Top of the Pops

I do love popcorn and all its lovely flavourings and toppings, from sickly sweet toffee popcorn with its indestructible crust, to salty buttery microwave popcorn which has never been near a cow.

Yesterday Dan flavoured popcorn with palm sugar, salt, Chohula chilli sauce and sweet mixed spice. He had to put a bit more oil over the popped corn so that the flavourings would stick.

My God, it was good. It was not unlike Spicy Tomato flavouring you get on crisps, especially those cheap little bags of maize snacks. 

It is now my favourite flavour. 

Prior to this, I also enjoyed: 

- Salt, turmeric powder and chilli powder

- Most indulgent melted butter and grated Parmesan

- dipping a piece of popped corn into a cup of hot tea. It made a quiet squeaky sigh as the fluid pushed the air out. Not so good for eating, but a very satisfying sound. 

Bake for good

The oven has returned! Welcome home, my friend.

Today I attempted Potato Dauphinoise today, one of them vegan. And if you're not going to use cheese, you better add a helluva lot more flavours to compensate. I didn't use vegan cream, having had a bad experience with the sweetly chemical Alpro stuff not too long ago (I've since been told oat cream has a lot more of a neutral taste*), I made a white sauce using soya milk instead. Into it I put:

- salt and pepper

- many cloves of roasted garlic, smashed

- a bay leaf

- light tahini

- grain mustard

- paprika

- dried onion flakes,

topped it with sesame seeds and more onion flakes and hoped for the best. I haven't tried it yet, but the whole thing shrunk nicely during cooking. The onions on top burned a bit, sadly.

The dairy one was a roaring success and was eaten swiftly with a salad of grated kohl rabi dressed in lemon juice, and watercress in a light film of olive oil and lemon.

*this in itself can also be a problem

The dairy one:

and the vegan one:

take your pick, I won't be offended.