January food

So the New Year arrived, and with it pledges to eat healthier and exercise more… but first I had a Groupon to use up. Unfortunately my meal gave me food poisoning and I didn’t want to eat anything for quite some time. What a way to detox.

My urge to cook came back before my urge to eat. I ordered a Roots and Greens box from Riverford, their best value box, and it came heaving with carrots, onions, celeriac, leeks, two different kinds of cabbage, beetroot, potatoes and a mystery item which turned out to be a wonderful pumpkin.

Now the carrots are a bit of a problem. They come in every box you order and can be a bit of a challenge to use up. In summer I drink lots of carrot juice, but winter requires a different strategy.

First up, a recipe from Ottolenghi’s Plenty: Ultimate Winter Couscous

The recipe called for shallots and parsnips but I substituted onions and doubled the carrots. I have to use them up somehow! Anyway, this was a recipe to get the tastebuds going again. Each flavour sang out separately – star anise, cinnamon, preserved lemon, saffron, harissa. Another amazing hit – is there anything in that book that isn’t incredible?

Following on in the Middle Eastern theme, I wanted to try out a recipe from Veggiestan, which I received for Christmas. Fortunately there are several carrot recipes. Calling for 600 grams of carrots, I had to try out the Afghan Carrot Hotpot:

It was the first time I’d ever used a scotch bonnet chilli. This is actually somewhat strange as I like chillies, but the scotch bonnet’s reputation (and my annoying habit of rubbing my eyes after chopping) had me a little intimidated. I’m happy to report that the chilli added a very pleasing warmth to the dish, but it wasn’t hot at all. I chopped the seeds out, mind, and my chilli was from Sainsbury’s not Peckham, where I suspect they may be a bit stronger! I served it with brown basmati (still on the healthy wagon, ignoring the day off I had in the weekend when I drank cocktails and gained half a kilo…). I’ve cut and pasted the recipe below from Food Stories, who has a nice review of the book and more pictures:

Afghan Carrot Hotpot (serves 4)

2 medium onions, chopped
oil, for frying
2-3 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
1 scotch bonnet chilli, finely chopped
1cm knob of fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
1 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
Pinch ground cloves
600g baby carrots or the equivalent of grown up carrots, cut into wedges
300g yellow split peas
3 large tomatoes, chopped
1 tablespoon tomato paste
Salt, to taste
2 tablespoons sour grape juice or 2 teaspoons vinegar
About 500ml veg stock (I found I needed a little more to cover mine but then I did have very beasty carrots)

Fry the onions in a little oil in the bottom of a big saucepan and add in the garlic, chilli and ginger. When the onions have started to soften, add in the spices, carrots and split peas, followed a couple of minutes later by the tomato paste and fresh tomato chunks. Add some salt, then either the vinegar or sour grape juice, and then just enough stock to cover all the ingredients. Bring to the boil and set to simmer for 45 minutes to 1 hour or until the carrots and peas are cooked through.

I still have more carrots in the box, even after using some to make a beetroot and carrot salad. What are your favourite carrot recipes?

Eat.St

I’m probably the last blogger in London to write about Eat.St at King’s Cross! Eat.St is a collective of of some of London’s best street food carts. They have a rotating selection of street food vans on the new King’s Boulevard behind King’s Cross station, open Wednesday-Friday lunchtimes (returning in the New Year).

Luckily for me, I work several days a week in Kings Cross so I end up going quite regularly… some of my workmates are similarly obsessed.

Some of my favourites so far:

Homeslice.

Really good pizza from some of my fellow countrymen.

Banhmi11′s catfish Banh mi. Amazing. Best sandwich ever… I don’t usually like sandwiches.

Hardcore Prawn.

If these three traders turned up on the same day I don’t know what I’d do. Probably turn up back at the office at 3pm and lapse into a food coma… Check them out in the New Year, they are back 11 January.

My only wish for street food in London is that traders would offer more street snacks. Growing up in NZ, I used to go to an alley full of street food vendors and get food from several different vans, there were all kinds of tasty (usually deep-fried) snacks on offer. But street food in London seems really geared towards meals.

What would you like to see happening on the street food scene in 2012? Personally, I’d love to see Sri Lankan street food become the next big craze!

A feast to cure melancholy

I feel as if I start every blog post with an apology these days. I won’t be posting a round-up of 2011 or a list of resolutions for 2012. I’ve got a cold, and my aunt who is staying with me has also got a cold. We’ve taken to our beds, and I thought I’d use the enforced rest time not to finish an essay that’s due in early January (I mean come on, that’s next year) but to catch up on a couple of blog posts I should have written months ago.

The first is A Feast To Cure Melancholy, part of the Wellcome Collection’s Recipes and Remedies series of events exploring the link between food and health. The Wellcome Collection has quite a large collection of recipe books and manuscripts, many of which are now available in digital format, so if you’re interested in such things I encourage you to join the library. Because I live just around the corner I spend a lot of time studying there (and possibly even more time in the cafe downstairs, being honest) and the library is wonderful.

It was in the library’s gorgeous galleried Reading Room that we ate our way through the Feast To Cure Melancholy. As we arrived we were given a card with our persona for the evening on it – I was Ezekiel, age 17, with flushed skin, a bloated stomach and hyperactive tendencies. We were then diagnosed by a “doctor” (actually one of the Wellcome staff in a very good acting turn) and then the doctor, an apothecary and a housewife all offered their own cures. I was apparently “sanguine” and the apothecary’s remedy involved lavender, wine, sage, and rosemary.

We then sat down to eat a meal devised by Blanch and Shock. The idea was to try to work out which course cured which humour. I only had my mobile phone with me so the pictures are rubbish. I also seem to have lost the menu but I’ll do my best to remember!

I think this was wild boar with hay. I went for the vegetarian option, which was carrots:

The next course was basically fish and chips:

There were lots of capers and crunchy bits of fish skin, it was lovely.

I don’t think I remember what the next course was… Duck, maybe?

The final course was really good:

Those little clear blobs on the plate were like liquid acid drops. They went really well with the cheese and fruit.

The whole evening, meal, plus two drinks and entertainment, cost £15. Seriously good value, and it felt very naughty and fun to eat and in the library where you aren’t even allowed to take a water bottle in usually!

Do check out events at the Wellcome, as they are always interesting and entertaining.

Station House Cafe

The Station House Cafe is a community cafe run by FoodCycle. It’s on Stapleton Hall Road in Haringey and is run in conjunction with Mind, using their premises.

I’ve been meaning to go ever since it opened, as I am often in the neighbourhood, but finally ended up going just a week before their first anniversary!

The cafe is open for Friday lunch and I went along with my friend Vanessa. To my pleasant surprise, we also bumped into my lovely friends Peter and Mary there as well – although it shouldn’t be too surprising as I seem to bump into them everywhere!

A three course menu with a choice of starter and dessert and a cup of tea or coffee was available for £4. There was a choice of carrot soup or curried cauliflower soup for starters. Vanessa chose carrot and I went for the cauliflower:

The cauliflower soup was tasty, and nicely spiced. Vanessa enjoyed the carrot soup too.

The main was a pasta bake with leek and brussels sprouts. This was possibly the weakest point of the meal for me as I’m not the biggest fan of brussels sprouts (except done like this).

Dessert was a choice of apple compote and yoghurt, or banana cake. I chose the apple compote but unfortunately they’d run out so we both had the banana cake:

The community feel of the cafe was really lovely and we enjoyed our meal (brussels sprouts notwithstanding).

FoodCycle has most of its food donated by local retailers. This food would normally go to waste, so it’s a really good way of using it up. The cafe benefits the community by being a place where people can go for a cheap, nutritious meal as well as being a nice place to meet people. All of the food is cooked by volunteers, who have the chance to learn skills and gain experience. There’s another cafe in Bromley-by-Bow – if you are near either of them I suggest taking the time to visit.

World Food Day

Today is World Food Day. This year’s theme is Food Prices – From Crisis to Stability. Instead of posting a lot of text, I thought I would show you this video from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) on the Global Hunger Index, which was released a few days ago. It does a good job of explaining some of the current issues within the world food system such as rising prices and price volatility.

For more reading, you might like to look at the FT World Food Report, which came out last week.

If you want to do something to help, check out Action Against Hunger and in particular their Love Food Give Food appeal which is on until the end of October.

Green cleaning: mucky oven

I promised this post months ago and I do apologise! It’s been sitting in my drafts folder for quite some time. I ended up waiting for a certain flatmate to move out before doing this, as she had a habit of burning everything in the kitchen (if anyone has any tips on getting a burning smell out of a microwave, 6 months on, please let me know as that one has me stumped).

Anyway, the oven was nice and grubby by the time she left:

Cleaning it, however, was really easy. Just sprinkle with bicarbonate of soda (which I buy in bulk at Unpackaged).

Spray with water, and wait. For a really grubby oven you can heat it up a bit, but not too much.

Wipe off.

Not bad, right?

Obesity Crisis Solved: Eat Less

The above just might be my favourite Evening Standard headline ever. I saw it on my way to teach a class last night, I didn’t pick up a paper as the headline said it all really.

In 2007, the Foresight report Tackling Obesities: Future Choices made the following observation:

Although personal responsibility plays a crucial part in weight gain, human biology is being overwhelmed by the effects of today’s ‘obesogenic’ environment, with its abundance of energy dense food, motorised transport and sedentary lifestyles. As a result, the people of the UK are inexorably becoming heavier simply by living in the Britain of today. This process has been coined ‘passive obesity’. Some members of the population, including the most disadvantaged, are especially vulnerable to the conditions.

(taken from the Summary of Key Messages, here. Full report available here.)

Yesterday, the government published ‘Healthy Lives, Healthy People: A call to action on obesity in England’. This basically rips up the Foresight report that was released under the previous government, and places the emphasis squarely on personal responsibility. A statement from the Department of the Bleeding Obvious Health said “Being overweight or obese is a direct consequence of eating more calories than we need”.

Basically the upshot of the strategy is that the government will not be introducing any new regulation such as the fat tax just introduced in Denmark, or a restriction on the use of trans fats. Health Secretary Andrew Lansley continues to favour the voluntary approach and his precious responsibility deal, which he claims produces faster results.

Many communities in Britain are undergoing a time of extreme deprivation. Jobs are being lost and people can’t rely on benefits as a fallback position as they are being cut too. It’s all very well that big business is on-side but poor families can’t afford to shop at Sainsbury’s or M&S. They’ll be getting their £2 combo from the local chicken shop and stocking up on basics from the corner shop – shops that haven’t signed up to the responsibility deal.

But no, it’s your fault you’re fat. Thanks for clearing that up, Mr Lansley. Step away from that cheeseburger, people! And join a gym. Membership to my local Virgin Active is only £79 a month.*

* Special staff and student deal, City University. Sorry if you get quoted more…

My new Lifebottle

Last week I did something slightly regrettable. Over a year ago, I bought a cheap imitation Sigg water bottle. Until then I’d been reusing bottled water bottles, however they are only meant to be used once and can leach chemicals into the water if you reuse them. Lovely!

Anyway, my water bottle worked well until… it didn’t. It got to a point where the lid wouldn’t screw on properly and it leaked all over my laptop bag. I threw it away in frustration and tweeted for advice.

Tapwater.org came to the rescue by sending me a rather sexy stainless steel Lifebottle.

The idea behind Lifebottle is you buy a bottle, which you can then refill at any participating shop/organisation. The number of refilling stations they have signed up is really impressive.

(yes, I’m lucky enough to live somewhere on that map, but there are plenty of refilling stations outside central London as well)

Here are some fun facts from the Tapwater.org website:

• The average person will spend £25,000 on bottled water and associated soft drinks in their lifetime. (scary!)
• The UK consumes 18 billion plastic bottles each year, and since only a quarter of these are recycled this means 38 million plastic bottles end up in landfill every single day!
• Independent tests show UK tap water is among the safest in the world. It undergoes hundreds of taste tests every year, and is checked 30,000 times a year for chemicals and bacteria.
• An estimated 25 percent or more of bottled water is just tap water in a bottle
• The British Nutritional foundation found that bottled water was no better for you than tap water.
• The French senate actually advises people who only drink bottled water to mix up their brands because all of the minerals found in bottled waters can be damaging to your health in high doses.
• In the US a study found nearly 38 different contaminants in 10 brands of bottled water.

Do you need any more reasons to choose tap water?  Because there are plenty!

Lifebottles are excellent quality, being made out of a really high grade of stainless steel, as opposed to other bottles I’ve seen (including my old one) that was made from plastic-lined aluminium. And for those who really just don’t like water, you can get flavour tablets that you can store in the lid. Another optional extra is the ice stick that screws in to keep your drink cold. I prefer my tap water room temperature, but it’s insulated so you can also put hot drinks in there. Think I’ll test it out by taking some tea along to my next 3-hour lecture!

Thank you tapwater.org for sending me a Lifebottle to review.

Meat Free Monday

As I’m sure many of you know, I was vegetarian for years, interspersed with periods of eating fish as well. These days I define myself as pescetarian, but of course I don’t eat fish for every meal.

Not eating meat, or eating less meat is one of the easiest and most effective things you can do to make your lifestyle more sustainable. This is why the McCartney family have launched the Meat Free Monday campaign, which I’m sure you’ve heard of.

A lot of people seem to find vegetarian food daunting – I’ve had friends be terrified at the prospect of having me round to dinner! It seems so strange to me as I think vegetarian food is so much easier than meat – there’s certainly less risk of contracting salmonella anyway! The Meat Free Monday campaign is a great way to start cutting down on meat, anyway – and there are plenty of recipes on the website.

Lately, I’ve been working crazy hours, without much time (or energy) to cook. Enter Sarah, who has recently started working for Purple PR (congratulations on the new job!). She came to my rescue a few weeks ago by sending me the newest Linda McCartney product, a Mushroom and Ale pie.

I’m happy to report it was absolutely delicious! It had a really rich, umami-packed flavour and the pastry was really good too. I would definitely buy one to eat at the end of a busy Monday at work, if I didn’t have the time or inclination to cook from scratch. I would possibly even serve it to vegetarians and attempt to pass it off as my own cooking…

My photos didn’t do the pie justice so here’s what it’s supposed to look like – and I ate mine with broccoli too!

Swedish biscuits!

A few weeks ago, my friend Vixie and I went to an afternoon tea put on by Visit Sweden. Or rather, an afternoon coffee – fika, as it is called in Sweden.

The tradition in Sweden evolved to serve seven different kinds of biscuit with afternoon coffee, so we were presented with seven kinds of delicious Swedish biscuit to try.

My favourite was the Skurna Pepparkakor, and I managed to bully my gracious hosts into giving me the recipe!

Skurna pepparkakor – Cut gingerbread cookies

These are superb what with the piquant accent of orange peel in the dough adding a touch of finesse at the coffee table or at a mulled wine party.

Makes approx. 60

225g soft unsalted butter
75g icing sugar
75g dark brown sugar
5g ground cinnamon
3g ground ginger
3g ground cloves
250g plain white flour
1g bicarbonate of soda
100g unshelled whole almonds
50g chopped candied orange peel

1. Bring the butter to room temperature and sift the icing sugar. Add the dark brown sugar and spices.
2. Sift the flour with the bicarbonate of soda and mix into a pliable dough.
3. Finally, mix in the almonds and orange peel.
4. Shape the dough into logs, 3cm wide and 6cm high.
5. Freeze the logs for 2 hours.
6. Preheat the oven to gas mark 6, 400°F (200°C).
7. With a very sharp knife, cut the dough into slices weighing approx. 12g and lay them on a baking tray lined with baking paper.
8. Bake the cookies for about 10 minutes until golden brown.

Sweden is such a beautiful country, the fact that the food is also excellent is icing on the cake – literally! I’m desperate to get back there one day. If you want to go, Visit Sweden are running a competition at the moment, all you have to do is “like” this Facebook page.

Vixie blogged about the fika too – read her post here. Her blog is awesome.