Carrot Salad

As vegetables go, I'm not a huge fan of carrots. I know they are cheap and easy to prepare but I prefer my veg green. I also have a problem with carrots if they have been cut into rounds rather than sticks. Ridiculous. I know. But think back to when you had school dinners. I can't claim this as fact but I'm fairly sure my hallowed halls of education subjected us to tinned carrots cut into rounds. Bearing little resemblance to what any sensible person now understand as a carrot, I think this is where my prejudice comes from...

I always have carrots knocking around - great for packed lunches for the kids - easy veg when there are additional small people for tea, soups etc But rarely have carrots been the star of the show. 

Recently however that has changed, thanks to a recipe that I believe originates with Leon. Having had the opportunity to peruse the actual recipe, my version ( or versions - this is very adaptable) aren't actually much like the original Happy Carrit Salad, but it has made me see carrots in a whole new light - and this, or a version thereof, has featured at least once a week for the last few months. 

Not only is it delicious, it is also so sime that it will definitely make you happy. And if it doesn't, it will at least perk up your dinner. You will, however notice, that the carrots remain in sticks. Just don't try it with rounds.

Carrot Salad

6-7 biggish carrots, peeled if necessary and roughly grated. I use the grater attachment ony trusty food processor which keeps a certain texture to the carrots.

100g pumpkin seeds, lightly toasted till they start to pop

Juice of 1 lime

2 tbsp smoky chipotle chilli sauce (or sweet chilli sauce)

1 tbsp olive or rapeseed oil

Combine the carrots and pumpkin seeds in a dish.

Mix together the lime juice, chilli sauce and oil.

Dress the carrots.

Simples.

Date & Walnut Loaf

I used to have an awesome memory.

Birthdays, phone numbers, addresses, every crime my brothers ever committed against me - all stored in there like an elephant. Not just this kind of basic admin information, though - my entire A level syllabus, 2 years of law school and the associated information, facts, handy things to know from a professional career.  Street plans of cities and towns I'd visited. The exact pile of papers, or drawer where I'd filed the vital document...

The causes of the English Civil War? European monarchs, in order, along with various wars and treaties engaged in and signed during the 17th & 18th centuries? No problem. The rules of tort. The circumstances under which you could claim unfair dismissal and the amount of compensation you might be entitled to. Obscure 80s pop songs (one hit wonders a speciality) artists and titles. All there. Anyone else remember Strawberry Switchblade?

Except these days. Err... These days, I can't even remember a lot of what I've forgotten. I have this theory that may or may not be related to having children, which is essentially that at some point, your brain reaches saturation point with information, and then starts to operate a 'one in one' out policy. 

And who am I kidding? I blame it almost entirely on having children.

"You want me to remember that your kids need their PE kits and some money for a school trip which must be in tomorrow or they can't go, Blue has a gluten-free friend coming round for tea, and Pink is going to a birthday party?" (snarls my brain, as I attempt to sneak some more information in)

"Um, yes" (acts innocent)

"OK. I'll remember. But I'll ditch your nephews' birthdays. And that bill you needed to pay? The letter you needed to post? Forget it." Yeah - literally - forget it.

Thanks, brain.

It's cruel like that. If pushed, I can still remember the causes of the English Civil War, and I have a hazy recollection of the law of unfair dismissal, the lyrics to 'The King of Rock 'n' Roll'... but the information that is actually more vital to me these days - dates of small relations' birthdays being a case in point - is lost (although it's always useful to know that you can recall insightful lines such as "Hot dog, jumping frog, Albuquerque " at times of stress...) 

Where this lost information, things that were once known to me, have gone, I have no idea. Does it just drift, cloud-like out of my brain in my sleep (think Harry Potter type memories being transferred to a pensieve - which actually, I could really, really do with, as I don't have one, and the memories just seem to go floating off), is it actually still there, there's just so much else going on that I just can't retrieve the information any more -   or is this actually a serious issue - synapses dying or something?

My mum is big on synapses. She works with children with dyslexia and knows a bit about neural pathways. She is always urging me to do the sudoku puzzles to keep my brain active and working properly. She and my dad get one newspaper a day, and the sudoku gets photocopied so they can both do it. I might once have mocked, but given the amount of stuff I seem to have forgotten recently, important stuff, she may well have a point.

This loss of important information that I have amassed over the years has extended to a more general absent mindedness. When previously I operated with a mental tick list, these days, unless it's written down, it will simply not get done - not just because I haven't got round to it, but because even if you told me 5 minutes ago, chances are I will have completely forgotten it - distracted by something else.

I used to be able to focus, be clear, laugh in the face of a to do list. But these days? Well, even if it's on a list, there's no guarantee.

Take recipes, which are of course not much more than 2 'to do' lists - one of ingredients, one of what to do with them. You'd think it would be easy, but no. Increasingly, I find that I'm winging it, having forgotten to buy, or include, a vital ingredient. Take this loaf that I knocked up at the weekend. Originally from the Leon Family & Friends tome, I was congratulating myself on substituting pomegranate molasses (which I had) for golden syrup (which I had again forgotten to buy, having noted that I'd run out for 3 consecutive weeks), and thinking about what we were going to have for dinner (pizza) and completely forgot to include the sugar.


As an aside, I've been struggling a little with pomegranate molasses. I bought it some months ago undoubtedly with an Ottolenghi type creation in mind, which I then failed to produce (or forgot? had I written a 'meal plan', I wonder?) and then felt distinctly unworldly in my inability to think up a use for it. In the end, my lovely dog walking chum Rachel suggested using it in a tea loaf type creation. This nugget didn't fall foul of the one in one out policy adopted by my leaky brain, and voila (Rach - here's your name check :-) - thanks for the suggestion!)

But back to the main event - I also forgot to use all the bits of my food processor when I whizzed up the milk and dried fruit, resulting in batter splatter all across the kitchen...The result? Actually a rather tasty date and walnut soda bread type loaf, with no fat, sugar or eggs.  Given that the Husband ventured to suggest that it wasn't my best cake, this is probably a good thing, as I seem to be the main person eating it at the moment.

Actually, this wouldn't be bad as a breakfast type of cake. Just saying.



Date & Walnut Loaf

(makes 2 loaves - I was trying to 'get ahead')

225g wholemeal self raising flour
225g normal self raising flour
2 tsp fine salt
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
500ml semi-skimmed milk
170g pitted dates
50g sultanas
60g dried apricots
11g walnut halves
4 tbsp pomegranate molasses

Line 2 2lb loaf tins and pre-heat the oven to 190C.

Sift together the dry ingredients.

In a properly assembled food processor, whizz up the milk with the dried fruit, nuts and pomegranate molasses for 20-30 seconds, then stir it all into the dry ingredients.

Divide this between the 2 prepared loaf tins and bake for 30-40 minutes till a skewer comes out clean.

Leave to cool and eat with butter (so much for being fat free).

don't mind if I do...

Posh Poached Eggs for the big 3-0

 
I'm a relative newcomer to the Random Recipes challenge, but it's become bit of a fixture for me. I don't have any sort of pattern or routine to my blogging (you may have noticed), but I find myself looking out for the announcement post every month, and then getting my random recipe selected more or less straightaway in order to have a fighting chance of working it into a meal plan somewhere. You see while I'd love to spend hours in my kitchen designing dishes, tweaking recipes, arranging food beautifully on a plate and taking gorgeous photos, the reality is that the food that goes up here is what I've cooked to feed us, there's no room to re-make and take a better photo (or to take a photo at all if we were all so hungry that it got eaten before I'd got the camera out...).




This month, the 30th month of the challenge, the selection criteria for the recipe was the number '30' (Dom, you're so original!). 30th book on the shelf/ves of cook books, 30th page. 

At the time I made the selection, '30' gave me Posh Poached Eggs in a Cup from Leon - Family & Friends. If I made the choice another time, it would be different because the books don't stay in the same order, or even on the same shelves, depending on what I've been up to in the kitchen.

So, Posh Poached Eggs. "That'll be easy to squeeze in somewhere", I thought.

We ended up having it for lunch yesterday, the kids and I, another sultry day (the rain didn't reach us till late last night) when the last thing I wanted to do, really, was make a cheese sauce - or even poach an egg. The things I do.

So you make a cheese sauce using gram flour and butter, quite a lot of cheese and some truffle oil. I didn't have gruyere or truffle oil in the house, so cheddar and some nice olive oil had to do.

You fry some thin slices of chorizo till they are nice and crispy, and poach some eggs, then layer it all up in a cup.

It's delicious. Even Blue, who, as I have bemoaned before, normally avoids cheese sauce with a barge pole, and isn't massively keen on poached eggs, enjoyed it. Result.

The only thing I'd say is that the recipe in the book makes a huge amount of cheese sauce. More than you could possibly use feeding the 4 specified in the recipe, however hungry. The rest of it is in the fridge covered with greaseproof paper. Pasta bake for dinner tonight, then.