everyday experiments with food
Yesterday I got out the battery-operated rotisserie for the summer. The chicken was dusted with Herbie’s Lebanese Baharat spice mix, which is has wonderful Middle Eastern flavours. The chicken was stuffed with half a lemon, 2 garlic cloves and a knob of butter. I put more butter under the breast skin.
I cooked it for about 90 minutes and checked the temperature with a probe along the way. During the cook I drizzled it with fresh lemon juice.
…
This isn’t a new salad idea of mine, but here’s last night’s version.
Ingredients
3 medium-sized beetroot, peeled and quartered
2 small to medium blood oranges, peeled and cut into segments
12-15 cherry or baby roma tomatoes
Haloumi, cut into cubes or rectangles
Seeds from 1/2 a pomegranate
Handful of chopped parsley
Pomegranate syrup
Olive oil
Balsamic vinegar (optional)
Sea salt
…
Here’s my second baked cauliflower. I used the same spice mix as last time.
2 tsp turmeric,
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/4 cup olive oil (add a bit more if needed)
Double the above quantity if needed.
This was a huge cauliflower so I only baked half of it. I learned to use a smaller cauliflower next time, as the core won’t bake quickly enough. Cut a deep X into the core to help it cook through.
Bake at 180C and check at 20 mins and then every 5 mins after until it is done.
Baked wedge of pumpkin (about 20 mins at 180C)….
Here’s my first attempt at baking a whole cauliflower and it was amazing. I looked online at some spice rubs and then made up my own.
Rub the cauliflower with a mix of the following:
2 tsp turmeric,
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp garlic powder
black pepper
sea salt
1/4 cup olive oil (add a bit more if needed)
It needed some chilli powder, so add to your liking, but at least 1/2 tsp
Sauce was made from greek yoghurt, tahine, lemon juice and minced garlic. I just made up the proportions and it worked. Probably 1/4 cup tahine, 1 cup yoghurt, 1 tsp garlic, 1 tsp lemon juice, salt and pepper.
I served this with baked sweet potato wedges with cherry tomatoes and grapes (a really good combination so it turned out), and some coriander (yes, it was definitely the end of the bunch…)
Also
Baked beetroot from our garden
Couscous with barberries and orange blossom water
Eggplant and tomato tagine (recipe from the Moroccon Soup Bar cookbook)
Fig and pear and raisin jam which I adapted from a chutney recipe in Heston Blumenthal at Home.
It was a Wednesday night feast. When I go back to full-time work it will be a shock.