Lazy Bank Holiday Monday dinner

Today's dinner was cooked by the boyfriend (to be referred to as Quoth). It was: Chorizo omelette (chorizo is our new favourite thing), prawns cooked with ginger, garlic and chilli, chicken caesar salad (with a yoghurt based dressing) and crusty French stick. 




I should probably explain that in the last 6 months I've started to eat meat again. I went vegetarian in about 1983 and was vegan from 1985 to 1998, then started eating fish again around 8 or 9 years ago. I'd always wanted to make a roast chicken, ever since I'd seen my friend, Mrs C, making one and thought what a grown-up thing it seemed to be! One evening Quoth and I were having some friends to dinner in a kind of 'Ready Steady Cook' style (they brought me a bag of ingredients and I produced a delicious meal for them, adding some things of my own choosing obviously). One of the friends HATES fish with a huge passion, and normally I'd do something fishy. They would have been quite happy to eat veggie food, but I got it into my head to do roast chicken. I wasn't actually going to have any myself, but when it came out of the oven, all crispy skin, smelling of lemon and garlic and rosemary, well, I just had to. And it was delicious! Since then I've done quite a few equally delicious roast chickens, and I've made lots of other stuff with chicken, and with bacon, and the chorizo that Aldi so kindly sell very cheaply. I've had pork in various forms, and I've tried lamb and beef, but I'm not fussed about those. I intend to explore the world of poulty, and next Sunday I'm going to do a duck or possibly guinnea fowl for dinner.... watch this space!

Anyway, here is the recipe for the prawns, which is one of my most favourite dishes ever, and just the easiest thing to make, and also for the low-fat caesar dressing. 

I can't claim credit for this recipe, it came from my favourite cookery book, Flavours of Morocco by Ghillie Basan.



3 tbsp olive oil
2-3 garlic cloves, chopped
25g fresh ginger, peeled and grated (or chopped, I chop it)
1 chilli, deseeded and chopped (I use 'lazy chilli', cos, well, I'm lazy!)
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp paprika
500g raw or frozen large prawns (the recipe says 'shelled but with their tails intact', I say to hell with shelling prawns!!)
Fresh coriander to taste (that's LOTS then!)
sea salt and black pepper
1 lemon, cut into wedges, to serve

Heat the oil in a heavy based pan

Stir in the garlic, ginger, chilli and cumin seeds and as soon as a lovely aroma arises (that's what the book says) add the paprika and the prawns 

Fry quickly over a medium heat for a few minutes till the prawns are just cooked

Season to taste with salt and pepper and sprinkle the chopped coriander over

Serve with the lemon wedges and some crusty bread to mop up the juices 

I usually just plonk the pan on the table and then everyone can wipe round the inside of it with their bits of bread, because that's delicious!

Low-fat Caesar salad dressing

1/3 cup low-fat or fat-free plain yoghurt
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp olive oil
1 tsp vinegar - I used cider vinegar
1 tsp wholegrain mustard
1 tsp soy or Worcestershire sauce
1 garlic clove, crushed

Put everything in a jar or something with a tightly fitting screw top and give it all a good shake.

That's it. 

You could add more of whatever you think it needs once you've tasted it, maybe salt and pepper, maybe a little sugar if your hand slipped a bit with the lemon juice or the vinegar (as mine did). I thought this was a bit too sour when I tasted it, but once it was on the salad and the chicken it was just perfect. We didn't put croutons in our Caesar salad, and I think we maybe should have, because the dressing would have been sublime on croutons!

 

 

Homemade gazpacho with croutons and San Miguel (of course!)

Well, here I am again, having another go at keeping up my blog. Several people have suggested that I ought to, as they quite like my writing and really like my cooking!






Lots and lots of things have happened since I last posted, which, as it was 2 1/2 years ago isn't really surprising. Here is a whistle-stop tour of those happenings:

I left my husband, got my own flat, had an 8 month relationship with a man 21 years younger than me, got dumped, was heartbroken, went to a dance camp weekend, met several more men (not at the dance camp), most of them much younger than me (well, if you can, why wouldn't you?!), became a grandmother, discovered I don't actually hate camping, met another much younger man (24 years this time), fell in love, and accidentally gave up belly dancing. Oh, and I've just moved home. 

So here I am in my lovely new flat, back in the area my kids grew up in, with my gorgeous boyfriend, my fat little 10 month old grandson (who is shaping up to be a proper food-lover) just round the corner and some foodie plans that may or may not come to fruition. And I still have the cat.

Hello again!

Well, goodness, that was a bit of a break, wasn't it? So, what's been happening?

I moved libraries back in September last year. I'm still doing the admin job. I had a little bit of training to do, Outreach Services staff do laptops kind of stuff.

Oh, and the Intuitive Eating thing finally seemed to start working! I've lost almost a stone since the beginning of December (I'm guessing here as I hadn't weighed myself since August) WITHOUT EVEN TRYING!

Ah, and I was asked to join Boomshanka Tribal Belly Dance troupe last Summer, so I am now actually a performance belly dancer!!! Get me!

I'm back!

Actually it's only because I can't get on Facebook tonight to post on my group there. It's called 'I know what Amy has had for tea, including pudding', and was started up by my friend's daughter. I think she was taking the piss, really, because my status was always what I'd had for dinner! Anyway, the group has about 50 members now, some of them are even people I don't know, and although it is mostly still me telling folks what I've had for my dinner (and lunch and breakfast), it's nice because anyone who is a member can post to it, and share recipes, and people do. Even my favourite author, the wonderful Gwyneth Jones, is a member and occasionally contributes.


Anyway, tonight I'm making pea soup, from my friend Tashadot's blog (Life, Love and Muffins), with homemade gluten-free soda bread. It's all on the go at the moment, so it might be awful, it might be fab. I'll let you know later, and take pictures. I'm also making a gluten-free dark ginger cake which smells divine!!

So, it's after dinner now, I can report back. The pea soup was lovely (I added some mint at Mr F-P's request), so thanks for that Tashadot. My 'accidentally' gluten-free soda bread was a success - I'll explain in a minute - and the ginger cake is effin' gorgeous!!


Tashadot said she had soda bread with her pea soup, and as I'm rather partial I thought we would too - to hell with the potential belly ache from the wheat! Anyway, M&S was completely out, the fiends, so I decided as it's quick I would make my own. 'I've got plenty of flour in the cupboard' thinks I. Well, yes, I had, with plenty of flour weevils in it! It takes me sooooo long to use flour that every time I have to buy new because the bloody weevils get it! I also had gluten-free flour mix, soya, chickpea and buckwheat flours and fine polenta (weevils only seem to like wheat, thankfully!). So I decided to try making the bread with the gluten-free flour mix (from Marks, natch). I pulled a simple recipe off the internet and followed it as if I was using ordinary flour. The result is pictured above, and it's lovely, crunchy and dense and with that slight scone flavour - it'll be fab with jam on!


I got a ginger cake recipe from the Juvela website (they make gluten-free prescription products for coeliacs) and altered it a bit to fit what I'd got. Oh my! I've just had a warm slice, the end off the loaf, and it's delicious!


So, my 2 new recipes are below - you'll have to visit Life, Love and Muffins for the pea soup.

Soda Bread

Ingredients

olive oil for greasing

250g/9oz plain g-f flour mix

1 tsp salt

1 tsp bicarb

1 tsp xanthan gum

2 tsp soft brown sugar

225ml/8 floz live yoghurt or buttermilk

Heat oven to 230/445/Gas 8

Sift the flour, salt, soda and xanthan gum into a large bowl

Stir in the yoghurt or buttermilk (I used yoghurt) with a wooden spoon, then use your hands to knead it together. It should feel soft and firm, not sticky. Add more flour if necessary

Shape into a round and place on a greased blaking sheet

Slash a deep cross in the top

Bake for about 12 minutes then turn the oven down to 200/400/Gas 6 and bake for a further 15 to 20 minutes, The bottom of the loaf should sound hollow when you tap it.

Put the loaf to cool for a bit on a wire rack, but do have some while it's still warm. Lots of butter is reccommended with this!

Ginger Cake

200g/8oz gluten-free white flour mix

1 1/2 tsp ground ginger

1tsp bicarb

1tsp xanthan gum

100g/4oz soft brown sugar

50g/2oz butter

100g/4oz black treacle

1 egg

200ml/8floz milk

Grease (and line of necessary - I use silicone so it's not) a 2lb loaf tin

Pre-heat oven to 150degrees/300degrees/Gas 2

Mix the flour, bicarb, xanthan and ginger together in a large bowl

In a small pan melt together the butter, sugar and treacle

Add to the dry mix and combine will

Whisk the egg into the milkj, then add this to the rest

Stir it untill it is well mixed - takes a bit of effort

Pour into the loaf tin and bake for about 1 hour, or until a skewer comes out clean

Leave to cool in the tin for about 10 minutes then turn onto a wire rack.

Christmas cake

I am going to make a gluten-free Christmas cake, or to be more precise, some gluten-free Christmas cakes, as I've got some dinky little pink and blue silicone bun cases I thought would look just lovely. I usually do my Mum a box of mini nice things for Christmas and was about to buy a pretty little cake in John Lewis when I remembered the bun cases. So I'm looking for a recipe quickly before I drink all the rum I bought for it!

On Saturday night I went to Hitchcock's vegetarian restaurant in Hull with the lovely Natasha and the lovely Hannah. It was bloody marvellous. I do get so disappointed by veggie restaurant food, but this was fab. The theme was English food, and there was toad in the hole, shepherd's pie, mushroom and ale pie, Yorkshire puds, roast potatoes, gravy, red cabbage, lots of other veg, cheese sauce, mint sauce, mustard and about 10 different types of pudding!

Mr F-P was a bit poorly last night and had to go to the A&E in an ambulance, doped up with morphine for the pain. Turns out he has kidney stones. It was all rather horrid - not least for him of course!

Anyway, I'll put some pics of the Christmas buns on when I make them.

Paris photos

The Louvre at night.



Football skills man.




Sunny morning, Mr F-P in Jardin du Luxumbourg.





Chat sat.





Really, the best monge.





Breakfast.





Flowers at the market in the square at the bottom of the road.





Our 'compact and bijou' hotel room...





...and the view from the window.





Chocolat chaud

Paris

Mr F-P and I went to Paris at October half term and it was jolly nice, but I have to say that despite no shortage of vegetarian restaurants, the food was pretty poor. Unless you really, really like shredded and grated raw vegetables! We stayed at the Hotel California St Germain, which was.... I have to say functional. Our room was clean, comfortable and warm (too warm!). It was also miniscule and we had to hang out of the window and peer upwards for about 4 floors to see the sky, as both windows opened into sort of ‘chutes’. But it was quiet at least!

We didn’t have breakfast at the hotel as they were charging €12 each. We found a sweet little cafe nearby where we could get a really good cafe au lait and either a croissant or bread and jam, and freshly squeezed orange juice for €6.90 each. The first morning it was so mild and sunny we were even able to have this sitting outside at a pavement table! The cafe, much to Mr F-P’s amusement, was called the Best Monge.

Our first evening we ate at Le Grenier de Notre Dame, where we’ve been a few times before, and we had the seitan steak, which is fabulous. As I am now ‘an intuitive eater’, and the portions were not only humungous but stupidly expensive, I made Mr F-P share with me, which he wasn’t very happy about. I obliged the manager by having his homemade chocolate mousse and it was lovely. Didn’t eat it all though!

The second evening we ate at an organic place very near to our hotel (the Phyto Bar), and were served much in the way of shredded and grated raw vegetables. Mr F-P was true to form and had an omelette with his, but I opted for the seaweed caviar, which was delicious, a spring roll (mediocre) and there was also a ball of some kind of nutty paste stuff which was really, really delicious, but I can’t remember what it was.

I also obliged with the homemade chocolate mousse again (aren’t I kind?) but found this one too sweet.

Night three found us in the Potager du Marais, behind the Centre Pompidou, facing more shredded rawities. Or at least Mr F-P was. He chose the tofu medallion, which was coated in almonds and was very tasty, but not only was there red cabbage on his plate (horror!), there was also, oddly, half a pear. I thought his head was going to explode! I had the seitan bourguignon, which looked unappetising, and didn’t taste of much. At this point Mr F-P said a few choice things about the quality of French vegetarian restaurant food, and vegetarian restaurant food in general and threatened, randomly, to email Jamie Oliver on our return to tell him that I am the best veggie cook in the world. We were both pretty horrified at the prices too!

Anyway, we drank a lot of cafe au laits (at €4 each a pop!!) and I had hot chocolate a few times as well, because they serve it as a little jug of melted chocolate and a larger jug of hot milk and it’s so much nicer than the stuff we get here made from powder and usually tasting of nothing much at all.

We did have a fab time, and the weather was cold and bright. We visited les Invalides and looked at Napoleon’s tomb and an exhibition of stuff from the 2 World Wars, which had Mr F-P make a few more choice comments, this time about surrender monkeys! We walked in the Jardin du Luxembourg, where the leaves were turning gold and red and orange, and we pressed our peasants’ noses up against the shop windows in the ultra posh shopping district between the gardens and the river. We went up to Sacre Coeur and watched the lights of Paris come on, and saw some juggling lads and a football skills artist.

I'll pop some more photos on here in a bit but Mr F-P needs to use the puter to send some football emails now.