Fortnightly Eats 27th May

It’s been a very sad and unsettling time with the atrocities in Manchester, it still all feels unbelievable to me.  I’m very proud of the attitude of the people of Manchester, who refuse to live in fear and have really pulled together to show their support.  As an adopted Mancunian, I continue to be grateful for and thoroughly impressed by the warmth and spirit of this city.

It feels a little at odds with this week’s events to be talking in a celebratory way about what I’ve been eating, but I think it’s important to stay positive and share some joy.

A couple of weeks ago we headed to The Drop in Chorlton to meet friends for a Caribbean Sunday roast.  It’s a gorgeous colourful Caribbean bar cafe with gorgeous colourful food! Everyone apart from me went for the Reggae Roast with jerk chicken, macaroni cheese and rice n’ peas, I diverged and went for the vegan Rasta Roast, which was pretty similar but with roasted pumpkin, fried plantain and feta cheese in place of the meat.

We virtuously cycled back from Drop Cafe to Hazel Grove along the River Mersey as it was glorious weather, and committed to continue with the healthy theme by baking a date, walnut and pecan loaf from my new healthy cake cookbook: Love Bake Nourish by Amber Rose.  It was definitely a bread rather than a cake, as it was quite dry and not very sweet, but it was very nice none the less, especially with a good slathering of peanut butter.

Reggae roast with jerk chicken and macaroni cheese

Vegan rasta roast with roast pumpkin, fried plantain and feta

Date, walnut and pecan loaf

Last week I attended a Guardian Masterclass on food photography and styling.  What a cracking course. It made me rethink my current photography style and the thing that stood out to me is I’m so bored of taking overhead shots of food on my dining room table.  As soon as I got home from a long day in London I demanded that we photograph our tea in the garden with Jamie as a model to get some real life atmosphere. I was rather pleased with the results. It was a chopped salad with bacon, sweetcorn and avocado and the deliciously fresh ingredients were from our Riverford veg box and the recipe was from Riverford’s Spring/Summer cookbook.

Jamie posing with a bacon, avocado and potato salad in our back garden

There does seem to be a bit of an obsession in our household with banana based cakes lately. Our next banana conquest was a cinnamon and banana cake with a generous dose of rum, also from Love Bake Nourish.  It was supposedly a healthy cake as it used wholemeal spelt flour and maple syrup – not sure how healthy rum is though? But my goodness it tasted indulgent.  Sweet and moist and rummy.  Even better with a scoop of frozen yoghurt.

Soaking the sultanas in rum

Banana and cinnamon cake

On Monday I was lucky enough to go along to a Taste The Love supper club at Gray’s Larder in Chorlton.  Here’s the menu:

Proscuitto, grilled lettuce, cucumber and white bean salad (so good)

Spinach and ricotta gnocchi in lemon broth (yum)

Pork cheek, parsley potato cake with lardo and rosemary (how I adored that potato cake)

Lemon posset with almond shortbread (divine)

Gray’s is a lovely venue and it was a superb evening – excellent food and service and a very buzzy atmosphere.

Taste the Love supper club at Gray’s Larder

On Tuesday I was in London again for a course and I treated myself to a Leon’s lunch.  What a fabulous little chain Leon’s is – healthy food with imagination and flair.  And if you don’t know already, now Manchester has a Leon restaurant at the Trafford Centre and another is due to open at Piccadilly station.  I had the tasty Thai green chicken curry and I thoroughly enjoyed staring at all the healthy cakey treats at the counter, however I still went off to Amorino the artisanal gelato shop on Goodge Street for a decadent scoop of chocolate hazelnut and another of amarena cherry gelato, delizioso!

Leon’s Thai chicken curry

Amorino gelato

Thursday I combined business with pleasure by going to Wine and Wallop in Didsbury for a meeting and a sharing board.  Everyone needs to try their platters! On ours we had Scotch eggs, pork pies, mackeral pate and posh cheese and ham – all so fresh and beautifully presented.

Wine and Wallop sharing platter

So lucky me, I’ve been eating superb food yet again.  I’ll be back next week with more foodie updates on what I’ve been eating.  Please let me know if you have any tips on great venues in Manchester to try.

 

Ready Steady Cook Round Two

Can I just say I LOVE READY STEADY COOKING! Everyone should do it.  It’s fun, it’s creative and I got an enormous sense of satisfaction (combined with intense smugness) as the packets in my cupboards dissolved away and I ate a steady stream of amazing food.

So this was week two of Ready Steady Cook, and for those who haven’t been following, as part of my environmental challenge I committed to using up as many leftover ingredients in my cupboards as possible.  I only initially signed up to this for a week, but I was enjoying myself so much, I decided to see how much more of my stocks I could use up if I continued.

On Sunday we had a rather lovely Anjum Anand brown lentil curry, except we rebelled and used red lentils.  No extra shopping required.

On Wednesday night we used up all our paella rice, some chicken and broad beans from the freezer and a bit of pepper from our weekly veg box.  We only needed to buy a tin of tomatoes.  The recipe was super simple and we found it on the tesco website  (we used chicken in place of chickpeas).  And it was spot on.

Thursday night was a roast veg platter with carrot top pesto and red carmague rice.  Admittedly all the veg were from our veg box, so hardly leftovers, but I loved that we used the carrot tops in the pesto, I thought that was genius and very environmental.  I was also delighted that we used up the camargue rice that had literally been in the cupboard for five years.  And it tasted perfectly fine.

Finally, perhaps my proudest result this week – my choc chip cookies.  I was desperate to use up a packet of semolina as it seemed like a pretty redundant ingredient.  So I googled around and found a Mary Berry cookie recipe.  I had all the ingredients in my cupboards and took great joy in using up some very random bits of chocolate that had been knocking around in the fridge for months.  The biscuits were superb – the semolina providing a wonderful extra crunchiness.

I will definitely take some valuable lessons from these two weeks of cooking so resourcefully – it’s boosted my confidence to realise that you can make very delicious food without going to the shop and stocking up on expensive ingredients.  Experimental and brilliant cooking is possible with limited supplies.  I hope to continue cooking more frugally and more sustainably from now on.

Next week, as part of my environmental challenge I will be foraging and making some recipes with whatever I find.  I’m thinking nettle risotto, wild garlic pesto and elderflower gin.  I will fill you in on how I get on next week.

Brown lentil curry

Paella

Roast veg, carrot top pesto and carmague rice

Cookie prep

Semonlina choc chip cookies

Ready Steady Cook

As part my series of food challenges to be kinder to the environment, this week we’ve been playing ‘Ready Steady Cook’ in an attempt to use up the leftovers in our cupboards. Normally I’d choose a recipe, buy a shed load of ingredients and sadly be left with creme fraiche/yoghurt/herbs/celery or something or other that would end up rotting in the fridge. Not this week though, this week we would be food waste heroes.

I grabbed the various packets languishing in our cupboards and plonked them on the kitchen top so I could assess what we needed to get through.  Here’s a little sample of what we had: an abundance of lentils, several kilograms of chickpea flour and rye flour, rye grains, black beans, bulgar wheat, pearl barley, various pastas, noodles, spirulina and a load of other weird stuff. Not altogether inspiring really.

The rules of this week were not so strict that I couldn’t buy additional food items, but I wanted to try and choose some recipes that would start using these bits and pieces up.

My proudest meal was definitely the first.  We made potato curry and chickpea flatbreads and we only had to buy coriander and tumeric.  It was insanely good and it felt exotic and fancy too.  I found both recipes by googling around.

Potato curry and chickpea flatbreads

We chipped away at the rye flour reserves by making a delicious rye bread from The Green Kitchen cookbook.  We undercooked it slightly, but nothing a bit grilling couldn’t sort out.

Rye bread

Another tasty inspired number was Turkish barley and lentil salad with tahini dressing from Molly Brown’s Grains cookbook – we had to buy tahini and rocket, but we made a signifiant dent in the barley and lentil stocks. I honestly thought this sounded unbelievably boring – lentils and pearl barley and some carrots – how dull can you get? How wrong I was – it was in fact the very best Middle Eastern spice party in your mouth.

On Thursday our Riverford vegetable box arrived – not very Ready Steady Cook, but it’s good for the environment so I decided to incorporate it.  We got clever with the butternut squash we received, we baked it and then stuffed it with leftover Turkish barley and lentil salad from the night before – it looked and tasted superb.

Turkish barley and lentil salad with tahini dressing

Butternut squash stuffed with Turkish barley and lentil salad

Finally Friday saw us making a quinoa, chicken and black bean number from the Grain cookbook – I got a bit cocky and decided to use bulgur wheat instead of quinoa and completely demolished our black bean supply. What a victory – bulgur wheat worked, the dinner was ace and our shelves were feeling positively minimalist compared to the beginning of the week.

Pearl barley, chicken and black beans

Ready Steady Cook-ing our recipes has been a revelation to me.  It’s made me approach cooking in such an inventive way.  I’ve started looking on ingredient packaging for cooking ideas and scouring cookbooks by the pulse, grain or vegetable I have to hand, not just picking the meal I fancy.  I would argue that it’s a much more creative process than just deciding on any old recipe and buying the ingredients because you have to be so much more resourceful and imaginative.  In fact I’ve enjoyed it so much I’m going to carry on for another week – I’m feeling a bit addicted to concocting amazing dinners with weird looking lentils and flours.

I’ll report back next week.

Weekly Eats 13th May

If anything the pace of my eating exploits has intensified despite my good intentions to diet. However I’m pleased to report that I have lost a pound, so I must have made some decent food choices.

So let me talk you through the week:

Monday Lunch: chicken and avocado salad from Pret, starting the week on a healthy note.  It was super delicious actually.

Tuesday Evening: I went to a Cracking Good Food talk about tackling food waste and we were treated to homemade coconut and butternut squash soup and a gorgeous freshly baked very oniony and moist focaccia.  I must must learn how to succesfully make focaccia.

Wednesday Lunch: I was out and about in Didsbury and had a tremendous cheese board at Wine and Wallop.

Wednesday Evening: Jamie Oliver’s butternut squash curry.  One of the best things I’ve eaten all year.  A lot of coconut milk gave a very creamy melt in the mouth flavour.

Thursday Lunch: I went to This and That in the Northern Quarter for the very first time.  Whilst it’s not high end dining, three vegetarian curries and rice for £3.90 is not something to argue with.  I enjoyed the food and the communal eating vibe – it’s fun.

Friday Evening: I was invited to a ‘Cooking Together With The Chef’ evening at Food Sorcery in Didsbury.  The delightful chef Jason Palin helped us cook fish tacos, peri peri chicken and beetroot and chickpea salad with baklava for pudding.  It was such a lively, interesting night, helped along with some tasty prosecco and wine.

Saturday Lunch: I met a friend at Earth Cafe in the Buddhist Centre in the Northern Quarter. Huge quantities of veggie food for just £7, my plate was piled with dal, sweet potato pie, plantain fritter and beetroot salad.  Tasty! And I loved the chilled out vibe of the place.

Avocado and chicken salad at Pret a Manger

Fresh focaccia and butternut squash and coconut soup

Wine and Wallop cheese board

Butternut squash and chickpea curry

This and That rice and three

Fish tacos at Food Sorcery

Peri peri chicken and beetroot and chickpea salad at Food Sorcery

Baklava at Food Sorcery

Dal, sweet potato pie, plaintain fritter and beetroot salad at Earth Cafe

Veg Box Joy

If you’ve not been following my blog, I recently embarked on a ‘be good to the environment’ project.  Over six weeks, I will be taking on a weekly environmentally friendly food related challenge.

This past ten days I’ve been embracing Riverford veg boxes.  It’s all locally grown organic produce with no packaging other than the cardboard box it comes in which is re-used every week.  I liked the first one I received so much, that I ordered another one for the following week.

I can confirm that it has been a lovely experience receiving the veg boxes.  It’s a bit like receiving a gift every thursday as you don’t know what you’ll be getting, and all the veg are so gorgeous and fresh, it’s rather exciting.  And I like that the carrots still have their feathery green tops on and the potatoes are really dirty.  It all feels so real.

It’s been a different way for us to cook as well, as we’ve had to figure what to cook based on the ingredients we’ve been given.  Normally I’d pick the recipe then source the ingredients.

Luckily help was at hand because Riverford provide a leaflet each week with a recipe suggestion for the ingredients in the box.  I also have the excellent Riverford Spring Summer cookbook which gave us lots of inspiration too.

Have a browse through the photos below.  We have had some incredible meals in the last week.

Next week my environmental task is to use up lots of old bits and pieces in my cupboards.  I’ve had a rifle through and there’s bags of lentils, rye flour, egg noodles, spirulina and lots of other random stuff.  I’m going to see if I can reclaim some cupboard space and play a bit of ready steady cook with my leftovers!

Broad bean, herb and goats cheese fritters, sweet chilli sauce and butter fried chard

Roast chicken and roasted veg

Lamb stew with baby summer turnips

Ragu of green beans with tomatoes and olives

Courgette and spinach curry

Weekly Eats 6th May

The embarassing or glorious fact of the matter, depends on how you look at it, is that I seem to eat more with every Weekly Eats blog post.  Oh well, I will just celebrate how lucky I am to eat so much tremendous food.  However in all honesty I’ve decided it’s time to tone up and lose few pounds.  This won’t effect the delicious array of food I eat, I’m hoping I just need to moderate portions and do a bit more exercise.  I’ll let you know how I get on.

Back to what I’ve been eating.

I won’t bore you with too many words – I’ll do you a listicle instead:

Saturday night – tremendous curries at vegetarian restaurant Sanskruti in Fallowfield.  If you haven’t been, you really should! It’s incredibly fresh and delicious and very reasonably priced too. My favourite was the banana curry.

Sanskruti deliciousness – all vegetarian

Yes it really is a banana curry 

Sunday – I attended a cookery demonsration with Mary-Ellen McTague at the Food Sorcery cookery school in Didsbury (arranged by Inca Pop Ups). It was all about how to make the most of a Riverford Veg box.  At the end we get a 3 course sit down meal: mushroom and potato soup with wild garlic oil; chicken and butter fried greens, roasted cabbage and broad beans and banana chocolate cake for pud.  What a treat.

Mushroom and potato soup with wild garlic oil and potato peeling crisps

A superb cookery demonstration at Food Sorcery with Mary-Ellen MacTague

My fave course at Food Sourcery – banana choc cake!

Bank holiday monday – I whipped up some gluten free parsnip muffins from my Clean Cakes cookbook and enjoyed them in the sunshine in the garden.  They were possibly a little too healthy tasting for me, but Jamie loved them. In the evening we had a comforting brocolli and pasta soup using up a load of leftover food.

Parsnip muffin

Leftover pasta soup 

Tuesday – a serrano ham open sandwich and a red velvet cupcake at The Dish Ran Away With The Spoon in Didsbury for lunch.  Both were superb and what a friendly, upbeat venue.  Dinner was a tasty chicken, potato and tarragon stew from my new Riverford Spring and Summer cookbook.

Serrano ham open sandwich at The Dish Ran Away With The Spoon

Red velvet cupcake at Dish Ran Away With The Spoon

Chicken, potato and tarrogan stew 

Wednesday – out again eating veggie food, this time at Greens in Didsbury – beetroot pakoras for starters, roasted cauliflower and lentils for main and peanut butter cheesecake for dessert. Such an excellent meal, and a what a gorgeous, welcoming venue.

Beetroot pakoras at Greens

Roast cauliflower and lentils

Peanut butter cheesecake

Chicken pho at Volta 

Thursday –  and back to Didsbury for lunch at Volta.  I’ve practically lived in Didsbury this week. So I had a chicken pho which was an excellent and healthy lunch – I felt quite virtous after all my stuffing my face this week.  I love Volta, it’s just such a cool, stylish joint.

On Thursday afternoon we received our Riverford veg box (I got it as part of the cookery course), so I’m going to write a separate post on what we did with those goodies.

Looking back, I’m a bit astounded at just how much I’ve eaten this week.   I’ll let you know how the diet’s going in next week’s ‘Weekly Eats’.

 

The Crap Gardener

As part of my new ‘fun’ environmental project, I take on a planet friendly food project each week, and this week it was gardening.  I didn’t like it.

I liked going to the garden centre and picking a fascinating array of plants and herbs (rainbow beets and carrots!), that I could do with bells on.  But the planting stuff.  Boring!

Exciting range of plants

Poor Jamie did most of the work.  My heart was not in it.  I grumpily and half heartedly potted some carrot and beet ‘plugs’ (seedlings with roots), courgettes and herbs.  But Jamie really did the graft.

I liked watering, that was fun.  But I was happiest when it was finished and I could go in the kitchen and bake a cake!

I may be a crap gardener, but look at what an amazing waterer I am

However, I am expecting to be thoroughly enthusiastic about the progress of the seedlings and obviously the finished product.

I suspect my other ‘green’ food challenges in the coming weeks, will be more up my street, and you will see the return of enthusiastic Katya.

On thursday I receive a Riverford veggie box, so that’s the next project.  Cooking for a week with a veg box which is environmentally friendly because there’s less packaging, less travel involved (most of the produce is from a farm in Yorkshire) and it’s all seasonal.

See you next week for an update.