Sunday 27 January 2013

Lentil and Halloumi salad




A few weeks ago, I went out with some old friends from college. The meeting came about as a sort of reunion between me (2010 – 2012 spent sitting in various bedrooms on my laptop) and R (2010 – 2012 spent backpacking her way across the world and then living in Australia, where she long-boarded to work and got her nose pierced).



I was worried that R might come back to the UK a bit weird. You know how these free-n-easy people sometimes get – all cocky and self-important, as if they know more about the world than a person who has watched all of the documentaries on Queen Victoria’s children.

Luckily, she was still R – funny, nice and normal! The meeting was also very exciting because on Christmas eve, R had met a guy in a pub and had invited him along to join us all. This was particularly thrilling because it meant I wouldn’t be the awkward friend who nobody had seen for a while. Instead, I would be the friend that everyone had spent the last hour with; basically a piece of the friendship group’s furniture!

So, the date guy (A) arrives and he is very nice. I have switched to present tense now because it’ll make you feel like you were there (to punish you via passive-aggressive means for me having to read Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall). A works as a postman and we chat about how ideal a job it must be and wow, you walk around all day and probably listen to Radio 4 podcasts on your headphones and wear shorts. I explain that my dad's cousin once had a sort of “midlife crisis” and left his job as a solicitor to become a postman and we all say “wow, he definitely has the right idea”.

The night is going well, so we move on to another bar to drink some cocktails. We all order and we’re standing at the bar, waiting. A few people have left now, so it is only me, R and A, the date guy. I start to panic a bit because the less people there are in a social situation, the more pressure there is on you to talk and be funny. He obviously already likes R because he is on a date with her. So the stakes are high for me because unless I am nice or funny or something, he probably won’t like me.

So, I decide to ask him a question about himself: “Do you have to work six days a week then? Because we get post on Saturdays, don’t we? Um…”

Immediately, I realise what a shit, shit, shit question I have asked. We have already covered his job, in depth. We have moved on from lunch and are now well into the evening, where one wants to forget about work and talk about fun things.

“Oh, um sorry, I know that sounds like a mundane question,” I squirm “like I’m just making conversation but um, well I do actually want to know…the answer.”

They both look at me, puzzled. I must make a bit of a funny face because R quickly pipes up “Laura, it’s okay to make conversation; that’s why we’re here!” and it sounds so simple! Of course that is why we are here – to talk about stuff – anything!

That must have been something she had learnt whilst travelling and I briefly consider whether I should go travelling so I can learn some more of these wise, old life lessons. No, I tell myself, don’t be silly but do take note of this shrewd little nugget and have a pleasant evening, where you just say stuff! And so I did! And if what I said was a bit rubbish, we all just had a laugh about it!

Towards the end of the evening, things began to get so laidback that A started telling “cheesy” jokes and because we could just say what we wanted to say without having to issue instant apologies, we all laughed along!

One such “cheesy” joke was as follows:

Q: What did the cheese say when he looked in the mirror?
A: Halloumi!

I made a halloumi salad to take to work the other day and wow, it was good. It’s quite dry, which I tend to find with lentil dishes generally but for a salad that needs to be robust enough to transport to work each day and last the week without going soggy, it’s perfect.

I was unsure whether I should delete the hedonistic drawl above and just make this post an ode to halloumi. Naaaaah…but in tribute to the wonder cheese, here are some halloumi facts:

Halloumi is from Cyprus!
Halloumi has a higher-than-average melting point, which means it can be fried or grilled without turning into gunk!
Delia erroneously says of halloumi: “Not the most exciting cheese to nibble”!
Halloumi tastes very salty before cooking and quite salty after cooking!

This salad is easy. I wouldn’t say that if it wasn’t because I am lazy and so I know how this kind of stuff works.

The recipe was from the good old BBC but I will write my version out here anyway because I changed quite a bit.

Ingredients

1 punnet of cherry tomatoes, halved
1 red onion, finely sliced
1 garlic clove, crushed
Half a lemon, juiced (or if you use the ready-made stuff, 1 tbsp of lemon juice)
1 tbsp olive oil
150g green lentils
1 pack of halloumi cheese (buy any sort you want – light, chilli infused etc.), chunked – a word I just invented, meaning cut into chunks.
Some coriander, roughly chopped

Onion, tomatoes and garlic into a large bowl (or Tupperware if you’re not planning to eat it all freshly cooked). Olive oil and lemon juice and toss (read: mix a bit). Leave to stand while you cook the lentils, so the flavours infuse.

Here are the flavours, infusing.

 Cook lentils - perhaps do as it says on the packet but when I tried to do this, the following happened:



So keep an eye on them. Having made this dish again, I would say that you should put in as much water as the packet requires and boil for 10 minutes, turn down to a simmer for 10ish minutes more and as soon as there is very little/no water left, take it off the heat and drain, swill, drain. Plonk them into your onion/tomato mix.

You can start to grill your halloumi while the lentils are cooking. If you’re not going to eat the dish right away, then don’t panic because you don’t need the halloumi to be warm. If you’re eating it straight away, then get the halloumi on the fucking grill asap!

Season your salad and mix in the coriander. Once the halloumi is golden, you can mix that in too! Serve immediately if you want to eat it right away and if you’re storing it, wait for the halloumi and lentils to cool before snapping on the lid and refrigerating.

This gives you four fairly small portions. It would make a nice supper for two, with leftovers for one (I reckon).
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Tuesday 22 January 2013

Snow Sorbet / Ice Cream




 Good news readers! You have been treated to a break from my self-indulgent ways today. Call it a snow day or call it something else because I have no anecdote for you! Why? Have you not been living? Have you drunk one too many mind-eraser cocktails in Kavos? No! No! And I don’t have time for dicking around like this either: THIS IS AN EMERGENCY POST!

There are lots of emergencies in the snow, you see. Some people break their legs and others get stranded in their cars. The 24-hour news coverage uses the word “treacherous” so freely that you begin to wonder whether there is a new nutty, marshmallow-y chocolate bar on the scene called Treacherous, the manufacturers of which have embarked on an expensive and wide-reaching subliminal advertising campaign. But I have no time to ponder these types of questions because as I said, this is an urgent situation.

When I saw that it was snowing earlier this week, I went all Earth Mother because I remembered that we are all one organism; us and the earth. I know this to be a fact because I used to smoke grass! Literally!

You see, as a naive 13-year-old I was conned into buying some rolling papers and a rolling “machine” from an older girl at school. I was too young to buy tobacco and so to avoid my purchase becoming a waste of money, I used to roll up grass from the local park and smoke that instead. Imagine putting your mouth over an entire bonfire and inhaling – it was catastrophic.

However, I learnt there and then that I was at one with the earth; I was smoking it and it just letting me stand on it.

Right, right – sorry, an emergency. The recipe I am bringing to you today is concerned with snow and snow melts and only comes once or twice a year so if I don’t tell you about this RIGHT NOW, you might have to wait another year before trying it.

Incidentally, life as a food blogger isn’t easy. I can’t just cook stuff I love all the time, otherwise I would simply bring you a selection of vegetable lasagnes and lemon drizzle cakes. Instead, I have to do crazy things! Wild things! Things I don’t want to do! Some may say that as I have no readers, there is no point in me doing these things I hate…and they would be right…but I am very silly.

So, when I saw that it had snowed, I thought I had better make the most of it, even though the last thing one wishes to eat at the height of winter is a bowl of ice cream.

According to every website I have ever read about snow ice cream, you’re meant to be very vigilant about which snow you use. For example and perhaps most importantly, do take note of Frank Zappa’s advice and Don’t Eat The Yellow Snow (I can’t take credit for this reference).

To collect your snow, you are technically meant to leave a bowl outside (in a quiet area) and let the snow fall directly into the bowl. Then collect the bowl right away. That is probably what you should do but for those of us who didn’t think about this in time, don’t worry too much.

My snow, collected from the garden.

 I used day-old snow in my back garden which was, as far as I could tell, untouched. Just to make sure, I scraped a layer off the top and used the middle snow. I ate a fair bit of the ice cream and haven’t had the runs yet (although if you don’t hear from me in the coming weeks, assume the worst).



This recipe makes 1 serving of vanilla sorbet/ice cream but you can easily double, triple etc. the quantities as you see fit.

Ingredients

400ml snow
25g caster sugar
½ tsp vanilla essence (I used 1 tsp but this was too much, so measure it to your own tastes)
60ml milk (you might not need all of this)

  1. Stir your sugar into the snow.
  2. Stir in the vanilla – taste as you go along to make sure you’re not going over the top like I did.
  3. Stir in enough milk for the desired consistency. Mine had almost all of the milk in, which made it more sorbet-like. If the worst happens and you put too much milk in…just go outside and collect some more snow!


It goes without saying that you should try to work quickly but if this doesn’t happen, pop the ice cream into the freezer for a few minutes. Serve in a pretty dish!
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Friday 18 January 2013

The Best Veggie Chilli




I watched the film “Catfish” the other day. It’s about a guy who gets into an online/telephone relationship with a girl who lives quite far away. Things start to become a little suspicious (she also sounds like a toddler on the phone, so who knows what he was thinki….I have to be careful where I go with this because I can’t afford a solicitor) and the guy secretly travels to her address to meet her. Only, she isn’t quite who he thought she was (she isn’t a toddler). As I was watching this, I remembered a similar situation that had befallen me! I am kicking myself for not having made a film about it all, so I hope a blog about chilli can act as a suitable substitute for my lack of fame and fortune.

When I was 15, I became friends with a girl in my form called G, who was pretty and cool. Being friends with G made me feel prettier and cooler, which was very important at that age. G was cool because she lived in this big, old house that smelt of incense. Her parents were hippy types who smoked joints, had drapes thrown over all their furniture and hung dream catchers EVERYWHERE. G and her older brother had been allowed to do proper spray paint graffiti all over their bedroom walls, which seemed particularly attractive because I had just emerged triumphantly from tense UN-peace-treaty-type negotiations in a bid to paint my bedroom purple.

G and I started attending these little provincial gigs which were so cool because one day this guy lit a sparkler IN the venue and didn’t get kicked out! I was in heaven! This was the new age! I was basically living in the sixties! Once, after spending the night at G’s hippy-pad crashed out on the sofa, I woke up to her older brother kissing me, which now sounds rather creepy (just how long had he BEEN there looking at me? I dribble in my sleep!) but then, it was just so bohemian.

One night, my non-conformist lifestyle took yet another turn because G introduced me to a LESBIAN called S. She was a few years older than me and I wasn’t very sure that I actually liked her that much but we somehow began to talk quite a lot on MSN Messenger.

During a particular conversation, S said she was off to have a shower but that her cousin, P, would chat to me as he was staying at her house and was a bit bored. After a bit of “hi” “hi” “how’s u?” “fine u” etc., P asked me about what I looked like…so I sent him a picture. Nothing dodgy (I’m not STUPID) but just one of my face. S soon came back to her computer and I thought nothing more of it.

A few days later, S told me that P had really liked me(!) and wanted to send me a CD containing a few tracks he had recorded with his band (I think they were called Dripweed, ho! ho! ho!). He was going to meet me in a bar for a sort of DATE! I dressed up, walked to town and sat waiting. P was late (as boys always were at this age) but before long, S turned up with the CD and band photos; P had been held up and wouldn’t be able to meet me.

This went on for a month or so and throughout this time, strange things kept happening, eg: he would never make our meetings and he looked slightly different in each photo. He started to tell me on MSN about these reeeeeally disgusting things he was thinking about doing to me. Luckily, I thought the whole thing was hilarious and didn’t play along (see, being a bitch can sometimes pay off)…I just wish I still had copies of the conversations. I don’t know why I didn’t phone him or stop messaging him but for some reason it seemed like fun.

I worked out what you have all already worked out (that P was actually S) when we decided to go to a nightclub together. I either got very drunk without drinking too much or something happened to my drink (no evidence!) to cause me to come round from some sort of daze, sitting on a curb outside, being cradled by S! In a loving way!

And that is when it all began to fit into place! I had been had, just like the victims in “The Girl Who Became Three Boys” but with far less damaging consequences. If this type of charade happened to me these days, I would probably fall apart and become an even more psychologically-damaged hermit than I am now. However, in the way that 15-year-olds deal with these types of things, I just told him/her to fuck off, got a new (real-life) boyfriend and learnt the important age-old lesson that teenagers have had to learn since the beginning of time: don’t trust people on the internet because they are not always as they seem.

Similarly, this delicious chilli isn’t exactly how it seems because (contrary to appearance) it is made without any meat at all! I actually don’t like and never have liked mince. Chewing the stuff is like playing a gristle-based game of Russian roulette and who wants to be stressing while they’re trying to enjoy their chilli? Not me!

As I always say, Quorn mince does look a bit bitty and non-mince like but in this recipe, along with the beans and veg, it is just perfect. Please note that my meat-loving Dad still doesn’t like this dish but my meat-eating Mum loves it and requests it time and time again. Also, this dish is suuuuuper healthy.

The recipe originally comes from the Quorn website but I have adapted it over time.

1 tbsp olive oil
3 red onions, finely chopped
200g arsenic
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
300g pack of frozen Quorn mince
A good sprinkle of ground cumin
A good sprinkle of chilli powder (to taste)
400g can chopped tomatoes
300ml vegetable stock
3 or 4 peppers (depending on size), de-seeded and chopped
400g can kidney beans, drained
400g cannellini beans, drained
The secret ingredient

P.S: I hope you all spotted that the third ingredient in the list was arsenic. Haven’t you learnt anything from my tragic tale? I told you not to trust people on the internet!

TIP: Don't suffer from onion-chopping blues. 

1. Heat oil in large pan. Fry onion and garlic until golden. Add "mince" and spices and cook for 3 minutes (or longer, it doesn't matter).

2. Add tomatoes, stock and peppers. Bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 10 mins, stirring sometimes.

3. Stir in the beans and cook for 5 minutes. 

Ok, now it is time for the SECRET INGREDIENT! I have always wanted to say that! Always! And nope, it’s not arsenic (seriously, I was kidding, do NOT put arsenic in this food…or in any food, for that matter. Although bananas already have arsenic in anyway, don’t they? So if you do need a hit, go wild with them).

It’s……(drumroll)……..TAH DAHHHHH!



Vegetable gravy granules! Now, before you say it, I know that this is probably the least Mexican thing you could do to a chilli and I’m sure if I was cooking for Marco Antonio Muñiz (the guy J-Lo’s non-Mexican ex-husband was named after and the only Mexican I can think of), he would string me up for bastardising his national dish. But Marco Antonio is not here.

The Quorn recipe says you should thicken the chilli with a cornflour paste, which I have tried time and time again and all I get is a lump of cornflour with water floating on top. So, my Mum suggested gravy granules and it works like MAGIC! Just chuck a few in and stir until it goes all squelchy, like a cartoon character falling into a big pile of sloppy mud, and begins to look like a chilli as opposed to vegetables cooking in a pan.

From vegetables cooking in a pan......

To a flaming hot chilli! It's real magic!

I have, in the past, toyed with chocolate in my chilli – 1 piece, dark, chopped. I quite liked this, as it gave the chilli a burnt taste. I then made the mistake of cooking the meal for my boyfriend and even though I am a very successful secret agent by day (SHIT! Please, pretend you didn’t read that!), he rumbled me and consequently did not like the meal because….what the fuck was chocolate doing in it? We had an argument and I said “I’M NEVER COOKING FOR YOU AGAIN YOU UNGRATEFUL BASTARD” (even though he cooks most of the meals anyway and was probably glad that he wouldn’t have to suffer this kind of grief ever again) and then that was that and chocolate in chilli was as dead a concept as Latin is a language, never to be mentioned again.

When I lived alone, I used to make this dish at the weekend and then heat it up in the microwave each night to save me having to cook (tragic, I know). So basically, just to let you know that the chilli tastes lovely reheated and sometimes it actually tastes better because the flavours have had time to develop and stuff.

Serve with creme fraiche, rice or whatever!
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Monday 14 January 2013

Yama Sushi


Is sushi reeeeally as good as people make out? Disclaimer, before I begin on this rant: I do like sushi, sakushi and any raw fish used in sushi rolls (although I no longer eat it due to being a veggie).

However, “quite liking” sushi is not an acceptable position. People are not moderate in their opinions on sushi. They don’t just say “Yeah, sushi’s fine”. If someone claims to like sushi, they “LOVE sushi so much, it’s the best food in the world! You don’t like raw fish? You should just try it! It doesn’t even taste like fish!!”

This is because sushi is a fashion food. If you don’t “get” sushi then, well, you’re just not that cool. There are some other fashion foods, which I will now briefly cover, for the sake of completeness:

The social-network fashion food is currently bacon. People don’t just like bacon either, they ADORE bacon and is MAKES them happy. Yes, it MAKES people happy. Perhaps a clever little trend introduced by Christians (I don’t actually think this but ooh, wait it could actually be true! I’m sure it isn’t though)…veggies, Muslims and (Kosher) Jews will probably know what I am talking about. "But what about BACON?" these fashionistas cry, as if you'd suddenly realise your silly mistake: "Oh God, bacon....I forgot all about bacon! Let’s roast a hog!"

There is also a social-network fashion drink, which is gin. Sometimes people write "o'clock" after the fashionable drink, so they know when to drink it (NB: this phrase may also attach itself to beer, for the less sophisticated). Some fashionable people also drink gin in "slushies", although, that is still strictly a hipster preserve.

Cupcakes were a fashion food but I think that they are perhaps a little passĂ© these days. Instead, they have been usurped by the revolting Krispy Kreme doughnut. KK is not only a fashion food but also a bullshit food because I doubt that anyone really likes them. Glazed, maybe. Strawberries and Cream? No way. They are VOMIT inducing. You say you like them? Well, I call bullshit. Take yourself down to Sainsbury’s and buy 5 jam ball doughnuts for 65p and come home crying to mama about the hundreds you have spent on bullshit in the name of coolness.

If Naomi Klein wrote No Logo today, I have faith that she would mention the extreme brand success that KK has had, what with its silly hats and all-American HUGE boxes, which I am CONVINCED that people only buy for a Facebook picture (and then are hilariously punished by having to eat 12 lumps of icing-covered shit).

Anyway, putting my KK rage to one side, I must come back to sushi because that is what I was hoping to write about before all those little gripes got the better of me.

You see, I know that I LOVE chocolate because even though it makes me fat, gives me headaches and causes me to be lazy, I still eat it as if I am on a lifetime mission to give myself diabetes. Therefore, logic dictates that it must taste pretty bloody good.

Now, let’s assume that sushi still tastes like sushi but instead of omega-3 fatty acids, it just has loads of normal fat. Instead of Kate Moss and Megan Fox as noted celebrity fans of sushi, Susan Boyle and a real-life equivalent of Alan Partridge eat the stuff as if there is no tomorrow. Kate doesn’t go near that shit.

You may say, “Well yes, OBVIOUSLY, we like it because it’s healthy as well!” You are right but you are also in denial. I like apples, I like bananas…and pears are nice too but if each had a sudden surge in calories, I would jettison them immediately. Do I update my Twitter about how much I love apples and bananas? No, I do not.

So admit it, you slaves to modern life; you don’t love sushi at all. You love being cool. You update your Facebook status about sushi because people will think “oooh wow, aren’t they sophisticated!” and if sushi stopped being so cool, you would probably stop eating it. It’s almost as if no one dares say to their supper companion “this stuff just isn’t as amazing as we’re pretending, is it?” So I’m saying it for you! Sushi is…..okay! I suppose Japanese people are allowed to LOVE sushi because otherwise that would be pretty British Empire of me wouldn’t it?

So, it is in light of the above opinions that I now turn to write about my trip to Yama Sushi in Sheffield. Yama are apparently one of the best purveyors of the cool stuff in the area.

This is my veggie sushi! (£6 and £4, I think)

Perhaps at the management’s behest, our lovely waitress went for a hard-sell on behalf of what I can only imagine to be two tonnes of soon-to-be-rotten eels out in the back. We were very polite in our declining of the eels but we were then asked another two times whether we would consider the eels.

When someone tries to make me do anything, warning bells ring! Dingaling! This person has some kind of evil motive! And then I start to worry that they are trying to kill me or sabotage my life and it all gets very out of hand. I don’t think this waitress was trying to destroy me but I do think that perhaps the restaurant had accidentally purchased too many eels that day.

Tuna sushi - this was probably about £6. I can't remember and I am a terrible reviewer!

 Yama is known for its good sushi and as far as I could taste, the sushi was very good. However, my silly boyfriend decided to plump for a rice and seafood dish even though he likes sushi. I think he was just a bit overwhelmed at the choice of food and panicked (which is something I would normally do, so I felt rather smug).

Anyway, the seafood dish was apparently not that nice. From what I could see, it looked as if the seafood originated from one of those Iceland Frozen “Various Seafood” bags. Also the rice was egg fried (it did state this on the menu, by the way) and apparently, egg and seafood are not a good combination.

The egg-fried rice and mixed seafood dish was not highly rated :-(

Now, those are all the negative bits but MY sushi was actually really quite nice. My boyfriend’s sister had some tuna sushi rolls and a tempura prawn thing, which came in a cone of seaweed and apparently these were nice too.

Should you go to Yama sushi? Yes! The sushi is nice and this is a restaurant where you can sit down, rather than just have a takeaway. It’s also a bit out of the centre so has a more laid back feel to it. If you do go there, I would go there to eat sushi…not anything else.

Yama Sushi has a website here and is located on London Road in Sheffield. If it's a popular night, you might be wise to make a booking beforehand. 

P.S.: Of course I felt hip taking photos of my sushi!

NB: I wrote this post last night and then went to bed, CRAVING sushi (raw fish sushi). Maaaaan. Then I thought “what if sushi really is brilliant and everything I have written is wrong?” It’s too late (read: I am too lazy) to change it, so comment and let me know whether you think it’s overrated or not. It will be my first comment!!
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Friday 11 January 2013

Carrot and Hummus Crunch on Sourdough (or Irish Soda Bread)



The final sandwich, complete with my mangled hand.

The national airline of Belgium is called SABENA. I know this because when I was 9, my family took me on a coach trip to the Black Forest in Germany. Obviously, it would have been very tiring to do the trip all in one go, so we had little overnight stops along the way. One such stop was in Brussels, where we stayed in a hotel that was rather close to the airport.

Upon arriving at the hotel, you couldn’t help but notice a big fuck-off sign spelling out SABENA on the side of the terminal. Obviously spotting a good opportunity for a quick quip, the coach driver’s sidekick announced “That’s the Belgian airline. It stands for Such A Bloody Experience, Never Again!”

Oh and how everyone chuckled. Especially me because a) that is what you do when a grown-up joke is made, to show that you “get it” and b) I was still at the stage where “bloody” was a bit risquĂ©, as was “piss”.

Anyway, as I was making this sandwich and everything was going wrong, I thought about SABENA. I mean, the final deal was, well, okaaay…although perhaps my enjoyment was thwarted by the various disasters along the way. I have lots of leftovers so have a few more opportunities to work out whether I actually do like this meal or not.

I was initially attracted to the recipe, by Nick Sandler and featured in the Meat Free Monday cookbook, because it was very short. For a lazy cook, this is always a deciding factor (along with How Much Washing Up Will This Create?). The meal used soda bread (can be bought ready made), hummus (can be bought ready made) and some carrot/garlic/seedy thing, which I would of course make by myself.

However, I had read on Twitter and stuff that soda bread was really easy and that homemade hummus was in a completely different league to the supermarket stuff! So, in an attempt to impress my readers (ha ha), I boldly decided to make everything myself….from scratch!

Off I toddled down to Rotherham town centre to pick up the ingredients. I already had most of the stuff that I needed for the soda bread and the only outstanding ingredient, buttermilk, was surprisingly in stock. I also soon had everything I needed, in my basket, for the hummus, until I went off to find the tahini (ground sesame seeds and olive oil).

Buttermilk sourced from Rotherham!

 After a long, drawn-out search involving various staff members, every aisle in existence and Tesco computer databases, my search ended with a “Sorry love, this one is new on me. If it’s not with the curry stuff, I don’t think we will have it.” So, I put the chickpeas and other hummus-y stuff back and picked up a tub of ready made stuff. SABENA.

Back at home, it was time to make the soda bread. This actually wasn’t a disaster at all, despite the finished goods looking somewhat like the elephant man’s head. This is the easiest bread IN THE WORLD. The recipe says it takes an hour (including cooking time) and usually these timings are ambitious because not everyone has ingredients measured out in endless mini bowls. Anyway, it actually DID take an hour because it couldn’t possibly take longer!

Dah-dah!


I used the Irish Soda Bread recipe from Good Food and it was great. The method urges you not to overwork the dough and so my “loaf” did go into the oven looking more like a collection of pieces of dough, although it did work out well in the end.

Before cooking (a hodge-podge of bits of dough)

 To add another complication to the most complicated sandwich I have ever attempted, I had decided to join a band. Not in a serious way (eg; no one in this band would ever consider music as a career) but in a “let’s hang out in some really cold practice rooms and jam!” sort of way. Which is basically an excuse for some guys to smoke doobies…and that is why everyone joins a band, isn’t it?

My boyfriend was going to pick me up at 6.45pm and it was 4.45pm, so there was plenty of time BUT I had no carrots. “Don’t worry,” my Dad said “I’m going out, so I’ll pick you some up!” All was good, so I began to cut up my chilli and garlic. Over an hour later my Dad finally arrived home because there seemed to have been some kind of northern carrot shortage, so it was all rush rush rush and then, for some INSANEEE reason (self-sabotage), I decided to a) double the quantities and b) manually grate the carrots instead of using the food processor because I thought it would be too much washing up. SABENA.

Look how much fucking carrot there is and I STILL had more to do :-(

 The root vegetable God had forsaken me because the carrot grating step took just over half an hour. My hand was about to fall off, a bit of finger had been grated into the mound of orange stuff and wet carrot was sticking to every surface, towel, tap and floor tile in the house. This shambles went on for such a ridiculously long time that I missed band practice and spent another boring half an hour washing up instead. SABENA.

A literal MOUNTAIN of hand-grated carrot.

 So, feeling all sweary, sweaty and frustrated, I bundled the sandwich together and gobbled it down. SABENA! SABENA! I think, what with the sophisticated ingredient of caraway seeds, I was hoping to be a bit more bowled over by the taste than I was. I didn’t let the carrot mixture fully cool, so that may have been a problem. Like I say, I think I should try it all again another day, when I’m feeling a little less besieged, and then make my final judgement.

The carrots, cooking (obviously).

 Serves 2 (I doubled these quantities) (SABENA)

“Fry 2 coarsely grated large carrots in a pan with 1 tablespoon olive oil, 2 chopped garlic cloves, ½ chopped red chilli and 1 teaspoon caraway seeds over moderate heat for 5-8 minutes, stirring frequently. Cool before using in the sandwich. Cut 4 slices of sourdough bread. Spread 100g hummus onto the bread, followed by the carrots. Remember to scrape in the caraway seeds and chilli. Add 2 tablespoons Greek yoghurt to the bread in blobs, followed by a handful of chopped coriander. Season with freshly ground pepper.”

I just mixed the coriander into my carrot mix and I also forgot to season with pepper. Please note also, that after watching Jamie Oliver on (I think it was) the Jonathan Ross show, I jazzed up my lame supermarket hummus with cumin and paprika, plus a little parsley. It tasted a bit nuttier, I think. SABENA. Also, this dish is super garlicky, when you consider the hummus (which is enough to repel all people for at least a day aka very useful) AND the cloves added to the carrots. So handle with care, my friends.

Pimped hummus (cumin and paprika).

 NB: OH MY WORD, I JUST READ THAT BACK (proof-reading, you see) AND SAW THAT IT SAID SOURDOUGH, NOT SODA BREAD!!! What an unmitigated DISASTER! I baked and wrote about the wrong bread, which just shows how completely and unreservedly SABENA the whole thing is.
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Wednesday 9 January 2013

Paul Hollywood's Focaccia Bread

A close-up of the focaccia (disguising a lack of depth)

When I was growing up, I was a “nothing” and now I am fully grown up, I am still a “nothing” but just a bit more comfortable about it. By a “nothing”, I mean not an “anything”; I just didn’t fit into any group: popular, unpopular, LGBT, goth, sporty, geek (honestly!).

These days, I generally accept that I am not a part of any subculture. Instead, I know what I like and my friends all have something in common with what I like, even though they are all very different. 

However, back in the days of school, I was desperate to be a something and I tried many times to make myself into a something. This first happened when I tried to become a heavy metal fan. I mean, I did become a fan: I saw Metallica twice and bought loads of albums and t-shirts and I did genuinely enjoy it, for what it was.

It soon became apparent though, that I wasn’t as serious about metal as all the other metal fans. I just thought “I like it but this isn’t serious stuff, it’s just some music and they all look a bit silly getting so serious about it”. Anyway, I think they rumbled me and I was ousted from the community.

When I was about 16, I tried to become an “emo”. I’d heard about emos on the internet before and they seemed to be the new cool thing (all former emos are now hipsters so they’re always pretty cool). My friend knew some people in emo bands and so I tagged along with her to go and see them play in Leeds. Again, I thought it was all a bit silly but they did have loads of fun, so I bought a studded belt and some really tights jeans and started getting to know emos.

Before long, word got round that the king of the emos (Oli Sykes from Bring Me The Horizon) was having a party at his house. It was advertised on MySpace and I think you had to become “friends” with the “house party” to ensure that you would be admitted. The band we sort of knew in Leeds knew Oli and so we somehow managed to wangle an invite.

Everyone was to meet at Sheffield train station at a specified time. We would then all get on a bus together and travel to his house (we filled the whole top deck, a bunch of emos!).

And again, I didn’t really understand. I was desperate just to say “shall we switch back to comfy jeans now and stop pretending we like this music where all the lead singer does is scream really loudly?” I didn’t say this but I sort of hinted at it to various people “on the scene”. They each had the same sort of reaction: an eye roll, a bemused look. They pattered off, looking like a matchstick with a black olive on top…as if I was the one being strange.

Feeling lost and a bit dejected, I fatally decided to take a nap on one of the beds in a spare bedroom. It was about 3am and even though everyone else seemed to be having fun, talking about bands like Thursday, FFAF and probably Cancer Bats too, I had had enough.

Drifting off, I finally felt as if I’d found myself: all alone, lost in my head, well away from this noisy, alien world of emos and scenesters.

And then, it hit me.

A water bomb. Straight in my face, followed by another and another and loads of them bursting all over me. Water going into my eyes, my ears and all over my stupid too-small jeans.

When anything unexpected happens during sleep, it is always very confusing and shocking. Is it a war? Am I being kidnapped? Is this the end of the world? I shrieked and called out for help: “Help! Where am I? Mum! Dad!” only to see through my blurred vision (a combination of tiredness and water) a group of emos laughing at me and walking off sharing their emo glee. Fucking emos. I didn’t even think they were meant to laugh, wasn’t that the point??

I had no choice but to wake up. I couldn’t go home because there was still two hours before the first bus. I tried to pretend to have fun but I was desperate to leave. Being an emo wasn’t for me. They were all still so awake and having fun and copping off with people without any kind or embarrassment or anxiety. Anything was better than this and so, looking like a drenched Kevin Khachaturian, I set off alone to sit at the bus stop for a couple of hours.

And that was the turning point in my life. I decided that I didn’t want to be in a subculture any more. I just wanted to like the music I genuinely liked and that was it. I wanted to think what I thought was right and I didn’t want to have to buy into a way of life that I couldn’t take seriously.

(This isn’t strictly true; it wasn’t a turning point at all. Instead, I had years and years of insecurity and paranoia about being a “nothing” until I just kind of accepted it because there were no groups left for me to infiltrate. To be kind to myself though, I would like to use my artistic license to assign those aforementioned very mature and rational thoughts to the bus ride home from the disaster-party). 

I have failed to rise in any group; I am a lone social drifter depending only on myself for survival (ha, ha). The other day, I baked some bread that also failed to rise in any subculture. In fact, it failed to rise altogether.

This was Paul Hollywood’s focaccia bread, which was featured on the Great British Bake Off one year as a technical challenge. Many contestants cocked it up because they didn’t believe the recipe, which called for an inordinate amount of water to be added to the dough. They were all wrong of course. Focaccia dough is meant to be really, really annoying because it is so sloppy and sticky that more of it tends to end up on you than it does in the oven. I knew this would happen and so I was prepared for the nightmare with olive oil already poured out into a dish (to avoid getting dough all over the bottle).

Before cooking (obviously)
I got the recipe from the wonderful Kerry at Kerry Cooks and if you would like to see how it should turn out, I urge you to click on that link. I followed all the instructions but the only thing I can think of that may have caused the lack of rise was that my dough was proving in a cold room. I’m not sure if this is an issue or not but to be on the safe side, make sure your room is of normal room temperature plus.

Either way, the bread still tasted good. So good, in fact, that we polished it off all in one go. I don’t think I’ll ever bother again because it really is a faff. However, if you’re up for a new experiment, definitely give this a go and let me know how you get on.

You can kinda see how flat it is...tasty though!

Ingredients

250g strong white flour
1 tsp salt
1 (7g) sachet dried yeast
1 tbsp olive oil
200ml cold water
olive oil, for drizzling and kneeding and resting and getting dough off your hands
fine sea salt (I just used some stuff that was in a grinder, not sure what it was)
2 tablespoons chopped rosemary – if you buy this from the supermarket, you probably won’t use it all. Make sure you take off all the other sprigs and put them in a little Tupperware. Pop this in the freezer and you will have fresh herbs on demand the next time you need them!

1. Flour, olive oil, salt and yeast into a large bowl. Kerry suggests keeping the salt and yeast at opposite sides of the bowl because the salt can kill the yeast. Good tip.

2. Add ¾ of the water and stir. Gradually add the rest of the water (yes, all of it).

3. Cover your hands in olive oil and begin the process of kneading the dough in the bowl. Put more oil on your hands if it gets too sticky (it will).

4. Now tip it out onto an oiled chopping board and knead for another 5 minutes (horrific). Plonk it all back into an oiled bowl. Leave to prove for 1 hour. It should double in size (mine didn’t).

5. Now put it into a lined tin and push the dough to the corners. Plonk your fingers in to give it an appearance akin to cellulite and cover with a tea towel. Leave to prove for another hour.

6. Preheat your oven to conv 220 / fan 200. Sprinkle dough with sea salt, speckle with rosemary and drizzle a couple of tablespoons of oil over the top (I may have used too much…I love oil).

7. It is done when golden brown. Maybe around 30 minutes…I can’t really remember!
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Sunday 6 January 2013

Lemon Drizzle Cake




During my final year at university, around exam time, I had a major, major breakdown. To the point where I faked an illness to get out of an exam (diarrhea: a great excuse because no one wants to know) and found myself crying, HOWLING, in a public toilet cubicle at 7am.

Feeling like there was no where else to turn, I located the University counselling service and went down to make an appointment. When I got there, they handed me a little survey so that they could assess exactly how unhinged I was. It was all very straightforward: “Do you feel like you have no where else to turn?” etc. etc. and I woefully filled it in, reducing my muddled thoughts to “yes” and “no” answers.

And then came the final question: “Do you ever think about killing yourself?”. I ticked yes. I thought about it almost every day and I sometimes still do. I didn’t know that people didn’t. What a silly question, I thought! Everyone does!

I handed in the survey and got a bit of a worried glance back. “Right”, the calm voice said, “I think we will need to book you in straight away”.

They obviously thought that this was a code red situation. They didn’t differentiate between “thinking” and “doing” in the survey (I suppose if they did, some people would be dead and so the survey would be pointless). I mean, I think about it all the time as some kind of freedom and salvation but even at my lowest, I knew that I would never actually do it.

From the worry on her face, I realised that not everyone must always think about killing themselves. Some people in this world must think “Yeah, everything seems to be going ok and what I’m doing makes total sense”.

And that was that. More recently, I had a conversation with a bunch of colleagues who had never thought about killing themselves. The person most shocked about my thoughts, decided to build up a team of happy people (those who, as far as I can fathom, buy loads of things from achica.com on their lunchbreaks) by asking everyone that came into the room what they thought.

I was still alone on my miserable team, being sympathetically stared at by the team on drugs until this lovely pregnant lady came in and completed the death-survey. She answered: “Yeah, I do actually. Sometimes when I’m driving home, I just feel as if I could drive straight into the central reservation at high speed and end it all”. And I thought “I love you”.

There is one other thing that can get me out of this suicide-slump though and it’s not something that the University councillor advised because she would probably have created another problem. She was very good by the way, psyching me out within two minutes and sending me away with a book on anxieties. And I thought I was complex!

Baking something delicious will, without a doubt, make me feel MUCH better (until I’ve eaten it all, at which point I become depressed). In honour of my dark mood, I couldn’t bake something too sweet; it needed an edge. So I decided on something known for its sour flavour: Lemon Drizzle Cake!

I didn't use ALL of these - my mum was also cooking something citrusy.

 I have since read that Mary Berry’s drizzle cake is the best there is but this one came via the BBC from Tana Ramsay and it was delicious, moist and beautiful.

The recipe is here and I did everything it told me to, apart from the fact I used a lot more lemons (which according to my boyfriend was too much but I thought worked perfectly…I’m very sour, you see).



The sugar in the ‘drizzle’ on top didn’t quite crystallise like the photo but this didn’t matter because everything worked and it was good. Very good. One of my favourites and a super mood improver. Try it!


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Saturday 5 January 2013

Quinoa, feta and courgette salad

It doesn't look great but tastes great, trust me! 

When I was born, I was apparently transferred into a sort of baby nursery. Having never given birth or been present at a birth OR been the type of person to ask people who HAVE given birth to proceed with their story beyond the point of "and then I felt as if my body had torn in half and everything was being pulled out of it", I don't know what happens, exactly.

But apparently, once the baby is born, it’s whisked away to meet all the other babies. This must be really interesting because I'm sure a lot of them must meet again, later in life: future classmates, couples, enemies etc.; they could form a Facebook group or something. It is also really scary because I can only assume that this is the point at which most baby swaps generally occur.

 If I was a midwife, I think that would be my number one fear. Throughout my short working life (including a small stint as a reluctant PA), I have discovered that I really do get into muddles with remarkable ease. As long as I have more than one thing to do, it is inevitable that I will do everything wrong. I suppose the moral here, is to never ask me to do anything for you, especially where it involves humans who can't speak up and say "Oi you fucking idiot, this isn't my Mum".

Anyway, legend has it that in the dark depths of my mother's first night of interrupted sleep, she awoke to a nurse bellowing my full name followed by "PLEASE STOP SCREAMING". My mum probably drifted back off and tried to ignore her newly-created five-hour-old-problem ("Shit, shit, what have I done? Push her back in! Please!") before she was tapped on the shoulder by a different nurse who said that she was bringing me back to sleep with my mum, as I had woken up all the other babies with my howling.

Now, I obviously can't remember this happening but when I first heard this story, I thought....THAT'S ME!! THAT IS PURE ME!! I am needy and attention-seeking BY HEART and I suppose that this story provides a sort of a defence to being like that, doesn't it? Doesn’t it! I mean, it was my first act upon this earth. It is basically the most me I have ever been, before any social conditioning or lessons on selfishness. I'm a narcissist! A real, genuine, complete and utter cow! By nature!

I tend to be at my worst when the following align: I am incredibly bored and the person I am with is incredibly busy. However, over the years, thanks to a lot of "piss offs", I have largely learnt to curb this aspect of my personality. The ONE thing, though, that will undoubtedly bring this out of me is an overload of sugar. If this is the case, I don't just get annoying but irrational and depressed too and I do think that I could one day commit an attention-seeking murder thanks to a combination of sugar and being ignored.

I have therefore decided to give up sugar for a sort-of new year’s resolution (I'm not stupid; it will not last for a year) and let me tell you that, so far, it has not been a complete disaster! Day 4 and I am still flying high on only the most natural of sugars.

Look at all the healthy ingredients it has in it!

It has been, in part, thanks to this lunchbox salad from the BBC’s Olive magazine. Now, do not be alarmed, but this salad does contain raw courgettes. I was initially horrified, especially when I tasted some of the freshly peeled courgette, yuck. But thankfully when it has had its dressing on for a few days (eugh, sounds like a bad cut after medical treatment), it really does absorb the flavour and soften.

I did also have a catastrophe with the quinoa, which I had never cooked before. I don't know if it is as temperamental as rice apparently is (which I have never cooked the conventional way) but my water to quinoa ratios were clearly way out and I ended up with a very mushy lump.

The quinoa catastrophe (I still used this and it was fine)

If, after all that, you still fancy it (and you should because it is such a lovely lunchbox alternative to a sandwich or a boring unhealthy bought-lunch), you can go straight to the recipe here or follow the instructions below...

These quantities serve two, so I doubled the quantities below and used a full block of feta. This gave me four portions, which allowed me to have a treat on Friday!

Ingredients 
75g quinoa
1 large courgette
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
2 tbsp olive oil
4 spring onions,finely sliced
100g cherry tomatoes, halved
1 red chilli, finely chopped
100g feta cheese, crumbled
small bunch of parsley, chopped

1. Somehow, cook your quinoa. Obviously read the instructions on the pack. Mine said 1 part quinoa to 5 parts water. This was too much water...but that might be due to my dodgy measuring so make sure you do precisely 1:5 to avoid mush. If you do get mush, then don't despair because it's still worth it. For the last 10 minutes of cooking time, I dropped in a veggie stock cube for a touch of extra flavour. Drain, rinse and drain (again) your cooked quinoa with cold water.

2. Meanwhile, chop the ends off the courgette and use a potato peeler to slice into ribbons. At first, I peeled all the skin off and kept going round like this until I had a mini courgette left. This isn't the best way. Instead, scrape down the length of one side and keep scraping over the same place until you come to the other side.

3. Mix your red wine vinegar and oil, and season. My red wine vinegar was very out of date but after a quick Google, it seems that it doesn't matter - so get looking in the depths of your cupboards.

4. Put the rest of the ingredients in a large bowl, then pour over the dressing and toss everything together.
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