What Rachel Ate

Chocolate and hazelnut cookies

January 25th, 2010

These chocolate cookies from Nigel Slater are ludicrously easy to make and after demolishing one too many I realise, ludicrously moreish. The reason for this struck me this morning, its because they taste like brownies in cookies form. Was there ever a better combination?

So why not just make brownies? Well, apart from the obvious, these are much easier to make than brownies are there’s no pressure to get the cooking time just so to ensure perfectly squidgy brownies without drying out the edges. Here you want slightly crisp edges and fudgy centres.

I love the oily sweetness of hazelnuts, and next time will probably up the amount a little bit to make them more nutty. I’m sure other nuts would work just as well too. How about macadamia nuts or walnuts?
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Tags: chocolate, hazelnut
Posted in Sweet things | 1 Comment »

Afternoon tea

January 24th, 2010

During my time in Oxford, afternoon tea was a regular fixture. It had to be at The Rose, a delightful cafe with proper leaf tea, homemade scones and plenty of clotted cream. We often went for lunch, they do outrageous club sandwiches, and squeezed in a scone or two afterwards.

These days, we rarely go out for dinner. Especially since January, in an attempt to reign in the spending, we’ve responded to most invitations to go out for drinks with an invitation to have dinner at ours instead. To mix things up a little, we’ve had pizza nights (utilising the new pizza stone) and Scrabble nights (utilising the new games selection) and this weekend I did afternoon tea.

Tags: sandwich, Sweet things
Posted in Sweet things | 1 Comment »

Slow cooked pork and beans

January 14th, 2010

This recipe for slow cooked pork and beans is meltingly tender pork with beans and a rich and thick sauce. Serious winter comfort food without being too unhealthy, or expensive as you bulk the stew out with beans and use a cheap as chips cut of pork. (If you can’t get ham hock, as we couldn’t, any other cut of pork suitable for slow cooking would be good. We used pork shoulder.) It’s also perfect for Sunday cooking, by which I mean you can leisurely put it together on a Sunday afternoon and leave it to putter away for a few hours while you read the paper. You could eat it that night, or even better the next day when the flavours have really developed.
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Tags: pork, stew
Posted in Bean and pulse recipes, Dinner recipes, Stew recipes | 4 Comments »

Kale, hazelnut and red rice salad

December 22nd, 2009

I’m busy organising and planning when to bake various homemade christmas presents. This year it’s going to be Baileys and white chocolate fudge, brownies and biscotti. Our homemade liqueurs are busy steeping and the apple chutney has been ripening for months.

In between feeling smug about the above, eating lots of roast beef and drinking too much, I’ve been trying to shoehorn something healthy into my mouth to stave off any Christmas colds and generally lift my spirits. I threw this salad together in minutes, admittedly with pre-cooked rice, but you could use couscous for something equally quick.

Stir-fried kale with plenty of garlic, chopped hazelnuts, quinoa, red rice and an orange zest dressing. The rich, oily hazelnuts and zesty orange make this the perfect way to eat kale. We scoffed it as is for a quick snack, but feel free to pair it with the protein of your choice.
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Tags: hazelnut, kale, orange, quinoa, rice
Posted in Salad recipes | No Comments »

Sourdough

December 9th, 2009

As you’ve probably noticed we love making bread and (usually) bake a loaf every week. Getting a proper sourdough starter going has long been on my foodie list of things to do. It seems almost magical to be able to make a loaf of bread from just flour and water.

To make make proper sourdough, you need a starter, which is a mixture of flour and water filled with wild yeast and bacteria. You make the bread dough from this starter, keeping a portion back to from the starter of the next loaf. As long as you keep the starter fed, it can live for centuries – a thriving colony of microorganisms.

The starter can be used to make any type of bread, we’ve used ours very successfully to make potato bread (more later) and even pizza. The pizzas were inspired by the fabulous Franco Manca. At its simplest though, a plain white sourdough loaf is still a thing of beauty, with its characteristic sour tang and chewy crust.
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Tags: bread
Posted in Bread recipes | 2 Comments »

Barley and chickpea salad

December 5th, 2009

With the onset of December comes the beginning of the party season. After a week of over-indulgence, I needed something healthy and fortifying, yet filling enough to stop me reaching for a bacon sandwich. This salad is all about the combination of textures: soft and chewy barley, bulghar wheat and plump chickpeas. This was mostly due to what was in my cupboard, so feel free to play around with the grains, try lentils, couscous or brown rice.

Now, a bowl of barley, bulghar wheat and chickpeas can be fairly unimpressive so I dressed it with loads of herbs: parsley, mint and coriander, and it is worth having all three as each one adds their own little flavour. A handful of shredded spinach, some sweet roasted cherry tomatoes and a little crumbled feta make this into something really tasty. After the success of this salad, I’m thinking of variations of these recipes for something a little healthier and filling.

Tags: barley, bulghar, bulghar wheat, spinach, tomato
Posted in Bean and pulse recipes, Salad recipes | 1 Comment »

Pumpkin and goats’ cheese tart

November 20th, 2009

The sweet flesh of pumpkin goes perfectly with the sharp savouryness of goats’ cheese. This is another recipe from Ottolenghi. This time a super easy pumpkin (or butternut squash) puff pastry tart with goats cheese, pine nuts and garlic. Perfect straight out of the oven with a simple salad and equally good at room temperature the next day. For an impressive starter, cut the pastry into squares to make indiviudual tartlets.

Tags: goats cheese, pastry, pumpkin
Posted in Pastry recipes | No Comments »

Carrot and green mango salad

November 15th, 2009

Every so often it feels really good to eat a bowl of raw, shredded vegetables doused in an interesting dressing or perked up with some cheese or toasted seeds. The simple act of chewing your way through is enough to make you feel virtuous and purified. Perhaps even virtuous enough to squeeze in a sticky toffee pudding for afters?

This recipe came from Rick Stein’s Far Eastern Odyssey – shredded carrot, mango and smoked mackerel with a spicy and sweet dressing of lime juice, palm sugar and fish sauce – all topped off with crunchy peanuts.

While it might sound like a strange combination, the flavours actually come together really well to create a colourful, light and refreshing salad. If you don’t have palm sugar or Thai basil and don’t mind veering from authenticity, then I imagine you could substitute honey for the palm sugar and basil for the Thai basil.
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Tags: carrot, mackerel, mango, peanut
Posted in Fish recipes, Salad recipes | 1 Comment »

Sticky ginger and banana bread

November 9th, 2009

I had wanted to post this in time for Bonfire Night as the warming ginger in this cake seems to make it perfect for eating next to a bonfire, preferably with a mug of mulled wine in the other hand. Even though it’s a little late, it’s still perfect for perking you up in colder weather.

This started life as a Jamie Oliver recipe, but has since swayed quite a lot off course. Jamie’s recipe is here, for my version, I added a couple of bananas I had lying around (they were actually snuggled up to the last of our green tomatoes in the hope that they might turn red) and cut down on the vast quantities of sugar and golden syrup. However, the finished result is still sticky and sweet and full of gingery kick. It’s also firm enough to travel well as a little snack for the office, which is always good.
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Tags: banana, ginger
Posted in Cake recipes, Sweet things | 2 Comments »

Cauliflower Risotto

November 1st, 2009

We culled our tomatoes plants this weekend and brought them inside in the hope that a little warmth might turn a few red. It felt like the true end of summer, winter coats and scarves are now being pulled on and the winter veg has started arriving. Bags of dark green curly kale, cauliflower, broccoli and squashes all turned up in our veg box this week.

One of the things I love about getting a veg box is the monotony. Believe it or not, receiving cauliflower for the third week in a row forces you to get creative and try new things. Last year it was toasted cauliflower florets with crème fraîche and pasta or silky smooth soups livened up with cannellini beans. This year, I have a feeling this will be our staple. A Jamie Oliver recipe from his jaunt around Italy. A rich, creamy risotto, packed with little cauliflower florets and a crispy anchovy breadcrumbs sprinkled over. Not only will this make you love cauliflower, you will want to go out and but more cauliflower so that you can make it again.
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Tags: anchovy, cauliflower, risotto
Posted in Dinner recipes | 4 Comments »

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