Rose Cocoa Beans with Tamarind Sauce.

Whenever I see beautiful mottled pink rose cocoa beans I always think of two things.  One is my mother-in-law sitting behind a massive tray full of dried beans carefully picking out any split ones or stray stones that if left in could break a tooth. The other is reading bed time stories to H when she was a tiny little girl from story books by Shirley Hughes with a character that I'm sure was called  Mrs Rose Cocoa.  


These beans are a really hearty meal, easy to make you only need two ingredients,cost pennies full of second-class protein, and so tasty that you keep coming back for more. But that doesn't matter because they're good for you. These are the kind of beans I imagine cowboys eating.




To make Rose Cocoa Beans with Tamarind Sauce you will need:

• Dried rose cocoa (Borlotti) beans (or pinto would work too)
• Tamarind paste
• Salt and pepper
• Olive oil and lemon juice to serve.

Method:

1. Check the dried beans for any split ones or stones and remove.
2. Wash well.
3. Place in a heavy saucepan. Cover well with cold water, season and cook.
4. Once the water has boiled reduce the heat and add the tamarind paste. From a teaspoon to a dessertspoon or more depending on your palate. 
5. Cook until the beans are tender...checking every so often and top up with a little boiling water if necessary.
6. Serve with a drizzle of olive oil and a good squeeze of lemon juice and plenty of good crusty bread...mmm...

You can soak the bean's overnight to reduce the cooking time which is quite long...but I never do.  'A' swears that they don't taste as good if you do...and of course I believe him...

Fridge Forage Friday - Egg Fried RIce

Tasty friday night supper, made when a quick fridge and freezer forage revealed left over boiled rice, lovely eggs from friends' chickens, odds and ends of vegetables including shiitake mushrooms and frozen prawns.

It's this easy: 

1. Just defrost the prawns and then simply stir-fry the vegetables.

2. Add the rice,making sure that it's thoroughly heated through. 

3. Season with Tamari or soy sauce. 

4. Add the prawns in the last few minutes, ensuring that they are cooked properly. 

5. If using frozen peas, cook in boiling for a few minutes and then drain.

6. Finally add the peas and beaten egg. Cook and stir through the rice. 

7. Check seasoning and then dish up.  Simple and tasty.

A chance to use my cute new Japanese cups and Hinoke wood candle that smells amazing, thanks to nephew and girlfriends' lovely Christmas gift. Thanks D and M.

...A great start to the weekend...

Seasonal Vegetable Soup with Black Salsify

When a strange looking soil-covered bundle of roots arrived in my veg box...the first thing I did was google it. It was Black salsify, Scorzonera hispanica, also known as black oyster plant, serpent root or viper's grass. Apparently it's in the sunflower family and was considered to be an effective cure for the bubonic plague and snake bites until the 16th century...Well according to Wikipedia...


It's reputed to be very nutritious, containing all kinds of good things including fructose which is suitable for diabetics and to taste a bit like artichoke or asparagus...


By all accounts the best way to cook black salsify is to simply steam or boil it.  I decided to make a vegetable soup to try it out.  I kept the flavours simple because I didn't want to overpower the salsify.

Seasonal Vegetable Soup with Black Salsify

Ingredients:

• One leek or one small red onion 
• A carrot
• A few chard leaves and stalks and a handful of shredded chinese leaves. Any brassica will do
• Two small potatoes
• A handful of mushrooms.I prefer Portobello or shiitake 
• Warm vegetable or chicken stock.  I reserve the seasoned cooking liquor when poaching chicken for salads...it makes great chicken stock
• Tomato puree
• A little turmeric
• One clove of garlic sliced finely
• Sea salt and ground black pepper
• Olive oil 

 Method:

1. Wash, peel and chop or dice all the vegetables
2. Drizzle some olive oil in a heavy saucepan and add the prepared leek or onion begin to sauté.
3. Add all the other vegetables and season lightly. Add the turmeric and garlic clove. Sauté for a few minutes and then add the hot stock.
4. Continue cooking until the vegetables are tender but not over cooked.
5. Adjust the seasoning and then serve.

Salsify proved to be a really delicious root vegetable. It's succulent in the same way that well cooked asparagus is, but with a slightly milder flavour.

I love making soups like this. It's a really tasty lunch or light supper and costs a couple of pounds to make. A good way to use up any left over vegetables in your fridge or pantry before you stock up again for the week ahead...great to warm you up on frosty winter days...even better when eaten from my maternal grandmothers Meakin china bowls...shame I just broke one!! :o( 

I wrote this post four weeks ago and never got round to publishing it...who would have guessed then that the forecast today would be 17c and sunshine...it's not even spring yet!!

Frugal Food - Mama bazorg's Persian Herb Omelette, Kuku with Spinach and Yoghurt dip, Mast Esfanaj

One of the first Persian recipes that I learnt at mama's elbow was Kuku, Persian herb omelette. My mother-in-law was one of the best cooks that I have ever known. She loved food and she loved making it, but best of all sharing it with others. It was her way of communicating with everyone, but especially with me. We just 'got' each other when it came to food. 

I would spend hours in her kitchen with pen and paper in hand, watching her cook, taking notes and drawing diagrams. She would speak one or two words of English and the rest in farsi. Me too, and there was also a lot of sign language going on...

I only have to see big bunches of herbs or smell the fresh auroma to think of her carefully spending hours finely chopping them up with great care, and lots of love. 

To make mama's herb omelette for four people you will need...

Ingredients:

• A bunch of fresh coriander
• A bunch of flat leaf parsley
• A bunch of spinach
• A handful or two of ground walnuts
• A bunch of spring onions
• Half a dozen eggs
• Two cloves of garlic
• Sea salt and ground black pepper. Mama would have used white pepper but I always use black.
• Oil for frying

Some people like to add a bunch of dill and a tablespoon of dried fenugreek to this recipe. You can play around with different combinations of flavours to suit your palate.

Method:

1. Wash and chop the herbs finely.
2. Grind the walnuts.
3. Combine these two ingredients in a bowl.
4. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl and then add to the other ingredients and season.
5. Heat the oil in a good solid frying pan.
6. When it's hot, either pour in all the mixture to make one family sized omelette, or enough to make individual small ones.
7. Allow the bottom to set before turning over. It should be brown and crunchy outside on top.
8. If making a family sized one cut into quarters once the bottom has set, then turn each one over individually to ensure the bottom cooks too.

These are delicious served warm with basmatti rice sprinkled with ground sumac, and spinach Yoghurt dip/ Mast Esfanaj:

Ingredients:

• A couple of large bunches of fresh spinach 
• A pot of natural yoghurt
• One or two crushed cloves of garlic
• Sea salt and Crushed black pepper

Method:

1. Wash the spinach and then place in a saucepan cover and cook in a dry pan, taking care not to burn. 
2. Drain thoroughly to remove any excess water.
3. Put into a dish and chop finely with a sharp knife.
4. Drain the yoghurt and add to the spinach plus the crushed garlic and seasoning. Mix well.

This is a really thick substantial omelette more like a spinach cake or tortilla. Packed with herbs. It's delicious served warm with rice and salad or cold in a packed lunch. And when you chop the herbs the whole house smells like a herb garden...it's wonderful...

...my favourite picture of mama, looking in her kitchen cupboard...

Most of us have half a dozen eggs in the fridge and probably a few walnuts left over from Christmas, with the addition of a few bunches of herbs this is an inexpensive supper for four people. It's packed full of protein but light and healthy and best of all tastes delicious. So I'm linking over here today for frugal food fridays this week hosted here.

Frugal Friday Frittata

Friday suppers are often one of two extremes.  Either days to push the boat out and do something special to celebrate the weekend, or else something inexpensive and quick before going out...or just kicking our shoes off and relaxing. On the latter days something like this simple frittata is perfect, good if you want to use up what's in the fridge before stocking up at the weekend.


'A' has a friend whose chickens produce the most amazing orange/yellow yolked eggs that taste awesome, so he always makes sure that we have plenty of good eggs. They are often one of the main ingredients in a variety of really quick meals.  

For this tasty frittata I used:

• Two large eggs
• Pepper and chilli sauce (ingredients here)
• New potatoes boiled with their skins on and then sliced
• A little hard cheese like Parmesan or Cheddar to grate over the top
• Sea salt and crushed black pepper
• A little olive oil

Method:

1. Make the spicy red and yellow pepper sauce following the instructions here or if you have any reserved, put in an omelette pan to warm through.
2. Add the warm slices of cooked new potatoes. If using left over ones, add these at stage 1 so that they warm through with the sauce.
3. Crack the eggs into a bowl and give a quick beat...not whisking but just to mix the yolk and white together.  Season and then poor over the other ingredients in the pan.
4. Cook until the bottom is set.
5. Top with a little grated Parmesan or other hard cheese and place under a grill to finish cooking and melt the cheese.

This is lovely served with a crunchy salad and a tangy balsamic vinegar and honey, mustard dressing.  Oh and a big slice of good bread and butter...

Nice omelettes with a kick of hot chilli (just one or two chopped and added to a one or two egg omelette make a great lunch box meal. Especially if you roll them up in nice flat Persian bread or Mexican wrap. Just add a couple of pieces of fruit and maybe a bit or crunchy celery or a few salad leaves...you're good to go...

Food sacrilege or Black Banana Cake another frugal food recipe

Everyone that I talk  to recently about food, complains how expensive it is and that their shopping bill costs much more each month. But it does amaze me that the same friends if I help put away their food shop, I notice are restocking their fridge with exactly the same items that they are throwing away because they are either out of date, or have gone bad...Sacrilege!

I try to politely suggest that if they are putting a kilogram of lovely fresh red beef tomatoes into the fridge whilst simultaneously removing a kilo of the same item that's now covered with a gentle white beard of mould, that maybe they are buying too much. Perhaps half a kilogram would suffice? They will agree with me and then the  following week do exactly the same.  It's such a shame to waste food when there are lots of little kiddies starving! Not to mention how hard everyone works to earn a living...why throw it all away... apparently tons of food gets thrown away each year in the UK. It just seems so silly. 

Anyway I had better get down off my soap box and tell you about the banana cake I baked because it is made from food that you may think is only fit for the compost heap, but believe me isn't.  It all began with a magazine article listing  39 food related economies.  The first being to make a list before you go shopping, the second was to check your freezer and see if there is anything you could use up before going out to buy more.  

I have kind-of been doing this recently because like the oven, our fridge is dying a slow death...it's old heart keeps ticking away but little handles keep snapping off and plastic draws crack and have to be recycled. And it's supposed to be frost free but it keeps freezing up, and then it has a blip and water runs out of the bottom. So I'm slowly emptying it.  But the bananas that  nobody eats and have turned black...and get put in the freezer drawer until I've saved up enough to make a black banana cake, seemed to have been there for quite a while!   

When you defrost them they go all soggy and not very nice...but you just peel and mash them up and they make a great cake ingredient. I've tried a couple of recipes before including Nigel Slater's black banana cake but have recently had emphasised to me, just how bad sugar is for us and so have been searching for low sugar recipes. I found this one that only contains 4 tablespoons of Muscovado sugar...I omitted the icing and just dusted the top with a little icing sugar.

It's very simple to make, basically combining wet with dry ingredients.   I used olive instead of sunflower oil which worked fine and my bunt pan...just because it's new and I like using it! It was sweet enough because the ripe bananas contain a lot of sugar as do the added vine fruits.  Even though I used organic flour and muscovado sugar this cake cost me a few pounds to make about the same price that a slice of cake would cost in a coffee bar.   

proof of the pudding...  

ps sorry for the edit... the text was just too big...