Quesadillas

Cheese melted on a piece of bread – could it get any simpler and could it get any more comforting? I do love cheese, and a grilled cheese sandwich is such a nice treat, even if I then feel guilty about all the cholesterol I’m ingesting. A recent addition to my grilled and toasted cheese sandwich repertoire, as I have mentioned before, has been crumpets spread with marmite and topped with cheese, then grilled. Salty, gooey, lovely.

Once in awhile, I like to vary my grilled cheese even more. So the other day, for example, I made quesadillas. This is the Mexican version of the sandwich, except it’s on tortillas and can be fried or baked. Basically, you load a corn tortilla or two with cheese and tomatoes, and fry it lightly in oil on both sides, until the cheese melts and the tortilla has gotten crispy. It can be a bit difficult to flip the tortilla, so do be careful that you don’t get hot oil on yourself. If any cheese or tomatoes slide out, just push them back in with a spoon. It can help to seal the tortilla/s with tomato puree.

Serve with guacamole (see the next post) and yogurt or sour cream.

Ingredients:
4 tomatoes
8 corn tortillas (flour work fine too)
200 g cheddar cheese
100 g mozzarella
tomato puree
black pepper
corn oil

Instructions:
1. Chop the tomatoes. Put the pieces of one tomato on each of four tortillas.
2. Shred or chop the cheese and divide this by four as well, mixing it with the tomatoes on the tortillas.
3. Add some tomato puree and also spread some tomato puree near the edges of the tortilla.
4. Sprinkle with black pepper.
5. Place another tortilla on top of each of the four that are covered with tomatoes and cheese and press down, so the sandwiches are sealed. If you want to cut down on bread, just use 4 tortillas and fold them in half.
6. Fry the tortillas in oil until golden brown and the cheese has melted. Serve with guacamole (see the next post) and yogurt or sour cream.

Quote on Vegetarianism

"I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being." --Abraham Lincoln

Mustard Soup with Vegetables

On a day when I was feeling chilly and grumpy, I thought of minestrone soup. I like the concept of soup with vegetables, beans, and pasta in it, but I wanted to do something different, more filling and more sinus-clearing. After all, this was going to be our entire dinner, so it had better be satisfying.

So I decided on vegetable soup with tortellini, all spiked with a significant dose of whole-grain mustard. With some buttered bread, it was a lovely, simple dinner. And, as with most of my recipes, it can be varied according to what you have in your fridge and cupboard.

Ingredients:
1 red onion
olive oil
3 carrots
5-6 purple spouting broccoli
2 vegetable stock cubes
1 litre water
2 tbsp whole-grain mustard
1 container cannellini beans
1 package cheese tortellini or 200 g spaghetti, broken in pieces
1 tbsp coriander or parsley
black pepper

Instructions:
1. Dice the onion and fry it in oil in a pot. Meanwhile, peel and chop the carrots into small pieces, and chop the broccoli.
2. Add the stock cubes to the pot and mush them up a bit.
3. Add the carrots and broccoli and stir for a minute, then add the water.
4. Bring the water to a boil and cook the vegetables for about 10 minutes.
5. Add the mustard, beans, and pasta, and cook as long as it says on the pasta package.
6. Season with herbs and pepper, then serve.

French Toast

Due to all the bread-and-butter pudding I’ve been making for my beloved lately, I’ve had more white bread around than is usually the case. So to use it up, I decided to make French toast for breakfast. I emailed a friend about my French toast, but I accidentally wrote “toes” instead of “toast.” I should point out that toes are definitely not vegetarian! However, French toast is, and it’s a great breakfast for a leisurely weekend morning. I like to serve it with sliced bananas or other fruit, and it can be topped with icing sugar or maple syrup or anything else you like.

Ingredients:
3 eggs
1 orange
seeds from ½ vanilla pod (or use vanilla extract or vanilla sugar)
½ cup flour
1 cup double cream (milk works fine too)
8 slices of white bread (the best type to use is challah, if you can get it, but any plain white bread will do)
butter
fruit to serve with it
sugar, icing sugar, cinnamon, honey, maple syrup, or other toppings, according to taste

Instructions:
1. Whisk the eggs. Grate the peel from the orange into the eggs, then add juice from half the orange. Save the other half to serve with the French toast or eat it as is.
2. Add the vanilla seeds, flour, and cream, and mix well, not allowing any lumps.
3. Dip the bread slices into the batter and fry them in butter until golden.
4. Serve with fruit and the toppings of your choice.

A Word on Measurements

I know I tend to use a variety of measurements in my recipes - sometimes cups, sometimes decilitres, sometimes grams, etc. This is due to me having lived in various countries and having acquired different measuring tools and different ways of thinking about amounts of ingredients. So I apologise for any confusion, but I heartily recommend Online Conversion for any conversion needs, especially in terms of cooking (but not in terms of religion!).

Spanokopita, or Spinach and Feta Pie

Spinach is my favourite vegetable, perhaps because my body craves iron. Whatever the reason, it was the obvious choice for my birthday dinner. Spinach and feta are a great combination and I like to make a hearty filling out of them that I wrap up in delicate filo (also spelled phyllo) dough, but puff pastry works fine too.

Ingredients:
1-2 onions, depending on how oniony you like it
2-3 cloves garlic, optional, also depending on taste
2-4 tbsp olive oil
2 eggs
2 cups feta cheese (or 1 cup feta plus 1 cup cottage cheese, if you want lower fat)
2 pounds spinach (if fresh, it should be washed carefully, and if frozen, it should be well thawed)
5-6 artichoke hearts in oil
handful of black olives
1 package phyllo dough

Instructions:

1. Chop the onion/s. Mince the garlic, if using it. Preheat the oven to 200 C.
2. Gently fry the onions in some of the olive oil until golden, then add the garlic, if using it. (This step can be skipped if you would prefer slightly crunchy and more strongly flavored onions in the pie.)
3. Beat the eggs lightly.
4. Crumble the feta. Mix the feta with the cottage cheese, if using it.
5. Blend the eggs, cheese/s, spinach, onion, and garlic in a mixing bowl. Chop the artichokes and olives and add them to the mixture.
6. Lightly oil a casserole dish. Line it with one sheet of phyllo, then brush that sheet with oil, and add another sheet on top.
7. Spread out some of the filling on top of the phyllo.
8. Place another sheet on top, then some more filling. Repeat until the filling is all used up and then cover it with another sheet of dough. Brush it lightly with olive oil (or beaten egg yolk, if you prefer) and tuck any excess edges in.
9. Bake the spanokopita for 30-50 minutes, checking after about 25 minutes to see how golden and ready it is.
10. Serve and enjoy!

Baking Powder Biscuits

I really love heavy, dark breads. But M isn’t so keen on them. Unfortunately, one day that’s all I had in the house, so I thought I’d better quickly make a lighter bread to go along with the meal. So I whipped up some baking powder biscuits, which I like because they are easy and yeast-free. They’re great served warm on their own with butter and honey, or with a soup or stew.

Ingredients:
2 ½ tbsp butter
1 cup flour
1½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
¼ cup milk
1 tsp honey or sugar or agave
black pepper


Instructions:
1. Let the butter soften, then mix it with the flour, baking powder, and salt, until the dough is crumbly.
2. Add milk, sweetener, and a little black pepper, and mix well.
3. Drop tablespoonfuls of the dough onto a baking tray. Bake at 220 C for 12 minutes.
4. Serve warm, preferably sliced in half and spread with butter.

Dark Chocolate Cheesecake

I remember regularly going to the Cheesecake Factory with my grandmother, who passed away some months ago, whenever I visited the city where she lived. She liked it there, in part because she felt she got good value for the money. This was because the portions were huge, and the same was true for the slices of their famous cheesecake. My grandma and I usually spent some time poring over the cheesecake menu, which must have had at least twenty different types, and then we spent even more time discussing which flavour to get. Grandma always claimed I was the one who would eat the cheesecake and thus I should pick the flavour, but I knew that what would happen would be that she would eat at least half of the slice, and usually more too. So I would insist she tell me which flavour she was in the mood for, and so we would argue in a friendly way back and forth, while the waiter kept returning to our table to find out if we had decided yet. As Grandma was merrily eating the cake, she would say how she never ate dessert and didn’t care for it and really she didn’t want any, and she would act as though I was forcing her to eat it. But she would smile and pile even more whipped cream onto her fork. It was all part of the routine. A routine I no longer can partake in, because my grandmother is gone.

A completely separate cheesecake memory is from a few years ago, when a friend from Taiwan was going to celebrate her first birthday in this country. She felt alone and far from home, so I helped plan a party for her, and I decided to make mini-cheesecakes for all the guests. I spent one long afternoon crushing biscuits and filling tiny cupcake moulds. My friend and the others, who were primarily from Taiwan and China, had never seen or even heard of cheesecake before, and the very idea seemed to repel them. But I encouraged them to try the cakes, and soon the whole room was moaning in pleasure.

A few days ago, M happened to mention liking cheesecake, and all these memories came flooding back. In my mind, I saw my friend, who cried from happiness at her party. And I saw my grandmother, and I remembered the way she used to gossip with me about our relatives, and I could picture her smiling at me and telling me that I was very important to her. So I made a cheesecake. I made it for M, of course, because I want to make her happy and food is one of my major ways of showing love, but I also made it for my friend, who got sick and had to give up her studies and return to Taiwan, and I made it for my grandma, too, who got a lot of pleasure out of food even while pretending not to. And I made it for me, just because.

Ingredients:
300 g digestive biscuits (you can also use a mixture of biscuit types, such as Oreos or gingerbread cookies; I used half digestive biscuits and half gingerbread)
130 g butter
5 tbsp cocoa
½ cup sugar
500 g cream cheese
seeds from 1 vanilla pod or 1 tsp vanilla extract
200 g dark chocolate
¾ cup double cream
3 eggs
1 tsp salt
raspberries or strawberries or nuts

Instructions:
1. Crush the biscuits. I do this by putting them in a sealable plastic bag and rolling a rolling pin over it.
2. Melt the butter and mix it with the crushed biscuits and 2 tbsp of the cocoa.
3. Put the biscuit mixture in the base and up the sides of a springform cake tin. Pre-bake the base for 8 minutes in the oven at 180 C.
4. Mix the sugar, cream cheese, and vanilla until fluffy. I use a hand mixer, but a large stand mixer works just as well.
5. Melt the chocolate with 2 tbsp of the cream over low heat, stirring frequently.
6. Mix the eggs into the cream cheese mixture, beating well.
7. Add the salt, the rest of the cocoa, and the melted chocolate, continuing to beat.
8. Pour the chocolate over the base.
9. Bake for 50 minutes at 140 C, checking after 40 minutes. The cake should be fairly firm.
10. When it has cooled a bit, top the cake with fruit and/or nuts. Serve.

Vegetable Curry

On a cold and rainy autumn night, I crave dishes like stews, soups, and curries. A curry is so easy to vary, so as long as you have the basics at home – curry paste, coconut milk, and rice – you can use whatever else you happen to have on hand. Basically, you stir-fry some fresh veg (or defrost frozen vegetables) with curry paste, add coconut milk, boil some rice, and then top the rice with the vegetables. It couldn’t be simpler.

Personally, I prefer whole-grain basmati rice, for its nutty taste and slightly chewy consistency; also, it’s healthier than white rice. I also prefer green curry, because it’s a little spicier, but red and yellow work well too. I always add extra chilli sauce to my dish, because M can’t handle the heat the way I can. I like food so spicy I cry. But do watch out for curry pastes that use fish sauce, because clearly that isn’t vegetarian.

On this recent evening, I used aubergine, courgette, fennel, and tomatoes for the vegetables, plus a container of chickpeas. I like using a lot of vegetables for the variety and so I have leftovers for lunch the next day. But on other occasions, I’ve used onion, peas, and carrots, and I often add tofu, too. Use your imagination!

Ingredients:
rice (50 g per person)
1 aubergine
1 courgette
1 fennel
oil
jar of curry paste
4 tomatoes
container of chickpeas
tin of coconut milk

Instructions:
1. Set the rice to boil.
2. Chop the vegetables and fry them all except the tomatoes in oil.
3. Add 2-3 tbsp curry paste and continue cooking for 5-10 minutes.
4. Add the chickpeas and more curry paste, then cook a few more minutes.
5. Add the coconut milk and warm. Add more curry paste to taste.
6. Serve the vegetable curry over rice.

Pasta with Vegetables, Ricotta, and Lemon

I love the taste of ricotta cheese and lemon together. I’ve had delicious ricotta and lemon pancakes for breakfast, but I wanted to do something with the combination for dinner instead. So I decided to make a savoury pasta sauce

The flavour of lemon is very spring-like, so I wanted green vegetables with it. Courgette and artichoke hearts called out to me, but when I make this again, I’d use peas as well. A couple of handfuls of cherry tomatoes added a nice juiciness and a sprinkle of red colour too. It was a taste of spring during days that are now rainy, gray, and autumnal.

Ingredients:
whole-wheat pasta
1 courgette
olive oil
artichoke hearts in oil
1 lemon
250 g ricotta
1 dl single cream
2 handfuls cherry tomatoes (about 15)
30 g pine nuts
black pepper
salt

Instructions:
1. Set the pasta to boil.
2. Slice the courgette and fry it in the olive oil until browned. Add 5-6 artichoke hearts.
3. Add grated lemon peel, the ricotta, and the cream. Cook over medium heat for 5 or so minutes.
4. Add the tomatoes, pine nuts, and juice from the lemon. Cook for another few minutes.
5. Drain the pasta and mix it with the sauce. Season with pepper, salt, and more lemon juice, as desired.

Parsnip and Pear Salad

Like a lot of food-lovers, I’m a recipe slut, and I’ll look for inspiration for new dishes anywhere, any time. This includes reading through the magazines and brochures that you can pick up at grocery stores and which generally seemed to be meant to sell the store’s products, plus are aimed at carnivores.

A few weeks ago, I picked one up and amidst all the advertisements for the store’s ready-prepared vegetable mixes and ready-made meals, I found a couple of potential recipes I could play with. One was for a salad of parsnips, chestnuts, pears, and walnuts.

Yes, pears and walnuts are a really good combination, but my girlfriend is allergic to walnuts, and a bit wary of other nuts as well. And I personally am ambivalent about chestnuts, and wasn’t eager to spend time roasting and peeling them. So as one often does with published recipes, I took the basic idea and adapted it to better suit our tastes.

The visual side of things isn’t usually my strong suit, but I placed alternating parsnip and pear slices in a sort of spiral on the plate, topped with crumbled blue cheese, and it didn’t look too bad. Also, I thought it tasted pretty good, although I served it after the parsnips and pears had cooled down, and next time I think it would better warm, possibly with a handful of pine nuts sprinkled on top as well.

Ingredients:
2 parsnips
olive oil
2 pears
butter
2 tsp sugar
baby spinach leaves or endive
stilton or other blue cheese
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 tsp mustard
1 splash lemon juice
black pepper

Instructions:
1. Peel the parsnips and slice them into quarters or eighths lengthwise, depending on how thick they are.
2. Toss with oil and roast them for about 25 minutes at 200 C.
3. Quarter and de-seed the pears and then fry them in butter and sugar until softened and lightly browned, about 8-10 minutes.
4. Place the spinach on the plates and top with the parsnip and pear pieces.
5. Crumble the blue cheese over the parsnips and pears.
6. Mix the olive oil, vinegar, mustard, lemon juice, and black pepper into a dressing and dress the salad.

Vegetarian Starter Kit

If you’re thinking about becoming a vegetarian or if you just want more information on being a vegetarian, you might find this vegetarian starter kit helpful.

Leek Soup

Still feeling under the weather, I long for soups. The other day, my grocery store was having a sale on local leeks that had been extra trimmed, which meant that I could be a lazy locavore, as not much work was required to get the leeks cleaned for usage. Leeks have a milder taste than onions and don’t make me cry when I cut them, so they’re good to use, even if the many layers to their peel can contain a lot of dirt. And that’s where the extra trimmed type comes in handy, because much of the cleaning has already been done.

While the soup was warming on the stove, M had the idea of toasting crumpets and lightly spreading them with butter and marmite. The salty, yeasty taste on the doughy bread was quite pleasant, and I loved dipping bits of my marmite-covered crumpet into the soup.

Ingredients:
3 leeks
1-2 onions
1-2 garlic cloves
olive oil
1 tbsp sugar
1 vegetable stock cube
500 ml water
100 ml single cream
black pepper

Instructions:
1. Wash and chop the leeks. Dice the onions and garlic.
2. Cook the leeks, onions, and garlic in olive oil in a large pot for about 10 minutes.
3. Add sugar and the crumbled stock cube and cook for another 5 minutes.
4. Add the water and boil.
5. Mix with a hand mixer until mostly smooth. It looks nice if you leave a few pieces in.
6. Add the cream, stir, and cook another 5-10 minutes over low heat.
7. Season with black pepper and serve with bread.

Butternut Squash with Puy Lentils and Goat Cheese

Puy lentils are the caviar of lentils. They are small and delicate, have a fuller flavour than other kinds of lentils, and retain their firm shape even when cooked for quite a while. M isn’t terribly fond of lentils, but I am, and I thought I’d make her a dish with puy lentils to see if she liked this type any better.

So I cooked the lentils for 20 minutes in boiling water and at the same time, I baked a butternut squash in the oven. I added cream to both the lentils and the squash, and served it all with goat’s milk cheese. The squash’s sweetness, the faint peppery flavour of the lentils, and the sourness of the cheese all combined to make a hearty vegetarian main course.

M still isn’t a big lentil fan, but she said she’d eat this dish again. And that’s a good start!

Ingredients:
1 medium butternut squash
200 g puy lentils
water for boiling
150 ml cream (single or double; it depends on how rich you want it)
honey or agave
100 g goat’s milk cheese
salt, pepper, parsley to taste

Instructions:
1. Bake the squash for 20 minutes at 200 C. Then cut it in half and de-seed it (save the seeds to roast later, if you want), and bake for another 20 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, boil the lentils for about 15 minutes, until they are cooked but still firm. Pour out any excess water.
3. Add half the cream to the lentils and the rest to the squash. Make sure it doesn’t run off the squash.
4. Sprinkle the squash halves with a little honey or agave, to bring out the natural sweetness. Bake for another 5-10 minutes, until fully cooked. Continue cooking the lentils over low heat at the same time.
5. Serve the squash halves with piles of lentils that have been topped with crumbled cheese. Season with salt, pepper, and parsley to taste.

Cauliflower Cheese

As usual, if M mentions something she likes, I endeavour to make it. Nothing’s too hard when it comes to trying to please my sweetie!

The most recent thing was cauliflower cheese. Before I moved to the UK, I’d had a dish called cauliflower gratin and it was basically cauliflower cooked in a floury sauce. Nothing special, I thought. But I did some research and found that cauliflower cheese is a well-loved dish in the UK, and that it should have a rich, creamy sauce, not one that was mostly flour and breadcrumbs.

The recipes I found all called for milk; I thought I’d make the dish even richer by using half milk and half cream. Frankly, it was too rich for me, although M liked it! Next time, I’d use less cream and more milk (as in the recipe I’ve given below), and I’d break up some of the creaminess by adding mustard. or perhaps some chilli. I might also use half broccoli and half cauliflower, to give the dish some colour.

I served it with the quinoa salad I posted yesterday, and the two dishes were great together, because the quinoa provided a heartier bite amidst all the luscious cream in the cauliflower cheese.

Ingredients:
1 medium cauliflower
50 g butter
¼ cup flour
½ cup cream
2 cups milk
100 g cheddar cheese, or other mature cheese, grated or chopped
1 tsp parsley
black pepper

Instructions:
1. Wash the cauliflower and then boil it for about 10 minutes. Break it into florets.
2. Melt the butter in a saucepan and add the flour. Stir until mixed.
3. Add the milk and cream. Stir.
4. Add most of the cheese and stir until it is a thick sauce.
5. Season with parsley and pepper.
6. Place the cauliflower in one layer at the bottom of an oven-safe dish. Pour the sauce over it.
7. Top with the rest of the cheese.
8. Bake for 30 minutes at 200.

Quinoa Salad with Pine Nuts and Goat’s Milk Cheese

I really like quinoa, but my usual recipe is to cook some, mix it with lentils, spices, and thick Greek yogurt. That’s tasty, but sometimes you need to change it up. So I thought it was time to try something new. I read a tabbouleh recipe in a vegetarian magazine and that inspired me. Tabbouleh is the Middle Eastern salad made of bulgur, parsley, and tomatoes. I figured I could make a sort of tabbouleh with quinoa rather than the bulgur, and since I didn’t have tomatoes, I decided to use pine nuts and goat’s milk cheese, which made for a more filling salad as well. Quinoa is a complete protein, so it’s one of the best grains to eat, whether you’re vegetarian or not. And the salad is great the next day, too.

Ingredients:
250 g quinoa
1 onion
olive oil
1 tsp sugar
50 g pine nuts
2 tsp parsley
75 g goat’s milk cheese

Instructions:
1. Boil the quinoa.
2. Dice the onion and fry it in the olive oil. Add the sugar to carmelise it (this is not necessary, but I prefer the taste this way).
3. Add the pine nuts and toast them in the pan for a minute or two.
4. Add the quinoa and stir.
5. Add the parsley.
6. Remove from the heat and add the cheese after the salad has cooled down.
7. Serve lukewarm or cold.

Pasta with Halloumi

I like simple, healthy meals that I can make fairly quickly after work. It couldn’t be easier than whole-wheat pasta with vegetables, especially if you use frozen veg that you cook together with the pasta, but such a dish can be changed up a bit. Recently, I fried up some halloumi in a minty oil and served that over our pasta, so we had a lovely green and cream dish with plenty of vegetables and some cheesey protein too. This dish is easily varied according to whatever fresh or frozen vegetables you have around.

Ingredients:
whole-wheat pasta (about 300 g for 2 people, including some leftovers for lunch the next day)
200 g frozen peas
200 g frozen broccoli
200 g frozen spinach
olive oil
2 tsp dried mint
1 package halloumi cheese
salt, pepper, and mint to taste

Instructions:
1. Boil the pasta with the peas and broccoli.
2. Put the spinach in a frying pan with olive oil and cook it until it defrosts.
3. Move the spinach to the sides of the pan and add the mint and a little bit more oil.
4. Slice the halloumi and fry it in the minty oil.
5. Drain the pasta and veg.
6. Divide the pasta and vegetables amongst bowls and top with spinach and halloumi.
7. Season with salt, pepper, and more mint.

Strapatsada, or Eggs with Tomatoes

Yesterday both M and I woke up feeling ill. I’ve been sick for the past couple of weeks, and I must have passed it on to my sweetie.

Being sick requires serious comfort food, I think, so as we were beginning to consider breakfast options, I remembered a recipe I’d seen in Jamie Oliver’s Jamie magazine last week. It was for a dish called strapatsada, and Jamie expressed surprise that there good be a good breakfast dish without bacon.

Jamie’s version called for tomatoes stewed in olive oil for 30 minutes and then scrambled with eggs and oregano. I’m not a fan of oregano, so I replaced it with parsley, and I also wanted something that would be ready a bit quicker, so I skipped the long cooking time. Jamie’s recipe suggested 2 garlic cloves, but since I like garlicky flavours, I upped it to 3 and also added 2 onions. And to add an extra bit of comfort, I used some single cream as well.

I served it with bread that had been toasted with brie on it, which make it pleasantly gooey. M and I thought it was a tasty, soothing breakfast. Just the way breakfast should be!

Ingredients:
2 onions
3 garlic cloves
olive oil
½ tbsp sugar
6 tomatoes
5 eggs
¼ cup single cream
1 tsp parsley (or oregano, if you prefer; dried, frozen or fresh, but use more if you use fresh)
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:
1. Chop the onions and garlic.
2. Fry the onions and garlic until soft in the olive oil in a frying pan. After a few minutes, add the sugar and stir.
3. Chop the tomatoes into segments and add to the pan. Cook for about 10 minutes, stirring regularly.
4. Beat the eggs and cream.
5. Add the eggs to the pan.
6. Add the herbs, unless you are using frozen, in which case add them in step 2.
7. Season with salt and pepper.
8. Serve with grilled cheese or buttered toast.

Comfort Food: Poached Eggs and Marmalade

I’ve been ill lately and that’s when I most long for simple comfort food. I know it sounds like an odd combination, but poached eggs with orange marmalade is really soothing, plus it’s soft to eat, and gentle on the tummy.

I like lightly poached eggs, so that they run when I stick my fork in them. While they’re poaching, I toast crumpets or bread. While I generally prefer whole-meal bread with seeds, when you’re ill, lighter bread is easier on the stomach. I butter the toast liberally and then add a thick layer of a good marmalade, one with plenty of peel. Top with the eggs, and there you have it.

It’s even better if you have a caring nurse who will make it for you and bring it to you in bed!

Vegetarians Do It Better

Do vegetarians make better lovers? According to this post and similar commentaries, vegetarians are generally healthier, so have more stamina and energy, plus tend to be in better shape, which can mean that they more attractive. Vegetarians are also known to generally smell better than people who eat meat, and no one wants to sleep with someone stinky.

Whether vegetarians are less affected by impotence isn’t of much interest to lesbians, however (I could point out that thanks to the wonders of silicone strap-ons, lesbians are never impotent, but I’m not that vulgar…oh, wait, I clearly am!).

There’s also the issue of how some people find ethics sexy, and if you’re the type of person who doesn’t relish the thought of killing other living creatures, then you might be turned on by a vegetarian.

So do vegetarians do it better? Well, possibly. You’d have to get my girlfriend’s opinion, but maybe I’m better off not asking her to comment!

Still, the general point is a good one. Looks, health, and values are all undeniably important, and if vegetarians rank a bit higher there, then perhaps in some ways, vegetarians do actually do it better.

Pasta with Orange Cream Sauce

About a month ago, I decided to try an Italian recipe that I’d seen in a magazine. It looked really heavy but luxurious, and I thought it could be a nice treat. It was pasta with fish in an orange cream sauce and I thought that the combination of orange and cream would be something different. Obviously, I left off the fish, and instead I used vegetables, which also served to break up the heaviness a bit. The final product looked lovely on the plate: pasta in a creamy sauce, with spring green scattered amongst it, all sprinkled with bits of orange peel. The orange flavour was unexpected and was a nice change from lemon and vegetable, which is more usual.

Ingredients:
500 g pasta (penne looks nice in this dish, and I always use whole wheat)
200 g green vegetables (peas are perfect, and you can also use fresh spinach, or broccoli florets)
1 cup double cream (heavy cream for you Americans)
1 orange
fresh parsley
freshly ground black pepper

Instructions:

1. Boil the pasta according to the instructions on the package.
2. To save on washing up, I boil the vegetables with the pasta. At them to the pot when there are about 5 minutes to go for the pasta.
3. Meanwhile, gently warm the cream and grate the orange peel.
4. Add the peel to the cream and then add the juice from the orange.
5. Drain the pasta and vegetables and mix this with the cream sauce.
6. Sprinkle with finely chopped parsley and black pepper.

Lemon and Agave Drink

I sleep really poorly, so I've been trying to cut down on caffeinated drinks. Instead, I've been drinking warm water with agave (which is a natural sweetener) and lemon. It's really soothing and tasty, and it warms me from the inside out the way coffee or tea would. M often makes it for me in the morning and brings it to me in bed!

You can use honey instead of the agave, but I'm slightly allergic, so I mostly avoid honey. Agave comes in light or dark versions and they have slightly different flavours, so experiment to see what you like, and what proportions work best for you.

Ingredients:
water
1 Tbs lemon juice
2 tsp agave (or honey)

Instructions:

1. Boil water.
2. Add the lemon juice and agave.
3. Mix and drink.

Couldn't be easier!

Vegetable and Coconut Stir-Fry

The other night, I wanted to use up a variety of odds and ends before embarking on shopping for some new recipes. So I made a vegetable and coconut stir-fry. M and I ate it from bowls while sitting in a cuddly fashion on the couch, and we had another bread and butter pudding afterwards. Plus I made so much that I had leftovers for lunch the next day.

Basically, I stir-fried red onion, tender-stem broccoli, pak choi, red chilli, and haricot together. Then I added fresh rice noodles and stir-fried some more. After that, I poured in a tin of light coconut milk, and I seasoned it all with leftover red pesto. It sounds odd, combining coconut milk, which we associate with Thailand, with Italian pesto, but it actually worked together. Curry paste or black bean sauce would have worked just as well. So this is a simple, healthy, quick meal to make that can be varied according to taste and according to what you've got around.

Ingredients:
about 400 g of mixed vegetables (onions, spinach or pak choi, broccoli, and cubes of squash are good choices)
oil
300 g fresh rice noodles
1 tin light coconut milk
3-4 Tbs pesto (or curry paste, or 1-2 Tbs black bean sauce)

Instructions:

1. Chop the vegetables into cubes or dice them, as appropriate.
2. Heat the oil and add the veg. Stir fry for 5-10 minutes, depending on what type of veg you're using.
3. Add the noodles and stir fry for another 5 minutes.
4. Pour in the coconut milk and let the whole thing cook for another 5 or so minutes, until the milk has warmed.
5. Add the sauce and stir well.
6. Serve.

Cornmeal Pancakes

One of my favourite memories from childhood is eating my mother’s cornmeal pancakes. She would make these on Sunday morning and serve a thick stack each to me and my father. We’d cover them in maple syrup, and my parents would have bacon too, so we could just feel this heavy meal settling in our tummies and weighing us down. You want to sleep after eating these pancakes, not get up and do something active.

Which is why I decided to make them on a recent Friday night, after M and I had been to the gym. We’d both worked full days and we’d done our exercise, and now we just wanted to relax, have dinner, and hang out a little before bed. I made my pancakes a bit thinner than my mother’s and served fewer of them, and I served them with raspberries and slices of banana, so at least we were getting some fruit too. We covered them with agave, rather than maple syrup, which I find too sweet. M liked them so much that I made them again a few days later, served with raspberries and slices of pear.

Ingredients:
1 cup polenta/cornmeal
1 cup hot water
1 Tbs sugar
1 cup flour (use a bit less to make them thinner or a bit more to make them thicker)
.5 tsp baking powder
pinch salt
1 egg
.5 cup milk (you can also use cream or soy milk)
oil or butter for frying
fruit to serve with the pancakes
maple syrup or agave to serve with the pancakes

Instructions:

1. Put the polenta/cornmeal (what you call it depends on where you’re from) in a bowl and add the water. Leave this to sit for 10-15 minutes, until the water is all absorbed.
2. Meanwhile, mix the sugar, flour, baking powder, and salt.
3. Add the dry ingredients to the cornmeal and mix.
4. Beat the egg and add it. Then add the milk.
5. Melt butter or warm oil in a frying pan.
6. Spoon the batter into the pan. It will be thick. You might want to press out any larger lumps. Fry on both sides until golden brown and a bit crispy. This takes just a couple of minutes.
7. Serve with fruit and syrup or agave.

Quote on Vegetarianism

"Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet." --Albert Einstein

Chocolate Malt Cake

My girlfriend mentioned in passing that she’d once had a fantastic malt cake that tasted just like Maltesers (known as Whoppers to you Americans). It’s been years since I had those kinds of candies, but as soon as she said it, I could practically taste it. And, of course, I decided that if it was something she liked, I wanted to make it. Do you notice a theme here? If M likes something, I want to make sure she has it; it must be love!

So last week I looked up various recipes on the internet, but from what I could tell, they didn’t have enough malt to make a really malty cake. And they seemed overly sweet. Plus, I also wanted it to be a moist cake, one that would last a few days, because I knew that the two of us would take a while to eat it. And in fact, I got sick with the flu the day after I made it, and M ate the cake on her own, over the course of a week. So here is what I came up with:

Ingredients for the cake:
115 g butter, plus butter for the pan
1 cup sugar
1.5 cup malt powder (I used Horlick’s, the name of which always amuses me)
.75 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, plus extra for the pan
4 eggs
2 cups flour
3 tsp baking powder
.5 tsp salt
1.75 cup soy milk (milk or cream could be used here, but I happened to have soy milk already open in the fridge)

Ingredients for the frosting:
50 g butter
.5 cup double cream (the frosting should be rich, so I used double cream, though single cream or milk or soy milk could be used too)
.75 cup malt powder
.5 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 cups icing sugar

Instructions:

1. Melt the butter and mix with the sugar, malt, and cocoa.
2. Beat the eggs and when the mixture is cool, add the eggs.
3. Mix the flour, baking powder, and salt. Add it to the liquid mixture.
4. Add the milk and blend well.
5. Grease a cake pan with butter and “flour” it with cocoa.
6. Pour the batter into the pan and bake for 30-45 minutes at 180 C, checking after 30 minutes to see if the cake is ready.
7. While the cake cools, make the frosting. Melt the butter, and add the other ingredients to it.
8. Mix the ingredients together well, so the malt and cocoa are no longer grainy.
9. When the cake is cool, frost it and serve.

A Woman's Place

Why are home cooks mostly women and professional chefs mostly men? Why is cooking for one’s loved ones still considered to be such a feminine activity, while cooking for money is masculine? Why is one deserving of respect whereas the other one is simply expected?

I certainly have no pretensions of being an amazing cook and I have no desire to cook professionally, but I do consider my cooking and baking to be more than a hobby or something I’m supposed to do, because I’m female. It’s a creative outlet, combined with a way of showing people that I care for them. Feeding someone is the most basic thing you can do for another person, and it means you are keeping that person alive, nurturing and nourishing at the same time. But we don’t respect this, unless it’s done under the auspices of an event, by which I mean a gourmet meal in a restaurant. And in that case, it’s almost always prepared by a man, who is considered an artiste.

The one thing I ever remember my father making for me was a sandwich. On Saturdays, when my mother was at work, he sometimes made me a warm sandwich – meat, cheese, lettuce, tomato, and mayo all stuffed between two slices of bread and warmed in the microwave until the lettuce was wilted and the cheese melted. All these years later, that dish still sticks with me. And meanwhile, my mother cooked for me every day. She made me breakfast, packed my lunches for school, and cooked a nutritious, if meat-heavy, meal every evening. I could name some of her dishes, but they don’t really say as much about her as that sandwich does about my father. Because my mother was the woman, and she was supposed to feed her family. All my father had to do was bring home the bacon in a metaphorical sense, not cook it (I am not sure he’d even know how). So the fact that once in awhile he entered my mother’s zone and made me a sandwich is memorable. And this seems awfully unfair to me, but it’s still the way things are to a great extent.

So here I am, doing what’s expected of me, making meals for my loved ones. Am I just being a typical female? Have I been tricked into thinking I like to spend time in the kitchen? Well, no, I’d like to think not. Obviously, I have to cook, in order to survive, but I choose to cook tasty, healthy meals that might require a bit more time and effort. And, perhaps more importantly, I choose to make meals for other people. I do this to show them that they matter to me. And to take care of them. And sometimes I do it to show off my creativity too. It’s not only men who know how to combine ingredients in new and unexpected ways; women can and do have fun with food too. And we deserve respect for that.

Maybe I should start charging people who come for dinner at my place!

Broccoli and Spinach with Raisins and Pine Nuts

As much as one might like to live off dessert, you do need actual food as well. So a few hours after the bread and butter pudding snack, I thought we should have a light dinner. I had all those raisins left, so I wanted to do something with them, and when I’d been at the grocery store, I’d been tempted by tender-stem broccoli, which you don’t see all that often. M and I both love spinach, so I’d gotten a package of fresh baby leaves too. Thus a recipe for slightly sweet greens began to take shape, inspired by a dish I saw in a magazine of spinach and pine nuts.

I don’t think M was totally convinced by this dish, but I liked the balance of flavours, the sweetness of the raisins with the veggies, all topped with piney tones. Maybe it’s worth pointing out that the recipe includes several flatulence-inducing ingredients, so you might want to be careful about who you serve it to and when, but then again, you can vary it with other ingredients if you prefer (or if necessary!). The recipe can be easily doubled to serve as a side dish for more people or as a larger meal. I just made a small amount, as we weren’t particularly hungry.

Ingredients:
.25 cup raisins (or half a handful)
1 onion
2 garlic cloves
olive oil
200 g spinach
6-8 tender-stem broccoli
30 g pine nuts
freshly ground black pepper

Instructions:

1. Boil some water and soak the raisins in it for 5-10 minutes, until they get plump.
2. Finely chop the onion and garlic.
3. Fry the onion and garlic in a pan in olive oil.
4. Wilt the spinach by putting it in a Teflon or similar pot, with the lid on, over medium heat. Do not add any water. It takes just a few minutes, so keep an eye on it.
5. Chop the broccoli.
6. Add the spinach and the broccoli to the pan with the onion and garlic.
7. After a few minutes, add the drained raisins and the pine nuts. Stir and cook for another 5-10 minutes.
8. Season with pepper and serve.

Bread and Butter Pudding

I’ll confess that I’m not much a sweet-eater myself. But that works out well, because I love to bake, and this way I’m not tempted to eat everything I make. Instead, I can give it away to others.

I was skimming through a food magazine when M caught sight of a picture in it. “Mmmm,” she moaned. Wondering what pleased my girlfriend so much, I looked. It was a recipe for bread and butter pudding.

I’ve actually never made that before, and when I went to the store to get the ingredients, I was rather embarrassed to be seen buying white bread. I’m a whole-wheat-and-seeded type, which perhaps makes sense given my vegetarian ways and my health-consciousness. But I figured I was buying this white bread to make something nice for M, and that was okay. Although I did put one of those heavy-duty loaves of organic rye bread in my shopping trolley as well, just to feel a bit better about it.

I changed the recipe in the magazine quite a bit. It called for nutmeg and whole milk, neither of which I like, and I added raisins and cinnamon. I also baked it for less time than was called for, and that turned out to be a good thing, because when I served it to M, she said she liked the soggy pieces underneath best. I liked the crunchy pieces on top, so that shows that at the very least, M and I are suited to eating bread and butter pudding together.

This was a soothing treat for a rainy, chilly afternoon. It was great to be able to turn the oven on when M came home and to have the flat get suffused with the smell of vanilla and cinnamon. Even if I did keep thinking about the breadandbutterfly in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There!

Ingredients:
butter
.25-.5 cup raisins (or a hefty handful)
6 slices of white bread (apparently stale works well)
35 g sugar (since I don’t like weighing ingredients, this is about 1/8 of a cup)
1 whole egg and 1 yolk (if you double this recipe, use 1 whole egg and 3 yolks, for an extra-rich custard)
1 vanilla pod
300 ml double cream
cinnamon
raw/demerara sugar

Instructions:

1. Butter the pan.
2. Boil some water and soak the raisins in it for 5-10 minutes, so they get plump.
3. Cut the crusts off the bread and butter the slices. Then slice each piece on the diagonal, so you have 12 triangles.
4. Layer the bread in the pan in two rows, with the points facing towards the top, and place drained raisins in between the layers. Sprinkle any remaining raisins over the bread, but remember that they might get burned during baking.
5. Beat the eggs with the sugar in a mixing bowl and set aside.
6. Split the vanilla pod and place it in a pot along with the double cream. Warm the cream over a medium flame, without letting it boil.
7. Remove the vanilla pod, scraping out the seeds as you do so, putting them in the warm cream. Save the vanilla pod for another use, such as making vanilla sugar.
8. Slowly pour the cream into the egg mixture, whisking the entire time.
9. Pour the custard over the bread. Leave this to stand for 15-30 minutes, so the bread really soaks up the custard.
10. Sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on top.
11. Bake for 25-35 minutes at 180 C. Check after 25 minutes and if you want a crunchier topping, bake for longer.
12. Serve, but be careful because the raisins will be very hot and could burn you.

A Soothing Meal - Butternut Squash and Pesto Penne

My stomach hasn't been feeling well lately, probably due to stress at work. So I haven't felt much like cooking or eating. But I was feeling weak, and so last night I wanted to make a proper meal.

I had a butternt squash in the fridge. I'd planned to roast it with agave nectar and cream, but that didn't seem like a wise move under the circumstances. So I baked it for about 10 minutes at 200 C to soften it, and then M, who often serves as my sous chef extraordinaire, peeled and chopped it into 1 cm pieces. Then I put it back in the oven for another 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, M chopped an onion, and I carmelised it in a pan with olive oil and agave. I love using agave for cooking; it's not as sweet as sugar or honey, and it has a lower GI index, for those who are concerned about such things.

I put the dried whole-wheat penne in with it for a couple of minutes, so it would pick up some of the sweet, oniony flavour. I poured boiling water over it and let the penne boil for 10 minutes, until it was nicely al dente.

I drained the penne and onion, added two containers of chopped tomatoes, warmed it all up. I added the squash, some yogurt, and a couple of heaping tablespoons of red pesto.

And dinner was served. It soothed my stomach and filled us both up.

Ingredients:
1 butternut squash
1 onion
1 Tbs olive oil
2 tsp agave (or honey or sugar)
2 servings of pasta (see the bag/box for the right amount -- I often make double to amount so M and I both have leftovers for lunch the next day; also, whole-wheat is healthier and tastier)
400-800 grams chopped tomatoes, or 1-2 tins (depending how tomatoey you like it)
3 Tbs Greek-style yogurt
2-3 Tbs red pesto

Instructions
1. Chop and peel the squash (or bake it first to soften it, then chop and peel it).
2. Roast the squash pieces for 15 min at 200 C.
3. Chop the onion.
4. Carmelise the onion in olive oil and agave.
5. Add the pasta to the pan and coat it with the onion and oil, and let it toast for a couple of minutes, stirring constantly.
6. Add boiling water and boil for 10-12 minutes, until al dente.
7. Drain.
8. Add the tomatoes and warm.
9. Add the yogurt, pesto, and squash pieces.
10. Mix well and warm.
11. Serve and enjoy.

How I Met My Girlfriend

I'd only been living in this city for a few months when I met the woman who is now my girlfriend at a party. I was working 70 or more hours a week at a very stressful job, living in a half-furnished flat, and my previous girlfriend had dumped me completely out of the blue the week before.

It was not the best of times.

So there I was, sitting on a couch at a party consisting of lesbians and bisexual women, chatting away to a colleague/friend, when I noticed a cute dykey sort across the room. Towards the end of the party, I got a chance to talk to her. I'll call her M on the blog. M and I spoke for a few minutes; it was the day before Valentine's Day, and we said something about the crassness and commercialisation of the holiday. I was giving a public lecture a few days later and I invited her to come along.

Later, she tweeted that she thought I was lovely but frighteningly intelligent. And that started off a months-long volley of flirtatious comments via Twitter. I wonder how much modern technology influences relationships today.

So she came to my talk, and to the pub after, and then we stood chatting in the car park. She didn't say all that much, so it's more correct if I say that we stood there, on that cold February evening, and I chatted while she listened. When we said good-bye and I was driving home, I thought, "M must think I talk too much. I don't like she liked me at all." A small part of me thought, "But did you see how she looked at you?" I dismissed that thought, and I told myself that I had better not dare to get interested, because I was just newly single again, and it didn't seem likely that this woman would go for me anyhow.

A week and a half later, I had some furniture delivered. Not being much of a DIY dyke, I struggled for a very long time trying to put a coffee table together, and I finally gave up. In my defense, I should point out that at least I figured out how to put the pillows correctly onto the sofa.

I mentioned all this to M, who then told me how good she was with tools, and she offered to come over and help. We met up at the local grocery store, because my place is a bit difficult to find and also, I figured we could shop together and I could cook her something for dinner to thank her for her help. In the store, I thought she was annoyed with me, because she wouldn't tell me what she wanted to eat. It turned out, however, that she doesn't really enjoy the process of thinking about food and cooking as much as I do, but I didn't know that then.

Back at my flat, M got out her tools, and I got out mine. She went to work on the coffee table and I started to make dinner. The coffee table was put together in less than five minutes. Dinner took a bit longer and it was not my greatest dish (pasta with broccoli and tomato sauce). That's because I was distracted. M looked so cute, so focused, while she was screwing the legs to the top of the table. And the whole situation made me smile, too, because it felt very butch/femme. I was the femme, cooking dinner while the butch was doing DIY. At least I wasn't wearing a dress, apron, and heels.

Later, I "helped" put the sofa bed together, but that was very difficult for me because she was bending over and I could see down her shirt. It was a nice view. A tempting view.

When everything was done, we lay down on the sofa bed together. It was quite comfortable, but I felt strange. I was exhausted from the stress of the past weeks and months and my heart was racing at the same time.

M left soon after, in something of a rush, and I still wondered, "Does she even like me as a friend?"

So I first cooked for her about two weeks after we met. The evening was memorable, even if the meal itself wasn't.

Welcome!

Welcome to my new blog, where I'll post about all things vegetarian and queer, including lots of recipes.

I'm a thirty-something woman living in England. I'm a vegetarian and I love cooking and baking, especially for my appreciative, albeit carnivorous, girlfriend. I decided to start a blog about the things I'm making because recently I decided to challenge myself to make at least one new dish per week, and I want to share my experiences with others.

Hope you find some food for thought here! Thanks for reading!