On honeymoon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This time tomorrow, we will be on a plane to Cuba!!!!!!!!!! We will stay there for 11 days with the following programme:


day 1 & 2: settling in and visiting Havana
day 3 - 7: cycling between Havana and Piñar del Río (overnight camping)
day 8: relaxing at Piñar del Río
day 9: travelling back to Havana (bus)
day 10: visiting Havana
day 11: flying back to London

I am glad we could make this trip through donations to Amnesty International and Africa Now.

Pizza verdi

YUM YUM YUM YUMMMY pizza!!!!!

Makes 2 pizzas:

For the dough
200g wholemeal bread flour
100g white bread flour
75ml extra virgin olive oil
pinch of salt
1 sachet of dried yeast
180ml lukewarm water

1. Sieve the flours into a mixing bowl. Add the pinch of salt. Make a well and pour the olive oil and yeast in the middle. Add the water. Mix then knead thoroughly.

2. Leave to rise for 1 hour until doubled in size.

3. Roll onto a floured surface and place into 2 pizza trays.


For the topping:
4 tomatoes, sliced
2 handfuls of baby spinach leaves, stalks removed and leaves patted dry
4 celery sticks, finely sliced
1 green pepper, finely sliced
Fine asparagus tips
4 TBSP grated Parmesan
200g grated Mozzarella
Mixed Italian herbs
Black pepper
Top quality extra virgin olive oil

On each pizza dough, do the following:

1. Place the sliced tomatoes
2. Sprinkle some herbs
3. Place the baby spinach leaves
4. Sprinkle with freshly ground black pepper
5. Celery
6. Salt
7. Parmesan
8. Green pepper
9. Asparagus tips
10. Mozzarella
11. Drizzle with olive oil
12. Place in a 200 C pre-heated oven for 15-20 min.

Vegetable pies

This was really, really nice! Great as a winter starter or as a main course served with fresh vegetable side dishes.

Serves 6

1 big potato, diced
1 parsnip, diced
1 big carrot, diced
150g broccoli, cut into small florets
1 TBSP olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 red pepper, diced

for the sauce:
50g butter
2 TBSP plain flour
375ml milk
125g cheddar, grated
2 eggs, beaten

350g puff pastry

1. Fry the onion and red pepper. Meanwhile, boil all the other vegetables for 5 min. Place all the vegetables in a big bowl.

2. To make the sauce, melt the butter in a pot, add the flour and stir well. Cook for 2 minutes then gradually add the milk, stirring constantly. Cook until the sauce thickens.

3. Remove from the heat and add the cheese, and 4/5 of the beaten eggs. Season to taste.

4. Add the sauce to the vegetables, mix well.

5. Arrange in 250ml ramequins.

6. Cut circles of puff pastry matching the size of the ramequins and place one circle on top of each ramequin. Draw a little pattern on the pastry and brush with the remaining beaten egg.

7. Place in a 210 degrees (C) preheated oven for ~30 minutes.

Serve immediately on its own as a starter or with fresh vegetables/salad as a main course.

Quinoa stuffed mushrooms

These stuffed mushrooms were really tasty. It had been a while since I had cooked with quinoa, which is a shame, because its nutritional value is very good.


Serves 4:

200g quinoa
500ml vegetable stock
1 bayleaf
1 star anise / or / 1 tsp fennel seeds
2 TBSP oil
1 onion, chopped
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp garam masala
150g feta cheese, crumbled
1 tsp mint, chopped
2 TBSP lemon juice
8 flat-cap mushrooms

1. Rince the quinoa under cold water.

2. Boil the quinoa, veg stock, bayleaf and star anise / fennel seeds and then simmer for 15 minutes. Leave to cool down 5 min then remove the bayleaf and star anise. (leave the fennel seeds if using them instead of the star anise)

3. Heat the oil in a frying pan. Add the chopped onion and cooked until transluscent. Add the cumin, garam masala, feta and quinoa. Cook for 3 minutes then add the lemon juice and mint.

4. Remove the stalks from the mushrooms, chop them and add them to the quinoa mixture.

5. Brush the back of the mushrooms with a little oil. Place the mushrooms upside-down into a shallow dish (or 2 shallow dishes) and place under the grill until brown and starting to cook.

6. Turn the mushrooms the right way up, and fill them with the quinoa mixture. Return to the grill for a further 5-10 minutes.

7. Serve immediately with a salad or vegetables. (I served them with feta cheese flavoured mashed potatoes)

Cheeky Chatouille

Chatouille's top mischiefs at the moment are: 1) climbing up the curtains and 2) playing with the clothes drier. The latter involves:

- her pulling down our clothes with her claws until they (our clothes) fall on the floor
- us thinking: "we will peg the clothes, then she cannot pull them"
- her thinking: "oooooh, clothes pegs, I LOVE clothes pegs", and her climbing up the drier to chew on the pegs until they spring off the drier. Then her chasing them around the house.
- us thinking: "she seems to like the pegs, let's not use them anymore... What are we going to do with such a cheeky cat???"


One of her tricks is also to roll on her back, looking cute and showing off her fluffy belly, possibly miaowing and purring, until we come to stroke her belly, when she starts biting and scratching our hands...

Cycling through Warwickshire

We had a nice cycle ride a couple of Saturdays ago. Chesterton windmill has now been repaired for a while, after the sad accident in 2006 when it lost its sails. (and someone was injured)


We also crossed several times the Grand Union Canal which links London to Birmingham and has 166 locks.


And here is a view of Long Itchington:

Menu wk 06

Here is the menu for next week:

- Quinoa stuffed mushrooms (new!)
- Vegetable pies (new!)
- Green veg pizza (new!)
- Cheesy vegetable chowder

Mixed grill

We went to The Basement on my birthday a few weeks ago. One of the best restaurants in town I think. As a starter I had the "Seared Halloumi with roasted cherry tomatoes and pesto dressing". It was absolutely gorgeous!

This gave me the idea of doing my own grilled halloumi dishes and we had this for lunch last Sunday. It was delicious!

Served 2:

250g halloumi, sliced
1 courgette, thickly sliced
100g mushrooms, cut in halves
4 plum tomatoes, cut in halves
1 red pepper, cut into chunks
Extra virgin olive oil
mixed Italian herbs
black pepper
mixed leaves

1. Mix the olive oil, herbs and black pepper together (add garlic and lemon juice if you with. I love marinades with lemon juice but Trave does not). Add the vegetables, mix well and leave aside for an hour. Prepare the salad in the meantime.

2. Place the halloumi and vegetables onto a grill (we have an electric grilling machine) until they are golden brown. Serve immediately with a salad.

Savoury crepes

There were some crepes left from the crepe party so I made some stuffed crepes for lunch. It was delicious!

Serves 2 hungry adults:

4 crepes
500g mushrooms, sliced
1 red pepper, chopped
200g creme fraiche
50g cheddar, grated

1. Fry the mushrooms and pepper.

2. Arrange on each crepe: 2 spoonfuls of creme fraiche, topped with the vegetables, topped with cheese, roll the crepe and place into a greased oven-proof dish.

3. Place in the oven for 20 minutes.

Chandeleur Party

We celebrated Chandeleur on Friday 1st instead of 2nd February, which is the correct date for Candlemas. It is apparently a religious festival but I just know this date as a "make crepes, eat crepes and drink cider" day. The tradition says that if you can hold a coin in your right hand whilst flipping your crepe on the frying pan with your left arm, you will become rich in the coming year. I did not even try, I don't trust my left arm and did not want to spill batter all over the kitchen floor.

Recipe to make ~25 crepes

500g plain flour
6 eggs
500ml milk
250ml water
pinch of salt
1 TBSP Calvados (or Brandy or Cointreau)
3 TBSP beer (makes the pancakes lighter and fluffier)

1. Mix all the ingredients together with an electric whisk for at least 5 minutes. The longer the better.

2. Leave to settle overnight. (optional but better)

3. Whisk the batter again thoroughly just before making the pancakes. Add some milk if the batter is too thick.

4. Heat a frying pan and brush with a little oil. Pour some batter. Fry for 2 minutes. Flip the pancake over and cook for less than 1 min on the second side. Repeat until you have used all the batter. As far as I'm concerned, the thinner the pancake the better, but some people may disagree.

To serve with the crepes:
Marple syrup, caster sugar & lemon juice, jam, powdered chocolate, cinnamon, etc...

I had also made some apple & blueberry stew which was fantastic with apples, blueberries, muscovado sugar and cinnamon. This was a very popular filling.

Menu wk 05

No intensive cooking this week as we went to the cinema to see The Kite Runner on Monday night so we had time only for a quick pasta dish (linguine), and I was in Brussels on Wednesday and came back home quite late.


- Linguine with pesto, roasted pine kernels and parmesan
- Cereal galettes with broccoli
- Mixed peppers and courgette quiche
- Fennel risotto
- Crêpes (French Chandeleur Day)
- Stuffed crêpes

Photo: cereal galettes with carrot, broccoli and mixed leaves

Yellow pepper and courgette risotto

This risotto is quite tasty and a regular dish in our household.

Serves 4:

400g risotto rice
1 TBSP basil-infused olive oil
1 TBSP extra-virgin olive oil
1 TBSP butter
1 onion, finely chopped
1 yellow pepper, sliced
2 courgettes, sliced
basil leaves, chopped
150ml dry Vermouth
1 l itre vegetable stock
50g parmesan, grated

1. Fry the onion with the oils until transluscent. Add the pepper and courgettes and fry for 5 min. Set aside.

2. Add the butter to the pan and fry the rice until transluscent. Add the Vermouth, stirring. Once evaporated, add the vegetable stock gradually, until the rice is cooked (takes ~20min) stirring constantly. Add the vegetables and the Parmesan, keeping some to sprinkle. Add the basil. Heat through.

3. Spoon into warm bowls. Sprinkle with Parmesan and freshly cracked black pepper.

Lentil and chick pea patties with coriander cream dressing

This was really nice. Ideally you need a food processor so that the mixture is very smooth, but I have used a potato masher which works very well.

Makes 12 patties:

250g red lentils
1 tsp vegetable oil
1 onion, chopped
1 tsp garam masala (or mixed spices)
400g canned chickpeas
1 tsp fresh ginger, grated
1 egg
2 tsp chopped parsley
2 tsp chopped coriander
180g golden linseed (or sesame seeds)

3-4 TBSP flour
1 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp chilli powder

Dressing:
125g sour cream
125ml double cream (or plain yoghurt for a low-fat alternative)
2 tsp chopped parsley
2 tsp chopped coriander

1. Cook the lentils for 10min.

2. Fry the chopped onion and add the garam masala.

3. Mash together half of the lentil mixture with the chickpeas, ginger, egg, onion mixture until it becomes smooth.

4. Add the rest of the lentils, the herbs and the linseeds.

5. Mix together the flour, turmeric and chilli powder.

6. To make the dressing, mix the creams and herbs together.

7. Divide into 10 or 12 equal portions and coat with the flour mixture. Fry on both sides and serve warm with some vegetables and the dressing.