Controversial Crumble

Why is it controversial?

Because it's savoury.

Open your mind.

Eat.

Love.

Be happy.

Take a look:

Savory Crumble Topping:

Rub together a smallish handful of flour, a biggish handful of oats and an in-between handful of butter or margarine until it looks a bit like bread crumbs.

Then have some fun adding things in. This one here has some curry spices and sunflower seeds in. Controversial....

Aduki Bean Base:

Aduki beans are hard red beans so you'd better not mess with them. What you'd better do is soack them overnight then boil them up in a big pan for about an hour. they don't really get too soft (I TOLD you they're hard) but by tasting them you'll see when they're ready.

This lot were added to a load of fried onions, carrots, celery, garlic, fresh ginger, corriander and cumin.

Put the bean mix in an ovenproof dish, add as much crumble mix as you like then bake it till it gets golden and looks happy. Eat. Love. Be happy.

For extra happiness add Franks red hot sauce.

Cous Cous Stuffed Peppers

Anything can go in a grilled pepper. Well, almost anything, I wouldn't recommend things like aeroplanes or arsenic. Although I once read about a man who ate a whole aeroplane, but by bit. It was the Guinness Book of Records. These peppers were stuffed with a mixture of vegetables and couscous and topped with mozzarella.

Grilled peppers

Wash the peppers.

Cut the end of the pepper with the stalk, about a centimetre in. It should come off with the seedy bit in the middle, which you can twist out and throw away. Someone told me once that the seeds are poisonous, but that was after I'd been a pepper-seed eater for a long time, and I'm fine, so they're probably not too bad.

Place them under a grill and keep an eye on them and turn them regularly, so that they go black all over. Sorry, that's chargrilled' to all you Jamie Oliver's out there...

Cous Cous

Is a wonderful grain.

At it's most basic you can just cover it in boiling water for about 3 minutes, stir it up, and it will obligingly fill a hole in your belly. If you care about your taste buds then you can throw in any manner of sauces, spices, herbs, pastes... whatever comes to hand in those hungry moments.

At it's best, it is full of interesting tastes, colours and textures, and will go well in a salad meal, as a light carb in one of your square meals, as a lunch, in a buffet... you get the picture.

Some people like to chop up vegetables SUPER fine and mix them in to the cous cous which has just had boiling water thrown on it. This makes it very tasty. Spring onion, cucumber, garlic, olive oil, black pepper and lemon is a good mix. Harissa paste makes it warm and moroccanney. (Yes, that is a word.)

The cous cous in the picture was made like this:

Onions and garlic fried in oil, then a load of chopped leeks and mushrooms thrown in. Two handfulls of cous cous and enough water to cover, stirred for about five minutes, then a load of spinach added, some salt and pepper sprinkled on, the lid put on the frying pan and the whole lot left to get to know itself.

In the meanwhile I sliced some mozzarella, and scraped the skin off a cucumber. At the time I knew that I'd heard that this is a good idea, but couldn't remember why, and nor can I now. Anyone? Anyway, I added the cucumber skin to the cous cous (pretending it was fresh herbs) then gave it another stir for luck and spooned it into the waiting peppers. A slice of mozzarella was added to each pepper, which were both delicately placed on the grill pan (their stuffing made this rather precarious), after it started to bubble I put them on a plate and cut them in half so that each plate got two colours of pepper. It would look prettier to leave the peppers whole but variety is the spice of life so I varied my pepper, baby. Mm-hmm.

Cherry tomatoes, cucumber and rocket went nicely with these peppers. It seems like they won't be that filling, but appearances can be deceptive so eat them slowly and listen to the signals from your stomach. Remember that they're nice cold too.

Dara's Houmous

Is it houmous or hummus? Or Hummus or Hamas? Whatever you call it, it sure is tasty, and it's pretty easy to make as well. I shall guide you now in making Dara's Houmous. Here are the main ingredients:

Chickpeas

Garlic

Olive/ Veg oil

Lemon Juice
Light Tahini
Frank's Red Hot Sauce

First, soak some chickpeas in the fridge over night. Barely half-fill the containers (I just use washed out jars) with chickpeas, then fill them up the rest of the way with water and put the lid on. They'll expand overnight. Alternatively, you can just use pre-soaked, tinned chickpeas, but soaking your own is normally cheaper. The next day, boil them up in some fresh water until they're nice and tender. It may take a while, maybe half an hour or more, or nothing at all for tinned chickpeas. But do make sure they are nice and tender, as Gwen tells me under-cooked chickpeas (and other pulses) make you fart. Personally, I don't know what she's talking about. But... do watch out for that

So, when they're nice and tender, strain them off. Add them to a bowl along with lots of crushed garlic (the amount is up to you - I'm a fiend), a small bit of tahini (not too much - it's bitter), and a dash of oil and a bit of water to start.  Blend them up if you have a blender - it will make things much smoother - or if not just mash them up. You can gradually add more oil and water to the mixture (more oil is better, depending on how healthy you want to be) and continue mixing until you're happy with the consistency. Don't throw the liquids all in at once, as your houmous may end up too watery or oily (if it does though, don't despair - oily houmous makes a good base for a curry). Now, squeeze in some lemon juice to your taste. As well as giving it a zesty twist, the citric acid also helps preserve the houmous, or so Gwen tells me. Then add salt and pepper to taste. And, the secret ingredient of Dara's houmous, a secret no longer - add lashings of Frank's Red Hot Sauce! Oh yeah.  Mix it all up and you're done! Good work!

You generally get a jar of houmous per jar of soaked chickpeas used, so you can just store your houmous in those jars in the fridge for a few days (4 - 5, maybe more) till it goes stinky. Not that I need to tell you how to serve your delicious houmous, but serve your delicious houmous on some bread, in a sandwich, or with some crisps. Sometimes I just eat it from the jar. That's completely normal, too.

Try also: caramelised onion houmous. Same recipe, but with onions fried in oil with sugar.

- Dara

Baked Pancakes with Broccoli and Ricotta.

Recently I watched a TV programme where the bassist from Blur, who now makes cheese, did an experiment where he ate almost identical meals for two weeks, but in the second week added lots of low fat dairy, then his poo was examined in the Netherlands. There was twice as much fat in his poo in the non-dairy week as the dairy week - apparently dairy binds with fat inside you, so that it's too big to digest and you excrete it. It's because of this that low fat dairy can help you lose weight. Good old television experiments! So sorry vegans and vegan sympathisers, I'm on a dairy mission. The amount of melted cheddar above is purely for health reasons. Ahem...

In the photo you can see alfalfa sprouts, lettuce, cottage cheese mixed with chard and a big fat pancake. (Sprouting tips: http://www.thefarm.org/charities/i4at/lib2/sprouts.htm) This was my dinner the day before yesterday, and my lunch yesterday. That is the way things are at the moment, and the way I like it. I heartily recommend leftover lunches.

Four baked pancakes were made thus:

Pancakes:

A handful of flour mixed with a beaten egg and enough milk to make a runny-ish consistencey. (It works fine without the egg too.)

Just a teensy bit of oil or butter in a frying pan, ladle enough batter in the cover the bottom nicely. Wait till it's cooked all the way through then flip it till it gets brown on the other side. You know how it goes....

Ricotta and broccoli mix:

Does what it says on the tin - a head of steamed broccoli, chopped up then mixed with a tub of ricotta. This makes a little more than you need - the leftover is nice spread on toast. Leftover breakfasts are the most under-rated leftovers in this day and age.

Cottage cheese and chard mix:

I also stuffed a pancake with some raw chopped chard and a bit of cottage cheese, and it worked surprisingly well. That's the leftovers on the plate in the picture, thinking it can disguise itself as a salad if it sits next to the lettuce.

So I made the pancakes, stuffed them with the mixtures, folded them up, laid them in a dish, grated some cheddar over them and baked them until it started to bubble and turn golden.

Lots of things could go in these pancakes. I might try a mixture of something and hummus next....

Vegan Pumpkin Pie

Hello. Here is a pie:

It is a vegan pumpkin pie I made, the exact recipe of which I cannot recall, and do not believe I ever recorded. I imagine this will be representative of posts to come,

But, I shall do my best to guide you. The pastry is made from mixing sunflower oil and flour, with some water until you get a nice crumbly dough. For the filling, boil some diced pumpkin till it’s reduced to a soft puree and most of the water has boiled off. Then fry it up in a pan with some oil and fairtrade sugar & spices. I recommend ginger, nutmeg, some cinnamon and a bit of cracked black pepper.

Meanwhile (or probably after if you only have two hands) prepare the pastry in whatever form you like - I chose classic pie form. A nice circular oven dish well-oiled will help with this shape. You can add some greaseproof paper around to make sure it doesn't stick, but that has nasty silicon in it, so I recommend just oiling everything to the max - it's more rock and roll also. Then when you're happy with your pie-crust format, add the mixture in and bake it till it’s done. It is done whenever you think it tastes good, as nothing in this pie will kill you. Well, not accidentally anyway (a fallen pumpkin from a height could prove fatal). Anyway, you can even make a fancy lattice pattern on top if you've spare pastry and want to impress your easily-impressed friends. Serve a slice (or the whole thing if you're hungry) with some soy yoghurt or ice-cream.

I have not given exact quantities and I don’t know what they are, but this way you will create something that is truly your own! Even if it’s a mess. But I’m sure it will be lovely.

- Dara