Wild blueberry pancakes

We went to a little house in the woods in Sweden, and hardly saw any other people for a week. We did however find wild boar evidence and moose poo and tons of chanterelles, blueberries, wild raspberries, strawberries and lingonberries. Especially blueberries.

s and I had been getting into a good weekend pancake swing - the English kind, rolled up. I convinced him to try some thicker ones with wild blueberries in. We used this recipe, and they were great. This is our current favourite pancake recipe. I brought some blueberries back and froze them, we still have enough for one more round - then I will try with the frozen wild blueberries from the store.

(Makes about 10)

3/4 cups (c 175 ml) milk (used oat milk)

1/2 tbsp lemon juice

1 cup flour (or 1/4 cornstarch & 3/4 plain flour)

1 tsp baking powder

1 egg (note: I tried with flax egg - 1 tbsp ground flax seed mixed with 2.5 tbsp boiling water - when we ran out of eggs and they were also great)

1 tsp maple syrup (or sugar) (optional)

1/2 tbsp lemon zest

1/8 tsp salt

1/3 cup wild blueberries

Butter for cooking

Mix milk and lemon juice and let sit 5 min to curdle.

Mix flour, baking powder, salt and lemon zest in a medium bowl.

Beat eggs into the milk mixture, then add to the dry mixture gradually, beating in well. Mix in the blueberries with the final strokes.

Melt butter in a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Drop in batter about a 1/4 cup at a time - I could fit 3 in the pan at a time. Cook a few min on the first side, until there are bubbles and the edges are set, then flip and cook on the other side. Keep going, adding more butter when needed. Keep them warm in a low oven if relevant.

Eat with maple syrup. Or, if you have plenty of wild blueberries, try putting a handful in a small bowl, adding a little lemon zest and juice, and drops of sugar, flour, and water, and blasting for around 30-60 sec to make a delicious jam-syrup (this would be just as good with frozen blueberries). Or, if you are sage, slather with Nutella and jam and maybe some berries on top.

Baked coconut rice pudding with mango

I liked the idea of rice pudding made with coconut milk instead of normal milk, and eaten with fresh mango. Right??? I approximately followed this recipe.

I also used coconut sugar, and tonka bean instead of vanilla. I bought the tonka bean a while ago but don't really know what to do with it. I was super curious about it because I first tried to buy it when we lived in the USA but couldn't, as it is illegal there! So when I saw it in the supermarket a spontaneous purchase happened... The internet suggests you grate it like nutmeg, and use it in places where you might use vanilla.

80 g coconut sugar (or normal sugar - golden caster)

800 ml coconut milk

1 strip lemon zest (optional)

about 1 tsp grated tonka bean (equivalent to seeds from 1 vanilla pod?)

160 g pudding rice

1-2 fresh mangoes, peeled and chopped or sliced, to serve

Heat oven to 150C. In large oven dish, combine sugar, coconut milk and lemon zest. Grate in tonka bean. Add pudding rice (rinsed), and mix to combine. Place in the oven and cook c. 2 hours, stirring halfway through, until rice is tender and liquid absorbed. Serve hot or warm with fresh mango.

Third Birthday Cake

Little S turned three on Tuesday. He is crazy about cars / vehicles at the moment, so this year he clearly had to have a car for his birthday cake. I thought about a fire engine, but it seemed like you'd have to have the colour, shape, writing etc bang on for it to look recognizable, and I wanted to allow myself a bit more leeway.

So I went for a dumper truck. Still a favourite, still easily recognizable, still a truck - but could be any colour I want, no writing needed, and somehow felt like it would still look ok even if the shape went a bit wrong.

The cake was this one, baked in a loaf tin. I cut it into three pieces: about a third from one end to make the front part (standing on the cut side), all the rest except a couple of inches to make the back part, and then the last piece to cut into six wheel shapes. Then I shaped the front, cut out the hopper, shaped the wheel beds and evened out the wheels.

The icing was this one. Instead of cinnamon, I added a few different powders to colour it: the icing on the back part of the truck is with freeze-dried raspberry powder, the icing on the front part is with acai powder, and the icing on the wheels is with cocoa. I considered a few other powder (spirulina or matcha for green; turmeric for yellow), but then realized it took quite a lot of powder for a get much colour and I more wanted it to taste nice...

The decorations are: mango-coconut balls for the load and lights, dried kiwi slices for the wheels, and raspberry-apple fruit 'spaghetti' for the writing, window shapes and stripes on the back part. It would have been best presented straight after decorating, but it looked ok the next morning.

It tasted good but yet again I made a sage birthday cake that failed to rise properly (it rose beautifully, and then dropped a lot). This time I had even decided to follow a proper cake recipe to the word to prevent this... Oh well, the icing works!

And, most importantly, S liked it and recognized it as a dumper truck. He got a yellow dumper truck from the 1950s from my dad so it all fit together perfectly.

Birthday cake 2020: poppyseed, lemon, yoghurt, apple cheese

I was thinking about S's birthday cake for a while, as usual. We had a good crop of walnuts this year so Plan A was to do a classic coffee and walnut cake. But then I stumbled on this cake (during my Anna Jones trawl), and it seemed to tick a load of boxes: we had a load of homemade apple cheese in the fridge; and the whole poppyseed-almond-lemon-yoghurt situation sounded divine. So this became the new Plan A. And I am glad it did - it was everything I hoped for (despite not being the prettiest cake ever - rustic charm though right?). I'd love to try it with other fruit cheeses - membrillo, that guava paste you get from Latin American shops, damson cheese... mmmm... Or the marzipan option!

70 ml rapeseed oil or melted butter plus a little extra (used sunflower oil)
250 g white spelt flour, plus a little extra for the tin (used plain flour)
1 tbsp baking powder
70 g golden caster sugar (used a mixture of caster and brown)
½ tsp fine sea salt
60 g poppy seeds
Zest of 2 unwaxed lemons
2 medium eggs
350 ml yogurt or buttermilk (used yogurt - actually it was a mix of skyr and oat yoghurt)
250 g membrillo (quince paste), cut into tiny cubes (used apple cheese)
2 tbsp demerara sugar
20 g almonds, skin on, lightly toasted and chopped

Heat the oven to 220C/gas mark 7. Grease a springform baking tin, line the base and flour the sides.

Combine the flour, baking powder, caster sugar, salt, poppy seeds and lemon zest in a large bowl. In a separate smaller bowl, whisk together the eggs and the yogurt, then whisk in the oil. Add to the flour mixture and stir briefly, until just combined. Gently fold in two-thirds of the membrillo cubes until they are evenly distributed. Transfer the cake mixture to the prepared tin.

Arrange the remaining membrillo across the top in a pleasing pattern. Sprinkle with the demerara sugar, then the almonds. Bake for 20-25 min or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean. Serve warm or at room temperature.


Decorated with a little water icing made with icing sugar and lemon juice, and a sprinkling of poppyseeds.

One note: I don't think it's worth toasting the almonds before putting on top - they'd get nicely toasted enough just sitting on top of the cake while it's baking.

Previous S cakes: 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011
Previous s cakes: 2019, 2018

Asparagus, garlic, feta, lemon, thyme

Also belated from early Summer...

We did a pretty good job of asparagus season this year, if I do say so myself. We ate lots... and as much of it from our veg share as possible (think we ordered a special asparagus bag every week!). Everything seems to be growing well this year, and I guess asparagus was no exception. And it turned out small S loves it (although only the tips: he is a discerning little bug)... Much of it was prepped v simply - either with st george’s mushrooms or just boiled for 4 min and then dressed with melted butter and lemon juice... this is only slightly more complicated, but is now my other favourite way to eat it...

olive oil

c. 4 cloves garlic, chopped

1 large bunch asparagus, tough bits snapped off and rest snapped into nice-sized  pieces

salt+pepper

zest and juice of approx 1/4 lemon

c. 1 tsp fresh thyme leaves

1/2 pack of feta

Heat olive oil in a large frying pan with a lid and add the garlic. Sizzle for a few min, then add the asparagus pieces. Season with salt and pepper, cover and cook for a few minutes, then uncover and cook until excess moisture is gone and there is a little colour on the asparagus (it should be tender). Turn off the heat and let cool a bit, then squeeze over the lemon juice and add half the zest. Allow to cool a bit more, then serve warm, with the feta crumbled on top and thyme leaves and rest of the lemon zest scattered over it.

German rhubarb cake

I am slowly trying out more recipes from this book. This is possibly my favourite so far. Definitely the simplest I have tried - but nonetheless a lovely way of using the first rhubarb of the season. Below is what I baked, which was a half quantity, in a 9 inch cake tin with removable base. It was a good size of cake for our little family.

250 g rhubarb, trimmed and chopped into 12 mm pieces
80 g sugar
50 g butter, softened
1 egg
1/4 tsp vanilla essence
grated zest of 1/4 lemon
95 g flour
1 tsp baking powder
pinch salt
30 ml milk

Heat oven to 350F / 180C. Grease and line a 9 in cake tin with removable base. Toss rhubarb pieces with 1 1/2 tbsp sugar and set aside.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter and the remaining 63g sugar until light and fluffy, then beat in the egg, then beat in the vanilla and lemon zest.

In a separate bowl, mix flour, baking powder and salt together with a fork. Beat half of this mixture into the butter mixture, then beat in the milk, then beat in the rest of the flour mixture until just combined.

Scrape the batter into the prepared cake tin, smoothing it out evenly. Scatter the rhubarb over the top and press in lightly. It will seem like a lot of rhubarb, but that is good. Bake for 45-50 min, or until the cake batter has puffed up slightly around the rhubarb and is golden brown. Remove from the oven when done, and set on a rack to cool completely before removing the cake and peeling off the paper. Best eaten the day after baking.


The lemon and vanilla are almost imperceptible, but important - I had a really nice, fragrant lemon by chance, and I think maybe it made a difference in such a simple cake. Can’t help wondering about replacing some of the flour with ground almonds? The recipe suggests trying almond streusel on top, and trying sour cherries or chopped plums instead of rhubarb.

S's birthday cake from 2018

Was just looking back and enjoying how this is, if nothing else, a repository for all the birthday cakes I have made S (and now small S too) since 2011. Gosh, 9 years: 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019 + small S 2018 (we've been together for 13 - I guess a few cakes are missing from back in the mists of time). Then I realized that last year's is missing - I did bake a cake, even though he was away at a conference on his birthday and we were deep in baby fug... But I guess I didn't manage to write it up / decided not to... But I really think I ought, for completeness, so here we are...

For my birthday in 2017, I was still in hospital after giving birth to small S, so my birthday cake from Sebastian was a book of German baking recipes and a promise to bake me whichever one I liked when we were home. I made him a cake from that book for his birthday too... Luckily small S was going through possibly his best-ever napping phase then, so I had a little time for cake baking. I chose to make a mohntorte, with walnuts from the garden. It was pretty epic, I had to grind the walnuts and the poppyseeds before even starting on the cake, and it's kind of a long recipe. But here goes...

175 g butter, softened
50 g icing sugar
5 eggs, separated
2 tbsp rum
zest of 1 lemon
180 g ground walnuts (or almonds, or a mix)
210 g poppy seeds
pinch salt
125 g granulated sugar
100 g redcurrant jelly

Heat oven to 180C. Line the base of a 9 in / 23 cm springform tin with baking paper and grease the sides.

Cream the butter and icing sugar. Mix in the egg yolks one at a time and beat until light and fluffy. Beat in the rum and lemon zest, and beat until thick and glossy. Fold in ground nuts and poppy seeds until just combined.

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites with a pinch of salt until they start to form large bubbles. Add the granulated sugar 1 tbsp at a time, whisking all the time, until the mix is stiff and glossy.

Scrape 1/3 of the egg white mixture into the nut mixture and fold in to lighten. Then fold in the next 1/3; then the final 1/3, until no white streaks remain. Scrape the batter into the prepared baking tin and smooth the top.

Put in the oven and bake 50-55 min, rotating halfway through (pretty sure mine took longer). It is ready when the cake is pulling away from the edges and a skewer comes out clean. Remove from the oven and let cool on a rack for 5 min before turning out, peeling off the paper, and letting cool upside down on rack.

When ready to assemble (and the cake is completely cool), heat the jelly in a small saucepan until runny, then remove from the heat and let cool briefly. Slice the torte in half horizontally. Spread the jelly evenly over the bottom layer, then put the top layer on top. Sift icing sugar on top (use a stencil if you like). It will keep, lightly wrapped in clingfilm, for several days.


It was a good combination; different from anything I had before, not too sweet, as often the case for German cakes. How could I forget?!

Best grated carrot salad

I've tried a few grated carrot salads in the past but never got it quite right. This attempt turned out exactly as I wanted; even better... The toasted coriander is key, and came from a Delia recipe (that I then decided not to stick to...).

1 tbsp coriander seeds
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
3 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp sesame seed oil
2 tsp white/red miso
1 tsp honey
salt+pepper
1 tiny clove garlic, crushed
1 tsp finely chopped onion
c 10 medium carrots, peeled and coarsely grated
1 tsp lemon zest
2 tsp chopped chives
1/4 cup raisins
2 tsp black onion seeds

Toast the coriander seeds and then crush them in a pestle and mortar. Put in a medium bowl with the vinegar, oils, miso, honey, salt and pepper (not much salt, miso is salty), crushed garlic and chopped onion. Whisk together with a fork. Add the grated carrots, lemon zest, chives, raisins and black onion seeds and mix to combine. Keeps well in the fridge (the raisins will plump up) for a few days.

Sunshine beet salad

We got golden beets in our veg bag 2 weeks ago. I wasn't very inspired at first - seemed like disappointing leftover winter veg. But we also got a recipe leaflet that my former teammate Ina started making with her students. One of the recipes was golden beets with lemon juice+zest = sunshine beets. I took the combination and made it into something more substantial... and it worked really well.


2-3 medium-large golden beets
salt+pepper
olive oil
1 cup pearled spelt
1-2 tbsp chopped fresh thyme leaves
juice and zest of 1/2 a large lemon
1 tsp white miso
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp apple cider vinegar reduction
1 tsp cider vinegar
salt+pepper
handful of chives, chopped

Wash the beets and then wrap them in foil with a little salt and pepper and olive oil. Put on a baking tray and roast at 200C for approx. 1 hour until soft. Let cool completely. Meanwhile cook the spelt in water until tender, drain and let cool.

When ready to assemble the salad, first make the dressing: chop the thyme and then mix with the lemon juice+zest, miso, 2 tbsp olive oil, vinegar reduction (use honey instead if you don't have it), vinegar, salt and pepper. Dice the beets into 1 cm dice and put in a serving bowl with the spelt and chives, then add the dressing and mix well. Eat straight away, or keeps well in the fridge for several days.


The beet-spelt-lemon-thyme combination works really well - and it does taste and look like sunshine... appropriately enough, given the insane sunny weather we've been having.

Baking with Honey I: Honey-Lavender Cake

We harvested honey a couple of weeks ago - T and me, plus S and T's friend. It was a lot of fun, if somewhat improvised... My estimate was that we got 18 kilos of honey - so I guess I ended up with about 8 kilos. I still have some from last year, so realized I'd better start experimenting more with baking and other projects using honey. Last weekend, I tried two quite different honey cake recipes. This is the first (Ottolenghi - full recipe here). It is very similar to a cake I made with L, back at Mill Hill Road in Norwich, when we had a teaparty - it was a different recipe (I still have it in my recipe folder but we were never quite sure about the quantities) - we were very proud of it then, but I never made it since. I always thought about it, so it sprang to mind instantly when I was thinking about honey recipes. I used lavender from the garden as well. I took it for C's birthday party/dinner, and it ended up being her birthday cake, with candles and all!

For the cake:
225 g unsalted butter, at room temperature
115 g sugar
115 g honey
3 eggs
245 g flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp chopped dried lavender, plus more for garnish (used fresh)
1/2 tsp grated lemon zest
110 ml sour cream (used yoghurt instead)

For the glaze:
4 tsp lemon juice (one lemon is enough)
2 tsp honey
100 g icing sugar

Heat the oven to 325F / 163C. Grease a 9-inch cake tin, line the bottom with parchment paper, and butter and flour the base paper. Cream the butter, sugar, and honey together until light and fluffy. Beat the eggs lightly together and slowly incorporate into the butter mixture. Mix the dry ingredients together (all remaining ingredients but the sour cream / yoghurt) and stir well. Fold 1/3 of the flour mixture gently into the butter base, then about 1/3 of the yoghurt. Repeat twice more until all ingredients are just incorporated. Turn the batter into your prepared cake tin and bake in the oven for about 50 min, or until a cake tester comes out clean.

Note that honey browns very quickly in the oven, so if you notice this happening, you can tent your cake with foil for the duration. When the cake is done, remove it from the oven and allow it to cool for about ten min, then place on a rack to cool.

When cool, transfer to a plate and make the icing: whisk the lemon juice and honey together, then whisk in the icing sugar (ideally pre-sifted to remove lumps). Drizzle/spread over your cake, allowing the icing to trickle down the sides. Sprinkle with additional lavender flowers. Allow icing to set, and serve.

I thought the lavender might be a bit subtle, but it was a nice, moist cake. It went down pretty well (I think). The icing got good feedback too - it was thick and spreadable and maintained a good layer - it's perhaps a good idea to use for other cakes too!

Tzatzkiki

We ate this a lot in the summer, when cucumbers arrived in our veg bag often, and the walk to the grocery shop past the greek restaurant often reminded me to buy skyr or greek yoghurt. That's the only trick - to use thick yoghurt so it doesn't get too runny from cucumber juice.

1/2 cucumber, grated
1/2 clove garlic, crushed to a paste
approx. 1 1/2 cups greek yoghurt or skyr
squeeze of lemon juice (about 1 tsp)
pinch of salt

Coarsely grate the cucumber into a bowl, then squeeze out / drain off some of the liquid. Add garlic, yoghurt/skyr, lemon juice and salt. Mix up and taste for flavour balance and seasoning.


Great with some bread and a greek salad.

Bean pasta

Bean pasta is weirdly good. We've found and tried all sorts - red lentil, pea, soybean... Our favourite, after trying them all, is of course the first one we tried: green soybean fettucine. It's great - has a really interesting, springy texture. This recipe reminded me of it, and to combine green bean pasta with lots of other green things. 

200 g bean pasta
500 g asparagus, cut into 1-2 in long pieces
1 leek, trimmed and chopped
300 g frozen peas
1 pack tempeh, chopped into chunks
4 tbsp olive oil
zest of a lemon
3 tbsp capers
A large handful fresh mint leaves, roughly chopped

Boil a large pan of salted water.  Add the bean pasta. When it has about 3 min left add the asparagus, peas, leek and tempeh. Cook until done. Drain and put back in the pot with olive oil, lemon zest, capers, mint and some salt. Taste and eat.

Christmas food 2015

We got a veg share from the coop we just joined, and based our Christmas Day food around that. We ate:

Maple-roasted parsnips and celeriac (similar to this)

Roasted brussels sprouts with pomegranate molasses (a simplified version of this)
Red cabbage and sesame salad (similar to this, with coriander instead of chives and no carrot or radish)
Potato, mint and edamame salad
Tahini-lemon sauce

Zimtsterne (these take ages to make but keep very well)

S was in charge of Christmas Eve since that is the special day in Germany. We ate cheese fondue (which is apparently traditional) with broccoli, cauliflower, gnocchi, bread pieces.

White bean and sundried tomato spread

Another option with all those white beans. This time a dip/spread we took to work to eat with carrot sticks and flatbreads. It was lovely and smooth. Although I added some sundried tomatoes to the blended mixture that time and I wouldn't recommend that as it ends up looking like taramasalata.

1 1/2 cups cooked white beans
1 small clove garlic
2 tbsp olive oil (use oil from sundried tomatoes)
juice of 1/4 lemon
salt and pepper

4 sundried tomatoes, chopped
handful of toasted pumpkin seeds

Blend beans, garlic, olive oil, lemon, salt and pepper. Check seasoning, acidity and consistency and add salt/pepper, lemon juice or water accordingly. Put into tubs and top with chopped sundried tomatoes and toasted pumpkin seeds.

Peach and fennel cake

Stone fruit in Europe is so, so much better than any we ate in the USA. Everything: peaches (especially the UFO ones), nectarines, apricots, greengages, all kinds of plums - Victoria through damson. Plums are Danish but peaches and nectarines aren't even coming from round here - mostly from Spain. Even via Lidl, I haven't eaten a bad one yet.

Having filled my face with all of the above, I decided that the last few white peaches I had could get baked... This recipe caught my eye (via the most beautiful Instagram ever). We are going to lunch tomorrow at a fairytale farmhouse in Lyngby, so I decided to make this to bring. Hope it goes down well (and travels OK - we are planning to bike there, around 40 km)!

(made 1 cake in standard circular tin)

1 tsp fennel seeds
125 g unsalted butter, at room temperature
seeds of ½ vanilla pod (used ½ tsp vanilla powder)
zest of 1 lemon (used 1 ½, thoroughly zested)
zest of 1 orange (skipped - did not have)
225 g sugar, plus 1 tbsp for sprinkling
pinch of salt 
3 eggs
120 g mascarpone (used skyr)
160 g flour
½ tsp baking powder
2 peaches (used 3 small white UFO peaches)

Heat the oven to 190C / 170C fan. Grease and line tin (s - original recipe was for 8 small loaf tins). Dry toast fennel seeds until fragrant, then let cool before crushing.

Beat butter, vanilla, zest(s), fennel seeds, sugar and salt together until just combined. Don’t cream. Add eggs one at a time, mixing each egg in well. Add mascarpone / skyr, flour and baking powder mix fast for a few seconds until well combined.

Slice two 'cheeks’ off each peach (one either side of the stone). Chop remaining fruit into small dice and mix into the cake batter. Cut the peach 'cheeks’ into thin, long slices (leave one end uncut). Put the batter in the lined tin(s). Top the cake(s) with peach slices spread out like a small fan and sprinkle with the additional sugar.

Bake for 20-25 min or until risen, golden brown and bouncy. Good warm, or else eat within 24 hours.


Update: we did not eat while warm as recommended, but it was within 24 hours. It was nice. Went well with the raspberries and mascarpone P+V had prepared.

New potatoes, peas, radishes and skyr

D+Sh visited last weekend. For the first time in ever. It was fun. It felt very different from any time we ever spent together before. They were on holiday, and if anyone was in charge it was S+me. Perhaps I am grown up at last.

We made quite a lot of adventures: the zoo, Louisiana (both really good), Relae. But spent a fair bit of the inbetween time chilling on our balcony (it was very hot out, like over 30C), listening to jazz drifting up from the bar across the canal, and more of it from boats floating past with bands on. We ended up having some nice salad+bread type meals on the balcony too - it was salad weather, and Danish bread is sooo good. This was one of the salads. It makes very pleasing use of in-season fresh peas, new potatoes, radishes and chives. Plus skyr, which forms a creamy dressing while remaining fresh and light and not overpowering.

20 or so new potatoes (adjust according to size / taste)
500 g bag of fresh peas, shelled
1 bunch of radishes, trimmed and sliced
1 tbsp chopped chives
4 tbsp skyr mixed with 2 tsp lemon juice and 2 tsp olive oil
salt+pepper

Cook the new potatoes until just tender and set aside to cool while you prepare the other ingredients. Blanch the shelled peas by pouring boiling water over them then draining pretty much straight away. Put all ingredients in a serving dish and mix together. Serve warm or cold.

Celery, apple and walnut salad with lemon-tahini dressing

Very simple celery salad, surprised I never wrote it up before. It is good. Tahini and lemon juice make a creamy dressing that coats everything and brings zing.

juice of 1/3 lemon
1-2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp tahini
salt+pepper
about 5 sticks of celery
1 apple
handful of crumbled walnuts
handful of raisins

Mix the lemon juice, olive oil, tahini and seasoning to make a creamy, thick but pourable dressing. Chop the celery and apple and put them in a serving bowl. Toss with the dressing, then add the walnuts and raisins and mix a bit more.

Roasted carrots, chickpeas and cauliflower with yoghurt-tahini sauce

More cauliflower. I fancied roasting some chickpeas, and roasting carrots with coriander and spices. They all got roasted together and it was very very good.

Roast:
5 large carrots, scrubbed and top-and-tailed
2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
1 1/2 tbsp coriander seeds, toasted and ground
1 tsp cumin seeds, toasted and ground
1 tbsp paprika
1-2 tsp sumac
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cayenne
1-2 tsp nigella seeds
1 tbsp sesame seeds
salt+pepper
2-3 tbsp olive oil
1/2 cauliflower, broken into florets
about 1 cup cooked chickpeas

Sauce:
4 tbsp yoghurt
1 tbsp tahini
1 tsp lemon juice

Heat the oven to 230C. Put the carrots in a large baking tin along with all of the spices and seeds, salt and pepper and the olive oil (be generous with these - remember the cauliflower and chickpeas will be added partway through and they want to be coated with goodness too). Mix well and put in the oven for 10-15 min. Take out and mix in the cauliflower and the chickpeas. Put back in the oven and roast for another 20-30 min, until everything is tender and starting to crisp. While it's roasting make the sauce just by mixing together the yoghurt, tahini and lemon. Serve together.


Both roast and sauce are definite make-agains. S particularly loved the roasted chickpeas.

Cauliflower couscous

S and I joined a vegetarian lunch club at work. We meet once a month, and everyone brings some food to share. So far it's happened twice, and it's been a fun way to meet interesting people and eat good food. This time, someone brought cauliflower 'couscous'. I'd heard of that stuff but never tried it. But we are on a cauliflower (blomkål) kick at the moment - we took cauliflower and breadcrumbs to lunch club. And the cauliflower couscous was fun and tasty, so I decided to try and recreate it with half of a big cauliflower (the other half got roasted).

1/2 a cauliflower, broken into florets
1-2 tbsp olive oil
1 garlic clove, peeled and chopped
1/2 cup shelled edamame, defrosted
2 tbsp chopped almonds, toasted
lemon juice
salt and pepper

Put the cauliflower florets in a food processor and pulse briefly - it breaks down into couscous sized pieces really fast. Heat the oil in a frying pan and saute the garlic until softened. Add the cauliflower and saute for a few minutes, just to soften slightly. Transfer to a serving bowl along with the edamame and almonds, and add lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste.

Fastelavn / Pancake Day

I like discovering new national events I never knew about before. The weirder the better. The more I can collect to celebrate, the funner a year becomes. I just discovered Fastelavn. It is a Danish holiday (also celebrated in Norway, but not so much in Sweden, oddly), timing-wise similar to Pancake Day. Also similar to Pancake Day in that there is a special, rich food associated with it. In this case it is buns: the Danish ones are cream-filled puff buns, all different fillings and toppings, called Fastelavnboller. The Swedish equivalent is called Semla, more bready, with cardamom. But there the similarity to Pancake Day ends. Children get dressed up in all sorts of costumes, and go out asking for buns or money, similar to Halloween. There is also a thing with barrel breaking. Apparently this originally involved putting a black cat in a barrel and smashing it up (perhaps for luck, since black cats are supposed to be unlucky?). But now it is more like a pinata, with kids bashing at a barrel strung up and full of sweets until it breaks.

So anyway, we ate one bun, with some sort of mildly almondy filling and a blob of chocolate icing on top. Mixing it up, we also had pancakes for breakfast yesterday. Since I am being vegetarian at the moment they were fully rounded dairy and egg -full pancakes - I used Delia's foolproof recipe, which I have used many times before. And our current place has a dreamy induction hob and nice non-stick pans, so there was none of the disastrousness of last year's attempts...

(makes about a dozen)

110g plain flour
pinch of salt
2 eggs
200 ml milk mixed with 75 ml water
butter, about 50 g

Sieve flour and salt into a bowl. Make a well in the middle and whisk in the eggs, adding milk gradually when it starts to thicken. It should whisk up nicely without lumps if you keep it gradual - just keep whisking if it seems lumpy and it should sort itself out. This batter will keep in the fridge overnight if desired, or can be used straight away.

When ready to make pancakes, melt butter in a small nonstick frying pan. Pour a couple tbsp melted butter into the batter and whisk. Put about 3/4 ladleful into hot pan at a time, tip to distribute, and then cook for a few minutes on each side until done.


We ate some with lemon and sugar, and some breakfasty ones with banana, yoghurt, honey, dried fruit and seeds.

If you have too much batter, you can either keep the batter til later, or you can make more pancakes and keep them in the fridge or freezer - they reheat very easily in a frying pan.