Cheese on toast...desi style!

Ok for those of you who don't know, 'desi style' means Indian style. So this isn't just your bog standard everyday cheese on toast, this is cheese on toast with a chilli added!!! whoop whoop.

Now there's nothing wrong with just cheese on toast, it's not broken so why fix it? But this is just another version of the classic. A great little lunch on a gorgeous relaxing Saturday afternoon.

You can really make this however you want to, add an onion or try parsley instead of coriander. I also prefer toasting my bread on both sides before putting on the cheese mix. But one un toasted side will work too. Or even spreading the bread with some ketchup before putting on the cheese mix will also give it a nice kick.

Anyway this is what I have made just for lunch, and have already consumed before sitting down to tell you about it.

Ingredients

Two slices of bread (I used wholemeal, but again whatever takes your fancy.)
1 tomato; deseeded and chopped into little squares
1/4 of a red chilli; deseeded and chopped finely (a green chilli will do as well)
A small handful of coriander; chopped finely
Grated cheese; as much you want. (I used Red Leicester, but any will do)
A knob of whatever spread you have (I used Olivio)

Method

Mix together the chopped tomatoes, chilli, coriander, cheese and spread. Season with salt and pepper. Grill both sides of the bread. Once toasted, take out and spread the cheese mix on the toast. Replace back under the grill for a few more minutes until cheese has melted to your satisfaction.

Eat, and enjoy!

Garlic Chutney (Lasan ni Chutney)

I think I would be correct in saying that most people think Indian food contains onion and garlic as two of the main ingredients. Well not in my family. My Mum has never cooked with onions or garlic. In fact they're not even allowed in the house. It's not the taste she doesn't like but the smell.

Whenever we had Indian food at a wedding she would always ask the uncle standing behind the oily bowl of vegetable curry if the dish contained onions or garlic. If the answer was yes, she would then hold her nose and walk away. Whenever we went to eat at a friend's they would always make sure that there was a non onion and garlic dish especially for Mum.

Now I can take or leave these ingredients when I cook Indian food. There are only one or two dishes I cook which contain onion or garlic. This is because of my Mum, and I like it that way.

However there is one chutney or paste that we always have in the fridge and its lasan ni chutney (garlic chutney). This is actually more like a paste then a chutney as you only use half or quarter of a teaspoon at a time in dishes.

At the weekend I went home to see the parents and during my stay my Mum shouted at asked my Dad to make the lasan ni chutney, its one of his jobs. My Mum doesn't make the chutney as she doesn't even like to touch garlic - I don't know why, it's kind of like Kryptonite to Superman.

Anyway, so I saw how my Dad makes lasan ni chutney and this is our recipe for you to try. This will make around 200 grams. Once done, use it like a paste. Add a quarter or half a teaspoon to Indian dishes in the cooking process, or what I like to do is add some to two tablespoons of natural yoghurt and mix really well. This will give you a nice dip.

Ingredients

Two bulbs of garlic, peeled.
4 tablespoons of chilli powder (don't be scared, its a paste and you only use a bit at a time)
2 tablespoons of oil
2 teaspoons of salt
1 tablespoon of lemon juice.

Method

In a (massive) pestle and mortar, crush all the garlic until paste like. Once the garlic is quite crushed add the salt. Continue to crush until really paste like, then add the chilli powder and mix really well. Add the lemon juice, mix again. Transfer to a container and keep in the fridge to use at your pleasure. My Mum said this can keep for about 10 months!

BORSCHT

Happy new year!! And with the new year brings a new veg box. This month I decided to change my fortnightly fruit and veg box to a roots and veg box. I have to say best decision I've made so far this year.

I got 8 beetroots, 8 onions, 5 leeks a massive bunch of carrots, a bag of potatoes, 3 heads of broccoli, and a bag of black kale. I was overjoyed and very hungry.

One dish I love and have always wanted to make is Borscht, or beetroot soup. I remember the first time I tried Borscht as well. I was on tour with Romeo & Juliet and was staying in digs in Wales. Someone, (for the life of me I can't remember who) had invited the cast over for dinner and we were served Borscht. In front of me was a bowl of purple food. It looked, well er purple, and it tasted like nothing I've tasted before, but I knew I liked it. Fast forward a few years and 8 organic beetroots delivered to my door later, I decide to make Borscht. I also like the name, its Russian and a cuisine I know nothing about, but I know, I know and like Borscht.

So I got my Borscht recipe from the Riverford website. I really enjoyed making it and absolutely love this recipe. The fact that you can use the cooking liquid from the beetroot instead of vegetable stock made a nice change when making soups. The colour is vibrant and with the added dollop of natural yoghurt makes this dish a joy to look at and eat.

Ingredients

500 grams of beetroot (approximately 6)
1 large onion, chopped
500 grams of potatoes peeled and diced.
2 garlic cloves
1.2 litre of vegetable stock or beetroot cooking liquid. ( I used about 700 ml of cooking liquid and 300ml of veg stock)
2 tbsp of lemon juice
Some oil
Some natural yoghurt
Salt and pepper

Method

Wash and boil the beetroot until tender. This took me about 30-35 minutes. Once they are tender drain,  but reserve the cooking liquid, don't throw this away as you will need it for the potatoes later. Set the beetroots aside to cool slightly before you peel and then chop them.

Meanwhile, heat some oil in a pan and saute the onion until they become soft and translucent, then add the garlic and potatoes and cook for about 5 minutes. It may start to stick but give it a stir. Then add the cooking liquid or/and veg stock and simmer for about 15 minutes until potatoes are cooked. Once the potatoes are cooked, add the chopped beetroot, lemon juice and seaon with salt and pepper. Cook for another 5 minutes.

Then transfer into a food processor and blend until smooth. Serve with a nice dollop of natural yoghurt.
Delicious!

Thanksgiving aka Happy Nut Roast day.

Last weekend the American Vegetarian and I celebrated our 4th annual Thanksgiving feast with friends. Every year on the last Saturday in November we invite friends over and cook a vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner.

When the American Vegetarian first moved over, Thanksgiving was one tradition that I definitely wanted to incorporate in our lives, and we're so glad we did.  I absolutely love it. We try and invite different people over each year so all of our friends can experience our Thanksgiving. If we had a table big enough we'd invite everyone we know.

Now never having gone too, or eaten a Thanksgiving dinner myself it was up to the American Vegetarian to tell me what the dinner consisted of. Obviously turkey was out of the question so we substitute that with nut roast. The rest of the menu goes as follows; Sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, corn on the cob, stuffing, and pumpkin pie. We start the evening with cheese and biscuits and end with the classic pumpkin pie. In between all the food, copious amounts of wine and champagne are drunk.

The one dish which I had no idea how to cook, or even heard of before was green bean casserole. The American Vegetarian described it as green beans with mushroom sauce and fried onions. It didn't sound particularly appetising and when I looked on line to get some recipe ideas, the ones I found seemed even more unappetising (have a google yourself and you'll see what I mean). Recipes that entailed mixing canned cooked green beans with fried onions and milk before baking in the oven for 30 minutes!!! Why bake cooked green beans? I imagine they would be soft and pretty tasteless after that.

So I thought I would create my own version of the classic American dish of green bean casserole. I think my version is good, and all who have tasted it have always asked for seconds.

Ingredients (Serves 8)

600 grams of fresh green beans.
300 grams chestnut mushrooms.
1 can of condensed mushroom soup.
400 grams of crispy fried onions.
a good handful of fresh parsley; chopped.
a knob of butter.
salt & pepper.

Wash, trim and cut the green beans in thirds, set aside. Next wipe the mushrooms clean with a cloth. Because mushrooms soak up water it is best not to wash them. Just wipe the mushrooms and then slice them. In a pan melt the butter and then add the mushrooms, and saute for about 5-10 minutes, until the mushrooms have released their juices and cooked. Instead of letting the water cook off, I just pour it away. Next add about 3/4 of the can of condensed mushroom soup, and mix well. Season with salt and pepper.

Add the parsley and the uncooked green beans. Season and mix well. Add the mixture to an oven dish. I use one which is just under 2 inches deep. Cover with foil. Bake in a preheated oven for 40 minutes at 180 Celsius. Thirty minutes into the cooking time take the dish out and add the fried onions to the dish, recover with the foil and place back in the oven for the final 10 minutes. You don't want to add the onions at the beginning as they will burn. So adding them to the final 10 minutes of cooking is just fine.

I always prepare the dish early in the day and then when the guests arrive cover with foil and bake.

Serve with a thanksgiving meal.

Thanksgiving is always a feast in our home. A feast of food, friends and fun times.

Masterchef Live

So last week I went to Masterchef Live at Olympia. I was so excited and just had the most wonderful day. The American Vegetarian and I decided to cycle their, which I didn't mind as we cycled to Olympia when we went to the yoga show and I quite enjoyed the journey. The journey this time however was windy and so the resistance I felt from the wind made a 45 minute journey turn into over an hour.

Windswept and excited we headed straight away to a cook off between Lisa Faulkner and Dhruv Baker. I love Dhruv, I love the way he has fusioned his upbringing into his food I feel a certain pull towards his food. Dhruv made some green beans with mustard seeds and coconut and Lisa made a fish pie.

After that we went to check out the Invention Test. Which is where around 20 or so non professional people pay £60 to make a dish from ingredients given to them and then these are tasted by Michel Roux and Greg Wallace They all had the same ingredients, which consisted of some fish, lemon, goats cheese and chestnut mushrooms. They also had free range of everyday store cupboard essentials, like pasta, rice herbs etc. The dishes that were made ranged from, risottos and pasta. All of them were judged by the 3 finalists of the professional masterchef's and then 3 were chosen for Michel and Greg to taste. On paper I was interested in doing the invention test but given the ingredients they got I'm not sure what I would have made, seeing as I don't cook any non-veg food. A fish pie won, which was remarkable seeing as they didn't have an oven.

Next on the agenda was lunch!! Now they had this 'restaurant expirience' section, where you could buy lunch from restaurants like Cafe Spice Namaste, Luxe, Malaysia Kitchen and some others as well. I was a bit disappointed at the lack of vegetarian options available. We bought all the vegetarian options available that day, which consisted of 3 dishes out of a possible mmm I suppose around 20. Some restaurants didn't have a vegetarian option available, which I think is a bit poor. So we had some amazing Roti Canai from Malaysia kitchen, a lovely Indian tapas of pani puri, bhel puri, beetroot samosa and a spring roll, with tamarind sauce from Cafe Spice Namste, and some penne pasta with mushrooms from Theo Randell. The tapas, and roti canai were just amazing, light, fragrant and very tasty. The pasta, was well pasta. For dessert we had the most amazing blueberry cheesecake with lemon curd from Luxe. OMG, is all I can say. Pure utter heavenly delight.

So after lunch we made our way through all the different stalls, and tried as many things as our stomachs would allow, dips, chocolate wine, soup, crisps, liquor, cheese, toffee vodka, beer, more dips. It got to the point that we were turning down free food as we were so full, however the liquor kept flowing!. There was so much to try and so much to buy. I bought some amazing aubergine chutney from Purity Trading. It is so tasty its practically gone. We also bought some amazing liquor from Wales. One thing I was wanting to buy myself was a good knife. And I did I went to about 4 different knife stalls and decided on the Ziganof. Oh how I love it, it has changed the way I chop. Everything cuts like soft butter. The tops of my fingers however are a little worse for wear.

Also attached to Masterchef was The Wine show, where we tried a lot of rioja! My highlight though was winning a Masterchef mug from Andy Peters. How? By being the first to get the answer right. If only I did that at school!

I *heart* Jamie

I am lovin Jamie's 30 minute meals. I think he has some fantastic simple ideas and I can't praise him enough. I haven't tried an entire Jamie's 30 minute meals yet, as they usually contain a meat/fish main course, but I have made four sides. The sweet potato mash, baked mushrooms, beetroot salad and the french peas. So here are the recipes for the last two. I made them both last night, and found it very quick and easy, and something that you can so easily put together even if you're totally knackered after a days work.

Beetroot salad

Ingredients

1 bag of cooked vacuum packed Beetroot ( I chose ones which were not in vinegar)
1/4 of a block of feta cheese
a good handful of flat leaf parsley
1 tablespoon of olive oil (Jamie uses two tablespoons)
1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper
squeeze of lemon juice.

Method

In a food processor coarsely grate the beetroot, then add the salt and pepper. Beetroot are like tomatoes, they love salt it really brings out the flavour in them. Then add the balsamic vinegar, olive oil and lemon juice. Give it a stir or as Jamie says 'move it around a bit'. Then cut the parsley and add that. Check and adjust the seasoning. Spoon it all on a plate and crumble some feta cheese on top.

Jamie's French peas

OK so this is Jamies' version of a French classic. All I know is that it is really tasty and another quick and easy side dish to make.

Ingredients.

1 bag of frozen peas
2 bunches of gem lettuce
6-8 leaves of mint
1 tablespoon of flour
a knob of butter
300ml of vegetable stock (Jamie uses chicken stock)
squeeze of lemon juice
salt and pepper

Method

Wash and chop the lettuce. Add the butter and the flour to a pan and then add the vegetable stock. Whisk this so there are no lumpy bits left, and it becomes a smooth bubbling sauce. Then add the mint leaves and the bag of peas. Next add the chopped lettuce and put the lid on for 5 minutes. Finally add the lemon juice and season with salt and pepper.

I will make an entire 30 minute meal and blog on it, but for now I hope you enjoy these sides as much as I have. These recipes are from Jamie's 30 minute meals. 

Figs, mozzarella and basil salad.

Earlier this year my lovely friends and neighbours Pat & Viv got me the River Cafe Cook Book Green for my birthday. And on Friday night we finally managed to get together so I could cook them dinner with recipes from the book.

I love Italian food. It's so different from Indian food, and I love them both equally. Indian food is full of many different spices and done well, you can taste the layers of spices in the food. The earthy cumin, to the spicy chilli powder, to the fragrant coriander. Italian food I feel is the opposite, no spices but simple and good quality ingredients.

Now because the quality of the ingredients is vital in Italian cooking, instead of popping down my local supermarket to pick up my groceries I went to Whole Foods.

For starters I made a figs, mozzarella and basil salad with a lemon and olive oil dressing. It was simple and glorious. Usually when I cook from a recipe, I sometimes adapt it and make it my own, but I felt I had to commit to the recipes in this book because they are quite precise. And I (and my guests) were glad I did. Now I know there isn't much to adapt in this particular recipe, but I'm just saying that committing to a recipe is worth it.

This is a great starter. Light, tasty, and oh so delicious. I highly recommend buying good quality ingredients for this, it really pays off. So here it is for you to try.

Ingredients (Serves 4)

8 figs. (They should be slightly soft, so they give to pressure)
A big ball of good Mozzarella
A big handful of fresh basil
Maldon sea salt and pepper
Juice of 2 lemons
Extra virgin olive oil

Method

Wash the figs and cut the top of the stem. Cut each fig through its stem in half and then into quarters. Pick the basil leaves off the stalks and then wash and pat dry with a kitchen towel. Tear the mozzarella into halves and then quarters.

Place the figs and mozzarella pieces on to individual serving plates. Scatter the basil leaves over and season with salt and pepper.

Mix the lemon juice with three times its volume of extra virgin olive oil. Season. Pour over each plate and serve immediately.

Seriously good stuff.

This recipe is taken from River Cafe Cook Book Green, by Rose Gray and Ruth Rodgers.