Finally, Some Good Fucking Food (pt.1)
aka food I liked this week log
Happy new year everyone! I know it’s been a hot minute since I wrote on here, mainly thanks to my student newspaper allowing me to write for them (you can read a bunch of my recipes along with other wildly different pieces here), but I’m back on here whilst the Mancunion is on holiday.
This year, I was inspired by book/gossip queen Alice Slater, who has introduced to me, as well as a good chunk of the internet the concept of #CookJan. #CookJan, which you can read all about here, is all about nourishing our relationship through food. This can be through working through a recipe book or trying Veganuary, etc etc.
As I’m staying at my sister’s atm, I currently only have access to one cookbook and am not giving up cheese in the light of any future lockdown. However, as a fairly new food writer and “fussy eater”, I’ve decided that I’ll document any meals I’ve really enjoyed as well as speculate wildly on what I may try to make.
I hope you enjoy and if you have any ideas, recipes or tips you’d like to share, do get in touch! Not only do I love talking about this stuff with people, but it’s nice to not just be throwing stuff into the void.
Food I liked this week:
New Year’s Halloumi Roll
So this was my first meal of 2021 and if you know me, you know as a veggie I am of the strong belief that halloumi and aioli/garlic mayo is a god tier combo. However, this was another level as by the time I had dragged my hungover self to the corner shop, there was genuinely only brioche rolls and a couple packs of tortillas left. Desperate for some form of toast, I bought the rolls and made a quick sandwich once I got back, using some leftover garlic mayo from our NYE takeaway and some M&S truffle mayo I had bought as a Christmas treat. Make sure to not cook the halloumi for too long, just until soft and tender and I can say confidently it is one of the best hangover meals you’ll have. (my bf added bacon as well if you want to add meat.)
Ed’s Midnight Pasta
After having an early dinner on New Years day, we all found ourselves hungry very late in the day - my boyfriend, being the angel he is, volunteered his services and whipped up some really delicious creamy tomato-y garlic pasta, with just a little bit of heat. Frankly, worth the acid reflux.
Whilst Ed never seems to remember exactly how he makes stuff when I ask him, much to my chagrin, I did manage to blag these details from him:
cook pasta and drain water - save the water
fry garlic with 1/2 teaspoon of chilli
add some tomato puree
add cream, parmesan and perhaps pasta water(?) it is unclear exactly which order these three come in, but basically you want to make a creamy sauce.
Rob’s Stew
My family were not casserole or stew people at all, so anything in this category is still very new to me; I liked this stew in particular as it introduced me to the concept of gravy as the flavour basis of stew and I love gravy, so will definitely try and do my own take on this in the near future.
I believe it went something along these lines:
ready casserole mix of veg + drained veg water from boiling + gravy + seasoning
Late Night Cheese Sandwich
Due to Christmas throwing everyone’s schedules and body clocks out of whack, meal times have been a little all over the place and so I found myself hungry again at around 1am. i don’t know why but my craving were telling me to go for a cheese sandwich and they were right.
There is something very comforting to me about a grated cheese sandwich on that soft white supermarket bread. However, in a late night stroke of genius, I may have added some additional grated leftover parmesan. I would highly recommend for an extra hit of salty, nutty flavour.
Next Week’s Aims:
Create my own version of the Croissan-wich
There’s a Youtube channel called Mythical Kitchen which has a whole series of videos where they make fancy versions of fast food - in a Christmas induced binge I watched one about the Burger King Croissant breakfast sandwich. Now I’d never heard of it as I think it’s only sold in America, but as most of my new cooking is mainly trying to recreate veggie versions of unhealthy things, something involving croissant, fried egg and cheese is right up my street. Also my dad is the sort of guy who will make a sandwich out of any kind of bread he has in the house and used to make me cheese croissants, so I’m looking forward to re-visiting them.
Make my own Midnight Pasta - as a chicken wrap?
I got Midnight Chicken by Ella Risbridger in paperback the other day and want to do some of its recipes for CookJan, although I’m trying to work out exactly how I can make a veggie version of the titular recipe. I love the Quorn chicken pieces in wraps with a good sauce so I think it will probably head down that route, but whilst I was thinking of that, I thought maybe Ed’s pasta sauce might work as well in the chicken wrap format? Idk but looking forward to experimenting nonetheless.
Anyway, that’s all I got this week, tune in next time to see if my breakfast sandwich dreams come to fruition!
If you enjoyed any of this and want to keep this going/want me to test out any of your recipes/veggie-friendly ideas, you can donate to my Ko-Fi or Paypal.