soup for the week ahead

Tonight I did something I have never done before in preparation for the week of work. Perhaps it is the healthy living magazine (Zest) I have been reading. Or perhaps that my mother told me she is totally eating low GI now (what an inspiration!). I prepared a soup tonight to eat over the week and I made the first two days of salad to go with it.

I made Caribbean Sweet Potato Coconut Soup from my new Moosewood Restaurant Daily Special cookbook (page 29 for the one reader who may be interested!). Here I am defrosting 2 cups of stock that I had frozen in cup measures, then popped out into a freezer bag. (Hey--I forgot to tell you that I roasted my first chicken two Saturdays ago and then I made my first stock the next day with the bones. All with the help of Mr Bittman.)


And the soup is made with lots of lovely sweet vegetables and coconut milk and orange juice. I had a small bowl tonight and I have a flask I will use to take it to school this week.

food for my British party

I had such a great time last night celebrating my citizenship with some friends who came over. It was really nice to have my friends mix as well--not something that happens very much. I had some colleagues, some church friends, some new friends, and some of Ant's friends there. I wish I had taken more pictures! I guess I was too busy pulling things out of the oven and topping up (or was it emptying?) the Pimm's pitcher.

Dave was pressed into service when he arrived and he constructed this amazing cheese and pineapple hedgehog. Ant told me that this was a food he always ate in Liverpool when he was young, and my British guests confirmed that they remembered it from their childhoods.


Ant made the cucumber sandwiches and they were snapped up. I managed to get a photo just before they were all devoured. Very British with the crusts removed.


I ordered most of the other food from Sainsbury's: toad-in-the-hole, steak and kidney pies, cocktail sausages, onion bhajis, vegetable spring rolls and samosas, quiches. I did make the puddings, though, chocolate trifle and cream scones. I am so pleased with the scones (from my new Bittman cookbook), which we ate with clotted cream and Grammie's strawberry and raspberry jams. Yummm--it was delicious.

party food

This is turning into a place to do some scratch paper thinking when I know that I need to find it again.

British party food
tea
scones with clotted cream and jam (strawberry and raspberry)
other drinks: need mixers and juices, squash
trifle
cucumber sandwiches
sausage rolls
toad in the hole
steak and kidney pie
crisps
quiches
veggies with dip
scotch eggs
cheese and pineapple hedgehog

things that need to heated:
pies
toad in the hole
quiches

things that need to be made:
scones
trifle
cucumber sandwiches
dip and veggies
hedgehog

veggie bread ring

Ant and I have almost slept off our jet lag and we're pleased to be in Halifax with the parental figures. Yesterday Mum helped me bake a veggie bread ring. Baking is not really my thing, but I gave it a go because this recipe sounded really interesting. Here is the veggie filling, made with purple cabbage, broccoli, shredded carrot, chives, cottage cheese and cheddar cheese.


Then I rolled out the zucchini bread dough and spread the filling on it.


I rolled it up and cut it into a ring like this. Fancy, eh? We ate it when Kevin and Sonya came over for dinner last night. The recipe is from Simply in Season, a cookbook which my Mum bought both for herself and me.


Yesterday afternoon Ant and I spent some time with Tawnya. Since it was raining we headed into Perks and had a hot beverage. Tawnya has become a lover of espresso after her time in Italy. She said the Perks double espresso was not very smooth and was burnt. Ant had a "coffee crisp", which was very sweet. And I had this green monstrosity, which smelled like seaweed and tasted like vanilla had been added to mask the real flavour. Apparently it is very healthy, but I was unable to finish it because it was quite vile.

four great places to get food inspiration

There are lots of places on the web from which to get cooking ideas. Here are four of my favourites.

1. The Kitchn
This a big cooking blog with writers in the US, Canada, and (at least one!) in Europe. What I like about The Kitchn is that the posts are very accessible and friendly, with a community discussion feel. They always have nice ideas to share, but also talk about their cooking failures. I have enjoyed reading, for example, about what they tried when too many cucumbers built up in the fridge.

2. Cookthink
This is a searchable recipe database that lets you type in keywords such as ingredients, meal type, cuisine type, or even your mood. The recipes that come up are invariably very good. At the moment, it's still a small-ish database, but all of the handful of recipes I have tried so far have been excellent. Last night i made Seared Cumin Lemon Lamb Chops, which was easy and delicious. There are always suggestions of what recipes would go with the one you are viewing, and also an informative weekly email newsletter that spotlights an interesting ingredient and how to use it.

3. Bitten
I am new to Mark Bittman and his writings in the New York Times Dining and Wine section, but I loved his post about how to make mix-and-match rice salads.

4. Other Bloggers
I read the blogs of other food-lovers, like Clotilde at Chocolate and Zucchini and David on Book the Cook. My friends blog about food on their personal sites, too, like Sonya (her's is a gated blog, so email her [or me] to get added to her readership). I also see some interesting food-related stuff on Facebook, like Carolyn's homemade wholewheat pasta.

Foodies, tell me, are there any great cooking sites online that you like to look to for inspiration?

PS. You do not need to be a Blogger member to be able to comment. Furthermore, if you comment you can use your name or remain anonymous as you wish.

soup

I pulled up all the rocket left in my growing tub yesterday. It was getting a bit woody and too peppery to eat raw. So I was excited to use it all up in a soup recipe from my new favourite cookbook, GI Meals Made Easy.


The soup also uses finely chopped onion, courgette, new potatoes, and garlic, shown here from right to left. After some sauteing and sweating, and stock added, the soup is blended with the wonderful invention of the handheld immersion blender. Ant did this part because I am notoriously messy with the blender.


The addition of some goat's cheese topped off the lovely light green soup.

Rocket and Goat's Cheese Soup
adapted from GI Meals Made Easy: 150 Quick and Delicious Meals for All the Family

1 T olive oil
10 g butter
1 leek, sliced
1 medium or large courgette, sliced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
3 new potatoes, diced
600 ml vegetable stock
100 g rocket
75g firm goat's cheese

Heat the oil and butter and saute the leek, courgette, garlic, and potato over high heat for 1-2 minutes. Then reduce heat, cover, and allow to sweat for 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Pour in the stock and bring to the boil. Simmer for 10 minutes. Add rocket and simmer for 5 minutes. Blend the soup.
Crumble in goat's cheese when serving.

for whom are the potatoes named?

Last week we ate some Anya potatoes. They were on sale at Sainsbury's so I thought I would give them a try.


Here is what the package said about how they got their name.


This got me thinking. Usually a new item is named after the discoverer/inventor/researcher. What I want to know is how often is an item named after the discoverer's/inventor's/researcher's spouse? Can you think of any other examples?

pink spice cake

I made this pink fruit and nut cake last night. It was a delicious spice cake that I made with the help of my new cookbook.

The cake has raisins and walnuts with spices. This cake also has a secret ingredient. Let me show you the process in reverse and you see if you can guess what is in it.


The batter was really pink and thick. Next time I will add more milk because it was also not as moist as I would hope.

I pretty much bought the cookbook because of this one recipe. Otherwise I would never have the patience to do so much mixing. Here I am trying to fold the stiff egg whites into the mixture. I ended up using three bowls (!): one for the dry ingredients, one for the wet ingredients, and a third to whip the egg whites.


Here are the wet and dry bowls. I like that the recipe calls for wholemeal flour and not very much sugar. (These two items are clearly factors in making this a low GI recipe, and hence more healthy.) The wet ingredients are very pink, eh?


Have you guessed? What is the mystery ingredient that makes this cake so pink? Well, you've heard of carrot cake; this one was beetroot cake. The books says the practice of sweetening cakes with root vegetables is actually centuries old. I was so inspired by the idea of a beetroot cake that I had to buy the book when I read it. Here's the recipe in case you are similarly inspired.

Pink Fruit and Nut Cake
adapted from GI Meals Made Easy: 150 Quick and Delicious Meals for All the Family

2 cups (250 g) wholemeal flour
2 heaped teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon each cinnamon, allspice, and ground ginger
1/3 cup (75 g) sugar
2 medium (200 g) beetroot, peeled and grated
1/2 cup (50 g) sultanas
3/4 cup (50 g) walnuts, chopped
100 ml vegetable oil
1 ripe banana, mashed
3 eggs, separated
50-75 ml milk (but next time I am going to use double this)
Greek yoghurt or reduced fat creme fraiche, to serve

Preheat the oven to 180 C (350 F) and line a 20 cm (8 in) round pan.

Stir together the flour, baking powder, spices, and sugar in a large bowl.

In a second bowl, mix the beetroot, sultanas, walnuts, oil, mashed banana, and egg yolks.

In a third bowl, whisk the egg whites to the stiff peaks stage.

Add the beetroot mixture to the dry ingredients. Add enough milk to make a dorpping consistency (what does this even mean??). Gently fold in a tablespoonful of egg white before folding in the rest.

Pour the batter into the lined tin. Bake for about 1 hour, or until an inserted knife comes out clean. Cool on a rack and serve with Greek yoghurt or creme fraiche.

eating while sick

I have been off sick today and really needed the extra rest. (Amazing--I have just had a week's holiday!) I have spent most of the day sleeping; I also ate some roasted vegetables with polenta, my first recipe from my new cookbook, GI Meals Made Easy.

books for cooks

Yesterday I made it over to Notting Hill to visit Books for Cooks. It is just off Portobello Road; I read about it online at The Kitchn, a website that regularly inspires me. I had a seat on the red squishy sofa, browsing through their floor-to-ceiling shelves of cookbooks. It was a lovely, relaxing afternoon destination.

I am becoming more and more convinced about the health of eating low GI meals. I already have the original GI Diet book by Rick Gallop (formerly president and CEO of the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario). I am starting to cook and eat according to his suggestions and so the cookbook I bought was GI Meals Made Easy: 150 Quick and Delicious Meals for All the Family.


Low glycaemic index meals don't spike blood sugar or insulin production and so they help you feel full for longer and give you a more stable energy level. They are also high in fibre and nutrients--really the GI diet is less a temporary diet and more a healthy way of eating forever.