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.