Baked smashed potatoes

It's been a while since I updated my recipes. Ages ago, when potatoes were new, I made some smashed potatoes, inspired by this.

Basically just take some boiled potatoes (I don't remember if I used warm or cold ones, either should work?), put in a baking tin and squash with the back of a big wooden spoon. Then drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and put in the oven at 200C for about 30 min / until golden and crispy around the edges.

Potato pizza

We'd tried a few approaches to potato pizza, but they'd never been quite like the real thing. I think my recent pizza experiments with thinly sliced apples/mushrooms made me think of potato pizza, so I read a bit and gave it another go. It came out brilliant.

1 batch pre-made pizza dough
some medium-sized potatoes
salt
olive oil
rosemary (fresh or dried)
black pepper

Wash the potatoes but leave the skin on. Slice them as thin as you can with a peeler or sharp knife (or mandoline, if you have one) - try to judge the right amount of potato for the amount of pizza you want to make - if in doubt, err on the side of too much. Mix some salt in a medium bowl with some water, stir until dissolved, then add the potato slices. Set aside - for at least a couple of hours, or longer - will be ok in the fridge for up to a couple of days.

When ready to make pizza, drain the potato slices, rinse and pat dry with kitchen roll or a tea towel. Put in a bowl with a good slosh of olive oil, some fresh-ground pepper, and some fresh or dried rosemary, and mix well. Set aside, pre-heat the oven to 220C and roll out the pizza dough.

Arrange the potato slices over the pizza base, letting them overlap and spreading them right out to the edges. Sprinkle any remaining olive oil / rosemary mixture over the top. Put in the oven and bake for c 20 min, until the potatoes are lightly browned and crispy in places.

If you have too much sliced potato, put them in a baking tin a few layers deep with a little cheese on top and bake together with the pizza - makes a tasty extra snack.

Apple galette with walnut pastry

This was one of those ideas that crystallized suddenly, and I just had to figure out how to do it. I wanted a galette, with a sticky apple filling and a crisp walnut pastry. I based the pastry on this recipe, and the filling on this one. I love a galette just now, a pie without needing a pie dish, brilliant.

(makes one galette - approx 4 portions)

For the pastry:
30 g walnuts, toasted
120 g flour
1 tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
23 g chilled butter, cut into small cubes
1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
c 3 tbsp cold water

For the filling:
8 small apples
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp butter, cut into small pieces

Grind walnuts until finely chopped. Mix with flour, sugar and salt in a medium bowl. Add butter and rub in until the mix resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in oil, then stir in water 1 tbsp at a time until it comes together. Gather into a ball, flatten into a disc, then wrap in cling film and chill for at least an hour.

While the pastry is chilling, prepare the filling. Peel, halve and core the apples, then slice crosswise c 1/4 in thick. Keep the good slices whole, and chop the ends and broken pieces, so about half the amount of apple is slices and the rest chopped. In a separate, small bowl, mix the sugar and cinnamon.

When ready to assemble, first heat the oven to 210C / 420F. Roll out the chilled pastry on a piece of baking paper and transfer to a baking sheet. Spread the chopped apples over the pastry, leaving about a 2 in border around the edges. Drizzle with honey. Arrange the sliced apples over the top, sprinkle with cinnamon sugar and dot with pieces of butter. Fold the edges over, and brush with egg (or milk, or nothing). Bake for approx. 45 min, until golden brown and pastry is crisp - cover with tinfoil if it starts to catch.


We ate with custard and it went down very well. The pastry was delicious and crisp, but the walnuts gave more texture than taste - another time maybe I'd try increasing the walnut content... and could potentially add half as much apple again and pile it high, too.

Bean, tomato and olive oil galette

I keep forgetting about galettes. They are the answer to pie-making urges when one does not own a pie dish - ie perfect for the onset of cold weather in this house.

When I last made a galette it was delicious and I wanted to make more, then forgot. I wanted to try a different, simpler-looking pastry, with ingredients we're more likely to have in stock, ie this olive oil dough. So that's what I did. For filling, I decided to go with a bean base, since I had just cooked a load of white-borlotti bean mix - figured anything could work as a filling, so long as not wet.

(makes 2 medium pies)

For the pastry:
1 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp sea salt
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup fridge cold water
1 beaten egg, for egg wash

For the filling:
2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, peeled and chopped
2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
c 1 cup small tomatoes, chopped
c 2 cups cooked white/borlotti beans

1/2 cup parsley, chopped
salt+pepper
1/2 cup cubed gorgonzola (optional)

Mix salt and flour in a medium bowl with a fork, then mix in the olive oil and rub in until like breadcrumbs. Sprinkle in the cold water gradually (you probably don't need to use all of it) and knead until the pastry comes together - don't over work. Bring together into a ball, wrap in cling film and put in the fridge for at least 30-40 min (or, I suspect, up to a few days).

While chilling, make the filling: heat olive oil in a large pan, then soften onions and garlic. Add tomatoes, beans and parsley and saute until well mingled and any extra moisture from the tomatoes has been absorbed. Season to taste and let cool.

When ready to assemble and bake, first heat the oven to 200C. Divide the dough into two and roll out the first half on a well-floured surface until approximately circular. Transfer to a baking sheet lined with baking paper. Repeat with the other half of the dough. Spoon the filling onto the rolled-out dough circles, spreading it evenly from the centre until 1.5-2 inches from the edge. Fold in the borders, overlapping the edges and pressing together the folds. Brush the pastry edges with beaten egg. Sprinkle the gorgonzola (if using) over the exposed pie filling in the middle. Turn down the oven to 190C and put the pies in. Bake for 35-40 min, until the crust is golden brown. Remove from the oven, check the bottom is crisp, and let cool on the baking sheet.

These can be stored in the fridge for a few days, travel well wrapped in paper or in a box, and reheat well in the oven (maybe underbake just slightly if planning to reheat in the oven) or microwave.


I am totally enthused by the galette! Thinking this dough could be made ahead and kept in the fridge, then rolled out and filled whenever we want dinner - similar to our go-to pizza dough. Note, I did think this might be a little bit too much salt - the dough perhaps tasted a little salty - would prob be fine with a half tsp. The other filling I almost went with was butternut squash, walnuts and gorgonzola - so many possibilities though... I want to try sweet fillings too!

Roasted artichokes

We had quite a lot of artichokes from our veg share this summer - think they are one of the crops associated with sunnier climes that did unusually well with this crazy weather - in my garden tomatoes and peruvian physalis did fantastically. Anyway, after a few sessions of the usual approaches to artichokes (boiling and peeling off leaves to dip, then eating the heart), decided to try something a bit different. Wanted to roast, thought this sounded fun.

6 smallish artichokes
lemon
garlic
parsley
olive oil
salt+pepper

Heat oven to 220C. Trim artichokes (remove stem, outer leaves, 1/3 off the tip) and cut in half. Rub the cut edges with lemon. Cut out the choke (thistly fluff) and squeeze in a little more lemon juice. Chop enough garlic and parsley to fill all the choke-holes, and mix the chopped garlic and parsley with olive oil, salt and pepper. Stuff the holes with the garlic-parsley mixture, and place each half cut side down in a baking dish rubbed with olive oil. Bake approx 45 min (time depends on size of artichokes), covering with foil after c 20 min.


These were v tasty but tricky to eat - as you pull off the outer leaves your fingers get covered in oil, and the garlic etc from the middle falls out.

Apple muffins

Our apple tree started dropping apples already, so I wanted to make a start on some apple recipes to use them up. I fancied making muffins, even though they are not the most efficient way to use up apples. I liked the sound of this recipe, with grated, diced and sauced apple in it, and decided to give it a go even before I realized it's also a great baking-with-honey recipe - I especially like that it takes into account honey's tendency to dry out / burn.

3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup plain flour
1/2 cup oats
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup grated apple
1 cup diced (1 cm) apple
1/3 cup olive oil (or veg oil)
1/2 cup honey (or maple syrup)
2 eggs (ideally at room temp)
1/2 cup Greek yoghurt
1/2 cup apple sauce
1/3 cup raisins
1/3 cup chopped pecans (or walnuts)
1 tbsp demerara sugar to go on top

Heat the oven to 163C / 325F (218C / 425F for maple syrup). Prepare a 12-cup muffin tin.

In a large bowl, mix flours, oats, baking powder, cinnamon, bicarb and salt with a fork. Add grated and chopped apple and stir.

In a medium bowl, beat oil, honey (or maple syrup) together, then add eggs and beat, then add yoghurt and apple sauce and mix.

Add wet to dry and mix until just combined, adding raisins and pecans in the final few strokes. Spoon into muffin cups and sprinkle with demerara sugar. Bake for c 25 min (13-15 min for maple syrup), until skewer comes out clean.

Walnut, raisin, honey and oat cookies (no dry sugar, no butter, no white flour)

These were another go at perfect quick cookies using walnuts and honey - pretty tasty, probably the best yet, although maybe could cut down the oil just a bit. This recipe.

1 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp cinnamon
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup olive oil (or sunflower or vegetable)
1 tbsp mulberry molasses (or normal)
1 egg (beat with 1 tbsp water)
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup walnuts

 In a large bowl, mix all the dry ingredients (except raisins and walnuts) together. In a medium bowl, mix all the wet ingredients together (note: measure oil before honey so the honey doesn't stick). Mix the wet into the dry. Add the raisins and walnuts and mix. Chill for c. 20 min in the fridge.

Heat the oven to 335F / 170C. Dollop the mixture in heaping teaspoonfuls onto a baking sheet lined with baking paper, and press gently with a fork. Bake for 15-20 min or until golden on the bottom of the cookie.


These came out good - perhaps a little soft/greasy, try reducing the oil a bit. Also, the recipe said they freeze well - test that next time. The flavour is all there though, and they stick together well despite not containing much flour. Could maybe also try cramming in a few more raisins+walnuts.

Wild garlic and edamame pesto

We secretly replanted some wild garlic into the wilder parts of our garden last year. As usual with suchlike, I didn't touch it for a year so it would have a chance to settle in. So, first harvest: wild garlic pesto; full of green stuff; garlickiness slightly dispersed by edamame content.

1/2 cup edamame, defrosted
c. 15 leaves wild garlic
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds
3-4 tbsp olive oil
salt+pepper

Put all ingredients into a blender and blend. Taste for seasoning and acid (add a little more salt, pepper, lemon juice, olive oil if it needs it). Store and eat as normal pesto.

Walnut pesto (and walnut-cauliflower pasta salad)

Our heap of walnuts remains, as yet undwindling. Seb is mocking me for spending all my spare moments cracking nuts with my Granddads favourite nutcracker from 1981. But the proceeds are so nice. Some went into cookies for people waiting to be deported in Jutland at J's bday get together. For a totally different use, I thought of walnut pesto, I think inspired by this. I adapted that recipe only in as much as I substituted stuff we had in the house.

1 cup shelled walnuts
1 small garlic clove
1/4 cup grated parmesan
3 tsp mixed dried thyme, chilli and salt
2 tsp white wine vinegar
1/3 cup olive oil
3 tbsp red pesto (subbed for 2 tbsp sundried tomatoes - used a bit less oil and cheese accordingly)

Toast the walnuts and let cool. Put in a blender with the garlic and pulse until roughly chopped. Transfer to a bowl and mix in grated cheese, herbs and salt, vinegar, oil and pesto. Mix together, taste for seasoning and vinegar, and eat on everything.

Some became an awesome pasta salad, with roasted cauliflower and tomatoes, white beans, parsley and diced mozzarella (or feta) - this is recommended. But it works with everything - a spoonful on top of some pasta e ceci, for example...

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.

Pasta and chickpeas (pasta e ceci)

Our trip to Italy last winter got us excited about more foods than pizza. We did a cantina food tour in the village next to S+C's house. We had seven or eight little courses and glasses of wine in different cantinas (private cellar / bars opened up for the event) connected by a walking map. Far and away S's fave was pasta and chickpeas. It's really simple, like most of the best food we had in Italy: pretty much just pasta and chickpeas cooked in stock to make a hearty soup.

I saw these recipes soon after getting back, and then pasta e ceci went into heavy rotation in our house through the winter months. In the end, I think our fave version was a merger of those two versions: dried pasta, dried chickpeas, rosemary, garlic, olive oil, and perhaps some celery.

250g dried chickpeas
2 garlic cloves
2 sprigs of fresh rosemary
1 stick of celery (optional)
6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
200g short pasta, stumpy rigatoni was usually what we ended up with - you're aiming for something chickpea-sized
Salt and black pepper
olive oil and black pepper / red chilli flakes to serve

Soak the chickpeas in plenty of cold water for 12 hours or overnight, changing the water twice if you can. Drain the soaked chickpeas, cover with 2 litres of fresh water, add a clove of garlic and a sprig of rosemary. Bring the pan to the boil over a medium heat, and simmer for 1½ hours or until the chickpeas are tender. Start tasting after one hour. Keep in mind you want 1.2 litres of cooking liquid, so top up with more water if necessary.

In a large heavy-based pan or casserole, heat the olive oil and add the remaining clove of garlic (peeled and gently crushed with the back of a knife), and the other sprig of rosemary. Fry gently until the garlic and rosemary are fragrant. Cook for another few minutes.

Add the chickpeas, and then add the chickpea broth, making sure there is 1.2 litres – make it up with hot water if there isn’t – and a pinch of salt. Increase the heat to bring the soup to the boil.
Add the pasta and cook until tender, stirring, tasting and adding more broth to keep it a nice soupy consistency. Serve with a grinding of black pepper (or sprinkle of red chilli flakes) and a little more olive oil poured over the top.

Note: this works well simplified to use chickpea broth from cooking any amount of chickpeas (the more you cooked, the more intense the broth flavour), and without any measuring - heat oil and fry rosemary and crushed garlic, add cooked chickpeas, add enough chickpea broth to cook pasta (top up with water if not enough) and some salt, add pasta and any additional veg desired (e.g. chopped celery, diced courgette), boil until pasta is done and eat with a drizzle of olive oil and some black pepper or chilli flakes... or even a spoonful of walnut pesto on top if you want to be fancy. Also good with chopped fresh tomatoes added at the end... And our fave pasta shape for this, after testing many, is oriechette.

Veg onion soup

It's been a busy few weeks. We got our new place, we moved, got furniture, all of that. Then three weeks after moving in, there was a big storm with lots of heavy wet snow. It snowed all night and when we went out in the morning we found several huge (approx 80 cm diameter) branches broken off a tree in our yard. One was blocking the small road beside our place. So then we have been busy clearing that up and sorting it out - finding a tree surgeon, then dealing with all the fallen wood - we've been chopping it for next year's firewood.

Yesterday we finished tidying up (stashing needly bits in the bushes), then started stacking the wood and chopping it. S with an axe, me with a saw. It got dark but we carried on chopping in the garage. At some point he suggested I go in and make french onion soup instead. We'd bought a whole lot of onions at the best and biggest Turkish supermarket in town (Istanbul in København NV), and that had given him an idea... I went in and got going, using the recipe from trusty Delia's veg collection. What we hadn't realized before was that it takes about 3 hours to cook. So it was about 21:00 by the time we got to eat. But it was good.

1 lb 8 oz / 700 g onions, thinly sliced
2 tbsp olive oil
2 oz / 50 g butter
2 cloves garlic, crushed
½ tsp sugar
2 pints / 1.2 l veg stock
10 fl oz / 275 ml dry white wine
salt and pepper

for the croutons:
6-8 1 inch / 2.5 cm diagonal slices of French bread (used bits of pumpkin seed bread as that's what we had)
1 tbsp olive oil
1-2 cloves garlic, crushed
8 oz / 225 g Gruyère, grated (used blue cheese instead as that's what we had)

Heat the oven to gas mark 4 / 350F / 180C. Prep the onions.

Place a large heavy-based saucepan on a high heat and melt the oil and butter together. When this is very hot, add the onions, garlic and sugar, and stir occasionally until the edges of the onions turn dark – about 6 min. Reduce the heat to low and leave the onions to cook slowly for about 30 min, until the base of the pan is covered with a rich, nut brown, caramelised film (bake croutons during this time - see below). After that, pour in the stock and white wine, season and stir with a wooden spoon, scraping the base of the pan well. When it comes to a simmer, turn the heat to low and leave to cook gently without a lid for about 1 hour.

To make the croutons drizzle the olive oil on to a baking sheet, add the crushed garlic and spread the oil and garlic all over. Place the bread slices on top of the oil and turn over each one so that both sides are coated with oil. Bake for 20-25 min till crisp and crunchy.
 
Sprinkle the grated cheese thickly over the croutons and grill until the cheese is golden brown and bubbling. Put soup in bowls to serve, with a crouton or two on top of each.

Diced cucumber, tomato and feta salad with chickpeas

Cucumbers are so deliciously crunchy and crisp and delicately tasty and juicy. Perfect antidote to accidentally drinking too much coffee... again. Why not cut them into chickpea-sized pieces along with some cucumbers and a little bit of feta... add parsley and tasty bits and pieces, and crunch on it along with a bit of bread... whenever I cook chickpeas they disappear so fast!

1/2 cucumber, diced
6 ish small-medium tomatoes, diced
1 in piece of feta, diced
cupful of cooked chickpeas
2 tbsp chopped parsley
1 tbsp chopped capers
1 tbsp chopped sundried tomatoes
olive oil
balsamic vinegar
salt+pepper

Mix everything together, dress with olive oil, balsamic, salt+pepper. Done.


Nothing but simple food, and especially salads at the moment. S has been bringing lunch to work as well since we moved here, so it's kind of a fun challenge thinking of what will feed my appetite plus his.

Pear and gorgonzola salad with balsamic reduction

We've been working quite a lot lately, or travelling / with visitors (e.g. sauna tour), so not much time in the kitchen. Keeping up (food) exploring though - went to a cute veggie cafe (Cafe N) on Tuesday; found a nice coffee shop near our house yesterday (Sweet Treats). We're on the hunt for a place walking distance from our house, not too expensive but with tables and somewhere comfortable to sit, with good veggie options and non-veg stuff too - feel like we need to have somewhere like this in mind for when we have visitors. So far we've failed to find anywhere that fits the bill - nice-looking places have no veg stuff, cafe-type places that close early and don't have much seating have veg options but no real dinner options, our few fave place so far are further away or are a bit fancy...

Anyway, dinners have mostly been quite simple, taking advantage of all the readily-available awesome breads, and my sojourn into eating eggs and dairy again, and since it warmed up we've been making quite a lot of salads.

This was yesterday's. There was one nice ripe pear in the bowl, and I thought I'd make it go as far as I could. I guess this is a pretty typical veg option type of a salad, but tasty nonetheless, especially when you can control the levels of all those strong flavours to your liking. It comes together really fast - try and make sure it does, and gets eaten fast, as it would be a shame to let a good pear go brown...

4 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 1/2 tsp sugar
2-3 handfuls rocket
1 ripe conference pear, cored and chopped into medium slices
2 in piece of gorgonzola, chopped into cubes
handful walnuts, crumbled
1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
salt+pepper

Get the balsamic reduction on while you prep the rest of the salad: put balsamic and sugar in a small pan and simmer pretty high for 5-10 min until it reduced and syrupy. Take off the heat.

Meanwhile, wash the rocket and put it in a serving dish. Prep and add the pear, gorgonzola and walnuts. Drizzle balsamic reduction over the top, along with some olive oil, salt and pepper. Eat right away, with some good bread.

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.

Warm beluga lentil salad with tomato, parsley and feta

A bag of beluga lentils was an impulse buy at my current favourite shop in Copenhagen, a Turkish grocer's in the southerly part of Norrebro. They were the same price as the other lentils, that's why: I think I'd always thought of them as the fancy expensive kind of lentils so the level pricing clinched the deal...

When I cooked them I saw why they have a reputation. They hold their shape well, and like forbidden/black/purple rice they develop a wonderfully deep dark purplish black colour (hence beluga). Good solid earthy taste too.

My go-to for lentils of the brown-green-black varieties is to turn them into a quick salad, with some elements of spices (coriander, cumin, cinnamon, paprika, chilli, sumac are favourites), olive oil, acid (balsamic vinegar or lemon juice), herbs (coriander, chives, parsley, mint), powerful flavour pockets (sundried tomatoes, capers, caramelized onions+garlic, olives), crunch (toasted seeds or chopped nuts), and probably something a bit creamy (thick yoghurt, tahini, feta) and something fresh (chopped tomatoes, leaves, maybe cucumber). I thought I must have written out a million of these salads on here, but on checking found not that many. Endless variants possible!

The beluga lentils were so pretty and tasty I wanted to keep it relatively simple, so cut back on spices etc and made a salad with just some basic components.

1 cup beluga lentils cooked with a bay leaf and a couple of peeled cloves of garlic in 1 3/4 cups water
1-2 tbsp olive oil
1-2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
salt+pepper
2 tbsp chopped parsley
6 medium-small tomatoes, chopped (or sundried tomatoes)
2 cm lump of feta, crumbled
2 tbsp chopped hazelnuts (optional)

Cook the beluga lentils with bay leaf and garlic. They should take about 15-20 min. When done (slight bite remaining, no liquid left), mix the oil, vinegar, salt and pepper in the bottom of a serving bowl, tip the lentils in and mix together. Taste to check seasoning. Once they have cooled a little, add parsley, tomatoes and feta and toss. Add hazelnuts if using, check seasoning, and serve.


Very pretty: purple lentils, white feta, red tomatoes, green parsley. And just as tasty as its more complicated relatives.

Parsnips / Thanksgiving

We were invited to Pittsburgh for Thanksgiving with our friends M+G. We had heard so much about M's famous Pittsburgh family we just couldn't resist. G drove down - 11 hours through a blizzard. I quite like long car journeys so long as someone else is driving (and he likes driving). There was a lot of (American) football and a lot of food. A cornucopia. Sweet potatoes with marshmallows. All the stuff. The following day we saw turkeys in South Park, so I guess some of them made it.

And so, December is here. Tis the season for root vegetables and cheer. Although, soooo much to doooo. This recipe uses things we had in store - a necessary requirement when I am desperately trying to use up everything we have. Suggested here.

~ 6 medium parsnips, peeled and chopped into chunks
almond milk
1/2 cup ground almonds
1 small clove garlic, peeled
1-2 tbsp olive oil
juice of 1/3 lemon
salt+pepper
toasted flaked almonds (optional)

Put the parsnip chunks in a saucepan and cover with almond milk. Simmer until the parsnips are soft, turn off the heat, drain and let cool a bit. Transfer to a blender cup along with the ground almonds, garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Blend until smooth. Taste and adjust. Good stuff, warm or cold. Decorate with toasted flaked almonds and use as a dip, if you like.

Acorn squash with pecans and birch syrup

Ever since I bought birch syrup I had been meaning to make something with it that really let it shine. As autumn rolled around squash appeared, and reminded me of a recipe I'd seen in a leaflet that came with the birch syrup. This is an approximation, filtered through my memory, S's ideas, and what we had in the kitchen.

2 small acorn squash, cut in half and seeds removed
~ 2 tbsp chopped pecans
1 apple, cored and finely chopped (or use dried apricots, soaked for 10 min in hot water)
1/2 tbsp olive oil
~ 2 tbsp birch syrup
salt+pepper

Heat the oven to 400F. Lightly grease a baking sheet then put the squash halves on it, cut side up. Mix the rest of the ingredients together in a bowl, then scoop into the hollows left by removing the squash seeds, distributing between the four halves. Put in the oven and bake for 30-45 min, until the squash is soft right through and lightly browned. Take it out and devour.


It's somewhere between real food and a pudding, sweetly lovely.