Still ill and ongoing guilt

I have been ill for the past 6 weeks, and it is making things very difficult. I am feeling a bit better lately but I'm still not completely over it. I have an extension on my dissertation and coursework, but as I am still ill it still isn't moving as fast as I would like.

As I lost my appetite, I have barely cooked anything over the past few weeks, plus I didn't want to bake anything sharable in case I spread my germs around.

At the weekend I had a craving for custard, so ended up with 6 egg whites leftover. I'd noticed in "Paris Sweets" that there was a recipe for financiers, which only used egg whites.

The main problem with living in a flat share is that ingredients disappear. I had bought enough butter to make these specially, but when I came to make it, there was only 150g left. I used this to make beurre noisette and topped it up to 180g with vegetable oil. That was the only real mishap, and the rest of the recipe went smoothly, although I used muffin tins rather than the traditional ingot shapes.

I am not a massive fan of almonds, but was pleasantly surprised by the way they turned out. They had a similar taste to madeleines, but the texture was the best part. Outside was crispy and a touch chewy, but inside was soft and fluffy. I have some egg whites in T's freezer, so I will defrost them to make this again soon. I saw a variation on the internet that used ground hazlenuts instead of almonds, which is a very intriguing prospect. I managed to find some ground hazlenuts at the local health food shop, so will be giving this another go sometime soon.

I was also very excited to see Falko making a baumkuchen on "Rachel Allen's Bake" tv show on Saturday. It was cooked on a spit!

Neglect

I am sad that I haven't been able to spend enough time on here lately. Everything has happened at once and I have been quite ill. I knew it was bad when even the thought of food didn't excite me anymore.

I am feeling a bit better now, although I am fairly sure I will miss the dissertation deadline. You can't get an extension and have to gamble that your excuse will be accepted and they won't slap a late penalty on you.

I am making baked hot chocolate to cheer myself up.

Raw Food

We went for a walk to Stockbridge, which we had heard was a bit fancy, to check out the area. I've got a graduate job in Edinburgh in September, so I wanted to see where normal people lived as I've always stuck to the student end of town.

While we were there, we stopped in Red Sugar for a coffee. It's a raw food cafe, run by a pair of nutritionists. The premise is that cooking food destroys the nutrients within it, and it is better to eat food that is only warmed to about 40C. Luckily the coffee was an exception and was made with boiling water.

The other gimmick was that there were no additives, and everything was vegan. We got soy milk in our lattes, and sweetener instead of sugar. I forgot to ask what the sweetener was, I suspect it was fructose rather than Splenda or some other chemical substitute, but I found this a little strange. Sugar is made from sugar cane, and although white sugar has been processed intensively, brown sugar is fairly simple product, with minimal processing. I've had raw sugar cane before, and it was pretty tasty, and I can't see how it can be worse for you than any other naturally occuring sugar. I don't understand why extracting sugar from cane is bad, but extracting it from fruit is ok. I guess there might be some nutritional differences, but I would expect these to be minimal. Google reveals that turbinado sugar has roughy the same amount of calories as fructose, so I don't really know what they were aiming for here.

I don't think I've ever had a soy latte before, and I was pleasantly surprised. I really couldn't taste any difference between this coffee and a standard one. Although I found the logic behind the sweetener iffy, it did the same job as sugar in this case.

I really wanted to try one of the cakes, which looked delicious. I'm not sure exactly how they were made, but it was quite interesting trying to figure out how they could make cakes without heating the food. I read on their List review that they use a dehydrator to make flatbread, so I guess they could use this to make pastry too, and then have fillings that can set through chilling.

In the end, we got two Booja Booja raspberry truffles. These were also vegan friendly, and used cocoa beans that hadn't been roasted (and ths counted as "raw"). They were pretty tasty, and if I was a vegan I'm sure I'd love them. However, as an omnivore, it was too obvious that they'd used coconut oil in an attempt to recreate the natural creaminess of properly roasted beans. The chocolate had quite a strong coconut taste, although this might have been in the raspberry centre rather than just the chocolate. The raspberry centre was really good, the flavour of raspberry was strong, and the texture was creamy. I pulled a bit of chocolate off the raspberry to taste it on its own, and wasn't overly impressed. It was dry tasting, and although it was dark, it was still quite sweet. I think if you had food allergies, or were vegan, then this is a really decent substitute, but I think the flavour and texture compromises needed to make this "raw" weren't worth it. I can cope with eating raw vegetables for better nutrition, but I doubt very much that anyone eats chocolate for its nutritional value!

I would be interested to go back to eat a meal, rather than just having coffee. The decor was quite modern and smart, which makes a change from other vegan places I've been, which tend to look a bit rundown and messy. This isn't a bad thing, and sometimes it is nice to eat somewhere that feels like your hippy mate's living room, but sometimes it takes away from the "treat" element of eating out. I think the only other vegan/vegetarian place I have been that made a similar effort with decor is David Bann. I'm trying to eat less meat, partly for health reasons and partly because I am poor and vegetables and tofu are cheap. I might head back to Red Sugar for lunch in a few weeks when the dissertation is done and I have more time to investigate the whole raw food thing.

Dissertation woes

The dissertation is looming, and I haven’t had much time this week. I’ve even resorted to taking a packed lunch to uni so I don’t have to lose an hour of study time walking home for lunch!

I’ve still found the time to make a few things, mainly to cheer me up between the seemingly endless bouts of reading government strategy papers.
- Tea bread, mainly to use up loads of dried fruit that had been in the cupboard too long. I think next time I might soak the fruit in Lapsang Souchon to give it a different spin.
- Roasted vegetable and feta tart. I still don’t like feta cheese though.
- Lemon Buttermilk pie. My flatmates were having a chilli evening, and we wanted an authentically tex-mex dessert. Google told us buttermilk pie. It was a bit like an English egg custard tart, but lemony instead of flavoured with nutmeg.
- Canadian pancakes. We had vast quantities of buttermilk left over from the chilli night, and buttermilk is not an ingredient that crops up much in British food.
- Lentil, bacon and roasted winter vegetable stew. Took this in to uni in a thermos flask and looked like a total nerd.
- Raspberry and vanilla muffins. This was to use up some raspberries I had in the fridge, as well as the seemingly endless amount of buttermilk. They were a tad dry so I topped them with some sweetened cream cheese.
- Chicken, lemon and tarragon soup. One of the success stories for the NCG book of soup.
We still have some buttermilk left, so I might make some scones, or marinate some chicken drumsticks with herbs.

I also enrolled on a sugar-paste modelling class, partly with the idea of making some kind of topper for D’s wedding cake. At the moment we are learning to make carnations and lilies. I need to practice with icing too, although she hasn’t worked out what flavours she wants yet so I can’t choose which type of icing would go best.

I’ve only got 25 days of my dissertation left and I cannot wait!

Peanut Butter and White Chocolate Blondies

I finally got round to making the Peanut Butter and White Chocolate Blondies I'd bookmarked in Rachel Allen's "Bake" over a month ago.

I changed the recipe slightly as I used unsalted butter and added a little sprinkle of vanilla salt at the end.

Mixing the blondies

As I'd left the butter and peanut butter at room temperature, it was soft enough to mix with a spoon rather than get the electric-whisk out. As I didn't want to make it too bread-like, I was also keen not to over-process the flour too much.

Fresh out the oven

Blondies are like brownies but without cocoa powder or chocolate to make them dark. I baked them for 30 minutes, but I think on reflection they were a bit biscuity around the edges. Next time I'd go for 22-25 minutes so they go fudgey instead.

The other problem with them was the white chocolate. I'd chopped it to a medium size but it melted away and you didn't get the discernible chunks that I wanted. I'd make it with bigger chunks next time, perhaps just breaking the bar in to squares and then halving them.

Finished product

I served these at a dinner party held by my flatmate, and they would have been great with some ice cream on the side. Unfortunately it was a bit of a last minute thing so we hadn't stocked up on ice cream and other goodies. I saved a few to have to myself, and fed some to T when he came round to do some DIY for me. They tasted best warm straight out of the oven, but they held up pretty well stored in some tupperware for a couple of days. I really liked the crunch of the peanuts compared to the soft cake, and it would have been better with some creamy bits of white chocolate thrown in there too!

As I'd made my own vanilla salt from sea salt crystals and an vanilla bean, there was an occasional crunch of salt too. I am a big fan of the salty/sweet combo so I really liked this element, although as the peanut butter had salt in it I only put a little in as I was scared of making it too salty. I'm sure you can get low-salt peanut butter at the health food store so next time I might buy this and control the salt myself.

They are probably pretty unhealthy but they were tasty so I don't feel too bad...

Jerusalem Artichoke and Carrot Soup

I have become slightly addicted to the Oxfam bookshop, and frequently go in to the one by uni to check out the cookery book selection. The one in Morningside has a better selection of fancy books though, I guess because the people of Morningside have a bit more cash to splash and will give away books that are still pretty current and in good condition. The other day I nabbed the Green & Blacks' Chocolate book for £1.50!

About a year ago I got the New Covent Garden Soup book. My dad has it and I had been trying to decide whether to buy it or just steal my dad's copy, but it was in Oxfam for £2 so I went for it. I've been trying to work my way through but I've probably only done about 10% of the book so far.

I got some Jerusalem artichokes at the famers' market on Saturday, and I'd never eaten them before, so I didn't really know what to expect. As I was making the soup, I sneaked a piece out and tried it. It had the texture of a potato, but a nuttier taste. I still have a couple left so I might make them in to a mash or a mixed vegetable gratin.

I have had mixed results with the NCG book, with some being totally delicious (Chicken, lemon and tarragon) and some being quite disappointing (pappa al pomodoro). This one was quite successful, and I liked the flavour of the Jerusalem artichokes sweetened with the carrot. It also uses milk so it wasn't overwhelmingly creamy.

Recipe (adapted from New Covent Garden Soup Co's Book of Soups)

25g unsalted butter
1 small onion
1 clove of garlic
400g Jerusalem artichokes, peeled
240g carrots, sliced
50g carrots, finely grated
1l chicken stock
110ml milk
salt and pepper

Saute the onion and garlic in the butter on a low heat for 5 minutes until soft, but do not colour them. Add the chopped artichokes and carrots, and give it all a good stir.

After a couple of minutes, add the stock (I used the chicken stock I'd frozen earlier, I used 600ml stock and 400ml water as the stock was quite strong) and simmer for 20 minutes.

Blend it all up, and then add the milk. Stir in the grated carrot to add to the texture. Season the soup to taste.

Et voila!

I found this made about 5 smallish portions, but mine was quite thick, so you could probably water it down a bit if you prefer a thinner texture or need more portions.

Farmer's Market and Scallops

Bright and early on Saturday morning, E, H (two of my flatmates) and myself ventured to the weekly farmers' market in town. Although it was freezing cold, it was better than last time we went as it wasn't raining. It's very rare that you don't encounter some kind of precipitation in Edinburgh, and it did rain later in the day.

I took this photo while we ate breakfast. We did consider the Stoats Porridge van (I am particularly in love with the cranachan variety, although the cold on Saturday was tempting me toward the whisky and honey flavour), but in the end we went for a roast hog roll, with crackling and apple sauce from the Oink van. I love the way they only have one product (a big pig, complete with head and trotters, that slowly gets eaten at the market goes on) and that your only choices are crackling and sauce. No vegetarian option, no low-carb rolls, just pig. Delicious.

We went round the stalls and picked up quite a few goodies. E got a massive red mullet, weighing in at almost half a kilo. He's planning to stuff it with fennel and roast it whole. H got some lemon curd from the dairy woman, and I bought some butter in preparation for the impending butter tasting session.

I also got some Jerusalem artichokes and carrots. I'm planning to make them into soup. I've never had Jerusalem artichokes before so I wonder how they will taste. All the vegetables were still muddy from the field, so when I got home I gave them all a good scrub. It was very satisfying to scrape off the mud and dirt to reveal bright orange carrots underneath. The Jerusalem artichokes were less handsome to look at but they are getting pureed so it doesn't matter!

Lastly, H and I bought 8 scallops to have for lunch. I love scallops but have always been too scared to cook them myself in case I poison someone or just make them taste horrible. We fried off a little garlic in butter, and then added it to some more butter to make garlic topping. The left over garlicky butter in the pan was used to fry the scallops. I was terrified of overcooking them, but also eager to get them a bit brown and warmed through.

We served them on a little bit of pesto with the garlic butter topping. The pesto went well with the corals, and I had my scallops really garlicky, as I love garlic a little bit too much! It was great to have really fresh seafood, and I was pleased that we managed to sear the scallops without making them all rubbery. I think next time I would get the pan hotter as I felt they were a bit too cooked, but some of them weren't caramelised enough.

There are a couple of really good fishmongers around here, plus the farmers' market has 3 or 4 stalls that sell seafood (some of it still alive), so there is no excuse for not eating more fish. It's a shame Scotland has such a bad reputation for food, a lot of the produce is amazing, especially the seafood and game, but it all seems to get exported in favour of deep fried Mars bars...

Scallops with garlic butter and pesto

Crispy Tofu with Shiitake and Edamame

I had one last piece of tofu left last night, and some edemame beans in the freezer. A quick google revealed this dish: crisp fried tofu with shiitake and edemame sauce.

I don't know how healthy it is to deep fry tofu, but I went for it anyway.

I really liked this meal, particularly the sauce. My main problems with it were the usual tofu textural issues. The mushrooms and edemame were both quite soft, and the tofu, even though some of the smaller bits were crispy, was now chewy instead of squidgy. I think I should have sliced it smaller or cooked it longer to get a bit more crunch in there.

I also didn't have any sherry, so I used some white wine and some vinegar, and I had birdseye chillies, so I only used a small amount.

I usually have some tofu lying around, and there's still loads of edemame in the freezer, so I'm sure this one will be cropping up again, next time I will try and get a photo!