sugar and spice… and all things nice

I’ve been clearing out my bookshelf and decided I should jot down the recipes from my blue cooking binder, because I’m more likely to find the ideas again on this blog than remembering to get the binder out when I’m fresh out of ideas! Most aren’t my creations so I can just link to the pages I’d originally printed.

• Ching’s Kitchen’s Steamed Pork and Prawn Siu Mai Dumplings: A great version of some classic dumplings with a nice simple dipping sauce.
• Aubergines.org’s Stuffed Roasted Eggplant with Feta Cheese: Bulgur and low-fat Feta make this dish appealing, light and healthy!
• Jamie Oliver’s Basic Pasta Recipe: In typical Jamie style, this is a simple pasta recipe, which can be adapted to anything you fancy. What’s great about it is that it just doesn’t go wrong!
• Chewy Granola Bars from RecipeSource: Not really my favourite version of healthy homemade granola bars, but a good base to make my own from. The key is, as long as there’s enough sticky to hold the dry together, make it tasty!

There’s another pork dumplings recipe, a pasta salad recipe I created, and some scribbled recipes that aren’t really groundbreaking or even worth posting… Sad little recipe binder I had before this blog, isn’t it?

After the past few nights of indulgence (Friday night, raclette, followed by a huge BBQ get together Saturday), I thought we should keep dinner light and healthy tonight for a change.

I made an avocado and kiwi salad, with a baked sweet potato and some garlic bread. It was meant to be an avocado and mango salad, but I had to improvise when I got to Sainsburys and the mangos were as hard as bricks. It was delicious!

The salad was made of watercress and baby spinach, topped with peeled and chopped kiwi and cucumber, some sliced avocado, some red onion slices and cherry tomatoes. The dressing was the usual balsamic vinegar and olive oil, but with a bit of shallots, tarragon and salt n pepper.

I highly recommend sweet potato for baking! They’re lovely and seemingly a bit less filling than the usual starchy King Edwards we get. I topped mine with cottage cheese and pepper, while Andrew just put butter on his.

This dinner really fit the bill for a light and tasty option.

So I’ve just been tagged by Peter Stathakos (aka Mr. Stack of Toast). Ok, no, I was tagged over a month ago but I’m finally taking the time to fill in my first Cookbook Meme.

1. Total number of books I’ve owned.

I’ve probably got a dozen cookbooks… no maybe 20 actually. I had a few more in Canada but they didn’t make the cut as far as what was worth putting into my suitcases to move to the UK.

If I count the non-cookbooks that are somehow about food, like Chocolat and Blackberry Wine by Joanne Harris, and the many Good Pub, Good Food and Good Wine guides, it’s probably nearer 30.

2. Last book I bought.

Neil Perry - Simply Asian

Not a BAD book, but certainly not one I’d recommend to anyone. It’s full of colourful images but not really images of the meals themselves, mostly macro shots of the raw ingredients. Because of the lack of photos of the finished products, it’s less inspiring than most cookbooks that make my mouth water.

The recipes are reasonably good, but the layout of the page tries to be overly original and unusual. It just makes it difficult to read the ingredients and I can guarantee that I’d miss out some ingredients if I tried to follow his list.

Either way, it was a cheap purchase at a charity booksale before I left my old publishing job, so it’s worth having at hand even if it’s not the greatest Asian cooking reference book.

3. The last book I read.

The last cookbook I indulged into reading was “A Passion for Cheese” by Paul Gayler.

Being addicted to cheese, I can’t help but be attracted by a book that boasts 130 recipes centered around cheese; Ratatouille-stuffed Mozzarella Wrapped in Prosciutto, Greek-style Baked Artichokes with Feta, Coriander, Mint & Lemon and Cretan Sheep’s Milk Turnovers with Melted Honey.

It also talks about how great Halloumi cheese is, something I’ve already established here. Highly recommended for cheese addicts.

4. Five books that mean a lot to me.

1. The Best Ever Indian: This book was a gift from friends who knew how much I’d enjoyed the discovery of curries in my first year in England. LOADS of great recipes, a really easy to use spiral format and plenty of inspiring images.
2. Jamie Oliver’s cookbooks: I’ve already established how much respect I have for this guy. He’s changed the way Britain sees food, literally. He’s shoved reality into parents’ faces to make them see how badly their children were eating.

   His cookbooks contain plenty of low-effort, high-taste recipes, easy enough for less skilled cooks to get good results. I can’t single out one of his books and being more inspiring than the others, but certainly his butternut squash salad is up there as one of my favourite recipes.

3. My mom’s little black scrapbook: We’ve covered it in pancake mix and tomato sauce over the years, but it contains a wealth of family recipes that I love.
4. A tiny little sushi how-to guide: I can’t find it at the moment, but it was a great source of inspiration for unusual tasty sushi combinations.
5. My head: Proof that I don’t rely on cookbooks for good recipe ideas, I can’t even think of 5 cookbooks I love

5. Which five people would you most like to see fill this out in their blog?

I don’t do the tagging thing, especially since everyone seems to have filled this in! So if you do, just leave a comment (not a trackback, I’ve turned those off for the time being) letting me know you’ve filled it in too!

I wish I had the dedication to make lunch everyday for work. It’d be such a money-saver and I bet I could make lunches that are ten times better than the ones made by our “Sandwich Lady”, who comes in at 11:45 screaming “SANDWICHES!” around the office. So here’s a list of ideas… Sure it’s mostly to inspire myself, but if you have created some amazing work lunches you want to share, please please I could use the inspiration!

Breads:

• Wholewheat bread rolls
• Tortilla wraps (regular, tomato, spinach or garlic and herbs)
• Regular or mini pitas, white or wholewheat
• Sliced bread
• Ciabatta
• Pannini
• Foccacia

Fillings:

• Low fat cream cheese, smoked salmon and cucumber
• Pesto, goats cheese and crunchy romaine lettuce
• Sliced ham, dijon mustard and watercress
• Chicken pieces, tomato, mayo and pepper
• Edam cheese and apple
• Brie and grapes with rocket lettuce
• Salmon paté (canned salmon with mayo, cream cheese and chopped olives whizzed into a paté) with spring onions and
• Crispy bacon, tomato and lettuce - What a classic this is!
• Veggie salad (chopped red peppers, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, spring onions, etc) with herbed yogurt dressing - Great particularly in a tortilla wrap
• Grilled flat mushroom “burger” with salsa and smoked Jarlsberg
• Home cooked ham & Emmental

Any combination of these fillings with a nice fresh bread makes a lovely easy sandwich! Otherwise the filling can be chucked over a bed of lettuce for a salad.

What’s YOUR favourite lunchtime food?

BBQ treat I’ve never tried but that looks fantastic, turkey, halloumi & pancetta kebabs. MMmmmm!!!

This is the perfect summer BBQ dessert. It’s insanely sweet and has been nicknamed the “Million calories slice” by none other than my little self. So if you can forget that fact for one evening, make this pie, you won’t regret it. (Also, bashing the digestive biscuits into crumbles is very therapeutic!)

I have no shame, I’ve stolen the recipe off of the Condensed Milk can, but who cares, it’s all in good fun!

Condensed Milk’s Banoffi Pie
Serves 8
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Chilling time: 1 1/2 hours

Ingredients:
100g (4oz) butter
250g (9oz) digestive biscuits, crushed
175g (6oz) butter
75g (3oz) caster sugar
75g (3oz) dark brown soft sugar
397g can Carnation Condensed Milk
4 small bananas
284ml carton double cream, lightly whipped
cocoa powder, for dusting

Method:
1. In a large saucepan, melt 100g (4oz) of the butter and stir in the crushed biscuits. Press into the base and sides of a 19cm (8in) loose-bottomed cake tin. Chill for 30 minutes.
2. Place 175g (6oz) butter and the sugars in a non-stick saucepan over a low heat, stirring until the butter melts and the sugar dissolves. Add the Carnation Condensed Milk and bring gently to the boil, stirring continuously. Boil steadily for exactly 2 minutes, stirring frequently, to make a golden caramel. Spread the caramel over the biscuit base and chill for about 11/2 hours, until firm.
3. To serve, slice the bananas and arrange most of them over the caramel. Spread with whipped cream. Decorate with the remaining bananas and dust liberally with cocoa powder.

This perfectly summery starter looks great, tastes amazing and is SO easy to make. The ideal way to impress the inlaws (tried it - it worked great!) Halloumi is a middle eastern cheese, known as “the cheese that doesn’t melt”. Mmmm I’m drooling just thinking about this recipe!

Grilled halloumi and asparagus

• A pack of halloumi cheese (light or regular) cut in thick slices
• A handful of asparagus
• Some virgin olive oil
• Sweet chili dipping sauce (like the Blue Dragon brand - transparent red with red chilli flakes in it)

Get a small amount of water boiling in a pan wide enough to fit the asparagus. Steam the asparagus for a few minnutes, leaving them still crunchy and flavourful. Don’t overcook them or they’ll go limp and taste of nothing.

At the same time, heat up a griddle pan with a bit of olive oil. Once nice and hot, drop the slices of halloumi cheese on the griddle pan. After a minute, check how grilled they are on the bottom side, if they’re starting to turn nice and golden brown, flip them over and grill the other side.

Serve the grilled halloumi with the asparagus and a small puddle of sweet chili sauce next to it.

This is one of the best summer recipes I’ve seen in a long time, posted by Tequila Mockingbird. I’ve “cleaned up” the recipe format but essentially, it’s still her version. Make sure you choose nice ripe avocados, they’ll be so much tastier!

Grilled avocado with balsamic vinegar

Ingredients:

• 4 ripe avocados
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Really good balsamic vinegar *
• Parmesan cheese **

* If you invest in really good balsamic vinegar, your life will be a much better and happier place. really. really high quality balsamic vinegar is a transformative elixir that makes everything from strawberries to lettuce to chicken to, well, avocados, taste like ambrosia from on high.

** Stop using that crap in the plastic jar. it’s not parmesan cheese. it’s crap. buy a hunk of quality cheese and a grater. it’s not quite the elixir that quality balsamic is, but it’s damn near close.

Method:

• Peel, pit and halve the avocados
• Brush them with a little extra-virgin olive oil and some of the balsamic vinegar
• Preheat the grill to medium heat
• Put the avacodos face down on a hot open grill for about a minute; turn and cook for another minute or so [although i like to cook them a little longer; until they get the dark grill marks on them and the balsamic starts to carmelize just a touch…mmmmm]
• Remove from the grill and shave parmesan over them while they’re still warm

The Taste Canada event was a real success! The Domestic Goddess links to all the entries so go have a read and enjoy the Canadian flavours!

Happy Canada Day!

When I received an email from the Domestic Goddess, asking me to join her Canada Day blogging event, I could think of one dessert in particular that deserved mention.

The pouding chômeur, or poor man’s pudding, simply put, is a sponge cake with a thick caramelized maple sauce that drips through the cake during cooking time. The top becomes golden with syrup and the bottom becomes spongey and saucy. and mmmm just reaaally nice!

For the time being, I only have the recipe in French. Tomorrow if I can be bothered and if I’m not too busy unpacking more boxes, I’ll post a translated recipe (unless a kind soul wants to do it for me!) This isn’t my mother’s recipe, I can’t totally vouch for it, but it seems to be similar enough to succeed.

Also, I can’t find a good picture for the life of me, so wait till I make a batch (this weekend maybe?) and I’ll put a pic up!

Pouding chômeur

Préparation : 35 min
Cuisson : 45 min
Portions : 12

Gâteau:
1 1/2 tasse (375 ml ) de farine
1 c. à thé (5 ml) de poudre à pâte
1/4 tasse (60 ml) de beurre
1 tasse (250 ml) de sucre
1 tasse (250 ml) de lait

Sauce à l’érable:
1 tasse (250 ml) de sirop d’érable
1 tasse (250 ml) de cassonade
1 tasse (250 ml) d’eau bouillante
1/4 tasse (65 ml) de beurre

Préchauffer le four à 325 F.
Tamiser ensemble la farine et la poudre à pâte. Mettre de côté.
Dans un bol, défaire le beurre en crème. Incorporer graduellement le sucre jusqu’à consistance onctueuse.
Verser le quart du lait et de la farine. Mélanger. Répéter jusqu’à épuisement du lait et de la farine.
Beurrer un moule rectangulaire de 13x9 pouces (32x22 cm). Verser la pâte. Réserver.
Dans une casserole, mélanger tous les ingrédients de la sauce. Porter à ébullition et laisser bouillir quelques instants.
Verser la sauce sur la pâte. Ne pas mélanger.
Cuire à 325F pendant 45 minutes.

(Cross posted from my main blog as a Canada Day celebratory post!)