Category Archives: Food for One

Gado Gado

18 Saturday Jul 2020

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This Indonesian salad dressed with the satay sauce from my pervious post, is perfect summer eating. Like many salads its an assembly rather than a recipe. Gado Gado means mix mix, so there are core ingredients that make it typical, and then the variable ingredients depending on the season and what you have in your vegetable garden or fridge. 

 

The core ingredients –

Boiled eggs

Tofu or tempeh – lightly fried in sesame oil with garlic and ginger

potatoes or sweet potatoes – cut into long pieces and steamed

prawn crackers

The rest of the ingredients can be either cooked or raw, choose a variety for both their flavours and colour. Today I had –

french beans – steamed

green asparagus – lightly steamed

sweet corn slices – lightly steamed

edename beans – I buy these frozen and ready blanched

red and green peppers – cut into strips

cucumber – cut into strips

carrots – peeled and cut into strips

tomatoes – cut into thin wedges

Other ingredients that would work well together are –

bean sprouts

broccoli florets – lightly steamed

Any of the green leaves – pak Choi, mizuna, radicchio would add a nice slight bitterness, spinach

radishes

Fresh coriander and basil

Have your satay sauce on the side to spoon onto the salad and to dip into as you eat.

Patatas Bravas & Huevos Rotos

06 Wednesday May 2020

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SPICY ROAST POTATOES WITH BROKEN EGGS

This recipe is super easy, a variation on the oven chips, the only special ingredient needed is Picante Smoked Pimenton or Paprika. The potatoes come out of the oven with a crispy, garlicky, spicy coating, and the eggs make a thick tasty sauce.

Put a large baking tray in the oven and warm it to 190 C or equivalent. The potatoes need to be in a single layer with a bit of space between each one so they can crisp up, so if you are making a largish amount use two trays.

Peel the potatoes and cut into bite sized chunks and put into a bowl.

Crush a clove of garlic per person with a pinch of salt, then mix into 2 tablespoons of oil per person. Add to the potatoes and mix well.

Spread the potatoes on the hot baking tray and put in the oven for 30 minutes by which time they should be almost cooked a a bit brown round the edges.

After the 30 minutes take the tray out of the oven and toss the potatoes with a fish slice. Sprinkle over the pimenton, about a teaspoon per person, and toss again.

Put back in the oven for 10 minutes to finish cooking.

Meanwhile poach 2 eggs per person.

Serve the potatoes with the eggs on top, cutting the eggs to let the lovely hot yolk dribble over the potatoes.

Rosti

23 Thursday Apr 2020

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Potato Rosti are so simple to make that this hardly counts as a recipe.

Peel your potatoes and grate them. Put in a bowl with a pinch of salt and mix well.

Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a large thick based frying pan.

Take a handful of the grated potato and form it into a small round rissole shape, squeezing out some of the moisture as you go. Put into the hot oil.

Continue making cakes with all the grated potato.

Cook on a medium heat, adding more oil if needed, until a good golden brown on the first side.

Carefully turn the cakes over and cook on the other side.

Oven Chips with Mushrooms & Garlic

23 Thursday Apr 2020

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After the somewhat complicated Sarma recipe, here are a couple of super simple potato dishes.
Oven chips are so easy to make if you have a good powerful oven, a fan oven is best to get chips that are crispy round the edges.

Put a large baking sheet in the oven and set it to warm up at 200 C

Peel your potatoes and cut them into whatever chip shape is your preference.

Put them in a bowl with a pinch of salt and just enough olive oil the coat the chips.

Spread your chips out on the preheated tray, they do better if they are not too crowded and put in the oven for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, peel and slice a clove of garlic, and slice up some mushrooms. It’s more tasty if you have more than one type of mushroom, I used shiitake and oyster.

After the chips have had their 20 minutes of cooking, take the tray out of the oven and with a spatula turn them over. Strew over them the mushrooms and garlic, then put the tray back in the oven for another 20 minutes by which time everything should be brown and crispy and gorgeous.

Serving this with a poached egg on top is lovely.

Moroccan Spiced Vegetables & Cous Cous with Almonds & Sultanas

12 Sunday Apr 2020

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All amounts are for one portion
Firstly get your spices roasting – in a thick based frying pan on a low heat roast the following –

1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds

1/2 teaspoon coriander seeds

1/2 cinnamon stick – broken into pieces

1/2 teaspoon allspice seeds

1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns

3 cloves

Roast the spices, shaking the pan from time to move the spices around, until they start to release their aroma. Grind with 1/2 teaspoon of salt with either a pestle and mortar or in a small coffee grinder.

For the Cous Cous –

40 grams Cous Cous

small amount of flaked almonds

10 sultanas

pinch of salt

Put all the ingredients in a small container that has a lid, stir to mix and then pour over boiling water to come about nearly a centimetre above the level of the Cous Cous. Cover and leave for 20 minutes.

For the vegetables –

1/2 an onion – finely chopped

1 clove garlic – finely chopped

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon chopped red pepper

1 tablespoon chopped green pepper

1 medium sized carrot – chopped into small cubes

piece courgette – chopped into small cubes

piece butternut squash – chopped into small cubes

4 tablespoons cooked chickpeas

200 grams chopped peeled tomatoes

1/2 teaspoon harissa

2 strips lemon peel / lemon chutney

2 bay leaves

fresh mint leaves

Fry the onions and garlic in the oil until translucent.

Add the green and red peppers and fry briskly for five minutes.

Now add the carrots, butternut squash and courgettes, and again fry briskly for five minutes.

Add the tomatoes, the roasted spices, harissa, lemon peel, bay leaves and chickpeas to the pan and stir to mix.

Heat to a simmer, turn down the heat to low, cover and leave to cook until the vegetables are done, 10 – 15 minutes.

The Cous Cous should be done, it just needs a stir to break up the grains a bit. If it is not hot enough, put it into the microwave for a couple of minutes to reheat it.

Serve strewn with fresh mint leaves.

Braised Red Peppers with Baby Tomatoes & Capers

18 Wednesday Mar 2020

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This is one of those recipes that are so super simple that it’s hard to believe how tasty and rich the resulting dish is. Peppers and tomatoes are stewed in their own juices to make a rich and moist stew.
I had mine today with cous cous flavoured with almonds and raisins, this goes very well with pasta too.

For 1

2 medium or 1 large red pepper – cut into 1 1/2 centimetre strips

olive oil

10 baby tomatoes

1/2 teaspoon capers

small amount finely chopped red chilli to taste

salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat a shallow saucepan or frying pan, and add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and the red peppers. Cover and fry gently for 3-5 m8nutes to soften the peppers.

Add the tomatoes, capers and chilli, then season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Stir to mix.

Cover and leave to stew gently for 15 minutes, stirring from time to time until you have a soft juicy stew.

Butternut Squash Risotto & Crispy Sage Leaves

09 Monday Mar 2020

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For 1 portion

150 grams butternut squash

olive oil

1 small or 1/2 larger onion – finely chopped

1 clove garlic – finely chopped

60 grams risotto rice

2 tablespoons white wine

300 – 400 ml vegetable stock

salt and freshly ground black pepper

20 small sage leaves

Cut the butternut squash into small cubes.

Heat a couple of tablespoons of oil in a saucepan and add the butternut squash. Cover and braise slowly until slightly browned and nearly cooked.
Remove from the pan.

Heat more oil in the pan and add the garlic and onion. Gently fry until transparent. Add half the butternut squash and mash to break it up a bit.

Add the rice and stir in to coat the rice with the other ingredients. Warm through for a couple of minutes.

Add the wine and stir in.

Add enough vegetable stock to just cover the rice and add a pinch of salt if your stock is not already salted.

Cover the pan and turn down the heat to a slow simmer to cook the rice. Check the pan every five minutes or so to see if the risotto is getting too dry, adding stock as needed.

When the rice is almost cooked, stir in the rest of the butternut squash. Check the seasoning of the risotto and add salt and pepper as needed. Cook gently for another five minutes then turn off the heat and leave to rest for five minutes.

Heat 3 or 4 tablespoons of oil in a small pan and when hot add the sage leaves. Fry for three or four minutes until crisp.

Serve the risotto with the sage leaves strewn over.

Mushroom Burritos

02 Monday Mar 2020

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Where to start to describe the joys of a good burrito? My first, and still the best, was in a no frills eatery on Mission Street in San Francisco. It’s simply a meal in a flour flatbread………and so much more. The original recipe is refried black beans, good grilled beef, salad and a spicy sauce, all wrapped in a light flour tortilla, the result being a divine mixture of flavours and textures.
Now that I no longer eat meat I thought I would have a try at using marinated mushrooms in place of the meat, and it worked rather well. It may seem a lot of work to make burritos at home, but if you cook the beans in advance you don’t have so much to do at once.
This is the first time that I have made flour tortillas, and they were so good and light that I will be making them regularly.

BLACK BEANS – use the chilli recipe in the previous post.

Rewarm the beans.

FLOUR TORTILLAS – this amount makes four tortillas of about 25 cm diameter

200 grams strong white flour

50 ml olive oil

good pinch of salt

125 ml hot water

Put the flour in a mixing bowl with the salt. Add the oil and mix thoroughly until the oil is evenly distributed in the flour.

Add the water bit by bit mixing throughly as you go along, adding it even more slowly as the mix starts to come together. You are aiming for a firm but pliable dough.

Knead the dough on a floured board for five minutes or so to get a smooth textured dough.

Divide the dough into four equal pieces then put it to rest covered in its mixing bowl for half an hour or so.

To cook the tortillas heat a flat iron griddle or a thick based frying pan.

Roll the tortillas into thin rounds and then cook dry until slightly golden on each side.

Wrap in a clean tea towel as each are cooked to keep them warm.

MARINATED MUSHROOMS – per person

65 grams strongly flavoured mushrooms – I used shiitake

pinch ground cumin

pinch ground coriander

pinch smoked paprika/pimenton

pinch salt

olive oil

Slice the mushrooms and put in a small bowl with the rest of the ingredients. Mix well to coat the mushrooms evenly.

To cook, fry in olive oil until nicely browned.

THE SALAD

Tomato

cucumber

avocado – all cut into small cubes

teaspoon of finely chopped spring onion

shredded lettuce

fresh lime juice

Mix salad adding lime juice to taste.

SAUCE – if you want spicy use your favourite chilli sauce. If you are after mild to balance the spiciness of the beans in this case, the either sour cream or I made a cashew nut cream. There are many recipes for this on the Internet.

THE BURRITO

Lay out your warm tortilla on a piece of aluminium foil, put in the centre a line of the beans, then a line of the mushrooms, then the salad and finally a line of your chosen sauce. Using the foil to protect your fingers from the heat of the ingredients, roll up the burrito. The foil will keep the burrito warm while you make the rest.

Serve with pickled Jalapeño peppers and more sauce on the side.

Black Bean & Sweetcorn Chilli

01 Sunday Mar 2020

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While you can make this chilli with jar or tinned beans, the flavour and texture will not be anywhere near as good as starting from scratch. Also as with any stewed dish, if you can manage not to eat the chilli as soon as it’s cooked, but leave it to cool and reheat it the next day, the flavours are always richer and more rounded.

This recipe makes two servings, one of which I saved to go into vegan burritos. I’ll post the recipe for those tomorrow.

150 grams dried black beans

sea salt

3 cloves garlic

olive oil

1 small onion – finely chopped

1 medium sized red chilli – very finely chopped

1 horn shaped green pepper – cut into small cubes

1 horn shaped red pepper – cut into small cubes

150 grams sweetcorn – either fresh, tinned or frozen

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

cube of dark chocolate

salt and freshly ground black pepper

fresh coriander

1/2 a lime

Soak the beans either overnight or for eight hours.

Put the beans in a small saucepan with 2 of the garlic cloves and 1/2 teaspoons of salt and enough hot to just cover.

Bring to the boil and then turn down to simmer until the beans are soft and cooked, about 20-30 minutes.

Meanwhile finely chop the remaining clove of garlic and put into a frying pan with some of the oil and the chopped onion. Cook until transparent.

Add the peppers and chilli to the onions and stir in to mix. Fry gently for ten minutes.

Add the sweetcorn and spices. Stir in to mix.

Once the beans are cooked, drain them but keep the cooking liquid. Add the beans to the frying pan with a little of their cooking liquor.

Stir in the cube of chocolate. Cover and leave to cook slowly for ten minutes.

Check the seasoning adding salt and black pepper as needed.

Serve with fresh chopped coriander sprinkled over and lime wedges to squeeze over.

Strozzapreti with Tomato Sauce

07 Friday Feb 2020

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Strozzapreti, meaning ‘priest strangler’ as it is reputed to be enjoyed so much and in such quantities by the holy fathers that it chokes them, is a rolled pasta that goes very well with this tomato sauce. You can of course use other pastas if you can’t get hold of Strozzapreti.

For 2

120 grams pasta

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 large clove of garlic – finely chopped

1 small onion – finely chopped

1/4 red bell pepper – cut into short slices

2 tablespoons chopped Florence fennel

125 grams button mushrooms – halved and then sliced

200 grams chopped plum tomatoes

2 heaped teaspoons tomato purée

fresh oregano finely chopped plus a few sprigs for garnishing

4 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese if you are making the vegetarian but not vegan version of this dish

salt and freshly ground black pepper

Orange zest

Put salted water with a splash of olive oil on to boil for the pasta, and then cook the pasta according to the timings on the packet.

Meanwhile heat the oil in a frying pan and add the garlic and onion. Fry until translucent.

Add the red peppers and cook for á couple of minutes before adding the fennel and mushrooms. Stir well and leave to cook for five minutes.

Add the chopped tomato, purée and oregano. Cook slowly for 15-20 minutes until the sauce looks thick and richly red.

Season with salt and pepper.

If using the Parmesan cheese, add most of it now leaving a little to sprinkle on top of the pasta and stir into the sauce letting it melt.

Once the pasta is cooked but still with a little bite, drain from the water and add it to the sauce. Stir to mix.

Serve in shallow bowls with a grating of orange zest and a few sprigs of oregano to garnish. Of course if you are including Parmesan in your dish then add a garnish of grated cheese as well.