Friday, November 30, 2012

Patatas Bravas – Fierce Up Your Fries

I always thought Patatas Bravas meant “brave potatoes,” which seemed a little strange since what was supposed to be so brave about them? Amazingly delicious, yes, but valiant, fearless or courageous? I don’t think so. Well, apparently my translation skills were lacking, and come to find out it actually means “fierce.” Now that makes sense.

As advertised, these are fiercely textured, fiercely flavored, fiercely presented, and fiercely enjoyed. How fierce is really up to you and your inner Spaniard. There are as many patatas bravas recipes as homes in Spain, and this is nothing more than my latest rendition. 

As long as you boil them first, fry crisp, and season earnestly, the rest is open to wild experimentation. I’ve used all sort of blanching liquids, spice blends, and sauces, and never been disappointed.

My control around food is generally decent, but I am no match for a plate of these. Once you start with the toothpick, you’ll be impaling and eating potatoes until they’re gone. If you are making these for a group, just do in batches and keep warm in the oven until you have enough. Just don’t salt until the last second, or they can get soggy. I hope you give these a try soon. Enjoy!


Ingredients for 4 portions:
2 pounds russet potatoes
For the boiling liquid:
2 quarts cold water
1 tbsp salt
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp cumin
2 bay leaves

For the sauce:
1 cup mayonnaise
garlic to taste
pinch of salt
1 tsp tomato paste
1-2 tbsp sherry vinegar
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/4 tsp chipotle powder
cayenne to taste

For the spice blend (makes lots extra):
2 tbsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp chipotle powder
chopped parsley

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Toddler lunch

Kitty will eat perhaps a third of this

I have recently noticed an unusually high number of women confiding in me that their toddler hardly eats anything. "He's only eaten two of those Organix carrot stick thingies today," said one on Twitter. "And I bet he won't eat anything else for the rest of the day." Others fret about fruit and vegetables. "How," they whisper, "do you get Kitty to eat vegetables?"

Answer: I DON'T. I read, earlier this year, a book that changed my attitude towards Kitty's diet and therefore my whole life, as I was so neurotic and anxious about what she ate. The book was called My Child Won't Eat! by a Spanish nutritionist called Carlos Gonzalez and it is the most brilliant book on childcare I have ever read. And as you can imagine, I've read a lot.

He basically says this:

1 It doesn't matter how much your child eats. Your child is not small and spindly because it doesn't eat, it doesn't eat because it is a small and spindly child. You cannot, he says, turn a chihuahua into an Alsatian by making it eat a lot.

2 Your child will naturally, as long as he is given a range of food to choose from, balance his own diet. It might seem like the child eats no fruit or veg, but even a little lick of broccoli here, a nibbled end of carrot there, a tiny bit of apple somewhere else, will fulfill his nutritional needs. The important thing is that fruit and veg are offered, not that they are always finished.

Small children, says Gonzalez, have tiny tummies so they go for very calorific, high energy foods - cake, sweeties, chips, toast, crisps etc; fruit and veg are all very well but they are mostly water and fibre, useless is large quantities to the small stomach.

Children in deprived areas of the developing world will become malnourished faster than adults because they cannot physically fit enough of the sort of food that is available (vegetation, berries) in their tummies in order to draw out the relevant nutrients and calories.

3 You are very unlikely to be able to cajole, bribe or force your child to eat more than it wants to, to the extent that you will alter the child's food intake in any significant way.

So, he says, don't bother. You will only upset yourself and the child.

Put the food in front of the child, let the child/children get on with it for a reasonable amount of time and say nothing about uneaten food. Never try to get more food in than they want. No "here comes the airplane" or "you have to eat this or no pudding" or anything.

"Hurrah!" I screamed, after finishing the book. I threw it over my shoulder, rubbed my hands together and vowed from that day forth not to give a shit about how much Kitty eats.

She gets food, three times a day, with snacks. She gets carbohydrate and fruit and vegetables. But I do not care - DO NOT CARE - how much she eats. I cannot begin to tell you what a release it has been.

And, further, I have now banned any cooking at lunchtimes. She gets a cold lunch every day and she loves it. She has

1 carbohydrate - crackers, bread and butter
1 sort of cheese - chedder, Jarg, Dairylea, mini baby bell, whatever's floating about
1 veg - carrot sticks, cucumber, baby tomatoes or a bit of sweet pepper
1 dollop of hummous if we've got some
1 protein - some leftover chicken, or ham, or a mini pork pie

Then she has some fruit and a biscuit.

And I can't tell you how great it is not to have to cook or fucking wash up pots and pans at lunchtime as well as dinner time. And there isn't a big hot lunch stink about the house AND if she's not in the mood to eat much, you can usually put back the uneaten stuff rather than throw an entire fish-pie-and-rice concoction in the bin.

I feel like women must have felt when they first started doling out the Pill - liberated. I feel, in fact, as relieved as when I confessed to Kitty's paediatrician Dr Mike, (when Kitty had a fever of 104 for three days), that I was worried that she would get brain damage and he said: "When was the last time you heard of someone getting brain damage from a fever?" And I said "Err," and he said "Unless you put her, with her temperature of 104, in a sauna, she isn't going to get brain damage." And I said "Ok," and have ceased to worry about fevers, too.

One can wind oneself up terribly about the strangest things, when there are so many better things to get your knickers in a twist over. Like steaming!! I have had the most terrific feedback on my miracle cure and have already this morning dispensed two separate specific steaming instruction miracle cures.

I can die happy.

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Swedish Meatballs and the Most Under Appreciated Celebrity Chef Ever

Whenever there’s a discussion about the history of celebrity chef pop culture, one name is invariably left out, and this Swedish Meatballs recipe served as a reminder of that sad fact. How anyone can talk about the pioneers of food television without including the Swedish Chef from the Muppets is beyond me.

His frenetic energy and charisma makes Gordon Ramsey seem like a shrinking violet by comparison. His technique surpasses Emeril's on every level, and if we’re just talking catch phrases, how can you even begin to compare “Yummo” to “Bork, Bork, Bork?”

Some use the excuse that he wasn’t actually real, that he was just a bunch of stained, smelly fabric, wrapped around some dude’s hairy forearm. Well, that may be true, but it goes beyond that. I believe there’s been a systematic discrimination against Swedish chefs, which has made advancing upward impossible. I call it the ice ceiling.

Do NOT forget the Lingonberry jam!
Anyway, in related news, these Swedish meatballs rocked! Unlike most of the recipes I post here, I’ve had little experience with the recipe, but was very happy with the results, except for one major issue, which I mention in the video. I broke the cardinal rule of meatball making, and used lean meat.

Not paying attention, I picked up a package of ground pork that turned out to be 95% lean. The horror. I might as well have used tofu. Nonetheless, I loved the flavor, but implore you to use regular ground beef, and ground pork with a 75/25 lean-to-fat ratio. Do that, and you’ll be enjoying a plate of meatballs even the world's most under appreciated celebrity chef would love. Enjoy!


Ingredients for 4 large portions:
For the meatballs:
2 tbsp butter
1/2 yellow onion, finely chopped
1/4 cup milk
2 large eggs
1/3 cup plain bread crumbs
3/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1 1/2 teaspoon fine salt
pinch of cayenne
1 pound ground chuck
1 pound ground pork
*Note: you can always cook a little piece to taste for salt, and adjust from there.
Brown meatballs in 425 degrees F. oven for about 20-25 minutes.

For the sauce:
2 tbsp butter
3 tbsp  all-purpose flour
3 1/4 cups beef broth
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp Worcestershire sauce
salt and pepper to taste

Slow-braised kale


Oh Lord, Lord winter is really here and everyone is sick, dying, just trying to make it through the long dark afternoons to bedtime.

Tuberculosis lite? Cough cough cough couughghghgghghghggh *GAG* [pause] waaaail [pause] cough cough cough; or actual norovirus (please please God not noro, anything but noro); non-descript colds, going on and on, merging seamlessly into each other. Maybe one day in every fornight you feel alright, you wake up not all puffed up, stuffed up like your head is full of packing polystyrene.

Or is it just me.

But I should be pleased!! Because mass illness allows me to dispense to everyone my miracle cures! I am such a bore with my miracle cures, especially for coughs in the under 5. "You must STEAM him" I will bellow at perfect strangers at Talacre baby gym. "You must SIT in a STEAMY BATHROOM for TEN MINUTES MINIMUM three times per day! Put Karvol in the water! It's the regularity that does it. Three times a day! I know it's boring! But it's a miracle cure! When someone first told me I said 'Oh fuck off with your hippy shit - give me amoxycillin!' But it really works!"

I am making fun of myself, but I really do think this IS a miracle cure. Kitty had a cold that went feral last week and I had NOT been steaming her, (because it is so tedious), and she got a cough and last week one night was awake from midnight until 5am, coughing. Every time she was about to nod off, she coughed herself awake. It was awful! Not very nice for her, either. By about 0430am she was wailing "Sleepy-byes! Sleepy-byes!" it was terribly sad. Anyway the next day I steamed her to within an inch of her life and that night she only coughed from 9pm - 11pm. Miracle cure!

Are you still with me?
Are you with me or against me?

I also boast how I have bought a huge pack of latex gloves and surgical masks (mad!!) in order to prevent the inter-house spread of the inevitable noro.

What can be done?! How are we going to survive until spring? I can't imagine how in the world vegetables can possibly help but maybe, like steaming, they are the simple answer right under our noses, which we ignore because we just want to eat macaroni cheese and mince pies right now, thanks.

But allow me to introduce you to the idea of slow-braised kale, which is a way of making kale edible. I know! Who would have thought?

My husband made this the other night and it was genuinely a very delicious thing and I really can't imagine any scenario in the world that would make me think that about kale.

Slow-braised kale

2 bags kale - any sort
1 carrot
2 sticks celery
1 clove garlic
1 small onion
1 turnip if you have it
1 glass shitty white wine
1 organic chicken stock cube
1 chilli, deseeded and sliced (you can leave this out if you don't want it spicy)
salt and pepper
some thyme leaves if you have them

1 Make a mirepoix with the carrot, celery, onion, garlic, turnip and chilli. A mirepoix, if you have forgotten, is all of these things very, very finely chopped together.

2 Cook this down for 10 or so minutes in a pan in some groundnut oil, then throw over your glass of shitty wine and turn up the heat to bubble this down. Crumble your stock cube and sprinkle it over.

3 Rinse the kale and without bothering to dry it too much, put it in the pan and snip at it viciously with a pair of kitchen scissors, like a seagull attacking a bag of chips until it has sort of flattened itself out in the pan (but you do not want to obliterate it).

4 Now cook this on your smallest burner on the lowest heat for 1.5 hours. I know it is a long time.

We ate this with some Dover Sole and it was DELICIOUS. Cooked like this, kale magially takes on the taste of red cabbage, which is very strange but I think they are the same brassica-ish family so I suppose that makes sense.

Then we each took and Actifed and went to bed at 9.30pm.
 

Monday, November 26, 2012

Pumpkin Scones with Toasted Pine Nuts & Maple Glaze – A Recipe for the Other 10 Months

I have no intention of giving up the best job in the world anytime soon, but if I do, I’d try and get a job in the marketing department of a pumpkin puree company. 

I’m guessing that like 97% of the canned pumpkin in this country is used during the time from Halloween until Thanksgiving. So if I could figure out a way to get people to use this in recipes all year round, I’d be a total superstar in pumpkin puree marketing circles.

Imagine that. It would be…awesome? Anyway, maybe I should rethink this whole post-Foodwishes career path, but in the meantime, here’s just one example of how I would convince the public that pumpkin is great for anytime of the year. Ironically, I did this because I had leftover pumpkin from Thanksgiving, but still.

I may have covered this in the last scones post, but I’ve never been a huge fan of the scone. I’ve always considered it some sort of effeminate biscuit, but I’m starting to come around in my old age. There’s nothing like a freshly baked scone with a steaming hot cup of tea or coffee, especially one tricked out with pumpkin, toasted pine nuts, and maple glaze. I hope you give this a try soon…or anytime! Enjoy.


Ingredients for 12 Pumpkin Scones:
8 ounces by weight all-purpose flour (about 1 3/4 cups)
1/4 cup white sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/3 cup toasted pine nuts
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1/3 cup buttermilk
additional flour as needed
1 egg beaten with a few drops of milk or water to brush scones before baking.
*Bake at 400 degrees F. for 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown

Curried fish in yoghurt



This is a really terrific fish curry that I found in Guardian Weekend by Vivek Singh, via Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

Watch out for the chilli in this - the way I use chillies is to buy packs of non-descript chillies from Waitrose and then let them sit in a jar until I need to use them. Of course, while they're sitting around they famously get very hot. I used one large one in this curry, no seeds, and it was fucking spicy. I mean, I don't really mind because I'm rock hard like that (I was especially tough and cool when I GOT SOME IN MY EYE!!!).

But the thing is, because you're not going to cook the chilli much here, you need to have a care for how hot your chilli might be whatever stage in its life it is and you might, perhaps, only put half in.

Anyway I really recommend this, it was delicious and doesn't take long. Like all curry recipes, the ingredients list doesn't seem to half go on for bloody ever, but it's worth buying everything in if you don't have it, especially the cinnamon sticks, which really make this extra yummy, in my opinion.

Even though I've always thought that cinnamon in curry is a bit gross, like fruit in leafy salads. But it's nearly Christmas for god's sake!!! You ought to have cinnamon sticks poking out of every drawer.

Curried fish in yoghurt
enough for 4

300g plain whole-milk yoghurt (I used Greek yoghurt, which was fine)
2 tsp grated fresh ginger
2 cloves garlic, grated
1 tsp ground turmeric
1/2 tsp chilli powder
salt and pepper
500g white fish - haddock or similar, cut into chunks
oil for frying
1 bay leaf
2 cardomom pods, squashed with the flat of a knife blade
1 cinnamon stick
3 cloves
1 large onion, or three tiny ones, chopped or finely sliced
chilli, de-seeded and chopped or sliced
Fresh coriander and black onion seeds to scatter over the top if you fancy although on reflection, what with my rodent issues, onion seeds look a lot like mouse poo. This did not occur to me last night as I was eating this, which is a good thing. Sorry I've really ruined the whole thing for you now.


1 Mix together the yoghurt, ginger, garlic, turmeric, chilli powder and large pinch of salt. Turn the fish out into the marinade and leave for 30 mins.

2 Heat the oil in a pan then add the bay leaf, cardomom, cinnamon and cloves. Cook these for 2-3 minutes until you can smell the cinnamon and cloves. Add the onion and chilli and turn the heat right down. Cook these, turning often, for 10 minutes (use a timer).

3 Add the fish and its marinade and cook for 10 minutes. Turn it once carefully during cooking as you don't want to smash up the fish. Cooked yoghurt always ends up looking a bit grainy and gross, so don't worry about that.

4 Add more salt if you think it needs it (it probably does) and then scatter over coriander and onion seeds if you want to.

In fact, with all these cinnamon and cloves it's really quite a Christmassy dish.

 

Sunday, November 25, 2012

Giving Thanks

Michele and I had a very lovely Thanksgiving holiday with the family in Davis, CA. The food and company were wonderful, and as if that wasn't enough, I also enjoyed a flood of viewers posting pictures of their successful Food Wishes' recipes on Twitter and Instagram. I want to thank everyone who mentioned us this holiday, and I couldn't be happier or more proud of all the beautiful food you created and shared. And while we're on the subject, here are a few highlights from our meal. Enjoy!

Our handsome, free-range turkey was from Branigan's Turkey Farm in Woodland, California, and it was amazing! I did the old, herb-butter under the skin trick, and it was one of the juiciest, most flavorful turkeys in recent memory.
I love to start the Thanksgiving meal with a small salad. This is a great way to get everyone to the table for toasts, grace, etc., and not have to worry about all the food getting cold. While the turkey rests, enjoy a nice pear, persimmon salad with goat cheese, pomegranate, and candied walnuts.
What's Thanksgiving, but an elaborate excuse to eat lots of buttery mashed potatoes? These were fortified with cream cheese as family tradition dictates.
These incredibly tasty sweet potatoes were simply roasted with maple butter and topped with salty, crunchy, toasted pistachios.  They were perfect.
I decided to eschew the usual green bean casserole for this new addition to the holiday side repertoire. The beans were tossed with copious amounts of roasted garlic, and then warmed in the oven after a crumbling of Point Reyes blue cheese. No one missed the casserole! 

We finished with the pumpkin pie you saw posted a while back, and by the looks of my Twitter feed, so did many of you. I hope you had a great holiday, and enjoy the rest of the weekend. Special thanks to Peggy & Al, Nina & Tom, and Jennifer and Leanne for providing us with such an enjoyable Thanksgiving. Stay tuned for a new video tomorrow!

Friday, November 23, 2012

Leftover Turkey Manicotti – “Little Muffs” for the Day After the Day After

Manicotti, which means, “little muffs” in Italian, has to be one of the best ways ever for using up leftover Thanksgiving turkey. 

The moist filling will bring the driest bird back from the dead, and you can literally add anything that can be chopped up.

Leftover green bean casserole? Throw it in. Peas and Onions? You bet’cha. Cranberry Sauce? No, don’t be ridiculous. Anyway, thanks to the absence of cheese, tomato, and pasta on the usual Thanksgiving menu, this concoction will erase any connection with the aforementioned feast.

One portioning note: The recipe below made six crepes, and if you make yours slightly smaller, the filling recipe will make six nicely sized manicotti. 

I went low-carb and used all the filling to make four portions, but you should probably just fill all 6 crepes, or even double the recipe to get 12. I think you’ll want leftovers of the leftovers. So whether you make manicotti with the last of the holiday turkey, or just use the technique to recycle other meaty meals, I hope you give this a try soon. Enjoy!


Ingredients for 6 crepes:
2 eggs
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup water
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp olive oil
olive oil for cooking crepes as needed
*Note: Feel free to adjust the batter's thickness by adding a little flour or water until you get a thin consistency as seen in video. 
 
For the filling:
1 cup chopped turkey or anything
1 cup ricotta cheese
1/2 cup Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
1/2 cup grated mozzarella
1/4 tsp dried marjoram
1/8 tsp red chili flakes
1 egg
1/4 cup chopped Italian parsley
For the rest:
1 1/2 cups marinara sauce
2 tsp olive oil
1/3 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano for top
1 tbsp chopped Italian parsley, garnish

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Sushi for obsessives


This is why you need to wipe your knife between roll cuts. Notice how I have focused on the only clean one


Up until very recently I laughed at people who made their own sushi. There are some things that are best left to the experts, is my view - and sushi is one of them.

Then my raging pregnancy craving for sushi got quite out of control. It's all I want to eat, ever. It's all I can really stomach eating. I don't really mean actual raw fish, although that will do, I really mean cut rolls, maki rolls - California rolls, spicy tuna rolls - even vegetarian rolls. I don't care. I'm not fussy. I just want fucking sushi. I am an addict.

Even my Japanophile husband is getting a bit alarmed by it all, especially when we went out to a robata (a Japanese grill, where they cook tiny things on skewers - really delicious) and refused to eat anything except sushi.

But I can only squeeze a trip out for sushi out of him about once a fortnight or he starts getting bored with it, so I've had to come up with ways of filling in the gaps between my professional sushi hits. I stopped short at the Japanese sundries section of Waitrose the other day, dithered for a moment, then held out my arms, and swept the whole lot off the shelves and into my trolley: sushi mat, nori paper, wasabi, sushi rice, sushi rice seasoning. Then I wheeled back to the vegetable aisle and bought a cucumber, then I wheeled over to the fish section and bought some cooked, peeled prawns.

And I will say this: homemade sushi is actually pretty good. It's not that hard to do and doesn't make much of a mess - all you need to cook is the rice and everything else is just an assembly job - I can see if you did it reasonably often you'd get very good at all that rolling.

My problem is with the rice - although I've never been good at cooking rice, I'm hoping that results will come with practice. The two times I've cooked it now it comes out a bit overcooked and means a slight mushiness in the resultant roll. I now wonder if this might not be because of actual overcooking but allowing the rice to soak for more than the advised 30 minutes prior to boiling.

If you are going to make homemade sushi, then obviously the thing to do is look up a tutorial on YouTube, that is the only way to see properly how to do it, but I also offer the following additional notes:

1 When you cover your sushi mat with cling film, tuck the ends of the film in under the mat, to stop the film ending up getting rolled up inside the sushi, which is not the idea at all.

2 Sushi rice is like fucking concrete. Do not allow it, as I did, to sit in sieves, pots, on knives or sushi mats for more than a few minutes because it wil lliterally superglue itself to any unguarded thing - it's mental.

3 Do wipe your knife on a wet cloth inbetween cuts of your sushi roll as it will make it all look so nice; if you don't, little bastard grains of rice will stick to the knife and then stick to the next roll of sushi and look all messy (see photo above).

4 Be generous with your sushi rice seasoning. Plain old rice is awfully boring and I have found that the directions on the back of the seasoning bottle don't allow for enough.

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Ginger Pear Cranberry Sauce – Making Your Holidays More Difficult, One Condiment at a Time

You would think the vast majority of the visitors to this blog would be fine with me posting a new holiday cranberry sauce every year, but apparently that’s not the case. 

After posting the tease picture for this lovely ginger, pear, cranberry sauce, I received a bunch of comments and emails with the same basic message, “please don’t, you’re confusing us.”

Evidently, some people like our past cranberry sauce recipes so much, that they don’t know if they should stick with them, or try a new version. It’s causing quite the dilemma. Do you go with the one you know you love, and that garnered so many compliments, or do you try something new and risk it all?

Sorry, I really can’t help you decide, but at least let me make an already tough call, even tougher. This gingery, pear-studded cranberry sauce was simply amazing. I’ve been wanting to try pear in a cranberry sauce forever, and this was so fantastic that I’m a little upset I waited this long.

Anyway, I hope your Thanksgiving menu is shaping up nicely, and that tomorrow will bring a table full of fabulous food. Whether you use this cranberry sauce, or an older version, or heaven help us, one from another blog, I hope you and your family have a great holiday. Enjoy!


Ingredients for about 2 cups:
12 oz fresh whole cranberries
1 large bosc pear, peeled, diced
2 oz candied ginger, minced
zest of 1 large orange
1 cup fresh orange juice
1/4 cup water
1 cup sugar
1 whole star anise
1 cinnamon stick
1/2 tsp garam masala (an Indian-style curry spice blend)
1/4 tsp salt

Monday, November 19, 2012

Look What I Found

My friends at Allrecipes.com have put together a great recipe hub for Thanksgiving, and as I glanced down the page, I saw this gorgeous pumpkin flan in their gluten-free section. I quickly realized it was a recipe I'd posted a few years ago, and pretty much forgotten about. It only took one glance to remind me of this sweet, satisfying, and yet still relatively light holiday dessert.

Anyway, I wanted to share this delicious blast from the past, and also provide you with a link to the extensive Thanksgiving recipe index over at Allrecipes for all your last minute needs. Enjoy!



Click here to read the original post, and get the ingredient list.

Sweet Corn & Wild Mushroom Spoonbread – Best Cornbread Dressing I’ve Ever Accidentally Made!

It’s always nice when you start out making one thing, and it unexpectedly turns into something else, which ends up being far better than you expected. Such was the case with this quite homely, yet amazingly delicious sweet corn and wild mushroom spoonbread.

I was trying to do a simple, wild mushroom-studded, sweet corn casserole to reinforce our holiday side dish repertoire, and before I knew it, I was eating the best, most flavorful cornbread dressing I’d ever tasted. Not only that, but we completely eliminated the step of having to make corn bread first!

Of course, I wish I could do stuff like this on purpose, but like my golf buddies used to say, “better lucky, than good.” The only drawback, as I obsessed over in the video, was the less that stellar appearance when it came out of the oven. 

I may try some type of gratin topping next time, but honestly, this was so wonderful tasting that I can’t even pretend to be upset over such superficial concerns.  I hope you give it a try soon. Enjoy!


Ingredients for 12 portions:
1/2 cup dried porcini mushroom pieces, softened in 1 cup hot tap water, squeezed dry
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup yellow cornmeal
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon fine salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
cayenne to taste
2 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup milk
1 pound sweet corn, drained well
1/4 cup chopped green onions
oil to grease baking dish
Bake at 350 degrees F. for 30-35 min

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Time to Vote! (and you thought the campaigning was over)

We are thrilled to announce that Food Wishes is a Taste Awards finalist in two categories this year! As you may know, we've won an award two years in a row, and would love to keep the streak going. There's no cash prize involved, but something way more valuable...bragging rights!

If you’d like to help us out, please follow this link to vote in the “Best Food Program: Web,” and “Best Home Chef in a Series” categories. Voting ends on November 27, 2012. Thank you for the love and support!

Friday, November 16, 2012

Old-Fashioned Cracker Dressing & Stuffing – Do You Dare?

Here we go again, delving into the treacherous topic of changing up your traditional Thanksgiving side dishes. This time, it’s an old-fashioned cracker dressing vying to be that surprise, uninvited guest.

Sure some you alternative lifestylists may go for the cornbread, but generally, bread-based variations rule the day. There’s a great reason for this; they’re easy, delicious, and most importantly, very familiar. Therein lies the problem.

Why mess with past success? Your loved ones wait all year for your Thanksgiving feast, so why take the chance of disappointing them on the big day? You have the entire rest of the year to do that.

Anyway, I’m not going to try and convince you that this is a superior dressing, or that you should change your regular routine, but if you’re someone who's looking for a change of pace dressing, that’s still very familiar and comforting, this could be the one.

Of course, you can use whatever ingredients you normally add to your bread dressing, and it should work just the same. By the way, I never stuff my turkey, so if you choose to use this as a stuffing, please refer to the roughly one million Thanksgiving turkey cooking guides linked online. Enjoy!


Ingredients for 16 portions:
1 pound saltine crackers (4 sleeves)
1/2 cup butter
1 large or 2 small yellow onions, diced
3 or 4 ribs of celery, diced
1 tsp salt, or to taste
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
cayenne to taste
1/2 tsp dried sage
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp dried rosemary
2 3/4 cups chicken or turkey broth
1/2 cup cream or milk
1 or 2 eggs
*Tip: you can cook a small nugget in a pan and taste for seasoning
Bake at 375 degrees F. for bout 45 minutes

Duck and pancake (sort of)





I spent almost my entire first pregnancy worried about how much harder and worse it would be to be pregnant with a toddler in tow.

Of course, I was right to be worried. It's absolutely horrible. I have also got much fatter and stiffer quicker this time and am out of breath and feel queasy and faint at any sort of physical effort. Bending down makes me feel dizzy and lightheaded and if I pick Kitty up I feel like my bum is going to fall off.

But in some ways, being pregnant the second time around is easier. No-one pushes you around. No-one lectures you about how shit/marvellous having a baby is. Basically no-one really cares and it is great.

I also now know how long nine months is. It's a fucking long time. So you might as well take your coat and shoes off and arrange all your stuff around you nicely and get comfy because you're going to be in this state for a flipping age. My friend AC compares it with flying long-haul, economy. Just when you think you can't stand it any more, it turns out you're only in Dubai and you've got another huge slog left.

Mistake #1 that I am not going to make with this pregnancy is to look like a horrible slob. Last time around I just slopped around in disgusting denim jeggings and filthy Converse and ugly jersey tops, thinking that money spent on maternity jeans, or tights or new shoes or underwear or anything was a waste.

No fear. Not this time. I went out and bought, on the advice of my wardrobe guru Becky B, a pair of J Brand black skinny jeans for £185, which the nice girl in the shop, (Trilogy in Hampstead), sent off to get turned into a pair of maternity jeans. Then after you've had the baby, they turn them BACK into a pair of normal jeans! Let no-one say I am not thrifty. Although frankly they are probably going to be so knackered by next May that won't be much left to turn back into normal jeans.

And I've got a dress from Isabella Oliver, and ankle boots and a Zara tweed jacket with leather sleeves (I know! I AM fashion!), and some smart harem trousers and THREE new pairs of maternity tights and loads of these t-shirts from Top Shop, which are an absolute life saver.



Giles hates all of it. But as Becky B said as she saw me hesitating over the harem trousers "Don't ask yourself whether Giles will like it. He will only think you look nice if your arse and boobs are all hanging out." Becky B is Scottish via Blackheath and I always do whatever she tells me.

But I am, basically, doing all this for Giles. Because the person who really suffers during my pregnancy frump-outs is him. But it's not for him, him - if that makes sense - because he is a bit wary of all these rather @ManRepeller new clothes, but for other people, looking at him. I don't want people in restaurants to go "Oh look, there's Giles Coren and there's his.... really frumpy... dowdy.... fat... wife... urgh," I want them to say "Wow Giles must be really cool to be married to someone who wears harem pants!!!"

Mistake #2 I am going to try not to make this time is to get incredibly fat. I've already put on a stone, in the first trimester sugar/carb/neausea feeding frenzy - but I am wondering if all the eating I did last time in my 2nd and 3rd trimesters wasn't done out of self-pity and boredom, rather than actual hunger. I don't mean going on any sort of diet, I just mean when I've got a raging thirst I might try to quench it with sparkling water first, rather than a giant thing of Coca Cola.

(I once read in a pregnancy magazine, by the way, a thing that said "By five months, your jeans might be feeling a little tight." A LITTLE TIGHT??! Fucking hell, in both pregnancies I was in stretchy waistbands at EIGHT WEEKS. I wanted to set fire to the magazine but it would have made a terrible smell.)

What gives me hope is that I'm not as in to full Sunday roasts and lots of carbs as I was first time. All I really want is sushi. Sashimi, nigiri, california rolls, spicy tuna rolls. Maybe a seaweed salad? Cheeky little hot sake? It's all I can think about. Large bits of roast meat, creamy things, sticky, rich things all turn me green.

But that's still what my husband likes to eat, so I bought for his dinner the other day some duck breast. And then it sat in the fridge for days as I found excuse after excuse not to cook it because I just couldn't face it.

Then I came up with an idea, which was to use it in a sort of ersatz duck-and-pancake thing. I didn't hold out much hope for this as I only had fajita wraps for the pancake and a bottle of bought hoisin sauce for the sauce and duck breasts for the duck rather than leg.

But it basically worked. Which makes me think that if you could actually get some duck pancake pancakes from somewhere (one of you smartarses must know where?) you'd be really sorted.

I also discovered a very good way of cooking duck breasts, which gives you a really crispy skin and doesn't fill the kitchen with blue smoke.

1 Score the skin of the duck in a diamond pattern and then place on some kind of grill or grid suspended over the skin then pour 1/2 a kettle-full of boiling water over them.

2 Dry the duck very well and then put in the fridge to dry out completely - all day is great but 45 minutes will make a difference.

3 When you are ready to cook the duck, season with salt and pepper and five spice (if you want) and then put in a dry frying pan skin side down.You don't need any oil or anything because the duck is going to leak a lot of grease. If you have a skillet that will go in the oven use this. Cook this very gently for about 10 minutes, until the skin is brown and the pan is full of duck fat. Then turn the duck over and cook the bottom for 4 mins.

4 Now put in a 180C oven for 8 mins for medium and 10 for well done.

And that's it. Eat with your sliced up cucumber and spring onion with plum or hoisin sauce on whatever pancake type thing you can lay your hands on. Close your eyes and you could almost be in Chinatown.


 

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Gluten Free? Don’t Look at Me!

My inability to help visitors to this blog with questions about gluten-free Thanksgiving baking has been well documented. I’m a gluten junkie of the highest order, and know almost nothing about gluten-free substitutions, which is why I shy away from giving advice that could potentially make someone ill.

Luckily, my good friend Shauna Ahern, better known as "The Gluten-Free Girl," has just launched an interactive app called, “Gluten Free Thanksgiving Baking.” If you’re interested in getting more info, you can visit her blog, or simply follow this link to the Apple Store. Enjoy!

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Best Pumpkin Pie Ever – Come for the Pie, Stay for the Dollop

This Thanksgiving, we’re assuming your turkey will be juicy; your mashed potatoes lump-free; and your gravy, smooth as silk. You are a regular visitor here, after all. 

However, it’s probably not a bad idea to hedge your bets and serve a pumpkin pie so tasty and texturally perfect that no matter what goes wrong, everyone will leave with a smile on their face, and a delicious memory in their heart. By the way, this is that pie. 

After many years of experimentation, I’ve finally perfected what I think is the ideal formula. As I mention in the video, I’ve removed an egg white, and replaced it with some additional yolks. This results in a pie that’s not only richer, but also much less likely to crack.

Of course, you still need to not to overcook it. An extra 5 minutes in the oven is kryptonite to even the most brilliant pumpkin pie formulas. Use the knife test I demonstrated and you should be fine. Worst case, there’s always the whipped cream. Ah, the whipped cream.

I remember my friend, and world-famous photographer, Andrew Scrivani telling me about a food stylist whose spoon work is so sexy and enticing that she makes a good living just specializing in dollops. Well, I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize for ruining her career.

Once the world sees the slow-mo magic that is the old, “twist, three-thrusts, and a pull,” I’m assuming she’ll be out of business in no time. That’s right, now anyone will be able to do magazine-quality dollops like a boss (and by boss, I mean overpaid food stylist).

Anyway, ruined careers aside, this really is a fantastic, and incredibly easy pumpkin pie recipe, and I sincerely hope you consider adding it to your holiday menu this year. Enjoy!


Ingredients for one pumpkin pie:
1 can (15 ounce) pumpkin
1 large egg
3 egg yolks
1 can (14 ounce) sweetened condensed milk
1/4 teaspoon freshly, and very finely ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 tsp Chinese 5-spice (or to sub: a small pinch each of ground star anise, ground cloves, and ground white pepper)
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
9-inch unbaked pie crust

Monday, November 12, 2012

Pear and hazelnut muffins




Muffins are a little bit passe these days. Like Friends and Snapple, they're just a bit nineties. They have been overtaken by their brash, rather disgusting, cupcake cousin.

But I still have a lot of affection for them. I think muffins are nice. And I came across this very straightforward looking recipe in a newspaper, but which utilised American cup measurements.

I was annoyed about this, just as I am always annoyed when a recipe specifies some sort of wildly exotic spice, cut of meat or fruit in an offhand manner, which implies that of course you ought to know where to source it from. I fucking don't!! And even if I did, I am not going to spend one of my three child-free mornings a week tracking it down. If you can't get it in Waitrose I am. Not. Interested.

Of course these days I DO, however, have a set of cup measurements, which I bought in Waitrose, so can convert the measurements for you.

On a whim, I decided to make these muffins with some pear and hazelnut because those were some things I had knocking about. I also used soured cream instead of buttermilk, (buttermilk!! we are in ENGLAND, nowhere sells it except big branches of Waitrose and I'm not always near one of those), which worked just fine.

You do not have to use pear and hazelnut in these - pretty much anything works: apple, chocolate, sultanas, banana, whatever. It's a very flexible vehicle, muffin mix. Having said that, the pear and hazelnut combination was really terrific and I recommend it to you.

Pear and hazelnut muffins - makes 8

2.5 cups plain flour - 340g
1.5 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup sugar - 160g
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup soured cream or buttermilk - 120ml
3 drops vanilla essence
1/cup melted butter - 75g butter, melted
2 ripe pears, diced
2 lady-handfuls of hazelnuts, chopped and toasted in a dry frying pan for about 10 mins

1 In one bowl combine the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. You do not have to sieve this but you could swizzle it about with a whisk for a bit.

2 In another bowl mix the beaten egg with the soured cream, vanilla extract and melted butter. Someone like Raymond Blanc would separate the eggs first, beat the whites and then add them separately, to make the muffins lighter.

3 Add the flour to the egg mixture and mix just until there is still about 10% flour showing, then tip in your pear and hazelnuts (or whatever you are using) and mix to combine.

4 Spoon immediately into muffin cases. Fill these to just below the brim. This is important, as these will not rise that much on cooking and you want that big luscious, over-spilt look.

5 Bake at 200C for 16-20 mins. Keep an eye on them if you have a light on in your oven. Mine were slightly underdone as I put them in at 180 (because of fan nuke horror panic) but if you have a normal oven I think you'll be okay at 200C for 16 mins. Bake in the middle shelf.

 

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Giving Back to NYC

Since New York City and surrounding areas are still in such desperate need of help, I thought I’d post links to some of our favorite NYC-inspired recipes, in the hopes you’ll think to yourself, “After all the delicious food the Big Apple has given to us, the least I can do is give a few bucks to the Red Cross to help them out.” After enjoying some pizza, cheesecake, blintzes, and pastrami, please follow this link and give what you can. Thanks and enjoy!

Make Your Own Pastrami
New York-Style Cheesecake

Easy Cheese Blintzes
No-Knead Thin Crust Pizza

Friday, November 9, 2012

White Bean & Chicken Breast Chili – A Change of Pace, Change of Pace

I love a hearty beef chili as much as the next guy, but once in a while there’s nothing wrong with going over to the light side, and enjoying an equally comforting bowl of white bean and chicken chili. I’ve always used thighs for my chicken chili, which of course have more fat and flavor, but after a bunch of requests for a chicken breast version, I decided give it a go, and I was very happy with the results.

The key is to not overcook the chicken when you sear it. You want it slightly undercooked, maybe about 150 degrees F. internal temp, since it will cook all the way when we add it back in. You’ll notice when I slice mine, there’s a little bit of opaqueness to the flesh, which is what you want.

This is intended to be a relatively quick and simple weeknight meal, so I didn’t add much in the way of extras, but things like peppers, squash, and mushrooms are always welcomed additions. 

I know you’re probably missing those long, warm summer days right about now, but one of the great things about this season’s cold, wet weather is that it begs for recipes like this. I hope you pour yourself a beer, grab a chunk of bread, and dig into a bowl of this soon. Enjoy!


Ingredients for 4 portions:
2 tsp vegetable oil
2 or 3 boneless skinless chicken breasts, about 1 1/4 lbs
salt and pepper to taste
1 large onion
4 cloves garlic
1 tbsp ancho chili powder
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp chipotle chili powder
1/4 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp flour
about 3 cups chicken broth or stock, divided
1 tsp fine cornmeal
2 cans (15oz) white beans
cayenne to taste
1/4 tsp sugar or to taste
1/3 cup chopped green onions
sour cream and cilantro to garnish

Date bread



If this looks familiar, it's because it is almost identical in every way to a Banana Bread For Dory (q.v.) but it uses dates instead of bananas.

I wanted to try this out because my friend Becky B brought over a sticky date cake the other day and it reminded me of the packet of dates in the larder I had been meaning to use to make a sticky toffee pudding, but have never quite found the excuse for.

It's also because I do LOVE that banana bread recipe but quite often don't find I have quite the right number of overripe bananas to justify it. So I wondered if it was possible with dates. And it is! It is still a sort of date bread, rather than a cake, because it's not especially sweet, which I think is a good thing. You could definitely spread this with butter, for example. Like all cakey/breads that are not a sponge, this keeps very well in tupperware for a few days.

Becky B did a terribly clever thing with HER date cake, which was to soak it, in the manner of a lemon drizzle cake, with a caramel sauce that she bought from Waitrose - it was Bonne Maman, she said: "Confiture de Caramel". She thinned it with some hot water, pricked the cake all over with a skewer and then went MAD with the sauce. It was really, really fab. My mother always says that things that other people have made for you are always more delicious than something you have made yourself, but still - Becky B is a terrific cook.

You can also make your own caramel sauce if you are that sort of person - there is a recipe somewhere on here, have a rummage.

So here we go

Date bread

150 veg oil
200g dark brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
250g dates
75g natural yoghurt
1 tsp bicarb of soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
225g wholemeal spelt flour (get it from Waitrose)
2 tbs caster sugar or cane sugar

1 Pre-heat your oven to 170C and butter a 2lb loaf tin and line it (YES you must do this, don't be lazy) and line a baking sheet, too.

1 In a bowl whisk together the oil, sugar, vanilla and eggs

2 Chop up the dates roughly then put them in a bowl and pour over boiling water to just cover them. Leave them to soak for 20 mins then drain them and sort of gently mash them through the sieve to get out most of the water.

3 Add the youghurt to the dates and mix together. Sprinkle over the bicarb of soda, baking powder, and salt and stir again.

4 Mix the date mixture and the sugar/egg mixture together. Then sprinkle over the flour and stir until things are only just combined. Over-mixing is disastrous here so stop as soon as you can't see any more flour. Spoon the batter into your smugly-lined tin.

5 Sprinkle some sugar - caster, cane or granulated -down the spine of the loaf and then put in the oven.

7 Bake for 45-50 mins.


HOW is Kitty, people say to me. How is she, how is she? I don't talk about her that much any more because she is just off my hands. She turns two in February but she has been off since she turned 18 months old and could walk, talk, ask for things, watch tv, sit and draw or look at her books, play imaginary games with her stuffed animals, scoot around the kitchen on her little trike and so on. She is an actual person these days and it's such a relief, I can't tell you.

When I look back on some of the darker things I wrote when she was small I feel awful, so guilty. But it must have been bad for me to write those things, it must have been like that. She's now this little chattering pixie, everyone wants a piece of her, everyone wants a smile and to hear her squeak "I'm knackered!" - her first party trick.

I used to dread her waking up in the night - the thought of it made me feel actually sick with anxiety. Now sometimes I wake in the night and hope that she might wake, too and need me. But she never does.

Here is a picture of Kitty with her bunny, her hair a bit wild from her nap. Note how she is gripping the bunny quite hard round the neck - I think she is trying to get him to tell her where the chocolate is. I can get pictures printed on t-shirts, mugs, bags and mousemats for a small fee if anyone is interested?

Though I can see the benefits of babies, I suppose. They are not constantly after your iPad and whatever it is that you are eating. And they don't have a massive fucking tantrum when you try to stop them from doing incredibly dangerous things.