Loving the seasons: Purple Sprouting Broccoli

I love to cook what’s fresh, local, and in season. Most of the year that’s pretty easy to do. So easy in fact, I almost consider it cheating just a little. You don’t have to think much about what you’d like to make. Just go to a farmer’s market or open your food box and see what’s available. Whatever you happen to find, it will be delicious because it’s fresh and in season.

January through early March in the UK is known as the Little Hunger. It’s called that because there just isn’t much in season at all. It’s still too cold for above ground vegetables to be ready, and the root veggies are getting a little tired and sad. So we make do with potatoes, beets, parsnips and other strange roots. I have to think that some of them were first eaten simply because there was nothing else to eat. Who would look at celeriac and say mmmm…tasty…can’t wait to tuck into that! It’s actually pretty good, but not nice to look at, and as the one doing the cooking, you have to psych yourself up to serve it!



Last week the first signs of spring appeared in my veggie box in the form of purple sprouting broccoli. I had never seen nor heard of purple sprouting broccoli before moving here two years ago. I was intrigued, but dubious at first. Was this just another genetic mutation to make broccoli look pretty just to get people to pay a premium for it? It’s certainly nice to look at, but is it tasty?

The answer is yes! It is delicious! As it turns out, it’s the original version of broccoli, and the heads at the end of the long thin stalks are actually immature flowers. It’s also power packed with nutrients, as are most brightly coloured vegetables are. It has a slightly more delicate flavour than the green broccoli we’re used to, and lacks the bitterness that sometimes makes people want to smother their broccoli in cheesy gooey sauce.

I’ve browsed through some recipes online for preparing it in different ways, but it’s such a tasty veg, I prefer to leave it alone. Incidentally, there are very few recipes to be found apart from steaming and serving with a little lemon juice and butter.

I prefer to go even more natural with mine. I steam it until the stalks are bright green and crisp, and the purple heads are really shining. There is a global tendency to over-cook broccoli until it turns to mush. Purple sprouting broccoli is much more delicate than sturdy green broccoli, and it only takes a minute or two in the steamer basket until it’s ready. I serve with a tiny bit of sea salt.

Tonight, it will be a colourful accompaniment to pork tenderloin and a butternut squash mash. A meal that represents the changing of the seasons, embracing the best of the cold winter months, and the first fresh signs of springtime that remind us of what we have to look forward to in the coming months!

Winter warmers

My grandfather used to make the best beef stew. It was hearty, chunky, and clearly made out of love. He would make it on a cold, wet winter’s day, and serve it up with a big slice of my grandmother’s buttery cornbread. His beef stew would warm you from the inside out in ways that other soups and stews just can't.  The big chunky bites of potato, beef, and celery paired with the slightly acidic tomatoes and the bite of the chili powder make this a dish you love to eat.  The many different textures and individual flavours make each bite its own unique little treat.  This dish was pure love in a bowl.

This time of year in London, it starts getting dark before 4 pm, and the cold, grey, wet days seem endless. We spend a lot of energy this time of year just trying to get warm. We wrap up with hats and scarves, turn up the heat in certain rooms and shut the doors, and we cook warm hearty winter meals. There is a stall in the street market that is offering beef stew, and Mark is hungry for it. Not wanting to eat a bowl of stew shivering on the sidewalk, I offered to make some for him in the cozy warmth of our own home. I’m not sure what his version of beef stew looks like, and I’ve never made him mine. So it is with a tentative but genuine heart, I make him my beef stew.

Start by browning two small oxtail segments in olive oil, followed by 1.5 lbs (.75 kilos) of cubed beef (1 to 1 ½ inches square) in a large dutch oven pot. Remove the meat and set aside.

In the same pot, sautee 1 cup each of chopped shallots, celery, and carrots (sometimes called the holy trinity – although I can’t imagine these three without garlic.  So what would that be - the holy quad?) Salt, and sweat these until slightly softened. Add 6 large garlic cloves, crushed and coarsely chopped. Remove from the pot and set aside.

Deglaze with a little red wine, and add the meat back to the pot. Season with paprika, chilli powder, salt, black pepper, fresh rosemary (only a very little bit), thyme, two sage leaves, and flat leaf parsley – all finely chopped. Add 2 cups water and simmer. Add the trinity and garlic.

Add 4 cups of coarsely chopped fresh tomatoes.

Peel and chop 3 large potatoes into 1 inch squares. Add about 2/3 of the potatoes now, and reserve the rest for later. The potatoes added early will cook down and help to thicken the stew, while the ones added later won’t cook as long, and will stay nice big hearty chunks.

Cover with water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer covered for 1 hour.

Add the remaining potatoes, transfer to a hot oven (400F/220C) and cook for 2 hours.

Serve in a bowl over mashed potatoes made relatively dry.  The mashed potatoes add a smooth element of texture to the big chunky bits of the stew.  Like a warm blanket.

This is a dish that only improves with age, so make a little extra and store in the fridge for a few days.  When re-heating, take the time to do it stove top rather than microwave.  Give a chance for all of those flavors which have been maturing for a few days to blend perfectly together.

I hope you enjoy this hearty winter warmer from the inside out!

Love the holidays: It’s beginning to smell like Christmas

Just about the only time of year I like baking is at Christmas.  I don't have much of a sweet tooth, and baking calls for following recipes - something I really don't do.  However, there is something about a house full cinnamon and sugar that wakes up my holiday spirit. To really get into it, I’ll turn on the Christmas lights, put on some Christmas tunes, and get the delicious smells of Christmas started with some stovetop mulled spices.

WhileI learned about filling the home with warm and comfortable scents from my mother – she would brew a pot of coffee on Sunday mornings despite the fact that nobody in the house drank it -- I learned about mulling spices from my grandmother. To this day, I don’t know her exact recipe, but I’m happy to share my own. 

Stovetop mulled spices
In a very small pot, pour in ¼ cup each of water, orange juice, and cranberry juice. Add two sticks of cinnamon, a dash or two of nutmeg, several cloves, one vanilla bean and a teaspoon of sugar. Dried oranges are also a wonderful addition.  Keep warm on your stovetop on the coolest setting, adding water from time to time as the liquid cooks off. The pot can be kept on a back burner over the pilot light for days and will keep the house smelling wonderful!

My favourite pie to bake (and eat) growing up was apple pie. I love making it because you don’t really have to follow a recipe very closely, and it just tastes so fresh. It’s usually considered a summer pie, served warm with a big scoop of Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla ice cream dripping off the sides. It’s a deliciously golden two crust pie, with tart apples and very little sugar to let the apples shine through. However, amping up the sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg, and adding a rich crumble topping and some cranberries can make apple pie perfect for the holidays. I’ve transformed the traditional American Apple pie recipe into an indulgent holiday treat. I’ve opted to go for individual mini pies, as this version is a bit gooier, and far too sweet for a full slice! (Or maybe not!)

Holiday Apple Pie
Of course, you have to make a decision on pie crust. Do I want flour all over me and my kitchen? Whether homemade or store bought is up to you. I’ll not bore you with the crust recipe here, as it’s not really the star of this show! This pie has a bottom crust and a crumble topping.

I start with about 3 – 4 cups of thinly sliced peeled and cored apples. Granny Smith apples are best, as they are quite firm, and their tartness balances the sugar. Typically, I will soak them in cold water and lemon juice to keep them crisp and from turning brown. For the Christmas version, I opted for the juice of two oranges instead of lemon juice. Squeeze the oranges into a large bowl, fill with water, and as you slice, add your apples. Soak in the fridge for about an hour.

It’s at this time, that I make my pie crust, and arrange it in little individual pie tins. It’s more work than making one big pie, but you’ve got time – the apples have to soak anyway! Pinch the edges of the crusts for a pretty finish.

For the pie mixture, combine 6 tablespoons of granulated sugar, 3 tablespoons flour, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 tablespoon cinnamon, and a dash of nutmeg in a small bowl. Drain your apples, and dry out the bowl they’ve been soaking in. Alternating small amounts of apples and flour mixture at a time, transfer all of the apples and dry mix to the large bowl. Mix well.

For Holiday Apple Pie, I’ve added fresh cranberries. You’ll need only about 1 cup of fresh cranberries, coarsely chopped. Careful as you chop them – those little guys will shoot out from under your knife if you’re not watching! Best to use a very sharp knife for this, but again, please be careful!

The crumble topping is made by using 2 cups flour, 1 cup loosely packed brown sugar, and 1 cup of unsalted butter, cut into small cubes. I find it’s easiest to work if the butter isn’t too soft.

Combine the dry ingredients, wash your hands, and dig in! With your fingers, cut in the butter until the entire mixture resembles crumbles smaller than peas. If you’ve just had a manicure, or if you have one, a pastry blade on your mixer will also work. I personally prefer the finger method, as you can control how and what is mixed and to what extent. Don’t worry – it will wash off!

Now for the fun part! Time to fill the pies.

Place a large spoonful of apple mixture in the bottom of your pie tin. If your apples have stayed really crisp, you can arrange them in a pretty little fanned circle. Add a small handful of cranberries, a dab of butter, and cover with more apple mix. You’ll want the apple mix to be heaping up above the rim of the tin. Don’t be afraid to make a proper mound of apples. They will cook down more than you expect. Add a few more cranberries to the beautiful peak of apples you’ve just created and top it with another dab of butter (it's the holidays, right?)

Generously top it all with the crumble mixture. The more you add, the more butter you’ll need in your crumble. Top with a little arrangement of chopped cranberries – purely for aesthetics of course! Give it light sprinkling of granulated sugar which will caramelise, and give it a crunchy topping!

Place pies on a cookie sheet and bake at 450F (220c) for about 10 minutes, and then reduce heat to 325F (180c) for about 20 minutes or until your crumble has crumbled, and your crust has browned.

The cookie sheet is critical for a number of reasons. 1. It’s a lot easier to take 8 mini pies out of the oven at once rather than one at a time. 2. Fruit pies are notoriously messy and will very likely overrun the sides and 3. Cranberries like to explode and contribute to the mess referred to in number 2!

When the pies are done, please let them cool for at least an hour before digging in. I know you’ll be tempted, but they will be extremely hot, and if you burn your tongue, you won’t be able to taste them at all!

Serve warm with a dollop of fresh whipped cream. 1 small container of whipping cream, combined with 2 T powdered sugar and ½ teaspoon cinnamon – whipped until fluffy enough to form light peaks. Don’t whip too long or it will become hard and not as nice.

Dig in on a cold December night and let the holidays in to all of your senses!

Merry Christmas and enjoy!!

NOT cooking for love

I’m sure you will have noticed an absence from my blog as of late, and I must apologise. I have been very busy NOT cooking for love. We are expecting a new addition to the Cooking for Love household, and are so excited! However, cooking unfortunately had to take a back seat for a while. It’s a little bit of a cruel punishment that something so wonderful is happening, but it’s kept me from my very favourite thing to do. Cooking was just one thing I could not even contemplate!


My cooking process usually begins with opening the fridge to see what’s inside and make my decisions from there. But the act of opening the refrigerator door, much less even thinking about or looking at its contents was enough to make my entire system turn itself upside down! If I was able to get past those obstacles, the smell of food cooking was just too much to bear. And if I could get past all of that, actually enjoying the meal became a feat of accomplishment!


I can easily understand my body rejecting things that aren’t good for it, but all was able to tolerate was plain pasta with lemon juice. Sometimes, and I mean sometimes, I could crush a few cherry tomatoes into it. Shave a little parmesean on the top, and it’s a really nice light summer lunch – morning sickness or not! You would think that I would crave all of my favourite nutrient packed fruits and vegetables, but that just wasn’t the case. The ultimate goal was to get something down that would stay on my stomach and potentially not have much flavour if I did happen to ‘return’ it later on


But you (and Mister Cooking for Love) will be happy to know, firmly seated in our second trimester, I am cooking again!


Mark has been really great, and even cooked his famous SpagBog (Australian for Spaghetti with meat sauce) several times, never complaining, and happily took my suggestion that he order takeout for himself. He even made the most wonderful powdered chicken broth soup, served lovingly to the green woman in bed at 6:30 pm a number of times! 

Perhaps the biggest insult to him is that the smell of dish soap absolutely set me off! This was not something I conjured up just to get out of doing dishes. I went through countless bottles trying to find one scent that didn’t absolutely repel me. I searched pretty much until my super sniffer calmed down a bit and smells no longer made me ill. He is such a gem, and endured all of this with a smile!


My first second trimester meal was the biggest dish of love I have ever made. It didn’t really matter what it was, I was just so happy to be cooking – and enjoying it!! I made roasted vegetable tortilla soup and tostadas. They took ages to make, but were delicious and so very worth it because Mark, the little Roo, and I definitely deserved it!


Tortilla soup


For the soup, start with boiling a whole chicken in a full pot of water until the meat falls off the bone. To the water, add a spice mixture consisting of the following, pulverised with a mortar and pestle:


Dried pasilla and ancho chiles, Achiote seeds, Epazote, Garlic, Paprika, Red pepper flakes (to taste), Sea salt


Once the chicken is cooked, remove from the pot, and reserve the stock in a bowl.


Light a fire in the grill, and roast red sweet peppers, summer corn (it was the end of summer by the way), and tomatoes outside on the grill. For the peppers, you just want to get a really nice char on the outsides, so you want the flame on the fire to be high, rather than the radiant heat of coals. The corn will go from a pale yellow to a deep buttery yellow as it cooks, and it’s nice to get a little char on some of the kernels as well. Score the tomatoes so they don't explode.  They have to be watched very closely, as they cook quite quickly, and will turn to mush if you cook them too long.  Remove them from the heat just as they start to split.

Once the peppers are roasted, you’ll need to peel the skins off. This can be done several ways – I find the easiest is to cut the end off the peppers and then slice in half. Clean out the seeds, and run under cold water. With your hands, rub until the skin is removed.


Remove the kernels of corn from the cobs by running a sharp knife down the ear, shaving off the kernels as you go.


In a large pot, sautee 1 large chopped yellow onion, 1 cup celery and 5 -10 minced garlic cloves with a little olive oil. Add these ingredients one at a time, starting with the celery (will take the longest to cook), followed by the onions and finally the garlic. Salt them as they cook, and remember, you simply want to sweat them, not brown them.


Cut the roasted red peppers into ½ inch squares and add to the pot. Next, add your roasted tomatoes. Cook for a few minutes, or until all ingredients are cooked through, and then add your stock leftover from roasting the chicken. NOTE: As I am allergic to corn, I only added it to Mark’s bowl as a topping, but you could easily add your corn at this time.


While this is simmering, it’s time to come back to that ugly chicken sitting on your cutting board. With two forks, remove the skin and discard. Then begin shredding the meat by pulling it from the bone until the chicken is clean. You’ll have a mixture of light and dark meat. If you have any large pieces, cut down into smaller bits with a knife.


Add to simmering soup and cook for about 30 mins on medium heat. Season with more of the mixture from above if needed.


Serve in a bowl, and squeeze ½ lime over the top. The lime will become too sweet and sometimes even bitter if you cook it into the soup, but squeezing over the top of the soup when it’s served gives the dish a nice citrus tang that compliments the deep smoky flavours of the roasted vegetables. Garnish with any combination of fresh avocado, roasted corn, sliced dried peppers, cilantro, shredded chicken, tortilla strips, and a wedge of lime.

Tostadas are also a nice complement as a starter

Enjoy!

For the love of barbecue - rapido style

Sometimes you just get a craving and it has to be satisfied - immediately.  It usually comes without warning, and for some of the strangest reasons. 
A funny thing happened today.  I was doing a search to find out whether my cousin had won his hometown football game, and a Houston Press article about my family's brisket popped up complete with a photo of a chopped beef sandwich and the Bellville Meat Market sign in the background.  The photo was one of those close-ups that engage all the senses where you can see, taste, smell, and feel the food in the photograph.  The top bun is cocked back just a little bit to show off the goods inside. It's almost smiling at you, inviting you to come on in and have a taste.  It was so good that I wanted, no I needed a chopped beef sandwich immediately. 
Back in Texas, this would have been a craving easily satisfied.  I could take my pick of any number of barbecue houses in Houston, or make the hour's drive from Houston to Bellville to enjoy a barbecue sandwich in the company of my brothers, grandmother, a cousin or two and just about anyone else who else might happen to wander into the store.
In London - not so easy.  I have two options:  A place called Bodeans where I would be served a sticky sweet variation of catsup over meat that they have roasted and called BBQ...or I could make my own.
As a rule, I am always happier with the make your own option.  The problem was, I wanted it NOW! I did not want to wait hours for a mediocre cut of British meat to smoke itself into a passable brisket.  That's not what cravings are about.  Cravings are about instant gratification.  So I improvised. 
I took a small rib steak, seasoned with brisket rub (from home), and seared it on both sides in a pan with hot olive oil.  My instinct was that if I wasn't going to smoke it, I should braise it, but again - there's that pesky long slow cooking process.  So I took a massive shortcut.  I simmered it in water and spices.
I would never forgive myself for allowing liquid smoke to enter my kitchen, so to replicate the smoky flavor that makes brisket, well brisket, I toasted some dried pasilla and ancho chiles and crushed them into a powder.  I added black pepper, sea salt, dried Mexican oregano, garlic, a dash of allspice, and a beef bouillon cube (probably could have done without the cube).  I let that simmer for about about 30 minutes, or until the potato salad and Poffenberger family barbecue sauce was made.  I then removed the steak and chopped it into tiny bits, and put the chopped meat into a shallow pan with a few ladles of sauce and simmered for about 15 more minutes.
I served the meat and sauce on a warm white bread bun with pickles and thinly sliced red onion.  The result was far from perfect, but it tasted good, and did satisfy a craving.  The flavors were mostly there, and pretty good for a serious shortcut.  Surprisingly, the peppers did add a hint of smoke and gave a plain steak a bit of the depth that a nice slow cooked brisket has, but ultimately it was chewy and definitely needed cooking for several more hours to get it to the right texture, and at least 4 hours of smoke to make it taste right. 
However, the sauce hit the nail on the head!  My grandmother has long been recognised as the queen of barbecue sauce, and subsequent generations of Poffenbergers have adapted her closely guarded recipe to their tastes.  We may make our own variations, but we all keep to the basic ethos of her sauce: "keep it fresh, a little on the sweet side, a little on the tangy side, and always make it with love"   The result is barbecue sauce just as you like it.  I prefer a higher proportion of vinegar in mine.  My sister-in-law adds juice to give it a bit of tart.  My mom's is much heavier on the onion, and my grandmother's is a bit thinner, but with a cleaner, more subtle flavor that complements the meat rather than smothers it.  My grandfather most often would barbecue chicken, so her sauce is best suited to the lighter taste of chicken as opposed to beef.  We all make it just as we like it, and it's perfect every time!
So I would say that the moral of the story is that when you crave a taste from home, you can always find a way to get there - but the long way around is always much more satisfying than the shortcut.

Damn I make good soup

My answer to an over-abundance of vegetables that I don’t know what to do with is to make soup. I haven’t always made soups – I found them a little daunting, but once I tried it, I found they’re really simple, packed full of flavour and a great solution to a problem that is not such a bad problem to have.
My soups have ranged from my Super C Three pepper soup to Rustic Potato and Leek Soup, the less successful If it’s Green, I’m Keen Soup, and today’s Damn I Make Good Soup Zucchini Soup!
I opened my organic food box from Abel and Cole today to find that I had about 8 more zucchini’s to add to the 10 I already had in the refrigerator. Yikes! What to do? What else, but make soup! It’s a sunny summer day, and typically these days don’t make me crave soup, but I had to do something with all of those vegetables!
I started with a whole yellow onion (always a yellow onion for cooking – they have the best flavour and add a little sweetness to the dish). I chopped the onion, and put it in the pot with a little bit of olive oil. I sweated them until just soft, and added four cloves of garlic. While that was cooking, I chopped a mountain of zucchini into small cubes, and added them to the pot. I sautéed them until just soft and a little browned in places, and added my stock. Now the stock is what put the damn in this soup!
I had just ordered a ridiculous amount of dried chiles and spices from the Cool Chile Company, a London based answer to all of my hopes and dreams! With my little mortar and pestle, I crushed a vegetable stock cube, achiote seeds, sea salt, chile powder, ground cumin, Mexican oregano, red pepper flakes, a dash of paprika, and a pinch of sugar. From this, I made my stock. I added it to the vegetables, and brought it all to a boil. After it had cooked for about 15 minutes, I added the juice of a whole lemon to add some acid, and to bring out the fresh summer flavour of the zucchini. I cooked that down until the liquid had reduced to half, and blended with a hand blender. The result was a creamy (without the cream) fresh and tasty summer zucchini soup that made me say damn I make good soup!

Berries Berries Berries!

I am a lover of berries! Berries of every kind – I’ve not met a berry that I didn’t instantly fall head over heels in love with! How could you not – they come in the richest colours nature has to offer, and tempt you with their shiny exteriors that just look as though they’re about to burst with sweet and tart flavour. And the best part is that they really do burst in your mouth with such intense flavour they bring a big goofy smile to your face – I call it the berry smile! My favourite dessert is and always will be simple berries and cream.


When you eat a berry, it might start out sweet and then around the edges you experience the sassy tartness that makes it a berry!’ Others are tart all the way through and you challenge yourself to eat each little individual package of pure love over and over again!


We are at the height of summer, and consequently, the height of berry season. I ordered for myself a punnet of every berry that was on offer. I have shiny ruby red strawberries so sweet that you really should stop at just a couple – but of course you can’t! Strawberries come in a perfect little package of love. They are heart shaped, have a perfect handle, and you even ‘kiss’ them when you bite into their fleshy red meat. Strawberries are far and away the most substantial of the berry family. And also the most widely recognised.


Little indigo blueberries subtly release a little bit of joy that is just modesty all over. You’d never guess what a power punch of antioxidant and vitamins come in that unassuming little package.


Fuzzy hot pink raspberries scream out for attention. They’re like your high maintenance friend. You love them to death and they’re always great fun, but it takes too much to keep them fresh and happy. I feel a little sorry for raspberries – so delicious and feminine, but they have no staying power and quickly wilt down into a sad little lump of mush.


To my utter joy, I have two new berries to try. Red currants – perfect little shiny crimson balls that burst with a tartness that makes one of your eyes wink and your eyebrow shoot up uncontrollably so that you look completely lopsided for a moment, but it quickly wears off and you eat another! They look like little jewels on their vine, and take the prize in the ‘shiny pretty things’ category. Looking at them just makes we want to bake them into muffins!


The other is jostaberries. Jostaberries you say? Is that the Rastafarian of the berry family? Maybe! So they’re apparently a cross between a black currant and a gooseberry. They look like miniature wild grapes, and are strikingly similar – except you can eat the skin. They are an opaque black berry on the outside, but are green flesh similar to a grape on the inside. The flavour is a little musty and a little tart at once. Haven’t been able to sort out how one might eat these other than individually, but I’m on the case.


Blackberries might very well be my favourite. Maybe it’s the childhood memories of picking dewberries (smaller version of blackberries found native to fence lines in Texas). It was always a challenge to make sure more ended up in your bucket than in your mouth! Our grandmother had a deal with us. If we would pick two cups of dewberries each, she’d make us our very own pie. Somehow those pies still always got shared. My brothers and I would head out with an empty cool-whip container in hand to the fence, or the creek, or wherever else we had spotted a thicket of ripe berries. It would take us hours, lips and fingers stained purple in the process of filling our little container. It just this moment occurred to me that she probably sent us out to get us out of her hair for a while! Smart lady! The resulting cobbler was the perfect mix of flaky crust, tart berries, and a just enough sugar to make it taste like a pie. Served with ice cream, it is pure love.


Blackberry or Dewberry Cobbler (From the little brown recipe box)


You’ll need pie crust to top the cobbler – whether homemade or store bought is your choice. I’ll not pass judgment!


Sugar mixture :Combine 2 cups sugar and 2/3 cups flour


Wash and drain about 10 cups of berries (can be cut in half to 5 cups berries, 1 cup sugar, 1/3 cup flour)


Brush the bottom of a glass baking dish with butter


Distribute a single layer of berries across the bottom of the dish


Sprinkle with the sugar and flour mixture


Repeat until all berries have been used, ensuring you end with a layer of flour and sugar


Dot the top of the mixture with butter


Cut crust into strips about ½ inch thick and place over berries, weaving into a lattice


Brush crust with milk and sprinkle with sugar


Bake at 425F (220C) until crust just turns brown (about 10 minutes) then reduce heat to 300F (150C) and bake until fully browned.


The berries will be very hot when removed from the oven, so it’s best to let it cool. Serve with vanilla ice cream and a summer evening