Things I Had for Breakfast...

Born 7.13pm on Wednesday 27th April 2011. Welcome to the world, Joanna Heathcote Miles!

Oh deary me it's been a while. Here's a quick skip, hop and a jump through good things I've made in the last few months, as I sit here and while away the days until the TechnicalBabe chooses to make its tardy arrival. 

Ottolenghi's brussels sprouts and tofu:  (from his new 'Plenty' book, which my lovely little sister got me for my birthday) far, far more awesome than it sounds.  Astoundingly tasty.  We've made this a few times now, but never with quite the right ingredients (never miss out the brussels sprouts or tofu, though!).  In this version: skipped the mushrooms, added sliced green pepper.  It's the marianade that makes it.  Yum.  

Ottolenghi's sweet potato cakes:  also from Plenty. Truth be told, it was TechnicalBloke who made these, although I contributed the carrots roasted with honey and cumin and the green beans cooked with butter and shallots which accompanied them.  I like to think they were pivotal to the overall brilliance of the meal!  Sweet potato cake verdict: fiddly but heavenly.  Not quite sure why the recipe requires you to leave the steamed sweet potatoes to sit for an hour before continuing.  I would have disregarded that part, lazy scutter that I am, but the TB has more respect for the sanctity of recipes than do I. 

An invented (although not terribly inventive) recipe by yours truly: a bacon and leek gnocchi bake.  Render some bacon lardons, saute leeks alongside it and stir through a bit of kale/spinach/other contributor to your five-a-day.  Mix it up with some fresh gnocchi, some roasted cherry tomatoes (or, for the quicker version, a can or two of cherry tomatoes) and then (quick version) creme fraiche or (longer version) some bechemel sauce.  Sprinkle liberally with grated cheese and bake until bubbly.  Pretty quick for a hearty meal, and good with a green side salad.  Obviously there are fairly endless combinations and permutations of this depeding on your tastes, time, or the contents of your fridge, a feature that always endears me to a recipe. Has become a staple. 

An amazing TB lasagne. He didn't do anything out of the ordinary, but by god he created a lasagne to die for, so it's getting a picture: 

Not so much a creation as a discovery: kale flowers!  These were in Marks & Spencer fresh food sections for a while. They're a hybrid of kale and brussels sprouts and taste more or less exactly like you might expect.  And they look like teeny kale plants, in the way that brussels sprouts look like teeny cabbages.  They're so beautiful I couldn't resist a picture. Never seen them again since, but I loved them. Damned if I can remember how we ate them.  Simply, somehow, I think, perhaps with pasta, garlic and chilli or somesuch. 

Gratuitous shot of the TechnicalBabe, at 30 weeks and 2 days gestation.  Almost exactly 10 weeks ago. Come out, little baby, come out!

I served it with this Nigella recipe from her 'Feast' book, which is billed as a rice pilaff for an indian banquet, which I've made quite often but never served with Indian, always with middle eastern food.  Although I always swap flaked almonds for toasted pine nuts because I prefer them, and I always soak the sultanas for ten minutes before using, because I'm fussy about sultanas that way.  I've made this subsequently with plain brown or basmati rice, and then it's nice to add either some sultanas or chopped dried apricots to the tagine to get the fruity kick.  

And finally, what I've been concentrating most of my efforts for the last couple of weeks on maternity leave: freezer cooking!  Behold the most OCD freezer in the world.  Nesting or not, I can't describe quite how contented this sight makes me:

That's it from me for now. Expect your next update to be a TechnicalBabe update! 

No, not today. Stir up Sunday was actually 21st November, but my sisters and I got a jump on it this year, making up our puddings right at the beginning of November since we were getting together that weekend anyway. Check out these action shots*!

As for the last two years, we used this Delia recipe (first made by Anna and I in New York... ahh memories!).  I do think if you're looking to do something traditional and do it properly then you can't go wrong with Delia.  Roll on Christmas!

* note the artistic license: these puddings are still sitting in a dark corner thinking about what they've done.  The pictures of the cooked and lit pudding are, of course, from a previous year!

This is the last of what the vegetable patch (first documented here) managed to produce in its summer crop. Beeeeeooootiful tomatoes. I've been too distracted by other things to plant anything for this winter, though, so we're no longer living the Good Life here in Stokey.  Supermarket veggies from now on.  

I haven't had any serious or weird cravings so far, but there was a short time in early pregnancy - between 7 and 10 weeks or so - when I was ALL about the white fish.  Any way it came, but battered mostly.  One evening I sent the Technical Bloke out to get me the biggest battered cod he could find and ate it entirely on its own for dinner, with tartare sauce.  

Another night I made fish pie.  White fish, poached in milk and white wine (yes, I know I'm pregnant, but the alcohol burned off surely?), mashed up with frozen peas and sweetcorn, the poaching liquid, some low fat creme fraiche, salt and pepper, and popped into a casserole dish with some halved hard boiled eggs.  Topped off with mashed potato and a sprinkling of cheddar cheese, baked for long enough to make it golden on top, and inhaled with some sugar snap peas (they should definitely be sugar snap, because you need the crunch against the mush of the pie).  I've never made fish pie before, but I'm pretty pleased with this off-piste version.  

Happy birthday, my darling. Your last one as a young free and single man with no family. Hope you enjoy the Baileys cheesecake!

xx

Recipe notes: I used this recipe from e's joie, replacing Oreo cookies in the base with Bourbon creams (more English, I thought) and swapping out cornflour for plain flour, which was all I had. It looked waaaaay too little mixture, both base and topping, for the tin I had, so I doubled the base (the TB likes it heavy on the bottom - insert your own joke here). I didn't quite double the topping but I increased it by 40% to fit the amount of cream cheese I had, which was my limiting factor.  This turned out to be exactly the right amount for my 10" circular cake pan. I would usually use a springform for cheesecake, but that's even bigger and the amount of mixture I had would've been lost in it so I used a 10" silicon pan instead and it worked out a treat.  Easy to ping out.  I couldn't understand why the mixture was so scant until I read down in the comments at e's joie that she used a loaf tin to bake her cheesecake.  All makes sense. And quite a good idea, actually, if you want deep cheesecake slices. I might try that next time. 

There's no way to give this stir fry a title that sounds appealing but, I assure you, this was a mighty fine stirfry.  And fairly virtuous to boot.  It's about 3 months since I made it so I damned if I can remember how I did it but, to the best of my recollection, it went something like: 

• Throw some big carrot wedges, chopped garlic, minced ginger and lazy chilli in a bowl, swirled around with sesame oil and soy sauce.  Add Cauldron marinated tofu pieces. Leave to marinate for a few hours, then ROAST.
• Cook up some brown rice. Or indeed any rice of your choosing. 
• Stir fry some finely sliced red onions, then throw in some frozen peas, the roasted stuff and the brown rice.
• Crack in an egg or two and stir for a few seconds until cooked through.  

Yumness.  Haven't had this since but now think it'll be on the menu again pretty soon.  

It goes without saying it's been too long since I posted.  Mostly because at the beginning of September I found out that I'm expecting a TechnicalBaby.  The effect of such a bombshell on this blog was twofold: 

a) it was basically all I could think about or get excited about, but since it was early days we weren't telling anyone and if I couldn't talk about my baby I didn't want to talk about anything, dammit; and

b) I had No. Energy. Whatsoever.  And I lost my cooking mojo there for a while.  It's partially recovered now (I'm 20 weeks!) but in the first four months at least I was so exhausted I didn't get far beyond basic pasta dishes for quite some time.  

However there were a few dinners here and there that were worthy of note, not to mention a sisters' Christmas baking session, so I'll try to bring you up to date with a few posts.  I've largely forgotten how I made them now, so they'll be mostly pretty pictures, but I never heard anyone complain about pretty pictures on a food blog, so I figure it'll suffice.  

For now, here's the best thing I've made so far, at 12 weeks and 3 days. 

Just a very quick one: my uncle is going into business as a self-employed driving instructor. Having known him all my life, I can vouch for him being funny, patient and nice.  Which is about what most people want from a driving instructor, I reckon.  So if you're in the West Country (Burnham on Sea, Weston super Mare, Taunton and whatnot) then give him a try!

His name is Steve Newbould, and his company is Gear Up and Drive and a certain breakfast-posting-someone may have had a hand in the design the website.  My first website. Woo!

Quite often when I'm planning what to have for dinner it's done not on the basis of good taste, or a carefully filed list of receipes-to-try (although I will confess to maintaining such a list).  It's done instead on the basis of "oh, god, what's in the fridge and what the hell can I do with it"?  This can actually be quite fun, and the imaginary combinations and permutations can run through my head for the entirety of my journey home from work.  It's a bit like playing Ready Steady Cook! with myself  without the stress of the audience vote, or the cheery banter of Ainsley Harriot.  

Sometimes, as in the best episodes of Ready Steady Cook!, the combinations are a bit unorthodox.  Last week I decided what I needed to use up was a cauliflower and some sweet potatoes.  As I mulled them over, the first idea that sprang to mind was a curry, but somehow that wasn't floating my boat.  It was a cold day for August, so I decided instead to do a cauliflower-and-broccoli cheese with some roasted sweet potato wedges.  Random, but really, really good. Sweet potato and cauliflower work really nicely together, especially with a mild spice. I don't know why the combination isn't more common.

The recipe is so simple it barely needs posting.  Steam the brassicas, make a standard cheese sauce (I used a microwave version - even quicker!) then combine, top with grated cheese and bake until it's brown and bubbly on top.  The sweet potatoes are cut into wedges, par-boiled, tossed with oil, chilli flakes and cumin and roasted for 45 minutes in a hot oven until crispy. 

However, it does give me the chance to post up that photo-tutorial on how-to-cut-up-a-cauliflower-without-crumbling-it-all-over-the-counter that I promised you in my very first post. I know, right? You've been on tenterhooks.  

Click through to read the tutorial ... 

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