Five-A-Day Pasta Bake

(Pasta bake before going into the oven)

I went a bit crazy on the market again and bought lots of stuff. I chopped it all and fried into a base for a big tray of pasta bake that should last me for a while. Added some leftovers in for good measure. The recipe ended up as some sort of 5-a-day pasta bake! My government will be pleased!

half a pound of mushroooms, sliced and ’shock-fried’
4 shallots, 4 cloves of garlic
2 small courgettes
1 aubergine (treat of the week, pre-salted, then washed and squeezed out)
1 gigantic red pepper
I fried all these and seasoned the mix with dried basil, salt, pepper, olive oil, cayenne and paprika (thanks for the souvenir from Hungary, Nicole! ).

While the vegetables were simmering, I boiled pasta (did not have enough of one kind of pasta, so I used the remaining bit of wholemeal pasta and the remaining bit of rice pasta I had once bought to make a hearty salad for a wheat-intolerant friend).

I then mixed the pasta and the vegetables and grated my last bit of cheese over it – only to realise that I had forgotten the washed spinach in a colander in the sink! So I had to destroy my carefully spread cheese cover and mix the spinach it. Then, I thought, I might as well put some more left-overs in. So I added some sunflower seeds, parmesan and the last bits of camembert from the waffle-making. The end-result was very pleasing. Somehow it tasted like it would also go well with some prawns in it as far as I can remember their taste. If you are a prawnivore with leftover prawns in your electric cool box, you might want to throw some in and check out if I’m right.

Of Herbs & Hairdryers – Winter Survival Guide Pt 1

Do you live in a place with no or practically non-existent heating and drafty single-glazed windows? Do you live in a squat? Do you have problems fighting colds off? Are you putting off going to bed at the thought of cold pyjamas? Here are a few suggestions from the past 10 years… feel free to add things from your experience.

Cold pyjamas: provided you have electricity, point hair-dryer at them for a few seconds before putting them on. Or put them in the oven for a bit if you haven’t got a hairdryer. A friend of mine puts them into her microwave!

Cold house: sit at desk or in the living room with your feet in a bucket full of warm water or saltwater. Wear fingerless gloves. Drink lots of tea & herbal tea. Wear thermal underwear if you have. Hot water with squash, hot lemon, hot chocolate… Get a teapot & warmer. The teapot warmer and pot will give off extra heat! Put candles on, open the oven door, invite friends. Humans radiate body heat! You could also substitute cold alcohol for mulled wine and hot fruit punch. Don’t eat big meals – eat small things in smaller intervals – this will keep up your body heat. Put hairdryer on occasionally if it gets too bad, but not for too long Hug a gigantic cuddly toy or fake fur cushion.

Cold bed: use hairdryer method or put a hot water bottle (or grain cushion) in beforehand. Friends of mine donated an electric blanket to me some years ago, which is really helping a lot! Still need to wear a hat or hoodie though!

Cracked and drafty windows: tape the cracks and get some large bubble wrap which gives a nice stained glass effect as well as insulation! Some other people seem to have done it as well and have posted some pictures!

No hot water in bathroom: go jogging before showering or use local swimming pool if it’s near and not too expensive. If it’s too dire, put the kettle on and mix water in basin.

How to get rid of a cold quickly: when you notice a cold approaching, crush some fresh garlic, put it into olive oil and drink it down with some salt and lemon juice. Alternatively, put crushed garlic in oil on a piece of bread, eat the bread and drink it down with lemon juice (or lemon, ginger and honey – try to get honey that is as little processed as possible). Get lots and lots of sleep! Another important thing when having a cold: cut out all dairy products. They worsen congestion and inflammation as far as I can tell.
Do steam inhalations with a towel over a bowl of hot salty water. Add herbs such as thyme – or oil mixtures such as Olbas to it, if it does not irritate your lungs too much. Make your own nose spray with salt water. Drink lots of water and herbal teas during the day. Take the occasional hot bath putting salt and drops of herbal oils into it.

Other suggestions: a colleague of mine used to chew bits of ginger – but that’s quite painful I find, but you might want to give it a go. Some people like pain
Another colleague recommended boiling onions with water and sugar – then drink it. It was a horrid experience – the stuff was disgusting and made my eyes water from the inside and did not help at all. But might work for some people…

Throat hurts: gargle with (and drink) sage tea.

For a chesty cough: I have two different herbal teas that I mix from herbs I get at Baldwin’s, Elephant & Castle (they also sell the herbs online). The teas usually work well and are cheaper than buying cough medicine (and they last longer).

The first mixture: mix coltsfoot & lungwort (and maybe some thyme). Brew with hot water (leave for 10 mins) and drink with or without honey.

The second mixture: thyme, bitter fennel, plantain herb, cowslip flowers.
This mixture is especially powerful and will make you cough a lot, but clears everything in the process.

If things feel really bad, there is one last thing that I do before subjecting myself to my useless doctor (he never examines me and either just gives me paracetamol or some outdated antibiotic that never works), a German herbal remedy called Gelomyrtol forte. You can get it in online pharmacies and even Amazon.com (!), and it is based on myrtle. A little on the expensive side, but has got rid of everything so far!

A friend of mine also uses a ‘natural antibiotic’ called umckaloabo which seems to be based on some sort of South African geranium. Got rid of her chronic sinusitis. Unfortunately, I cannot take it as I’m allergic to alcohol.

Danube Mud Pie

Before I fall asleep, here is another quick cake experiment report… It all started with me making a birthday cake for a German friend. There is a cake in Germany called ‘Donauwellen’ (‘Waves of the Danube’ – you are supposed to make these waves into the chocolate icing with a fork). But because the process of making the cake is so messy and, also, I prefer a messy marbled effect to the fork pattern, I call it ‘Danube Mud Pie’ after the Mississippi (what a funny word!) Mud Pie. Or maybe I feel that just looking at the pretty waves is a bit superficial – so enter the glorious mud! Anyway, it’s basically a flat marble cake with cherries and a layer of vanilla-flavoured buttercream and chocolate icing on top. Dead easy, but a lot of work, as every layer needs to cool first before you can proceed to the next!

Today, I wanted to try out a different type of vanilla cream, so I ended up making one from 1 pint of boiling milk, about 4 tbsp of vanilla sugar, 1 egg and cornflour. I made it in such a lazy and bizarre way (not separating the egg and beating the egg white, but stirring everything in vigorously with the cornflour-sugar-milk) that I ended up with this strange eggy-vanilla foam! It was actually very tasty! Because I also needed to use up some cream, I stirred about half a pot of whipped cream under the mixture. I used most of it for the cake and had the rest as a somewhat eccentric mousse dessert with my very late lunch!

Cheese Waffles

Made some cheese waffles coz it was a friend’s birthday (as well as some cake, but more about that later… happy birthday, Simon!). The waffle iron is a much loved tool in the house and was given to me by a much loved person. So whenever I am part of a gathering of people I try to smuggle some waffles in…
I have experimented quite a bit with cheese waffles, and so far the best ones are based on a recipe in one of my mum’s cookery books (but they are not the exact recipe). The dough is quite funny coz it’s not liquid. You either have to roll it out evenly, or, if you are lazy like me, you just squeeze it flat with your hands and put it into the hot iron!

The recipe (not for the faint-hearted in terms of calories) is as follows:

100g butter
pot of creme fraiche or sour cream
1 brie or camembert cheese (the riper & fatter the better – see what I mean?)
salt, pepper, generous dash of cayenne pepper
paprika powder
some curry powder (any) and/or cajun
about 250 – 300 g mixture of spelt and whole meal flour (or just wholemeal, but it’s nicer with spelt flour if you can get your hands on it)

Knead everything into a wet dough, leave in fridge for at least 8 hours. Form little pancakes and put them into the hot iron. Take out when brown & crisp!

Here is an alternative recipe I got of a friend in Wakefield. We tried them out and they are also nice!

4 eggs
100 g flour
1 tsp baking powder
50 g cheddar
50 g parmesan
salt
4 tbsp milk
150 g butter

Happy crunching!

Pasta Salad

I have a near total aversion to mayonnaise, unless it’s the homemade kind, and most of all, I hate mayo in sandwich fillings and salads. And who ever thought of making it the colour of shaving foam (how do they get it so white?!) and the even more unappetising consistency of wallpaper paste? Anyway…
Here is a recipe for a pasta salad, based on one we make at the Food Chain which is, thankfully, mayo free and therefore, more tasty than any other pasta salad you will probably ever have tasted (the crude picture really does not do it justice)! In the summer, I usually make one big lot and have it as a main meal for several days.

The basics:

Pasta
Feta Cheese, crumbled
Capers (as many as you like)
Spring Onions, chopped
Red Peppers, chopped
Cucumber, chopped
Avocado
Mixed Seeds

For the sauce, combine:
Lemon juice
Oil
Salt, Pepper

You can also add to the salad (depending on season and budget)

Radishes, chopped
Sundried tomatoes, chopped
Dried apricots, chopped or cranberries (taken out of a jar of cranberry sauce)
Yellow peppers
Chives

Butternut Squash Bake

I haven’t had such a photogenic meal in ages! It’s getting cold and winter squashes are invading the markets, so I thought I’d try incorporating them into a meal for some friends. I’ve just had roast squashes and butternut squash soup before, so making a bake was something I have never done before. I first considered making a creamy sauce with them, but then I went for the cheesy-eggy type, inspired by a German blog (thank you!). Here is the recipe:

In a baking tin, slightly pre-roast (with some oil, salt, chilli powder and some other spices you like – I tried cumin which worked okay) chopped

Onions
Garlic
Butternut Squash (you could use other members of the squash family)
Courgettes
Carrots
Leek

In the meantime, wash some

Spinach

and make the sauce by whisking together

Eggs (for your average British home baking tray you will need about 6 eggs)
Cream (any, about 1/2 pint)
Grated Cheese (any, even feta would work)
Salt
Pepper
Nutmeg (or other spices you like)

Take out the slightly pre-roasted vegetables, stir in the washed (and hopefully dry) spinach leaves, and, if you want, some

Veggie Mince

Pour over the cream-egg mixture (the vegetables don’t need to be covered by it, it will rise above them even if the mixture just covers the bottom of the baking tin), grate some extra cheese over the top and, lastly, add some

Toasted sunflower seeds (you can get a bag of untoasted ones for just over 20p, and you can toast them yourself in a pan or in the oven)
and/or (if you can get/afford it) Pre-soaked wheat grain (e.g. Ebly) and maybe bits of veggie mince

as a topping!

The result should look something like this:

Save a bass player!

I had the honour of cooking for the Bush Tetras last night, and I heard that their original bass player urgently needs a liver transplant. The band has set up a fund and is playing some gigs in order to raise some money. Also, an American record shop, which also trades online, donates all its proceeds from Bush Tetras CDs/Vinyl/T-shirts to this fund! So, if you can, go to a gig, update your music collection or throw a fundraising party!

Chick Pea Curry

This summer I unexpectely had a really nice chick pea curry at a music festival where I was volunteering. Today I thought I’d try recreating it. It did not quite work out, but the result was nice anyway. Just gotta work on the colour. Want to find the recipe for the other curry, though – another time. Feel a bit like a chemist doing analyses at times (or like an alchemist?)…

The basic idea was to make a curry from chick pea stock, chick peas and coconut milk, and unfortunately, I did not have the time to experiment with spices much. So I basically sauteed lots of garlic, added some curry paste and ginger, then the precooked chick peas with stock (made from soaked and boiled chick peas – boiled with turmeric, cumin and salt actually). I later added some brown lentils, potato and sweet potato cubes and spinach. Although everybody liked the outcome (hence me posting the recipe for those who requested it!), I feel it needs a lot of improvement (flavour, texture and colour). Am working on it!

Lentil Stew with Yoghurt

Recently, I’ve been to quite a few friends’ places where I had the chance to sample some tasty Middle-Eastern cooking! So yesterday, I was in the process of making an ordinary lentil dish – and suddenly it turned sort of Middle-Eastern! So I quickly got on my bike to the Turkish shop to add some more appropriate vegetables (via the Turkish pastry counter I’m afraid)! It turned out kind of like this (once I’d finished with the baklava starter…):

Onions & garlic, sauteed
Brown lentils (and maybe some green ones?), dried and fried for a bit
Tins of tomatoes and tomato puree with some water
An obscene amount of cinnamon
Salt, pepper, a bit or turmeric, cumin, coriander and dried chilli flakes

Wait a bit until the lentils have had some time to cook. Then add:

Celery, aubergine and potato cubes
Sliced okra (goes in last when the potatoes are half-cooked)

I think that was it! I cooked it the day before I wanted to eat it to let the spices do their work. The next day I reheated it in the oven with a layer of yoghurt on top and some fresh coriander sprinkled on top.

A friend of mine does a very yummy stripped-down version of this: you basically follow the recipe until the spices come in. You scrap the other vegetables (unless you have any you can use) and add some fries or chips to the mix or tins of beans.

Serve with rice and bread, if you have. I also made some coriander salad to go with it (tomatoes, apples, celery, shallots and a vinaigrette to which you can add rosewater).

Another Fennel Salad

Today, I also found some celery in the fridge – had forgotten all about it! So I made a fennel-celery-orange salad with lemon dressing. Very tasty! Here is the recipe:

1 fennel bulb
2 celery sticks
2 oranges

For the lemon dressing squeeze out 1/2 – 1 lemon, mix it with oil and sugar to taste. Add some ‘feathery fennel bits’ or pepper if you feel like it!

Next time I must try it with yoghurt-lemon sauce!