Oatmeal raisin cookies

It's been that kind of day - miserable inside and out. It's been pouring outside and I'm inside with a cold feeling rotten. But it just came into my head that I wanted to eat some oatmeal and raisin cookies and I couldn't shake it, so off to the internet I went to find a recipe.

The below is a riff on this recipe, but I've halved and changed up the type of sugar, added another egg and some extra spices and they've come out quite soft and cake-like (rather than crispy) which is perfect because that's exactly what I was looking for.

They came out really well and were delicious! Give it a try and tell me what you think.

Oatmeal and raisin cookies
Makes 34

Ingredients
100-150g sultanas or raisins (or whatever dried fruit mix you prefer)
150ml vegetable/sunflower oil
100g brown sugar
2 medium eggs
2tsp (or more) ground cinnamon
1tsp (or more) ground ginger
1tsp vanilla extract
140g plain flour
1/4tsp bicarbonate of soda
300g oats

Method
1. Heat oven to 180C and line two trays with baking parchment. Pour 50ml boiling water over the raisins and leave to soak for 20 minutes or so until plump. (Note if you add more fruit, add slightly more boiling water to compensate). Drain and reserve the liquid.

2. In a large bowl, mix together the oil and sugar. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then the reserved liquid from the fruit, the cinnamon, ginger and vanilla extract. Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and a pinch of salt into the bowl and mix. Then add the oats and mix, and then finally the raisins.

3. Using a tablespoon measure, drop flat measures of mixture onto the baking trays. I got 34 cookies out of this mixture but you could make larger cookies (and just increase the baking time). Mine didn't really spread at all during cooking so I placed them reasonably close together (depending on the size of your tray you'll get between 12-16 cookies per tray).

4. Bake for 12-15 minutes until golden (I baked for 13 minutes). Leave to cool on the trays for at least 10 minutes. Will keep in an airtight container for a few days, or will freeze well.

Hope you like them!

Turning Japanese

In the words of the immortal song, tonight I decided to turn Japanese and give something a bit different a go in an attempt to convince Adrian that tofu really isn't all that bad.  

Having already bought an eggplant from the supermarket as I had skewers in mind, I found this recipe for sesame tofu and eggplant skewers online which was perfect, as, apart from the mirin which apparently you can easily substitute with a mixture of wine or sherry and sugar, I had everything I needed already in the cupboards.

It was pretty yum!  The marinade is quite sweet, and if I made it again I'd probably reduce the amount of sugar added (although maybe that was the mirin substitute?), but the brown rice and more beans from the garden made it still seem pretty healthy.  Adrian sadly was still unconvinced by the tofu, deciding by his second tofu skewer that he really wasn't a fan.  But you could easily substitute chicken or mushrooms or something I'm sure. 

Maybe you could make it and let me know how you get on - I'd definitely make it again!

Summer lunch

Today we're finally seeing some sunshine peep through the rainclouds which is making both me (and my beans - more on them in another post!) very happy.  In its honour I decided a summery lunch was in order, and here's the result:

I cooked up some pasta (in my case it was a bit of vermicelli), chucked some baby peas in when the pasta was nearly done, and then tossed it up with some sliced lemon rind, mint (from the garden!), some fancy olive oil and lots of cracked black pepper and some sea salt flakes.  Yum!

And while I was eating it, one of my favourite summery songs came on the radio - perfect timing!

Amaretti biscuits

Adrian's brother and his family recently moved back to NZ (and stayed with us for a few nights before they left - I'm going to miss having this little cutie blow kisses to me when I leave the room).  Moving out of a flat inevitably means some left over food, and these guys were particularly well stocked in the baking and spices departments.

One of the things they had a lot of was ground almonds, and having some spare egg whites left over in the fridge after having made a dressing using egg yolks for a potato salad just a few days before, I had a look online for something I could make.  Hence Amaretti biscuits!

I adapted this recipe a bit by reducing it to only one cup of sugar and substituting the almond extract for vanilla extract, as well as taking one of the recommendations in the review section to chill the dough a bit before baking and making them quite small.  And they came out perfectly!  Such a simple (and yummy) recipe - I'd definitely make it again.

Lemon cumin cookies

Cumin is far and away my favourite spice - and considering it's apparently the second most popular spice in the world after black pepper, it seems that I'm not alone in my preference!

So when I saw this recipe for cumin cookies in the paper the other day, well, I obviously had to give it a try.  It called for the zest of one lemon, but having now tried one fresh out of the oven, I'd definitely put the zest of two lemons in, or substitute the milk for lemon juice, just to give it a bit more of a zing.  

They're pretty delicious though, very cuminy (I was generous with my tablespoon of cumin seeds) and I'd definitely make them again as they're really easy to whip up.  

Yum!

Sunday soup

All the wintery vegetables in season at the moment are just perfect for soup (funny that, seeing as it's winter and all...) so it was time for another installment of Sunday Soup.  This week I resurrected a recipe we ate a bit last winter, cauliflower and blue cheese soup.  But this week I mixed it up a bit and included some leeks to give it a bit of a different flavour.

I couldn't find a recipe online that perfectly matched what I wanted, so kind of made it up:

Chop and saute 1 onion and 3 leeks in some oil or butter until soft, then add 700g of chopped potatoes (skin on) and 1 head of cauliflower along with 1.5L of water and some stock cubes (or whatever stock is handy).  Boil until soft (at least 30 mins I guess) and then either blend using a stick blender, or cool slightly and blend in batches in a blender.  I quite like this soup completely smooth, but you could make it kind of chunky if you wanted.  Add salt, pepper to taste, and more water/stock if you want it to be more liquidy.  

Then at this point, you can either roughly chop some blue cheese (as much as you want!) and add it to the soup, or you can add it on top of the soup in the bowls as you serve (so people can have it as flavoured as they like).  I did the latter, and then also added some toasted pine nuts on top for a bit of crunch.  Yum!

Alexandra came over and helped me taste test it, and seeing as she asked for seconds I'm figuring it can't have been too bad!

Sunday soup

I went a bit crazy buying carrots last week, and we still had about 1.5kg left by the end of this week.  I also went to this great 'Feeding the 5000' event which was highlighting the issue of food waste (feeding 5000 people in Trafalgar Square - what a mammoth task!) and was given a couple of bags of vegetables which would have otherwise been thrown away, and which contained even more carrots...

So, I had a look online and decided to make this carrot and thyme soup.  We had some delicious organic bloomer loaf left over from lunch yesterday, and so I had myself quite a decadent lunch!  It was a nice distraction from the uni reading I've been doing today I must say...

It was pretty tasty; I liked the thyme, but there was a bit too much honey.  But if you need to make something with lots of carrots - give it a go!

Great recipe site

Not that I normally want to promote anything Australian, being as partisan as a good NZer ought to be, but I’ve just rediscovered this website and am going to post it here for you, as well as for me to remember to use it!

This Sanitarium 'great recipes' site has a wealth of healthy, and Antipodean-cooking-style-friendly recipes.  It’s also nice and basic which is normally what you want when a) you’re trying to come up with inspiration for what to buy for the week and b) when it comes to actually making it during the week.  I also like how it’s got lots of vegetarian recipes which is how we (mostly) eat at home – saving the planet and our budget one meal at a time...

We’re making a variant of this pumpkin, feta and pea risotto tonight – I’m a big fan of risotto (good for the shoulder muscles) so hopefully it tastes good!

(P.S. Sanitarium have never heard of me - I just like their site...)

Kippers

We tried out a different farmers market last weekend (we normally go up to the one at Clapham South on a Sunday) just to see what was there and how it compared.  This one was on a Saturday by Oval tube station in the grounds of St Marks Church - it was funny to see all the stalls backed up against ancient gravestones!

It was quite a bit bigger than our usual, with cookies, a coffee stall, different vege places and lots of fancy cheese/spreads/bakery/meat etc. stalls.  I resisted trying some of Adrian's pain-au-raisin, but when he got the strawberry and white chocolate cookie all my resolve crumbled! 

The vege we've had so far has been good - especially the giant lettuce - but the new thing was the fish stall.  It had samphire which I didn't even know what it was, and coincidentally was on the menu at the pub later that night (obviously I ordered it being a sucker for interesting additions to menus) - however, it was crunchy and delicious so I'd definitely try it again!  The other thing we got were some kippers.  I'd never had kippers before, but knowing that they belong to the high omega-3 fish family, we thought we'd give them a try.

I made this River Cottage recipe, which was good, but the problem was the bones!  It took ages taking most of them out with tweezers, and then the ones I missed just looked wrong when you were trying to eat the dish (even though they were really small and light).  Apparently you can get de-boned kippers in cans?  The other thing I was surprised about was how salty they were - is that a sign of a good kipper or not I wonder...

Anyway, it's all about experimentation, and I got to use the mint I've been growing in the garden which is always good.  We'll try the fish stall again and see what else he's got to tempt us!

Fancy pants dinner

Having had some lamb shanks in the freezer for ages (bought on special, obviously), we finally decided to bring them out for a special Sunday dinner.

I made this recipe for the lamb shanks themselves, and then a modification on this one for a kale and potato mash for underneath.  And it was delicious!

Check out the scrumptiousness: 

Moroccan-inspired meatballs

I notice that my recipe section has been sadly lacking lately, so I thought I might post some of the recipes I make up along the way - which might also help me when I try to make them again!

So here's what we had for dinner last night:

Mixed together 1 finely chopped red onion, 3 cloves garlic finely chopped, 250g lean minced beef, 1 egg, about 1/3 C flour, salt, pepper, 8 finely chopped prunes, generous teaspoon each of dried coriander, cumin and cinnamon (all ingredients entered in the order I remember adding them into the bowl!). Formed together in balls and lightly fried on each side.

Review: delicious! However, next time I'd cook the red onion first because it was a little on the crunchy side. The cinnamon and prunes were a good combo - but it was actually hard to pick once they were cooked what it was giving them the sweetness. I might reduce the prunes to about 6 next time... We had them with corn on the cob and a big green salad. I reckon they'd also be good in a tomato-based sauce and on an orange couscous...yum!

Not a cooking blog, but...

I occasionally come across recipes that are so gosh darn delicious that I feel I should spread the love and let the one or two of you who have the glorious luck of knowing that this blog exists, share in the good times.

So, recipe number one is for that all-time staple, hummus.

Ingredients:

* 1 can of chickpeas, drained (save the liquid)
* 1-2 cloves garlic, crushed
* 1 tablespoon lemon juice
* 1 tablespoon tahini
* 1/2 cup plain yogurt
* 1/2 teaspoon salt (to taste)
* 1/2 teaspoon cumin (optional)


In a blender or a food processor combine the chickpeas, tahini, yogurt, garlic, and lemon juice. Blend well. Add salt and cumin and blend until really smooth and creamy. Blend it for at least a minute longer than you think you normally would, it makes it really light and yummy. If it's a bit thick and isn't blending properly, add some of the liquid from the chickpeas until it gets to a consistency you like.

Now, being a good researcher I couldn't plagiarise this without telling you my source. It's basically the recipe from this website with some extremely minor alterations on my part! I've also wondered about whether it's more or less carbon efficient to buy tinned chickpeas, or boil dried ones on the stove. I've found some debates about it, but no definitive answers as yet. Dried are way cheaper, but then the cost of the electricity to boil them? And the time? Maybe in September and October when I'm unemployed I'll test it out the other way...

Anyway, the most important thing is that it tastes good, so enjoy!!