roasted beetroot soup with curry spices and coconut

beetroot rasam

In trying to overcome my childhood trauma of my father’s favourite sandwich (pickled beetroot and piccalilli), I have spent years trying to love beetroot. To my horrified taste buds, much maligned beetroot tasted of sweet mud. Yet I have hated feeling as if I have been missing out on something, so I decided to persist. It's been a very long time in coming!

toffee apples for bonfire night (and fulfilling a childhood dream)

crunchy and sticky: toffee apples

As a small child I yearned for toffee apples; for their beautiful enticing shiny jewel-like colour and promise of sickly sweetness. But they were forbidden fruit as my mother refused to buy one for me. This was less because she was mean (hardly) but more that experience suggested that since toffee apples are very sticky, it might end with disaster.  My one and only experience of pink bubble-gum at the age of seven had left my long golden blonde hair in piles around my feet as my head was shaved . . . seriously, don’t ask!

These days, while still a little accident-prone, I decided to make a simple caramel and coated my apples in the vibrant toffee ready for tonight's bonfire party

what's in season: november

borage (or starflower)

It isn't very seasonal (since it's origins are Mediterranean) but my garden is awash with borage at the moment, that beautiful blue flower of which John Gerard, the sixteenth century botanist and herbalist wrote:

The leaves and floures of Borrage put into wine make men and women glad and merry, driving away all sadnesse, dulnesse, and melancholy, as Dioscorides and Pliny affirme. Syrrup made of the floures of Borrage comforteth the heart, purgeth melancholy, and quieteth the phrenticke or lunaticke person.
The Herball, or General Historie of Plantes (1597)

I might not be a frenetic or lunatic sort of person but I have to confess that 2013 has been a year when I could do with something to comfort my heart and purge melancholy. But enough of my self-pity; at least there is good food and the sky hasn't quite fallen in on my head!

a zesty plum and allspice crumble (puts a spring in my step!)

zesty plum and allspice nut crumble

So I am bouncing energetically around the kitchen singing "There is nothing like a plum" to the tune of South Pacific's "There is nothing like a dame" while my plum compote is simmering away on the stove. This is my version of multi-tasking and is guaranteed to raise my spirits, even if my adopted cat tries to put her paws over her ears, before stalking off disgruntled to find quieter shores.

But if life can be improved for a few lovelorn, jolly jack tars by day-dreaming of gorgeous girls, I am pretty sure that curvaceous juicy purple plums cooked down with aromatic allspice can do an awful lot for my beating heart too. 

There is simply nothing like a plum.

roasted butternut squash salad with spiced plums, hazelnuts and blue cheese

roasted butternut squash salad

A few years ago I bought a rather trashy but adorable pink leather slouch bag. What I loved most about it was that the bag was covered with enormous pink fish scale sequins that dangled, clattered and caught the light in a rather flashy way. (I have never made any claims to taste except in things concerning food . . . )

pumpkin and parmesan soup revisited

pumpkin and parmesan soup

When I don't post a recipe on this blog, it is highly unlikely that it is ever because I am not eating. Heaven forbid! It is simply because much of the time I fall back on recipes that I have blogged about before. OK, sometimes it is because I actually forget to photograph things in the feeding frenzy. On other occasions I have cooked, but the photograph I have taken looks so unappealing that even our voracious and undiscerning young foxes would turn up their noses.

and now for something completely different: Malaysian steamed layer cake - kuih lapis

kuih lapis (Malaysian layer cake)

Malaysian cakes and desserts are often tooth-achingly sweet, but this one is so pretty that it is hard to resist. But this cake comes with a warning. Not only is it a right old faff to make, although I regard it as an afternoon of time well-spent, just so that I can tick it off my list of things I must learn to bake. (I bet they'd never have this on Great British Bake Off!).

Red lentil and chard falafel

red lentil and chard falafel

In times of austerity . . . oh god, I sound like a Billy Bragg lyric . . .  While my love for the Balladeer of Barking may be pure, in these hard times it is sometimes really difficult to stay cheerful when you have no choice but to be constantly frugal and thrifty. Frankly it is all a bit of a grind (she says gloomily).

claudia roden's red lentil purée

In my quest to find both interesting ways to use lentils and pulses as well as alternatives to the usual accompaniments to roast meat, I found this Claudia Roden recipe for an Egyptian-inspired purée recipe in her New Book of Middle Eastern food. It was perfect with slow roasted lamb shoulder with middle eastern spices.

It may seem like a lot of purée to make and it was. But I had a cunning plan . . . the leftovers were made into falafels, a recipe for which will follow shortly!

what's in season: october

Michaelmas Daisies - October 2013

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see’st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the deathbed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
William Shakespeare - Sonnet 73 (1609)

stuffed nasturtium flowers

stuffed nasturtium flowers

My best friend and I had been shopping; a wedding dress for her and a bridesmaid's dress for me. My friend was slim, blonde, blue-eyed and very pretty. She wanted a purple-blue theme for the wedding. It was her day so I went along with her choices. But a little part of me died that day.

sweet and sour marinated roasted courgettes with goats’ cheese, basil and toasted pine nuts

sweet and sour marinated roasted courgettes with
goats’ cheese, basil and toasted pine nuts

I am always looking for new ways of cooking up an abundance of courgettes and this summer I have loved this salad of sweet and sour marinated roast courgettes, goats' cheese and toasted pine nuts.

It has worked beautifully with roast chicken, and rather good with grilled fish too (although I would omit the cheese).

Definitely the perfect way to celebrate that end-of-summer glut.