Cookie (Not Cheffy)

I’ve been getting a lot of requests lately from people wanting ideas for meat-free meals to make at home. They have health concerns, but also financial constraints. Arthur and I only eat meat once or twice a week and we cook every night: our weekly shop (excl. household and cosmetic products and including breakfast and lunch foods, which we make at home) is about R500. And we eat very, very well for that.

I first thought I’d just put together some of my favourite tried-and-tested recipes, but I’ve decided to make it a bit more complicated for myself :-). One of my friends asked me how I manage to cook supper when I know there’s “nothing in the house” and that made me realise the importance of the well-stocked pantry. Now, mine’s not nearly as extravagant as some, but it gets the job done and it could be a good blueprint for yours. So, here we go… (more…)

I took some of my favourite baked bolognaise around to a friend whose ill husband has lost his appetite – and he ate two helpings! She asked me to share the recipe, so I’ll reveal all below the break… . What’s nice about this sauce is that you can just scale up this recipe until it fills your biggest ovenproof container, and freeze the leftovers for quick suppers or gifts for busy friends – it survives the freezer very well. It’s also good on sandwiches for lunch the next day.

Admittedly, I saw this on a Jamie Oliver show about eight years ago and remembered it, but I think I’ve probably tweaked it quite a bit over the years. It’s garlic-free, because Arthur hates garlic, but so packed with tomatoey goodness and rosemary undertones, that you really don’t miss it. If you do, just add a clove or two to the onions.

Baking the sauce allows the tomato flavour to really develop and makes the mince nice and juicy. It’s vastly superior to a stove-top bolognaise, I think.

Baked bolognaise
Serves four

one tbls olive oil
one big onion, finely chopped
half tsp dried chili flakes
one tsp brown sugar
one tsp balsamic vinegar
65g tin of tomato paste
300g beef mince
200g pork mince
small glass red wine
two heaped tbls Ina Paarman sundried tomatoes in oil, chopped
425g tin of whole tomatoes
two smallish sprigs of fresh rosemary
salt and pepper
500g spaghetti
grated Parmesan cheese, to serve

In a pot with ovenproof handles heat up the olive oil and then add the onions and slowly sweat till translucent. (You can also cook this in a normal pot, and transfer it to an ovenproof dish later). Add the chili flakes, brown sugar and balsamic and allow to caramalise.

Add the tomato paste and cook briefly. Then add the mince in a couple of batches, to brown. Once browned, toss in the red wine and allow the alcohol to burn off, then add the chopped sundried tomatoes and tin of whole tomatoes. Stir to combine, breaking up the whole tomatoes, and season with salt and pepper.

Cut a piece of baking paper to cover the top of your ovenproof pot. Tuck a couple of springs of rosemary into the sauce and then cover with the paper, pushing down around the edges of the sauce to seal.

Put the pot into an 180°C oven and bake for an hour. Get your spaghetti boiling 10 minutes before the timer goes. Take your sauce out of the oven and carefully take off its paper lid. It’ll look quite dry on top, with orangey red bubbles of tomato sauce hinting at the juicyness underneath. Lift out the rosemary stalks, give the sauce a good sir and serve on the spaghetti, with grated cheese.

Variations:
Use mixed beef and ostrich mince, available at Pick’n'Pay, and add a few chopped rashers of bacon when frying the onions.
Add a couple of chopped anchovies near the beginning of cooking for extra savouryness.
Add a couple of grated carrots and/or courgettes to bulk up the sauce and add veggie-vites (great for picky kids).
Add chopped mushrooms for extra low fat meatiness.
Add a little bit (100g) of very nutritious chopped liver or liver paste – this doesn’t make the sauce “livery”, but gives it a silky texture after baking.

*Thanks to Catmiz for the Flckr pic.

It was Darling Arthur’s birthday on the 19th – he’s an Aquarius-Pisces cusp, which apparently makes him both dreamy and stubborn, and a very nice, caring, polite person. All true! Which makes me want to give him lovely things for his birthday. So, after he unwrapped his book on typography (seriously, he was very excited to get that) I told him that I had devised Arthur’s Dream Dinner – a medley of his favourite dishes, starting with something I used to make regularly when he was still vegetarian, simply called Haloumi Salad.

Here, for the first time, is the (up until now) secret recipe…

Arthur’s Favourite Haloumi Salad
This is a recipe for two full-sized portions of this tasty, varied salad, served with warm fried haloumi and tomato salsa. The combo of sweet and salty, crunchy and squeaky, makes every bite fun. It’s a bit fiddly to plate, but this is how I’ve always presented it and it wouldn’t be the same if I didn’t. However, you can skip the faffing if you like!

Salad
1 bag Woolies spinach, rocket and watercress salad mix
10 small rosa tomatoes (or cherry tomatoes)
10 black olives
1 short cucumber (or half a large one)
2 tablespoons frozen peas
½ ripe avo
approx 250g haloumi cheese
½ lemon, cut into wedges for serving

Salsa
4 tomatoes
4 spring onions
4 sundried tomatoes
chopped basil and mint (or coriander)
dried chili flakes
salt and pepper

Slice the spring onions and put them into a small pot on moderate heat with some olive oil to soften. Boil some water, pour over the tomatoes and, after half a minute, slip the skins off. Chop the fresh tomatoes and sundried tomatoes (pre-soaked if necessary), add them to the spring onions with chili flakes to taste, and turn up the heat so that the mixture simmers. Once its reached a saucy consistency turn the heat to the lowest setting, add seasoning and the chopped herbs, and put on the lid to keep the salsa warm.

Pile up the salad leaves on two plates. Cut the tomatoes and black olives in half, and alternate around the edge of the plate. Pour some boiling water over the peas and leave them to soften while you cut the cucumber, avoiding the seeds, in ribbons with a vegetable peeler and add to the leaves. (The cucumber is definitely better this way.) Add a tablespoon of cooked peas to each salad.

Spritz a non-stick pan with some olive oil and put it on a high heat. Slice the haloumi into 10 – 12 slices, 5mm thick. Fry the haloumi for 3 or 4 minutes until golden and then flip over and do the other side. Slice the avo into 10 – 12 slices, and arrange on top of the salad alternating with the fried haloumi slices. Top the salad with a dollop of warm salsa and serve with lemon wedges.

***

I did a smaller portion of haloumi salad for Arthur’s Dream Dinner starter and followed it with tarragon chicken with boiled potatoes and roasted leeks. The grand finale was a pudding I’d never made before, but I had a sneaking suspicion Arthur would like: mini date cakes with caramel sauce. Damn, I know that man well. Each mouthful he took of the the yummy lump of butter, brown sugar and cream was accompanied by a dramatic moan of sweet pleasure. You see what a nice, caring, polite person he is!

Arthur has declared date cakes his favourite dessert, and I’m sure I’ll be making them on 19 February for many years to come.

I was going to start off saying that this post was tangental to cooking, but on a few seconds’ thought I’ve realised that the post is about the root of cooking. It’s easy to forget that our food actually grows, and maybe that’s why having even a tiny kitchen garden can make you truly joyful about the ‘bounty of summer’!

As you know, Arthur and I live in a really tiny flat. Thankfully part of the flat is a little balcony. On this balcony is now a herb and single-tomato-bush garden, in the full leafy green, juicy red riot of summer fruitfulness. I’d grown herbs before, but my basil in particular is lot more successful this year (give the guys a bit of space and a lot of water and they grow like crazy for months).

Somewhere I had read that cherry tomatoes ‘grow like weeds’. I couldn’t quite believe it (especially with my slightly wilted green fingers), but I thought I’d plant one and see what happened… Cherry tomatoes grow like weeds. I spent weeks pinching out the little new sprouts at the ends of the branches every morning – otherwise Arth and I would have needed a machete to get out onto the balcony for a sunset glass of wine!

I’ve gotten quite into gardening. I even found this awesome blog – You Grow Girl – which is the chirpiest chat about having a bounteous roof garden in Canada (that Gayla is like an heirloom tomato whisperer or something!). The only thing is, you’ve got to be far more patient than with cooking (think in months, not minutes), but I guess I’m getting older and that’s not such a bad thing.

The wait is worth it: I love going out onto the balcony to grab a few leaves for a tea or a pasta sauce. I’ve even made up a recipe or two on the spot… (more…)

I went to the Stellenbosch Farmers Market at Waldorf yesterday. I think it’s my favourite Cape Town market – really good quality products with nice neighbourly feeling, like a cross between Porter Estate (for venue) and the Rondebosch market (for vibe).

I filled my plastic shopping bag (unbelievably, I don’t own one of those smug wicker baskets… yet) with some lovely produce, including Tereva organic gouda (creamy, sharp and licensed by the UK Soil Association) and some Kudu chorizo sausage. I love the fact that when you’re shopping at a market, you have to think on your feet – you have to chose the best produce and make the recipe up right there. The 2nd of February is also Arthur and my three-year dating anniversary, so I thought I’d do something a bit special using ingredients almost solely sourced from the market: here’s the recipe (based loosely on a dish from Phillippa Cheifitz’s Seasons, which I miraculously recalled on the spot).

Stellenbosch Market Summer Greek Stew

2 tablespoons Waverly Hills organic olive oil
700g Aletta’s biodynamic stewing lamb
1 onion, thinly sliced
1 clove garlic
500g Francois’ homegrown tomatoes, skinned and chopped
150ml red wine
150ml water (or beef stock)
zest and juice of one orange
10ml balsamic vinegar
A few sprigs fresh thyme and rosemary from the garden
30g Tierhoek organic sundried tomatoes
1 Francois’ home-grown aubergine, in large cubes
About 14 Laharna organic rosemary olives

1. Heat a tablespoon of oil in a large pot and brown the lamb. Remove, season with salt and pepper and set aside. Cook the aubergine in the leftover oil and lamb fat, until all oil is absorbed and the aubergine is brown, the skin collapsing. Remove the aubergines and set aside.

2. Heat another tablespoon of the oil and soften the onions. In the meantime, boil some water, pour over the tomatoes, leave for a minute and then skin and roughly chop them. Add the garlic to the onions and then the tomatoes.

3. Return the meat to the pot. Add the wine, water (or stock), orange zest and juice, vinegar, thyme and rosemary. Bring to the boil. Cover the stew with a piece of baking paper and the lid, and put into an oven at 160° for an hour.

4. Pour boiling water over the sundried tomatoes to rehydrate them and then add to the stew. Cover and cook for another 30 minutes.

5. Remove the pot from the oven and remove the meat with a slotted spoon. Add the aubergine and the olives and simmer until the olives loose their plumpness and the liquid has thickened.

6. We ate the stew with wholewheat couscous, but a good accompaniment would be buttered noodles with wilted spinach.