Guacamole-ish

I've been having some luck with the special offers corner in my local Waitrose lately. After the £1.11 beef joint which yielded two steaks and two rather yummy salads, I've been casting my eye over it every time I walk past. I've never got that lucky again, but for one, wonderful week, it became apparent that someone was putting the ripe and ready to eat avocados into the discount shelf at 6pm on the day they went out of date. As ripe and ready to eat avocados rarely are, I grabbed them thinking they'd be good - and most of them were. Bizarrely, though, one pack of two consisted of one gorgeously soft avocado - and one so hard it could have been made of rubber.

I'd planned to make this guacamole recipe, one from the hairy bikers that I picked because it didn't contain cream or mayo or anything else odd - I wanted it to taste super-fresh, not like a dip. But the recipe calls for three avocados. I'd planned to make it with two, reducing things slightly - I used a couple of chillies, rather than four, and just one tomato - which would have been fine. But after the rubber avocado, I found myself with a pile of chopped other ingredients, and just one av. So I shrugged and ended up making it with one.

It worked. The result was light, fresh and zingy. It still had the creaminess of the one super ripe avocado, but in texture it was more like a salsa. As someone who's never been that fussed by most salsas - I'm not the world's biggest tomato fan - it was like a perfect blend of salsa and guacamole.

It tasted so light and fresh I didn't want it with tortilla chips or anything greasy - so instead, we use lettuce leaves. They were perfect - little scoops. And because they were so healthy, I didn't feel in the least bit guilty about polishing off a lot of guacamole in one go!

Packed lunch: baked vegetable frittata

So, I'm not blogging much at the moment. Am I the only one who sometimes finds that when the to-do list gets too long, even if each and every one of the things on it is fun, everything becomes a chore, even the things that are meant to be a hobby? 

I'm tired, I've got a couple of (good) things I really need to think hard about, and one or two less fun things to worry at (a boiler being one of them. Sometimes home ownership sucks). There's uncertainty in the air right now, and that always messes with my head. So I've given myself a week or two off feeling guilty about things, for the sake of preserving my sanity. I'll probably blog a bit - the second I no longer feel obliged I'll want to - but it's not going to be every day again for a wee while. Sorry.

I have a holiday coming up in a week, and suspect that after that, I'll be back blogging more frequently.

However, I do need to share this recipe for baked vegetable frittata with you. I wish I could take credit for it, but it's actually (whisper it) from the Weightwatchers website. But it's yummy. And easy. And filling. And if you care about this sort of thing, it's only two propoints a wedge. Unless you're me and decide that the yummyness would only be improved by a tablespoon of mature cheddar on each slice. In which case it's three.

The thing is, I find frittata... hassly. Frying a selection of veg, then the omlette, it all sticking in the pan and being a pain, and the whole flat smelling eggy. But because for this one you cook the veg, then bung 'em all like a dish like a quiche and wander away while it bakes, it's easy. We've had it for dinner - in which case I'd allow a couple of slices, and serve it with something more substantial than a salad - and the leftovers for lunch. And it was so yummy sliced up cold the next day, the following week I made it and we had it for lunches all week. A wedge of not-fried frittata, baked with the cheese on top, and a nice salad. Yum. Go and make yourself some. It's lush.

Spicy parmasan crackers

  

It probably won't come as any surprise to anyone who's noticed the masthead that I rather like gin. The blog name comes from my twitter name, which in turn takes inspiration from a Dresden Dolls song, "Coin-operated boy", and was actually my husband's suggestion - the idea being that I come alive once gin is inserted. True, but in an emergency, wine, or even a nice cup of tea, will do.

But if I have a weakness for a nice gin and tonic, I have even more of a weakness for nibbly things to go with it. Although I like chocolate and enjoy cake, they're seldom my downfall. I am able, should I want to, to eat both in moderation.

When it comes to crisps and savoury nibbles, all moderation goes out of the window. These can't be kept in stock - they must be bought, a couple of packets on a Friday to last us the weekend. I've been known to hide packs of crisps bought on special offer in a different room so I don't see them when I'm opening the kitchen cupboards and become tempted. And while I love posh crisps, I love cheesy crispy things even more. You know the ones - the things that cost at least a couple of pounds a packet, where you look at the calories, go "that's not bad", and the realised it's per three nibbles. Who eats three nibbles?

So when I saw this recipe over at Domestic Sluttery, for parmesan and poppy seed crackers, I had to give them a go - especially as there was surprisingly little butter and parmesan in the recipe. (I am in no way suggesting these as a diet food. It's just they could be a lot worse.)

I liked the recipe, but made a couple of changes for the sake of ease - I didn't bother refrigerating the dough for ten minutes before rolling it into shape, as I have cold enough hands that it didn't go all sticky. And because it was slightly stickier than it would otherwise have been, I was able to roll it in the poppyseeds without needing to mess around with an egg glaze.

Because I wanted nibbles, I rolled it much smaller than recommended - roughly an inch in diameter. This meant that when I cut it up, after being good and putting it into the fridge for half an hour, I had hundreds of the things. Well, eighty.

After baking they certainly looked the part. Only thing was - they were VERY spicey, which was odd, since the recipe only described a "gentle warmth". I don't know if my cayenne pepper is particularly strong, but half a teaspoon was a lot, and they were perhaps more hot than was fun (still finished them all, natch). So next time I'll halve the cayenne. But there will be a next time. Possibly this weekend.

Saturday night's recipe: Ching's won tons

A few weeks ago I bought myself Ching's Chinese Food in Minutes with some birthday money. I'd tried one or two of the recipes before, round at a friend's for dinner, and they were so delicious - and, she insisted, easy - I'd wanted the book since.

So far, I'm really enjoying it. I've cooked a couple of things from it, and keep going back to it for more. I've given it to my Dad for his birthday, alongside a big box of ingredients he'd need to go to a Chinese supermarket to get, ordered from the web. When I bought his box, I decided to buy myself one too, so now I have everything I need.

And on Saturday night, we decided to try her won ton recipe. I love won tons and dim sum -they're my favourite part of a Chinese takeaway, and I was really excited about trying them at home.

The recipe is here and I found it very easy. The only ingredient you couldn't pick up at any supermarket were the won ton wrappers themselves - all the rest you'll be able to get at your local supermarket.

The hardest part was chopping everything up small - we used pork escalopes because we didn't want a whole pound of mince. I should have used the food processor much earlier in the process than I did.

Making the won tons up was fun - you can see the results below. Mine are on the chopping board, The Husband's on the plate. His are more beautiful, but took longer!

Boiling them up was quick and fun - we waited until they rose to the surface, a sign they were cooked, although I found they stuck a bit to the pan and some needed a nudge with a spoon.

And here's the end result! We only made the soy, cider and sesame sauce, not the chilli one, for simplicity and to limit the amount of oil involved. In fact, I think this was a mistake, as without the chilli the dumpling filling was just a tiny bit bland - could have done with the ooomph. But it still tasted and looked great.

We decided to make the full quantity for two people as a main (we'd had some fruit and veg at other points in the day, I promise), but our pack had 30 wrappers, and the recipe catered for 36 won tons, so the remainder I fried off and fed to the cat. He rather liked it!

I was amazed at how relatively easy they were to make, and will make them again. I'd even consider making them as a dinner party starter, as almost all the work can be done in advance, and the final boiling is so quick and easy.

Friday night curry

A couple of years ago I bought myself Anjum Anand's Indian Food Made Easy. I hadn't watched the TV series - strangely, I don't much like watching cooking on television, I'd much rather read about it (although I'll confess to being addicted to Masterchef - largely because it's not really about cooking!)

It took me a while to get into it - for a long time I was slightly too scared of all the ingredients in each recipe. One or two I couldn't even find at the shops. But then Caroline over at Second Hand Shopper came to stay and told me how much she liked the book. She even posted me some dried mango powder to get me going.

And I'm very glad she did! There are a number of recipes in the book I love, but the one I come back to again and again is this one. 

Just to warn you - it's another marinade recipe so requires a little thinking ahead. What we always do is pop the chicken and marinade in a freezer bag in the fridge the night before we want to eat it.

It's enough food to feed an army, and so I tend to quarter the amount of chicken, but halve the amount of sauce and marinade - partly because to quarter it would result in just too little sauce to marinate anything in, and partly because the sauce is amazing.

The reduced quantities mean that the yogurt would reduce too quickly if I left it as it is, so I tend to pop a quarter pint of water in at the beginning and keep an eye on it. I've never made full quantities but suspect it wouldn't be a problem if you were.

And it works perfectly with low fat yogurt, which means that you can actually make it astoundingly healthy.

But the magical thing for me about this recipe is the taste of the sauce - it's spicy but not hot, fresh and just beautiful. Although the recipe says chicken, as the star is the sauce I think it would work equally well with vegetables, chick peas or meat substitute, adjusting the cooking times accordingly.

The result is pretty damn tasty. So tasty, in fact, that when I photographed it I did so in a screaming hurry to go away and eat, and didn't check the results before digging in. Hence dodgy blurred photo below. Apologies - just take it as proof of how good it tastes!

 

Soup of the week: cheat's pea and ham

I love pea and ham soup, but rarely bother to cook it. The version I tend to make is a time-consuming process: split peas have to be soaked overnight, and either a ham hock boiled for hours, the stock reserved and the meat carved, or I need to have left over boiling liquid from a gammon joint and leftover shreds. And that's before I even cook the peas or make the soup! The result is delicious - salty, thick, comforting, filling - frugal, and absolutely the perfect thing in deep midwinter. But to be honest, I can rarely be bothered to make soup that needs me to plan it out the day before.

So when I saw this Heston Blumenthal for Waitrose recipe, using garden peas, skipping stock and frying bacon with the onion instead, and chucking in bought ham hock at the end, I was tempted.

But then I looked more closely at the method. Um, thawing peas on a baking tray lined with kitchen paper? It gave me visions of peas everywhere but the tray. And as for the mint oil and careful sieving - for a dinner party maybe. Not for a weekday packed lunch.

So below is my heavily modified recipe.

You'll see that we start with the same ingredients, minus the faffing round for mint oil doubled up as ever to make eight portions, although I didn't double the ham hock because I didn't want to pay for two preprepared packs, and I used a 275g pack of bacon, rather than the 320g that would have come from strict doubling, because that was the size of the packet in front of me.

To make 8 portions I used:
Splash olive oil
7 shallots (the amount left in the bag in my drawer)
1.5l veg stock
275g unsmoked bacon
One 180g pack pulled ham hock
1.8kg peas

Rather than carefully defrosting the peas, I just didn't put the bag in the freezer when I got it home from the supermarket!
An hour or so later, I fried up the diced shallots and scissor-cut bacon in a splash of oil to stop things sticking before the bacon gave up its fat.
I then bunged in the stock and brought it to a rolling boil.
Then I added the peas, which were still pretty much frozen, and waited for the mix to come back to the boil, which took a while. Long enough for me to wash up everything else!
I left it boiling for a minute, mostly because it had taken so much effort to get it there I wanted to leave it for a bit.
Then I got out my trusted stick blender, and ta-da!

Yeah, I'm fully aware it looks more like I've pureed Kermit the Frog than a kilo of peas, and that not sieving it has left it distinctly rustic looking. I've made my peace with that.

I then divided up the soup into containers, and popped bits of ham hock on top.

As you'll see, there was still plenty to go round, even without doubling up - in fact, there would have been far too much for my tastes if I had.

The result was completely different from the pea and ham soup I normally make. Fresh tasting, and predominantly sweet, because of the peas and the unsmoked bacon - I think next time I might try smoked to add another flavour it. And although it had much more actual meat in it than the version I usually make, which relies on stock for flavour, it had less of a ham flavour. To be honest, I think it would be nicer - as well healthier - made with a ham stock, rather than by pureeing up all that bacon, all the bacon was a very useful short cut.

But I like the simplicity and the lurid colour that comes from using frozen garden peas rather than yellow split peas, and will try that again next winter.

I say next winter, because I think soup of the week may be about to take a bit of a break. It's getting warmer and sunnier here in Edinburgh. I've got some holiday coming up, which means I won't be needing weekday lunches for a bit. And when I come back, I think it might be times for salads, cous cous, bulgar wheat and other warm weather alternatives. I hope so! I'll blog the ones of these that feel more like recipes and less like desperately thrown-together mixtures. Although I'll share the good ones of those too.

Soup of the week: spicey red lentil with cumin and tomato

This recipe has stood me in good stead for at least three years now, and it's probably the single recipe I've pressed on people most. There have been winters when we've had it pretty much every other week because all other inspiration has departed. Now, I try to have it less often, because that way I remember how truly delicious it is and appreciate how incredibly easy and cheap it is, without getting bored with it.

But we spent last weekend at a wedding, and I have to say by the time we got back on Sunday afternoon, exhausted, hungover and smiley, I was pretty proud of myself for heading towards the kitchen at all, even if it was just to heat up a supermarket faux takeaway, knock up another batch of blondies rather than trying something new, and to make the easiest soup I know.

The thing that's galling about this recipe, though, is that I've never managed to improve on it. I must have cooked it twenty times, but I've never found an adjustment that improves on the original. Changing the spicing slightly? Meh. Making it thicker, or thinner? Not right.

The only thing I've learnt is that it tastes better using a stock other than marigold bouillon powder. It's fine with it (and nine times out of ten that's what I have in the cupboard), but with chicken stock, real or cubed, or even another veg stock cube or powder that doesn't reek quite so much of celery, it's a bit nicer.

So here are the ingredients:

Here is a link to a Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall  recipe so good I can't improve it (I do tend to ignore the yoghurty bit though - life is short).

And here is the finished result, doubled up so it serves eight as ever.

Oh, and did I mention that, made with the right stock, not only is it veggie but it's also vegan? Man is a genius. That is all.

Baking: Hummingbird marshmallow cupcakes, and a way to carry them

Last week I travelled down for a meeting in our Newcastle office. I wanted to thank my colleagues there for helping me out a few weeks ago, and I’d vaguely promised to bake.

I decided to make the prettiest cupcakes I could, partly to show off a bit but mostly because it’s hard not to smile when about to bite into a super pretty cupcake with a mountain of icing.

I spotted the recipe for marshmallow cupcakes in my Hummingbird Bakery book and it looked perfect (I’m squeamish about copying it here because of copyright, but it’s here).

Until I remembered my boss is vegetarian, and a strict one – she wouldn’t touch the gelatine in marshmallows.

So I made half with the marshmallow – on the right, pictured – and added a couple of drops of red, suitable-for-veggies food colouring to the other half of the icing to make it pink.

But the other problem was how to get them down to Newcastle on the train in tact. I’d been thinking about this for a while after too many experiences baking pretty cup cakes for cake sales, and having them get squashed and ruined on the bus.

So I sent the Husband to Lakeland to buy me this.

 

It’s huge, and would be a pain if you had too much else to carry, but it does the job. It has an indented space for each cupcake, can also hold 24 mini ones or one big cake, and clips together sturdily. I have never attracted so many stares when walking through Waverley station as I did when I was carrying this and the cakes, and I think if our train had been delayed I would have had to fight off my fellow passengers.

The cup cake caddy didn't work perfectly - when I got on to the train, some toppled and had to be rearranged - but they all made it down in tact and it survived most things - getting on and off the bus for example - just not the mad rush for seats on the 8am train down to London!

The cupcakes were very well received in the office - a horde of very happy gannets descended - but my colleagues were also intrigued by the carrier itself and wanted to know where I got it. If the Newcastle branch of Lakeland has sold out, I'm sorry, it's my fault.

Soup of the week: butter bean, thyme and chilli oil

Well, seeing as I cook a big batch of soup pretty much every week to see us through workday lunches, and seeing as a large proportion of my posts seem to be about said soup making, I might as well call it a regular feature.

Here are the ground rules. I tend to cook a big batch of soup on a Sunday - eight portions, to see us through Monday-Thursday at work. Friday is treat day. They get shoved into tupperware on Sunday, sometimes the ones for the end of the week are frozen, sometimes we decide the fridge is cold, Edinburgh is cold, and we've both got decent immune systems, and they just stay in the fridge. Our freezer is basically just an ice box at the top of the fridge, and looks very full with a bag of peas, some stock and some ice cubes, so risks have to be taken. The lack of freezer space also explains the soup monotony - I'd love to be able to freeze ahead and mix it up, but it's just not possible right now.

The enormous quantities required mean I spend a lot of the time doubling recipes, so it's safe to guess that my recipes can be halved. quartered and so on!

We aren't veggie, buy my soups are almost always suitable for veggies - if I've used meat stock because it's what I have in, substitute with veg. And the dairy can pretty much always be skipped to make them vegan friendly too.

When the weather gets warm, or we get fed up of soup, soup making is suspended and replaced with salads, cous cous etc made rather more piece meal throughout the week. However, I live in Edinburgh. The summer is short. Soup's a feature of life here!

So here's this week's soup - Butter Bean, thyme and Chilli Oil

The recipe originally comes from here but I upped the quantities, used tinned rather than dried beans and fiddled round with the proportions, so I'll tell you what I did. It wasn't difficult.

Ingredients all laid out

Ingredients
Four tins butter beans
Two litres veg stock (cubes or powder are fine)
Two onions, diced
Three large carrots, chopped
Four large sticks of celery, chopped
Two fat cloves of garlic, chopped
Two bay leaves
A few sprigs of thyme leaves
Chilli oil
1-2 tbsps low fat Creme Fraiche - optional (and not an option if you're cooking the vegan version)
Olive oil
Pinch cayenne pepper
Salt and pepper

1. Soften the onions and garlic in the olive oil for a minute or two. Add the carrots and celery and soften while you drain and rinse the butter beans throughly.
2. Add veg stock and butter beans, bay leaves and a couple of sprigs of thyme, cover and boil for 20 minutes or until everything is soft.
3. Taste and adjust seasoning. At this point I thought it was a bit "meh" so whacked in more salt, a pinch of cayenne pepper and some creme fraiche I had in the fridge that needed using up, which seemed to help.
4. Fish out thyme sprigs and bay leaves. Puree using a stick blender.
5. Dish up. The original recipe suggests swirling chilli oil prettily on top. I attempted this but it was pretty much mixed in to the rest of the soup by the time I got it to work. However, I could taste it and it did lift it from a plain bean and veg soup. I divided the rest of the thyme leaves between the pots, they made a big difference too.



The finished product. I'd already dished up half
before I remembered to take a picture.

It looks bland without the chilli oil and thyme, but with them it became great - soothing, certainly, but with a bit of a kick from the chilli oil and cayenne, and a freshness from the thyme.

Yes, more soup.

Mmm.

Ok, ok... it does taste a lot better than it looks

Anyone who's stuck with me through various interruptions will have gathered one thing: I cook a lot of soup. It's really all about practicality - there isn't really a nicer, easier way to have a warm, healthy, cheap and delicious lunch at work, especially in the Edinburgh winters and the deceptively cold Edinburgh springs.

Now we've given up on the veg box, though, I'm not faced with a once-a-fortnight recipe challenge involving a pile of unappetising, knobbly-looking veg and a stock cube. This means I can have more variety - look, no beetroot! - but also means I've been running out of ideas.

So when I read this recipe for Black Bean soup in Saturday's Guardian I had to give it a go. It's a Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall recipe, with tomatoes, beans, chilli and spices. I doubled up the quantities and there was enough for eight medium portions. I didn't bother blending any of it - he said to blend just half, but life's just too short for blending that can't be done easily with a stick blender in the cooking pot. I was out of ground coriander so substituted garam masala. I'm adding a dollop of sour cream and a couple of coriander leaves to each in the morning before taking it to work.

It's absolutely delicious. I was worried it would be too hot, but actually it just has the smallest kick - I might throw an extra chilli in next time. But it's both rich and fresh tasting. I can't wait to finish it all up.

Tempted by Jansson

Doesn't look like the beginnings of a luxurious dinner, does it?

We have had a jar of nice anchovies opened in the fridge for a few days now. The jar was part of Christmas present from my parents to The Husband - lots of nice foody bits and bobs from Carluccio's. I'd opened it and used a couple of anchovies to add depth to a pasta sauce last week, and knew I had to use them up but wasn't quite sure what to do with them.

The problem is, I'm not mad on anchovies. I love them as a secret ingredient, chopped up and melted into a sauce, but when I have them on a pizza, I end up peeling off all but one or two, and eating just the tiniest bit with every mouthful - I can't eat a whole one, they're too strong.

So when I read Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall in Saturday's Guardian talking about canned ingredients and giving a recipe for an alternative version of Jansson's Temptation using sardines, but mentioning that the original version had anchovies, I was intrigued.

I googled, and found this recipe on Waitrose's website. I loved the story they gave - that the dish tempted a religious fanatic named Jansson who had renounced earthly pleasures. And I loved the frugality and simplicity - and the fact that the anchovies were chopped up finely!

Still not overly promising

So I made it for dinner last night, frying the onions in the anchovy oil - a thrifty touch I loved - before adding matchsticked potatoes, and finally the cream and finely chopped anchovies and putting it in the oven to bake.



Yum



It was the most delicious meal imaginable. It uses a tiny amount of cream, and yet was so rich. The flavour of the anchovies blended with the onions and potatoes to create a beautiful scented savoury taste, with little spikes of sweetness. It cost about tuppance h'apenny and took (thanks to the food processor) 10 minutes of work plus baking to make.

I'd recommend this one. Even if you don't like anchovies!