Hello my little soufflés! It’s another week closer to us being able to eat in pub gardens and only a few days away from seeing more than one other person outside!! I’m very lucky to have a garden in my current flat, so am currently preparing for it to be an interim pub substitute by covering most surfaces with some form of fairy light.
After the disasters of last week, I am happy to say that this week’s cooking ventures was significantly more successful, the most successful being that Mandy of the famous biscuits read the last newsletter. Even better than her praising my wit, she has said that if she makes it to Manchester at some point, she will have a baking session with me! This is truly excellent news for all those wondering about how to make your own delicious oat biscuits everywhere (which I am sure is lots of you).
Talking of biscuits, it’s time for another effortless segue into the bread-and-butter of this newsletter (see what I did there), !
Food I liked this week:
Turkish Eggs with Whipped Goats Cheese and Smoked Paprika Butter
Sometimes a gal gotta make herself a fancy Sunday brunch. It turns out it is super easy to make whipped goat’s cheese, as it is just goats cheese mixed with either Greek or natural yogurt, plus seasoning. (I only had salt and pepper but you can add a variety of herbs.) I used my food processor for the ‘whipping’ as it is super quick and easy, but you can probably use any form of electric whisk or blender.
This is paired with perfectly poached eggs (it doesn’t have to be perfect I’m just great at poaching), toast (I used leftover brioche buns) and butter which I melted in a pan, then added smoked paprika and the tiniest bit of chipotle chilli for a little smoky heat (you can definitely add more or just use normal chilli depending on your taste). This is a great brunch if you want to impress anyone, including yourself. I used this recipe for reference.
A Deep Pan Pizza When You’re Sad
Being the sensitive writer baby that I am, I got some unexpected and quite drastic criticism this week and got bummed out about it. After moping alone in my room for several hours, I eventually had to eat, and while usually when I’m sad my instinct is takeaway pizza, it’s a bit too pricy at the moment (it’s also my instinct when I’m happy, but that’s by the by) . In lieu of this, I did decide to treat myself to a significantly cheaper £2 Chicagotown deep pan cheese and tomato from the corner shop, which I paired with my reliable Hellmann’s Garlic and Herb sauce. Together, it’s basically the same as a takeaway. Basically.
Sweet Potato and Mushroom Tacos
After pizzagate, I needed to get back on the cooking bandwagon but needed something relatively easily. I read about Meera Sodha’s mushroom and swede tacos and while I plan on future to try and make it with peanut salsa, I didn’t have it in me just yet. I did like the idea of some roast root veg however and had a spare sweet potato, so I sliced it up into small almost-squares and coated in oil, salt, pepper, smoked paprika and chipotle chilli and roasted for about half an hour while frying up the mushrooms and some refried beans. Once the potato was cooked and perfectly fudgey in the centre, combine with the mushrooms, beans and tortilla and top with cheese. It is not fancy or complicated, but the lil crispy skin of the potato is a bonus treat.
Blueberry Muffins
As promised last week, I made blueberry muffins using this BBC Good Food recipe. The first time I made it, I halved everything except the blueberries, which wasn’t terrible, but if you like a more normal cake to berry ratio, I would (roughly) stick with the recipe.
Spicy Parsnip Soup When You Are Not Sad But Still Cannot Be Arsed
I was tired and about to make something from scratch begrudgingly, but then remembered I had some tin soup and some brioche rolls that could be toasted. Baxter’s Spicy Parsnip is a staple in my cupboard, but in general I would always recommend having a nice tin soup and some bread good to go for when you can’t be bothered.
Breaded Halloumi (two ways)
Last week’s Friday treat was partially inspired by TellKrishYourOrder, a regular post by @krishithink on Twitter, where people give their ideal version of a food-based scenario, this week being the perfect pub experience. I had originally posted saying mine is fries and vegan chick’n, as served at Common with garlic mayo but afterwards, I remembered the existence of battered halloumi. I will take this over fish with my chips any day and was instantly inspired to make some. Well almost, but I did not have any beer in the house but did some some bread that needed using, so decided to make breaded halloumi instead, and made my own breadcrumb instead by whizzing it up in the food processor with garlic salt and pepper. (I will update you once I do make some batter)
I had it as a side first, which was excellent, and almost a week later remembered I still need to use the breadcrumbs up so I breaded and fried the halloumi, added both some sweet chilli and garlic and herb sauce, and topped with some cut up cherry tomatoes in a leftover tortilla wrap from the tacos. Delicious, and the fried halloumi had that perfect soft texture. Leon eat your heart out.
Aims for the future:
decaf breakfast tea
As someone extremely sensitive to caffeine, I have to be careful with what I drink and have reached the age where it’s just easier to avoid it all together. I’ve never liked the taste of coffee so that’s been fine, however I do like the taste of breakfast tea and don’t want to explain to my dad anymore what ‘fruity tea’ is. With the possibility of guests potentially imminent, I remembered this week that decaf tea is a thing (although far less common than decaf coffee) so if anyone has any good brand recommendations for this (especially that I can find through supermarkets) that would be excellent. Any general non-caffeine teas are welcome too!
The Great British Menu
I was also reminded by the previously mentioned Krish that The Great British Menu has started again, which I haven’t watched in a while but desperately need something to fill in my Drag Race UK gap. Also, any other excellent food/crafts/light-hearted competition show recs are welcome, along with more serious non-true-crime documentaries (I’ve watched the first two parts of the Demi Lovato doc on Youtube and whew, it’s intense.)
That’s all for this week but as always do get in touch! I’d love to hear your recipes, ideas or just a nice meal you had. Also, as I mentioned last week, my birthday is on the 6th of April (my second lockdown birthday, love that for me) so if you know of any particularly good birthday email freebies, I am always very interested to hear. (Also gifts of food and money are always welcome).
If you enjoyed my writing or found it useful, just a reminder that you can donate to my Ko-Fi or Paypal here.