EGGS FOR EASTER

The snow came down again today. Wonderful at Easter. To bring a bit of sunshine in our lives I prepared a Turkish dish, Menemen which also fits in with Easter as it contains eggs. Is that a bit of a weak link? Ah well.
Basically, Menemen is just the thing when you want something quick, comforting and filling. Of course, it's good for me because it suits us all and I don't have to cook anything different for Tom, my vegetarian son.  Oh, and the aroma of coriander definitely brings a bit of warmth to the table on a snowy Easter Saturday.

WHAT YOU NEED
1 onion, thickly chopped
4 red and yellow peppers
2 red chillies, deseeded and finely chopped
400g can of chopped tomatoes
2 tbsp coriander, chopped
4 eggs
olive oil
150g Feta cheese, crumbled

WHAT YOU DO
Heat the oil in a large pan and fry the onions, peppers and chillies  over a medium heat until the onion is golden. Add tomatoes, and cook until the peppers are soft. Break the eggs on top and cook for 15 minutes until they are set. This takes around 15 minutes. Scatter the coriander and the feta cheese over the top. And serve.

You should really probably  flatbread with this dish. But after making the focaccia I decided to make Ciabatta. Mr Tucci didn't have a recipe for this so I found a blog. Have to say I am disappointed with the result. Looks OK but really lacking in the Ciabatta texture. Will try again another day and when I find it I will share.
On the cake front, I made brownies with a salted caramel sauce.  You can find in some shops, sea salt with vanilla added. I had some as a present and used it to  make the sauce.
Making caramel does scare me a little and I always end up with it slightly more overdone than I like. Anyway to do it
I put 150g of caster sugar in a saucepan and put it on a medium heat. Let it simmer and just give it the occasional stir to make sure all the sugar caramelises. At the same time I put 150ml of double cream in pan and slowly, slowly bring to just before boiling point.  When the sugar is a coppery colour, remove from the heat and add half the cream and the salt. It all goes very bubbly at this point. Wait for it to stop bubbling and then add the rest of the cream and 75g of unsalted butter. and give the mixture a good whisk to remove lumps. I then make up  Brownies using Nigella Lawson's Everyday Brownies recipe from Kitchen and before putting them in the oven pour over the salted caramel sauce. You can, of course, reheat the sauce and pour over the cooked brownies.

FEELGOOD FRIDAY

School has broken up and we have the long Easter weekend to enjoy.  Bliss.  Well, apart from the fact the weather is still Christmassy and the weather man is talking about more snow tomorrow. While the temptation to eat all day is strong, we are  kind of pacing ourselves for the feasts of lamb and mountains of chocolate that are  to come later in the weekend. 

For dinner tonight I  have some sea bass in the fridge along with Jerusalem artichokes and curly kale. I’ll  puree the Jerusalem artichokes, which simply consists of peeling them, popping them in a pan of boiling water for an hour and then vigorously mashing them with 150 ml of double cream.

To pan fry the sea bass , I’ll score the skin 3 times. Why 3? No idea just feels right.   Heat up some butter and vegetable oil and then lay the sea bass, skin side down and cook for about 3 minutes.

And then what to do with the curly kale? As I’m hardly breaking a sweat with the rest of the meal I will just sauté them in some oil  and add freshly cut ginger and chilli to the pan. Easy.

And for my vegetarian son, he belongs firmly to the school of thought that fish do have feelings and a face and therefore shouldn’t be on a plate.  So I have made for him, a batch of Chickpea and Spinach Filo parcels. I believe this recipe was initially from Jamie Oliver’s 15 Minute Meals but I came across it on a blog called Eat, Drink Play London.

CHICKPEA AND SPINACH PARCELS

So to make them you will need

1 x 400g tin of chickpeas

100g feta cheese

100g baby spinach

1 lemon

1 tsp. sweet smoked paprika

4 large sheets of filo pastry (from 270g pack)

Olive oil

1.     Preheat oven to 190°. Drain the chickpeas and put them in a food processor along with feta, spinach, lemon zest and paprika. Blitz until they are combined.

2.     Fold a large sheet of filo pastry in half, drop ¼ of the mixture into the middle of  the pastry. Bring up the sides and loosely make into a parcel.

3.     Heat a pan on the hob, adding 1 tbsp. olive oil, and put in parcels, frying for a couple of minutes to crisp up the pastry before popping on a baking tray and putting into the oven for 20 mins or until they are beautifully golden and crispy.

I was just about to serve one of these with a leafy salad and a drizzle of fig vinegar dressing.  (I received, for my birthday a set of vinegars in fig, raspberry and cassis. and use them at any given opportunity.) The phone rang and the vegetarian one informed me he was invited for tea at his mates. Was that a problem?  Luckily these parcels could all go in the freezer to be used on another less social day!

Because I can not keep my hands out of dough, I decided to make focaccia. My lovely friend, Jo has moved to US and she sent me, for my birthday, The Tucci Cookbook, yes, Hollywood actor’s book of Italian cooking. .  It is brilliant, he is passionate about Italian food, and writes in such an enthusiastic and easy to follow way. Also fab is the fact that Jo got me the edition that has grams and ounces not cups. I’m far too mathematically challenged to handle that.   He has a couple of focaccia recipes but I chose Tropiano Family focaccia and added sundried tomatoes and olives to them just before I baked. Have to say I was thrilled with the result. Delicious.  

After  dinner we enjoyed espresso cakes, courtesy of Nigella Lawson’s Domestic Goddess book.  They are gorgeous, but I have to add much more coffee as I am a caffeine fiend and need the coffee to over ride all the other flavours.  My daughter also snuck in the kitchen when this afternoon and made some Oreo cupcakes. She crumbled Oreos into the cupcake cases and poured her chocolate cake mixture over the top before baking. Have to say I was sceptical as I  am not a fan at all of Oreos but  somehow they worked in these cakes. So much for us showing restraint in cake eating though. 

Feeding The Family

I love cooking, especially baking. I could bake all day but man can not live on cake alone. Actually this woman probably could but my BMI shows that it's not the best idea. So tasty healthy food has to be made along with the cakes. I have to make sure everyone else in my family eats healthily too. I also want to make sure my food is fresh and with the rising cost of everything, I have to count the pennies and wasted food has to be a no no. Everything in my cupboards has to be used up.
And then there are the people who I am feeding. My family firstly. My son T, 16, decided he wanted to follow a vegetarian diet a few months ago. Not really a problem but sometimes it's just too easy to give him something pre-prepared  and he has so much pasta.  I really want to make him home made food when possible.
My daughter R, 12, is a somewhat fussy eater. I generally ignore her culinary complaints though and give her what we are eating. Sometimes though, I feel like being a different kind of mother (a benevolent, generous, non grouchy mother) and will give her her favourite. I have learned not to give either of the children their favourite meals  too frequently  or they quickly become unfavourite meals!
My husband, Michael, is not particularly fussy and very rarely complains but does have a particular and peculiar facial expression to show his dislike if his  dinner is not to his taste. But he's normally too hungry to fuss and knows if he wants an alternative he'll have to go in the kitchen and make it. He brings stress to the meal time schedule by the fact he has to commute and doesn't get home until 8.30pm Monday-Thursday. Irritating time to serve up and unhealthy time to eat but it's what we have to do.
Now both of us, have realised our love of food, especially the cakes for me and cheese (and wine) for him have lead us to take drastic action to try and shed some weight.  So we're following the Fast Diet. This means for 2 days out of 7 we cut down our calorific intake considerably. I can eat 500 calories and he can eat up to 600. It's tough but is working and has great health benefits. The tricky thing is trying to create interesting, delicious food for that amount of calories but it can be done.
And on the other 5 days we can eat what we like! Waahey! Including cake! WAAAHEY!  Now I don't swoon over cakes that look pretty as much as cakes with bite,  hearty cakes, cakes that have back stories, cakes  that come from faraway places.  Hmmm, not sure I can actually define the cakes I love but hope to make it clear on this blog.