16 posts tagged “food”
I don't have a kitchen to cook in at the moment, so I bought a different set of foods than I would normally choose at the Santa Monica farmers' market, this morning.
I'm not normally a big fan of dumplings. Possibly because I look a little bit like one and possibly because I'm always a bit wary of any kind of food that comes with a 'wrapping' or sauce. Surely, if the ingredients are good, there's no need to coat them in pastry, dough, batter, bread crumbs or thick syrupy, creamy, unctuous sauce?
I love alliums. Leeks, onions, shallots, scallions and garlic; I love love them all. So, much as I'm happy to see that spring weather is arriving, I miss the hearty allium bases to soups, stews and roasts in the warmer months. So today I made my farewell meal: slow cooked alliums, served on a split bread roll that had been covered in grated cheese.
It's that part of the year when the US has moved from winter time to summer time and Europe hasn't. That means my regular evening call is an hour earlier than normal and so I'm a little more rushed in the evening. So rather than shop for raw cooking ingredients I popped into the English/Irish/Swedish shop and picked up some things that didn't need preparation.
When I was a child, my mum used to make a fantastic cake that I called "Cup of Tea Cake" because it's made with a cup of tea. When I visited her in London last weekend she had made one of those cakes for a tea party she hosted. She sent me the recipe and I made one for myself this morning. Frankly, I'm quite impressed with the cake and will be sharing it at work tomorrow.
- 1 cup of brown sugar
- 1 cup of dried fruit, like raisins
- 1 cup of good, strong tea
- 2 cups of self raising flour
- 1 egg
- 1 pinch of nutmeg
Despite copious amounts of Emergen-C in the last few days I have a cold. When I woke up today, my nose felt drier than a box of tinder, although that changed as soon as I'd had another glass of Emergen-C.
I looked in my fridge and realised I very little that was suitable for curing colds, so I turned my store cupboard and decided to make a soup with my last few shallots and red onions. I sliced them thinly, added in half a bulb of garlic (peeled but not chopped) and gently sweated them in a pan for 20 minutes or so. Then I added half a mug or orange lentils and a few mugs of water and cooked it all at the lowest heat on my stove-top for another couple of hours.
Soups are always better the next day as the flavour in them takes time to develop. But I wanted to eat something that might help fight my cold and so I tried a bowl of onion and lentil soup for lunch. It was remarkably good for something that hasn't had a chance to mature.
I'll be making this one again.
I had the idea of adding gently simmered garlic to an omelette earlier today.I thought the softened tones of slowly cooked garlic would work really well with the eggs and cheese. I can report that it was great. Probably not suitable for breakfast as it takes too long to prepare, but it would be superb for a small lunch, with a green salad and a mug of strong tea.
The garlic doesn't dominate. It's a soft, background flavour, which lifts the meal from a boring cheese omelette to something different and tasty.
You will need
2 or 3 eggs, depending on their size
4 or 5 cloves of garlic, depending on their size
1oz of a mild cheese that melts well
1 knob of butter or shake of oil
1 pinch of salt
pepper to taste
You may want to add
2 soft bread rolls, slices of toast or warmed muffins
some chopped parsley
Method
Bring a small milk pan of water to the boil, add your peeled garlic cloves and simmer them until they are soft and change shape when pressed with a tea spoon.
Remove the garlic from the water and let it cool on a chopping board. Chop the garlic into small pieces and then smooth them into a paste with the flat of the knife.
Chop the cheese into small pieces that will melt nicely.
Crack the eggs into a bowl or glass and beat them gently with a fork. Don't beat them too much or you'll get lots of air into them and your omelette won't be able to support the weight of the cheese and garlic. You risk a pan with fried cheese stuck to it and a lot of time cleaning up.
Heat the pan so that it's warm enough to melt the butter but not much warmer.
Melt the butter and then add the egg to the pan. It will cook slowly so you will need to wait a little bit before adding then cheese and garlic.
When it has cooked enough that you can draw the edges into the centre you can dot the cheese and garlic all over the disk of egg. You may need to continue drawing the egg mixture into the centre. Frankly, it depends on how runny you like your omelette.
When you're happy that the egg mixture is mostly cooked, fold it so that you have a half-moon shape, leave it for 30 seconds, so that it can seal itself and then deliver the omelette to the plate (which might already be covered in bread of some kind).
Season the dish with salt and pepper. Garnish with the parsley if you like.
As I waited to pay for my groceries this evening, I noticed that the young girl in front of me was just buying six bars of dark, organic chocolate. You go girl! Chocolate is made from beans and so 100g of chocolate presumably counts as one of your five portions of fruit and vegetables a day. Beans can only count as one portion, though, so I suppose she'll need to mix the chocolate with something else to get a well balanced meal.
I was buying something a little different, though. I noticed these vegetable caviar things a few weeks ago, tried one and decided I like it. They all seem great and so I'm having some griddled veggies with a dollop of these caviar things on the top. Mmmm.
As I queued at the supermarket checkout this evening the podcast I was listening finished and I began playing some
music. I started with Nena's 1983 and 1984 hit, 99 Red Balloons. As I waited for the checkout I noticed - again - the worry the song discusses.
It's a 1980s Cold War era song about the definite possibility that there would be a nuclear war. I suppose the Germans were especially scared as they hosted short range nuclear weapons that were intended for use within (the other bit of) Germany. And it all ends so sadly:Panic bells, it's red alert.
There's something here from somewhere else.
The war machine springs to life.
Opens up one eager eye.
Focusing it on the sky.
Where 99 red balloons go by.
It's all over and I'm standing pretty.
In this dust that was a city.
And it was so different today in the rather nice supermarket. The country may be about to split into two, leaving a rump Brussels to... well I'm not sure what it would do. But it doesn't compare to worrying about some buggy software triggering our mutually assured destruction. So I had some vegetables, bread and a bottle of wine in my basket while
I expect we're not really worried about a death raining down on us from Russian ICBMs we're worried about Chinese and Indian carbon warming us up. Well I'm sure that the vegetables and vodka in our baskets acted as carbon sinks. We're doing our bit for the planet. At least I think we are.
How far from your last home do you live? Why did you move and are you glad you did?
Submitted by Matthew 25.
I now live in Brussels which is about about 209km (~130m) south of Amsterdam. It's about two hours by car or three hours by train. Taking the train lets you watch movies and read books, though, so I think that's the winner.
I lived in Amsterdam for about seven years but moved in August last year. I moved for a bunch of administrative reasons associated with my job but I don't regret the change as Amsterdam is still close by and I get to see more people at work now.
