About 2-3 years ago, I made a note to blog this salad.  So, I’m getting round to it now cos that’s how I roll.  That’s actually not how I roll, at all, in most areas of my life, which are governed by endless colour-coded to-do lists, but for some reason, as much as I like blogging, I am very capable of putting it on the back-burner for many moons at a time.  Anyhoo.  This is really good and super simple, and delicious and did I mention easy.  And it really, really packs a punch, flavour-wise.

Here goes:

Ingredients

1 granny smith apple (granny smith for that tangfastic taste)

1 breast smoked chicken

1/4 to 1/2 red onion (mainly for colour)

3-4 handfuls leaves – spinach, rocket, mixed – whatever you have to hand

vinaigrette dressing – 1 part balsamic to 3 parts olive oil; big pinch salt; tsp mustard

Method

1. Arrange leaves in bottom of salad bowl.

2. Thinly slice chicken breast and apple, into half-moon slices and arrange consecutively (ish) on top of the leaves.

3. Cut your onion in half, and then thinly slice more half moons and scatter over the top.  I’d use half an onion, but I know a lot of other people would find that too strong, so as you wish.

4. Plonk all your dressing ingredients into a jar, put the lid on, and shake well.  Immediate creamy delicious balsamic dressing.

Note:  Olive oil has about 90 calories per 10mls so, yes, this dressing is delicious, but unless you are truly one of those individuals who doesn’t care about their weight, like at all, go easy.  Dressing is a great source of good fats, especially if you’re on a silly salad-heavy diet, but it is also one of the easiest ways to blow your calorie budget.  And this is a very flavoursome dressing, so a little goes a long way.  That is all.

Note 2: I do eat this salad at work, but I bring the ingredients with, uncut, because (a) pre-cut apples are brown and gross and (b) pre-cut onions smell weird.  To me.  So, do eat it at the office, but only if you have a kitchen and knives and the like.  OK, I’m out.

Everybody’s mum’s got a chicken soup recipe, right? It’s pretty basic stuff, or it should be, but it is deeply comforting, and nutritious, and, I think, a great thing to have in the freezer. I actually fucking love this soup. I probably do it a bit differently from my Mum, and my sister probably has her own variation too, but basically, this is what you do: you eat a chicken, you boil the chicken, you throw in some rice and carrots and onion in a pot with the chicken stock and you’re done. For the sake of the blog, though, allow me to explain in some further detail.

Ingredients

1 roast chicken (for the carcass)

150g (approx) shredded roast chicken

2 litres water

2 onions

2 carrots

100g long grain rice (e.g., basmati – brown is nicer than white)

3-5 bay leaves

Salt and pepper

Method

Step 1: After a nice oul’ roast chicken dinner, take the cooled carcass and strip it of remaining flesh. I mean meat. Chicken, even. I don’t know. Jesus this is enough to make me want to be a vegetarian. Anyway, get as much good stuff off it as you can; you can leave the gristly bits and the slippery bits on it though – they’ll just make the stock better and frankly, they aren’t that great to eat.

Step 2: Simmer the carcass for 2 hours, longer if you have time. The water will reduce about 300-400ml over the 2 hours. After the 2 hours, strain the stock into a bowl or jug, chuck the carcass, and set aside the stock for a few minutes.

Step 3: Grate the 2 carrots with a cheese grater and finely dice the onions.

Step 4: Fry the onions in a little olive oil ’til translucent. If you can’t be bothered, you can skip this step and chuck the onions straight into the pot with the stock and everything else. If you do skip this step, just know that the onions will need a little longer. But no big deal reaaaaally.

Step 4: Everything else into the pot, except shredded chicken. So, that’s rice, carrots, bay leaves, some salt, and lots and lots of black pepper. Simmer for another 20 minutes. THEN add the chicken and simmer for another 10. That’s to preserve flavour; otherwise you lose it all to the stock. Hey presto, you’re done. Enjoy your simple and delicious soup.

PS – sometimes I add a stick or two of celery and/or a diced potato or two. Also tasty. And you might want to add a squeeze of lemon at the end, but it’s easy to over-do it so be careful! As the great Adriene Mishler would say if she had a food blog: Find What Tastes Good.

Everyone is always complaining about Dutch food. The stodge, the sausages, the potatoes, the cabbage, the general blah-ness of it all. But to be quite honest, there is room in my world for almost all the foods and I am quite partial to traditional Dutch fare. What can I say, it’s hearty – and when you’ve been biking around in grey drizzle all day, it’s the kind of food that hits the spot. Erwtensoep, done well, is a particular favourite. Do not knock it ’til you’ve tried it. This one is a simplified version of one I found on cooksister – sans celery because I live with a celery-hater (but a celeriac lover, oddly); sans blending because I like vegetable chunks in mine; and sans bacon because 3 types of meat in a soup seems excessive to me. But hey, whatever floats your boat – and this recipe works super well, otherwise, so maybe she’s right about the whole 3 meats thing.

Before we get to it, note that there are two basic stages to this soup: the pea and pork stage, which takes almost an hour all in; and the vegetable stage, which takes 30 minutes.

To be honest, it’s more of a time investment than soup really warrants in my view – but this is a great soup, so since it is such an investment, I’ve started making it in double batches and freezing for later.

Ingredients

175mls

water

300g dried split peas

1 stock cube

300g pork chops (approx. 2)

250-300g carrots (approx. 3)

100g celeriac (approx.a quarter)

100g leek (approx.a half)

150g potato (approx. 2)

80g onion (approx. half a big one; full small one)

200g rookworst (smoked sausage)
Method

Step 1 lash the peas, stock cube, water and pork chops into a big pot. Bring to boil, put the lid on, turn down the heat and stir occasionally (cos once those peas get mushy, they’re a divil to get off the bottom of the pan). Simmer for 45 mins.

Step 2: fork out the pork chops onto a board and slice thinly. You should actually be able to just about pull the meat apart with just a fork at this stage. Make sure you get all the little bits of bone so you don’t kill anyone that eats it. Good advice, always, no?

Step 3: meat goes back into the pot, along with all the vegetables which you have spent the last 15-20 minutes cutting into nice, even-sized cubes of .5cm squared, no more, no less. I’M KIDDING. Just chop away, whatever feels good, although I do like the bits on the smaller side myself, as I don’t liquidise it at the end. I don’t try to cube the leek though because I’m not a fucking psychopath. Simmer for another 15 minutes. Stir occasionally, cos peas.

Step 4: add the sausage, and continue simmering for 15 (stir stirring every now and then). Congratulations, you now have some very excellent soup.

In terms of texture, it should be quite stiff. It’s somewhere between what we English-speakers know as vegetable soup and, say, mashed potato in terms of consistency. If that’s not your bag baby, just add some water to loosen it up. As always, you’re welcome. And thanks very much to Cooksister too!

Finish with a dash of Habanero hot sauce, and if you’re feeling particularly Dutch, serve with a glass of Jenever on the side. An excellent winter weekend lunch. Lekker!

It’s been so long since I blogged I can’t remember how to do it.  So, this post is going to be rough.  But the banana bread? The banana bread is good.  I’ve made it about twenty times, so it should be.  Plus it’s suuuuuuuper easy.

Ingredients

300g plain flour

100g soft white sugar

100g dark brown sugar

3 over-ripe bananas

2 eggs 

160ml sunflower oil

100g yellow raisins

100g roasted almonds, roughly chopped

1 x 8g sachet vanilla sugar (or a few drops vanilla essence) 

10g baking powder

6g nutmeg + cinnamon each

Method

Step 1: Are you ready for this? Mix it all together in a bowl.  I’m sure that is sacrilege.  Whatevs.  It works.  I’m no baker, or chemist, so I can’t say for sure why it works, but it works.  Oh, and I usually mix it with a fork to help mash up the banana.

Step 2: Pour the mixture into a largish bread tin and put it into a 190 degrees celsius oven for 1h15m.  That sounds like a lot, and it’s possible my oven is a bit wonky – so test it after 50 minutes. But if you happen to be using MY oven, it’s 1h15mins.  Remove from oven and yomp.  Don’t burn your mouth.

I’ve been going through a particularly intense period of work, where I’ve trying to balance various projects, the shape and content of which I have very little control over.  It’s been…frustrating (to avail of a lesser-used f word in my vocabulary).  It would be wrong to say I’m through it exactly, but I decided to take a break this weekend.  Well, actually, what happened is that one drink after work on Friday turned into a long, somewhat surreal haze of wine bars with one of my favourite partners in crime that ended about 6 or 7 hours after it started.  That led to Saturday being spent on the couch and my deciding that I deserved at least one proper weekend day not soiled by nausea and self-hatred.  Sorry, Mum, if that was too much truth.

This is all to say that I spent a very Sunday-ish Sunday cleaning the house, strolling in the park, getting some food in, going for a long run and cooking!  This is a salad I made up recently that I am really very happy with.  I hope you like it too.

Ingredients

Salad

50g fine rice noodles

100g peanuts

200g cucumber

100g spring onions

100g bean sprouts

150g prawns

10g mint, chopped 

10g coriander

1 red chili pepper, sliced

1 clove garlic, finely cut

1/2 sq inch of ginger, grated

Dressing

2tbsp lime juice

2tbsp mirin

2tbsp hoisin

2 tbsp sesame oil

Dash fish sauce

Dash soy sauce

Method

Step 1: break noodles into short pieces and simmer in boiling water for 3-4 minutes.  Remove, strain and set to one side.

Step 2: place prawns in boiling water for 2-3 minutes (unless cooking from frozen, in which case leave them in for a little longer).  Remove from heat, strain, rinse in cold water and chop.

Step 3: chop spring onions, cucumber, peanuts, and herbs.

Step 4: combine all ingredients in a bowl, including chili, ginger and garlic.  I use a whole chili, but I have very few taste buds left.  A half is probably sufficient.

Step 5: mix up dressing and serve on the side or over the top, depending on who likes what.