Braised red cabbage

I'm having a bit of a cook-up this morning, finishing up what's in the fridge, and getting ahead for the busy days to come. One of the things I am making is a good supply of braised red cabbage for the freezer. I'm making it plain, so that I can change the flavourings when I come to reheat it. At that point I might add apples, or redcurrant jelly, or quince jelly, or lots of onions, or spices - say, cloves, star anise, cinnamon.

Braised red cabbage

Shred one red cabbage. I used the slicing blade on my Magimix for an instant result, but I have done it with a knife in the past, it doesn't take long. Put it in a large shallow pan with a close-fitting lid. Add wine vinegar and water in the ratio 1:2, just enough to cover the bottom of the pan - don't go mad here, better to put in too little and have to add to it, otherwise you'll have to boil off the excess liquid. Sprinkle on sugar and salt, in the ratio 2:1. Don't worry too much about the exact amounts, you'll be able to correct the seasonings when you reheat the cabbage. Mix well. Cover, and cook very slowly on a low heat ... start checking after 30-40 minutes, but it might well take over an hour.

When it's cool, decant into freezer containers, label, and freeze. I would aim to put one cabbage into four containers, and mark it accordingly (1/4 large red cabbage, etc). It might mean thawing two at once, but there's more flexibility, and, anyway, smaller containers are easier to thaw.

To use:

Thaw in the fridge, ie slowly. Tip the cabbage into a saucepan or lidded casserole, and add your chosen seasoning - about a tablespoon of jelly or a couple of cloves per quarter of cabbage, but you need to start tasting once it gets warm. You'll almost certainly find there's plenty of liquid in the bottom of the pan, but, if not, add a little water, perhaps some vinegar. Reheat gently, either over a low heat or in the oven with your main course. Either way, it needs about half an hour.


This is a really useful dish to have in the freezer for the winter holidays - it goes so well with wintery dishes such as roast meat, stews, bean casseroles. We eat red cabbage in quite small quantities, so never manage to eat a whole one in one week, even if it is the smallest one in the shop. The "other half" used to moulder away in the bottom of my fridge, reproaching me, until I realised how well red cabbage freezes. I always do this now.







I'm sending this to Michelle at The Accidental Scientist for this month's Heart of the Matter - holiday food. It's not the most exciting holiday dish, but it is a treat of sorts - a treat for the cook, who knows it's one more chore done, if that doesn't sound too organised.

Heart of the Matter, for those of you that haven't found it yet, is a website for heart-healthy recipes, built up month by month ... the kind of resource I wish had been around after my husband had a heart attack. Anyone can contribute - this month the theme is holiday food.

Roasted red onions

An honest laborious countryman, with good bread, salt, and a little parsley, will make a contented meal with a roasted onion. John Evelyn 1620-1706

This morning the BBC news website carried a story about the good effects of eating onions, and it reminded me that it's a long time since we've eaten onions as a separate vegetable ... it's not something I think of in the summer. I thought I'd try a new method, using Skye Gingell's book A Year in my Kitchen.

I've read this book, and it's full of original ideas, good ones. Her restaurant at Petersham Nurseries is widely praised. I've been puzzled as to why this book hasn't had much impact, and now I know ... the recipes don't work. Or at least, this one didn't. It's the same old problem of catering cooks not being able to scale down to the domestic kitchen.

I rescued it, and it was delicious, but I'd do it differently next time. Here's the recipe as printed:


Roasted red onions

5 medium red onions, peeled
100g caster sugar
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
200 ml balsamic vinegar
50 ml extra virgin olive oil

Preheat the oven to 180C. Slice the onions into pinwheels, about 3mm thick, and spread out on a baking tray. Sprinkle with the sugar and a generous pinch each of salt and pepper. Pour over the balsamic vinegar and olive oil and mix together lightly with your hands. Roast in the oven for 30 minutes or so, turning them (with tongs or a wooden spoon) and basting half way through cooking. When the onions are ready, they should be deep purple in colour and glistening, tasting sweet and sharp at the same time.


















The trouble is that they're not cooked after 30 minutes. And there's too much liquid, which hasn't begun to reduce down. I gave mine nearly an hour, and even then I had to reduce the liquid hard for several minutes. Then it was delicious. Only there was far too much sugar. 50g max next time. Oh yes, and I realised after I'd got past the point of no return that I only had about 60ml balsamic vinegar, so I topped it up with some dry sherry. I can't think how black it would have been if I hadn't cut the vinegar.

Lucius liked this a lot, so I will tinker with it a little. And treat other recipes in Skye Gyngell's book with a great deal of caution.

The view from my kitchen window this morning ...

Free Rice game

Just in case you thought this morning's post was too serious, here's a game you can play - and whenever you get it right, 10 grains of rice will be distributed through the UN. It's paid for by the advertisers on the site, and the idea is to improve people's English as well as alleviate hunger. It's called Free Rice, and it's horribly addictive.

Thanks to Culinate.

Keeping it real: What the World Eats

This morning we're all worrying about the new report issued yesterday by the World Cancer Research Fund ... but we're the lucky ones, lucky enough to worry about what we're eating, rather than whether we're eating at all.

Peter Menzel's book, Hungry Planet, shows what the world eats: 30 families on 24 continents photographed with a week's worth of food. It's sobering: ... how little some people have to survive on ... how much the developed world depends on industrially processed food ... how much more appetising the Far / Middle Eastern and Sicilian diet looked than all the others ... & to see the global reach of the Coca Cola Corporation.
















I'm grateful to my new friend Joanna - yes, another one - at My Vegetable Blog for providing me with the link to Peter Menzel's work.

Veg box awards

If you have a veg box, here's a link to the 2007 Veg Box Awards.

If you don't have a veg box, you may be interested to know that Guy Watson of Riverford has calculated that his boxes are often cheaper than the same selection of non-organic supermarket vegetables: last week's comparison with Tesco/Sainsbury/Waitrose showed you'd be out of pocket by 27% for a minibox, 72% for a small box, 55% for the medium, 74% for the large, 40% for the fruit and veg, 42% for the summer box. All this before we try to put a value on the freshness and quality. Which is light years ahead of anything I've ever bought in a supermarket.

Lots of people say they don't subscribe to a veg scheme because they don't know how to cook unfamiliar vegetables ... here are links to recipes at Riverford and the awards. But there's not much that's unfamiliar - and that which seems unusual often isn't really: I"m thinking particularly of kohl rabi, which I would never have bought because it looks so weird, and which supermarkets don't sell because it's the ugly duckling of the cabbage family .... but the taste is sublime, like a really fine and refined broccoli - and last year, I had a note from a man who drives long distances to stock up on kohl rabi during the season.

If you don't have a veg box, here's a good reason not often cited: it puts vegetables at the heart of every meal ... you think, what shall we have with the butternut?

Oh yes, and someone said to me that subscribing to a big scheme like Riverford was as bad as using a supermarket. No, no, no and no again. One, the local schemes round here were all oversubscribed when I tried to sign up. Two, Riverford doesn't airfreight anything. Three, it is much much more environmentally friendly to have one van doing a regular round to, say 20 customers, than to have those 20 customers all get into their cars and go to the supermarket. Four, Riverford grow vegetables all over the country. Five, everything is seasonal and organic. Six ... well, you get the picture.

Guess who I've voted for!


I'll get off my hobbyhorse now ... but DO give it serious consideration

Apple crumble

Apple crumble is, by my standards, is a pretty indulgent pudding - especially if you add custard. I know that it's got lots of fruit, which is always a good start, but crumble is really a form of sweet pastry: butter, flour, sugar.

Years and years ago, at a Boxing Day family gathering, my sister-in-law Clare opened my eyes to the possibility that crumble doesn't have to be that good-but-unexciting white sugar / white flour combination. Hers used soft brown sugar and, I think, nuts. I remember she said it was Delia, but I can't find anything in the Complete Cookery Course that chimes with my memory.

Apple crumble is Alfred's favourite pudding. I've tried a few times to make something truly heart-friendly, and each time he's given me a kind but withering look that spells failure. So I decided that I'd keep the fat (Flora, as butter is completely off limits), but add in other ingredients which would mean less Flora was required, and also help me feel that I'd balanced things out a little. So ... ground almonds to keep down the Flora, and oats because they'd add texture and the goodness of a superfood. Also dark brown sugar.

I was really pleased with this: the nuts and oats meant that I could cut down the Flora, the dark sugar gave fantastic taste, the little bit of plain flour lightened it. The apples came from the garden, so I didn't spice them, although they'd have been good with cloves, or cinnamon, or nutmeg. It was DELICIOUS. Alfred looked encouraged, took one mouthful and said: couldn't you have used white sugar? Another mouthful: it's nice, but I like the school one better. Okay, I can't claim total success for Alfred, but at least I didn't get the withering look.

On the other hand, Lucius and I both thought it was wonderful.


Nutty apple crumble, for 6

6-10 apples (depending on size and condition)
100g muscovado sugar
100g rolled oats
100g ground almonds
50g plain flour
Flora

Peel, core and slice eating apples to half fill a small deep dish. Sprinkle them with a little granulated sugar (more if you are using cooking apples, but Bramleys, the most widely available, cook to a fluff).

Measure the muscovado, oats, almonds and flour into the food processor bowl. Give it a quick pulse to make the oats a little smaller. Then add Flora. A conventional recipe would probably use 100g, but you're aiming to use less. I think I probably used about 50g. I added it spoon by spoon, pulsing each time, and stopped with the mixture began to clump.

When you've got it right, spread the mixture over your apples, and bake in a moderate oven, 190C, for half an hour. I then kept this warm in a low oven, 80C, for a further half an hour. If I had known there was going to be a delay over supper, I probably would have cooked it at about 120C for the full hour ... crumbles are pretty forgiving.


Try it ... Alfred is not a reliable guide here. I found myself reflecting that there was a time when I was satisfied with crumble made with white flour and white sugar ... this really is a much better alternative. I'm sure Alfred will one day agree!

Lady Diana Cooper's spiced cabbage

Last week I met a cheesemaker, Mary Quicke, famous on at least three continents amongst lovers of properly made Cheddar. We talked about a presentation she had to give (I think she's probably given it by now) at a gathering of West Country "food heroes". Her general gist was that being labelled a food hero made her feel uncomfortable, and that she subscribed to the slow food movement's idea that the eating of good food is a community of interest, and that the consumer is as much a co-producer as the farmer or the cook. (This beguiling idea has made me decide to join.)

There's a bit of me that agrees with Mary ... on the other hand, I do have one or two food heroes, and one of them is the source of this recipe, Guy Watson, the man behind Riverford organic vegetable boxes. A food hero if ever there was one. To me, and probably countless others. Even if it turns out that he, too, dislikes the title. And I very much like the idea that I am a co-producer at Riverford ... even if it is baloney.

This recipe came with this week's box. There wasn't a cabbage in mine, so I bought one at the market. I wanted to make it because I found it rather hard to imagine the socialite and glamorous Diana Cooper eating cabbage, let alone having a recipe for it.

Diana Cooper's Spiced Cabbage

1/2 a white cabbage, shredded (or use a whole January King)
4 tbsp sesame oil
one small onion, chopped
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
good pinch of caraway seed
salt

Heat the oil in a large pan, and gently fry the onion and caraway. As it starts to brown, add the cabbage. Cook as if it was a stir fry - keep it moving, and when it's done to your liking, add the vinegar and salt to taste.

We ate this with our Sunday roast pork. Lovely. But I still can't imagine Lady Diana Cooper eating such a peasant dish.

Ballymaloe Brown Bread

Following my post last week about our daily soda bread with yoghurt, I had a very useful note from John Curtin, Spade Work: From Plot to Plate, about his breadmaking: Soda bread is delicious but it doesn't keep....that's if there is any left over. We regularly bake a quick no-knead yeast bread Ballymaloe Brown Bread aka Doris Grant Loaf. Only eat shop bought in an emergency!

Years ago, I used to make the Doris Grant Loaf - somewhere I've got a copy of her wonderful book Your Daily Bread. I'd never heard of Myrtle Allen, or her Ballymaloe Brown Bread, which is a variation of the DGL. Both are good tasty loaves, full of flavour - the molasses gives a complex depth which is particularly good in toast. Both versions are little trouble to the cook - just what's needed for a daily or near-daily chore.

So I got to work. Easy. But the finished loaf sunk in the middle. Well, I was using my old tins, AND I didn't have any wholemeal flour, so I was using spelt. Perhaps that was it. New pan, followed the recipe to the letter. It rose too fast, flowed over the edges - and sunk in the middle, a depression where there should have been a dome.

Meanwhile, I'd ordered Myrtle Allen's Ballymaloe Cookbook (from Abe, it cost less than the postage), hoping that I would find more detail than on the internet. No such luck - although it's full of lovely dishes, so not a waste of the few pennies it cost.

I'm giving the recipe here ... but I'd be really glad if someone who is familiar with this method could give me a few pointers. Just so's you know, I'm using dried yeast (not instant); I haven't been putting a tea towel over the dough as it rises, because I'm always afraid it will stick, and I didn't want to flour it (I'll try that next); and the kitchen is about low 60s F). Any ideas?


Ballymaloe Brown Bread

3 1/2 tsp dried yeast
400 ml water
1 tsp molasses or black treacle
500g wholewheat flour
2 tsp salt

Grease a large loaf pan and warm it in the oven at 120C for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, sprinkle the yeast into 150ml of water; allow to dissolve before adding the molasses. Leave until frothy (about 10 minutes), add the rest of the water (250ml), stir.

Mix the flour and salt in a large bowl. Add the yeast mixture to a well in the middle, and stir into a thick batter. Keep stirring until it forms a soft and very sticky dough, but leaves the sides of the bowl. Put this into the prepared tin. Cover with a dish cloth and leave until it rises to the top of the pan, which should take no more than half an hour.

Bake at 220C for 30 minutes, then at 200C for a further 15 minutes. (I always take the loaf out of the tin for the final five minutes, whatever I'm baking, to get an all-over crisp result; this may reflect on my poor-quality tins.) Use the tapping-test to check that it's done.

Baking pans

Thank you all for so much wonderful advice about baking pans ... I'd have wasted quite a bit of money without it. As it is, I'm having a hard time spending any money at all, because it's proving so hard to find good quality baking kit. There's an opening here in the UK for a really good speciality shop for everything a baker needs - online would be fine, too.

I wanted to buy ceramic coated pans, several in two sizes, and perhaps one Pampered Chef form for a change (I'm like Amanda, not too keen on washing up). And then a couple of silicone muffin forms. Some of this I haven't yet been able to source in the UK, others - well, there wasn't very much choice.

I've been shopping online and through the door ... what you see in the photograph is all I have bought, one non-stick heavy duty 2-lb loaf tin from John Lewis, just to see how it does, and a John Lewis muffin form. I don't want to sound spoilt, but I really really wanted it to be pink (making muffins and cupcakes is such a girly activity). Black was all they had.

The loaf tin seems fine. Unexciting but fine. I've cooked a couple of new breads in it, so it's hard to tell (especially as neither turned out perfectly). Today I'll bake one of my "usual" breads and see how that goes.

In the meantime, if anyone can give me a contact for a UK Pampered Chef dealer, I'd be very glad. And I'll keep looking for ceramic coatings. Oh yes, and THANK YOU Marie (no blog) for the tip about the Richard Bertinet shop for scrapers. Also courses. I think I'm going to enrol on a day course ... anyone for a bloggers day out in Bath?


PS I've just remembered that, decades ago, I had a flowerpot I used to use for baking brown bread ... perhaps I'll go back to that, it was very good, providing you obey the instruction to temper the flowerpot before you first use it for dough, otherwise the bread will never come out ... I hope you can tell that I am speaking here from experience

HotM 8: Baking round up

Well, as usual, I'm running to catch up with myself. This month's excuse is that it's half term, and we've been busy - but who isn't busy with everyday life? Apologies, especially to those of you who responded quickly to my cri de coeur for help with low cholesterol heart-healthy baking.

That means NO butter and not much marge. Not many egg yolks. No cream. No cheese to speak of. Not a lot of oil, even if it is olive oil. You see the problem. Off the top of my head, we're down to meringues and macaroons. As we're all after a healthier lifestyle, and as SO many food bloggers like to bake, I feel sure that you've all got at least one delicious yet low-fat cake or biscuit recipe that you use in your kitchen ... you'd be doing me, and countless others, a huge favour if you'd share it.

Almost immediately, I had an email from Janette (no blog link attached):

I don't have a recipe but I do have a book suggestion.
Only seen it at Amazon and on the shelf at the bookstore
and library...

Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World: 75 Dairy-Free Recipes
for Cupcakes that Rule by Isa Chandra Moskowitz, Terry Hope
Romero, and Sara Quin (Paperback - Sep 26, 2006)

Now I know that there are people who are irritated by the stridency of the vegan bloggers network, but this month I noticed particularly how vegans have got low cholesterol baking cracked - no butter, no egg yolks ... all the same problems. And anyway better by far than the sour message I received (which I can't now find, so I think I must have deleted it) saying the best thing to do was not to eat baked goods. Yes, well, thanks for that. Luckily, most bloggers like nothing better than an excuse to get out their baking pans ... so here, without further ado, are their delicious - and heart-friendly - results.













Bee started by making her own nut butter (actually, a really good idea, just look at the ingredient list of your favourite peanut butter if you don't believe me ... full of stuff you can hardly believe is necessary). She used this to make heart-healthy almond cookies, flavoured with cranberry and orange ... but this master recipe could just as easily be used to make peanut, cashew or hazelnut biscuits.










Lakshmi at The Yum Blog says that Zero Butter low fat cooking opens up a whole world of amazing possibilities - Cakes and Brownies can graduate from a “once in a while” indulgences to a routine snacks. She does this by using apple puree instead of butter ... in this post producing healthy chocolate brownies. Not just a one-off, but an approach that you can adapt to all your favourite indulgent recipes.

Gillian Law (no blog) sent this link to Molly Cake, a moist and fruity cake which contains no refined sugar or fat. It’s also free of eggs and dairy products, which means it’s suitable for vegans, or anyone trying to cut down a little. Once tested, all who have tried it want the recipe.













Check out Ilva's grape foccacia ... this is an end-of-summer treat for Italians, to use up the last of the harvest. Ilva (my HotM co-host) says you don't need a recipe, you can use your own bread dough - but she gives one, as well as beautiful photographs.













Nupur's banana bread is healthier than most, because it uses fiber-rich whole-wheat flour and the fat is mainly peanut butter, a rich source of protein, micronutrients and "good" fats. More egg whites instead of any yolk, and apple sauce. Chocolate chips, too.

Here's a link to my home-made vanilla essence. Mine is still in the early stages, although it will be ready in time to use for baking in December. I've included it because when you take the egg yolks out of your baking, you're taking quite a bit of the taste too ... this is a lovely way to put in a vibrant fresh taste.









Labelga in Brussels gives a recipe for lovely chewy oatcakes with dried fruit ... it's an obvious way forward for those watching cholesterol, yet many off-the-shelf products, and even recipes are not that healthy. This one uses olive oil and no eggs, the moisture comes from the fruit itself, which needs a good long soak (I'd use fruit juice rather than water, and perhaps tea for the spelt ...).










Over at Foodblogga you'll find Heart Healthy Date, Fennel, and Pistachio Scones - wonderful flavours, and using cottage cheese rather than apple sauce because of an unfortunate attempt at apple sauce muffins.










Dhivya at Culinary Bazaar has baked us a delicious ricotta dessert with berries - again, egg whites only, low fat cheese, plenty of fruit.










Check out Zlamushka's Polish carrot cake. She uses margerine (fine, there are some good heart-healthy ones out there), and the cake is packed with fruit and vegetables, as well as whole flour. The icing is tofu and honey with vanilla or jasmine essence.











You'lll find cranberry and pistachio biscotti at Fun and Food - something lovely to dip into your coffee without feeling guilty!













Over at Tasty Palettes you'll find a guilt-free apple crisp ... one of the comments says that it looks like apple crumble, and that's something my son really loves, so this is definitely one to try. Apple sauce instead of butter in the topping - clever.










Christine's daughter in law gave her a useful tip which she passes on to us at Christine Cooks - one banana may be substituted for one egg in most baked vegan recipes. And that's what she's done in her experimental chocolate brownie recipe. Don't they look good?










Chris at Mele Cotte immediately thought about using vegan recipes for this baking challenge, and modified a peach cake recipe. Her post describes how the first experiment didn't really work out - but she took this version to the office to share. The exquisite decoration is halved grapes.

Lauren bakes apple (or pear) muffins to take to work to snack on in the afternoon (SO much better than a Mars bar!). This is her first entry for Heart of the Matter, and she says she's been a long-time lurker on various food blogs - so thanks for sharing, Lauren, and welcome!













Linda has made Kruidkoek - that's Dutch spice cake. It's one of those cakes that's better made a day or two in advance, but Linda confesses to eating her third fresh slice as she was posting! Yoghurt, honey, flour, muscovado sugar, spices - and that's all.










Deeba is passionate about baking, and has made a spicy apple crumble using oats and marge for the topping.








I found Tanna's email apologising for being late when I started work on this roundup. So I emailed back and said that I was even later, and please would she send her post - her baking is a constant inspiration, and I know I'm not the only one to be inspired. This month, she's made blueberry polenta muffin tops. Mmm

SO many good things to try ... thank you ALL for taking part. This one has been especially good for me, because it's an area where I haven't had much success, where I feel I need a few fresh ideas - and I've certainly got lots to work on now. Let me know if the links don't work, or if I've left you out, as my usual system didn't work so well this month.

And watch out for the announcement of next month's Heart of the Matter, from Michelle (who has joined us as co-host) at The Accidental Scientist ... I'll leave her to tell you what we've decided on!

Baking tins - what do you recommend?

I'm looking for some advice, please. As you see, my baking tins are past their best, and I need to replace them. I bought them cheaply several years ago when baking bread was an occasional indulgence, rather than - as now - a daily delight. Technology has galloped ahead since I last shopped for bakeware, and I don't want to find I've wasted a lot of money on something everyone knows is no good.

I'd really welcome your comments on which pans work for you - and, specifically, I'd like to know what you think about those floppy (plastic?) ones that come in bright colours and are extremely tempting (but also possibly a hugely expensive mistake).

And ... does anyone know where in the UK I can buy a baker's peel, and a couple of those plastic scraper/cutters that all serious bakers seem to use?

Thanks ...

Nigel Slater's top-10 recipes

In the Observer Food Magazine yesterday, Nigel Slater printed his top-10 recipes ... I've got six of these books, and I've only done one of these recipes. I don't even remember reading the other five, although I've read all six books from cover to cover.

I know all the names on the list bar one; and I'm struck by how many of them appear on television. I don't think any of these people inspire me to cook in the way that other food bloggers do. Which would make it hard for me to come up with a list like this ... a lot of my top-10 recipes are either grubby bits of print-out, or clippings in my feed aggregator.

The only two dishes on this list that I'm really keen to cook are the salt cod croquetas, and the onions. The rest I either don't want to make (rice pudding with double cream? no thank you), or know how to do without looking at a book (roast grouse, devilled crab).

Here's the list in full (and a link to all the recipes):

1. Nigella Lawson's steak bearnaise, from How to Eat

2. Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray's wood-roasted porcini, from River Cafe Cookbook Two

3. Fergus Henderson's devilled crab, from Nose to Tail Eating

4. Jamie Oliver's wok-fried crispy bream, from The Return of the Naked Chef

5. David Thompson's kaffir-lime juice dressed prawns, from Thai Food

6. Rose Prince's poached chicken with leeks, from The New English Kitchen

7. Sam & Sam Clark's salt cod croquetas, from Moro: the Cookbook

8. Ruth Watson's Afghan Rice Pudding, from The Really Helpful Cookbook

9. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's roast grouse and bread sauce, from The River Cottage Meat Book

10. Skye Gyngell's panade of slow-cooked onions with gruyere, from A Year in My Kitchen

Baked pears with pine nuts

Delicious, easy ... good enough for dinner, lovely for breakfast with yoghurt.

Baked pears with pine nuts

100g raisins
300ml Marsala
7-8 pears
lemon juice
40g soft dark brown sugar
the seeds of a vanilla pod
40g pine nuts

Heat the oven to 180C. Soak the raisins for half an hour in the warmed Marsala. Halve the pears and scrape out the cores. Put the raisins in the bottom of an ovenproof dish, lay the pears on top, cut side up. Squeeze out the juice of a lemon over the pears, sprinkle with sugar and vanilla seeds, then add the Marsala.

Bake in the oven for 45-50 minutes, adding the pine nuts after half an hour. They should be soft when you take them out of the oven ... serve at room temperature.

This is pretty similar to a recipe by Diana Henry published in the Times recently. If you don't know her book Crazy Water Pickled Lemons, have a look at it next time you're in a library or bookshop, it's full of unusual and good tastes - Middle Eastern, North African and Mediterranean-ish ... but not your run-of-the-mill Med-diet=tomatoes-and-olive-oil+pasta

All-day fresh corn bread

If making my daily soda bread is a pleasurable chore, this yeasted corn bread with fresh kernels is the fun side of baking. And, besides, it's another recipe from my friend Tanna, who baked the bread for the crew while crossing the Atlantic in a small yacht. More than once.

This is an enriched bread, light and golden, speckled with corn kernels. Unlike most enriched bread, not a hint of butter - instead, eggs and honey, as well as the kernels. So not an everyday bread ... a special, autumnal treat.

It takes all day, though the yeast does all the work. Tanna started at 10pm and was taking the bread out of the oven at 5am. I am not an early-morning person, so I started at 11.30am with the idea of eating the bread for supper, but got side-tracked in the early evening, so it came out of the oven at 10pm ... we've just eaten some for breakfast, and it'll be brilliant with the soup we're having for lunch. But like all bread, you can adapt the timings to suit your life ... & actually, if you start the first step at 10pm, you could leave the mixture in the fridge, and do the second step at breakfast, rather than at midnight. (And I could have baked my loaves in the morning, again by putting them to rise overnight in the fridge.) Yeast cookery is very forgiving.

I'm giving a link to Tanna's posts about this bread, because they are very inspiring, and because they've got photographs of all the steps, which are useful for anyone who hasn't made much bread. I'm just going to give outine instructions and notes on the changes I made to the original recipe, mainly for my own benefit, because I will want to do this again. The method is just like any other yeast bread. I don't know if you could do this in a breadmaker, I'm afraid, because I've never used one.

Tanna's corn bread

strong white flour
dried yeast
instant polenta
one corn on the cob
two large eggs
honey
olive oil
salt
chili powder

1. Make a poolish by mixing together:

190g strong white bread flour
1 1/2 tsp dried yeast
190g water at room temperature

Leave for two hours. When you return to it, it will be bubbling full of life. I put water straight from the cold tap, because I knew it would be three hours before I got back to it.

2. Add 160g water at room temperature to the poolish.

3. Then mix the dough. Put the following ingredients into the bowl of your mixer:

375g white bread flour
140g polenta (I used the instant sort which is all you can easily buy in a British supermarket)
the kernels cut from one cob
two large eggs
40g honey (2 tbsp)
1 1/2 tbsp olive oil

Add the poolish. Mix with the dough hook for about five minutes until you get a smooth, soft/sticky dough. Tanna says she had to add 2 tbsp of bread flour to get the dough to be manageable, but I found it was fine. But don't start adding flour until you've kneaded it (by machine) for at least four minutes, and then add it a teaspoon at a time, because you don't want this mixture to get too dry (then you'll get hard bread).

At this point Tanna added 2 tbsp salt and 1/8 tbsp Chilpotle Chili powder. I didn't do either. Partly by choice, but also because next time I'd put them in at the same time as the poolish for a better mix. We like to keep salt out of our diet if possible, so I was keen to see how this would turn out without it ... the answer is that it's fine, but another time I'd probably put a pinch of salt. And I'd also put in finely diced fresh red chili.

4. Leave to double. Tanna has a glass bucket with volume markings that she uses, so she knows exactly when the dough has doubled. I'm less scientific, although if I see a similar bucket on sale, I am sure that I will sleepwalk my way to the checkout.

5. Knock the dough back, divide it in two, shape it and put it into two large loaf tins. Let it rise to the top. Brush with beaten egg (I didn't do this, and it was a mistake ... the top caught slightly after 40 minutes in the oven - but, by then, it was cooked anyway).

6. Bake in the oven at 180C for 50-60 minutes, but start checking after 40 minutes.


Thank you Tanna .... this is lovely, a lovely project for a beautiful and delicious autumn treat. And another bread which reminds me of a great day in London filled with laughter and fun.

Our daily soda bread, with yoghurt

I can't remember the last time I bought a loaf of bread, and most of the bread I have been baking has been this remarkably quick and easy soda bread - no yeast required, on the table in under an hour. We haven't got bored with it, because I make it with a variety of different flours ... wholemeal, spelt, five-grain, white, malted - if it looks good in the shop, I'm happy to buy it. This makes a change from the no-knead yeasted oat bread I've been making for the past few weeks.

I used to think that this was second best .. because it's a soda bread, because there's no yeast. Not any more. It's absolutely first-rate, with the added bonus of making baking with yeast seem like a pleasure to look forward to, rather than something else to feel guilty about not doing.

The recipe is a hybrid, using cup measurements for the flour, and a jug measuring mililitres for the liquids - it works for me, so that I can sort out the ingredients in a matter of moments. That's the key - anything to make it easier than going out and buying a loaf in a plastic bag. So it's worth taking the time to work out the easiest way for you to measure this out ... and then you'll find you make a variation of this all the time.

Soda bread with yoghurt

3 cups of flour
granulated sugar
salt
baking powder
400 ml skimmed milk
Greek 0% yoghurt

Heat the oven to 180C

In a large bowl, mix one cup of ordinary white flour with two cups of fancier flour. Add a pinch of salt, a teaspoon of sugar and a tablespoon of baking powder. Measure 400ml of milk into a jug, and mix in one large tablespoon of Greek yoghurt. Add this to the flour and mix well by hand (10 seconds - there's no kneading with soda bread). Pour into a large greased loaf tin and bake for 45 minutes.


Notes:

* If you don't have American cup measures, the flour should weigh 420-450g. It will save a great deal of time if you can equate the amount of flour to a utensil in your kitchen, such as a mug.

* If you like, you can use 400ml beer instead of the milk and yoghurt mixture.

* The mixture I like best is Bacheldre Watermill Malted 5-Seed flour (from Waitrose), which contains sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, golden linseeds, sesame seeds, and fennel seeds. The fennel is particularly noticeable, and I am going to experiment using fennel with other flours.

* It doesn't keep forever, but it's fine the next day.

* If I use buckwheat flour, I reverse the ratio, and use two cups of white, one of buckwheat ... otherwise it makes rather a solid loaf.

* Here's a link to other breads I make - none of them are complicated (this one will come up first until I post about bread again, just scroll down past it to find other ideas).

Poached barley with herbs

I had a hard time knowing what to call this ... poached barley seems to be the best description, but it could just as easily have been barley risotto. This is a fabulous wholefood accompaniment to lamb stew (I made one last night with the end of a joint of lamb from the weekend, with three times as much onion as meat). It's also good alone, if you make it with good stock.

Now I don't know about you, but I have a bit of a horror of the idea of wholefoods as a concept. It puts me in mind of the 70s - brown food and unkempt beards. And yet I love many of the ingredients that are covered by the word wholefood.

Barley is a case in point - it's one of those underrated ingredients that tend to be ignored by most of us. Certainly it's years since I've cooked it. At school we were given a rather grey lamb stew made with scrag end of neck eked out with lots of flabby barley. (Why did they call it pearl barley?) So, above all, I wanted to avoid overcooking it. And even though it's about as cheap as food gets, I wanted to treat it with care and attention. I've overcome the brown look, taste and texture by chopping in a huge handful of herbs at the end ... yum.

Poached barley with herbs

Pearl barley
Marsala or other wine
Stock
A big handful of herbs

I used a handful of barley per person (it enlarges with cooking, but not alarmingly so), then stirred it around my risotto pan in a little olive oil, exactly as if I was making risotto. When it was nearly sticking, I splashed in a glug of Marsala to loosen it. Then chicken stock to cover. I simmered this for half an hour, without covering, and stirred it from time to time, although no need to stand close by as if making risotto. I topped up the stock after a while, but this is emphatically not a little-and-often topping up as for risotto - this is more of an oops, should have put in more in the first place.

After half an hour, I took it off the heat and let it stand for nearly an hour. I did this mainly for my own convenience, but it had the effect of allowing the grains to absorb more stock without overcooking. Then I reheated it for 10-15 minutes. At this point I chopped in a huge handful of chopped herbs, what I could find in the garden ... parsley, sage, tarragon, a tiny bit of oregano, chives. Rosemary would have been good too, but I didn't think of it as I passed the bush.

Really good; springy grains sweet with the flavours of the stock and the wine, given piquancy by the last of the summer herbs.

Frozen roast potatoes

We're having a bit of a water crisis here - multiple leaks. Thankfully in the garden, but water pouring out of various pipes. We think Thames Water must have changed the pressure, otherwise why would so many taps and pipes spring leaks simultaneously?

Lucius is hard at work mending them ... it's a struggle, because he's had to work out where the pipes go (we hired a machine which was a 21st century take on a water diviner - our mains water comes in diagonally under the house, and there's a leak in the pipe) ... then dig deep holes, then pump out the water, and only then start sorting out the problems. And so the water is often switched off at weekends. Which makes life tricky in the kitchen.

Roast lamb for lunch today. Couldn't make roast potatoes - you need water to wash off the grainy red earth which locates them as lovely Devon produce. Panic. Rushed out to the supermarket and bought - frozen roast potatoes. I couldn't bring myself to look at the ingredients until I'd got them home and into the oven.


Potato 88%, vegetable oil, batter (wheat flour; modified potato starch; modified tapioca starch; rice flour; salt; skimmed milk powder; dextrose; Colours: curcumin, capsanthin), hydrogenated vegetable oil.

CONTAINS: WHEAT, GLUTEN, MILK.
MADE FROM REAL POTATOES

Not very inspiring, somehow.

I didn't tell the others what I'd done. I asked them what they thought. Good golden colour (although Horatio thought it was suspiciously uniform). Fake. Despite being made from real potatoes (what other kind are there?). Not as nice as yours (phew!). Funny texture. A little like that story Nigel Slater tells in Toast about how he came home from school looking forward to mash for dinner, and found that he was eating a form of wallpaper paste - his stepmother had bought Smash for the first time.

So we won't be doing that again. Next weekend, I'll make sure I've prepared the potatoes before the water goes off - you can peel potatoes a couple of days in advance and keep them covered in water in the fridge, although it's a good idea to change the water after 24 hours. Useful if you've got a huge crowd coming.

Having said all that, I was intrigued by the idea of coating roasties with batter. It reminded me of recipes where the parboiled potatoes are rolled in semolina to give them extra crunch. So I'll try that next time we have roast potatoes ... although if anyone has tried it, I'd be pleased to hear their thoughts.

Lentil soup with ruby chard

Lentil soup for lunch ... which needs careful cooking, because Lucius thinks he doesn't like lentils. He liked this soup, though. It's the autumn version of something I make quite often for a quick, cheap lunch - bosky with mushrooms and vibrant with chard.

Lentil soup with ruby chard

2 medium onions
5 handfuls of red lentils
splash of Marsala or other alcohol
dried mushrooms
good stock
chard

Chop the onions and fry gently in olive oil until golden. Soak a few dried mushrooms in boiling water. Add red lentils - about the same quantity as onions. Stir. Add a splash of Marsala (or wine, or brandy, or whatever you've got - but don't worry if you haven't got anything suitable, it's not essential, but it does add a layer of complexity to the end result).

Drain the mushrooms and add them. Then pour in stock to cover all this, enough to fill two bowls. Measure it in your serving bowls if you like - this works because some of the liquid will evaporate as the soup simmers and cooks. I used chicken stock, which I make virtually every week, an effortless chore which produces something cheaper, better and tastier than anything you can buy. But this is not a competition, it's lunch, so use whatever you've got - homemade, cube/powder, water (and I'd use water in preference to powder/cube).

It takes around 15 minutes for the lentils to cook. During this time, shred some chard or other greens. Add them to the soup when it's ready, they only need to be wilted.

We ate this with a little rosemary citrus salt. Lucius remarked on the complexity of flavours, and barely appeared to notice that he was enjoying lentil soup.

Sorry, once again no photograph. This time because of incompetence: I forgot to switch off the camera yesterday, so the battery was flat, and I don't have a spare. Shame, because the ruby chard made it look so pretty, not that boring brown that is the look of so many lentil dishes.

Smoked haddock for breakfast

There weren't any kippers left by the time I got to Waitrose yesterday evening. They're our favourite Saturday breakfast. What to do? Then I spotted some lovely white smoked haddock ... a little piece cost pennies. Delicious baked with some slow-roasted tomatoes fished out of their oil and a poached egg on top.

Too sleepy to take a photograph. Sorry.