Moroccan Vegetable Stew

Happy New Year!

Back in 2013 I wrote what was meant to be the start of the end of my food bloging adventure.  I had planned on cooking and writing some last supper type meals and slowly wind down TM from the once daily blog to something I could occasionally dip into.  It turns out that what I had done was given myself permission to drop the blog like a hot potato.

There has been a lot of eating in the past six months and quite a lot of the dishes were the type that I had intended to write about.  Along with the things that folk would consider to be standard fare, rabbit has featured a number of times, as have a number of dishes using offal, and a great squid curry.  It is these dishes that have stayed in my mind, the ones using unusual ingredients.

Now I don't make New Years resolutions, but I am determined to eat a more varied selection of food in 2015.  We are lucky in Leeds that we have a glorious market.  I know that the building itself has seen better days, but the stalls and the people who run them are wonderful and well worth using.  We also have some great local shops that I fully intend making more use of.

Tonight's Menu comes courtesy of a couple of my locals.  Having gorged ourselves over the Christmas Holidays we decided that we needed to up our vegetable intake.  Our festive Market Delivered fruit box had provided us with a pomegranate that needed using and a tajine was born.

Aubergines, courgettes, peppers, carrots, onions, and garlic were simmered in a tin of tomatoes and stock with a couple of tablespoons of Ras El Hanout.  After an hour and a half delicious, rich, wintery stew was ready, all that was left to do was to make some couscous flavoured with coriander, parsley and some of the pomegranate seeds.

I also added some preserved lemons and some grape molasses to the stew but only because I happened to have them at the back of the fridge.  This is the healthiest meal that I have eaten all year and probably the healthiest I've had in the last three weeks and one I will do again.  For the record, I really don't see the point in aubergines but having found some interesting varieties locally I decided that they count as something that I don't normally eat.

I will try to keep you updated as I try to vary my diet during 2015 and I'd love to hear of any unusual foods you find, or if there is anything that you wouldn't eat that I could try to change your mind on.

World Cup Food Challenge: Switzerland - Pizzocheri

I had always assumed that Switzerland would be the runners up in Group E.  That said it all came down to the last match.  France didn't do them any favours, only managing a draw against Ecuador.  A spirited 3-0 victory against Honduras was enough for the Swiss team to book their place in tonight's match against the mighty Argentina.

Having made a fondue for Switzerland in the opening round of the World Cup Food Challenge I was stumped for what to cook tonight.  What other food is synonymous with the Swiss?  I didn't want to start messing around with chocolate.  I have fought the good fight against rosties in the past and frankly, I never want to eat burnt and raw grated potato again.  Other possibilities included Muesli, but I want an evening meal not breakfast, and Berner Platte, but that is too similar to last night's choucroute garni and I couldn't face that again for a while.

Then I discovered that the Swiss have a healthy love for pasta.  Sharing a border with Italy was bound to rub off some influences.  Unlike the Italians though, the Swiss favour buckwheat pasta and I couldn't think of anywhere in Leeds that I'd be able to buy any, so I decided to make my own from scratch.  All I needed was some buckwheat flour and I had two options of where to get some.  My first were sold out and expecting a delivery on Friday, my second choice, Out of This World, had flour aplenty.

Making the pasta was child's play, so much so that I employed R, with a little supervision, to cut out the pasta after we had made the dough.  I'm sure Pizzocheri isn't meant to have wavy edges but that is the cutter that he chose.  The strips of pasta were cooked in plenty of boiling water with some potatoes, green beans and spinach.  Once cooked and drained the pasta and vegetables were layered with cheese in an oven proof dish and topped with fried onions, garlic, sage leaves and melted butter.

My favourite line of the recipe is the last one.  "Bake in preheated oven for 5–10 minutes at 250 ºCelsius. The cheese must melt."  And melt it did.  A bit of research into pizzocheri tells you that this is a favourite winter warmer and I can see why.  It definitely fits into the comfort food category.  The pasta has a lovely flavour from the buckwheat, and who doesn't love double carbs?

Sadly, by the time I had finished eating, Switzerland had been knocked out of the world cup by Argentina.  I know I'll be making fondue again and I'm sure that pizzocheri will make a return when the cold weather sets in.

Cabbage Bake

There is very little that is inspiring in a blog post entitled "Cabbage Bake".  In fact I had considered calling this post something else just to get your attention, but if you have made it this far, please stick with me, I hope you won't be disappointed.  The fact is, during my blogging hiatus* we've cooked this dish on more than one occasion, so it feels only right that it gets a look in. 

Now, I'm not the kind of person that will revisit a dish unless it's worth eating, so that should tell you something.  I can't remember the exact details on the night we first cooked it, but tonight we had good reason to look up the recipe again in Russian, German & Polish Food and Cooking by Lesley Chamberlain.  That reason was being in possession of a whole savoy cabbage that we needed to eat before another one turned up a couple of days later.

But why bother buying another cabbage if you already have one?  Well, since giving up Supermarkets for Lent we have been using the excellent Market Delivered service to get fresh fruit and vegetables from Kirkgate Market on an almost weekly basis.  We have found that the secret to veg boxes is to wait until the order has turned up and then meal plan.  As we're still not clear of the "hungry gap" in the growing season, cabbages are turning up in most boxes, so using them is always on our minds.

We often steam cabbage, to have as a side veg, or add it to stir fries and curries, but this week we had managed to neglect our cabbage altogether.  Our need to get it eaten was therefore high, before it became that most horrible of things, wasted food.  We needed a recipe that would use it all not just a few leaves and that is where the cabbage bake comes in.

The shredded cabbage is cooked in a little stock until just soft, drained, seasoned and spread into an oven proof dish.  The cabbage is topped with a layer of sliced tomatoes and then baked for 30 to 40 minutes.  Nothing could be simpler.  We happened to have a pack of kielbasa sausages that I'd picked up from our local Lithuanian store, so we chopped them up and added them to the cabbage before adding the tomato lid.  I know that makes calling this a vegetarian dish a flight of fancy, but trust me, it works just as well without the meat.

*it's been over seventy days since my last post.

Summer Vegetable Lasagne

Yesterday I proclaimed that our star find at last weekend's Headingley Farmers Market was an enormous Pattypan Squash.  Although it is quite a thing to behold, it's size was not the deciding factor in us buying it.  We have tried on numerous occasions to grow pattypans with very limited success.  On the allotment we only got two or three tennis ball sized squashes and at home the seeds failed to germinate.

Pattypans are closer to courgette than pumpkin on the squash scale.  I love courgettes but the pattypan has become ellusive so when I saw one on the market I bought it without hesitation.  My plan was to thinly slice the pattypan, gently fry the slices and use them as a replacement for lasagne sheets.  This plan was scuppered when I realised that the mammoth squash's skin wasn't as soft and delicate as the tender young squashes that I had managed to grow.

The skin was as hard as Rhino hide and once I had managed to halve the pattypan I discovered that the flesh wasn't as yielding either.  I decided to include the pattypan in the tomato sauce that I would have made for the lasagne and use the mixture to stuff cannelloni, only to discover that the packet of cannelloni that was tucked at the back of the cupboard only had three tubes in it.

Luckily we had enough sheets of lasagne to make a fantastic meal.  The sauce had onion, garlic, peppers, fresh tomatoes, oregano, basil and of course half of the pattypan squash.  It was simmered together and seasoned before becoming the first, second and third layers of the lasagne.  It was topped with a cheesy bechamel sauce, some mozzarella and baked for half an hour.

The resulting lasagne was honestly the best I have ever cooked at home.  They often dry out when I cook them, but the moisture from the vegetables helped to cook the pasta sheets perfectly.  I didn't even miss the obligatory meat layer.  I still have half of the pattypan left over too, if you have any ideas what I should do with it I'd love to hear them.

Macaroni Cheese

It's funny how these things happen.  There was I, extolling the virtues of Rick Stein's India, when an on-line conversation moved rapidly from curry to Macaroni Cheese via pork chops and pesto.  There and then I knew that it wouldn't be long until it found its way into our plans.  That was last week and it happened in a corner of the internet that isn't full of my usual cohort of foodies.

Imagine my surprise then, when one of my food friends started talking about having macaroni and cheese.  In a third and unrelated conversation about meal planning, an other friend decided to change their plans for stuffed rolled pork loin in favour of "mac and chee", such is the power of suggestion.  

We had planned to have our macaroni and cheese on Thursday as a family meal after a day out together.  Our plans were changed however by a belly busting lunch in town.  By the time R's tea time came around we were still full and not in the slightest bit interested in eating more food.

Any other meal may well have fallen off the meal planner for a week or two, but macaroni cheese has a strange power.  Once you have decided that you are going to cook it, it has to be cooked, as my on-line discussions seemed to prove.  Our planned meal for this evening was steak with boulangere potatoes.  We'll now be having that some time next week.

As with so many family favourites, macaroni and cheese is a very personal dish.  Some people will use any old pasta shape.  Some will have a particular cheese that must be in the sauce.  We stick to macaroni but use whatever cheese we have in the house.  Today our sauce had mature cheddar, wenslydale and jarlesberg.  Along with cheese and pasta, our macaroni cheese is always topped with sliced tomatoes, breadcrumbs and extra cheese.  Sadly there were no leftovers, but we do still have steak to look forward to, so all is not lost.

Black Pepper Tofu

A little while ago I was lent a copy of Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi.  I was told by many people that it was their favourite cookery book, filled with superb recipes that I would love cooking.  This news filled me with joy and I was salivating at the prospect of some vegetarian Middle-Eastern food inspiration.

I'll be honest, my excitement died down pretty quickly.  I don't know what it was but none of the glorious recipes made me want to cook them.  Yes the dishes all sounded great.  If I'd been offered any of them in a restaurant I would have been more than happy.  But, as with so many other cookery books, Plenty would have been destined to loiter, unused, on our book case, if it was ours.  Because it was borrowed however, we were determined to find a recipe that we liked the sound of and wanted to cook.

One of the recipes that we'd picked out was for Black Pepper Tofu and, as we had half a block of tofu left over from making Pad Thai, we thought we would give it a go.  The recipe was simple enough.  Crispy fried tofu was added to fried onions, chillies and garlic.  Sweet and light soy sauce were added next along with some sugar and the key ingredient, ground black pepper.  A handful of spring onions was all that was needed to finish the dish.

I have never been so glad that I hadn't added more black pepper to a dish in my life.  I had reduced the quantities of the pepper and the chilli but the dish was almost unpalatable.  The first couple of mouthfuls were great but, unlike the peak and trough heat that you get from chillies, the black pepper was unrelenting.  Every mouthful needed to be washed down.  It's fair to say we won't be cooking this again, but we still have a couple more recipes from Plenty to try before it is dismissed totally.

Meat Free March - Dirty John Quinoa

Over the course of writing Tonight's Menu, I have managed to coerce quite a few people to give up their time and blogs, to take part in my hair-brained schemes and challenges.  When the opportunity to help a fellow food-blogger by taking part in their challenge arose I felt honour bound to offer my time and blog.

Meat Free March is exactly as it sounds, a whole month without a meaty morsel passing your lips.  I'm a card carrying carnivore and quite often sneak extra meat into vegetarian recipes* so I couldn't have signed up for the whole month. I don't know if it was Becs, from Bits and Bobs Becs, or Fay, from Food Fables, who came up with the idea of not eating meat, but I think I'm right** in saying that as we get towards the end of March their resistance to the call of bacon has stated to wane.

The Meat Free March Recipe Swap is not only a way for bloggers to come together and share ideas, it is also a good chance for Becs and Fay to get inspiration for the final push towards April and the promise of a juicy steak.  I am of course assuming that neither of them are have been converted to a life of vegetables.

Last week I spent hours trawling the internet and thumbing through cookery books to find that one elusive meat free recipe I wanted to share, and could act as inspiration to Becs and Fay.  I even went back through my blog posts on here to see if there was anything in particular that I thought somebody might want to cook.  That was when I received the email with my recipe swap partner's details.  I had another challenge, my swapee was vegan.

I went back through the books and bookmarked websites and, without fail, every recipe I had chosen had cheese, cream or eggs as an ingredient.  A second, more directed search and I was back on track.  As per the rules of engagement I posted my chosen recipe along with a couple of choice ingredients and sat back to await the arrival of my mystery package.

I didn't have to wait for long.  The recipe I received was for Dirty John Quinoa which was an adapted recipe from Fresh from the Vegan Slow Cooker by Robin Robertson.  It was written out inside a cute owl greetings card and came complete with a bag of quinoa.  I've had quinoa in the past but had decided that it was just another grain and quite pricey, so I didn't get into the habit of buying it.  It is known as a super grain as it packs more protein than any other pulse which is why vegans love it.

My initial response to the recipe was not one filled with joy.  Firstly, I don't own a slow cooker.  I do however have a decent conventional cooker and some good pans.  Secondly the list of ingredients felt a bit miss-matched, but who am I to argue with Robin, she's written more vegetarian and vegan cookery books than I've had vegan meals.

Onions and garlic were fried off before a yellow pepper, 180g of quinoa, a pack of mushrooms, two tins of black eye beans, a tin of tomatoes, a dried chilli, smoked paprika, thyme and veg stock were all added to the pan to cook for a couple of hours.  Half way through cooking this was still not looking promising.  The earthy smells of the mushrooms and the beans were fighting against the smoked paprika and thyme.

There was no turning back however, we had nothing else in and had invested too long on the meal.  I needn't have worried.  Through some bizarre alchemy the casserole came together and the flavours married.  Quinoa has a peculiar texture, still crunchy after two and a half hours cooking, but that worked against the softness of the rest of the vegetables.  There was also a pleasant heat from the chilli and paprika that even R didn't find too spicy.

I won't go into the mechanics of the recipe swap as you can find the full details on either of Becs' and Fay's blogs.  These two need applauding for their efforts in exploring vegetarian food and encouraging others to drop meat every now and then.  I hope my swap partner enjoyed the recipe that I sent to them.  I liked Dirty John but I don't think I'll be adding it to my repertoire any time soon.

*not if I'm serving the meal to vegetarians, I'm not that nasty.
**I have been known to be wrong and this could be one of those occasions.

Carrot and Sweet Potato Curry

An unintentional and not all together unwelcome side effect of this year's food challenge, is that when I'm not thinking about pig I'm thinking a lot more about vegetables.  This is possibly down to the amount of time I am spending on Leeds Kirkgate market.  You can find me most Saturday mornings wandering around Butchers Row mulling over the porky possibilities.  Afterwards, meat in hand,  I like to fill my shopping bags with as much fruit and veg as I can carry home*.

I still find myself buying additional veg in the supermarket.  A couple of weeks ago I went green veg mad and bought pak choi, kale and spinach.  I must have been feeling run down and lacking in iron.  We managed to plough our way through the greens but that was at the expense of the carrots I had already bought on the market.

My initial thought, whenever I have any leftover vegetables, is soup.  However this wasn't a handful of carrots left over from a meal, this was a full bag of carrots whose potential had never been met.  I felt that it was only fitting to make them the star of a meal but I couldn't get soup out of my head.  It was the classic Carrot and Coriander that was haunting me.  I just couldn't shift the idea of the sweet earthy and fragrant dish from my mind.  I then realised that it wouldn't take much to convert the ingredients for a good soup into a great curry.

The base of the curry was onion, garlic and ginger, fried in ghee with mustard seeds, curry leaves, cumin, coriander, fresh chilies and turmeric.  Once the onion had softened and the spices were toasted I added the carrot, sweet potato and a little red pepper, along with just enough stock to cover the veg.  By the time the carrots were tender the sweet potatoes had broken down into the stock to thicken the sauce.  All that was left to do was to stir in some fresh coriander and serve with naan bread.  I doubt that this is in any way authentic, but the flavour combination is so good it shouldn't be reserved just for soup.

*I'm going to start cycling to the market so the limit to my spend will be the capacity of my rucksack!

Thai Red Curry Soup

Back in November I made Pad Prig King (to accompany some Thai fish cakes.  I bought some red curry paste for the recipe but it only required a tablespoon.  The small pot of paste claimed to be enough for ten to twelve servings of curry. It also had a short shelf life once opened, so I needed to use it up fast. We had a good curry a few days later*, but that still left me with over half a tub.

One of my favourite tricks for the use and storage of leftovers is to turn them into soup and freeze them.  That is exactly what I did but not before seeking the advice of The Soup Witch**.  I was unsure about what to use as the base for the soup.  I didn't want to use traditional stocks as they are all very western in flavour.  Jo suggested using tins of tomatoes and coconut milk and that is exactly what I did.

After defrosting the soup for tonight, I added sliced peppers, carrots, spring onions, a handful of corriander and some rice noodles to make a meal out of a snack.  I'm not actually a fan of soup as a main meal.  To me it's a starter or lunch dish but the flavours of this rich, sweet and hot soup made all the difference.  There is still a portion left in the freezer.  I think that it will be receiving just a little bit more chilli and possibly some prawns.  I'll let you know.

*missing blog post.
** Jo from Thistlemist Farm

Kohlrabi Gratin

One of our favourite vegetables is sadly one that we don't eat that often.  We first discovered kohlrabi in gardening seed catalogues, we knew nothing about them other than the fact that they looked like small sputniks.  That image alone was enough for us to try and grow them.  Our first attempts were feeble, only two or three of the row of seeds we planted germinated and when one finally got big enough to eat it was old and woody.

Not put off by our initial attempts we tried again the following year with a much higher success rate.  I had a German colleague at the time who was mad for kohlrabi.  She informed me that she loved to eat them raw like an apple but that that wasn't necessarily normal.  We played about with them, finding new recipes to try with every harvest.

Now that we have all but given up the allotment* we don't get to eat kohlrabi that often.  It seldom appears in the "super" markets and when we do find it at farmers markets or on Leeds market it is often too expensive.  We were lucky to find a really nice large purple kohlrabi at Headingley Farmers Market at a price that we were willing to pay and quickly decided on how we were going to cook it.

Kholrabi gratin is every bit as good as it sounds.  Thinly sliced kohlrabi is layered in a buttered oven proof dish, seasoned with garlic, salt and pepper and then covered in cream and strong cheese.  It is then baked for half an hour covered and quarter of an hour uncovered to crisp up the top.  We've had this with salad, bread and on occasion, on it's own.  Tonight we happened to have some good sausages so we had those.  The gratin was definitely the star of the show though.

*a hard decision but probably the right one

Spaghetti al Funghi

Today we had a fantastic family outing to Sheffield.  The reason; The Sheffield Food Festival.  Twitter had alerted me of the existence of this South Yorkshire three day food-athon and so I was duty bound to visit.  Along with the treats on offer, the trip to Sheffield also meant that I could meet up with a couple of the other Olympic Food Challenge participants.

I'm always a bit wary when I go to food festivals.  So often I'm left disapointed.  Huddersfield is by far the best one I have visited but the people at Sheffield put on a good show.  There was a good variety of produce on offer* and there was plenty of space to sit and enjoy any food and drink that you bought.  I bought a chicken mole burrito, from The Street Food Chef, for lunch which sadly wasn't as great as I expected.  Don't get me wrong the burrito was good but the mole sauce was just too sweet for me.

The afternoon was spent lounging around the Peace Gardens soaking up the sun and the beers from the "craft" beer tent*.  My one plan was to seek out inspiration for tonight's meal and that came from Autumn Harvest, who can be found at lots of food fairs and markets in Yorkshire.  Sadly it is too early for Wood Blewit season but they did have some Chanterelle mushrooms which I hoovered up.

I'm not going to pretend that chanterelles are cheap, far from it, but they are really nice.  The flavour is subtle, less mushroomy and sweeter, more fruity than your average mushroom.  To make sure I didn't mask the 'shrooms I made a simple sauce for pasta by frying them in butter and olive oil with a little salt and pepper.  The sauce was finished with a splash of white wine, a handful of parsley and a little grated parmesan.  I'd normally add cream to a mushroom sauce, sometimes bacon makes an appearance too, but chanterelles are too special.  For an end of a foodie day treat, they were worth it.

*still a bit heavy on the cupcakes for my liking.
*I'm no beer geek but I'm sure that the beer on offer was closer to real ale than craft beer.

Friday Night Take-away: Chana Saag

With the Olympic Food Challenge taking up all of our time over summer we have neglected some of our own food traditions.  The Friday Night Take-away started before I had even thought of writing Tonight's Menu so it's about time we started cooking our own take-away inspired food at home again.

To ease our journey back into our Friday night ritual I'm using leftovers from the Olympic Food Challenge. Qorma e Sabzi from Afghanistan to be precise.  Fried onions and a tin of chick peas were added to the mild spinach curry, along with some garam maslala and chilli powder to lift the dish.

Having transformed Qorma e Sabzi into chana saag it was only right that we had even more leftovers to mop up the curry.  I had made too many puris for Pakistan so I defrosted a couple of them, warmed them up and tucked in.  We can get spinach dishes from the local take-away but they are nowhere near as good as this.

Broad Bean Risotto

The Olympic Food Challenge has come to an end.  The summer of discovering new recipes and ingredients is over but I am still learning.  My latest revelation is the fact that I do not like following recipes.  That I have come to this conclusion at the end of following so many recipes shouldn't be so surprising.  But if I'm honest, I have never been a fan of slavishly following quantities and timings, preferring to add my own slant on a "borrowed" idea.

My dislike of recipes has been magnified recently with most of the OFC recipes being web-based.  I am not going to bite the hand that feeds me* but there are many food sites and blogs around and, sadly, they do not all pass muster.  The number of times that I found recipes with missing steps, or mystery ingredients that were not used during cooking, drove me potty.

Now that I am free of the shakkles of poorly written recipes I am once more the master of my own destiny.  I can also cook what I want, without hoping that it comes from a country that I have never heard of.  To get the ball rolling I decided to cook risotto.  Possibly my favourite meal and definitely one that I have missed while discovering new dishes.

Tonight's star ingredient in the risotto was broad beans.  We missed the early broad beans this year so tonight's were of the large, starchy variety.  That said, once they had been blanched and podded they were still delicious in the creamy risotto.  I'm looking forward to embracing my recipe freedom now that I have it back.  I'll still read the odd cookery book for inspiration and new ideas, but you won't find me tied to a book any time soon.

*not that I'm getting paid for any of this blogging nonsense.

Olympic Food Challenge: Pakistan - Tamarind Puy Dhal and Poppy Seed Puris

My final stop in the Olympic Food Challenge is Pakistan.  I had a feeling that I would have to research this one to death to make sure that I was being authentic.  My first stop was twitter.  I asked the known universe if anybody had any truly authentic Pakistani recipes that they would share and the response I got was superb.

I was immediately introduced to Sumayya whose blog is packed with authentic Pakistani food, and some great stories to boot.  I had decided before I had even set eyes on her site that I wanted to cook Dhal and make my own bread as my tribute to Pakistan.  I chose Tamarind Puy Dhal and Poppy Seed Puris and set about cooking.

Both the dhal and the puri were simple and delicious.  We have only just started making dhal at home and we're still learning the way of the lentil.  Puy lentils hold their texture when cooked so there was no sloppy sauce to contend with.  The tempur mixture, including fresh coconut, really lifted the dish, as did the addition of some of the lemon pickle I had made for the Indian Olympic food Challenge meal. Of course I made too much bread but I thought we would need nibbles for the closing ceremony of the Paralympics.

Olympic Food Challenge: Belarus - Draniki

I've not really been on top of Tonight's Menu since the end of the Olympic Food Challenge.  I put that down to a number of factors.  Firstly, no sooner had the challenge ended than we went on holiday.  I try not to blog on holiday, it's hardly social and possibly rude to lock myself away and type whilst visiting family.  Secondly, since returning to Leeds, we have mostly been eating leftovers and not cooking.  This does not make for good reading.

Thirdly and the saddest reason of them all, the Olympic Food Challenge remains unfinished.  The other bloggers involved and I all cooked like demons, but real life got in the way and so around forty countries remain uncooked.  In the last week I have reallocated the outstanding nations and the challenge is now back on.  We are now aiming to complete the set by the end of the Paralympics.

To get the ball rolling I discovered a Belarusian potato pancake that just had "eat me when hungover" written all over it.  Draniki is made with a mixture of seasoned grated potato and egg which is then fried and served.  Sounds great.  It wasn't.  Either my potatoes were the wrong type or I'm just not keen on draniki.  The grating, using the small side of the grater as shown on the instructions, left me with what can best be described as potato slurry.  Adding an egg didn't help matters nor did the instruction to drain the potato water which came after the instruction to add the egg.

The resulting batter did fry well.  As with all pancakes, the first few were not quite right and the last ones were a little burnt due to the variances in pan heat.  Unlike normal pancakes these were not yummy.  The potato didn't cook through and they remained watery.  Grating an onion didn't help my hangover either.  Luckily, a couple of sausages and a cracking slice of bacon, all from B&J Callard's on Kirkgate Market, came to the rescue.

It was the Belarusian pair of Azarenka and Mirnyi that beat Andy Murray and Laura Robson to the Olympic Gold medal in the Tennis Mixed Doubles.  I can only imagine that they didn't start that day with a plate of draniki.  If they did then they are better athletes than I give them credit for.

Olympic Food Challenge: India - Paneer and Okra

I am not going to pretend.  I'm not to pull any punches.  When I drew India for the Olympic Food Challenge I was over the moon.  An other person may have taken this to be a day off, a banker, a chance to relax and just knock up the same old curry that they make week in week out.  I'm not that person.  I saw the chance to push myself and potentially pull off some kitchen wheelies at the same time.

Rather than one Indian dish, I decided to make a few and invite some friends over for a meal*.  First on the list was paneer.  Z and I both love paneer and we're lucky enough to be able to buy it locally, but where is the challenge in that.  I wanted to make my own.  Having looked it up, paneer is supposed to be the easiest cheese in the world to make.  All it takes is milk and acid (lemon juice or yogurt).  The acid is added to boiling milk which separates the curds from the whey and the cheese is rinsed under running water.  All that is left is to press the cheese so that you can cut it and cook with it later.

It was a huge success.  The cheese held its shape and was firm enough to cut into cubes before making Spiced Paneer, a recipe by Atul Kochar, one of my favourite chefs.  I had been looking for a simple recipe that wouldn't mask the freshness of my paneer and this combination of spices worked really well.

The second dish is another personal challenge, okra.  Having eaten okra a couple of times I am certain that I don't like it.  This is possibly due to the "ladies fingers" being poorly cooked, but slimy is never high on my list of properties food should have.  I was sure that cooked properly okra would be at least palatable and possibly really nice.  I found this recipe and bit the bullet. I had made the massala earlier in the day so that when it came to cooking all I had to do was fry the okra and add the spices.

The final part of the main meal, apart from a huge mound of pilau rice, was home made lemon pickle.  I had been talking about the Olympic Food Challenge at work** and a colleague told me about the amazing pickles and chutneys that his mum makes.  He rushed home to try to get her secret recipe for me but the translation of measures and ingredients from Hindi into English proved problematic.  Last Monday I was presented with a zip lock bag full of her pickle mix.  I could identify 99% of the spice mix but there was one seed that I couldn't put my finger on.  Ten lemons have been pickling on the kitchen windowsill for a week and tonight it provided a sharp point to a sweet and light meal.

Normally the meal would have ended there but Twitter intervened.  Back in April when I announced the Olympic Food Challenge, Mike from Indie Ices offered me some of his home made kulfi to celebrate India.  Of course I said yes and the months passed.  Yesterday, good to his word Mike delivered two pots of Mango and two pots of Almond & Pistachio kulfi.  I love kulfi but had never had any of Mike's award winning desserts.  They really are good, I had the mango but Z was in raptures about the almond.

Back to the challenges.  First, okra, my least favourite vegetable in the world.  It is definitely back on the menu.  It looks like the secret is cooking it fast and not letting it stew.  Second, paneer.  Wow, what can I say.  Paneer used to be a bit of a treat as it's quite an expensive ingredient but it is so easy and cheap to make at home I doubt I will ever buy it in a shop again.  Please try to make your own paneer, you wont regret it!

*if you're going to show off you may as well have an audience.
** I think about very little else at the moment.

Cauliflower Cheese

Tonight is the last night of our food freedom before being locked into the Olympic Food Challenge.  For the last time for twenty days we can eat whatever we want, without having to find a suitable recipe from Azerbaijan.  Only it's not that simple, things rarely are.  Because our diet is going places it has never been before, we need to eat up fresh items that won't be used while the big sport event in London is on.

Last night's spaghetti bolognese used up quite a few random vegetables that were about to become surplus to requirements.  However, there is no room in bolognese sauce for cauliflower.

I have said it before and I'll say it again, Z is the queen of white sauces in this house.  She made her cheese sauce using leftover garlic butter for the roux.  Once a pint of milk had been slowly stirred into the roux she added the remains of the cheese that I brought home from Cheese Club.  The sauce was then poured over the parboiled cauliflower, topped with breadcrumbs and mature cheddar, then baked in the oven.  With so much dairy it's hardly the healthiest vegetarian meal but it will leave me with fond memories of cauliflower until I can eat it again after the Olympics.

Butternut Squash and Chickpea Stew

When I told Mum what we were having for tea tonight she said "That sounds a bit vegetarian".  She was of course correct.  It is vegetarian, but we had the ingredients in the house and, although it has a relativity long cooking time, it's not very labour intensive.

The recipe is actually one of Simon Rimmer's from Something for the Weekend and although it is billed as a winter warmer I think it's fine as a summer supper.  The original recipe also has a potato scone topping but I have discarded that for this evening in favour of some boiled new potatoes.

Roasted butternut squash was added to fried onions, leeks and garlic.  A glass of white wine is poured into the pan and brought to the boil before the chickpeas, sour cream and double cream are added.  The mixture is then simmered for five to ten minutes.  The one ingredient that I didn't have from Mr Rimmer's recipe was tarragon.  I added parsley instead to add some freshness to the creamy sauce.  We all agreed that without the chickpeas this would make a great pasta sauce.  That said, I think I will have to cook something with meat in it tomorrow before a revolt takes place.

Mushroom Stroganoff

Tonight I was going to tell you the tale of our foray into fungi foraging.  Last year I spotted a rather large mushroom growing on a verge close to our home.  We had recently bought mushroom field books and identification guides so it was the perfect opportunity to see if I'd stumbled on free food growing around the corner from the house.  On closer inspection it turned out that I had discovered a ring of Horse Mushrooms, which are indeed edible.

I have been keeping a keen eye on that patch of earth ever since, hoping to reap some tasty free food.  All to often I find the mushrooms kicked and smashed, laying strewn in their own fairy ring.  Yesterday I noticed the white caps poking through the long grass and decided that on my way home from taking R to nursery this morning I would pick a couple of them for our tea tonight*.  Sadly some other keen eyed mushroom hunter had beaten me to the goodies and, annoyingly, had picked all of them.

So instead of tonight's stroganoff being packed with free mushroom, it is full of shop bought ones.  I suppose I could have cooked anything that I wanted but my heart was set on stroganoff.  The combination of mushrooms, onions, sour cream and hot smoky paprika is just too big a temptation to resist.  Served with wild rice, tonight was another meal that took no time to cook.  The mushrooms I bought were fine, but I am still lamenting the missed opportunity of another free meal.

*I never pick everything that is available, only what I need.

Butternut Squash Gnocchi

Now that my herculean task of working the evening shift and sometimes double shifts at work has ended, I am taking the opportunity to recharge my batteries.  Part of that unwinding began last night, being back in the kitchen and making fresh pesto.  That has continued today with yet more culinary shenanigans and some down time in one of Leeds' fantastic independent coffee shops, Brewbar Espresso.

This morning, having packed R off to nursery and Z off to work I cracked on with my plans for tonight's meal, butternut squash gnocchi.  Having roasted a butternut squash for pumpkin risotto, and made mashed potato for fish pie over the weekend I had leftovers of both.  I combined the squash and potato, added flour and an egg and got rolling.  To start with I didn't think that I would have enough to make a decent meal for Z and I, but I managed to make enough dumplings for two meals, so half of the mixture has ended up in the freezer for a future treat.

Chores out of the way, I headed into Leeds for lunch and a leisurely afternoon sipping coffee and catching up on some reading*.  Brewbar is a nice, relaxed coffee shop under Leeds library, the coffee is fantastic and the music, at least today, was somewhere between Regina Spektor and Mike Oldfield and that suited me fine.

Back home I returned to the gnocchi.  There isn't really a cooking time for gnocchi, they are cooked once they float to the top of a pan of boiling water.  I'm not a fan of heavy or thick sauces with gnocchi so I decided to keep it simple and make a brown butter sauce with sage.  It was a good job too, the addition of the butternut squash made the dumplings sweeter but also more dense than normal potato gnocchi.  I'm now looking forward to eating the second batch that are in the freezer.

*and writing blog posts for evening meals that had been missed.