Chickpea and coriander curry

There's a new mango chutney I've discovered, replete with spices and onion seeds and a dark tangy flavour. The local store is also stocking fresh jalapeño chilli peppers now - these two deserved a curry recipe of their very own, I thought. Chickpeas, fresh coriander and assorted vegetables were found for just that.

I'm quite fond of accompanying curry with basmati rice - notably cooked with a few green cardamom pods and whole peppercorns for a fragrant touch. For a more hearty meal try making some sorghum and millet flour chapati, using an egg or flaxmeal slurry to bind it and cook using coconut oil. The high smoking point of coconut oil lends itself to frying, and adds a delicious flavour to a simple flatbread.

This recipe is enough for two, or a hungry person and a rather good lunch the next day.

Ingredients

1 tbsp coconut oil
1/2 tsp cumin seeds, toasted and ground
1/2 tsp coriander seeds, toasted and ground
1/4 tsp fennel seeds, toasted and ground
1 tsp garam masala
1/2" piece of ginger root, minced

2 - 3 cloves of garlic, minced

1/2 jalapeño chilli pepper, sliced

1/2 cup of chickpeas

1/2 red pepper, diced

1/2 courgette, diced
1 small carrot, sliced into half moons
1 stick celery, sliced

1/2 cup passata, or crushed tinned tomatoes

1 - 2 cups chicken or vegetable stock
Handful of chopped coriander stems (and root, if you have it)
Seasalt

1 cup of spinach, chopped roughly

3 - 4 handfuls of fresh torn coriander leaves

Spicy mango chutney

Warm the coconut oil in a medium sized saucepan to a low-to-moderate heat, so that a slice of carrot thrown in sizzles gently. Add all the spices, and let the oils release for a minute or so with the lid on.

Add the ginger, garlic and chilli, and sauté for 2 - 3 minutes. Add the chickpeas and stir again.

Mix in the pepper, courgette, carrot and celery. Stir for a couple of minutes.

Pour in the passata, and follow with enough stock to permit everything to simmer in liquid, just covering the contents of the pan. Season with a few pinches of seasalt and stir in the coriander stems. Leave to simmer for at least 25 minutes.

In the meantime prepare your rice, naan or other favoured accompaniment. Ready your mango chutney with a nearby spoon.

A couple of minutes before serving, stir in the spinach and most of the coriander. Let wilt, and turn off the heat.

Serve your chickpea curry over rice, and finish with some extra coriander. Add mango chutney. Marvel in the wonder of sweet, sour, spice and umami all in one glorious, warming dish.

Vanilla quinoa and almond pancakes

Quinoa is a funny little grain - a seed in fact, highly nutritious, and a good wheat-free alternative to couscous for me. It has a distinct fresh nutty flavour though, so I've been a bit wary about including it in sweet recipes. The vanilla and honey in this recipe balances the quinoa flakes quite nicely, though. Served up with cinnamon-raisin apple compote, it is good eats!

On to the recipe, then - pretty simple, and with almond flour (ground almonds, here) to make 'em moist and delicious, and only a little honey to sweeten them. I also recently picked up some cup measuring gadgets, as my actual cups and mugs I was using are a range of sizes and not much use for anyone else to go by - so the below should measure up nicely!

Vanilla quinoa pancakes

There's no starch acting as a binder in this, so little drop pancakes work better than full sized ones. I'll leave it to you to experiment, though.

1/2 cup quinoa flakes
1/2 cup thin coconut milk (unsweetened almond and rice milks also work here)

1/2 cup almond flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla essence (if you can find vanilla bean extract, that is the best)
2 tsp light honey (orange blossom or acacia works well)
1 medium egg
Coconut oil for frying (else grapeseed is okay, and less coconutty if you don't care for that)

First measure out the 1/2 cup quinoa flakes into a mixing bowl, then add the 1/2 cup coconut milk and leave to soak for 5 - 10mins. (Use this time to make some compote - apple recipe as below!)

Measure out the 1/2 cup of almond flour and stir into the now softened quinoa flakes.

Tip in the 1/2 tsp of baking powder, 1/2 tsp of cinnamon. Mix in.

In a separate bowl, lightly whisk the egg with the vanilla essence and the honey. When combined, tip into the mixing bowl with the other ingredients and stir together.

Heat up a small frying pan over a medium heat. Add 1/2 tsp of coconut oil, let it melt and swirl it about the pan. Drop in the pancake mixture as 1 - 2 dsp dollops, smoothing slightly to form about 5mm thick little pancakes, measure 3 - 4" across. They should be lightly sizzling straight away, with little bubbles starting to form in them. If not adjust the heat accordingly.

After 1 - 2mins they should be lightly browned on one side - carefully use a fish slice or wide spatula to flip them. They'll be a little delicate but should hold fairly well. Cook the other side for 1min or so, until also lightly golden. Shimmy it off to a warmed plate, and repeat until you have the batch of pancakes you're after, adding another 1/2 tsp of coconut oil every two batches.

Serve up with some fruit compote, and if you have it a dollop of creme fraiche and a little dab of maple syrup. Or a big dab! It is delicious stuff, after all.

Cinnamon-raisin apple compote

2 dessert apples (I used royal gala)

1/8 cup of raisins

1 dsp freshly squeezed lemon juice

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

First core and then dice up your apples into fairly small pieces - these will remain whole after cooking. Leave on the skins! I wasn't convinced by this the first time I heard it, but for dessert apples it works really well. If you're not sure, do half and half.

Put the apple into a small pan over a medium-low heat, add the lemon juice, and toss the fruit until it's all lightly covered. Add the raisins and cinnamon, stir them in, and lastly tip in a little splash of water, just to prevent the apple at the bottom of the pan from scorching. (Just 1 - 2 dsp.) Cover and leave to cook for 10 - 15mins, stirring occasionally.

After this check on the compote, and cook for longer if you prefer it softer and more compote-like. If the mixture isn't sweet enough from the raisins for you, add a sprinkle of brown sugar. The red skin of the apple should have turned this a faintly peachy colour by now, and be lookin' pretty.

Serve up over pancakes! Enjoy. :)

Wholegrain tagliatelle (gluten-free) with mushroom crème fraiche sauce

Pasta is one of the foods that has fallen by the wayside since I discovered I needed to go wheat-, dairy- and various-other-free. Dairy has crept back a little, but wheat is far less forgiving. So I went looking for wheat-and-gluten-free pasta. There is a fair amount of choice, but after some experimenting I found that many simply go from sticking-in-your-teeth hardness to a squashy softness in mere seconds, and few withstand being mixed with a few ingredients in the manner I like to serve it. Brown rice spaghetti is one of the few that stand out, but its taste is more of a plain noodle.

Recently I happened to go looking for various recommendations once more, having spent some resigned minutes in an Italian delicatessen selling delicate little yellow nests of fresh pasta. So it was that I came across the intriguing idea of making my own. From scratch. It even looked simple!

The original recipe is taken from gluten-free girl's website, and adapted a little for the sizes of egg I had and confusion over garbanzo-fava flour. (Translated into UK English, that's chickpea-broad bean flour, and I just had chickpea.) But after kneading and peeling dough from between my fingers, and rolling it out and slicing it up (it rolls out! It doesn't stick or tear!), we had pasta. Real pasta, with a delicious wholegrain taste to it and a hearty chewiness that I've not had in years. I had that rare experience (although it's becoming more common) of a stomach that felt it was glowing - not a single twinge, bloat or gurgle. It's possible the garlic, mushroom and crème fraiche sauce we mixed into it had something to do with it too. My cohort, something of a durum wheat pasta lover, was happily telling me how good it was for most of the meal. I think we'll be making this one again. Pasta! At last!

Tagliatelle

This is pretty close to the original, but you may wish to go see the unaltered recipe to make this part. Unless you, too, want to know what to do when XL eggs are nowhere to be found and fava bean flour is an unknown novelty.

2oz brown rice flour
1oz chickpea flour (plus a little extra - 3 tsp or so)
3oz millet flour
3oz potato starch
1 heaped tsp psyllium husk powder
A little fresh grated nutmeg (I think I put in 3 - 4 swipes on the grater, about 1/8 tsp)
1 tsp salt
3 large egg yolks
2 large eggs
2 tbsp water
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil


Whisk up your flours, starch, powder, nutmeg and salt, ensuring there are no lumps and everything's looking a little fluffy.

Mix up your eggs, then add the water and oil and whisk it a bit. (There's a lot of egg, but it works. The original recipe uses XL eggs, but I couldn't find those - after using large eggs, adding all the suggested water and oil, I had crumbly dough. Realised the liquid deficit, and added another egg. Had overly sticky dough.
Added brown rice flour (some 4 - 5 tsp in the end) until it all came together, and then it was fine.)

Once you have a nice supple ball of smooth dough, wrap it in cling film and set it aside on the counter for half an hour. Set the largest pan you have (or at least, a reasonably large one) on to a medium heat, having filled it with water and a good few teaspoons of sea salt. Bring it to the boil for half an hour's time.

Take the rested dough, form it into a cylinder and slice into four parts. Sprinkle potato starch over a counter top or rolling board, and roll out the dough as thin as you can. Keep it moving with each roll, adding a little extra starch to the rolling pin occasionally. You should be able to get it to at least 2mm thickness, but try for as thin as you can go. My second, didn't-get-stuck-to-the-counter and much thinner batch definitely made for better eating.

Using a (bluntish, paring) knife score the sheet of dough into long thin strips. If you kept the dough moving when you were rolling it out these should now lift easily and onto a waiting plate. Each quarter of this lump of dough forms about one portion, so keep going until you have the desired amount.

Tip your prepared pasta strips into the ample bubbling water. They will be cooked in 2-3 mins - try one and drain as soon as it's done. Toss with a little olive oil before serving.

Tagliatelle sauce

6 medium-large chestnut mushrooms, thickly sliced (5mm or so)
Extra virgin olive oil, butter
1 clove garlic, thinly sliced
Crème fraiche
Few handfuls of baby leaf spinach
A little more nutmeg, fresh grated
Black pepper
Sea salt
Fresh grated parmesan cheese

Bring some olive oil, and a little butter if you care for it, to a light sizzle in a large wide pan.

Stir in your sliced mushrooms, and sauté for a few minutes until just softened - but still with some bite.

Mix in the spinach leaves, just wilting them. Turn off the heat.

Add a few heaped teaspoons of crème fraiche, add the nutmeg, pepper and salt, and stir together.

Serve up your tagliatelle, and spoon over the mushroom sauce. Allow everyone to mix it together as they like, at the table.

Leave out a small bowl of grated parmesan, salt and pepper, for seasoning.

Enjoy the feeling of a deeply contented stomach.

Chilli bean and pak choi stew

It's been a little while since I posted last, but the cooking has continued off and on. (There was an extended recent period of salads and toasted cheese sandwiches - I'd rediscovered Red Leicester cheese, and found a deliciously fruity stout-based pickle to go upon its toasted self.) Sometimes notes are taken, more often I'm convinced I'll remember them for later only to find myself staring at a photo of something I definitely made, but cannot recall.

Just before that happens again then, a recipe or two.

It had been a while since I'd played around with quinoa, and wanted to try making it fluffier. Then I thought that perhaps I should eat something with it other than cheese and pickle. There had also been a 15C temperature drop within a few days, and a cold rain had rolled in. Chilled leaves weren't quite going to cut it for this night's dinner.

Quinoa

Soak 1 cup of grains for an hour to overnight. It may well sprout a bit - apparently this is Healthy and Good For You without compromising on taste. Also it will cook more quickly.

Bring 2 cups of water to the boil and tip in drained quinoa. Let it return to a simmer, add some sprinklings of sea salt and a small splash of extra virgin olive oil (or a piece of butter, if you prefer.) Clap the lid on and leave it on a low heat. Turn off heat once all the liquid is absorbed and before it scorches. (About 15mins, usually.) Fluff it up. Marvel at the fluffiness.

Chilli bean and pak choi stew

This is possibly the work of having an odd assortment of vegetables courtesy of an intermittent vegetable box. The pak choi was the size of a full head of kale, so I thought I'd take its peppery crunchy self and use it to liven up some spiced bean-ness.

Extra virgin olive oil
1 medium shallot, finely sliced
1/2 aubergine, cubed into 1cm^3 pieces
2/3 yellow pepper, cut into 1" squares
2 cloves garlic, finely sliced
1 cup chickpeas/beans/lentils (can use mixed pulses in spiced tomato sauce too)
3 - 4 tsp tomato purée
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp chilli powder
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 stock cube in 2 cups hot water (beef or vegetable works nicely)
Three large pak choi leaves, stem sliced into 1" pieces and leafy part cut into 1" x 3" pieces
Sea salt
Black pepper

Heat a few tablespoons of olive oil over a medium heat. Drop in the shallot, stir, check it's sizzling lightly and cover.

After a few minutes add the pepper, aubergine and garlic. Stir well and cover once more.

Once the vegetables are slightly softened, add your chickpeas/pulses of choice.

Now add the tomato purée, thyme and assorted spices. Mix them all in, and then pour in your stock to just cover the contents.

Add black pepper and sea salt to taste, stir, and let the mixture simmer for 20 - 25mins.

Just before serving fold in the pak choi stem and let simmer for another 2-3mins. Add the pak choi leaf and then turn off the heat. Let it stand for a few minutes to wilt the leafiness.

Serve up with some of your delicious quinoa, adding chopped grilled halloumi to the quinoa if you happen to have some handy (and care for cheese in all things.)

Coriander and lime spinach salad

I say "salad", in reality this is a quick stir fry (I'm new to having a gas hob all of my own to play with) served over baby leaf spinach. The quick stir frying of the vegetables leaves them quite juicy and crisp though, and the fragrant sweet and sour marinade makes it all quite lively. I used turkey and tofu in this as it happened to be what I had to hand, but chicken etc. would all work very well too.

2 heaped tbsp firm tofu cubes

1 heaped tbsp turkey thigh cubes

1/6th lime, juiced

1 tsp agave syrup (or 2 tsp light brown sugar)

2 tsp fish sauce

Grapeseed oil

1" piece ginger, finely julienned

1 spring onion, sliced thin on the diagonal

3 chestnut mushrooms, quartered

1/3 yellow pepper, cubed

Few sprigs fresh coriander, chopped

2 handfuls spinach leaves, well drained and roughly torn

Handful or two of beansprouts [optional]

Mix the lime juice, agave syrup and fish sauce in a small bowl. Add the tofu and turkey, mix gently, and leave to marinate. Prepare the remaining vegetables.

Heat up some oil in a small pan, and add the drained tofu and turkey. (Reserve marinade.) Cook to a slight sizzle until the turkey is done and the tofu has taken on some colour to slight crispiness. Leave to one side off the heat.

Meanwhile in a wok, heat up a little oil to medium-high. Add the ginger, and cook until turning slightly translucent, after 30 seconds or so.

Add yellow pepper, and stir fry for 30 - 45 seconds before adding the mushrooms. Cook for another minute or so until just tender.

Stir in the spring onion, mix through, then tip in the tofu and turkey. Pour in any remaining marinade, and mix it all together for 30 seconds. Taste, and add more fish sauce if required.

Take off the heat, stir in the coriander leaf and serve over the torn spinach (and beansprouts, if you have them.) Enjoy!

Lemon and garlic tofu stirfry with cabbage "noodles"

Sometimes you get the seasonings just right, and the combined dish is far more flavoursome than it should logically merit. This is one such dish! Mere odds and ends at the end of the week, but filled with crisp juicy vegetables and a mingling of ginger, garlic and lemon. In an attempt for a lighter sort of meal, there are spring cabbage "noodles" instead of rice or the more conventional noodles.

1 piece tofu, diced small

1/8th lemon, juiced

1/4 clove garlic, minced

Herbamare (herb infused salt) or sea salt

Black pepper

1 tsp tamari or soy sauce

Grapeseed oil

1" piece ginger, cut to thin matchsticks

3/4 clove garlic, sliced to thin slithers

2 spring onions, sliced thin on the diagonal

3 dried shiitake mushrooms, rehydrated and thinly sliced

3" long round of spring cabbage, thinly sliced (makes about half cup in quantity)

4 leaves napa cabbage, thickly sliced (also known as "Chinese Leaf")

1 - 2 tsp fish sauce

2 - 3 tsp oyster sauce

Mix the lemon juice, 1/4 clove minced garlic, tamari, salt and pepper in a bowl, and add the diced tofu. Mix gently and leave to marinate.

Prepare the remaining vegetables, and then heat up some oil to cover the bottom of a wok. When it's quite hot, add the tofu and stir fry 'til a little crispened. Remove to a bowl, clean wok, and return it to the heat.

With a little more oil, stir fry the ginger for 30 seconds or so, then add the shiitake mushrooms. Cook for a minute, keeping everything moving on a high heat.

Add the spring cabbage, mix in well, then pour in a few tablespoons of water to get steam going. Cook cabbage for a minute or two, until just tender but not too soft.

Stir in the garlic, and fry for 30 seconds or so, before adding the white stalk parts of the napa cabbage. Sprinkle in the fish sauce, and stir fry all this for approximately 1 minute. Keep an eye on the napa cabbage to make sure it's not overcooking.

When everything looks nearly done and to your liking, add the spring onion and remaining leafy, non-stalk napa cabbage. Add the oyster sauce, and mix everything through on a low heat. Adjust seasoning to taste, and you're ready to serve.

Dish up the stir fry into a bowl, and scatter with the lemon and garlic tofu. Sprinkle with a little shichimi togarashi for a bit of spice, and dinner is served.

Sunshine pig stew

A few items had caught my eye on the most recent shopping trip - streaked pork shoulder, sweet dried pears and the oddly bright green of pistachio nuts. This evening they met again as they were put together for a serendipitous sweet pork stew. That name didn't quite stick when I heard a particular suggested alternative - I present to you, Sunshine Pig Stew!

Olive oil

1 onion, diced

2 pieces pork shoulder, diced

2 - 3 splashes white wine (approx. 3 tbsp)

1 bay leaf

1 tsp paprika

6 dried apricots, soaked and sliced

4 dried pear halves, soaked and sliced

Soaking water from the apricots and pears

Hot water

1 tsp tomato purée

1/2 tsp Dijon mustard

1/2 tsp cider vinegar

Salt

Black pepper

Sweet potato, cubed

Brown basmati rice, 1/2 cup per person

Peas or petits pois, 1/8 cup per person

12 pistachios, roughly chopped

Cilantro, roughly chopped

Sauté onion in olive oil until nicely browned. Remove to a dish, add a little more oil to the pan, and seal meat over a medium heat.

Return onions to pan, and add a few splashes of white wine. Let the alcohol burn off, and then stir in the bay leaf and paprika.

Add water to cover the pork and onions and bring to a simmer. (Omit using soaking water here if you care to reduce eventual overall sweetness.)

When bubbling gently, season the stewing meat with the tomato purée, mustard and the vinegar. Add salt and pepper to taste, then let simmer gently for 30mins.

Meanwhile bring a large pot of water to the boil, and add brown rice. Cook until just done (approx. 25mins), drain, then stir in the peas and set aside to rest. (Note: if using frozen peas, defrost in some cold water first.)

Add cubed sweet potato to the stew, and simmer it until just cooked. (It should have developed a rich coloured sauce, courtesy of the slightly caramelised onion, paprika and tomato. With the added sweet potato the glimmers of sunshine should be showing through!)

Serve up over the rice and peas, and sprinkle on some chopped pistachios and cilantro to taste.

Enjoy your Sunshine Pig Stew - good alongside a fruity Sauvignon Blanc!

A brunch with peppers and basil

The herb, that is. I'm quite fond of brunch as it usually means I've been up doing something that's left me hungry and lively, and that I have an appetite for putting several of my favourite foods together. Perhaps there should be more dinner-brunches. (Brunchins? Oh dear.)

1 slice rye bread

Extra virgin olive oil

1/2 red pepper, diced (orange and yellow would work nicely too)

Handful cherry tomatoes, halved

Few basil leaves, shredded

1/2 avocado, cubed

1/2" by 4" piece of feta

Few slices salami (German peppered is good with rye)

1 - 2 eggs (beaten if you prefer, I just scramble them in the pan)

Put the rye bread on to toast. (It takes a little while if using a grill (broiler) - if using a normal toaster, put the bread in after cooking the pepper/tomato bit, just before you start the eggs.) Meanwhile, heat up a little olive oil to a medium temperature in a frying pan.

Add the red pepper to the pan, and fry for a minute or two, keeping it tender and juicy. Stir in the tomatoes, mix in for 30 seconds or until warmed through and just softening up, then turn off the heat and add the basil. Mix and remove to a bowl.

Keep an eye on your rye bread if it's under the grill, turning when necessary. It should be about done by now, so to the plate with it, buttering where required.

Add a little extra oil to the frying pan, having not cleaned it if you want to keep the pepper/basil flavours. On a gentle heat add in the eggs. Scramble until just cooked, keeping them soft.

Serve eggs up immediately, so they don't overcook in the pan. Add the red pepper and tomato alongside it on the plate.

Then arrange the avocado and salami too, before crumbling the feta on to it. Dress the avocado with a little drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and some black pepper.

Enjoy! Good with a cup of coffee and some orange juice.

Coriander and coconut carrot soup

Sometimes a few simple ingredients fall together under one's fingertips and a magical type of gathering occurs. I had carrots, the homegrown-flavoured almost musky sort. A colleague had a while ago mentioned making coriander and carrot soup. What pricked my culinary ears was the realisation that I also had a bit of coconut milk in the fridge. Oh my.

Olive oil
1/2 small onion, minced
1" piece of ginger, peeled and minced
2 - 3 fine slices of red chilli, minced
4 - 5 medium sized carrots, peeled and sliced
1 tsp paprika
1/8th cup coconut milk
1/8th of a lemon
3 - 4 cups good vegetable stock
Bundle of coriander leaves, chopped

Heat up the olive oil in a pan over a gentle heat. Add in the onion, ginger and chilli, stir, and leave to softly sizzle. Cover pan with lid.

Once the onion has turned a little translucent, add the carrot. Sauté gently for a bit, then add the paprika and leave for a minute or two. (This spice works really quite well here.)

The carrot should now be a little softened. Pour in the vegetable stock (reserve some if you're not sure how thin you may want the soup to be), and bring to a simmer. Gently cook for a few more minutes, taking care not to overcook the carrot to mush.

Pour in coconut milk, and add a squeeze of lemon juice. Stir in fresh coriander.

Now remove the pan from the heat, let cool a bit, and then whip out your handy immersion blender. Purée the contents of the pan to soup, adding more vegetable stock if required to desired consistency and carrottyness.

Adjust lemon juice to taste now that everything's been mixed up together. This should be offsetting the sweetness of the carrot and onion rather nicely, and giving the dish a hint of Thai flavour.

Serve up with a little drizzle of coconut milk and a few coriander leaves to make it pretty. Or forget, and just tuck in and enjoy.

Garlic beef, mushrooms and peppers

It seems that no matter the effort put into using a wok on a flat electric hotplate, it is outdone by the feeblest of efforts over a gas flame. (Admittedly my preferred wok has had a concavedly curved base for years, which didn't help matters.) To gas, and the deliciousness it can so easily bring about!

There was some beef remaining, and my stir frying seemed almost a half-forgotten skill. I remembered red pepper, and pulled out the rest of the still perfectly silken mushrooms. Garlic and oyster sauce, I thought, and then the rest sort of fell together.

Grapeseed oil

1 small onion, sliced into 1/16ths

2" piece red chilli, finely sliced

4 - 5 chestnut mushrooms, quartered

Half a red pepper, diced

1 piece of tender steak, thinly sliced

1 clove garlic, thinly sliced

Dozen or so chives, chopped

2 - 3 tsp oyster sauce

1 - 2 tsp shaosin rice wine

1 - 2 tsp soy sauce

1 tsp cornflour made to a thin paste with cold water

Beni shoga (salty pickled ginger - the fluorescent red strands)

Jasmine rice

Rinse and drain the rice (repeating 'til clear.) Bring equal parts rice and water to the boil, then cover with a lid and set onto the lowest heat possible to cook and steam.

Heat up some grapeseed oil in the wok, and on medium-high heat stir fry onion until it colours to your liking. (2 - 3 mins gives a bit of char.)

Add chilli, blacken a bit before stirring in red pepper. Soften for 30 seconds or so, then add in the mushrooms. Cook for a minute.

Stir in the garlic for 10 seconds or so to heat it through, and then add the steak. Cook meat until it's taken on a little colour.

Splash in the rice wine, and let the alcohol evaporate. Turn the heat to medium-low and then add chives, oyster sauce, and soy sauce. Stir through, then add a few teaspoons of the cornflour mixture to thicken. Ensure this is heated through to a simmer and that all ingredients are cooked to your liking.

Serve up a heap of steaming jasmine rice, pile on the beef, onion, mushroom and pepper, and top with a little beni shoga if you wish for it. Enjoy! And realise your sad fate - you'll never quite enjoy the local Chinese takeaway ever again.

Stroganoff of a sort

Despite a few technical hitches, cooking continued. Now on with the recording of such.

I've been trying out "vegetable boxes", whereby a box of delicious, locally farmed organic produce is dropped off on one's doorstep upon request. So far I'm rather liking it, and an abundance of an ingredient or three seems to make for the better sort of cooking inspiration. Chestnut mushrooms, silky-skinned and plump, reminded me of stroganoff. Fixings were duly acquired. As I'm not fond of stewed meat I came up with a somewhat speedier variation. It also uses a white wine and coconut milk trick for the sauce base, and I'd picked up some fresh thyme which seemed like a good thing to add in.

Grapeseed oil, for frying

1 small onion, thinly sliced

1 piece of good steak

6 - 7 chestnut mushrooms, quartered

2 tsp fresh thyme leaves

1 clove garlic, minced

1/8th cup white wine

1/8th cup coconut milk

Salt (Herbamare is good seasoning)

Black pepper

Heat up the oil in a saucepan, and add the onion. Cover and saute gently until softened.

Push onion to one side of the pan, up the heat a little and sear either side of steak. Remove meat to a separate bowl.

Add mushrooms, garlic and thyme to the onions and mix it all up. Cook for a minute or two on medium heat.

When mushrooms have softened a little, add in the splash of white wine. Let alcohol boil off, and then stir in coconut milk. Let this heat through to a simmer.

Meanwhile thinly slice the steak, and reserve any juices. Mix in to the pan, and turn off the heat. The meat should retain some pinkness - if too pink for your liking, cook it a little more in the sauce.

When ready, serve up over some sautéd potatoes and spinach. Marvel at the concoction that is now quite a long way from the stroganoff most would recognise.

Satsuma chickpea curry

Or "chana dahl," which I'm fairly sure means a chickpea curry of sorts. This was a bit of a "Oh my, what is hiding out in the fridge?" adventure. Spicy and fragrant hint-of-coconut rice and a cucumber and mint raita accompany this hot and slightly fruity curry.

For the rice:

Basmati rice

3 cardamom pods

1/4 tsp very coarsely ground black pepper

2 - 3 tbsp coconut milk

Rinse and drain the rice before setting it over a high heat with 1:1.25 ratio of rice to water. Add cardamom and black pepper to the pan, bring to the boil, and then cover and move to lowest heat to steam. Stir in coconut milk just before serving.

For the raita:

4" piece cucumber

7 or so leaves of fresh mint, finely chopped

3 dsp Greek yoghurt

Black pepper

Seasalt

Cut the cucumber into small cubes, peeling and/or discarding seeded part if you prefer. In a bowl mix up the yoghurt, mint and seasoning. Stir in the cucumber, and adjust dressing to taste.

For the chickpea curry:

1/3 onion, finely chopped

1/2 red chilli, roughly chopped

1/2" piece of ginger, minced

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tsp coriander seeds, toasted and ground

1/2 tsp cumin seeds, toasted and ground

1/2 tsp ground turmeric

3 whole cloves

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/8 tsp ground nutmeg

1 small green pepper, diced

1/2 head of cauliflower, broken into small florets and steamed

1/2 can chickpeas

Pieces of leftover beef, vegetable (optional)

1 - 2 cups hot water

1/2 satsuma, all pith and segment skin removed

1 dsp sultanas

1 tbsp mango chutney

1/2 tbsp tomato purée

2 - 3 tbsp pumpkin purée

1/4 cup thin coconut milk

2 tbsp Greek yoghurt

1 - 2 tsp potato starch, mixed with a little cold water

Heat some oil in a pan over medium heat. Add the spices, and stir to release oils.

Add onion, chilli, ginger and garlic to the pan, and sauté until onion has softened.

Stir in green pepper. Then add cauliflower, chickpeas and any additional leftovers (e.g. beef.) Heat through.

Add hot water to just cover contents of pan - a lovely bright orange yellow and fragrant sauce should now be simmering. Add the pieces of satsuma and the sultanas. Stir in the mango chutney, tomato and pumpkin purées. Leave to simmer until vegetables are just cooked.

Shortly before serving, add the coconut milk. Thicken the sauce a little with the potato starch slurry (taking care as it is far more powerful than cornflour, and quite viscous in quantity.) Stir in the yoghurt, and serve up over the fragrant rice and with a good helping of raita. Leftover chickpea latkes and flatbread make good accompaniments, too.

Flatbread

I'm still working on breads, although I think I almost have a good custom wheat-free flour mix figured out. The problem is when I forget to use it, and go a bit too heavily on the starches. My multi-flour mix was simply turned into a dough with flour, warm water and flaxseed meal (mixed with a little water as a binder.) Some was fried into the wedges in the photo, creating a chewy dense and nutty flavoured bread. (That would be the millet and sorghum flours and the potato starch, I think.) Some was grilled as flat thin discs on some oiled foil. They turned out quite pleasantly crispy, and so a supper of flatbread, Port Salut and some sweet paprika spiced salami was had.

Pumpkin seeds

I bought a pumpkin. A little one, for a cake I forgot to photograph. It is the first pumpkin I have ever bought, and in messing around with the innards I found all these seeds. "Ah ha!" went the lightbulb, "Roast them!"

Take the seeds from one pumpkin. Rinse and clean them, removing as much of the slipperiness as you can. Pat dry. Spend 5 mins removing the seeds deftly stuck to the paper towel you tried to use to pat them dry. Resort to putting them in oven for a bit to dry off.

Arrange seeds in a baking tray so that they're mostly in a single layer. Mix with a little olive oil (and a tiny bit goes a long way - the above result features far too much), and more seasalt than you consider necessary.

Bake seeds until golden brown and crispy, some 15mins or so at 160C. Check regularly and adjust oven if they're scorching or nothing's happening.

Mix with some whole skin-on almonds and toasted sesame seeds for a mid-morning snack!

Sesame seared beef salad

This was essentially a simple little meal, of rice and seared steak and some vegetables and salad. It's one of my favourite sorts, though.

1 piece steak

3 portobello mushrooms, stalks removed

1/3 red pepper, thinly sliced

Spinach, baby leaf

Cucumber, sliced

Olive oil

Soy sauce

Sesame seed oil

Rice vinegar

Sesame seeds

Jasmine rice

Take the steak and marinate in a small bowl with a little soy sauce and sesame seed oil. Set the rice a-cooking and leave to steam.

Heat some olive oil in a frying pan, and when medium-hot sear the steak to preferred cookedness. Remove to one side.

In the steak juice laden pan, add a little more oil if required and then add in the red pepper and mushrooms. Sauté until a little coloured but not too softened. Set to one side.

In a dry frying pan, toast some sesame seeds over a medium heat. Check for a nutty flavour (all "greenness" should be gone) and remove to a small dish.

Mix a teaspoon or two of olive oil with a little (1/2 tsp) sesame seed oil, 1/2 tsp soy sauce and 1/2 tsp rice vinegar for a dressing. Rinse and drain spinach.

To serve place a small heap of rice and the spinach and cucumber on a plate. Drizzle some of the dressing across the salad. Then arrange red peppers and mushrooms, and top with the steak (sliced for eating with chopsticks.) Sprinkle on some toasted sesame seeds, and enjoy!

Cauliflower salad

I've previously tried a cauliflower salad recipe from Elana's Pantry, and was quite smitten with it. This is a variation that happens to be even simpler and works well as a sort of substitute to a heap of starchy carbohydrate based salad.

1/2 head cauliflower, broken into small florets

1/2" sliver of red onion, finely chopped

3 tsp mayonnaise

1/2 tsp dijon mustard

2 - 3 tsp lemon juice

Black pepper

Seasalt

Steam the cauliflower florets until just tender. Remove, rinse under cold water, drain and then roughly chop into smaller pieces.

In a bowl whisk together the salt, pepper, mustard, lemon juice and mayonnaise. Add the finely chopped red onion.

Stir in the cauliflower, and adjust dressing ingredients if required.

Top with a garlic sautéd portobello mushroom, thinly sliced, if you happen to have one just waiting. Inadvertently let it strike a heartwarming pose.

Chickpea and sweet potato spiced latkes

By latkes I mean fritters with potato in, but I quite like the word latke. These, then, are spiced sweet potato and chickpea fritters! With a little mint yoghurt dressed salad they were quite divine. Makes about 9 fritters.

Olive oil, for frying

Extra virgin oil

1/3 onion, finely chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

1/2 tsp cumin seeds, toasted and ground

1/2 tsp coriander seeds, toasted and ground

Juice of 1/8th of a lemon

1 small sweet potato, cubed

1/2 can chickpeas, drained

1 beaten egg

Chickpea flour, for thickening

For the salad:

Spinach, baby leaf

Cucumber

Red pepper

2 tbsp lemon juice

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 tbsp greek yoghurt

Black pepper

1 - 2 tsp finely chopped fresh mint

Seasalt, pinch of

Set up a steamer over some simmering water, and steam the sweet potato until tender. Set aside to cool.

In a large bowl, whisk the olive oil and lemon juice together with the mint, pepper and salt until somewhat emulsified. Stir in the yoghurt (at this point I recalled curdling, but due to the emulsification I think this is avoided.) Add sliced cucumber and red pepper, and set to one side. Rinse spinach and leave to drain.

In a second bowl, combine a few teaspoons of extra virgin olive oil, the onion and garlic, spices, and sweet potato. Mash the potato until blended in with the other ingredients. Stir in the chickpeas, beaten egg and lemon juice. Mix well, and if a little on the thin side add a few spoonfuls of chickpea flour until more manageable.

Heat some olive oil in a frying pan to a medium heat, and then drop in spoonfuls of the fritter mix. Flatten to about 1cm thickness, and let cook for a few minutes. When it's looking golden brown on the edges, flip and cook the other side. Once cooked remove to a plate lined with kitchen towel, and leave to blot while cooking remaining batches.

Serve up fritters alongside the cucumber and red pepper salad, over some fresh spinach. Also went very well with a side dish of cauliflower salad, and some garlic fried portobello mushrooms.

Minestronesque soup

Rifling through the fridge and glaring in the freezer revealed the motley ingredients for an almost-minestrone soup. I give you - Minestronesque Soup! Also a couple of days ago I tried out gluten-free girl's dinner rolls. There was a bit of fiddling with the baking (my oven is cranky), but now once toasted and buttered I have these rather flavoursome, chewy and crispy yet dense scone-like things. I like them, although I'm not entirely sure what they are. They accompany soup nicely, anyhow.

Butter and olive oil
1 onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 courgette, finely diced
2 sticks celery, finely diced
2 carrots, finely diced
1 small potato, finely cubed
1/4 tin cooked red kidney beans
1/2 tin tomatoes
Hot water
1/2 vegetable stock cube
1 tbsp tomato purée
1-2 tsp marjoram
1-2 tsp thyme
1 tsp ground paprika
Seasalt
Black pepper

Put a large pan on a medium-low heat, and add a tablespoon or two of butter and a couple of olive oil. (I like to use a little butter for flavour and make up required cooking fat with some plain olive oil.)

Add the onion and garlic, and sauté for a few minutes while preparing the next vegetable. Repeat this step to add the courgette, then celery, then carrots.

Stir in the potato, kidney beans and tomatoes. Break up tomato into pieces with a blunt-ended stirring utensil if they're not already chopped.

Pour in enough hot water to cover the ingredients and bring to a simmer. Dissolve stock cube in a little hot water and add to taste.

Squeeze in the tomato purée and stir in. Add herbs, spices and other seasonings, adjusting to taste. Add a little more water if required, then leave to simmer for a good half hour.

Serve up with extra black pepper, and toast a few dinner rolls before slicing and buttering them as accompaniment.

Dinner rolls

A little while back I espied a recipe on gluten-free girl's site for dinner rolls. Slightly mystified, I pored over the lengthy list of ingredients. "This is ridiculous," I thought, "There are at least 20 of them!"

Over the next month or two if I happened to find potato starch, or quinoa flakes, I surreptitiously picked it up. Eventually, I had all the ingredients and even found some appropriate pans in a sale. Project dinner rolls commenced!

I followed the recipe fairly closely, bar omitting milk powder (this may have been important, I forgot to switch the water for soy milk too), using more xanthum gum as guar gum is impossible to come by it seems, and... the rest I kept to fairly faithfully. Ah, I let the initial dough rise for too long, after forgetting about it - I don't think I'm a born baker. Then there was the shaping, the second rising, and the above appeared. These were then baked, and about 20mins into that I remembered the pan of water I'd left at the bottom of the oven.

They were cooked for a little longer than was stated as they remained seemingly quite doughy, partly due to a cranky oven too I suspect. They came out somewhat denser than I'd expected, and I couldn't quite decide if I liked them. Eventually upon the next day, I tried them toasted with a little soft goat cheese. Then, they were wondrous. Even if getting them out of the toaster at work the next day involved some variant of whack-a-mole (hit up the lever, one or two pieces will appear in a random position, and only a side swipe will stop them returning into the toaster.)

They were pretty good, and probably better if the recipe is stuck to precisely. I may try again, when the madness next descends and having a heap of small bread rolls seems like a good idea. They did accompany soup nicely - there are a few other things to try out first, though!

Sesame green tomatoes and egg

Courtesy of a night of frost, my rescue tomato plants came to a withered and somewhat prompt end. Their last burst of life did gift me with three green tomatoes, though. Following a bit of internet scouring, I was inspired to mostly eat vegetables and so this stir fry came about - to be accompanied by a slightly sweet ginger rice porridge.

1" piece of fresh ginger, thinly sliced to matchsticks

1" green chilli, thinly sliced

1 stick celery, thinly sliced

1 carrot, thinly sliced

3-4 leaves Chinese leaf, sliced
1 spring onion, finely sliced

3 green tomatoes, cut into 1/8ths then halved across the middle

1 egg

1/4 tsp green chilli, finely chopped

Sesame oil

Soy sauce

Oyster sauce

Shichimi togarashi (7 spice mix)

Heat some sunflower oil in a wok to a medium high heat. Add chilli, and fry until browned (note: do not breathe any vapours from this in unless you're fond of coughing). Then throw in the ginger, and stir for 30 seconds or so until this has turned faintly translucent.

Add carrot, stir fry for a minute or so, then add celery and repeat. While they're still reasonably al dente, add a few teaspoons of soy sauce and of oyster sauce, to taste.

Stir in Chinese leaf and spring onion, and stir fry for another minute or so. Remove pan to one side.

In a separate small frying pan, heat a little oil on medium heat. Add 1 tsp of sesame seed oil and then the finely chopped chilli, and fry for 30 seconds or so.

Add the green tomatoes and cook until just done - should be a few minutes. Sprinkle in a little soy sauce for seasoning, then break in the egg and leave for a few moments. Stir it up briefly as it cooks on the bottom of the pan, and wait again. Continue until egg is cooked to your liking (I tend to prefer pieces of white and yellow, with softness but no actual clear egg white remaining.)

Serve up the vegetables, and top with the sesame green tomatoes and egg. For some added spice, sprinkle on a little shichimi togarashi.