The Motorbike & Sidecar = Proven vehicle of choice for the greatest friendships!

Following on from the last post, here's what I forgot to add!!!

Just for good measure, and for the sake of completing the set, here's what I repeated before:

And of course, the Two Fat Foodies: (R.I.P Clarissa btw…)

This is fun. Any more great duo's I haven't thought of? (With cool transportation…)

This entry may not be strictly about food, but here's something tasty:

Oooh yes please! I'm salivating…

x

The Legend that is Manders...is 31!!!!

Another Birthday, another celebration, and yes…you guessed it…more CAKES!!!!

My dear friend Mandi, my Soul Sister, my travel companion in the epic adventure that was the South America trip of '08, my 'brother from another mother', and most probably, my 'wife from another life', as I like to call her...celebrated her 31st 'Bird-day' last week!

Cue another excuse for me to get baking. However, THIS time, birthday girl CHOSE what cake she wanted. 'Oooh, Marge, I fancy a cheescake! Can you make me a cheescake?!?!'

Now, when your Wife From Another Life asks you for Cheesecake on her birthday, you don't say "Nah, never done one of them before...the answer's No!" A Cheesecake is no easy cake to make! There are stages to consider, the base needs time to chill before baking, the baking isn't a straight forward 'shove in the oven' jobby, you need to bake it in a 'Bain Marie' (water bath) and fiddle around with cling film and foil to make the 'Spring Form Tin' watertight.... there are ALL SORTS of processes involved! That's why I hadn't bothered to make one before!

BUT, never one to be defeated easily, and never one to let down a dear friend on a birthday, I scurried off to search through my recipe books for a suitable cake to make. Weirdly, none of the recipe books on my shelf had a decent recipe for a BAKED cheesecake. There were ones for the type that you just chill in the fridge, but I don't regard them as proper cheescakes. I want the stodgy American style cakes that stick to the roof of your mouth. Dense, creamy and BAKED. The natural and obvious place to find that sort of unashamedly high–calorie glory would be, of course, in a Nigella cookbook.

Now, I actually don't own one, believe it or not, so I spent an evening in Waterstones Piccadilly (the BESTEST bookshop EVER) and scoured through a couple of her books and found the recipe for Key Lime and Double Chocolate Cheescake. (Didnt take long to find....there were about 5 different cheesecake recipes in this book. Unsurprising!) So instead of buying it, I pulled out my notebook and scribbled down the recipe. (Well, credit crunch and all that...! Bookstores are virtually libraries now anyway...) 

As feared, it was a bit scarier making this than ordinary cakes are. I rushed out to buy a spring form cake tin. Was quite excited about that! I patiently made the tin watertight...layered the cling film and foil a few times over the base, preparing it for baking in a water bath. How scary! Putting your carefully prepared cake into a tin, which then has to sit in a tray half filled with water! This is to allow the steam created to cook the cake gently and evenly, which is great, but I had all sorts of visions of a soggy base, and sludgy middle, and of being laughed out of the party! This was stressful! As a 'back up plan', I made a regular choc chip and banana cake too, just in case the first cake was a total failure!

In the end, all went well. The cake tasted goooo-ood. Tangy, citrus, creamy cheese filling and rich crumbly chocolate base. YUM. I will post the recipe of it up soon.

And here it is, (drumroll....) Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome, the KEY LIME CHEESECAKE!!! (well, they were regular limes, but what the hell...)

And not forgetting the all important 'back-up' cake: 

Just as well there were two cakes, all the candles wouldn't fit on one! haha...

Of course, how can I not show the star of the show...the birthday girl herself!

 

This time last year we were celebrating your birthday in La Paz, Bolivia, soon after the amazing trip around Uyuni and the Great Salt Lakes. 

Now here we are, back in London Town, taking a few more bites out of life! 

You and me babe, are like Amitabh & Dharmendra in Sholay, journeying through life on a bike and sidecar combo: 

:

Or, maybe a truer variation on the theme would be this:

The Two Fat ladies in bike and side car combo!

If I keep feeding you the way I am, we wont be far off! haha...

Maybe we should get a bike and sidecar?!?

Love you loads, wonderful lady!

"This time next year, Rodney..."

xxx

A very grown-up dinner party and the revelation that is Ottolenghi

I was a bit cheeky recently. Eram's birthday was close but I had not heard anything from her about celebrating the day! Well, I wasn't having that. We may not be in our twenties anymore, but that's no reason to sit back... we may not be 'larging it' like we used to, but we are still on fire... let's mark the day with some 'in yer face' attitude, and have fun!  (This, coming from the girl who is staying in this friday night to write this blog cos its 'too cold out' to party...oops! No cheeky comments Mandi, I know they are coming!) So anyway, I harassed her with text messages, and poked her on StalkBook, wrote on her 'wall', demanding we gather some friends and have a good time, goddammit. In return I promised to bake cakes. Rock n Roll.

And so it was. We skipped and hopped through the London rain with our sad little faces all fed up with winter, and wandered into Erams flat to find it filled with culinary sunshine!

It was a feast of gorgeous veggie fare:

Here are just a few shots of some of the dishes. They tasted Gorgeous. Now I needed to know where the inspiration and recipes for these dishes came from. So it wasn't long after we finished discussing the latest developments in World Current Affairs, and our favourite literature releases, and after we had our heated debate of, errr....'Buffy' versus 'Smallville'... (of course, I had nothing to contribute at this point, I desperately wanted to shout about 'Heroes' instead...) that we finally got round to discovering the lovely story behind the food that we all enjoyed. 

It all began when Eram passed a wonderful deli on Upper Street in Islington, called Ottolenghi. Now, this is where the gushing and 'ooh-ing' and 'aaah-ing' began, I have never visited this deli, but at this point I think there were 3 different people clamouring to extoll its virtues at the same time...it was a the sort of excitable babbling women usually reserve for the praise of chocolate. Needless to say, I am gonna get myself to that deli. 

Ottolenghi is run by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sam Tamimi. Both born in Jerusalem in the same year, one was raised on the Jewish west side, the other on the Arab east side. They did not meet till they moved to London, and it was here that their love of food built bridges where governments could not. A very apt story, especially with recent events in mind.

 All the dishes Eram prepared were from their new cookbook. 

They describe their food as 'familiar and straightforward, yet highly innovative'.

The food is simple, but beautifully considered. The dishes, like the website, and their own blog, are unpretentious and welcoming. (Although this does not apply to the signage on the deli fascia...bit cold for my liking...) However, the food sings, and the passion behind it is clearly visible (at least I think it is on the website). I don't know much about the food of the 'Mediterranean basin' as they describe it, but I was thrilled to see that most of the dishes are vegetarian. The recipes are realistic enough to be able to recreate at home, and look and taste impressive. 

Despite having only been exposed to them through the food of the evening, and from the passionate descriptions from the 'fans', I couldn't help but feel that the excitement and genuine warmth that their food inspired was more than anything that the likes of  Nigella could ever hope for. After a little more online research, I discovered there were more than a few people who adored them. I also realised that I'm one of the last people to hear about them! 

I was also pleased to discover that Ottolenghi writes a regular column for TheGuardian, called The New Vegetarian. Take a look. Dishes featured here are globally inspired, an interesting mix. 

So thankyou Eram! Thankyou for laying out such a great feast, and thankyou for introducing me to great new cookbook and deli store! You were on fire! 

And most of all thankyou for a 'right ol proper grown up night, pet. T'was great'.

The evening was a roaring success. Who said we don't know how to have fun, hey?

xxx

Flighty Food

Click on the title of this post, and you will find something to truly make you chuckle.

It is a letter of complaint that was written to Richard Branson regarding the terrible quality of the food that was served on a flight from Mumbai to London.

It's been doing the rounds on the emails at work, and had the whole studio giggling throughout the morning, and reciting lines buy the afternoon.

A very well written moan it is too...

I hope he got an upgrade for his next flight.

x

Aforementioned Slater recipe tested

1. Onions, once cut into quarter chunks lengthways, are roasted with butter, salt, pepper. 

The result is charred, sticky and sweet.

.

Once cooled enough to handle, slice into thinner slithers. 

Cook with the white wine, allowing the wine to bubble intensely away till alcohol has burned away and you are left with a thick, syrupy concentrate. Takes a little while.

Once reduced, add stock and any other flavours. I added a pinch of chilli powder, black pepper, paprika, allspice (cinnamon/clove/nutmeg), a drizzle of honey, bay leaf or two and some sliced garlic. (Had no plans to kiss anyone). Also teeny amounts of dried green herbs, such a Rosemary & Thyme, for the woody warmth. Allow to simmer and bubble away till all the flavours have gotten to know each other and become friends. 

I also had some teeny baby onions kicking about (as you do) so I peeled them and sliced them in half and allowed them to soften in the bubbling broth. Adds another layer of texture and onion-ness. Worked beautifully. Result:

Thanks Mr Slater. I won't be intimidated by making this soup again. The white wine reduction was the revelation for me, took the flavour of the soup to another level. Nigel would probably be horrified at the amount of additional spices I added, but in the small quantities that I used, it all worked together really well, giving it a bit of depth and background warmth. Besides, I'm indian, I can't resist reaching for the spices and having some fun with them. It worked.

I decided against adding the melted cheese bread on top that day. I wanted the gentle soothing broth alone, it wasn't a cheesy sort of day. Its such a simple soup that you can get very creative with.

Enjoy it, its a winter treat.

No tears Soup

This is one of my favourite cookbooks that I own. Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries.

It's an honest, intimate peephole into his life, through his kitchen year.

It's a simple concept: he writes down the recipe for what he eats every day, one recipe per day.

He writes in such a loving, evocative way, and the photography is shot very beautifully & unpretentiously. All shot in natural light, no harsh shadows, printed on matt paper, the colours are slightly muted and the food looks gorgeous. As you read, you can almost feel and smell the way the weather is changing throughout the year, and how the light is changing and the recipes reflect that. In the UK, whilst we are busy moaning about the terrible weather especially at this time of year, its easy to forget that we are such seasonal creatures. Secretly we love it.  (I think...) I am leafing through this book to remind me of what is to come in the spring, to lift my spirits a bit, and get some comfort in the cosy moments that winter can bring. Right now I'm looking for a culinary hug.

I needed soothing.

The recipe for today, January 11th, spoke to me. In fact, it didn't just speak to me, it practically stroked my hair, it was so soothing. 'Onion Soup Without Tears'. 

French Onion soup is one of the top soups in my list, but I rarely make it because of the amount of labour involved, the whole hassle of slicing a mountain of onions for so little soup isn't my idea of fun cooking. Not least because I'm usually bawling my eyes out all the way through it...my eyes are too sensitive to onions. Ol Nige has a great solution: bake the onions with butter till they caramelise instead! Genius...and better still, his recipe dosen't demand that you use beef stock, which is a refreshing change. Its rare to see that in a recipe for this soup. Not that you should ever be a slave to any recipe, and I never use meat stock anymore anyway, but I was pleasantly surprised that he went for a veggie stock, because that means that the soup should not lack any depth of flavour despite not being meaty.

Nigels' recipe is surprisingly simple:

4 medium onions, butter (40g he says...but when you are raised in an indian household, you dont measure anything...unless baking...so I wont), a glass of white wine and vegetable stock.

French bread and gruyere/emmental cheese for toasting on top at the end.

I would be tempted to add a kick of black pepper, maybe a little nutmeg and a tiny bit of allspice for some background warmth. (and tabasco at the end...of course...)

To put it all together:

Peel onions, slice in half along the middle, roast in a hot oven with butter/salt/pepper till brown and toasted dark. When cooked, cut into smaller segments, bubble in the wine till the wine is reduced to almost nothing (alcohol is all cooked off leaving concentrated flavour only) then pour in the stock. Let it all simmer for about 20 mins (I would add any extra personal spices at this point). Serve with toasted bread and cheese on top.

Enjoyed reading about it so much, tomorrow I might actually cook it.

x

Looking back...

...over the last blog post, I realise it is pretty dull. Not the food...the food was great! I meant the way I wrote it...reading it back, it wasn't the voice of excitement.

So apologies for it not being that engaging...inspiration is a little low in my words right now.

But, the meal didn't lack any feeling, care or attention. In fact, despite myself, the whole experience of preparing that meal was gentle, very engaging and inspired in its own way.

I was totally immersed in what I was doing, I barely even thought about it.

I love that about cooking. Undisturbed, in that space, my mind can relax, ideas and thoughts flow so freely and there is no anxiety. I realised there are so few times I feel that complete ease in what I am doing.

Even when I draw and paint, there is an element of worry, nervous tension, that holds me back. My demons in my mind whisper to me, 'it wont work, its not good enough...'. Not when I cook... there is no worry, no fear. I just know it will be fine, because I feel calm and and completely involved in every moment. A Zen experience. I think the key is, that even if its not fine, even if it falls apart and is tasteless, it actually dosen't matter. And I am not worried. Because the people that love me (and have to eat it!) will forgive me my errors and just see the attention and care that has gone into it. They would know that my intentions were in the right place.

That's the lesson. Try not to worry...god knows that's not easy. Don't worry about the mistakes. You will inevitably make them, I seem to all the time. The ones who care will get over it, laugh with you, encourage you on and you will only get better. In anything in life, I guess. 

Now I just have to try to apply that philosophy of fearlessness and calm to everything else in my life. Good luck to me!