the red kitchen

Potluck dinners

A couple of weeks ago we had a surprise potluck Asian food-themed birthday dinner for a good friend of mine, and it was such a success that we all agreed that we should make a habit of it. It was a great meal - smoke-free surrounds (unlike the rest of the civilised world, Switzerland still insists that it's ok for smokers to fag on in restaurants, completely ruining the dining out experience for me. No matter how fantastic the food, I just can't enjoy it wreathed in smoke), food better than any restaurant I've been to lately, wine, great company, and no rush to clear the table for the next sitting. And of course, remarkably easy to organise  - everyone just brings something.  The food was so good that there was even talk of producing a cookbook of sorts for ourselves.

So this weekend someone else has taken on the mantle of organiser, and has organised an Italian potluck. I'm on starter/antipasti duty along with Ms Fabelhaft, so I consulted my Italian neighbour for some tips and ideas. I'm mad keen to make some devils on horseback, 60's party staple that they are, kitschy yes, but FAB to eat.

Ideas:

• A simple caprese salad: tomatoes, mozzarella, basil, dressing - you know the drill, perhaps with cherry tomatoes and tiny (cherry tomato size) mozzarella balls
• Proscuitto wrapped around grissini
• Good olives
• Bruschettas of various types, ie, pesto, sundried tomato paste, tapenade, garlicky mushrooms etc
• Bagna cauda (garlicky buttery anchovy dip) with raw veges for dipping
• cheese, salami, prosciutto, walnut platter
• Goat cheese and rocket wrapped in bresaola, drizzled with a vinaigrette
• devils on horseback (cheese-stuffed prunes wrapped in bacon and grilled crisp)
• Goat's cheese tartlets with green olives, lemon and cream
• Grilled haloumi with rocket and chilli
• hot garlic prawns
• proscuitto, goat's cheese and fig bundles (there's that goat cheese again!)

I shall have to consult further with my partner in appetizer crime, and see just what is do-able. It all sounds delicious to me! (maybe that's because it's almost dinner time...).

I'll let you know what we end up eating.

Hello, sunshine

Hello again, my sadly neglected blog. It's been a while. Maybe it's the winter greyness that crushes all my inspiration, for I have been just doing my normal everyday cooking and haven't found much to get enthused about.

However, a couple of days of unseasonal sunshine have whetted the old tastebuds and I've thought a little more carefully about what we've been eating and drinking, cooking mostly exactly what I feel like, even in the face of overwhelming protest from the kids. Hey, they'll thank me later.

In one of my recent posts I was on a blue cheese bender; now that phase has passed and I've moved onto the gentler, more innocent qualities of goats' cheese. I particularly enjoy it for breakfast, on thick grainy bread (only lightly toasted of course, I hate really toasted toast), with my spicy plum jam - I reckon a bit of protein in the morning is good for me.

And last night I made one of my favorite standby meals, one that is good for when the cupboard is empty,
it's cold outside and I can't be bothered heading to the shops for supplies. Or just when I feel like I need a virtuous meal to counterbalance a couple of days of overindulgence. It can be made with meagre ingredients, or can be luxed up depending on what's in the fridge. It's just a simple omelette filled with vegetables, but oh, it is good.

I first ate this omelette when we were on holiday a couple of years ago. We were shopping at the Xmas sales at a major department store and were struck by hunger. We went down to the restaurant and I ordered this and watched them make it in front of me. It was perfect, the egg cooked just right, softly oozing, and the vegetables freshly grated and seasoned with just the right amount of salt, pepper and importantly, vinegar. It's the dash of vinegar that keeps me coming back to this meal, truly. I dream about it sometimes, how good that acid tang with the sweetness of the grated carrot is.

So back to reality. Here's the recipe, make it and enjoy it with a glass of crisp white wine (for those of you that imbibe), or sparkling apple juice or whatever. Good hearty bread and a bouncy salad would make this just about perfect.

Slow roast pork

I've had a couple of requests for the recipe for the slow roast pork I made last weekend, and I am as ever, happy to oblige.

Truth be told, my slow roasted pork, albeit delicious, was a bit dry. This was because I didn't use the proper cut of meat for the recipe - I used pork neck or foreloin, rather than loin of pork (which has more fat and thus stays moister during the lengthy cookign time). However, once a bit of winey gravy was dribbled over it it was great. The equally winey vegetables that accompanied it were particularly fantastic, as was the braised red cabbage (a surprise to me, as I'm not usually a cabbage-lover).

I used Stephanie Alexander's recipe for slow-roasted loin of pork with rosemary, garlic and fennel. Stephanie suggests buying the shoulder end of the loin, which, although it is fattier, retains a better flavour and tenderness. The meat is rubbed with oil, rosemary, garlic and fennel and then rolled and tied for roasting. It makes for a wonderfully aromatic  roasyt which looks rather spectacular (if I do say so myself). I definitely want to try this recipe again using the proper cut of meat - Max told me the next day that he been daydreaming of the meat and gravy we'd had the night before, it was so good.

Heather, I hope that you make this and that it turns out wonderfully!

Slow roast pork

Slow roast pork, originally uploaded by kitschenette.

On the menu tonight (avert your eyes, vegetarians and vegans, sorry!):

Slow roasted pork with rosemary, garlic and fennel, braised red cabbage with apples, garlic mash, greens (baby rocket, the tenderest leaves, picked up at the fruit market this morning).
And dessert, of course, a blackberry marscapone tart, similar to the strawberry marscapone tart I posted about a couple of days ago, but with orange zest folded into the marscapone cheese and blackberry puree smoothed over the top.

The good pizza

the good pizza, originally uploaded by kitschenette.

The pizza recipe from The River Cottage Family cookbook is excellent - I've made it every week since I got the book at Christmas. The recipe itself is simple, and I'm sure it's not so different to other pizza recipes, but, well, I'm particularly enamoured of this one at the moment. I think it's the teaspoon of sugar and no salt in the tomato sauce that does the trick. Last night I made this pizza and we had a pizza picnic in front of the telly watching this, complete with picnic blanket and paper napkins. The kiddies loved it.

Spinach-o-rama

I've had a request for the recipe for Max's favourite spinach, but I'm ashamed to say it ain't much of a recipe...I just chucked it together and it tasted good, so hooray!

I don't usually do much with spinach, except sometimes make spinach and feta filo parcels when I come across good filo pastry (hard to find here). I just assumed that the kiddies didn't like it. However, Max ate it for lunch at kindy a couple of weeks ago, and came home declaring that he liked spinach, and when could we have it for dinner?

So, here is the recipe for Max's Favourite Garlicky Buttery Lemony Spinach:

Spinach - thawed, if frozen; wilted and squeezed dry if fresh (I used frozen)
Butter
Milk
Clove of garlic
Lemon juice to taste
Salt and pepper
Sprinkle of nutmeg

How

- Melt a knob of butter in a saucepan. Toss in the spinach and stir to distribute the buttery goodness.
- Continue to cook over a medium heat, then add a little milk, to stop it drying up.
- Add the finely chopped or crushed clove of garlic, and keep stirring for a couple fo minutes to cook the garlic (raw garlic makes me nauseous).
- Add a squeeze or two of lemon juice to taste: the spinach should be buttery and garlicky with just a hint of lemon. Not only does the lemon taste good, the vitamin C in it also helps your body to absorb the iron from the spinach.
- Season well: VERY IMPORTANT. Even if you usually avoid adding salt to your child's food, this is one time when you need to throw that rule out the window if you want your kiddie to eat it. Unseasoned spinach is VERY BORING (even I think so). So, season and taste to your liking.
- Just before serving, add the nutmeg and another nobble of butter to get it all gleaming and rich and delicious.
- Note: don't cook too long - you want the spinach a lovely vivid green, not a limp greenish weedy mess. And, try not to have too much liquid, although you do want it to be moist, not dry. Somewhere in between is perfect. Some toasted pinenuts would be yummy sprinkled on top, too.

I hope this helps to spread the joy of spinach a little further around the world. Long live spinach!

Bulging bellies

My kids are such gobbly guts. Tonight they stuffed themselves so full at dinner time that later, when they had their bath together, they exclaimed and squealed over their bulging bellies. Even I was surprised.

I do love seeing my kids eat well. I feel a kind of motherly pride in nourishing my progeny. Tonight I roasted some chicken pieces in olive oil and lemon juice until crispy and crackling outside, tender and moist inside, then made a gravy* with the pan juicies. A creamy garlic mash and some plain steamed broccoli and raw carrots (my kids' favourite veges, on the table practically every night, boring but good) and we were ready, set, go! Very good. If only I had a glass of red wine to go with it. However, after Tuesday night, when I imbibed an unprecendented 2 glasses of red wine and suffered a subsequent hangover (pathetic! I'm such a cheap drunk) the entire next day, I am going easy on the booze.

Max and Lolly love a little lake of gravy in their mound of mash. The back of a spoon is used to make a deep hollow in the mash, and a spoonful of gravy is carefully deposited. Woe betide the careless gravy-giver who accidentally releases the flood!

Berry good

For dessert I had promised Max I would make some of his favourite berry sauce to eat with fresh fruit, but we were so stuffed full that I didn't bother. Max loves this sauce with a passion. When he spies a box of frozen berries (berries aren't readily available at the moment, it's the middle of winter, remember? frozen is good) his face lights up like a Christmas tree. Today at lunchtime he spotted the box of frozen raspberries in the fridge. He was so excited he took the box out of the fridge and put it next to him on the table while he ate, gazing lovingly at it the whole while.

I have no problems letting him eat berry sauce til it comes out of his ears, because really, it's hardly even a sauce. Really it's just sieved berries. I don't add sugar or anything else except maybe some fresh orange juice and zest when I making blackberry sauce. In fact, he prefers it sour. The one time I added some icing sugar he turned his nose up at it and said it tasted 'funny'. It's an excellent way to get kids to eat a whole lot of extremely nutritious berries. Last Sunday we had a friend over for dinner and I made raspberry sauce as well as custard to pour over fresh fruit. The sauce boats were licked clean. 1 kg of raspberries eaten in about 10 minutes.

Once you have a jar of berry sauce in your fridge it's amazing how useful it can be. The dessert possibilities are obvious - with icecream, with chocolate cake and ice-cream, with custard or panna cotta or creme brulee, maybe even a swirl in a meringue, trifle, fool etc etc. The fresh acidic sourness and slight sweetness of berries are the perfect foil for creams and custards.

Also consider a swirl in breakfast yoghurt and muesli, in smoothies or muffins, or simply with a ripe juicy mango and a sliced banana. Endless possibilities.

Tomorrow I will make Max a happy boy. We'll make raspberry sauce together and  make some yummy little thing for dessert.  More bulging bellies!

* isn't 'gravy' the most awful word? Conjures up an image of a congealed, thick, lumpy brown mess to me. Luckily our gravy tonight was none of the above. Except brown.

Soup kitchen

It's cold. We didn't get the snow the forecasters predicted, but it's certainly cold enough. But, the skies are clear and blue, so I'm happy. As long as it isn't cold AND grey I can cope.

Soup for dinner tonight - potato and leek, with cubes of day-old bread tossed in garlic oil and parmesan and roasted til crispy.

I love sauteeing leeks in lots of butter. I like to squish the pieces with the back of the wooden spoon until the inner circles slide and slither out into the buttery juices.

Cold outside, warm inside, and the house smells soupy good. A nice start to the weekend.

Toadfood

Happy happy joy joy....marinated tofu (or toadfood, as Max calls it) with egg noodles for dinner tonight.

Tried and Tested Kitchen: Corn Cakes

The Test Kitchen hasn't been too, errm, testy lately, so I thought I'd entertain you with some old favourites - Bill Granger's Corn Cakes (ok, so he calls them Sweetcorn Fritters). 

These are big favourites in the Kitschenette household. Quick and easy and delicious. Usually I roast some tomatoes in balsamic vinegar and olive oil to go with them, as the corn cakes soak up the vinegary juices fantastically. A splodge of a good mayonnaise (home-made or otherwise, maybe with some lime juice to sparkle it up) on the side, maybe some proscuitto or Bunderfleisch (raw dried meat, popular in Swissyland), slices of ripe avocado - gosh, what a great meal. Oh, and a bit of leafy greenery never goes astray, either.

At some stage I used to add some grated zucchini to the mix as well, but I found that it tended to make the fritters/cakes soggy and heavy. So now I do without it, and the result is much better, and lighter. Also, Bill specifies the addition of capsicum to the vege mix, but I DESPISE capsicum, so I skip it. They taste much better capsicum-free.