Spicy Oxtail and the bump on the head

Yesterday was a work day and I was up before 6 as usual. I got up, showered, dried my hair and got ready for work and was out of the door by 7.25. I didn’t go to work though.

Instead, I spent the day here

stretched out on the sofa, wrapped in a blanket, with an ice pack on my head.

Why? Well, I got out of the main doors of our apartments and slid along the black ice to my car. The pavements were like a skating rink and I thought things were bad, but at least it wasn’t snowing heavily.

I scraped the ice from the windows and waited till the car  was warmed up before setting off. The car (a huge and heavy old diesel, but excellent in bad weather) was slipping a bit… but at least I was moving. I got to the corner where we turn to go down the hill and saw cars sliding down sideways in the ice. Our grit ran out days ago and despite the best efforts of us all to keep the hill clear, there’s only so much we can do.

This was getting ridiculous and I thought that the best thing to do would be to put the car back and get the bus into work.

Turned out that the buses were cancelled. Our neighbours were all standing around and we watched the more foolish young ones try to drive up the hill to get out … the snow was whirling round and their cars were sliding backwards. One of the neighbours said the road had been closed to stop accidents and that the cars were being turned round.

So, being a good neighbour I went to see if they needed help pushing – the Bear and I had been out over the weekend to help and with just a couple of people helping, the cars can get moving again. Once it was clear maybe the roads would be better and we could all get out. Great idea, eh?

Except I stepped on black ice.  My feet soared upwards and I fell backwards cracking down on my head on the pavement. I lay there completely stunned until a really lovely neighbour picked his way across the ice to haul me up. That was it for me. I made it back home to show the Bear what a stupid thing I’d done.

I have a huge egg sized bump on the back of my head and all I wanted to do was to sit still with a bag of ice on the back of my head. I just lay there feeling very sorry for myself while the weather got worse outside. The snow had been thawing and the grass clearing  but now it was back with a vengeance.

Just as well, then, that I had started making the oxtail I had planned for tonight and the last thing I did before setting off was to turn on the slow cooker.

I’d been thinking about cooking the oxtail I had in the freezer and I wanted to do something different with it. I was thinking of a sharper taste to it than the normal beefy gravy and vegetables …… so at 11pm the night before,I started getting things ready.

That beautiful oxtail was only £1.98.

As with any slow cooked meat, you need to sear it, browning the outsides before you put it in the  pot. This is not just for cosmetic reasons, because the brown outside is so much more appealing, but because the slightly caramelised burt brown bits add to the flavour of the gravy.

While that was searing, I chopped an onion and put half of that in the base of the slow cooker pot.

A few cloves of garlic would be great with the flavours I was planning…….

The oxtail pieces went in on top of the onion, then the rest of the onion went on top

Then three dessertspoonfuls of hoisin sauce, with some ginger .. I was using a tube because, with all the bad weather, I hadn’t gone shopping much and I was running low on fresh ingredients.

I put in some Lea and Perrins to sharpen it slightly – a good shake of it, all over the top

and one of those lovely chillies from the chilli oil jar.

Some water and some stock granules to make sure there was enough liquid in there and that, as they say, was that.

OK so it was a bit late to be searing meat but I knew that all I had to do in the morning was turn it on.  I would get the Bear (who was to be working at home) to put in some cubed sweet potato at some point in the afternoon.

Still, it had only taken me ten minutes to get that ready so I couldn’t complain.

And how glad I was that I did it. I really couldn’t have managed to sort anything out after that bang on the head. I just lay there, listening to the occasional gloop and bubble sound from the slow cooker and breathin in  the spicy, meaty smell as it cooked.

I did manage to peel a sweet potato

and cube it, before putting it in on top of the half cooked oxtails, before going back to lie on the sofa.

And that was delicious. A jacket potato on the side was perfect to soak up the gravy.

We ate it at about 7 pm and it was a lovely mix of sweetness, sharpness and meatiness. You wouldn’t have particularly known that it was a mixture of hoisin and Worcestershire sauce but it did make a really lovely gravy.

All that from one oxtail, one sweet potato and one onion. Bargain!

Tomato Rice Soup

I remember when I was younger, before I learnt how to cook, I used to think it was perfectly sensible to open a can of soup. I really had no idea how easy it was to make soup, nor how much tastier it could be.

I grew up in the decades that considered the launching on the market of a frozen, crispy pancake for frying at home to be a pretty exciting development. When I was  young, most families didn’t think it strange  to have cans of soup and there was nothing finer in our young eyes than having cream of tomato soup.

On Sunday nights my brother and sister and I would get things ready for school the next day and, as a treat, we could have supper while we watched television… now that WAS a treat. For every other meal, we ate in the dining room, at the table and television was banned.

Because we had had the traditional Sunday lunch – either at home, or at our grandparents, a two hour drive away across the North Yorkshire Moors – we would have a light, later supper than normal.

Imagine how exciting it was for the three of us to sit down to watch “Planet of the Apes” while Ma heated the tomato soup and spread Ritz Crackers with Philadelphia Cream Cheese and topped them with thin slices of hard boiled egg……. remember those egg slicers?  Sophisticated, huh?

Of course in those days, I was a skinny kid, with knock knees…….. anything was sophisticated.

But how we loved those Sunday night suppers.

I was thinking about the tomato soup and how deliciously rich and tasty it was and how sometimes, as a variation,  we would have tomato rice soup and I thought that maybe I could try making my own version. If I made it myself I would know exactly what went into it and I’d be able to keep an eye on it for the calorie count… with a bit of imaginative taste tweaking I could keep it low calorie….

Tomato soup needs tomatoes

A couple of onions, 200g of  long grain rice, some stock… oh and remember the chilli oil I made? Those chillies have really powered up the oil they are loitering in and have softened beautifully – I shall have a chilli or two from there……… and to soften it all and make it rich and creamy?

Some coconut milk powder – now this is a brilliant store cupboard ingredient. A spoonful added to spicy food gives a lovely smooth richness… and if chillies are involved, it calms down the heat and adds another dimension to the taste.

Get a large pan – this will make maybe 4 litres – and heat a spoonful of oil. I used the chilli oil and I put in two of the soft chillies.

Putting the chillies in at the start means they don’t frighten you with ferocious burning tastes.. the cooking softens their fire. If you are giving this to children, miss out the chillies and just use ordinary oil.

Peel and roughly chop the onion and add it to the oil to soften – don’t have the heat too high, you want the onions to soften gently until they are translucent, not sizzle till they are golden and crispy.

Put in two cans of Italian plum tomatoes – I really like the Napolina ones (and not just because they were on offer in the supermarket)

Rinse out the cans with water and add two litres of water with a couple of stock cubes, stir it round and let it bubble gently.

See how it gets thicker and a richer red?

You’ll know if it is ready for blitzing smooth because those onions that you chopped will be tender if you take a bit out to check.

I have a stick blender and it truly is one of the greatest kitchen gadgets you can get. If you haven’t got one, make sure it is next on your list of things to get – it really does make life so simple. Use whatever you have to whizz that soup base into a smooth and lucious pan of scarlet goodness.

Then, pour in 200g of long grain rice and stir round.

And remember the coconut milk powder? Mix a tablespoon or so in a jug with some cold water, little by little, mixing it smooth so you have maybe a quarter of a pint, and then pour it in.

Stir everything round and let it come back to a gentle boil.

The rice will cook in the tomato soup and thicken it brilliantly.

You might want to add some more water if you think it is too thick. I put in another pint jug full.

(Yes, I know I have been talking about litres but it was the old glass Pyrex jug that was nearest. And we all do it… I don’t think we Brits have quite grasped metric. Ingredients have to be sold in metric measurements but babies come in pounds and ounces. Make of that what you will)

Check the taste and see if it is what you want. You might want to add a pinch of salt or maybe a pinch of stock granules.

Now for the good news. I sat with a pen and some paper and tried to add up all the calories – 700 or so for the rice. 145 for the coconut milk, 190 for two cans of tomatoes, 120 for the oil… a 120 or so for the onions..and then I looked at the huge pan, full of soup…. there was well over 5 litres there.  Less than 300 calories a litre!

How simple was that? Low in fat, high in taste. Quick to do.

Enough for us to take flasks to work for the next couple of days. And have some to share with friends.

If you were to have a really big mug full of it you would still be under 300 calories…

So, there I was at work… with a hot mug full of tomato rice soup… thick and tasty, rich and tomatoey. Still on my diet.

And still, just as I was all those years ago, staring at a screen in front of me. Except this time I wasn’t watching “Planet of the Apes”

😉

Bacon and apple risotto with black pudding

This afternoon the Bear and I went out to help clear the road into our estate

 

The gritters don’t come up the hill to us because they are too busy trying to keep the main roads clear.  There’s no grit or salt left that we can scatter ourselves and what was ordered has been taken by Birmingham City Council as their need is greater than ours. Apparently.

Oh, and we don’t live in Birmingham.

Nothing for it then, than to rally to the cause and help.

If we don’t do it, we won’t get in or out…. not bad if it is before we set off to work, but not so great if we happen to be at work when more snow comes down.

We went out and helped clear the road and some paths so cars could get up the hill without sliding backwards which is always a good thing if you are driving up hill.

After a couple of hours we got back in and felt we deserved something really good for supper and I had my eyes on some black pudding.

When I met the Bear he said did not like black pudding…. when what he really meant was that he had not had black pudding cooked in a way that he liked.  Now? After three years of marriage? He really is becoming omnivorous.

I have plans for most of the black pudding for tomorrow, but there will be enough left for something I have been thinking about… we love risotto and I have a fancy for black pudding  risotto. I kept thinking about what would work well with it and realised that bacon and apple would be just the ticket.  One thing to remember is that cooking apples wouldn’t be any good in this as I didn’t want the apple to dissolve into a mush, so I chose a bright, sweetly sharp Pink Lady. It was beginning to look like a pink theme was developing so I got some red onions out as well.

Let’s get everything ready –

 – to feed four people well, you will need maybe 250g of risotto rice. I am using Fior di Riso, a vialone nano risotto rice which tends to be used more in the north of Italy. Other rices to look out for are carnoroli or arborio – just as long as you do get risotto rice.

2 red onions, 2 big slices of black pudding and 25o g of bacon bits , or lardons , some stock, some butter, a Pink Lady apple and some Parmesan cheese to shave over at the end.

To start with… get two pans out – in one you are going to have stock bubbling away ( you can make your own or use cubes or granules – just make sure they are good quality. I often use Knorr stock granules)

and in the other, melt a knob of butter…. while that is melting, quickly peel and chop the red onion and then add that to the pan with a pinch of salt

After softening the onion, add the rice and stir it round in the buttery juices. This forces flavour into the rice grains – or so I was told…. and then add half a glass of vermouth. You will hear a fantastic sizzle and a really aromatic smell will whoosh out of the pan.

All the alcohol evaporates and you are just left with an enigmatic hint … it’s quite safe, even for children to eat. If you haven’t got vermouth then a dry white wine or maybe some sherry would be good. Just stir it round until the liquid is absorbed by those greedy rice grains.

Once the vermouth, or wine, or whatever has been absorbed, add a ladleful of hot stock and stir it gently round so that can also be absorbed.

Oh and this IS important – I was taught to make risotto by a real Italian cook and it was stressed that when you stir the risotto, you stir in ONE direction only. This isn’t some mad superstition, there is a valid reason for doing it – if you just keep going in the same direction, the rice grains swirl around in the beautifully flavoured stock, absorbing as they whirl. If you go bashing them back and forth with a wooden spoon, they start to break and starch comes out into the stock, making it gloopy. The aim is just to get each rice grain swelling separately.

I love making risotto because I particularly love just standing there, quietly, ladelling in stock, stirring gently and relaxing. It doesn’t take long, you know – maybe twelve minutes or so, just until the rice has absorbed enough of the stock to be plump and delicious with just a hint of a bite to it. 

Trust me – doing it this way makes the risotto really good.

While this is all going on,

put the lardons of bacon into a frying pan and cook gently – you need to get the pieces tender before you add them to the risotto. Once they are ready, add them and any of the juices to the rice, stirring gently as you go.

Start to cook the black pudding now – keep the heat gentle and cook both sides so it changes into  rich and shiny, slightly crusted slices of spicy black pudding.

Roughly peel and cube the Pink Lady apple and then add that in – you aren’t wanting to cook it through, but it does want to be in there for a few minutes, so all the flavours can blend

The final thing to do is to add a knob of butter to the risotto… this enriches the stock, giving it a lovely rounded flavour…. stir it round gently…

Then, put your risotto into your bowls and  break up the black pudding over the top….

A few shavings of Parmesan over the top finish it off

The result? Really good.

Each spoonful  has the perfect combination of  bacon bits giving a lovely savouriness and a gorgeous chewiness amongst the savoury rice… the little nuggets of Pink Lady apple gives a sweet and juicy almost-crunch, while the black pudding provides a deep and earthy richness, bringing it all together.

It didn’t take long at all and it certainly doesn’t involve costly ingredients but it added up to a truly delicious and warming supper – perfect for a freezing night, after an afternoon’s labour shovelling snow.

Saturday – snow bound breakfast

Even though it is the weekend, I still wake up before 6am, just as I do for work.  And, just as I always do, I go, quietly, upstairs to our kitchen to make coffee and look out at the city below us.

It’s been snowing again and even though we are right at the top of our apartment block and even though it is bitterly cold with the wind howling past, the snow is piling up against the windows.

I know I said I wanted to be snowed in but this is ridiculous.

This is not the morning for having a cold breakfast. This is the kind of morning that something like a fried egg sandwich, say, is just what is called for. White bread, all soft and giving, with a hot, fried egg, sizzling as it drops on to the bun, then oozing golden egg yolk down your chin as you bite into it.

There is, as there so often is, a problem…. we have no white bread. There’s time enough, though, to make some buns  – and, as an added bonus, putting the oven on will help warm the place up a bit.

As I get the flour out of the larder, I see there’s a recipe on the back of the Hovis bag. I usually make slow risen bread, bread that has some texture, taste and strength to it, but today I want soft, white rolls. I just want fresh white bread that will mop up buttery, eggy, tomato saucy dribbles…….

Good old Hovis, eh?

500g of flour, 25g of butter, 1 and a quarter teaspoons of salt, 1 and a half teaspoons of fast action yeast (that’s one sachet of the instant yeast),  300 ml of warm water and 2 teaspoons of sugar ( that adds flavour and thickens the crust, apparently)

Add the dry ingredients to the flour and mix them through (it’s the only way to make sure it all mixes evenly before you add the butter and the water) Then add 25g of butter – cut it into pieces so it is easier to deal with

Then, using the tips of your fingers, rub the butter through the flour – you need to get the bits of butter evenly distributed through the flour… just rub it through till there are no more big bits left

Then add 300 ml of warm water and stir it together.

I wanted to go and read the papers on line while I drank my coffee (that weighing and mixing everything together only took a few minutes) so I put it all in my mixer, with the dough hook and set it away to knead.

You can do it yourself, of course, but luckily… I don’t have to! I left the Kitchen Aid  whirring softly, at a gentle speed, for five minutes as I read about the widespread snow and the probability of more.

There you go… beautifully silky dough, ready to make into buns and let it rise.

A quick roll into bun shapes, then pop them onto a silicone sheet on a baking tray and cover them with a dampened tea towel to stop the dough getting a crust before it is ready to bake.  The buns need to rise for an hour or so before you bake them

But it was, still,  just after 7 am so there was plenty of time before I needed to make breakfast… and it was snowing again.

The oven went on at 230 degrees and when the dough had doubled in size… in those buns went for half an hour so so…

Oh they were lovely! The kitchen was warming nicely, the smell of baking bread was filtering downstairs to wake the Bear….. beautiful little plump, white breadbuns emerged from the oven… time to get the breakfast ready

There are some lovely free range eggs from the farm shop….

some butter to spread on those warm buns….

a squirt of tomato sauce…..

Breakfast bliss…….now that was an easy way to happiness.

Lentil and Chorizo Soup

The Bear and I live on the top of a hill, which is, itself, at the top of a series of hills. We look down on the city below us and the view is always fantastic.  We have a park at the side of the gardens and it is always a good place to walk around.

In the autumn we go blackberrying and in the summer it’s a beautiful place to sit in the sun.

In the winter?

Incredibly beautiful, isn’t it?

You wouldn’t think we were just a mile or so from the city centre.

Being so high up means the snow is thicker up here and it stays longer. It also means that when I finish work, I try and go straight home to avoid getting caught up in any bad weather. And THAT means I haven’t been going to the supermarket.

I haven’t even walked to our nearest shops, because that means a walk  involving coming down from where we live… down these steps

So I need to cook from what we already have.

I always keep the store cupboard filled with things that will last and tonight I started to think about soup.

There’s always a large jar of red lentils .. so they would go in… as would that lovely big onion.

In the fridge I found some pieces of chorizo

and in the cupboard a tin of sweet smoked paprika.

Right then… I was off. Onions chopped and sauteing gently in a dessertspoon of oil, with a teaspoon of paprika

Then, time to add the red lentils. They are not only tasty, they are packed full of protein.

Four scoops… that’s about 300g.

Two pints of water and stir it all round. That needs to bubble away but it really doesn’t take long for the lentils to cook.  Add a stock cube or some stock granules for flavour… this is going to be the quickest and tastiest soup you have ever made.

I have some dried Kashmiri chillies so one of them goes in… they are quite sweet and mild in comparison to other chillies. If you are cooking for children, then you could, if they don’t like chillies, just miss that out.

Remember that chorizo? Cut slices off each of the pieces and dry fry them over a gentle heat.

This lets the oil seep out gently, which you dress the soup with later, so whatever you do, don’t just throw it out.

See this? This is the secret that turns this tasty soup into a deliciously rich bowlful.

We are cutting our calories and that means cutting fat. But look at the label – it is skimmed milk.  No fat in there, or at least none to speak of.

You have enough liquid in there so adding milk powder adds to the taste, without diluting the taste or the consistency. The milk makes it taste rich and creamy.

Two big scoops of Marvel and then take out the dried (but now beautifully soft) chilli… and then whizz the soup to a silky smoothness. Taste it and adjust the seasoning… maybe a pinch of salt and a grinding of black pepper?

Into the soup with the chorizo (chop the big pieces) and stir it round… pour over the glossy red oil

And there you have it.

Red lentil and chorizo soup – about two pints of  spicy loveliness. Packed full of protein and very little fat.

And the cost is minimal ….. both in pennies and calories….. there’s under 300 calories a serving in there.

All made from store cupboard ingredients and bits from the fridge. I feel so very virtuous… and also full and warmed through. 

EDIT FROM MY DESK :

Lovely chunks of chorizo, smooth and creamy soup…. 

Life is good.

(Oh and the snow photos were taken by The Bear. He’s good, isn’t he?)

Baking a baguette

January, eh? There are many downsides to January – bad weather, enforced dieting because of Christmas excesses – but there are some good points. Sales, for one. And with the terrible state of the economy, the sales start on Boxing Day, if not sooner.

I had been wanting to go to the Le Creuset shop for ages and what I really wanted was to get there in the sale and buy a terrine…. I love making pates and terrines and while I can easily do them in other containers I really, really wanted a terrine. I have a square one but I wanted a long, loaf tin shaped one….

So I dragged the Bear to the car and we set off. Only to find that not only were there no terrines  in the sale, there were no terrines at all.

It’s at times like this that I thank my lucky stars for the Bear because when we got home he started looking for terrines online. He not only found one, he found one at a bargain price……under £50

………………….and it was delivered on New Year’s Eve.

Now, I make No Knead Bread and bake it in either my round or my oval Le Creuset casserole. You need a lidded pot to cook it in because you have to create, as near as possible, a steam oven effect. You have to get it scorchingly hot and throw in the dough and put the lid on to make a lovely chewy crust with a gorgeous, almost caramelised flavour to it. The bread is made from a slow risen dough, which gives it a distinct taste and good texture and crumb.

Thing is, it takes the shape of  the container you cook it in…. so, I thought, if I made it in a long, thin, cast iron pot, it would make a long, thin, baguette type loaf.

That would be perfect for garlic bread….. and I could make some for part of our New Year’s Eve party.

I had started my dough the night before and when it was ready, I rolled it in flour and let it rest for ten minutes, then cut it in half

I realised that there  was too much for the terrine pot so cutting it in half  would mean it would fit and I could make a small round loaf with the other half of the dough.

One bit was stretched into a baguette shape and lain on a flour dusted tea towel

While the other bit was rolled into a round and sprinkled with cornmeal

And both bits covered with the edges of the tea towel and left to rise for two hours

Half an hour before the bread was ready, I put the oven on to just over 200 degrees C and put in the terrine dish and the small casserole

Once the half hour was up, I carefully lifted them out and dropped in the dough, giving the pots a shake to get the dough to settle before putting the lids on and putting them back in the hot oven.

Half an hour later…..

Take the lid off for the next 15 minutes or so….and turn out a beautifully baked baguette shaped loaf

It was fantastic.

Ever since I started baking the No Knead Loaf, I have become more disillusioned with other bread. This really is a wonderful loaf

Two beautiful loaves…. and so lovely that the bread was just eaten as it was and not, after all that, made into garlic bread

I knew I was right to ask for a terrine.

Just look how useful it is going to be – pates and terrines one day and baguettes baked in it the next day to have with the pate!

Sabrina’s Chicken

When I was much younger, I took it into my head to have an adventure and set off to Morocco. I travelled around on ordinary buses, with chickens in boxes on the racks and priests blessing both the journey and the travellers. I ate at roadside cafes and in back street restaurants.  I slept on rooftops of village houses in the Anti Atlas mountains and shared food with the people who lived there.

It was my first real adventure and it was so exciting. The food was so vibrant, so different to anything I had eaten at home – you have to remember this was twenty years or more ago and for a girl from the north of England it was an entirely new world.

Ever since then I have always been intrigued by Middle Eastern and North African food and adore the complex layers of flavours and spices, so whenever I see something new I am irresistably drawn towards it.  I was reading Sabrina Ghayour’s Persian recipes on Foodepedia and spotted Koreshteh Fesenjan and knew that this was going to be next on the agenda.

Koreshteh Fesenjan is chicken stew with walnuts and pomegranate molasses – and the way Sabrina described it made me long to eat it.

I wanted to do it so much that instead of waiting until I got boneless chicken thighs as she suggested, I just took the only pack of chicken I had in the freezer and sorted through the larder for walnuts and my pomegranate molasses.

It didn’t matter – it was delicious… so delicious I think you ought to make this, so get your ingredients ready – Sabrina’s recipe feeds 6 to 8… what I’m doing will feed half that. There was a reason for that – in my greed and eagerness, I knew I had all of the ingredients, just not enough of them to make as much as she did.

That was OK. though. There were only the two of us and while we routinely have a second helping the next day we might not be wanting to eat it the day after that as well.

Get some chicken thighs  – you can buy a packet of them,  already skinless and boneless, (which would have been a better bet than the chicken legs I found, but what the heck!)

Chop a couple of onions

250g of walnuts – that was the two and a half, nearly three bags of walnuts I had .

They need to be ground and as we normally buy them as walnut halves then I have to grind them.  My Bamix has a grinder attachment, so I did it with that, otherwise use a food processor, making sure the walnuts are finely ground.

You will need two big pans for this… in the first, put a tablespoon of flour in and, over a medium heat, let it cook abit until it changes colour slightly.

See? I know it’s not a good photograph, but you can see what I mean.

Meanwhile , in the other pan, start cooking the chopped onions in a tablespoon or so of olive oil.  You want the onions to become translucent, then add your chicken, after seasoning it with salt and pepper. Turn the heat up and turn the chicken in the onions until it is well sealed. Then turn the heat off and leave it. 

Now, back to the other pan…. add the walnuts and stir them in to the flour. You won’t need any oil as the walnuts have, as Sabrina says, a high fat content

After about 5 minutes, add a pint or so of cold water

Give it a good stir and bring it to a gentle boil then turn it down, cover it and let it bubble along for about an hour. I thought that seemed long but I was determined to get this right – it is necessary so you cook the walnuts until you see the walnut oil forming on the surface.

Then stir in a tablespoon of caster sugar and just over half a bottle of pomegranate molasses – oh, I love that. It is sweet but not sugary sweet and sharp in a tangy way. Stir it in and make sure it all dissolves properly and then….

… add the chicken and onion from the other pan and stir round.

Make sure there is enough of the sauce to cover the chicken – add some water if you ned to and then leave to cook, very slowly, for a couple of hours, stirring it occasionally to make sure those walnuts don’t stick to the pan and burn.

The smell of this is divine, it really is.

A sneaky taste every now and again (just to check, you understand) bears this out….the walnut and pomegranate sauce gets darker and the smell fills the room.

Serve with basmati rice, says Sabrina, so that’s what I do to serve with it….

And then?

Have you ever eaten anything that makes you whimper quietly with pleasure?

Oh, it was more than delicious – the texture of the walnuts, with their lovely deep flavour, mixed with the sweet sharpness of the pomegranate molasses and the softness and richness of the chicken …. it made me wonder why no one had told me about this before.

I’m making this again, I tell you. All I can say is thank you, Sabrina for writing about this in the first place.

It needs time to do it, so choose a Saturday or Sunday when the weather is bad. Lock yourself in and make this to cheer you and your loved ones and be very glad that this recipe exists.

Cheese rolls for New Year’s Eve bites…

We invited friends round for New Year’s Eve so I needed to make some little bites for us all. One of my friends doesn’t eat meat, so while sausage rolls and ribs were a given, and were currently in the oven, I needed to make something nice for E.

She does love cheese, though, and in the fridge I had some Philadelphia and some Dairylea slices (I know, I know… but I had made Aberdeen Angus beefburgers and wanted to add a cheese slice…and this was what was left from the packet)

So… with the rest of the puff pastry, I rolled it flat and then

put half a cheese slice on the pastry and then put a spoon full of cream cheese on top of that

and then rolled the pastry over.

A quick brush with egg, then slicing them into bitesize morsels  and off into a hot oven (200 degrees) with them for ten to fifteen minutes

And out they came.

Golden little rolls, stuffed with delicious melting cheese.

For something that was created quickly from necessity and bits from the fridge, they were delicious and I shall definitely do them again. The combination of cheese slice with cream cheese was gorgeous – the two tastes blended beautifully together.

As it happened, poor E was felled by a dreadful bug and couldn’t make it to the party.. so we ate them all and toasted her!

Just as well I ate them before starting on my diet, eh?

Skinny tomato soup

As I lumber my large and ungainly way into January and prepare to go back to work, I make a start on the diet. My cunning plan to emerge as slender as a supermodel is based around eating tasty but sensibly low calories breakfasts and lunches and then having something truly delicious, yet very low calorie for supper.

Lunch.. that is the problem. I want something really tasty to keep me going. I drink black coffee all day and I need a different taste.

Now. It is Sunday night and I haven’t really thought it through, so I start rummaging in the cupboards. There aren’t any tins of tomatoes…. I can’t believe it, because I always buy plenty. There’s lots and lots of stuff in there to make delicious meals but I am trying to cut calorie corners.

What I do find is a carton of V8 vegetable juice … look at the goodness in that…

and an  onion.. and a packet of bonito stock, or dashi.

This is a combination of fish flakes (a bonito is related to the mackerel and tuna, dried and shaved into flakes)  and seaweed… it may sound strange but it is going along the umami route – a deep, flavoursome stock that gives you “mouth feel” as if what you are eating is rich and certainly more calorific than it seems. It doesn’t taste fishy… just savoury.

Don’t add it if you don’t want to, or if you can’t find it – add ordinary vegetable stock or miso instead. The aim is to make what would otherwise be a thin soup (with, therefore, very few calories in it) into something that tastes if it has more body and richness to it.

So, one onion, chopped (about 100 calories, raw) and one tablespoon of oil  (about 120 calories) – see how much work I do for you? Calculating all this?

Sweat the onions till soft with a pinch of salt (that makes them stay soft and translucent)

Add a sachet of bonito stock and stir round.

Pour in the V8 (190 calories for the litre)  … how healthy is this going to be? All those vegetables in there…stir it round and let the onions finish cooking.

Now, if you have fresh coriander chop it and stir it round.. or, if you have a tube of it (always handy to have some in the fridge) give a quick squirt

Remember those chillies I made chilli oil with? I got one of those out and added it

And a squirt of ginger as a livener…

And whizz it all to a silky smoothness

Now, by my reckoning that comes to maybe 500 calories or so for the litre…. that’s a LITRE.. That’s a panful.  A good sized mug full will only be 100 -125 calories.

There’s a richness and fullness to it that makes it so very satisfying. It’s tomatoey (as it should be) and savoury – not just salty… and there’s a hint of a nip of ginger and chilli.

It’s not just one dimensional.

Flashforward to Monday lunch….

It’s a winner. Can this be the way forward?

Beans…. for beans on toast

When I want to cheer the Bear up, or give him a special treat,  I tend to make him beans. It’s probably his favourite meal.

When he’s been travelling, he will phone from some far-flung corner of the world and ask me if I will make him beans on toast when he gets in.

This isn’t the ordinary, open a can, heat through and serve on white sliced sort of beans on toast… this is something that has developed in the time we have been together.

It all started when he asked me to marry him and I accepted (but you guessed that bit, right?) and then I went to Florence with my best friend for a little holiday. I have to point out, though, that this had been arranged for ages.. it wasn’t a reaction to being engaged. Anyway, D and I had a marvellous time, visiting her son and while we were there, often had cannellini beans with tomato and sage and pancetta, served with good Italian bread…. a traditional Tuscan dish. It is truly delicious – very simple but beautifully tasty.

I asked the chef at one restaurant, La Giostra how it was done. Now, I said these weren’t just any beans, nor was this just any chef…he is Prince Dimitri Kunz d’Asburgo Lorena.

It’s just beans he said…… cannellini beans in stock from vegetables, with some sage, olive oil, garlic, tomatoes and pancetta. But it’s slow…. you take your time. The flavours reflect the care you put into it.

When I came back I was telling the Bear about this wonderful restaurant, in a 16th Century building in the heart of Florence and how one of my favourite things had probably been this incredibly simple dish. He asked me to try and make it for him. And I did. I remembered what Prince Dimitri had said and I produced beans Tuscan style and it became a favourite of ours …. but as with all cooking, things change over time. I replaced, at one point, the pancetta with streaky bacon and chorizo, giving it a deeper, richer flavour and, after going out one day and leaving the beans bubbling down in the tomatoes until it became a thicker, more concentrated tomatoey bean dish, realised I liked it more with a thicker sauce. Maybe that’s because I’m not eating it in Florence….

I serve it with toasted No Knead Bread and we call it beans on toast.

First, get a bag of cannellini beans  – you will need about 250g for maybe 4 or so healthy sized portions. Dried beans need to be soaked overnight to get them ready for their proper cooking.

I once had dried beans that no matter what I did with them, they just refused to soften. Maybe they were a rogue batch, so after that I always made sure I had some cans of cannellini beans in as well. They are just as good and means that you can make beans that day, if you want them rather than waiting for the following day after they have soaked overnight.

So… either soak your beans and start the recipe the next day.. or open 3 cans of beans….

Give the beans a good rinse and then put them in a pot with some fresh water, some sprigs of sage and a carrot to add flavour to the stock.

Peel and chop 3 or 4 cloves of garlic (I cut it to roughly the size of the beans) and put them in the pot with a good slug of olive oil.

And then set the beans away – bring the pan to the boil, gently and then let them bubble softly away at a simmer until they soften. When I had that batch of beans that refused to soften I started adding a sheet of kombu to the pan (remembering to fish it out later) This is Japanese seaweed and it is supposed to help beans soften… it also adds a savour to the stock – more of the umami hit that makes everything taste so rich and full. Not seaweedy at all, so don’t worry.  It’s not hard to get hold of if you want to give it a go – it will be in the health food/world food sections in supermarkets.

Let everything bubble away until you know the beans are softening. Or, if you are using cans of beans, just get them heated through for a few minutes in water, with the garlic and sage.

Now add two tins of chopped plum tomatoes

Stir it round – see how the beans are still distinctly white against the tomato? You want to get them to the stage where they are infused with tomatoey colour and flavour.

If you have some spare red wine, add a sloosh of that – maybe half a glass or so.

Turn the heat down so that you get the pan to bubble softly – the effect you are aiming for is for the occasional lazy bubble to pop to the surface. You can leave it doing that for an hour or so. You might need to add some more water – just keep half an eye on it and watch how it goes.

Now, get your chorizo and slice it

Don’t forget to pull off the covering around it… you don’t want to eat that.

Then dry fry it gently – see how the oil comes out?

You need to colour both sides and then take it out of the pan to cool before cubing it. Don’t throw that oil out… you pour that into the beans.

If you have streaky bacon, slowly fry that too and then cut that into pieces, before adding that and the chorizo to the beans.

Stir it all round and add another glug or two of olive oil.

Give it time to relax together – taste the sauce.. is it to your liking? Does it need some salt? It’s really only at this stage you add salt – if you do it as the beans are boiling you will toughen the skins.

Chop some sage leaves finely to scatter into the pot

It should be a rich tomato sauce with hints of the paprika from the chorizo, a slight muskiness from the sage, aromatic from the garlic and olive oil….

Slice and toast some good bread – and by that I mean sourdough or the lovely No Knead Bread, or maybe good Italian bread… just as long as it isn’t white sliced, which would just dissolve into nothingness.

And serve proudly, knowing you have made a meal from simple ingredients, that cost pennies and makes people smile.