Chef Geena's Baked Onion Bhajis

With less than three weeks to go, I've realised there are a few things I still need to tick off of my blog to do list.  One of those was to make onion bhajis again.  I had a disaster with a recipe on day four (I have no idea where the year has gone) and vowed that I'd make them again so, having had this recipe in mind for some weeks, I finally got round to trying it.

The good thing about these bhajis is that they are baked and not fried.  Although there is oil involved to soften the onions and to give them a 'fried' taste, it's probably not quite as bad as slinging them in the deep fat fryer.  Plus there's much less risk of them disintegrating.

Bhajis with lime pickle

The mixture is pretty easy to make and, unlike my last attempt, came together and actually looked how I would expect bhaji mix to look.  I used two smallish onions - I didn't weigh them - and this produced two bhajis.  I'm guessing you'd get 6-8 decent sized ones from the 1lb of onions the recipe suggests.

On the down side, I used the full recipe quantity of spices, even though I was only making a fraction of the other ingredients but you couldn't really taste the spicing and I think it would be lost if you had more onions and flour.  I'd definitely recommend doubling the spices if you use the full recipe.

As for the baked vs fried bit.  They were okay, if a little stodgy in the middle.  Then again, if you can put up with the grease, things taste so much better when they're deep fried.  But we all know that's bad for you so let's not go there.

Far happier with this recipe than the last attempt.  I think they'd go well with a healthy curry meal if you're looking for that kind of thing.  I had them for tea with a random leftover Waitrose samosa which also snuck into the picture, just because that's how I roll on a Thursday night.  Sometimes.

You can find the recipe here.

Wahaca: Green Rice Salad

One of my overriding childhood food memories is the annual family barbecue to celebrate my mum's birthday on August 3rd.  You could guarantee a pound to a penny that it would rain and my mum would end up barbecuing in the rain while the rest of us sat inside and watched her.

An Ingram family barbecue always consists of the same things.  To this day.  Sausages and burgers must come from the local butcher.  The only other thing we're ever allowed is chicken.  The salad contains cucumber, lettuce, tomatoes, spring onions and eggs.  Nothing else.  And most definitely no dressing.  Mayonnaise not salad cream.  My grandmother's homemade coleslaw and my mother's rice salad.  And that's it.  Them's the rules.

It's like Christmas day.  We have rules.  God forbid you consider breaking them and trying something new.  And my family always say I'm the unadventurous, fussy one!  In fact, when I hosted Christmas at my house last year, I was so terrified of doing something different from the norm that I very nearly didn't post anything that day.  In a moment of rebellion, I then plumped for Brussel Sprouts with Pancetta but also made regular sprouts for everyone else lest I got in trouble.  I was the only one who ate the 'weird' sprouts.  And very nice they were too.

There are a few green bits in there.  Somewhere.

Mum's birthday barbecue is fast approaching and I'm desperate to get my family to try the Wahaca Three Tomato Salad, an amazing looking Courgette and Goats Cheese Bread by the lovely Fiona Harvey who I met on my recent soujourn to Scotland.  And I want them to try today's rice salad recipe. But I know I'll wimp out and just end up making the birthday cake which I've always been allowed free reign with since I was about eight.

My mum's rice salad contains damp long grain rice, frozen prawns which always seem to have retained a bit too much water, peas, carrots and diced red pepper.  Colourful maybe, but despite the addition of a little vinaigrette, it's so bland.

Whereas the Wahaca salad is brightly coloured and packed with a different taste sensation in every mouthful.  Salty feta, sweet courgettes and corn, spicy chilli and the subtle seasoning of coriander and mint.  I had this for my lunch today and it was really quick to prepare and very filling.  It would go perfectly with barbecued meat but I'm not sure I'm man enough to make it for the big day.

Miers mentions that the original recipe contained leftovers from her green rice recipe but that she now just makes it with plain basmati rice for speed.  I definitely want to make the green version at a later date but the idea of putting green rice in front of my family is definitely a step too far.

If you want to try this recipe yourself, you can find it in Wahaca: Mexican Food at Home.

BBC Good Food Potato Salad with Caesar Dressing

Whilst the warm weather has made me productive in some areas (getting the washing done and dried), it's made me lazy in other areas (slaving over a hot iron/computer to write my blog/hot stove etc etc).  Tea last night was an indoor/outdoor barbecue (last Friday's post will fill you in on this).  We ate the leftover food from Friday's barbecue along with salad and new potatoes.

I always over-estimate the number of new potatoes I need (or rather that the husband will eat - approximately two) so was left with a huge pile in the fridge.  Having been to lazy to make myself sandwiches last night, I had an epiphany at about 4am this morning as to what to take to work for my lunch - potato salad.

Not just any potato salad, but a Caesar dressed potato salad - the idea coming from a recipe I happened across on Friday when looking at recipes for Caesar dressing.  Bingo.  I still had some dressing left from Friday so stirred one bowl into the other and hey-presto, I had lunch.

A little heavy on the prosciutto!

To give it some body I also threw in a chopped up frankfurter (we always have them in the fridge because it's about the only lunch the husband can make for himself).  It was a really nice lunch - mostly because my beloved grandma used to make me a similar potato salad with frankfurters for my lunch when I was a kid (and probably why I was so fat back then).

Because my dressing had been 'developing' in the fridge for a couple of days, I will admit that iit tasted fishier than I remembered from Friday and if I'm honest and was making it again, I'd probably leave them out because I'm really not a fan and I'm sure the dressing tastes fine without them - it's just obviously not a true Caesar dressing.

You can find the original potato salad recipe here.  It's much easier than the one I made Friday because it uses shop-bought mayonnaise rather than making your own.  The dressing I used came from Thomasina Miers' Mexican Food Made Easy, one of my favourite books.

And because I'm so lazy and there was so much left over, I ate the remainders for my tea - without the frankfurter but with baked prosciutto crumbled over the top.

Lil Ms Squirrel's Baked Cauliflower with Three Cheese Sauce

After yesterday's rather epic post on the subject of 'When can you claim a recipe as being your own?', I'm afraid I'm going to have to continue the theme a little longer.  After I published the blog, a couple of lovely Twitter pals - Sadia (@bakingelements) and Ros (@bakingaddict) sent me some links to blogs to read on the subject.

So as not to bore too much, this article on the Oh Cake blog discusses the issue in good detail and has links to another good post by David Leibovitz on the Food Blog Alliance, also discussing his approach to the issue.  I will definitely practice this ettiquette going forward and have tried to do so in my more recent posts.  Hopefully the only person who could tell me off for copyrighted images is Mr LCC Photography and if he's got a problem with that then I'll just divorce him and make sure I take ownership of the pictures in the divorce :o)

All this has led me to question if I can claim today's recipe as my own.  It started like this.  I bought a cauliflower with the intention of making the Cauliflower Mac n Cheese recipe I blogged about in early January.  Then I panicked as I realised I'd published the recipe but can't remember for the life of me if I'd typed the method myself or not.  I attributed it to the publication, but I recycled the magazine back in January so now I don't know.  Oh well, if they have a problem with that, I'll just take it down.

Next, I realised I needed to make something new today so it was counter-productive to use that recipe.  I love cauliflower cheese and my default recipe was given to me by my grandmother.  Make a pint of white sauce using a roux that's 1oz butter to 1oz flour (or 25g each in my world), grate in a load of cheese until it tastes cheesy (depends on the variety of cheese being used as to when you stop), season and add a pinch of cayenne for a kick.  Pour over well cooked cauliflower and if there's any spare cheese sauce, just spoon it out of the serving bowl once the cauliflower is gone.

Now I'm wondering if she learned that from a book and I'll get chased for copyright or was it handed down from her mother?  I can't ask her without hiring an expensive psychic!  You can see evidence of this culinary excess alongside my post on Toad in the Hole.

With that recipe being very tasty but unhealthy, I thought about trying to make my own from scratch.  Without going and reading anyone else's because I figured that most of them would be really unhealthy - if not as unhealthy as my grandma's recipe.  So I stood before my fridge with my thinking cap on and started to pull things out.

All the thinking was based on past reading on the subject of cheese based dishes, but at no time was this directly attributable to a single source.  When Miss A started weaning, I used to make a simple cheese sauce for pasta by melting some Philly with a little milk and stirring pasta into it.  I never thought to look on the Philly website to find this advice but now, from a recent ad I saw, this is apparently their method.  I also know that lots of cheese sauces recommend using a little Parmesan for the intense flavour and then other cheeses to balance it out.  So I selected Double Gloucester - mostly because it was the only other cheese I had in the fridge.

When I've used milk to thin the Philly, it's made for quite a runny sauce.  So this led to two decisions.  Firstly to use Greek yogurt to thin it and secondly to bake the dish which I hoped would keep the excess liquid from a low fat cheese sauce down.  I blanched the cauliflower for four minutes in boiling water, just to give it a head start on cooking but without it absorbing too much water.  After melting the Philly and yogurt together I grated in a little Parmesan and Double Gloucester, popped in some French mustard and a pinch of paprika, tasted, added black pepper as it was quite a strong cheesy taste already and didn't need any salt and then poured it over the cauli ready to bake.

One last touch was the thought of adding a little crispy prosciutto over the top.  I was going to dry fry some shredded bits, but then figured that it might work just baking a piece on the side of the tray - thus saving on washing up.  And it worked.  You may need to adjust the cooking time depending on the depth of the dish you use.  I used a two-person pie dish for mine.

So here's how I did it.  I don't believe that I copied this from anyone so I'm claiming it as my own.  Based on MyFitnessPal calculations it comes in at under 330cals for the whole dish.

Serves 2 (as a side dish or one as a main)

• 350g cauliflower florets
• 30g Light Philadelphia (or other low fat cream cheese)
• 50g Low fat Greek yogurt
• 15g Parmesan, finely grated
• 20g Double Gloucester (or other mature cheddar), finely grated
• 1/2 tsp Grainy Mustard
• Pinch of Cayenne Pepper
• Black Pepper
• 1 Slice Prosciutto Crudo 
• Fresh Parsley to Garnish

1. Preheat the oven to 200c/180c fan/Gas 4.
2. Parboil the cauliflower florets for four minutes in a pan of boiling, lightly salted water.
3. In a small saucepan, melt the soft cheese with the yogurt until you have a smooth 'sauce'.  Stir in the mustard, Parmesan and half of the Double Gloucester. Season with the Cayenne and black pepper to taste.
4. Place the cauliflower in an ovenproof dish then pour the cheese sauce over the top.   Sprinkle the top with the remaining Double Gloucester. 
5. Place on a baking sheet and put the slice of Prosciutto alongside.  Bake for 20 minutes.
6. When cooked, crumble the crisped Prosciutto over the top and then garnish with parsley.

Chickpeas with Tomato and Spinach

Today's recipe didn't set my world on fire.  It was a pretty okay store cupboard recipe and would be a good side dish to something more substantial.  It's from BBC Good Food and having now read the reviews, I think it may well have been better made the night before to allow the flavours to develop. Of course if I'd not been a greedy cow and eaten it all, I could've tested this theory tomorrow (I did only make a half-recipe-worth).

I'd probably make it again when I was feeling guilty for not having eaten anything vaguely resembling a vegetable for a few days.  There had to be at least three of my five a day in this one meal.  And served with a Dan Lepard Frying Pan Naan, it's a really filling meal.

I also faced up to me reticence when it comes to fresh tomatoes and cooked and ate those.  Although I guess as they're cooked, they're not far different to using chopped, tinned tomatoes.  Nevertheless, I had to eyeball their slimy innards when I chopped them up - something which is normally enough for me to quietly shuffle them off into the dogs' bowls.

It has green stuff on the top - must be healthy

But it did bring back a memory.  Of making curry in the late eighties.  I can't remember where the recipe first came from, but what a performance it was to make.  In those days, you could only buy Indian spices from specialist shops.  My mum used to go to this tiny health food shop in some back street of Winchester and come home with little white plastic bags containing spoonfuls of turmeric, coriander, cumin and saffron.

They were then consigned to an old ice-cream tub in the back of the cupboard for fear of them making everything else smell of curry.  And when you took the lid off of the box, it immediately just smelled like of curry from the intermingled flavours.  That ice cream tub still lives in the back of the larder at my Grandad's house (I grew up living with my grandparents) and there are still random bags of spices in there.  The smell has dulled over time but it still brings back the memory.

These days, I have a spice rack that is jammed full of pretty much every herb or spice that my local supermarket cares to sell.  In fact, I have so many that they're also randomly scattered across work surfaces (much to the husband's eternal consternation) and stuffed in the back of random cupboards (the husband's reaction to me randomly scattering them across work surfaces).

Of course, the modern glass jars ensure that my kitchen only smells of damp dog (the worst thing about this infernal rain!) and not of curry spices waiting to be used.  But you only get that evocative smell on cooking.  There was something quite comforting about sneaking a sniff from that ice cream box.

Although my Grandma was about as Indian as Birds Custard Powder (now I've said that, someone will go and tell me it was invented in India), the smell of that box reminds me of her because it smells of her curry.  And there are times when I make something with spices that they come together and make that smell.  Sadly, today's recipe wasn't one of them.   I hope that one day when I'm old and decrepit, there will be some smell that Miss A will forever associate with the kitchen of her childhood.  I'm hoping it will be something lovely we've cooked together rather.  And not just the current pong of wet spaniel.

Thomasina Miers' Mexican Tomato Rice

A few nights ago, I tweeted that I might have to curtail the blog due to the husband's displeasure at my cooking antics.  If you're a regular reader, you'll know we don't live in a world of champagne and roses (who does?) and much as we love her, like many older first time parents, things have been strained since Miss A appeared in our world.

The 'rents came to take Miss A out today for a birthday trip to Longleat, with the added bonus of giving me and the husband some time to ourselves.  It's been about six months since we were last in this situation.  Of course, things didn't go to plan and after a few toys were thrown out of prams, we got on to having a discussion about why the husband gets so fed up with me and my blog.  Apparently it's because we don't spend much time together and he doesn't like that some nights, I'm still cooking my tea when he's finished his.

Miers' Tomato Rice

I countered the argument with the evidence that he starts whining at about 6.30pm that he's hungry.  At this point, I still have around an hour of Miss A's bedtime routine to complete so sometimes, it's just easier to cook his dinner first to keep him quiet and then do mine and the lunchboxes for the following day at my leisure.  I didn't realise he valued my company at the dinner table so much - especially because (as he will readily admit) he's normally glued to the Premiership/Championship/Champions League/Europa League/FA Cup/Carling Cup/La Liga/Serie A/Bundes League.... at tea time.

It's now been agreed that if I tell him that I won't be eating with him, and that I don't get in the way of him loading the dishwasher or making coffee when he's finished dinner then it's okay for me to continue.  I can live with that - if he doesn't mind me interrupting the football to impart this information.

Unity restored, we went out for a late lunch and ended up pottering around the local vintage shop.  The husband is a photographer and one of his offerings is Vintage Pinup-style photography so we are always on the look out for fun props and items of clothing.  Because I have an hourglass figure, I love fifties style fitted shift dresses but I'm never brave enough to wear anything too extravagant.  However today, I found a big, floppy seventies hat in my favourite colour which perfectly matches my favourite Mary Janes and compliments my seventies-style winter coat.  I just had to have it.

'To be sure...!'

Even though it's a winter hat and it was a little to warm for it, I decided in my wisdom to wear my new purchase for the rest of our outing.   I got a few odd looks.  Being as self-conscious as I am, I wasn't sure if these were looks of amusement or admiration but I kept on wearing the hat because the husband said it suited me.

I got home and decided to tweet a picture of my fab new find.  And then I realised what all those looks were in aid of.  I looked like a bloody leprechaun.  On St Patrick's Day.  I mentioned this to the husband and he nearly died laughing.  Trust me, at the moment, it takes a lot to provoke his lips to even curl in an upwards direction and the level of belly-laughing that emanated from him made it quite clear that he'd realised this while we were out and was amusing himself by letting me wear it.

And so there ended my plan to further celebrate St Paddy's day with an Irish recipe.  Instead, I decided we'd have fajitas for tea and I'd have a go at making Ms Miers' tomato rice.  The husband normally  has a pack of Uncle Ben's tomato rice with his and I've been looking for a good recipe to replace his reliance on packaged food for ages.  This seemed to fit the bill.  I don't have anything against the ingredients in Uncle Ben's per se as there are supposedly no nasty additives.  It's just blooming expensive for a bit of rice.  The cost can be anywhere from £1.39 up to about £1.99 (ignoring the supermarket offers).  One packet is supposed to serve two.  The husband eats one to himself.  I'm sure Miers' recipe cost about £1 for four generous portions.

Nothing artificial - except the package

Best of all, you can make it in advance and keep it warm in the oven for a couple of hours.  This meant I could cook it whilst Miss A was still up and we could both eat together once she was in bed.

Overall it was a really simple recipe and had good flavours.  At first, I couldn't really sense the chilli but by the end, you knew it was there and I was gulping water like a camel at an oasis.

I do think it might have been better with long grain rice as it was a little stodgy for my liking - or maybe I just cooked it a bit too long.  I was also disappointed with the instruction that it would keep warm in a low oven for up to two hours.  An hour in, I took it out to serve and it was barely lukewarm.  Obviously not wanting to disappear back to the kitchen whilst the husband ate alone, I ate it as was.  Next time, I'd possibly only leave it for the minimum ten minutes or  blast it in the microwave for a minute before serving.

As I can't find the recipe online, you'll just have to go buy a copy of Mexican Food Made Simple published by Hodder  Trust me, you won't regret it!

Fondant potatoes

Vegetarians, look away now!

I'm finally getting around to updating this post.  On this very day (the one the blog is for, not the day I'm finally getting to write the post), I was looking forward to staying over at my mum's for the night.  Her and my step dad were going out for the evening, I planned to put the child to bed and then make myself a really nice steak with fondant potatoes and then spend the evening by myself reading recipe books and channel-hopping.

Of course, nothing ever goes to plan.  The child was an angel all day.  She got ready for bed, said goodnight to the grandparents, I took her upstairs, put her in the travel cot and she promptly climbed out.

The travel cot is something we've used when staying at my mum's for the last two years and I was hoping to get at least one more stay out of it.  Sadly not.  Miss A is very tall for her age and really doesn't like going to bed.  Many parents will be shocked, but she's still got the sides on her cot bed at the moment as we've not gotten round to resolving all the inherent dangers in our house to allow us to even attempt to let her sleep in an open bed.  We live in a townhouse with stairs that aren't suited to baby gates so not only do we have to stop her getting downstairs in the night but we also have to worry about her getting upstairs.  Or in the bath.  Or climbing the cupboards in her room.

Steak and potatoes.  Good, hearty food.

Anyhow, knowing that my mother's house is a death trap for an unattended toddler at the best of times, I ended up taking her back downstairs with me whilst I attempted to cook my tea.

The recipe from potatorecipes.co.uk was an interesting one as for four large potatoes, it suggested only 75ml of stock.  I would've thought that you needed far more to poach even one fondant potato but with having to ensure the child didn't break twenty million different ornaments, pull the telly upon herself, fish in the cat litter tray, discover butchers machetes in the kitchen drawer, open the cupboard where the cat food and bleach lives etc etc, I didn't have time to find another recipe or advice.

In the end, the potatoes were okay if a bit burnt because the liquid just evaporated.  The steak was perfectly cooked because I didn't have the time to leave it in the pan too long and I even had time to savour it because my really fussy child decided that a medium-rare steak looked like a good thing to eat and she sat perfectly at the table and munched on a bit whilst I ate mine.  Sadly I didn't have the time or energy to cook any veggies to go with it.

As for recipe book reading, it didn't happen.  I was in bed by 8pm with a slumbering toddler taking up 5/6ths of a double bed so no chance of lights on for reading.

So veggies, I'm sorry for the picture of the potatoes with a huge steak, but if you're looking for a good recipe I'd try a different one.  In fact, next time I'm going to try the BBC Good Food Garlicky Fondant Potatoes, as recommended to me by the lovely @EversNanaJules.

Red Onion Marmalade

I'm now trying to get into the swing of Christmas cooking.  This is the first time I've ever hosted Christmas for the family and it's a really big thing for me.

In my head, I know exactly what I want to cook and how things will go.  In reality, it will probably be a total disaster - although I must stop pondering that in case it turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

When I was younger, I was classed as fussy by my family.  My mum readily reminds me that when she weaned me, I'd eat literally anything.  That morphed into eating anything so long as it had mint sauce on it.  Then I learned to say no and became fussy.

The last bit of knowledge is a recent revelation.  For many years, she led me to believe that I got fussy when I went through my 'I-will-only-eat-crunchy-peanut-butter-and-celery' phase.  But she's finally conceded that I got fussy when I learned to say 'No'.  I think she's now realised the level of frustration I've reached since Miss A learned to say 'No' and how useless I feel that my daughter will only eat cheese and fruit despite my attempts to maintain her once cosmopolitan palate.

My family think I'm fussy because I don't eat pork and lamb and will absolutely not eat offal or tomatoes that have the slimy insides in.  They still don't quite know me as well as they think they do.  I won't eat pork or lamb that's been roasted to within an inch of its life and is covered in layers of chewy fat and gristle.  In the same way that at lunch today at work, I failed to finish my chilli beef soup on discovering a piece of solid fat floating halfway down the bowl.  Visible meat-fat in food turns my stomach.

Likewise offal.  The only time I remember being offered offal at home as a child was when my mum used to make stuffed hearts and they stank the house out.  And kidneys that tasted of wee spoiled the lovely sausage-y dish otherwise known as Kidneys Turbigo.  I love coating liver in flour ready for frying but once it resembles a slab of concrete, it somehow loses its appeal.

All of the above are enjoyed by most of the people I'm cooking for (my mother, grandfather and stepfather).  The other guests (the husband and Miss A) only eat cheese, fruit, fish fingers and chicken kievs (the husband).

Would Paddington approve??

On my list of things I would cook for my imaginary family are: sprouts with bacon, pancetta and chestnuts; Jamie's Get Ahead Gravy; citrus basted Turkey; mulled cider; orange crust mince pies; clementine curd; red onion marmalade; ham in coca-cola; and Dame Mary's Christmas chutney.  All of which will sound lovely to most, but I can guarantee you that not one of them would go down well with the family.  They don't do sweet and meat.  They like traditional Christmas cake or Dundee cake.  The husband will only eat shop-bought mince pies.  And what's wrong with boiled-to-death sprouts and Bisto?

Ah well.  I'm going to indulge myself with some practice anyway.  Today's was red-onion marmalade, served with goats cheese crostini.

The recipe for the marmalade came from Leiths Simple Cookery.  Very tasty, but when it was cooking, I thought I was going to suffocate from the fumes from the wine and the onions.  Luckily it was tamed by the addition of the honey towards the end.  Makes for a very tasty, light snack and I can see it being applied to a cold turkey sandwich on Boxing Day which I shall enjoy whilst everyone else just has turkey and butter in theirs.

Recipe

• 3 red onions
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 3 tbsps soft brown sugar
• 1 garlic clove
• 300 ml red wine
• 1 tbsp honey

1. 
   
2. Finely slice the onions.
3. Heat the oil in a pan over a medium heat and fry the onions until they start to soften and caramelise.
4. Crush the garlic clove and add to the pan.  Fry for 30 seconds.
5. Stir in the sugar and continue to heat for two minutes until the onions start to caramelise.
6. Add the wine and cook over a medium heat until almost all of the liquid has reduced.
7. Stir in the honey and season to taste.

For the crostini, I brushed slices of ciabatta with olive oil then baked at 200C (fan) for 5-7 mins.  I topped with slices of goats cheese and returned to the oven for five minutes until the cheese melted.

Pineapple salsa

Busy day, busy evening.
Gordon Ramsay's pineapple salsa with ham salad for lunch.
Sounds odd but strangely tasty.
Will post recipe later - it's from Gordon's Greatest Hits.

Apple and Mango Chutney

Sunday night is curry night in the Crowdey household without fail.  Tonight, for pretty much the first time in years, it's not curry night as the husband has the lurgy.

Oops, I burnt the spoon! (but not the chutney)

So, my plan to try out the apple and mango chutney I made out of the nearly rotten mangoes Ocado furnished me with on Friday night has gone awry.

In some ways I'm glad we're not having curry tonight, having just read that Loyd Grossman Korma Sauce has been linked to two botulism cases in Scotland.  We have his Bhuna sauce, but still...

I really must get out the curry recipe book I bought years ago when I first thought about getting all domesticated and find a decent Bhuna recipe in there.  The trouble is I seem to remember it taking three-odd hours to cook and, whilst I'm sure it's worth it, when do I get three hours to myself these days to lovingly cook something.  Nope, don't answer that.

Finished jar needing a label

The recipe is another BBC Good Food one because I wanted something to use up the overripe mangoes quickly - it wasn't a pre-planned exercise, I just had all the ingredients for this particular recipe to hand.

When it's cooking, it smells and tastes very vinegary, but once it's reduced down, it has a lovely sweet and spicy flavour.  I did add a tablespoon of muscavado sugar as it was a little too sweet for me and the molasses flavour of the muscavado helped take the edge off of it.

Looking forward to trying it when it's had chance to 'mature' and may be making more for Christmas hampers although it's a pretty pricey make unless Ocado send you crap mangoes and give you a refund on them :o)

The recipe can be found here.  It's pretty easy to make less (or more) - I just made one mango's worth which made a 1lb jar.

Hummus or Houmous?

However you spell it or say it (Delia calls it Who Mouse) hummus is one of those things that most people buy from the supermarket because it's quick and easy.

Hummus and pita

And shop-bought is inexpensive too.  I've tried making it before and one of my issues was I bought a huge bottle of tahini only to find out that you had to use it within a week.  The recipe needed one tablespoon-ful and the bottle contained about twenty times that much.  Who wants to make eight gallons of hummus in one week?

The other problem I've had in the past is that all the recipes say to just blitz the chickpeas straight from the tin.  But I've always found it to be horribly gritty in texture.  I did some research yesterday into why this might be and it appears that it's because shop-bought chickpeas are generally undercooked.  Well duh!  I should've figured that out before by the fact that the instructions on the packet say 'Simmer for 4-5 mins'

So this time, I just picked the top hit on Google for Best Ever Hummus Recipe and pre-cooked the chickpeas even though the recipe didn't call for it.

This time, lovely, smooth (although not supermarket smooth through my own choosing - let's call it rustic) hummus.

Not sure about the raw garlic taste - won't be winning many friends at lunchtime tomorrow - and I used a squeeze of lime on top of the lemon as it just seemed to need something else.

I also made it in my blender attachment but should've used the food processor instead as too much got stuck under the blades and my blender jug doesn't come to pieces.

All in all a good recipe - now I've solved the problem with the chickpeas!

Guac 'n roll

Hubby and I are a bit like Jack and Mrs Spratt.  He doesn't much care for food.  I do.  He eats to live, I live to eat.

I guess that's why my cooking prowess hasn't evolved nearly as much as if I was married to a foodie.  Although in his defence, my waistline is far smaller than it would be if he loved food half as much as I do.

It's really disheartening when you spend a whole day slaving over something special only for the person eating your lovingly crafted meal to say "It's okay, but I much prefer the one you buy from the supermarket"  I just hope that should I find myself before a judge one day that the jury will be comprised of foodies who will understand why I felt the need to smother him with a tray full of soft, scotch burger rolls because they weren't as nice as Tesco value ones.  Thankfully, most other people are extremely complimentary (to my face!) about my cooking.

So tonight's menu was burgers and chips.  Of course, I buy the best burgers I can.  Previous attempts to make them have received a lukewarm reception and I will hold my hand up and say in this instance that they were lacking something.  One of my quests this year is to find the ultimate home-made burger recipe that tastes better than ones from the supermarket.  I couldn't be bothered to spend the day slavishly attempting a different soft roll recipe, especially as I OD'd on the carbs yesterday and this morning with the monkey bread.

Instead, I treated myself to a bowl of gloriously green guacamole.  Yet another thing that the husband wouldn't eat along with burgers that have the slightest hint of pink in the middle.  I swear I could serve him lumps of charcoal and he wouldn't mind eating them so long as they weren't pink inside.

Having never made it at home, I thought that now was my chance so I perused the lovely Thomasina Miers' Mexican Cooking Made Easy (no I'm not getting paid for endorsements!) and found a recipe that was simplicity in itself.

Top marks.  Would probably eat it every day with a bowl of toasted tortilla triangles.  Never again will I cheat and buy a packet of guacamole spice mix and certainly never buy pre-made stuff - which I find is more akin to a face pack than food.

Conveniently the recipe was also published by the Times which saves me typing it all in. 

Again, no picture because a) it was just a bowl of green mush and b) that bloody phone battery died at about 3pm again.  Grrr!!