Source it, cook it, eat it
Because if you do it three times a day, you might as well get it right!Recipe: Sweet Potato and Red Lentil Soup
I decided I needed a new soup this week having done most of my top five to death… Instead of starting with a recipe I just bought some stuff I haven’t used much. Not because I wanted to get all creative, pretty much because I was poorly organised and thought I’d get a few bits from the green grocer I’ve not used much before. I ended up with sweet potato among other things and that’s what I used for the soup.
Doing some research for sweet potato soups I quickly realised that I didn’t have one complete recipe, so here’s what I ended up doing. Its based around a Sophie Grigson recipe, but I didn’t have any star anise.
Ingredients:
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 450g sweet potato chopped into 1-2 inch chunks
- 1 onion, chopped
- 150g red lentils, rinsed
- 2 cloves garlic, smashed and chopped
- l tbsp tomato puree (aka one large squeeze if you’re using a tube)
- 1tsp grated nutmeg
- 2inch piece of cinamon – whole
- 1.5 litres of vegetable stock – hot
- Salt n pepper
To cook it:
- In a large caserole, start cooking the the onion then add the red pepper and spices on top. Cook gently (sweat) with the lid on for 10 mins or so
- Add the lentils and garlic and combine together, ensuring the onions aren’t sticking. Add the tomato puree and mix together
- Now add the stock and stir together – cook for about 20 mins or until the sweet potato is soft. Remove the cinammon
- Blend with a hand whisk, then taste and season as appropriate
Review: Sushi World, Pitshanger Lane, Ealing ******
Summary:
- Wonderful family-run Sushi restaurant in Ealing
- http://www.qype.co.uk/place/preview/uk-2301560-sushi-world-ealing-london
Location:
- 58 Pitshanger Lane, Ealing, London W5 1QY
Tel: 020 8997 6057
Food:
- Sushi – Japanese
Rating:
- Food: 5/6 – The quality of the sushi is as good as anywhere I’ve tried it. The rolls are certainly the best I’ve had. There’s great variety in the menu and always a special to try
- Experience: 5/6 – The ambience of the place is relaxed and so very personal because it only seats 12. From the outside it looks very unassuming but with classic FM in the background and simple furninshings, you get the impression this place is a hidden gem. Indeed, to survive without the finesse of a central London ’sushi venue’ the product simple has to be good. It is
- Cost: 6/6 – Sushi isn’t cheap; this isn’t top marks because its cheap, it’s top marks because you get excellent quality for a great price. It is about £15-20 to stuff yourself with all the wonderful sushi you could manage. Try doing that in Nobu!
- Overall: ****** Can’t reccomend it enough
Click here to see what these ratings mean.
Food and Relationships – Recipe for Disaster?
Two articles this week reminded me that although food is a wonderful thing to share and enjoy with friends, families and significant others, so often it cause stress and conflict.
First, an article by Kate Corr in the Telegraph talked about Selective Eating Disorder, a topic which will soon be covered in a BBC3 documentary (Freaky Eaters, February 17 at 8pm). This is a disorder which according to Wikipedia, is what most can attribute to various friends: picky or fussy eating. I find it frustrating when people blankly refuse to eat certain foods, even if prepared in vastly different ways. Fish is a classic example and I know a lot of people who are squeamish about tomatos. According to a Wikipedia article,the phenomenon has not been widely studied and can range from a basic unwillingness to try new foods, to active social avoidance, anxiety and even conflict.
Meanwhile, Emine Saner from The Guardian wrote about some fine examples of amusing or ill-considered proposals over a Valentine’s day dinner. The best one has to be:
“We often get people asking for ‘Will you marry me?’ to be written in chocolate on dessert plates,” says Cox. “One woman who received one panicked and ran off to the loo. On her way she stopped a waiter and asked us to send her boyfriend one back reading ‘Not a hope in hell’.” Remarkably accommodating, the restaurant agreed to do it, though they said it might be better – and safer for the poor waiter, perhaps – if she delivered it herself. “Luckily, he thought it was very funny,” says Cox. “She just said she wasn’t ready to get married. I think they stayed together.”
The overall message is ‘if you do it, bloody well be sure’, but the broader takeaway for me is the way valentines day has become overly stressful and commercialised and carries this ‘weight of expectation’. Occasions like this make eating out less enjoyable. They’re more of a fractured experience where you don’t properly share the experience or relax and really enjoy it.
Many people I know are playing it cool with Valentine’s this year. This could be symptomatic of many being in long term relationships, but I suspect it’s as much this, as it is people becoming more disenfranchised by the event each year. Restaurants become more expensive, service becomes worse, meals are less enjoyed and happiness, comfort and enjoyment do not prevail.
Meals on occasions such as valentines day are becoming less enjoyable because restaurants put on a special menu that is more expensive and rush you through your meal. Because of the volume and efficiency they try to achieve to make maximum profit, the experience suffers. I’m generalising slightly, but a different approach can lead to a more sincere and enjoyable evening. How can you make sure your valentines meal is a success? Here are five key points:
- Stick to what you know – take them somewhere you know will be nice, somewhere you’ve been and enjoyed before or done some solid research on
- Don’t break the bank – it’s not actually big and clever, if you know somewhere with style and character that is twice as good
- Buck the trend – don’t comply with what restaurants (chains in particular) want you to do; go on the night before or after the 14th and avoid special ‘deals’ which usually don’t live up to expectation
- Plan the evening or day – not to the last detail, but in order to make it a great night, have a little surprise ready and/or a backup plan, like somewhere to have a smart cocktail or other experience
- Keep it simple – don’t rush yourself by over-planning and stick to things you know they like, or can assume they like. With certain people, flowers and chocolate tick the right boxes for instance, when reporting back to their friends
If you have any tips or thoughts, please leave a comment 
Cheese Can Be Heathly…
I recently said to someone that I’ll eat anything with chese in, but on reflection, I’d revise that to anything with nice cheese in! Horrible cheeses aren’t worth bothering with, so I’m keen on trying to find ways to eat better quality cheese in decent proportions. As I’ve got a great pantry with a strong selection of cheeses near me, I’m going to find some more recipes to use sensible portions in. Rather than what I normally do… which is buy slabs of cheese and then quaffe them with biscuits over the course of a few days. Not healthy.
I found out that some of my colleagues that work in my building do the public relations for Grana Padano and they’re doing something up this very street.
They’re currently working on a number of campaigns including drawing people to a website that looks at the various ways you can use Grana Padano. It includes an ‘eating plan’ with various ideas that include pasta, omelette, cheese sauce, salad and bruscetta. Obviously, the idea is not that you plan your life around Grana Padano, but it has some encouraging ideas around how you can use hard cheses like this to add some good flavour to simple cooking. Normally I just sprinkle some on top of pasta so its good to have some more ideas.
Here’s one of the ideas that I think I’m going to have a try…
Pasta with Grana Padano, sundried tomatoes & pine nuts
(Calories 392, Fat 12.8g, Saturated fat 3.1g per serving)
Ingredients
• 40g pasta, uncooked weight
• 10g Grana Padano cheese, grated
• 3 cherry tomatoes
• 2 sundried tomatoes, chopped
• 1 tbs of toasted pine nuts
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 handful of watercress or rocket
Instructions
1. Prepare the pasta following on pack instructions, omitting
any suggested fat or salt. Mix most of the Grana Padano
into the pasta.
2. Mix the cheesy pasta with cherry tomatoes, sun-dried
tomatoes, pine nuts, and oregano. Sprinkle the remaining
Grana Padano over the pasta and serve with a side of
rocket or watercress.
Chicken, Pancetta and Butter Bean Caserole
One pot cooking is great for several reasons, including the small amount of washing up it allows. Often you need to do something to ‘go with’ your caserole or one-pot dish, but its possible to get a nice easy dish that you can just dollop on the plate. This ‘Robin Creation’ was a bung-it together job midweek and took about 20 mins to cook and I left it to stew in the oven for about 30-40 mins.
Ingredients:
- 5-7 chicken things
- 75-100g of pancetta, chopped
- 1 onion, roughly chopped
- 2 sticks celery, finely chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, smashed and chopped
- 1 red pepper, in strips
- salt n pepper
- 500ml veg or chicken stock
- Olive oil
To cook it:
- Heat about 2 tbsp olive oil (enough to generously coat the base of the pan) to nearly smoking and brown the chicken thighs, starting with the fatty bits. Set them aside on the upturned caserole lid
- Add the onions and celery along with some more oil if it’s getting dry and allow them to brown for about 3-4 mins, still with the heat on high. Add the pancetta and get this browning for another 3-4 mins
- Add the pepper and stock (stirring in) and chicken and season, then bring to simmering point
- Bung in the oven on about gas mark 4 with the lid on for about 25 odd minutes. Then give it 15 mins with the lid off
- Check the seasoning and chomp away…
Food Deals – Restaurant Voucher Links
With the recession on and all the doom and gloom about the state of the world, it’s easy to say, ‘fine, I’m not going to eat out anymore’. I quite like eating out and would rather have the odd meal out rather than add to the depressing mood by stopping it altogether. Fortunately it’s very easy to eat out on the cheap at the moment.
Websites like Money Saving Expert and VocherCodes are constantly updated with deals put on by restaurant chains like Pizza Express, Zizzi and Strada. If you’re careful you can eat for under £15 for two; easily justifiable unless you’re dining with complete miser. I recently use a 2-for-1 deal in Pizza Express with soft drinks and the bill was under £12, so there’s room to keep it cheap.
It also makes the odd expensive more justifiable (if your brain works that way 
)
P.S. Money Saving Expert is also a good source for other financial advice and the newsletter is quite useful.
The Best Chilli Con Carne Recipe
I’ve seen a lot of recipes for chilli, some more elaborate and some very simple. Many are very good and most people to be fair have very different preferences. Here’s what I think is important for the presentation of chilli and my recipe. Chilli should…
- be cooked for a long time to ensure the meat is soft
- have a good consistency – not too runny
- have a strong but deep flavour, i.e. it should be hot, but not knock your socks off so you can taste the different flavours
- be a nice deep dark red colour
Ingredients (a la Robin)
- 500g beef mince (although I’m assured by my American chilli-quaffing friend that the best way is to use chuck steak, finely diced, which I’m going to try out in due course)
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 2 medium onions
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1 tin kidney beans
- 2 tins chopped tomatos
- 1 tsp corriander
- 2 tsp cumin (personal preference)
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp paprika (hot hungarian)
- 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
- 2-3 tbsp i.e. long squirts of tomato puree
- Salt n pepper
- 2 hot chillis or 1 tbsp chilli flakes
- 1 glass of red wine
- Shake of worcestorshire sauce
- Seasoning
To cook it:
- Get the pan hot and keep it hot, while frying the beef mince in the olive oil. The aim is to brown it, but no need to go overboard and it’ll probably just cook as there will be a lot fat coming off the meat
- Use a slotted spoon to remove the meat and add the onioins. Once these are starting to brown, turn the heat down to medium and start adding the garlic and spices. Cook for a few minutes, then add the meat back in
- Add the glass of wine and allow it to absorb/reduce into the meat for a few minutes, before adding the worcestorshire sauce and the tomato puree. Stir that in, then add the tins of tomato
- Season and then leave to cook for a few hours, checking it frequently. It should be bubbling gently. Use the lid for the first hour unless it’s going mental, then lid-off for an hour. The longer you can cook it the better really
- Add the kidney beans shortly before serving (like 15 mins before) Serve with rice or crusty bread, a baked potato, mash or whatever you like. It’s another great dish to freeze and use at your convenience
Home-made Soups, Tasty and Cheap
The best thing about soup is that its easy to make and hard to muck up. It’s also great because: it’s cheap; it’s convenient because you can freeze and microwave it; and if eaten with bread its pretty sustaining. Another great thing about soup in January is that invariably you’re going to be recovering financially from Christmas and perhaps finding yourself with more free time at weekends or wanting to spend less on lunch.
Sold?
I thought I’d summarise the soups I use most because soup can often get boring, so if you rotate what you’re making that helps. In no particular order:
- Carrot and corriander;
- Spicy parsnip;
- Silton; (potato and leek base)
- Potato and leek;
- Mixed vegetable soup (the recipe is basically, assorted veg, butter, stock, but there are probably 4m variations online)
This is quite a limited list at the moment, not least of all because there’s no meaty soups. But these are the ones that I regularly make and can rattle off while making other things in the kitchen. Next on my list to try are:
- Pearl barley and squash;
- Ham and lentil;
- Other lentil soups…because lentils are actually quite nice, also cheap and very sustaining
Let me know if you have a favourite good, simple soup I can add to my list
Spicy Parsnip Soup Recipe
Here’s a nice soup recipe that I adapted to suit my cupboard, based on a few recipes I saw online. This is pretty painless to knock up and very tasty. Also good if you’ve got leftover parsnips from christmas.
Ingredients:
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 onion chopped
- Knob of butter (25g ish)
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 1 tsp toasted cumin (just dry toast them in a frying pan)
- 1 tsp garam masala
- 800g-ish parsnips diced
- 600-800ml vegetable stock (if you just aim to cover the vegetables that will probably end up in a nice thick consistency)
- 200ml double cream
- Salt and pepper
How to cook it:
- Give the onion 5-10 minutes or so in the olive oil to soften gently, then add the spices and garlic and combine together for a minute or two
- Add the butter and parsnips and cook with the lid on for 15 minutes
- Now add the stock and simmer for 10-15 mins before adding the double cream (don’t let it boil after you’ve added the cream, obviously)
- Blend with a metal hand blender or if you don’t have one, you’ll have to cool it and use a liquidizer
- Taste and season, serve with a crusty brown bread
Recipe: Beef goulash
Here’s a nice beef caserole dish I used this evening which ended up in a very decent sauce and very tender meat. It’s exceedingly easy and leaves very little room for mucking up. Great for begginners.
Ingredients (for 2 with leftovers):
- 40g butter
- 400g beef – braising steak diced
- 2 onions, one finely diced, one finely chopped
- 2 large carrots, sliced into thin discs
- 2 tablespoons good paprika
- 1 tablespoon plain flour
- 1 pint + beef stock
- 1 decent glug of red wine
- generous seasoning of salt and pepper
To cook it:
- Brown the meat in the butter – if you can’t get it hot enough to brown beyond lightly searing the meat, it’s not a problem
- Spoon out the meat with a slotted spoon, which should hopefully leave a fair bit of meat juice and butter, if not, or to be on the safe side, add some more butter
- Fry the onions and carrots in the butter for 5-7 mins, then add the paprika and flour
- Now add some of the stock and stir in thoroughly – keep adding stock until you have a thick-ish sauce, then add the gluggage of wine
- Season and bung in the oven for a few hours on a low heat of 150 degrees or gas mk 2. Serve with rice
