Onions and other friends of mine.

Kind of pissaladiere. Caramelised onion on puff pastry. Veganised. Had no olives sadly, slung some tomato slices on top instead.

Served with the thing I seem to post the most pictures of on this thing: potato gratin. The only seasoning I used was salt, garlic powder and smoked paprika. Dee-licious:

Also served with the crunch of red cabbage, carrot, apple and radish. I have ignored radishes for too long, because they were too sharp, but you can reduce the sting by slicing them thin, and adding some vinegar.

And continuing with the caramelised onion tip, on Friday, Dan put onions on brown lentils and rice.

We had it with a salad of shredded spinach, and lightly fried butter beans, dressed with lemon and olive oil....

The leftover onions and some chopped preserved lemon....

And finally, this. Aubergine scorched on the hob, skin removed, pulp chopped up and thrown into  tahini, along with some cherry tomatoes and pomegranate seeds. I cannot stress how much nicer organic pomegranate is than cheaper ones. The colour and flavour is so much more intense. Possibly pomegranate molasses went into this as well. I would have to check with the cook.

And altogether. Yummy.

Winter Fodder

The snow has gone, for now. I didn't do much good cooking when my world was a crunchy sugar-coated doughnut, the only thing I did make was some sage and onion stuffing for Mike and Dan's Christmas dinner. I added bits of chopped apple to it, which worked rather well.

There were plans to mull some beer at said dinner, which never materialised. It's still not too warm to mull drinks, I hope to quaff some of this wassail (yes, mulled booze) before the cold spell is out.

Christmas was spent in the West Midlands with my parents. My mother made this while I was there. 

Cheesy, oniony mashed potato in a pie crust. Very comforting indeed. The only thing we were puzzled about was what kind of sauce to serve it with. Would gravy be acceptable here? I'm not too sure. 

Dan gave me this for Christmas:

Niki Segnit's Flavour Thesaurus. With this to consult, I no longer have any excuses for making bad-tasting food.

The taste of citrus salt (sea salt baked with grated orange, lemon and lime rind) to me tastes of the sea. The preserved lemons are ready and are perfect to nibble on alone. But I should really use them in a recipe.

There are still rinds of cheese in the fridge, which will be perfect for soup, but most of the rest has been scoffed down with crackers and fruit.