rice porridge for breakfast: congee, juk or babur

rice porridge for breakfast: congee, juk or babur

I'm up with the birds this morning, together with Mia, my elderly cat, who meows imperiously at me to be let out the back door and into the garden. (We don't have a cat flap; I act as the cat's personal concierge. It is a thankless but necessary task.) Seconds later the cat is meowing scratchily to be allowed back in. She sinuously scurries in through the small gap that I have opened up, skids to a halt and scolds me with a reproving look that says "Why did you let me outside when it is so cold?" "Hey, you're the one with a fur coat," I say. "I'm the one freezing in my jammies, waiting on you." "And your point?" says the cat haughtily. "Enough of this frivolous conversation. Feed me. Now."

summer garden rice salad with preserved lemon dressing

summer garden rice salad with preserved lemon dressing

I have to confess that I approach rice salads with caution. I think it is because they remind me of school or office canteen salads where the cooks have a load of leftover rice and vegtables and a lack of imagination. They bung a load of gloopy vinaigrette over the sticky over-cooked mess and serve it up. Yuk!

beetroot and lentil spicy kofta

beetroot and lentil spicy kofta

Since I decided that I liked beetroot, I have become pretty evangelical about the stuff. These days I am making up for wasted beetroot opportunities, or the “lost Beta Vulgaris years” as I now regard them.

a little time travel: kamut kisir

kamut kisir

The myths behind the whole grain, Khorasan Wheat (Kamut), are the food equivalent of an Indiana Jones-type boys own story; rediscovered in the tomb of an Egyptian pharaoh, the ancient grains were sent to the US and replanted by a farmer in Montana. The truth is sadly more prosaic. But what is indisputable is that khorasan wheat had fallen out of use over centuries, very largely because yields are relatively low and farmers started to develop higher yielding grains.

pearled spelt salad with kale and lemon-tahini dressing

pearled spelt salad with kale and lemon-tahini dressing

Out shopping and I'm caught in a dilemma. Do I choose dark, sleek and elegant, or bright, frilly and frivolous? No I am not shopping for [whisper]  unmentionables, but one of my favourite winter vegetables. Do I choose calvo nero or frilly kale? These are the kind of important decisions that I like to make.

a story of a Goth, a grandmother and baklava, with a sting in the tale!

honey nut baklava

I am thinking about Christmas baking and alternatives to the usual spiced cakes. I want to make some baklava, filo pastry stuffed with spiced nuts and drenched in a honey syryp, which reminded me of my first ever baklava experience and possibly the most disastrous "meet the family" episodes of my life.

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.

another bit on the side: fat couscous with harissa and orange dressing

fat couscous (mograbiah) with harissa
and orange dressing

I make no bones about the fact that I am as excited by side dishes as I am by the main event, whether it is vegetables or starch (or both!) This s is very likely to do with the ten years I spent as a somewhat hapless vegetarian, when often the only part of a meal I was prepared to eat were the bits on the side. I am not complaining, mind you. Often these bits on the side were probably the best bit of the entire meal (and I really do love vegetables!)

vermicelli rice (roz bil shaghrieh)

vermicelli rice
(roz bil shaghrieh)

I am always interested in new ways of cooking the everyday basics. Adding crushed vermicelli pasta to rice while it is cooking is traditional in the middle east, particularly Egypt and Lebanon. I discovered that it also adds a lovely nutty taste to the rice and a rather interesting soft texture.

This is Claudia Roden's recipe from one of my favourite cookbooks, Arabesque: A taste of Morocco, Turkey + Lebanon.

I have added red lentils, largely because I like the texture of them with rice, something I learned from eating the Indian dish, khichṛi. I lobbed in an onion and a clove of garlic too for good measure!

chicken and chorizo jambalaya

chicken and chorizo jambalaya

If I were to say that in 2013 I shall continue to practice thrift, frugality and economy in the kitchen, preparing well-planned and organised meals, you may well think "well that's very practical and worthy, Kelly, but oh god, how dreary and by the way, didn't you say that last year, and the year before?" . . . and you would be right.

So how about this - in 2013 I will try to delight with delicious suppers and fabulous lunches, convincing everyone of my magical kitchen powers. That sounds more like a real new year's resolution and hopefully I am getting in-touch with my inner-kitchen witch as much as my inner-child.

chorizo and nutella: a winning combination!

chorizo and Nutella party bites

When Spanish pigs graze on acorns and olives, the resulting jamón ibérico de bellota ham is the stuff that dreams are made of, with a higher fat content and more flavour than other types of ham. It occurred to me that slices of ham with some kind of nut mixture might be a winning combination. I like the idea of companion eating - serving meat with the kind of fruit or vegetables the live animal might have eaten - so venison with blackberries, or pork with apple. I like the way they complement each other both in nature and in the kitchen.

moors and christians rice (moros y christianos)

moors and christians rice (moros y christianos)

I have always been intrigued by the name of this dish, one of Cuba's traditional recipes - a mixture of black beans and rice.

The Spanish name refers to a time during the Medieval period, when Muslims and Christians lived side-by-side in harmony. Sadly the Inquisition put paid to that but concord lives on in this delicious dish.

roast breast of lamb stuffed with spiced couscous

spiced couscous stuffing for lamb breast

Unlike that nice child, Charles Augustus Fortescue, I have always had an aversion to fatty meat, while he "would beg them if they did not mind, the greasiest morsels they could find". In my persuit of thrift and frugality I have avowed to change my ways - although I am unlikely to ever live in Muswell Hill (or marry someone called Fifi!)

a hearty autumn stew: sausage and pumpkin awash with spices!

sausage and pumpkin stew

Autumn is my favourite time of year. I love the smell and colours of the year as abundance fades away; dormant until the new beginnings of spring. At the moment my garden is an abstract painting of fallen leaves, rusty orange, muted yellow and faded red. At this time of year I am also keen on meals, that leave the sunshine simplicity of summer cooking and heartiIy banish away the grey drizzle of an autumn chill. I want a dish of strong and complex flavours, full of warming spices to keep the gloom at bay. 

turkish-style stuffed tomatoes

On my mission to be frugal I had decided not to throw out some leftover rice, intending to make a Turkish or Greek rice stuffing for some kind of vegetable. I would decide on which vegetable to use when I actually got to the market and saw what was available. Of course all my frugal intentions went out the window when I saw (actually smelt first) a beautiful mound of the plumpest most scarlet tomatoes I have ever seen.

Still on the vine, you could smell their intense green clove-like aroma from about 30 feet away. I had to have them. At all costs. This turned out to be the debt of a small sovereign nation) All my frugal intentions went out the window. Well life is not too short to stuff a tomato!

tabbouleh (bulgar wheat salad)

tabbouleh - bulgar wheat salad

A simple but delicious Middle Eastern herb salad that zings with flavour, perfect for a hot summer day. It would seem that my optimism that the sun would make an appearance this weekend was rewarded and as such was the perfect opportunity to make this salad to accompany our Sunday lunch out in the garden.

One of the secrets to a good tabbouleh, is plenty of parsley, the bulgur wheat is more of an afterthought. The second is to slice the parsley by hand (I use a mezzaluna for speed). Don't try to speed things up by using a food processor as you will end up with a mush of parsley, rather than the small flecks required).

fat couscous and chickpea salad with a lemon-chilli dressing

fat couscous salad with feta and chlli

It isn't very often that I eat a supermarket ready-meal and think "delicious. I must rush home and try to create it". In fact it has never happened before. But recently there has been one thing I have rather enjoyed and that is one of Sainsbury's range of Taste the Difference Giant Cous Cous and Feta salad pots.

I spent years trying to track down Israeli couscous in England. But I finally managed to identify it as mograbiah or moghrabbiyeh. This is also known as Lebanese, pearl or Israeli couscous. And until I had a word to describe it, I just called it fat couscous; it shall always be fat couscous to me.

apple and blackberry crumble

beautiful blackberries

Fruit crumble is one of the ultimate comfort foods, definitely designed for chilly or damp British days. It brings back memories of childish anticipation. To be honest, while I love my savoury food, I could quite easily forgo everything for a bowl of crumble topping and lashings of cream. Unfortunately sanity prevails . . . most of the time!