A Good Taste Companion

Mid-week quick dinner: Spag Bol with a bag of supermarket salad (Job's a Good 'Un).  This is so quick to make!! Apparently "Spag Bolag" is the most popular home cooked dish in British households . (I can't vouch for the quality of the research on this stat, but it sounds true to me). So there you go. This is my take on a British Take of the more sophisticated Italian version of Spaghetti Bolagnese. Real Italians, you should look away now. Walk right on by. I do like mine with a little sprinkle of parmesan on top, but you can us e Yeast Flakes (and now with added B12) if you are vegan. I have only just started adding wine to this recipe, so it is still really nice without. But it does make it a little richer - and you won't get any alcohol if it is cooked. The main thing about this dish, is you gently fry all the vegetables and herbs, add the tins of tomatoes and stock. Let it simmer and meanwhile cook the pasta. Good for eating whilst slobbing on ...

This is shepherd's pie with a twist; think of it as Carluccio meets English peasant from the 18th Century.  Italian, but slightly hipster.  So not Armani at all.   It oozes Italian flavourings, is rich, red and moist at the bottom, but soft, creamy and fluffy with a crisp on top. What's not to like on a wintery English evening?  It freezes well and the filling is latin enough to style with pasta. And you can add a few gloops of red wine in there too. This recipe is one I've been making for years and years. It's evolved over time and actually I now use fewer ingredients.  The key idea is to keep a strong tomato flavour, but you can also add courgettes or aubergine - as these really soak up and hold the sweet, saucy garlicky flavour. I used to watch my Mum make shepherds pie, and also spaghetti bolognese. This is a kind of vegetarian melée of both recipes. My Mum actually used to also add a pack of Knorr minestrone soup  to her recipes and I think tha...

Well I thought Socca was just something nice that they made in Nice . But my first Google result described a version made in Italy where they call it farinata. And this same blog post gave a beautifully illustrated detailed description of the recipe and info about the flour too .... I'll definitely have a go at this when I get home, but in the meantime I  tried the Socca which Nice had to offer and duly noted it can be used as a pizza base too. To be frank, we were highly unimpressed with the Socca we had in Nice -  served outside as a snack 'on the go', it was warmed up from a massive pan that seemed like it had been made hours earlier. It could only be described as BLEURGHHHHH!!! It was reeeeeeeeally greasy and disgustingly salty.  It was like fried dishcloth, filthy looking scraps. We chucked most of it away. We know it CAN be nice, I think we were just unlucky. Disappointing as I so wanted to like this because gluten free stuff with natural products is a much...

Fantastic little cafe we went to today ... vegetarian, bijou and very friendly. Actually Helen is English, but we did not spot this and spoke French to her. She humoured us, which was very nice. We totally thought she was une française. And it's really Chez Helen . My mistake. Previous attempts to eat in vegetarian places in France have left us hungry and so we have tended to favour Italian places when we have been eating out in France.   But the times they are a-changing I think. Antibes seems to have more than its fair share of des anglais living there and this may explain the very good vegetarian restaurant. It seems to be much more of an English thing than a French one. We ordered Humous to share to start with ... not really an unusual entrée these days, but this was lovely with plenty of cumin, not too thick, and really good bread on the side. Gareth had a emmanthal and olive quiche with salad and I had Ragôut de l'egumes with couscous and salad...

MMMmmmmmm honestly I love peanut butter. But most shop bought stuff has added sugar, palm oil and probably too much salt than is good for us.  However, the most persuasive reason to make your own is that it is quite magical seeing the nuts transform into a silky thick paste that tastes absolutely delicious. Loads of people in my family are mega allergic to nuts and (sensationally) have to be rushed to hospital if a mere morsel passes their lips. So Ssssshhhh don't tell them I make this. It is utter poison to them. When I made my fist batch - seen in this video here - I used my Kenwood food processor that came with my Kenwood Chef. (I pretty much LOVE this gadget. It's my favourite kitchen thing). However, I did discover that my Nutribullet makes even faster work of the nut butter and I think I'll use it for this recipe all the time in future. I'll be showing how to make a range of salad dressings soon, using my Nutribullet,  so can demo this in a post later. I e...

Mmmmmmm, this is a staple, a stand-by. So so easy to make, you can do it quick, you can do it slow, you can't go wrong. You can spice it up or you can calm it down. What's not to like? I started making tomato soup following first a Delia Smith recipe and then a J amie Oliver number.  This is a mix of both.  I tend towards the slow and lazy Delia roast tomato soup version, and have moved away from Jamie's very expensive multi-coloured designer tomatoes-on-the-vine approach. This (to the right) is Delia's slow-roasted version - with basil and croutons ...  hers is languid and sophisticated. Hers is so Italian with its olive paste and wotnot ... you can hear the latin notes of Rome oozing through this one. . . (Click on the image). And this (to the left) is Jamie's - he gets you to make a dessert and a side dish all in the same 30 minutes.  You serve the soup on TOP of ciabatta chunks as if they were giant sunken croutons. I had this at a friend's h...

So just for fun ... a Comic Life Recipe ...  It's not really a pesto, but it works like one. A pesto hack, maybe.  But we'll call it Hey Pesto!  This stuff is quick to rustle up as a sauce or garnish. You can use it to pep things up in a mild tasting pasta dish or to top a soup or casserole.  It adds a zingy sparkle, when you are scoffing your way through a one bowl winter warmer; the food we often have in the cold is a single comfort dish, substantial and hearty and with everything piled into the same  pot.  So we sometimes need a little variety, a culinary fascinator ... a topping.  You might have a crunchy crouton ... but if you have chunky bread on the side maybe a crouton is one starchy carb too many. Hey Pesto!  Here's what goes in: Ingredients: A bunch of basil ( a cup full) The juice from  half a lemon (or a lime)* 1 - 2 tbsps excellent quality olive oil 1  clove garlic or 1./2 teaspoon lazy garlic 20 gr...

Golden Barley Warmer The main thing to know about this dish is that it involves a lot of chopping; if you're not in the mood for chopping, then step away from the recipe now ... But it's worth the trouble; firstly because you can make this sumptuous, warm, golden, richly flavoured vegetable casserole in a generous quantity - and  you can eat some now,  and squirrel away the rest in your freezer for later.   Don't follow my ingredients list slavishly; you need some root vegetables, you need a grain, you need a sweetener such as tomatoes, a few herbs, and you could even scatter in some small green beans - or even a tin of cannelloni beans. A handful of chopped spring greens could work quite well and you could stir them in at the end of cooking time too. I think it's good to keep the carrots and the butternut squash - the golden colour perks you up in January and February when you really could do with some colour in your life.     I tend to mak...

Good taste, short cuts, simplicity and variety: recipes here are easy to shop for; easy to cook and varied in flavour and type. I eat what makes me feel well and what I enjoy. I'm influenced by what I think are healthy combinations - but who knows?  Advice fluctuates.  I am walking evidence that following a good diet is no guarantee for good health; I'm convinced that eating healthily can help you make the best of the genes you have been given - but that you can't change the basics. This is a recipe store, of favourite flavour combinations and methods. Fashions come and go;  I like to move with the times as its easy to get stuck in a rut.  But I'm not one to jump on to bandwagons. I'm not into coconut fat but won't harp on about why I think it's suddenly so popular; and I won't lecture anyone about butter or sugar.  We have to just do our best, eat our veggies and try to stay lean - not mean. And while we're at it - I am not into that idea of ...