Nothing smells quite like baking bread April 23, 2008

There are a few tricks to making good bread that most recipes seem to leave out, meaning that people end up having to work them out by themselves.

• Warmth. The room needs to be warm, the bowl needs to be warm, the water needs to be warm, your hands need to be warm. I usually make bread in the kitchen with the door closed, the oven on, and the radiator at full blast.
• Never underestimate the power of kneading. You cannot knead too much.  Stand there pummelling the stuff for hours if you fancy it, it’ll only make the bread better.
• Rise it twice. More often, if you feel like it. Beat the crap out of it, leave it to rise, then beat the crap out of it and leave it to rise again before baking. Also let it rise for as long as possible - overnight for a first rising and a good few hours for the second is my usual habit.
• Keep the bloody kittens out of the kitchen, or they’ll run straight through all your beautifully-risen dough.

TEH CHEEEEZEZ! April 22, 2008

I have a friend called Elise who is by all accounts a much better cook than I am, and going round to hers for dinner is always a joy. I was there just last week and was served with a delicious recipe of Delia’s for Spinach and Ricotta Lasagne with Pine Nuts. I don’t claim that any of my food writing is to be all that intelligent as mostly what I was thinking was ‘MMMMM OMG CHEEESE!’. It was really very good indeed.

Oh, and this weekend I baked! Gooey chocolate brownies and a batch of biscuits shaped like Daleks. I took them to a party and they went down extremely well.

Tart! April 5, 2008

Tonight I made tart. Mmmm, tart. It was scrummy and *very easy* tart, too. I often make this if I’m having friends round for dinner.

Stuff you’ll need:

• Some puff pastry. You can make it yourself if you really want to but to be honest I never bother. As you’re buying it anyway, you may as well buy the pre-rolled stuff while you’re at it!
• About six medium-sized plum tomatoes.
• Some goat’s cheese - the very soft kind that comes in a tub. Buy the kind that’s flavoured with garlic and herbs if it’s there.

Pre-heat the oven to about 200C.

Unroll the puff pastry onto a baking tray or large casserole dish. Tip all to goat’s cheese into a bowl and stir, mixing in any flavourings and seasonings you fancy - garlic is always good, of course, even if there’s some already there, but then I would say that!

Spread the cheese onto the pastry. I usually use a spoon for this - dollop some on and then use the back of the spoon to smooth it out. Put on as much as you like, really, then get your serrated knife out and chop the tomatoes into slices. Layer them over the top of the goat’s cheese, and add any seasoning you like - I usually add some ground black pepper, salt and dried mixed herbs. I also usually grate some good cheddar on top of it at this point.

Put the tray/dish into the middle of the oven and leave to cook for about 50 mins, checking it every so often.

I have just eaten lunch. April 4, 2008

It was awesome lunch. Seriously. My lunch was of the awesome. Easy, too!

I’ve never understood why we own  a griddle. I’d never used it before today, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen my father use it either. It’s a great cast iron behemoth of a thing that I have to use both hands to pick up. Today, though, while I was deciding what to eat, it came in handy.

We had some leftover halloumi from  a dinner party dad threw last week, and some tinned mango that’s been sitting there for about a million years. Halloumi and mango are a fantastic combination - vastly improved by salad leaves and some mint dressing as a starter in a Proper Meal, but also delicious alone as an ordinary lunch or snack.

First off, I emptied the mango into a colander and left it sitting in the sink. I also ran some water through it, to rinse off any leftover syrup from the tin - fresh mango would of course be better, but the point of today’s lunch was that I couldn’t be arsed to go out and buy anything!

Halloumi contains a lot of liquid, and so doesn’t fry well in a pan. This is why a griddle is perfect: use a pastry brush to brush it along the grooves quite liberally with olive oil, then turn the hob on and let it heat up a little. Cut the halloumi into slices about 0.5cm thick, and drop them carefully onto the griddle, roughly evenly spaced. Turn frequently, and basically wait till they look like you want to eat them - I carried on cooking mine till both sides were covered in deep brown grooves, but then I like Burnt Bits!

Nom nom nom. God, that was a nice lunch.

Things To Do With Lemon Sorbet March 29, 2008

I have a load of lemon sorbet in my freezer that I didn’t know what to do with, so I’ve been thinking…

• Buy some lemons. Cut each one in half lengthways and disembowel it. Fill the empty lemons with lots of sorbet, smoothing it down so that it all fits in nicely. Sprinkle with a little brown sugar and put back into the freezer for a couple of hours before serving.
• Serve with blueberry cake. Lemon and blueberry go together really well.
• Use a little as a topping on hot couscous. This shouldn’t work, yet somehow it does…
• Serve in a bowl with a big splash of lemon vodka or lemoncello or Cointreau or something. Nom nom nom.
• Eat it straight out of the tub when you’re tired and dehydrated and hungover. It’ll wake you up. Seriously.

Coming one day when I get round working it out: what the hell I’m going to do with the bowl of disembowelled lemon gloop I now have in my fridge after trying the first of the above suggestions. Maybe I’ll make lemon sorbet out of it…

Nommy Risotto March 29, 2008

I thought I’d start with something simple: risotto. I love risotto generally, and especially my own. I’d like to think that this isn’t *just* because I’m a narcissistic cow: I have received to date a grand total of three proposals of marriage and two declarations of undying love from people who have eaten my risotto minutes before.

Stuff You’ll Need:

• A wok or similar and an ordinary saucepan.
• Stock. I tend to just use OXO veggie stock cubes, as it’s easier and they’re really not bad these days, you know. You’ll need a new box, mind - you’ll be using lots…
• A box of arborio rice. I’m told that there’s another kind of rice that makes even better risotto, but I’ve forgotten what it’s called…
• A lot of garlic. A LOT of garlic. Also a large onion, preferably a red one.
• Some vegetables. You can use pretty much whatever you like here, though I tend to go for courgettes, tomatoes, mushrooms and variously coloured sweet peppers. Aubergine rissoto also works very well, though I find that aubergine has a tendency not to go well with many other vegetables. I had a beetroot risotto once and it was gorgeous, but really not the right kind of thing to make to this recipe.
• Parmesan cheese. I often wimp out and get the pre-grated stuff because it’s such a bugger grating an entire lump of parmesan but please please please for the love of all that is holy buy FRESH pre-grated parmesan and not the dried stuff, which is not cheese at all but, as far as I can tell, oddly-coloured dried snot.
• A small amount of cream (optional, but very yummy).
• Some olive oil.

Boil some water in the kettle - about 3/4 of an ordinary-sized kettle’s worth - pour it into the saucepan, crush in your stock cubes and leave it to simmer gently on a back ring of the hob. I use three or four stock cubes here, because I overflavour everything. It makes it nicer, or at least it does if your tastebuds are as addled as mine are!

Cut up your large red onion and your five or six cloves of garlic into small bits and fry them in the wok, in some olive oil. After you’ve stirred them around a bit - but before they start to brown - leave them to it and start chopping the veg. Remember: serrated knife for the tomatoes! I never remember this till I’ve got an eyeful of tomato juice…

Put all the veg other than the tomatoes into the wok and stir. Wait till they’re looking a bit more fried - about five minutes - and crush another stock cube straight into the wok. Add the tomatoes, stir it all about a bit and then throw in a handful of rice. Carry on stirring. Add a ladlefull of the stock from the saucepan. Stir. Add a spoonful of grated parmesan. Stir. Add some rice. Stir. Add some stock. Stir. Add some cheese. Stir. Add some rice. Stir. Add some stock. Stir. Add some cheese. Stir. Add some ri - can you see where I’m going with this? Carry on until all the rice is in, then add any stock that’s left and some more parmesan, just for good measure. If you’re using cream, this is where you add that - just a dash, mind, or it’ll all get unbearably stodgy. Stir it some more and put the lid on.

This is the bit where I go and have a glass of wine and a ciggie and chat to whoever I’m cooking for or whatever. All in all it should be about fifteen minutes, but don’t stick to this - keep going back and looking at it and stirring it a bit, and when all the water has been absorbed by the rice it’s ready. Try some, and if it seems a bit undercooked add some water. I’d probably crush in another stock cube at some point during this process, too. If it seems like there’s too much stock in there and the rice won’t absorb it all, a handful of whatever sort of rice you happen to have left in the house stirred in and left for a bit will probably fix it.

When it looks and tastes right, serve it in huge quantities in bowls and go back for seconds. Damn, I love rissoto. This dish tastes nice cold, too, if you like that sort of thing, and will also freeze very nicely for microwaving whenever you fancy some more.

Failure or fanatic? March 29, 2008

My name is Persephone Hazard. Well, alright, actually it isn’t but I’m quite fond of it so you’ll just have to make do.

I love cooking. I mean, I really love cooking. Food’s ever so erotic, haven’t you noticed? Not to mention the major crush I have on Nigella Lawson. But anyway, I digress - I love cooking and I love writing and I’m currently trying to improve my skills in both, so what better way to do so than to start a food blog? I suppose I could always stop procrastinating and go and do some proper cooking and some proper writing, but that would be far too much like efficiency. I think I’ll stick with this.

I’m a lifelong vegetarian, so this is I suppose a Vegetarian Food Blog though I’ve certainly not conceived it as such, I just don’t eat meat. I’m allergic to olives, so don’t expect many of those either. And anything that tastes of egg is rank and of the devil, though I could be persuaded out of this one with enough effort, probably.

There’ll be a certain amount of ‘cooking for idiots’ about this, but remember that a) I’m still learning too and b) nothing about cooking is so simple that there won’t be some otherwise extremely intelligent person who wouldn’t think of it. I’m judging by Almost Everyone I Have Ever Dated here, of course…