Cassoulet, by 'u m a m i', under Creative Commons
Cassoulet is a wonderful thing. It’s a beautifully simple and tasty French dish that reminds me of family holidays in Frejus. Unfortunately it’s not a pretty dish. It’s not surprising, since it’s basically beans and fatty meat in a tomato sauce. It’s like posh sausage and beans… Read the rest of this entry »
This is Christmas to me. Sod the turkey, stuffing, mince pies or Christmas pudding. Every year my grandmother would make a dozen deserts. Curd cake, lemon freezer cake (coming soon), raspberry bomb (maybe coming soon) and chocolate chestnut were my favourites… Read the rest of this entry »
Chai Latte, by House of Sims, under Creative Commons
There’s one thing that Starbucks has done that will forever benefit the world – it introduced me to the wonders of Chai Lattes. Okay… maybe that doesn’t benefit the entire world… Read the rest of this entry »
Dulce de Leche brownies, by jessicafm, under Creative Commons
There are times when I wonder what the hell I’m thinking. Deciding to cook a cake for the first time would be one of those times. Choosing to make it brownies would make it worse. You can guess that using a Portuguese recipe didn’t convince me it was any more sane an idea.
Still, if I can make it work, I’m guessing anyone can… Read the rest of this entry »
During one of our health kicks, we bought a collection of recipe books focusing on Mediterranean cookery. One of them is the enticingly named “Greek Vegan Cookbook”. Sadly, it’s not about cooking Greek vegans.
At some point, the book made it upstairs and hid itself under the bed. Presumably someone, consciously or not, decided to hide it.
The little fluffy bundle of evil known as “Buffy” made her opinion known much more clearly.
Placed delicately on top of the cookbook this morning was a freshly slaughtered blackbird…
penmachine's idea of Coleslaw, under Creative Commons
Despite my best intentions, it would appear that I’m filling this with stupidly simple recipes. Today, we have a coleslaw recipe that is so simple that I’ve never bothered to write it down. A recipe that I tend to make in large enough quantities that there’s enough for dinner, lunch and then the next dinner. Hohum…
Now, this gets complicated, so try to keep up…
Put all of the vegetables through the shredding bit of your food processor. Or get handy with a big knife. Either way, you want to make sure that everything is sliced up really thinly. Stir it all about. Add the juice, a glug of oil, some salt and pepper, and the mayonnaise. The exact amount will vary depending on your personal tastes and how thinly you’ve cut the veggies. The idea is to leave a layer of mayo across the veggies that’s so thin it’s almost invisible but still sticks them together…
Complex eh?
There’s probably nothing better with some good blue steak and baby new potatoes…
This is the laziest ‘recipe’ you’ll ever find here…
Take a few cups of frozen cherries and put them in a blender with a shot of Amaretto, a couple of teaspoons of ground almonds, and a little soft brown sugar (depending on how sweet the cherries are).
Blend them til it goes relatively smooth and then stick them back in the freezer for a while. Stir it a bit. Freeze it a bit longer…
rdpeyton's version of a Cuban Sandich, under Creative Commons
There is a thing called a Cuban sandwich. It’s a delicacy that involves Cuban bread, pig, pickles and seven kinds of wonderful. The problem is that you can’t get it in the UK. We don’t have the bread. The pickles are somehow different and the cheese is just simply not the same.
So what we have left is a sandwich that’s about as Cuban as I am. Thankfully, however, it’s made from things that are available in the UK. Just don’t feed it to a Cuban. They’ll probably cry. Read the rest of this entry »
Image by Gret@Lorenz under Creative Commons
Think of Churros as being donuts/doughnuts that have been extruded into wonderfully thing and crispy lengths instead of being dumped into the fat as a ball. It’s like comparing a french fry to a deep fried baking potato.
They’re native to most of the Spanish and Portuguese speaking world (plus Morocco), but to me they’re pure Cuba… Read the rest of this entry »
