Stuff that, I'm using my own recipe next time

I made stuffed courgette flowers today from this recipe using the ricotta and herb filling.

Verdict: They looked like the ones in the picture. The batter recipe was good, but the filling was rather bland. It tasted like it should have done, but it needed more oomph. Dan has a vegan cashew, tofu and spinach filling for cannelloni, which he thinks might have worked better than ricotta, but the cheese has a nice fluffy texture; cashew and tofu are too dense. The risotto filling might have been better, but I didn't have any spare and wasn't going to make any from scratch just for this. In future, I might consider a more piquant filling, or, as I saw on one site, pine nuts and sultanas with the cheese. The actual flowers tasted lovely.

Update on my garden plants:
Huantzole: The trough I have planted them in is too shallow and some parts of the plant are very red, which means the plant is distressed.
Courgettes: Planted too many, too late and all the leaves seem to have a light fungal dusting on them. It's too late in the year for them to fruit, which is why I ate the flowers.
Strawberries: Not one! Very disappointing. Maybe next year.
Japanese mustard greens: Should have tried these when they were more tender because they didn't taste too nice.

A kitchen back yard and some aliens

It's been a just over a year since I last wrote anything in this.

This year, I've made an effort at gardening. I've been given some plants by Jo, which have made my back yard a place I want to spend more time in.

• 'Pineberries': actually strawberries that are supposed to taste like pineapple. I think the first one will be ready in a week or two, so watch this space for the verdict. The mother ship plant has sent out many alien runners in an attempt to procreate. I tried to accommodate for them all, but it would have taken up too much space and too many pots, so I cut a few runners back. The most fun I have had with these is pegging runner shoots down into soil using old hairgrips and tugging them to see if they have taken root. Some of them have.
• Edible day lily. The flowers and buds can be eaten. the flowers bloom for just one day each. I told my mum about this and she said, "Don't you go eating those edible lilies."
• Huauzontle / Aztec broccoli
• Komatsuna (Japanese mustard spinach)
• Cavolo nero

I've also been growing fenugreek. This is incredibly easy to grow. It even grows in containers with no holes drilled into them for drainage. It doesn't take long and then suddenly you have leaves which will add good flavour to curries and pakora. I combined two recipes to make these:

I wanted to know what fenugreek and banana would be like in pakora. The result: good, but needs improvement. very ripe, brown banana flesh would be sweet enough to be a match for the salty, savoury pakora batter. I would consider mashing the banana straight into the batter next time.

Taking advantage of the hot weather, I bought some basil plants and have left them outside to soak up the sunshine. They are thriving. The nasturtium in my hanging basket did well until a plague of blackfly decimated several areas of the plant. I've removed it and isolated it, waiting for some nice insects to do their work and eat the damn things. It's true, I've been neglecting it somewhat and not watering it thoroughly. The golden thyme in the same basket thrives and has sprouted some small purple flowers.

I planted some black peas because I was fed up of the jar of dried peas sitting around doing nothing. They are also known as maple peas or Carlin peas. They are very hardy and used to the cool, wet Lancashire climate. The peas aren't really suitable for eating raw or lightly cooked; they are more suited to being boiled or made into pease pudding. However, the young pods can be used like mange tout. 

What to do with leftovers

I am the leftovers effin' QUEEN. The KING, even. I'm the entire goddamn monarchy.

I'd made some really rubbish houmous for my birthday party. I put too much salt in it, and having run out of chickpeas, tried to abate the saltiness by adding gram flour to the dip. It didn't work too well and added a dry taste to the proceedings. Needless to say, it hardly got touched all evening.

So I made some soup out of it, and with some other leftover ingredients from my party.  This is what I did:

1. Fried some onions in a heavy bottomed-saucepan until browned
2. Chopped up half a red chilli and added it to the onions
3. Fried some finely chopped celery separately, and added to onions and chilli
4. Added houmous to the mix, immediately followed by water to thin it down. Waited until soup was heated through
5. Final stage: stirred in chopped fresh coriander and fresh mint

As the houmous I was using was very well-blended, I added liquid aiming for a thin but creamy consistency. The consistency and texture of your soup will depend on your houmous.

It was good and I am hankering after more.

On a slightly different note, I tried some supermarket houmous recently, from Tesco. I was actually stunned by the taste. It was as salty as Marmite.

Catching up

Some of the things I've been eating since I moved to Moss Side:

Above: Jo made a beautiful gingerbread house for Dan and I as a housewarming present (back and front)

Spaghetti with tomato sauce and mushrooms. Dan made this.

Red pepper stuffed with nice things like breadcrumbs, onion, garlic and seeds. Millet with spinach and sweetcorn on the side. I don't really like millet but I eat it because it's got iron in it and it's a break from gluten. Dan made this too.







 My first attempt at sushi. Inside: avocado, yellow pepper, tofu, shreds of raw leek, carrot. I made these without a rolling mat, using a clean folded up tea towel instead. The YouTube tutorials I watched before attempting them were very reassuring. I would recommend it.

 Baked marinaded tempeh slices, roast mushroom, courgette, garlic and broccoli and mashed potatoes
with greens in them. This might have been a joint effort between Dan and I. It was a while ago and I can't quite recall.









Roast butternut squash, puy lentil salad, cucumber and radish raita, potatoes roasted with garlic and paprika. Washed down with a Belgian beer, this is what Dan and I had for dinner tonight.

In April, I planted some fenugreek in a trough and had to keep them indoors because of the hail. As soon as the temperature went up, I dragged them out. I left it to grow too long and it went a bit tough. The last few plants weren't good enough to use in cooking, so I just ate them raw. Tasty, but stringy. Eleanor planted some rocket seeds in little cardboard pots, which I have been tending to. Some of the leaves are starting to grow with wavy edges, just like the rocket you see in the shops. It's very exciting.  Dan's mum potted up some oregano, parsley and rosemary, and Humaira gave me a lovely pot of chives. Things are taking off.

I don't have a salad spinner, so instead, I loosely wrap the wet leaves in a clean tea towel then wave them round, sometimes above my head, and the water droplets fly off. Dan thinks it silly. He's right, but it does work a treat.

Note for Dan

Should you want to recreate the polenta pizza thing I made for our dinner earlier this week, follow the following:

1. Boil a kettle. Slice a medium-sized onion and fry it until soft and translucent. Add a heaped cupful of polenta and stir. Add the water from the kettle. Add slowly and make into a thick porridge, stirring continuously to make sure there are no lumps. Add a glug of oil, stir in a heaped teaspoon of pesto, a handful of frozen peas, salt, pepper and a glug of vinegar. Taste it. Polenta is ridiculously hard to make taste nice. If it's lacking in salt, hold your horses for a sec. Put the grill on. Generously grease a baking tray and spread the polenta mixture out onto it as thinly as possible. You might want to sprinkle some coarse rock salt onto it now. Stick it in the grill until it is crusty and has browned a little.

2. While the polenta is grilling, you will have time to do the toppings:

• Fry some mushroom slices with salt, pepper and garlic and set aside.
• Defrost 4 chunks of frozen chopped spinach (this will be easier when we get a microwave but for now, heat with a bit of water in a pan. When defrosted, season, add freshly grated nutmeg and stir through some cream. (If you're using non-dairy cream, make sure it's not too sweet. I used oat cream). You could probably do this with fresh spinach too. Keep warm.
• Heat up a can of chopped tomatoes with a bit of dried basil, salt, pepper, garlic powder (I was feeling lazy) and chopped black olives. Keep warm.
• Your polenta should be ready now. Cut into slices and slop your toppings on, er, on top.

It's really nice cold the next day for your lunch as well. You can have it next time. This is dish was too delish for pictures. Or mail me one.

In the 'zone.

Whoever said Necessity is the Mother of Invention clearly didn't consider Boredom.

Last week I invented the couscous omelette. Cooked couscous in an omelette. One third cup couscous, flavoured and cooked. Two eggs, beaten and seasoned. Couscous mixed into egg and fried in a pan, finished under the grill. Now all I need is a catchy name. Admittedly, it did meet some specifications (i.e. needs) of mine. Sometimes I really hate how couscous is so tiny and bitty and how it flies everywhere whenever you're trying to serve or eat it. The egg solves this problem whilst retaining the texture you get from the processed wheat grain. Protein and carbs in one tidy meal. Sweet.

Inspired by an episode of Seinfeld called The Calzone, Dan and I made calzones last night. I fussily complained about there being too much dried herbs in the tomato sauce, but actually it all worked out just fine. The sauce had onion and wilted leaf spinach in. What else went in: black olives, cubes of fried eggplant, very firm tofu strips, chorizo-style wheat protein 'sausage' slices and vegan melting cheese substitute (which was rendered invisible in the cooking process). Jo brought basil leaves to garnish them. The calzone casing - white bread dough- was light, fluffy and just perfect. Calzones are so good! And now I want to go to New York City.

Middle Eastern Bible

A bit of a strange name for this small recipe book by Fiona Hammond, and I need to take it back to the library now, but here are the things I will explore  further:
- use of samneh (seems similar to ghee)
- dukkah ( a dry "dip" for bread used with olive oil made of seeds, nuts and herbs)
 - a dip made of soaked fenugreek seeds, tomato, garlic, coriander, lemon juice, chilli and onions
- and the spice mix baharat which is made from peppercorns, coriander seeds, cumin seeds, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and sweet paprika. mmm...

Fiona Hammond, eh? I wonder if it's my high school alumna.