Ingredients

2 pointed red peppers
1 courgette
3 shallots
10 small tomatoes
3 cloves garlic
1 red chilli
Olive oil
Balsamic vinegar
125g couscous
Large bunch of basil
Lemon juice

Method

Heat the oven to 200°C. Cut the peppers in half lengthways and remove the seeds, and chop into pieces about 2cm wide. Slice the courgette into 5mm thick pieces. Peel the shallots and cut into quarters. Scatter these vegetables with the whole tomatoes in a large baking tray.

Finely chop the garlic and chilli, and mix these in a small bowl with two parts olive oil to one part balsamic vinegar, creating enough dressing to fully coat the vegetables. Drizzle this over the prepared vegetables, toss until they’re well coated, and roast for about 20 minutes until they are just soft all the way through.

Prepare the couscous according to the pack instructions. Shred the basil. When the vegetables are cooked, tip the couscous directly into the baking tray with the basil and a dash of lemon juice, and toss together until the couscous is well dressed with the oil from roasting (do this very gently to avoid breaking the tomatoes).

Makes about 12 brownies (depending how big you cut them)

Ingredients

120g butter
100g dark chocolate (min. 60% cocoa solids)
200g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
Pinch of salt
90g plain flour

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C. Gently melt the chocolate and butter together in a bowl over a pan of hot water. Set the bowl aside for about 5 minutes to cool.

Add the sugar, vanilla and salt to the bowl and mix until smooth, then beat in the eggs. Stir in the flour.

Tip the mixture into a greased baking tin, ensuring the surface is fairly level, then bake for about 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and leave to cool and firm in the tin, before cutting into pieces.

I don’t think I’ve ever followed the same recipe twice for a fruit crumble. Unlike a lot of other baking, it seems to be quite forgiving if you mess with the proportions of the key ingredients, and rarely fails to taste good. That said, I don’t think I’ve ever been quite so pleased with the outcome as with this week’s crumble, and for this reason I’m blogging the recipe, so I’ll remember it for next time!

This will give you 4-6 portions.

Ingredients

30g butter
3 Bramley apples
Caster sugar, up to 150g
Pinch of mixed spice
A few handfuls of blackberries

75g butter (cold from the fridge)
170g plain flour
75g sugar - I used about 50g demerara and 25g golden caster sugar
4 tbsp rolled oats (porridge oats)
2 tbsp flaked almonds

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 200°C. Rinse the blackberries thoroughly (I usually let them sit in a bowl of water for a while so any wriggly creatures float to the surface, and then rinse in a few changes of clean water), tip them into a colander and leave to drain.

Peel the apples, cut each into 6 chunks, slice out the cores and then chop into 5mm pieces.

Melt 30g butter in a saucepan and sauté the apples on a low heat until they are cooked (the fruit should still be chunky, but soft enough to break under the pressure of the spoon). Add caster sugar to taste, plus the mixed spice, and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Transfer to a baking dish, and sprinkle the blackberries evenly over the top, pushing them down gently to create a fairly even surface.

In a large bowl, chop the cold butter, add the flour, and rub the two ingredients together with your fingertips until you have a sand-like consistency. Add the sugar, oats and almonds, stir to combine, then tip the mixture over the fruit, gently pushing it to the edges of the dish and leveling the surface, without applying so much pressure that the crumbly texture is lost.

Bake until the topping turns golden - I think this took about 40 minutes in my oven, but just keep checking from 20 minutes onwards, you’ll know from it’s appearance when it’s done.

I served this with lightly-whipped double cream, to which I’d added a little vanilla sugar (a few drops of vanilla extract and a little caster sugar adds the same sweetness).

I threw together a basic design on Friday evening so that I could dash down to the printers the next morning, and I made an on-the-spot decision to not include a job title, instead just going with my name and basic contact details. After all, why should I be defined by my current employment as a designer for a magazine publisher, when my experience is far richer and my future is unwritten? I enjoy my work, but I prefer to not pigeon-hole myself as a magazine designer as I’ve spent many years developing other skills and I have a wide range of interests within my industry, and I try to get this across to people when we meet.

The flaw in my logic dawned on me last night, as I was walking home from the South Coast Design Forum meet in Brighton. Over the course of the evening I’d chatted to several lovely, interesting people, and we’d all talked about our work and our interests and inevitably exchanged cards. I realised later that regardless of how useful and inspiring many of these conversations had been, I’d given them nothing on my card which they would later associate with the person they’d been talking to. Well, other than my name - but in my own experience I’m less likely to remember several new names than to recall conversations with “the photographer”, “the copywriter”, “the architect”.

I still don’t know how comfortable I am with being ”the designer”; I feel my experience has been enriched by the other roles I’ve filled - ”the manager”, “the account executive”, “the printer” - and to give myself the label of ‘graphic designer’ and ignore everything else would surely restrict people’s perception of what I am capable of.

In retrospect this problem should have been obvious. I’ve been designing business cards for other people for over eight years, and advising them on the content of their cards as well as the layout, so I’m quietly scorning myself for having not thought this through. I deliberately only printed about 30 cards as a quick fix to get me through the next couple of weeks, so this gives me an interesting problem to tackle before I order my next batch.

With a recession looming, and ways to save money being in the forefront of our thoughts, we worked out just how much we were spending on takeaways in an average month (Indian food every Friday without fail, the occasional mid-week pizza, dinner with friends…) and were pretty horrified by the result.

The solution? Start making my own curries.

My one and only previous attempt to make a curry from scratch resulted in one of the most delicious Indian dishes I’ve ever tasted, but it took several hours, made a lot of mess, and left me with aching feet and back from standing over the hob all afternoon.

When I stumbled across this much simpler recipe in Good Food magazine, our vow to cut back on the Friday night takeaways provided the perfect excuse to test it out.

The verdict: If you’re not a greedy-guts like me, and manage to feed four people with this recipe rather than serving double portions (later regretted when neither of us could move from the sofa), it works out at less than £5 a head, even with the full garnish and using top-priced ingredients (in this instance, Waitrose). It was as tasty as a takeaway korma (and definitely not as sloppy or greasy). And it was straightforward and mess-free enough that I’d be more than happy to cook this again and again.

I’m now looking forward to trying out some different (hotter) curry recipes. I’d like to make some traditional dishes to see how they compare to what we would normally order in (jalfrezi, for example) but I also think it will be fun to not worry about it being ‘authentic’ and just play with different combinations of ingredients based on the same recipe, tweaking it until I have a dish that perfectly suits out tastes.

Chicken korma - serves 4

Ingredients

4 chicken breasts
2 onions
1 green chilli
A thumb-sized piece of fresh root ginger
A small bunch of coriander
400g chickpeas
Groundnut oil
Knob of butter
145g korma curry paste
400ml coconut milk
A small handful of flaked almonds, plus extra for serving
2 heaped tbsp desiccated coconut
Salt and pepper
Small tub of natural yoghurt

Method

Cut the chicken into large bite-size pieces. Finely slice the onions. De-seed and finely slice the chilli. Peel and finely chop the ginger. Pick the coriander leaves and set aside, and finely chop the stalks. Drain the chickpeas.

Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a casserole dish over a high flame, and when the oil is hot add the chicken, cooking until lightly browned. Add the onions, chilli, ginger, coriander stalks and butter. Keep stirring the contents of the pan, cooking for 5-10 minutes until everything turns golden, but take care not to let it burn.

Add the curry paste, coconut milk, chickpeas, desiccated coconut and half the flaked almonds to the pan, plus 200ml water (to save you measuring this out in a jug, just half-fill the empty chickpea can). Stir and bring to the boil, then cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Keep checking that the curry isn’t drying out, and if it is just add a little more water.

Season with a little salt and pepper, and serve with a few spoonfuls of yogurt, and the remaining almonds and the coriander leaves scattered on top.

This is the first time I’ve made a thai curry, and I really set myself a challenge by making the paste from scratch using a pestle and mortar. A lot of recipes for curry paste call for the use of a food processor, which would have definitely saved time, but I don’t own one of these and I read somewhere that by pounding the paste in the traditional way, more of the oils are released from the raw ingredients, giving a much deeper flavour.

I’m not going to lie to you - it was a lot of work making up the curry paste (I think about 45min of chopping and grinding), but it was completely worth it.

I prepared the dessert first so I wouldn’t have to worry about it once we’d sat down to eat the curry.

Brandy snaps - makes 8

Ingredients

30g butter
30g caster sugar
30g golden syrup
30g plain flour
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp brandy

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C. Lightly grease a baking sheet. Melt the butter, sugar and golden syrup in a saucepan on a gentle heat until the sugar dissolves.

Remove from the heat and stir in the lemon juice. Add the flour and ginger and mix until smooth. Stir in the brandy.

Spoon the mixture onto the baking sheet, divided to make 8 biscuits and spaced apart as much as possible as they will expand when baking.

Cook the biscuits until they reach a golden colour (this should only take a few minutes so keep an eye on them). Remove from the oven, leave them on the baking sheet for a minute, then lift with a spatula and roll them over the handle of a wooden spoon to form a rough cigar shape. This bit was slightly fiddly - they’re too hot to handle with bare fingers, but allow them to cool too much and they become too brittle to fold (although 20 seconds back in the warm oven will help soften them again if you’ve been working too slowly).

Let these cool on a wire rack and store in an airtight container, ready to serve alongside the chocolate mousse.

Chocolate and chestnut mousse - makes 4-6 generous portions

Ingredients

200g dark chocolate
200g sweetened chestnut purée (or mix 120g unsweetened purée with 80g caster sugar)
5 eggs
4 tbsp brandy
150ml whipping cream

Method

Start by separating the egg yolks from the whites. The quickest method (and I love the sensation of this on my fingertips - maybe I’m a bit crazy) is to carefully crack the egg open over a bowl, tip it into your hand taking care not to break the yolk, and let the albumen run through your fingers; you should be left holding just the yolk which you can then drop into a separate bowl.

Take a small piece of the chocolate - about 20g - and shave it into flakes over a bowl using a potato peeler. Put this in the fridge for later. Melt the remaining chocolate (usual method: break it into little pieces and tip into a heatproof bowl, bring half a saucepan of water to the boil, remove from the heat and sit the bowl of chocolate on top - the bottom of the bowl shouldn’t be in contact with the water - stir occasionally until the chocolate is completely melted).

Stir the chestnut purée into the chocolate until the mixture is smooth, then mix in the egg yolks and brandy.

In a large bowl, whisk the egg whites until they form stiff peaks. Add a quarter of the chocolate/chestnut mix to the egg whites and fold together (don’t over-mix it as you don’t want to burst too many bubbles). Carefully fold in the remaining chocolate/chestnut mix until it’s evenly combined. Spoon the mousse into bowls/glasses/teacups/whatever and put them in the fridge for a few hours to set.

Just before the main course is ready to serve (I did this bit while the rice was cooking), whip the cream to very soft peaks and spoon it on top of the mousse, sprinkle with the chocolate flakes you made earlier, and return the mousses to the fridge.

Thai green curry - serves 2-4 people

Ingredients - curry paste

4 lemongrass stalks
5 medium-hot green chillies
3 cloves garlic
5cm piece of ginger
1 very small onion
A bunch of fresh coriander
Zest of 1 lime
1 tsp cumin
1 tbsp nam pla
½ tsp black peppercorns

Other ingredients

750g boneless chicken (I’m using a mix of breast and thigh fillets)
Groundnut oil
200g chestnut mushrooms
400ml coconut milk
400ml chicken stock
8 lime leaves
1 tbsp nam pla
A bunch of basil (leaves only)
The remaining coriander (leaves and stalks)

Method

First, make the curry paste. Remove the tough outer leaves from the lemongrass. De-seed the chillis. Peel the garlic cloves, the ginger and the onion. Pick the leaves from about three quarters of the coriander. Chop all these ingredients as finely as possible, and grate the zest from the lime (you won’t need the remaining fruit). Lightly toast the cumin and peppercorns in a dry pan, then grind up in a pestle and mortar. Set the spices aside, and use the pestle and mortar to crush the rest of the curry paste ingredients (except the nam pla) into a fine paste. If you have a small pestle and mortar it will be easier to do this part in two or three batches. Once the wet ingredients are crushed down to a fairly smooth paste, stir in the nam pla and the ground spices, then seal the mixture in an airtight container and pop it in the fridge.

Slice the chicken into bite-size strips. Chop the mushrooms into quarters. Heat a few tablespoons of groundnut oil in a wok or a casserole, and fry the chicken in small batches until it’s browned all over. Set the meat aside, and fry the mushrooms in the same pan until they start to soften.

Remove the pan from the heat and add the coconut milk, chicken stock, lime leaves, nam pla and the curry paste. Roughly chop the coriander and shred the basil (easiest way to do this is to roll small handfuls of basil leaves into ‘cigars’ and slice with a sharp knife), and add half of the herbs to the pan. Bring to the boil and simmer for about 10 minutes. Return the chicken to the pan, and continue to simmer until the meat is cooked (which will be about the same amount of time as it takes to cook some rice to serve alongside the curry - unsalted boiled rice would be fine; I used jasmine rice). Stir in the remaining coriander and basil just before serving.

Pasta and cheese is usually one of those meals I reserve for days when I don’t have time or energy to shop or cook, or I want something really cheap. I’d normally just mix a little bit of grated cheese into some cooked pasta, ideally while it’s still hot enough for the cheese to melt and go stringy.

Macaroni cheese is a completely different dish. The flavour and texture are really deep and soothing compared to plain ol’ pasta-and-cheese, but it’s really simple to make and doesn’t require any special skills. In fact, the only part which might prove tricky for a novice is avoiding getting lumps in the sauce. The trick here is to be really patient and not try to rush it - the slow, careful addition of the milk and the gentle stirring is the reason macaroni cheese is so nice to make!

This recipe is enough for 2 very hungry people, or 4 if you add a salad on the side.

Ingredients

1 pint full cream milk
A small onion
6 black peppercorns
2 bays leaves
1 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp grated nutmeg
50g butter
25g flour
175g (uncooked) macaroni
175g grated cheddar cheese
1 tbsp freshly chopped parsley

Method

Infuse the milk by bringing it to the boil with the onion, peppercorns, bay leaves, thyme and nutmeg. Remove it from the heat, cover, and allow to stand for about 15 minutes, then strain it into a jug.

Gently melt the butter in a saucepan, mix in the flour, and cook for a few minutes to make a roux.

Take the pan off the heat, add a very small amount (really small - about a tablespoon) of the milk to the roux, and keep gently stirring until the mixture is completely smooth. Keep adding more milk, a tiny amount at a time, always mixing until it’s smooth before adding more, so you don’t end up with lumps. As the mixture becomes thinner, the milk can be added in larger amounts, until all the milk has been used.

Cook the pasta according to the pack instructions. While this is cooking, return the pan of sauce to a gentle heat and keep stirring until it thickens. Remove from the heat again and stir in two thirds of the cheese and the parsley.

Mix the drained pasta and sauce together and tip into a baking dish, and sprinkle the remaining cheese over the top. Either grill the dish until the cheese starts to bubble and change colour (about 5-7 minutes), or re-heat the dish in the oven later in the day.

A few months ago I came across a broccoli recipe which intrigued me, as it claimed to be able to convert the most avid broccoli-haters, and I saved it in my ‘must try this recipe’ file and virtually forgot about it until this week.

Today I picked up the ingredients and made the dish for our supper, and was I shocked and delighted to receive compliments from Iestyn, who has just consumed (and really, really enjoyed) more broccoli than has passed his lips in the whole of the last 30 years.

The instructions I followed are here on the Amateur Gourmet site, which in turn came from a book by Barefoot Contessa’s Ina Garten, but I found the simplicity of this recipe was somewhat lost amongst everything else in Adam’s post, so here I’ll give a breakdown on what has just emerged from my kitchen. I served this with potato wedges, which were just Charlottes sliced lengthways, tossed in olive oil, salt, pepper and a pinch of chilli powder, oven-cooked at the same time and temperature as the broccoli.

Ingredients

1 large head of broccoli
Olive oil
4 garlic cloves
Salt
Pepper
2 tablespoons pine nuts
1 lemon
Parmesan cheese, a piece the size of a matchbox

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 200°C.

Cut the broccoli into florets. Wash it if you prefer, and dry thoroughly (I used organic broccoli and chose not wash it). Tip into a large baking dish.

Peel and thinly slice the garlic, and add to the broccoli. Add salt and pepper (I was quite liberal with both), and a few tablespoons of olive oil. Mix well - add a tiny bit more oil if the broccoli isn’t well-coated.

Oven-cook for 25-30 minutes. The broccoli should become tender and a little browned at the edges.

While the broccoli is cooking, finely grate the Parmesan and zest the lemon. Toast the pine nuts in a dry pan until they’re golden brown.

Remove the broccoli from the oven and add the pine nuts, cheese and lemon zest to the pan. Cut the lemon in half and squeeze a little juice over the broccoli (I used the whole lemon and found it was a little sharp - half the lemon should suffice). Mix well and serve.

But onwards to 2009, which has the potential to be an even better year for me than 2008. Changes are afoot.

As in previous years, I’ve come to the end of December with a few ideas and plans which may as well be officially named as my new year resolutions, though as usual they have already begun well ahead of January 1. In 2009, these are some of the things I’m aiming to do (in no particular order):

Expand my reading

I’ve realised that I read almost exclusively sci-fi / dystopian / cyber-punk / apocalypse fiction (as mentioned in my previous blog). I can’t help myself, it’s not that I’m not interested in other genres, but just that I enjoy these types of story so much that I usually find myself with several titles lined up for reading with no room to squeeze anything else in between.

So, for the whole of this year, I’m taking control over the books I allow myself to read. The above genres are definitely off limits if the book is relatively new (ie. younger than me) and can not be described as a classic; however, some older works are acceptable if they’re recognised as classics even outside their genre, such as Jekyll and Hyde or Journey to the Centre of the Earth, but even then each book will be judged on whether it is really going to opening my mind to something new or if I’m just picking it up to satisfy a craving. I’m avoiding authors I’m already familiar with (eg. Iain Banks). And I’m seeking recommendations where I can for books, both modern and classic, to add to my ‘must read’ list (feel free to contribute your own recommendations by adding a comment!). I’ve made a start over Christmas reading Tess of the D’Urbervilles, and I have to say I really enjoyed it.

Give my time to charity

I haven’t yet decided how to go about this one, so a little research is required between now and returning to work. I already make a few regular monetary donations to different charities through direct debits, and I’m always willing to dig deep to sponsor fund-raising friends or assist a major crisis. But if you earn a regular salary, giving money is very easy to do and I don’t feel that I’m doing enough, given that I’m fortunate enough to be healthy and have a roof over my head, regular meals, a social life, etc. So I’m going to look into voluntary work that could be fitted in around my work hours, or maybe get involved with some sponsored events. I’ll report more on this when I’ve found a project to get involved with.

Gain better control over my allergies

I’ve suffered with excema and hayfever all my life. I stopped seeing the doctor about either of them ten years ago when I reached 16 and lost my entitlement to free prescriptions - the same creams, sprays and drops which my GP recommended year after year have always been cheap enough over the counter, and I’ve since added antihistamine capsules to the mix.

However, I’m noticing differences between the complaints I have now and those I had as a child, and think I need to take a new approach to controlling/treating them. The hayfever-like symptoms of itching watery eyes, sensitivity to light, fits of sneezing, itchiness and swelling on the roof of my mouth, a blocked up nose and tickly feeling in my lungs no longer appear exclusively in the summer, but come intermittently at all times of year with no obvious cause of aggravation. The dry itchy patches of skin around my eyes and mouth also occur all year round again with no clear cause, and cause more discomfort to me now than they ever did when I was younger, though I seem to have grown out of the rash-like eczema which used to appear every summer on the insides of my arms, thighs, and on the backs of my knees.

The most frustrating thing for me is not knowing for certain what causes any of my symptoms. At least when I was younger I could be sure that they would disappear when summer came to an end. I’m almost certain that if I go to my doctor with nothing but a list of symptoms, he’ll not be able to do anything for me beyond recommend the medicines I already use, and at best will suggest changes to my diet, cosmetics and environment which could possibly remove the typical aggravators of eczema and allergies. Frankly I don’t want to take up a GP’s time for something which I would probably have more success at diagnosing myself at home if I put a little more effort into it. Therefore my mission for this year is to perform controlled experiments and try and find a pattern to my symptoms, so that I can either completely remove the things which are causing the allergic reactions, or at the very least find a more effective treatment specifically tailored to my problem.

Step one is identifying the common causes of allergic reactions. So far I’ve come up with the following possibilities: pollen; over-sensitivity to chemicals used in cosmetics; washing powder; pets; dust (or dust mites); mould/mildew spores; foods (eg. dairy, certain additives); changes in the weather. Next I need to methodically cut out all contact with items on this list (one at a time) and note whether my symptoms are noticeably reduced or stop altogether. I’ve already started with the easiest one, which is a complete upheaval of my cosmetics. I already only wear make-up on very rare occasions so have no trouble in going make-up free for a month or so, I’ve swapped my bubble bath, shampoo, conditioner and soap for products which are free of perfume and unnecessary additives. I’m not using shaving foam (thankfully it’s the winter so my legs are permanently covered and I’m not going to shock anyone by leaving them au naturel), completely avoiding any hair products (such has hairspray) which might bring chemical residues close to my face, and I’m taking care when I use deodorant sprays to keep it away from my face as much as possible. At the same time, instead of switching between several different treatments my eczema, I’m sticking with a very small application of the product which seems to ease the symptoms the most, so if I have a sudden flare-up or improvement I can be sure it’s not due to a change in the treatment.

After a week I’ve noticed absolutely no difference, though I’ll keep this trial going for a few more weeks before moving on to something else. Some of these possible factors are going to be very difficult to control and test properly, and some I sincerely doubt are responsible (such as my pets - I’ve had the symptoms all my life and noticed no specific change to them when I brought animals into my home for the first time less than two years ago; my outbreaks show no correlation to the time spent in close proximity to my rabbits).

Following these trials if I haven’t come up with any conclusive evidence I’ll make arrangements to be tested professionally by my GP, probably via a skin prick allergy test.

If I’m still drawing a blank, or if I discover that the cause is environmental and can not be removed (such as the weather), I’ll follow up with controlled trials for different treatments for my ‘hayfever’ symptoms (I’ve been using Benadryl almost exclusively so I’d like to see how different antihistamines fare) and for my skin (I’m currently using Oilatum Junior cream which is marketed for treating eczema in babies, but I’ve also tried various cheap moisturisers and dry skin/eczema creams, hydrocortisone 1%, E45, Savlon, Sudocrem, after-sun lotions, aqueous creams, Vaseline, baby oil, Carmex lip-balm, to name just a few). The skin is particularly hard to treat as its condition changes vastly; it can be dry and lacking elasticity, very itchy, flaking, red and inflamed, lumpy, cracked and weeping, bleeding/scabbed over or infected. Regular use of the same product often leads to a new outbreak of uncomfortable symptoms, and the only useful thing that I’ve discovered recently is that using as little as possible of a product is often better than completely smothering the skin (as with the Oilatum cream, which I think creates an airtight barrier if slapped on too thickly, and I wonder if the skin sweats underneath causing increased irritation).