Adventerous french cooking

My mother recommended a new series about Raymond Blanc combining two of my favourite things: cookery and travel. It has inspired me this week to make everything I cook as tasty as possible. This weekend I made coq au vin and lemon tart. With the left over sweet pastry I made some little spiced biscotti. Now I just need a cookery course in France and I'll be set.

Winter seasonal vegetables

The first week of the vegetable box delivery has been a success! Although the overflowing box of root vegetables was slightly overwhelming at first, it has definitely helped my resolution to eat more vegetarian. Parsnip and celeriac soup, mushroom, leek and feta fritatta, carrot, parsnip and potato gratin and a simple cauliflower cheese have made up the warming dishes of the weekend. Although I seem to be craving a lot more cheese and eggs than when I was eating more meat, I'm starting to rediscover the variety vegetables can provide in the kitchen. Besides, cheese can never be a bad thing from my point of view! These have been simple dishes, nothing fancy, but so satisfying,

Seasonal affective disorder and rediscovering the kitchen


When it's so grey and miserable outside, it's easy to lose enthusiasm about activities that used to bring so much joy to life. I've recently rediscovered that time to myself, in my own home, is of the utmost importance to my mental well-being. For me, an integral part of this is involves cooking. Although I normally prefer to cook for others, entertaining and such, in my latest introverted mood cooking simple meals for my husband and me has revived me and made me feel human again after a hectic month.

As part of the new year January health revival, I've also decided to eat less meat. With my husband being from Argentina and a huge lover of all things from a cow (the opposite of my Hindu upbringing, where cow loving means a completely different thing), I've found myself eating meat almost every day. Shock horror, especially to my almost vegetarian and hugely anaemic mother. So I'm trying to remember the good old vegetarian recipes of my vegetarian teenage years. So we also started ordering seasonal, local vegetable boxes. More to come of how that goes, and whether I can really cook healthy, seasonal vegetarian food without driving my husband crazy...

Mella Malta

I recently went to visit my friend Andy in Malta. Having no idea what to expect, i was delighted by the sun and sea, and mixed north african and meditteranean influences in the food. A firm favourite were pastizzi, which a version of pasties. It made me think about the various types of pasty type snacks I've tried around the world, and almost always enjoyed. Indian samosas, middle eastern boreki, chinese spring rolls, south american empanadas, the best Bolivian saltenas, Cornish pasties and now maltese pastizzi. The picture (and our favourite) shows spinach ones, but peas, meat and spinach and ricotta were also available and a suprisingly filling snack. There are two aspects of these pasty variations that stand out: a sweet light pastry and a tasty spicy filling; Bolivian saltenas have a sweet glaze over a thin pastry, and boreki have the salty spinach and feta with a crumbly pastry.

Another Maltese favourite was 'kinni', a bitter orange fizzy drink, which sadly did not wash down the pastizzi as well as I thought, and I ended up carrying it around for hours trying to finish it as it grew warmer and flatter and even less apetizing. A much tastier drink were the mojitos with strawberries. Our version with seasonal pomegranate is to follow.

The first picture is lamb curry with pilao (spicy and delicious). The second are oysters with tangy lemon mustard vinagrette over a bed of salad leaves (perfect for valentines day). The third is feta cheese sauteed in chilli and leek on a home-made focciacia.

Chocolate con churros: the manchester food festival

This week Manchester is hosting a festival for foodies; delightful for the tastebuds and strangley feeling more like a typical summer music festival in Britain than a the urban scattering of gourmet delights I was expecting. The horizontal drizzle, bright coloured wellies and pints of lager in plastic cups accompanied by reggae was contrasted with the chocolate extravaganza inside the main tent.
Chocolate wine, chocolate truffles, chilli chocolate, chocolate ice cream and let's not forget chocolate con churros! Deep fried batter covered in sugar and cinnamon and dipped in melted chocolate. The supreme way to spend a Saturday afternoon. If only I had got some of that chocolate wine...

Fast food and creativity

Since starting work in August I have have not had the time or energy to be as creative or spend as long over cooking. So I have basically got into a food rut. This consists of having about 10 different meals that are quick to make and quite tasty. Satay stir fry, green thai curry, roast chicken thighs with roast root vegetables, smoked mackeral fish cakes, and chorizo and bean fajitas are some of my favourites.

However, I've decided it's time to make a change and return to creative cooking. Even though work is tiring and when I get home all I want is a quick meal without having to think, the creativity involved in experimenting with food and the satisfaction of preparing a tasty new combination of ingredients is even more important now then when I had lots more time and energy. People always say work-life balance is important: cookery combines creativity with practicality, can be sociable or a solitary treat, and basically brings colour to a world that is so often grey and routine. Especially being in Manchester, where there is a constant drizzle, I've decided to take every opportunity to indulge my sweet, sour and savoury teeth and re-introduce home-cooked pleasures into every aspect of life.