Green Smoothies

On twitter I follow mostly food people - bloggers, suppliers, restaurants - and one thing that pops up occasionally and that I wonder about, is how does everyone EAT like this all the time (and drink, seriously, some of you have me worried) and stay healthy? The booze effects aside I am certain that many of us are carrying a few extra pounds/kilos/stones that we would easily shed if we didn't dream of truffle egg toast, the latest gelato or extravagant multi course meals. But we do. This is pleasure and we are fortunate to get to indulge ourselves. So lucky.

Whenever I see a tweet about over indulgence and excess food pounds, I think to myself: "green smoothy".

Around the same time of the debate on the toxicity of sugar I was thinking about an upcoming beach holiday. I had never been on a holiday where the primary activities were beach bumming and pool side relaxing so I was anxious about putting on a swimsuit (let alone a two piece - terrifying!) and wanted something to help me tighten up. The basic gist of the toxic sugar debate (or at least what I took from it) is that natural sugars are fine as long as you balance them with their natural fibres - so the sugar in an apple is balanced by the fibre of the apple. If you up your fibre level you are less likely to crave sugar and less likely to snack or binge eat. This may be completely false. But this is what I took from it and right around this time I stumbled across a recipe idea for green smoothies to start your day and to help your body with cravings. Excellent. The two ideas complimented each other perfectly and I started drinking a green smoothy every morning.

In a blender:

a banana
a massive handful of spinach
a nice sized handful of frozen fruit (mango is my favourite)
a cup of water (or so)

Blend. Drink.


This totally changed the way I ate during the day. I had this massive influx of veggie fibre goodness first thing in the morning and I didn't crave anything (I was full) and I ate a small lunch, followed by a regular meal. I think it helps cure hangovers. It makes me feel hydrated. None of these assertions are based on anything but my own experience, but that is enough for me!

So, lovely food bloggers and others who find that their hobby has literally grown on them – green smoothies, five days a week for a month, see if you notice a difference and then report back to me. I mean, clearly the answer was never to cut back on going out and eating deliciousness, the answer must be to make room for the awesome by shifting other food.

Cauliflower

I think it is my second favourite vegetable. Seriously. Second only to peas (both frozen and fresh). Garlic, onions and tomatoes don't quite count. Certain vegetables are only excellent during their peak season and don't have an all year presence, like asparagus, so I'm not counting those either. So yes. Cauliflower is my second favourite vegetable.

How fabulously versatile is it? How many wonderful things can you do with a brassica that is, to be honest, a little dull. It's not something I sneak into the kitchen to nibble on (peas in pods don't last a day in our kitchen and cherry tomatoes are so very poppable) because on its own it is a bit bland. But the flavours it works with! And the processes and things you can do that turn it into magic. Here's to the mighty cauliflower!

The reason I am excited about cauliflowers is because I finally got around to making this sephardic dish of battered and fried caulflower in a lemony tomato sauce. I've had the recipe in my 'Make Me' pile for ages but it seemed like it might be a bit finnicky. It wasn't. You should make it.

You quickly blanch your cauliflower florets then drain them and mix them into a simple batter (half a cup of flour with some salt and pepper, tossed, then two eggs beaten with a bit of water, toss the floured cauliflower with that, then another half cup of flour - get in with yout hands!) then fry them up to golden and lovely. (I also dropped little blobs of batter into the oil.) You slip the crispy golden florets into a very simple tomato sauce with lemon zest and a squeeze of juice and let it barely simmer for ten minutes then eat it covered with parsley.

(Here's a link to the recipe proper on Michael's Herbivoracious blog.)

How good is that?

C declared it was his second favourite way to eat cauliflower. His favourite? Roasted and dipped in spicy ketchup. Yup, we're fancy.

Asparagus

A thing of beauty is a joy forever.

Who said that?  Some of the most beautiful things are fleeting and need to be pounced on while they are in front you for they disappear so quickly.

Asparagus is one of those joys. British asparagus appears to be a Thing. It is special and celebrated. It has a specific season of about 6-8 weeks and during this time everyone seems to be talking and eating it. I love it. I love the limited time only cache of it and the urgency. If you don't get some now you won't get any at all.

Yes I know you can get asparagus year round. But that's not the point, is it? This is English asparagus, grown as it is meant to be grown in the season in which nature intended. Did you know that most out of season asparagus comes from Peru where they are draining the water level to grow it (asparagus needs lots of water) - read this article about it. That's serious stuff. And it can't possibly taste as fresh and grassy and special as the stuff that's grown in your metaphoric backyard. And who wants to eat bland wooden stalks that make you pee funny the rest of the year? Seasonality people. Look it up.

We've been doing all sorts of things with asparagus. Because I buy an awful lot of it while I can. Roasted asparagus (olive oil, lemon, salt and pepper in the hot oven for 11 minutes) is a picnic staple for us - sometimes wrapped in ham, sometimes plain, once with romesco sauce. I eat it blanched and dripping in fancy salted butter for lunch. Grilled with grilled courgette and roasted tomatoes and basil oil a la Ottolenghi. Baked into a puff pastry tart. Munched on raw and crunchy like a carrot.

Tonight we're having it with polenta and cheese a la Guardian Ottolenghi. I figure there's a month left of experimenting and tasting. At the end of it I won't want to look at an asparagus spear. Which is fine and good because I won't be getting any until the official launch of the season in April 2012.

Wild Garlic

Since moving here I have discovered all sorts of lovely seasonal specialities. Things that exist in Toronto but weren't as available or as obvious to someone who wasn't actively looking for them. Maybe part of the reason my cooking spidey senses have learnt so much in London is because so many of the cookbooks I read were, and are, British. I felt like I knew Borough Market before I ever set foot there and the Ginger Pig was like discovering an old haunt - I knew them. But I have never had that same relationship with Canadian food writers - there's very few that I can even name. Maybe it is that old thing with you are never satisfied with what is around you - grass is always greener. Or that Canadian food as such never really inspired me because there wasn't much distinctive about it. Who knows. My last trip to Toronto was delicious - so many great restaurants and dishes. I think maybe it isn't just Toronto that has expanded and grown - maybe I have too so that I am looking and seeking out those experiences. Also helps that I have a bigger budget than when I lived there. Little things. You know.

Anyways the point is that I had never had wild garlic (or ramps as I think some people call it though I am confused between ramps and the wild leeks that appear in the spring...) before moving to London and it has become one of those sure signs of spring to see the deep green leaves with white flowers in bunches in the market. 

Bluebells!

Another sure sign of spring is bluebells. Fields of bluebells in the forests of England, and what grows hand in hand with bluebells? Garlic! Fields of pungent white garlic flowers next to lovely bluebells. So beautiful. So smelly. But in a nice way. And so delicious.

I was gifted with an obscene about of garlic leaves. They don't last long once plucked so I needed to do something with them fast. So I made wild garlic pesto - four gleaming emerald jars of the stuff which we ate over fresh pasta - plain the first time and then beet (a lovely pretty pink colour with just a hint of beetiness to it) the second.

Wild Garlic Pesto

100g wild garlic

50g pinenuts

50g parmesan
1 shallot
1/2 tsp salt
Pinch of sugar
About 200ml olive oil

Process until as smoothy or as chunky as you fancy in the food processor and taste for seasoning.  Pack in old jam jars and push down to get any air out. Gently pour a thin layer of olive on top and pop in the fridge. Covered like this it should last 2-3 weeks. But I have never had it last longer than a week or so, because we have eaten it.

Divine. Special. But also enough that I am done for a bit and will be just fine waiting until next year's crop. Except for the wild garlic butter in the freezer - I mean clearly that is going to be eaten on steaks. But after that we're done. For real this time.

Soup

I saw a recipe this morning for leek soup with dill oil on 101 Cookbooks. I was reading through my Google Reader Feed. I removed my RSS feeds from Safari and put them in Google Reader and now I don't feel a constant state of panic as the numbers  keep getting bigger and I don't have time to read everything. Yes, I like my inbox to be cleared as well. 


Anyways. Heidi writes " report back if you take it in a slightly different direction you end up happy with." I didn't intend to change what she had done - it looked delicious! - so I went a head and made the dill oil. (Blender, dill, oil. Done.) Then I cleaned the leeks and dropped them into the food processor. And then I went to peel the potato. But I couldn't find them. I still can't. No idea where the potatoes are. Clearly I was going to be taking the soup in a different direction. 


I added a small handful of leftover parsley that was sitting in a glass on the counter. I added two cloves of garlic. I pulsed the vegetables in the food processor (as per the instructions) and put some dill oil and butter in my big pot and threw everything in to cook. 


At this point I remembered another 101 Cookbooks recipe, checked that out and decided to use the two tins of black eyed peas in the cupboard. (C bought them one day when I sent him out to get black beans. Why are canned black beans so difficult to come by here? And what made him think that the two were the same?) So, threw the beans in. Left everything to cook and stick to the pot in places. Then I added chicken stock, salt, pepper and a bit of cider vinegar.  Tada. Soup. Delicious soup that is nothing like what I thought I was making, but delightful nonetheless. Here's to cupboard food and making something out of nothing.

Cream Corn of Love

Cream corn was one of my favourite foods growing up. I even remember my grandmother made her own and canned it. It is still an integral part of one of my all time favourite home comfy meals, which only really works when cooked by my mom. I love it. But I haven't eaten it in a really long time (at my house – I had it in June at my parents). Does it even exist in London? Have I grown out of it on some visceral level? When was the last time I ate it?

So tonight to accompany my new favourite roasted chicken, I made a recipe from Ottolenghi's Plenty – sweetcorn polenta with aubergine sauce. And, dear Reader, the memory, all the goodness, of cream corn, came flooding back to me. A taste. A memory. So incredibly evocative. It made a really big impact on me. I can't remember the last time I had such a strong food memory come and give me a hug and a kick at the same time.

It's not the same as canned or my Grandmother's, obviously. This one uses 6 cobs of fresh corn and 200g of feta cheese. But the sensation of being little, loved and loving cream corn? That was the same.

The Best Tofu

Have I mentioned my deep, deep love of all things Ottolenghi? Oh. I have. Here's more gushing...

Last night I made the most delicious, spiciest and awesomest tofu we have ever eaten at home. Possibly eaten anywhere.

I'm not a huge tofu fan. Without adequate love and care it mostly tastes of slime, gray and nothing. Not appetising. And I know plenty of people who think it's gross, end point. If that's your starting point I dare you to make Ottolenghi's Black Pepper Tofu. It's so damn delicious. The tofu, dusted with corn flour and fried so it developes a lovely crust and great texture, then the sauce it gets coated in is a silly savory dream of flavour, with killer spice, chili and, you guessed it, black pepper. So so so delicious.

Yotam's recipe is on the Guardian website. You can start there, or you can work from my changes. Mine was killer hot. If you follow Yotam's it might be assasination in the dead of night hot. Just saying...

Black Pepper Tofu

Prep and Sauce

80g butter (this is half what Yotam uses but was fine, I rarely shy away from excessive amounts of butter but come on- you always realise how MUCH butter you actually use when you weigh, plus I needed some for cookies)
12 small shallots, peeled and thinly sliced
12 garlic cloves, crushed
3 red chillies, thinly sliced (Yotam called for 8 mild ones. How do you check how hot they are? Take a bite? I opted for less, just to be safe. Turns out that was wise. Eight of these babies and it would have been inedible.)
About two inches of ginger, chopped into tiny pieces


Melt the butter in your saute pan and add the flavours. Let them melt into each other until nice and soft, about 15 minutes.


Meanwhile...

Tofu Prep


600g firm, fresh tofu - because that's the size it came in
Cornflour for dusting, and playing with water in afterwards
Vegetable oil, for frying


Cut your tofu into small blocks and dust with cornflour, shaking off any excess. Heat up the oil, not too much, and fry your tofu into cubes of golden, crusty deliciousness. You'll probably need to do this in batches. This is dangerous and involves much spitting hot oil. Set aside to drain and continue on with your sauce.

Finishing the sauce

3 tbsp sweet soy sauce (called kecap manis, it's sometimes referred to as Indonesian ketchup. It was a bit tough to find, if you can't get it you could substitute soy sauce with some molasses or palm sugar in it...)
3 tbsp light soy sauce
4 tsp light soy sauce (yes there are two entries for light soy sauce. This one was supposed to be dark soy sauce but I got confused and bought another giant bottle of light soy sauce instead of dark. Oops. Anybody need to borrow some soy sauce?)

Let the soy sauce dissolve into the garlic and butter- it should get silky and shiny looking.

Now. Add your coarsely crushed peppercorns. Yotam called for FIVE tablespoons. I used three. Again, killer hot.

Once the sauce is combined add your crusty tofu and let it warm up and get enveloped in the shiny sauce. Add a bunch of green/spring onions, thinly sliced and serve with copious amounts of rice, to balance the heat.

The Harvest

Small but ours. Quite proud of our little beanstalk.

ZUCCHINI

Zucchini. Courgette. Did you know it's technically an immature fruit?

I don't love zucchini. It is decidedly not one of my favorite vegetables. Is it anyone's? Maybe in late winter? When the thought of an abundance of zucchini means summer and warmth and bbqs and cherries but then it' not really about the zucchini itself, now is it? I mean, I don't hate it. It's not something I refuse to eat (like raisins) or only eat reluctantly and with enough recognition from those around me that I am in fact eating something I find terribly gross (like raisins). No, I just don't LOVE zucchini. And as anyone who has ever hate a fight with a loved one knows, hate is not the opposite of love. Indifference is.

I am indifferent to zucchini.

Also, even though I live in England and it is called courgette, and I call it courgette in conversation, I still call it zucchini in my head and when I go to write it down. Someone should look up the etymology between the two words, so everyone can understand the  cultural differences between them. Maybe I will. (I did. See below the recipe.)

Even though I don't actually like it that much I seem to buy it quite often. It's in season. It's there, I'll purchase a few (especially cute little ones from the farmer's market) and surely I'll find inspiration in one of my many cookbooks for something delicious that will uplift it beyond it's humble vegetable (fruit) state. And I have. I've made some nice dishes. But none where I was so excited about the zucchini itself. None that were so amazing and delicious that I felt proud of my creation.

I've made zucchini lemon pizza. Zucchini wrapped lamb kebabs. Zucchini saute with almonds. Zucchini side dishes. Zucchini soup. Pasta with zucchini. But really? It's all meh.

Anyways, the reason for the zucchini rant, and the reason I figured out that I'm not actually all that big a fan, is because I made a zucchini dish the other day that I really liked. That made me feel proud of my creation and pleased that I had purchased zucchini. It's from the New York Times, a recipe by a New York interior designer of Egyptian descent. It's lovely. It's delicious. We had lunch leftovers. You should make it too.

Maybe then you'll learn to love zucchini a little.



Here is the recipe, pilfered directly and without change from the New York Times.

In Egypt, “every lunch and dinner includes rice,” she said, as she prepared zucchini pilaf and almonds, a subtly spiced dish that includes tiny amounts of allspice, coriander, cumin, cayenne and cilantro. To finish the dish, she serves the rice with a thick yogurt-garlic sauce on the side. The garlic is not a mere token addition — though finely minced, it is clearly present and makes yogurt a newly fascinating food.

Zucchini Pilaf With Almonds

Ingredients
        For the rice:
        1/2 cup slivered almonds
        1/2 tablespoon butter
        1/2 cup long grain rice
        1 cup vegetable broth
        1/2 teaspoon allspice (the only other recipe with zucchini that i like also has allspice. maybe the    key to an excellent zucchini dish is allspice?)
        1/2 teaspoon salt

        For the zucchini:
        2 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
        1 medium onion, finely chopped
        2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
        1 pound zucchini , ends trimmed, halved lengthwise (or quartered if large) and cut into 1/3-inch slices
        1 teaspoon ground coriander
        1 teaspoon ground cumin
        Pinch of cayenne pepper
        1/2 teaspoon salt
        2 tablespoon currants or dark raisins
        3 tablespoons chopped cilantro
        Freshly ground black pepper
      
For the yogurt-garlic sauce:
        1 cup Greek yogurt, or strained non-Greek yogurt
        2 garlic cloves, finely chopped or pressed through a garlic press
        1 tablespoon dried crushed mint
        Pinch of cayenne
        Salt and freshly ground pepper 
 
1. For the rice: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place almonds on a baking sheet, and bake until lightly toasted, about 10 minutes. Remove, and set aside to cool.

 2. In a small pan over medium heat, add butter and rice. Stir until the rice is lightly toasted, 5 to 8 minutes. Add vegetable broth, allspice, and salt. Bring to boil, then reduce heat to very low so the broth barely simmers; use a heat diffuser if necessary. Cover and cook for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare the zucchini.
      
3. For the zucchini: Place a large sauté pan over medium heat, and add olive oil. Add onion, and cook, stirring, until translucent and lightly browned, about 10 minutes. Add garlic, and cook for 2 minutes. Add the zucchini, coriander, cumin, cayenne and salt. Cook, stirring, for 5 minutes. Add rice and currants, and mix well. If the rice looks dry, add two tablespoons water. Cover, and cook until the zucchini and rice are tender, about 15 minutes. The rice mixture may be uncovered and quickly stirred once or twice, covering it immediately after.
      
4. For the yogurt garlic sauce: In a small bowl, combine the yogurt, garlic, mint and a pinch of cayenne. Mix well, and season with salt and pepper to taste.
      
5. When the rice and zucchini are ready, top with cilantro, toasted almonds and fresh black pepper. Serve immediately, with yogurt-garlic sauce passed separately.



Zucchini vs Courgette
From Wikipedia (citations required):

Zucchini, like all summer squash, has its ancestry in the Americas[citation needed]. However, the varieties of squash typically called "zucchini" were indeed developed in Italy, many generations after their introduction from the "New World". Courge, French for squash. "Zucca" is the Italian word for squash and "zucchina" is its diminutive, becoming "zucchine" in the plural. However, "zucchino", the masculine form, becoming "zucchini" in the plural, is just as commonly used and is prevalent in Tuscany. Italian dictionaries such as "lo Zingarelli 1995, Zanichelli editor", give both forms. "Zucchini" is used in Italy , and in Australia, Canada and the United States. 'Zucchini' is plural in Italian whereas in English it is singular. The first records of zucchini in the United States date to the early 1920s. It was almost certainly brought over by Italian immigrants and probably was first cultivated in the United States in California.

Lahooh!

We went to the Imperial War Museum's exhibit called Ministry of Food yesterday. It was great! You should go - it's open til January 2011 so you have plenty of time to plan your trip and come to visit us. (We even bought a new bit for the art line!) While we were there I was thinking about what we had in our fridge and how we shouldn't be wasteful and that we had an awful lot of random food in the fridge (market day was particular heavy on the cheese AND I visited the Ginger Pig) and that I didn't have any clear plan for dinner.

And then I remembered the silly number of carrots in the fridge and this recipe for Hot Carrot Salad and settled back to enjoy the rest of the day, comforted to know that dinner was taken care of.

The recipe suggests serving the carrot salad on crumpets. We didn't have any crumpets and while I made some for brunch last weekend I thought if I was going to go to the trouble of making them I could go to the trouble of making lahooh, which is what Yotam says the salad would tradtionally be served with. Yotam has never led me astray so I looked around on the magical internet for some details about lahooh. And I found a new site with a whole new world of cooking - Somalia. I am so excited to poke around and taste some new tastes!

Anyways. Lahooh. SO easy! It's basically a spongey crepe, similar to injera and a perfect foil for the (SPICY) aromatic carrot goodness.

Didn't get it perfect the first time but I will definitely try it again!

Parsnips FTW!

Last night I discovered the World's Best Way to Eat Parsnips. Well, I didn't discover them. Simon Hopkinson did and he wrote the recipe up in the March Olive magazine, though it actually comes from his book The Vegetarian Option which is on my (long) list of books to add to my collection.  

You must make these. These are so awesome. And we didn't manage to eat them all and then we heated them up in the oven this afternoon and they WERE STILL GOOD. And how come no one has ever mentioned romesco sauce? It's my new favourite.

Cheese-crusted fried parsnip strips with romesco sauce 

Romesco Sauce of Awesomeness

40g skinned almonds, gently fried until golden in 2T olive oil

1 garlic clove, minced

1 small dried chilli

60g sundried tomatoes, drained 

60g roasted red peppers from a jar, drained

1 tbsp sherry vinegar

1 tbsp hot water

Toss everything into the blender. Blend until numbly but not entirely smooth.

3 parsnips, peeled and cut into 6 inch strips

Blanched until just tender, drained and left to cool.

Mix

60g white breadcrumbs 

50g parmesan, freshly grated (Original recipe calls for much more but this was sufficient)

1/2t cayenne pepper

pinch of salt

Then coat the parsnips strips in flour, run through a beaten egg and tossed with breadcrumb mix to coat.

Fry the parsnip strips in batches in a deep pan with about two centimeters of oil at 170C for a few minutes each, until they're crisp and golden. 

Drain and eat!

No pics. Too delicious.

Lemon Zucchini Pizza

I've been making the same pizza dough recipe for eons. When I still lived at my parents I watched Mario Batali on his show Molto Mario and he made pizza dough and I took it to heart, made it, loved it and made it my own.

But I've recently been given Jamie Oliver's Italy and I decided to go crazy and follow Jamie's pizza dough recipe to a T. Except I halved it.

I followed Smitten Kitten's inspiration for the lemon-zucchini topping (adding some roasted garlic to the goats cheese) and voila- lunch!

The new dough was fabulous, crispy edges, nice bite. I love the addition of semolina to the regular white flour. A winner. Jamie's pizza dough FTW!

12 oz. white flour
3/4 cup semolina flour
1/2 tablespoon fine sea salt

Just over a cup of warm water
1 tablespoon sugar
1/8 oz yeast

Combine the first three ingredients in your main bowl. Combine the last three ingredients, stir and let sit and watch the magical bubbles of yeast.

Make a well in the center of your flour and add the yeasty water. Start mixing with a fork. When it gets too difficult, get your hands in and mix and pull and knead the dough to a soft spring warm ball of luscious smelly dough. Let the dough rest for 15 minutes, covered on the counter.

Split the dough in two and roll out each pizza. Let sit for another 15 minutes, add your toppings and bake it in a ferociously hot oven on a fancy pizza stone for about ten minutes.

Mushrooms on Toast

I'm in love with Skye Gyngell. If I ever meet her I'm sure I'll be flustered and stuttering like a tween at a Twilight movie event when Robert goes through the crowd and like, totally, almost touches my hand. (For the record I thought Twilight was crap.)

Anyways. Focusing. Skye. A Year in my Kitchen. Everything I've made has been beautiful and a perfect seasonal expression of love and the Way Things Ought To Be.

We ate this back in March. Her recipe is called Morels on Toast. Mine is called Mushrooms on Toast, because I didn't get morels. We're in a recession here people!



Mushrooms, crème fraîche, lemon, mustard and parsley on chewy garlic rubbed bread. Delicious.


I love this book. Seriously. Broad beans with mint, ricotta and crisp Parma ham. Crab salad with nam jim. Pan fried salmon with wild garlic (which spawned a short obsession as we ate wild garlic leaves with everything for awhile). Mackerel fillets with roasted tomatoes and horseradish cream (C's new favourite way to eat his favourite fish). Lobster curry with tamarind, roasted coconut, ginger and coriander (made with still expensive monkfish).Baked aubergines with tomatoes, tarragon and crème fraîche. All love.

Italian Duck with Fennel Risotto

We ate this some time ago. It was rather lovely, subtle fennel permeating throughout. If I could remember exactly how I'd prepared it we might try it again.

Hm. Must remember to write things down with more detail...

Ottolenghi for Lunch

Have I mentioned my love of Ottolenghi? I'm sure I have. I'm slowly introducing all my London friends to its wonders, either my dragging them to the Belgravia branch for lunch or to Islington for brunch or experimenting on them at home.

I love the cookbook. Heart it. It makes me feel confident and everything I have made EVERYTHING has turned out beautifully and made me feel like a competent, even fantastic chef.

This was Sunday lunch a month or so ago. Beef & lamb meatballs baked in tahini and covered with parsley and lemon zest.
Kosheri. I've made this numerous times since. It's rice, lentils & vermicelli noodles with caramelised onions, cinnamon and a spicy tomato sauce. It makes mountains and is one of my favourite things to eat for lunch.

Roasted aubergine, pomegranate seeds and basil with saffron yogurt sauce. Surprisingly simple and so lovely. I love saffron and whenever I use it the dish feels just a little bit special.

I've made about 30 items from the cookbook so far. It is love.

Chickpea Fries

So, I think my photographer is on strike.

It's not like I haven't been cooking. It's not like some of the meals weren't beautifully plated on my sage green dishes from Vintage Heaven. They weren't all beautiful, to be sure, but surely some of them were? Surely.

Sigh. Guess not.

In light of that I have a few options. Let the blog languish until the walkout ends, renegotiate the terms and conditions or slog on without photos.

No photos it is.

So. Chickpea fries. So odd. I first saw them here and thought I can make those. But the recipe isn't exactly clear. Water. Chickpea flour. 2-1. But if you read the notes it's not clear which is the 2 and which is the 1. It could work either way. It could flop either way. So which way is it? Not sure so I made both.

And it turns out C liked them both. In fact, I rather think he liked the 'wrong' ones best.

Experiment I

1 cup water
1/2 cup chickpea flour

Whisk together. Add some ground pepper, salt and olive oil. Cook, stirring constantly until the dough turns into a ball. Remove from heat and punch out on plate so that it's relatively flat. Chill. Realise that this looks nothing like the custard promised in Bittman's recipe. Refuse to be defeated, or throw something out. Continue with recipe. Cut into frie-like sticks and pan fry. Sprinkle with salt and eat as a snack whilst C prepares thai fishcakes (excellent).

Experiment II

Make dip: one finely chopped onion and 8 cloves of garlic, gently cooked in olive oil over low low lowest of low heat until golden and fragrant. Squish and mix with salt and pepper into Greek Yogurt. Set aside.

1 cup chickpea flour
2 cups water

Whisk til smooth. Add pepper, salt and a glug of olive oil. Turn heat on low and mix like crazy with a spoon (not a whisk it will get glumpy. Glumpy is the technical term. Look it up.) until the batter is the consistency of thick pancake batter. Pour it quickly into your cooling pan (I used a roasting pan with baking paper in it) and leave it to cool and firm up in the fridge. An hour or so later, take it out, cut into shapes (If I'd had cookie cutters I'd have used them here) and fry in olive oil until goldeny- burnt. Eat with prepared dip.

Verdict?
Experiement I was dry and almost cracker like. Experiment II was definitely what Bittman had in mind- custardy inside- and quite delicious. C liked both but my clear favorite was II. Will definitely make these again. Especially as I have more chickpea flour and not many more uses for it.

Fried Chickpeas & Sage

This was a Chowhound recipe that arrived in my inbox and that sat there for a long time until some random Saturday when we needed a snack.

Yum.

Tickle(me)more with Drunken Lentils

Is fennel in season right now? I know the first rhubarb is showing up. But I don't know if fennel is particularly in season and that's why it's been on my mind or if it's something else...

I cooked the Puy lentils in my usual manner but instead of a glug or so of wine my hand slipped (and there was more in the bottle than I thought) and I poured in about a half a cup- hence the drunken lentils. Atop the boozy legumes was a bulb of roasted fennel with parmesan cheese and Ticklemore cheesefrom Broadway Market. Simple and lovely dinner for a Thursday night.

Drunken Lentils

One onion, chopped
A shallot or two, chopped
Two cloves of garlic, chopped

Herbs (either a bushy spring of rosemary or a few twigs of thyme)- sometimes destemed and chopped, other times lazily thrown in in one piece)

About a half cup or so of red wine (or white if you were going with thyme)

One cup of rinsed Puy lentils

Fry the onion, shallot and garlic until they start to colour and begin to stick to the bottom of the pan. Add the herbs and then deglaze with the wine. Add the rinsed shallots and two cups of stock/water. Bring to a boil and simmer for 25 minutes until tender.

Roasted Red Pepper & Cannellini Crostini

Oh god. The title isn't long enough to describe what we had for dinner. It should read 'roasted & marinated red pepper and garlic with lemony cannellini bean paste crostini'. Even that doesn't really begin to explain to you how good dinner was.

The recipe is, again, from Ottolenghi. I am cooking my way through this book. As should you. Everything I have made has been stellar. And distinctive. There is a definitive style to their cooking but it really works with where I've been wanting to take my own cooking. (Think Claudia Roden, Crazy Water, Pickled Lemon, Moro)

So. Go buy the book. Then marinate your roasted red peppers in balsamic vinegar, thyme, sugar and olive oil. Puree some freshly cooked cannellini beans with lemon, garlic, olive oil and plenty of salt. Top with green onions.

Eat and rejoice that food is so damn good.

Livestock's Long Shadow

Long ago I signed up to some weekly newsletter for some random farmer's market in California. I like the sidebar that tells me what's newly in season every week.

This week there was the following article, which I want everyone to read it.

Mark Bittman's "less-meat-atarianism" 101

Editor's note: At CUESA we believe that local meat from humanely raised, pasture-based animals is a sustainable choice. By expanding our awareness of just how many resources go into a single piece of meat, we are more likely to make conscious choices and to appreciate more fully the meat we do eat.


Mark Bittman wants you to eat less meat. In his typically disarming way, The Minimalist — as he's referred to in his New York Times column, as well as online, where he writes a blog and appears in short cooking videos — will dish it to you straight.

At a recent appearance at the Ferry Building’s Book Passage, while promoting his new book Food Matters, Bittman told a room full of fans: “You can’t be an environmentalist unless you care about how much meat you eat.”

Bittman is well known for his books How to Cook Everything and How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. Food Matters expands on his idea that “if you buy your own food and cook your own food, you tend to put much better things in your mouth than if you don’t.” Thanks in part to a realization he had after reading the UN report called Livestock’s Long Shadow, and to his decision to tackle some of his own health issues head on, The Minimalist is now advocating an even larger shift. In the vein of Michael Pollan's now well-known creed, "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants," Bittman has the potential to reach a broad audience of home cooks who may have not read Pollan's books or seriously consider their food choices from a sustainability perspective.

Here’s how Bittman breaks it down: industrial livestock production accounts for 18% (1/5) of the greenhouses gases currently being emitted and ranks above transportation as a contributing factor to climate change.

The average American eats a half pound of meat a day, which accounts for 1/6 of the world’s livestock consumption. As the developing world begins to eat more meat and countries such as China take on behavior similar to ours, the projected global demand for meat will be 120 billion animals a year (or twice what we currently consume) by 2050.

“I know statistics are numbing," says Bittman, "and these numbers may seem like no big deal, until you consider that it takes 70% of all the available farmland in the world to produce the meat we’re eating now – whether it's land the actual livestock take up, or it’s being used to grow the corn and soy that feed livestock.” And, he points out, if demand does go up to 120 billion animals, you’d need an impossible 140% of the world's arable land.

“The land just isn’t there,” says the chef-turned-environmental-advocate, adding that meat production can’t get any more efficient (“and the efficiency we’re experiencing now comes at the expense of animals’ well-being"). Bittman also makes a comparison to Americans' dependence on fossil fuels. “The resources aren’t there in order to grow unless people change their behavior. So we have to — for lack of a better word — conserve.”

Bittman himself now eats a vegan, whole grain-based diet for the first two meals of the day and allows himself to eat "whatever he wants" for the third. In other words, the recipes in Food Matters are the direct product of his own at-home experiments. The book is also full of concrete suggestions as to how to accommodate a more plant-based diet. He recommends making a frittata, for instance with a much a higher ratio of vegetables to eggs than average. Or a spaghetti sauce “spiked” with a little meat for flavor, but loaded with vegetables. He also encourages his readers to get to know a few delicious ways to prepare beans and other legumes, so as to incorporate them into weekly meal planning in place of some meat-based dishes. See Bittman’s whole grain granola recipe here.

Most importantly, Bittman is asking his audience to think incrementally, and to start where they’re comfortable. “If we ate nine billion animals in the US next year instead of 10 billion, that’s still a significant change,” he says. As for his own love of meat, Bittman says: “I’ll never stop eating animals, but it is time we stopped raising them industrially and stopped eating them thoughtlessly.”

Made Bittman's granola. Also try Nigella's Andy's Granola. It is the best, but a bit more work.