Red Cabbage & Cauliflower Salad

Yesterday, I tried out this salad. It’s really simple to make if you’ve got a good grater or food processor. Basically, you chop some iceberg lettuce and finely slice red cabbage as well as raw cauliflower. The result looks a bit like something that comes out of a neuroscience lab…

I made a yoghurt dressing to go with it using creamy wholemilk yoghurt, salt, lemon juice, garlic, mustard, pepper, paprika, parsley, vinegar, olive oil and sugar. Later, I found out (thanks to the lady from HTRK!) that the salad also tastes good with chilli sauce mixed in, so next time I’ll probably make the dressing much more spicy!

Somebody requested that I make it look less like brains, so I mixed it up a bit… still pretty scary! Luckily, nobody was genuinely put off, so it all got eaten!

Lemon & Coriander Rice

Thought I’d share this picture of lemon & coriander rice. It has chopped fresh coriander and lemon in and on it, and was cooked in a similar style to pilau rice with lots of spices and some salt. I used a mixture of whole grain, wild and red rice that i found in a certain supermarket…

Chick Pea & Celeriac Chilli

This is my new favourite dish: chick pea and celeriac chilli. It does not actually need the rice. Maybe some bread, if all. I made it because a friend was coming over for dinner who dislikes so many vegetables, I’ve lost track (the most important rule is: ‘no peppers’).  Also, I had an Open University deadline and did not have the time to do much shopping, so I just went with whatever was in the house. I soaked the chick peas over night and boiled them soft the next day with some salt, turmeric and cumin. In a separate pot, I fried some onions, tiny celeriac cubes and four cloves of garlic (I like my garlic!). I also added some chopped chillis, some spices, lots of dried basil and some veggie mince. Finally, I added the chick peas and their broth. Into this broth, I stirred enough tomato puree to make the whole thing creamy! It was so nice! Unfortunately, my friend did not get to have any of the chilli, as she decided last minute that she cannot have garlic before meeting an important client the next day. So I just got her some fish (from sustainable sources and from a certain posh supermarket’s reduced to clear section) and prepared it after a fantastic & easy recipe I stole from the BBC! She was happy, and I had the chilli all to myself. Bingo!

For dessert, I made vanilla pudding with berry sauce (I found frozen berries on special offer). There was lots of berry sauce left, but it came in handy when a friend brought round some pumpkin loaf!

Last but not least, here are instructions for a paper Battenberg in case you need to stay away from the real thing!

Save the Foundry!

The Foundry minus the awful advertising that currently defaces the upper part of the building
Source: Go East Old Man (and slightly younger woman)

Ah well, another good place is being destroyed by money in the wrong hands. This time, it’s The Foundry, a pub and event space at the junction between Old Street and Great Eastern Street. The Foundry stands out in an area which has been overtaken by superficial hipness. While it may attract some of those types, it is mainly a place for artist-activists. In its elven years of existence it has housed music, cabaret, outsider art, political film festivals and even runs its own radio show. I have performed there many times as a musician and have put on events to support ‘World Oceans Day’ being recognised by the UN. Frankly, I cannot think of any other places which support such a mix of activities in central London on such a sustained basis.

Proposed to be in its place is a so-called ‘Artotel’ (ironically, an art-themed hotel) in which art does not seem to amount to mere decorative value. The blurb on their proposal reads that they are seeking links to local artist communities, but I cannot see the Foundry’s type of  ‘Artivism’ (to go with the word blending theme…) work in such a highly corporate environment. I don’t think there is much anyone can do about this other than hoping for the council to support a relocation of the Foundry on the basis that it is a place of cultural significance. Cultural significance is a concept which includes, for instance, social significance which is commonly defined as ‘embrac[ing] the qualities for which a place has become a focus of spiritual, political, national or other cultural sentiment to a majority or minority group‘. Here are some examples of how ‘cultural significance’ is established. If you feel that these points apply to the Foundry, please forward your arguments to the local council:

Hackney Planning Services
Dorothy Hodgkin House
12 Reading Lane
London
E8 1HJ

Thank you!

Also check this out:

It’s a bit hard to read, but basically it says that the deadline for objections is 20 November and that you can also e-mail to gillian.nicks@hackney.gov.uk (planner for this site) and/or graham.loveland@hackney.gov.uk (head of planning) and cc to eyesoreonoldst@live.co.uk .

My best burgers so far…

I love making burgers with millet. I used to make these burgers with millet as the main ingredient, but nowadays, I also put other ingredients to vary the flavour. The latest one was quorn mince. Here is the recipe:

(makes about 50 burgers)

1 packet millet (you can get it at most health food stores or Waitrose)
1 packet veggie mince
3 large shallots or onion, finely chopped
About 12-13 eggs
about 10 slices of (dry) bread, I used about 4 slices of rye bread and 6 slices of seeded bread
Vegetable stock to cook the millet (about 2 1/2 times the volume of the millet)
1 whole garlic, peeled and crushed

Generous doses of:
Caraway
Mustard Powder
Paprika
Nutmeg

Salt
Optional: flour for dusting

Soak the bread in water, stock or spiced water. When the bread is soaked well, drain the liquid and squeeze the water out of the bread.

If you like, briefly roast the millet, before adding the vegetable stock. Otherwise just add the stock and boil until the millet is soft-ish and the liquid has been soaked up/evaporated.

Mix all remaining ingredients in a bowl plus the bread and the cooled-down millet.

Heat oil in a pan. Make patties, dust them with flour if you like and fry them until they are firm on the inside and crisp on the outside. Eat immediately.

You can also keep the burgers in the fridge or freezer and reheat them under a grill or in the oven.

The burgers can be eaten in buns with sauces, by themselves or as part of a ‘normal’ dinner with e.g. tomato sauce and vegetables.

Brown Stuff

This is German-style rice pudding with cinnamon. In the picture, it looks a pretty gross, but it is actually very nice! We used to eat it as a main meal. Saturday was our sweet main course day for some reason where we ate apple & semolina souffle, potato fritters with bramley sauce, pancakes or chocolate and almond pudding. Of course, we had an ‘alibi salad’ for afters
This rice pudding you make in the pot by heating milk and pudding rice together (with a bit of salt) in a pan. You have to frequently stir it until the rice is soft. Sometimes, you have to add extra milk near the end. It is usually eaten with cinnamon and sugar or hot cherries!

This is a caraway cake. Yes, caraway. I had to try it! It is very tasty.

The recipe goes as follows:

225 g butter
175 g brown sugar
3 eggs
350 plain flour (I think I added a bit of spelt flour, just because it was there…)
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground caraway seeds (you can use more if you like and you can use whole seeds!)
grated lemon rind
juice of 1/2 lemon
milk

citron peel, candied lemon/lime, jam or marmelade (I used homemade spiced kiwi butter)

cocoa powder
chocolate sprinkles
more milk

Bake at medium heat for about an hour, depending on the temperament of your oven…

You basically make it like a marble cake. But I also added a layer of kiwi butter and some chocolate sprinkles just out of curiosity. I am quite pleased with the result! Unfortunately, I burnt the cake a bit, so the whole thing has a bit of a crispy crust, and I had to cut some of the top of, which is why the chocolate layer is a bit flat… argh!

Here are the intermediate stages….
1) Non-chocolate dough with jam layer
2) Chocolate dough spooned over the jam layer

While tidying up, I also came across a recipe for a pineapple and banana cake with mango filling. Looked amazing. I’m just waiting for a special occasion to arrive to make it… Otherwise it would be a little over indulgent to have it all by myself!

Potatoes, lots of them

Last weekend, I went to the 24hrs really late and found lots of bargains: a sack of potatoes for 22p, organic cucumbers for 22p each and some whole fat live yoghurt. The first thing I made was cucumber salad and chips. Here is a picture of the chips, made in a normal non-stick pot filled less than an inch with sunflower oil:

… if you can see them under all this ketchup… I sometimes make my chips without taking the peel off the potatoes. The important thing is to make the oil very hot before you put the potatoes in. This way, the outside of the potatoes will close and won’t allow so much fat to pass into the inside.
I forgot to take a picture of the cucumber salad. It had a dill-yoghurt sauce which contained yoghurt, thinly sliced cucumbers, lemon, pepper, sugar, chives & dill (dried), salt, olive oil.

The next day I was even lazier and combined potatoes, cucumbers and yoghurt into one dish: baked potatoes with not-quite-tzatziki. For the latter, I quartered the cucumber length-wise, sliced the quarters thinly, chopped a shallot, squeezed some garlic and added salt and pepper. When the potatoes were ready, I chopped them up to allow them to cool more quickly (I was very hungry!).

I will probably make another soup with the rest of the potatoes…

Poach Pod Experiment

The other day, I discovered a new kitchen tool: poach pods! I’m normally not a fan of silicone kitchen stuff – or anything that feels kind of plasticy – but these intrigued me because they make it really easy for you to poach eggs or make flans or anything else that uses the ‘water bath’ method and is likely to stick to your non-bendy vessel. What you see in this picture is me poaching what is bascially scrambled egg with too much nutmeg. The pods just float on the boiling water – you can even close the lid!

I like this type of egg chopped up into small cubes and dumped into a bowl of vegetable broth, possibly alongside some vegetables and maybe even fake meat balls or dumplings. A very German thing, and usually a pain in the ass to make (my grandma made it in a buttered mug). But now, thanks to my two new companions, I can eat this soupy goodness more often!

Happy Halloween!

Improvised Winter Dessert

I has to use up a few things in the kitchen today and made this improvised dessert from

Yoghurt (Full-fat)
Cranberry sauce
Crumbled spiced (gingery) cookies

Tasty!