed into small dumplings, traditionally shaped with ridges from the back of a fork. These ones aren't really ridged very well, I was in a hurry.

Cook the dumplings in a big pan of boiling water, have the water boiling as you drop them in and as they rise to the surface scoop them out with a slotted spoon or sieve and drain.



Arrange the boiled dumplings in an oven proof dish, cover with a rich tomato sauce - the herbs in our meal tonight were sage, rosemary and lovage - add nutritional yeast flakes, some grated nuts or some bread crumbs for a crispy topping and bake until the sauce is bubbling and the top of the food is browned.



Serve with a green salad and a good wine.

Mea culpa

This post is to fill the gap left by an unrecorded Saturday.

Yes, we ate but I have to admit that I perverted my partner and so we both indulged in savoury rice...

Potstickers

A form of Chinese dim sum dumpling, made as authentically as I know how but that's not saying much...

Pot stickers use a wrapping dough made with flour, a little oil (sesame is best) and some nearly boiling water, just enough to make firm dough. Knead it well and allow to rest for 20 minutes before rolling out tiny nuggets into very thin 8-10 cm circles. If you have access to a good Chinese supermarket you can buy wrappers ready made.

The filling - in this case finely chopped stir fried mushrooms, onions and cabbage flavoured with garlic, ginger and soy sauce - is then enclosed in the manner of a Cornish pasty or alternatively as a little money bag shape.

The dumplings are first fried until their bottoms become crispy golden brown and then steamed in the same pan by adding a half cupful of hot seasoned stock and covering with a lid. The dumplings' tops are cooked in the steam and the liquid loosens the fried bases from the pan. Let the dumplings cook for about 12 minutes after adding the liquid, adding a little more hot water if they look like drying up too soon. There should be almost no liquid left at the end of cooking.

Serve with a dipping sauce of soy sauce, rice (or sherry) vinegar mixed with a little grated ginger and fresh garlic and diluted by about an equal volume of water.

Potstickers

A form of chinese dim sum dumpling, made as authentically as I know how but that's not saying much...

Two Courses, Two diners, Two cooks

Ratatouille - that most abused and currently most filmic, almost unique example of French vegan dishes.

To cook authentically; Each vegetable must be prepared and cooked separately before assembly into the final glorious melange. Use onions, courgettes, aubergines, peppers and combine with tomatoes, basil, black pepper and as much olive oil as you can accommodate. Don't forget the garlic. This was my contribution to the meal.

For pudding we had

Bananas - Drunk as punch.

Unlike my rather caramelly and browned coconut milk simmered bananas these are cooked in sugar and alcohol alone. The simmering reduces the alcoholic content considerably leaving soft and soothing bananas in a rich sweet sauce that calls out for the addition of vegan vanilla icecream. This is Paul's own creation.

No Food Blog today

We've eaten too much too soon and forgotten to photograph it.

Out to lunch

Today Mr. Stripey Cat and I were lucky to be invited out to lunch at the house of a new friend, Rosalind, one of the very few other vegans in all of Normandy.

Rosalind and her delightful children put on a wonderful spread for us. The starter was a thick borscht with delicious sourdough bread. The main course was a Marinated Tofu and Chickpea Bake from Linda Majzlik's book "Vegan Barbecues and Buffets" (ISBN 1 897766 55 6) served with salads of artichoke hearts, french beans and cocktail tomatoes. This was really delicious and although I don't own the book myself I've persuaded Rosalind to copy the recipe for me so that we can make it again for ourselves. The pudding was a refreshing plum crumble with added ginger, again absolutely lovely although by then we were almost too full to appreciate it.

It's so nice to be treated to a special meal like this and I look forward to the day when I can return the favour. Thank you very much Rosalind.

Enchiladas for two

Dinner tonight inspired by Mexico, created with the contents of the store cupboard.

Wheat tortillas were wrapped around a filling of onions, kidney beans, sweet corn and celeriac seasoned with thyme, basil, cumin and chili paste.

They were placed in a well oiled baking dish and covered with chopped tomatoes and nutritional yeast moistened with extra tomato juice. Baked in a hot oven for 40 minutes they were delicious and filling.

What they lacked; sweet peppers in the mix, coriander leaves in the herbs and limes to squeeze over at serving time but those weren't such terrible omissions and we can remember them for next time.

Blackberry Crumble 22/07/07

Blackberry Crumble made with the first, unexpected, blackberries of the season.

Crumble topping is so easy - take a quantity of flour, half its weight in a good vegan margarine and a quarter of the weight in fine sugar.

Rub the fat into the flour, mix in the sugar and gently sprinkle over fruit - either raw soft fruit as here or prepared lightly cooked apples or pears - until you have a thick layer. Pat down gently but remember this should be a crumble, not a shortbread crust. Add a further sprinkle of sugar for colour and sparkle. If you like extra spice add this to the fruit before covering.

Bake until the crumble is golden and fragrant, about 40 mins at 180C. The fruit may bubble up from below so set your pie dish over a tray if you don't want to make a dirty oven.

Eat with soya cream, yoghurt or dairy free vanilla icecream.

Paul took this

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1257/875471145_af51a8c01b.jpg

Saturday was a long day

And I didn't get a lot to eat so late in the evening, for me anyway, I made a couple of easy, luxurious sorts of food to cheer myself up.

Above, Canapés with Coarse Cut Guacamole. The avocados were in a perfect state of ripeness so it seemed nicer to keep the natural texture.

Below, one of the problems with food blogging. If I tell you that this baked pudding has bananas, muscovado sugar, coconut milk and rum in it your imagination will tell you it's likely to be delicious (unless you hate one of the ingredients of course) but if I show you the picture you may be put off. Don't be, this is a really easy and totally wonderful pudding. Be sure to allow at least two bananas per serving.

Saturday was a long day

And I didn't get a lot to eat so later in the evening, for me anyway, I made

Sausages

This was a surprisingly delicious dinner, the highlight of which was the sauce which was rich, salty and delightfully inadequate causing an instant craving for more which cannot be satisfied.

The sausages are made with ground hazelnuts and breadcrumbs bound in a thick roux flavoured with thyme and marmite. The mixture was then formed into sausages and shallow fried. The potatoes, Ratte, are some of a very few that we grew this year which escaped the blight. A firm waxy salad potato with a good flavour and texture. Lightly cooked Savoy cabbage completed the meal.

The sauce was made by deglazing the sausage pan with a little of the cabbage water, some vegan stock powder, a good glug of red wine and a splash of soy sauce cooked down until glossy and thick.

Rice Paper Spring Rolls

This didn't work out quite as well as I hoped - I wanted to cut the rolls into sections and serve each section on an endive spoon which would hold a drizzle of dipping sauce within it and carry the morsel to the mouth.

My wrapping technique needs practise because the rolls simply weren't tight enough to work the way I wanted them to.

However, they tasted pretty good. The filling was rather different to the traditional one, using matchsticks of fresh courgette from the garden with matchsticks of potato, lightly cooked and mixed with garlic, ginger, soy sauce, sugar, vinegar, mint and chillies. Peanuts would have been a good and authentic addition but I had none and lemon grass would have lifted the whole thing to a new level.

Needs more work!

Wanted

I was going to make hazelnut "sausages" tonight and the reason I haven't is another story that doesn't really fit here so instead I thought I'd write a quick wish list for things missing in my French kitchen that I'm beginning to feel the lack of.

Blender/liquidiser/food processor - now I normally claim these things are not essential because miracles can be achieved with a sharp knife and good technique but for grinding nuts or making breadcrumbs they really are a time saver. Easier to make hummous or felafel mixtures too. I do have a stick blender, a real bargain at 7 euros which whizzes a soup adequately but it's too underpowered to be of use for anything else.

Mandoline - again, a sharp knife will substitute but for making paper thin slices of vegetables a mandoline is essential even if you do have to watch your finger tips like a hawk.

Ice cream maker - I can count on the fingers of two hands the number of times I've actually used my ice cream maker in the UK but suddenly in France it's become a necessary of life, explain that!

Bamboo Steamer Trays and lids - I'm beginning to get tired of fried.

Microplanes - funny how nearly everything comes back to cutting implements. My microplanes are used everyday for grating garlic, ginger, horseradish and I miss them.

Pestle and mortar - maybe if I had a set here I wouldn't miss the food processor so much.

There's more, but that will have to do for now.

Aren't these endives pretty? I hope to do something fantastic with them tomorrow.

Flan

This is an experiment I've been meaning to try for a long time.

Anyone who's ever been to Spain when they weren't a vegan will remember trying Flan, an egg custard set on a bitter caramel base so that after a while chilling the caramel melts and makes a sauce that coats the pudding when it is unmoulded.



This simple pudding is a 'custard' made from soya milk, vanilla, sugar and agar set in a ramekin containing some sugar melted to form a hard caramel. As the pudding chills the same transformation takes place and the end result is a light cool smooth pudding glazed with caramel and utterly delicious.

Student cooking

Not been feeling too well today, maybe sunstroke from yesterday's unexpected heat wave or maybe just a migraine, anyway, this evening I'm only interested in simple and starchy so student style cookery is the order of the day.

I give you Pasta Slop, a sauce of onions, peppers, tinned tomatoes, tinned red kidney beans and a big spoonful of pistou for basil seasoning. There would have been black pepper as well but I couldn't find it. Essential vegan condiment: Marigold Nutritional Yeast flakes unobtainable in France as far as I know but regularly stocked up for me by visitors. Enjoy.

Salad Day

After yesterday's heavy on the fried food list today I thought I'd better try harder to get my five-a-day fruit and veg in today.



Greek country salad, or nearly anyway as I've substituted toasted hazelnuts for the feta cheese and I'm not sure if the Greeks grow mâche. Even if they don't I'm sure they'd enjoy it as they make use of huge range of green leafy plants. To serve with it, tzatziki, soya yoghurt with cucumber, garlic and mint stirred in and some slightly stale bread for that truly nostalgic memory of holidays past.

What I ate on ... Bastille Day

For breakfast a chip butty with ketchup.



Lunch was a soya yoghurt with cherry jam.



For tea I had an open sandwich of peanut butter and banana.



My aperitif was a Pastis with a handful of pretzel sticks.



Dinner, seared tofu with blackened french beans and rice in a spicy sauce.



The day is not yet over but I'm fighting with computers, so will probably be finished with a big drink, later.

Convenience

After all the effort I made to do my chores today I had no energy left for inventive cookery. So tonight's meal is another ready made burger, saved from total disinterest by the addition of freshly picked potatoes. This burger is made by Bio Express and is their Bulgar, Quinoa and Tomato Flavoured version. It's o.k.



The potatoes are better though and I've cooked enough to make a fried breakfast with the leftovers tomorrow.

The strange stuff in the small bowl is some left over Store Cupboard Salad that I made for lunch, using some of that Ebly pre-cooked wheat, some tinned sweetcorn, beetroot, onion and chili pepper rings dressed with lemon juice and soy sauce. Rather odd but quite tasty.

Green

Green Almonds

I've never had the chance to try green almonds before so when I found these in the SuperU grabbed them quickly even though they were 4 euro a kilo and I wasn't sure what to do with them.

But it's easy enough, fight your way carefully past the furry green shell and split the case and the fresh white almond is revealed. It was hard not to eat them as they were extracted, perfect food for passing time with and every delicious morsel all the nicer for the effort expended in obtaining it.

Still, a cook's mind is always looking for ways to use new ingredients. This simple salad of freshly shelled and peeled green almonds, some slivered, some left whole and mixed with the tiniest new green beans under a light dressing of a lemon vinaigrette seemed to capture the moment perfectly.

Désastre

Tonight I tried to recreate a favourite wheat berry salad using an easy cook Ebly wheat product. It was an accomplished disaster so I draw a veil and we'll return to that one sometime later when I have the proper ingredients.

Sigh.

Soup Dragon

This doesn't look as good as it tasted, steamy and green as it is with a swirl of soya cream, some croutons and a sprinkle of soya bacon bits.

It rather fails on the appropriateness for season also, a hearty pulse soup more suited to January than July but it's cold and rainy and I'm in need of comfort so naturally I turn to my favourite form of food solace.

So easy to make that it needs no recipe, an onion, a good handful of freshly dried split green peas (and by that I mean less than a year old or they'll never cook), some thyme all simmered together until completely soft, whizzed up to a velvety smoothness, seasoned and served with garnishes of choice.

Friends for dinner.

I love people but I couldn't eat a whole one so when we had two friends stay for the weekend a good deal of food was made and consumed instead. Here are a couple of example meals:



For a late breakfast brunch we had tomato salad and ackees, fleshy arils of the plant Blighia sapida, cooked with soya rashers, served with bread and salads.

This is a close up of the ackees, a Jamaican vegetable only available in Europe in tins. It looks a little like scrambled eggs and is fairly bland in taste so is normally paired off with something a little salty and piquant. In Jamaica salt fish or bacon is used, for vegans smokey soya rashers or smoked tofu are good substitutes for these.



For dinner, we harvested the first tiny courgettes to create a courgette tart flavoured with herbs, served with a warm salad of lentils and mushrooms in a red wine vinaigrette and some of the freshly dug new potatoes from the garden. With it we had a lovely bottle of Champagne followed by an excellent Haut-Medoc, wines considerably better than those we normally drink which added to the festive nature of the meal.

Hungry?

No food blog for a while; I have still been eating, mostly tofu and aubergine but not necessarily in the same dishes.

Tonight I plan to make a meal based around baby artichoke hearts but I'm not sure what it's going to be...

Normal service will be resumed shortly.