improve my cooking skills

I am quite a confident cook, if I do say so myself and will cook pretty much anything that is out there. Trouble is, I tend to get slavishly attached to specific recipes when what I want to develop are my skills to go with whatever ingredients I have or are looking good rather than spend £20 getting in the ingredients for one meal based on something I fancy in a cookbook.

Today (Sunday) I am cooking roast leg of lamb with all the trimmings and a gravy made from beef stock, redcurrant jelly and red wine (Shrewsbury sauce apparently)

My aim is to choose my recipes on a daily basis, on either what I already have or what is cheap or in season, starting tomorrow, Monday the 11th of November 2008. Over the next 6 months I want to move from cookbooks to ingredients.

In my quest to ensure I get enough vitamin C, and now that strawberry season is sadly over, I turn to red peppers which according to Fitday have a hell of a lot of the stuff. This is a recipe I’ve adapted to make as simple as possible – the original recipe specified fresh tomatoes but sod that for a game of soldiers…

Ingredients

• 2 romano peppers (these are the more elongated ones, and have more flavour than the normal sort, IMO)
• 1 or 2 onions
• tin of chopped tomatoes
• salt and pepper, I use a fair bit as think this is what zips it up.

Method

Embarrasingly simple. Chop up peppers and onions, add tin of tomatoes, salt and pepper and cook for ideally an hour or so, until it’s all mushed down.

This is one of those things that it’s better to make in advance. I really like it cold as a dip or an accompaniment to things.

now that i’ve found out what a preserving pan is (thanks, silvie), there’s nowt stopping me. (except that i don’t know how to sterilise jam jars/have any jam jars/have any cloth caps for jam jars, etc etc etc.)

one of my problems is that i just have far too many cookbooks. i get myself in a muddled tizzy going through all of them and then just making the same old boring mush because i don’t have the ingredients for anything else. so i’m going to go about this systematically, choose 5 of st. delia’s recipes, buy the ingredients (or preferably: shake the ingredients off trees), and create culinary delights. can’t be that difficult, can it?

_{yum yum yum, starving!}

Something that is optional, but could pay off some day!

I have to hope my mother doesn’t know about 43T, as I am about to reveal a closely-guarded secret family recipe: the best pudding in the world. They’re called Petits Pots and are incredibly easy to make, yet fantastically decadent and a real dinner party stunner.

NB there is raw egg involved, so they’re possibly not suitable for the pregnant/elderly depending on how worried you are about that sort of thing.

This quantity makes about 4.

Ingredients

• 6 oz / 150g dark chocolate. I have opted for the supermarket’s 72% cocoa stuff today
• 1/2 pint single cream
• an egg

That’s it! Ok, you can add vanilla essence or booze (armagnac or Grand Marnier perhaps?) but it’s not necessary.

Method

I use my food processor to make it. It might be possible to do by hand if you’ve got a strong arm.

1. Heat the cream, but don’t let it boil.
2. Meanwhile, break up the chocolate and put the pieces in the food processor.
3. Pour the hot cream over the chocolate and whiz so that the cream melts the chocolate _{this is the point when the food processor explodes and the stuff goes all over me and the kitchen}
4. Add the egg and blitz again.
5. Pour into ramekins and put in the fridge to cool, which will probably take about 4-5 hours.

I’ve messed up a bit today as was I was requested to make double quantities (!) and ended up with a lower cream/chocolate ratio than normal. Guess this means they will just be gooier than usual. C’est la vie.

_{It goes without saying that they are fantastic for breakfast too ;)}

This recipe was in the Guardian yesterday.

• Third of a tin of coconut milk
• 4 heaped tbsp of desiccated coconut
• Handful of mint leaves, washed and chopped
• 2 handfuls of coriander leaves, washed and chopped
• 1-2 green chillies, deseeded and finely chopped
• A thumb of ginger, washed and finely grated
• Zest and juice of 1-2 limes
• 2 spring onions, thinly sliced
• 2 garlic cloves, smashed and finely chopped
• Sea salt

The method is easy: basically you mix everything together! I’ve just made it – the wet and dry grinder was very useful, although it did give me its trademark electric shock as I unplugged it ;)

I left out the garlic and salt, just out of laziness really. It tastes pretty good – not overwhelming to begin with but with a lovely finish! I think it may need to go in the fridge for a bit so the flavours can develop. We’re going to have it with some salmon, but it’s veggie so would make a good dip for crisps or pitta bread.

_{Pringle-addicts take notice of what goodies are available in London Zoo}

This is a great recipe from the wonderful Darina Allen, Ireland’s equivalent to St Delia. She makes a pastry base and puts this stuff on the top, but I like it by itself.

Ingredients:

1. 6oz flaked almonds
2. 4oz butter
3. 2oz brown sugar
4. 3 tablespoons set honey
5. tablespoon cream

Melt 1-4 over a low heat until a pale straw colour. Add 5. Spread onto a greased baking tray allowing room for it to spread (I didn’t do this and it has overflowed all over the oven!).

Bake at 180C for 10-20 minutes until it is a dark golden colour. Allow to cool for 10 min then transfer to cooling rack. I’ve just tried to do this but it’s too soft so I’m going to let it cool in the tray until it hardens up more.

When I’ve made this in the past the people I made it for ate so much that it made them feel sick. I take that as a compliment ;)

Today I went to a class at Books for Cooks, the bookshop in Notting Hill, with my mother and sister-in-law. The tutor was Sofia Craxton who arrived late and was very apologetic; on previous occasions the class started at 1.00 but today it was 11.00 and she hadn’t realised. This lent the affair a somewhat chaotic feeling but in some ways that was good as it was more realistic and there was some improvisation due to time constaints.

The dishes she made included:

• chickpeas with dill, chilli and yoghurt. I’d never have expected dill to work with chickpeas, but this was wonderful
• sweet potatoes with raisins and honey
• creole chicken – supposed to be marinated overnight but pretty good even without any marinating time
• an amazing spinach and asparagus pasta – this involved making a kind of pesto with the spinach and asparagus, and lots of pine nuts and parmesan. It tasted very zingy and fresh.

We got to try everything and didn’t need lunch afterwards. I came away feeling inspired, and reminded of the existence of herbs and lemon zest which improve many things.

Sofia is Mexican and mentioned that she teaches at an Italian cookery school near Venice where they compare Italian food with Mexican food. Sounds great, but unfortunately the cost is 1350 euros! Maybe next year…

Well, I work out enough that I should probally change my diet as well. I know it would be cheeper to just cook my own meals instead of eat the crap I do and spend the money on the crap that I do. LoL! I also want to be able to cook for my future husband someday and just blow him away w/my wonderful cooking skills. I’ve always heard that food is the way to a mans heart. :] I better learn for my own benefit and for the benefit of OTHERS. :P