Some of my colleagues and people I am meeting through Zoom are saying that they are losing track of days, but I am like - Is it Friday yet ?
I have been busy at home during a crisis trying to work. In fact, I think I am sure I am working harder from home more than i ever did in the office, unless it feels that way from staring at the computer screen for hours on end. But on balance, working from home means my lunch has never been so good.
There always seems to be cake of my own making of course!
I teased some of you with a glimpse of this Lemon Balm Drizzle Cake in my In My Kitchen blog post, but here it is in all its golden gorgeousness.
Lemon Balm also known as Melissa Balm is a lemon scented perennial herb. I often infuse the lemon balm leaves (like mint) in hot water and drink like a herbal tea. It can also be used in a number of recipes like ice-cream and custard, but here I added it to cake.
The 'Lemon Balm - Lemon Drizzle Cake' was splendid, with flecks of green lemon balm running through it, I even topped the outside with lemon balm leaves for adornment. Only comment, perhaps it could have been a bit more lemony, but I know whay that was - I did not have enough lemons, so made do with what I had.
Also a change from sandwiches and pasta salads, I made a Indian inspired Chickpea Salad Potato Salad smothered in mild spices and mango chutney. I don't think my mother would approve, but I know my nephews and nieces would. It was still warm when we ate it and I liked that as often my salads at work are cold or just room temperature.
This lockdown potato salad recipe comes from The Guardian to which we subcribed to about a month ago. To be honest we should have subscribed to it a while back as it perhaps the only online newspaper that I consistently read for news, not just recipes.
And the 'Lemon Balm Drizzle Cake' comes from Mary Berry which you can find online. I substituted lemon balm for Lemon Verbena Drizzle Cake.
I am sharing this Indian Inspired Potato and Chickpea Salad with Kahakai Kitchen, for Souper Sundays, a space where bloggers can come share together to share homemade comfort foods like soup, salads sandwiches.
We woke up early to go to the supermarket to top up on fruit and vegetables, along with other basic essentials. When we got there just before 7am, noticed that had changed the time of opening to 8am. We drove back home empty handed. I must admit, I was a bit anxious. It was my first time leaving the house. Surprisingly the roads were busy as if we were going into work, which was unusual. D commented on how busy it was, I stared out of the car window at the windows of the houses we drove past, displaying colourful rainbows. I wasn't sure what this was about, but when I got back home I did a search and learned that pictures of rainbows have started springing up in windows after schools had closed in response to the coronavirus outbreak, and primary schools are encouraging pupils at home to put up paintings to "spread hope". It was genuinely heart warming to see.
No rainbows in my window though...instead in my home was this Orange Cake and Double: Sweet Potato Curry. I say was, as I made it early this week and its all gone.
Mid March, well before the quarantine - D picked up a load of oranges to make juice with his manual juice maker, but typically I end up having to find ways of making the most of ingredients he picks up.
So this egg free Orange Ginger Apple Loaf Cake was one way that I found myself using some of those oranges, but as I went to make the cake I realised that I did not need to use the whole orange - only the zest! The cake also contains mixed dried fruit, black treacle aka molasses.
The Double Potato and Pepper Curry with Chickpeas was made to use up what we had in the house. I found the Double Potato Curry a little sweet, so squeezed the juice of half of zested orange into it for liven it up a little. It definately perked it up a little for my tastebuds.
The Orange Ginger Apple Loaf Cake was reminisce of steamed pudding or even closer to malt bread which is dark and squidgy, full of dried fruit. The recipe was adapted fromThe Vegetarian Gourmet: Easy Low Fat Favourites cookbook. This was nice to eat warm (reheated in the microwave), but by day four it began to feel a bit dense and stodgy so we fed it to the birds, by the following day it was all gone. Nothing at home is going to waste, it rarely did before so I can continue to feel smug in that knowledge.
I mentioned in one of my previous blog post that I've been cooking from the cookbook Original Flava Caribbean. Here are two recipes that I made a little while back using plantain.
The first was this Plantain and Chickpeas Curry. I have to admit, I can take my heat, but the quantities of some of the spices had my heart beat racing -1 tablespoon chilli powder, 6 tablespoons curry powder suffice to say I did reduce the amount of these, but everything else I followed to the recipe. Oops better mention, that I also forgot to pick up a Scoth Bonnet so added some of the red birds chillies.
I've found the recipe online to share the link with you, but I must point out there are some inconsistencies between the cookbook and the online version. The book serves four, but the recipe on the website serves a large crowd and was made with 8 plantains, not the 4 in the cookbook Plantain and Chickpeas Curry from Original Flava Caribbean Recipes ,
For me the Plantain and Chickpeas Curry. was intensely curried in flavour, D enjoyed it. We had it over two days. I would make it again, but perhaps use the on-line reicpe next time as no changes would be necessary as it makes a larger batch.
The other recipe was for Coconut Curry Stew .that I adapted as I didn;t have all the ingrednets such as chocho (chayote and yellow yam and okra.
My version has butternut squash, sweet potatoes and spinach and of course plantains. Here is a link to the originak recipe for Coconut Curry Stew.
I am sharing this blog post featuring Original Flava Caribbean Recipes from Home by Craig and Shaun McAnuff
with Weekend Cooking Event hosted by Beth Fish Reads, a weekly event that is open to anyone who has any kind of food related post to share.
I have hardly been out in the allotment garden plot in recent days, partly because of the persistent freezing rain and it has been freezing with snow in some parts of Wales.
I was actually looking forward to November when things around me will be a bit quiet, so that I can also tend to the garden, but its unlikely that the ground will be cleared of spent plants. One thing that is still growing well is my Rainbow Chard - Here is Ruby Chard.
I borrowed a cookbook from the library by Rukmini Iyer called eThe Green Roasting Tin and had bookmarked to make the All in One Kale Borlotti Minestone with Ditalini, but adapted it with what I had growing in the garden and other ingredients in my kitchen cupboard which these days happens to be a lot of pasta and tinned chickpeas.
What's great about this recipe is that you put everything in a ovenproof dish and cook! No hanging about the kitchen, stirring ...
There was plenty of left over that I took it into work the following day for lunch. I especially loved how the chilli oil elevated a simple minestrone.
I am sharing this blog post with Dave over at Happy Acres who hosts Harvest Monday every week.
Regular readers will note that I have been quiet in relation to blogging, well what can I say. I have been really busy with work mostly that when I come home, I want the evenings to space out!
So there has not been much in the way of creative or experimental cooking recently. All the dishes that I have been made from scratch in recent weeks have been showcased on my blog before such as this Moroccan Vegetable Tagine based on one of my favourite recipes which you can find if you follow this link.
This Vegetable Tagine though, was made with the last of my courgettes from the garden. Of course its bulked up with other vegetables such as carrots, potatoes, sweet potato and chickpeas served with couscous. If you look closely there is some dried fruit in it as well, like apricots and prunes, I don't always use dried fruit in my tagine.
I am sharing my Vegetable Tagine made with the last of the homegrown courgettes with Eat Your Greens which is hosted by The Veg Hog this month.
Please do join in there is still time and it would be lovely to have your company at the #EatYourGreens veg table.
I am also sharing this Vegetable Tagine with My Legume Love Affair, a monthly event celebrating legumes and my tagine contains chickpeas. MLLA is administered by Lisa's Kitchen and co-hosted every month by a different blogger, this month it is Sizzling Tastebuds.
Other Tagine style recipes
Cinnamon Vegetable Tagine
I know its not to everyones taste - but they do make for interesting viewing.
I haven't been cooking much of late, but I did make this Moroccan Chickpea Tagine from Cornucopia. You can find the recipe here. It was quite heady from the cinnamon stick, but nice to eat none the less.
I am sharing my Cinnamon Tagine with Eat Your Greens which is hosted by The VegHog this month as it has some courgettes in it; and My Legume Love Affair, a monthly event celebrating legumes. Adminsitered by Lisa's Kitchen and co-hosted every month by a different blogger, this month it is Seduce Your Tastebuds.
Other Tagine style recipes
