Rubbishy Cookery

  A good friend recently had a dinner party and served a delicious true tagine which inspired this experiment with leftover ingredients in the fridge and pantry. Allons-y! Ingredients: This was made on the fly with ingredients added as I went, so I don’t have my usual class photo of ingredients, but instead, a list: - leftover canned chickpeas - leftover canned tomatoes  - a peeled and cubed sweet potato  - a peeled and chopped carrot  - 4-5 finely chopped garlic - a chopped onion  - chopped dried apricots  - chopped prunes - many spices: salt, ground cumin, ground coriander, ground cinnamon, turmeric, saffron, smoked paprika  - olive oil Directions: Heat up a few gluts of olive oil in a soup pot and start frying the chopped onion: Add the chopped garlic, stirring often, until golden, and maybe a little browned: Add the chopped sweet potato: And chopped carrot: Keep stirring so nothing sticks or burns! Add all those lovely spices: Stir a minute or two ...

  This is a Japanese-ish light dinner that is simple, but will knock your socks off with the subtle complexity of its flavours and textures. I didn’t invent it by any means, but it’s a mish-mash modification of actual recipes and deconstruction of dishes I’ve had at Japanese restaurants. Ingredients: The broccoli isn’t really part of the recipe, I’m just making it as a side dish. Directions: First, prepare your mise en place: Finely chop the ginger and chop the scallion into fine rings as above. Try to handle your extra firm silken tofu gentler than I have so it emerges from its packaging in a solid block rather than two iceberg shaped pieces with extra bits. Chop the silken tofu into delicate bite sized cubes. I’m saving half of my block for another day, possibly for a miso soup (see Recipe #2): Meanwhile, as I heat up a pot of water in which to cook my soba noodles, why not take advantage of the resultant steam for my broccoli side: After a few minutes, I have perfectly steamed a...

  This is a homemade easy version of a classic tasty Lebanese dish, based on verbal instructions from my favourite Lebanese grocer, Shaddy of Brighton Clover Farm. He gave me the broad brushstrokes version of how to make this at home while I was shopping in his store and buying the star ingredient, the canned fava beans, many years ago.  Actually, the way I remember it is that I was shopping at the store and chatting with Shaddy, as one does, and told him how much I loved this dish at a local Lebanese restaurant. Shaddy, who never minces his words, asked me why the heck (he did not say heck) I was paying good money at a restaurant for something I could make at home for a fraction of the price and much tastier? I told him to go on, I was interested. He went forth to show me the cans of fava beans and told me how to prepare them. This is what I remember from those long-ago verbal instructions, and how I’ve been enjoying them at home for years since. Ingredients: Directions: Empt...

 Today’s recipe is a perfect lunch for when your stomach is a bit off, and it’s simple and easy to make, even with a broken ankle. Should that be your situation. Hypothetically. Ingredients: Directions: Because we are down and out, what with our GI distress and possible additional lower extremity injury, let’s make things as easy as possible and use the rice cooker. Today we’re going to make some converted white rice. White rice is our choice for settling our dodgy tummies today. Let’s save the high fibre brown rice for another occasion/ailment, such as a cold or flu. Let’s follow the directions on the package to make our perfect rice every time. 1 cup rice to 2 cups water in the rice cooker. Don’t forget to plug it in and turn it on! We’ve made those mistakes before, haven’t we? When the rice is done, start making the miso soup—directly right in the bowl! It couldn’t be easier! Spoon a spoonful of miso paste into your bowl and heat up some water (about 500ml) in a kettle but just ...