Archive for September, 2010

Three Chicken Wing recipes, for Football season and beyond

Apparently, its football season in the US of A. Well, in my home, football season never goes away for my husband. Whether accompanied my sticky, juicy wings or not. Thanks to food52, I’ve risen to the occasion to bond with my American friends and come up with a few recipes. It doesn’t matter that these recipes may never see the light of ‘winning’ day. What does count is the advancement of global flavours, from Japan to Thailand and the Middle East.

IMG_3140But before I get to the heart of the matter, I need to laugh and vent a bit. Read more…

Moin Moin – Steamed Nigerian Bean Cake

At eight years old, I was full of ambition. I had my mind made up and nothing, absolutely nothing was going to take my dream away.

IMG_3293My dream of…. Read more…

A Nectarine Tart & The Colour Red

Red. I love red. I wear red in winter, to outcry from my very western-world colleagues. But I offer no apologies. I like the passion, the romance and the strength of crimson and cerise hues. However, I wasn’t prepared for the sight that confronted me at a meeting last Thursday afternoon. This was an office gathering of leaders and future leadership, myself inclusive :-) (Ha!). I wore a red sweater to cover up my striped navy blue and white camisole, very nautical. I walked into the meeting room, one of the first to arrive. Shortly after a lady  walked up in a red jacket over a black and white dress. A few minutes after, yet another lady, a leader this time came  in, red beaded necklace, red jacket and red lipstick to go. By the time the room was full with 50 odd people, a cursory survey round the room showed there were a total of 7 women wearing red! I was completely SHOCKED. And it got me thinking about why we were all dressed in the same colour. Of course there were women in every shade of other colour from black to brown, grey and green but the ‘reds’ stood out and in my small mind, I think it was obvious that we had a statement to make.

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Daring Cooks Preserve: How to Make & Preserve Apple Pectin

When I hear the wind bellow and scream,
And see yellow leaves scurry
Ochre ones run
And russets  scamper
Into tree-line paths and winding driveways
Gardens and front porches too
When I feel the cold rain drops
And watch them fall on the slant
I know that Fall is come
The season of apples and cake
Cobblers, butter and fruit
And sunshine in blue skies
And rain. Lots of rain.
I love Autumn.

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—–♥♥♥♥♥—–

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Heirloom Tomatoes Fattoush

Embrace the heart of the Levant with Fattoush, of the genus Fattat – a family of  stale bread salads with toasted or fried pieces of khubz ‘arabi ( pita bread) as the base, combined with seasonal vegetables. Like croutons, the crisp pita shards bring bready substance to the fragrant, herbed salad alongside heirloom tomatoes, cucumber and pungent onions, all laced with an edgy dressing of purple-red sumac, lemon juice and dried mint. If you’re thinking sour, sour, sour, relax…..all that zing zang of the citrus and sumac are tempered by sweet pomegranate molasses. I upped the amount of pom molasses…I’m sweet like that.

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Strawberry Cardamom ‘Smoothie’ Jam

Hints of the familiar, amidst a crowd of unfamiliar. That’s everyday life. The constants change daily and the strange becomes ‘worn in’. Like rain in the summer. And cardamom in desserts. I find my mind split in two – half loves cardamom in all Indian recipes, even those that don’t call for it and the other half has heard of it in Scandinavia baking and sweet cooking.

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Bounty of Deliciousness in a Box: My First & Last CSA box

It took me a while to find out what CSA meant and why people were so excited about it.  Eventually I found out it was ‘Community-supported agriculture’ referring simply to a partnership between (small-scale) growers and consumers  where by an exchange was made of cash or produce, for produce. I like it. Everything about it – seasonal, local, often organic and being woven into the fabric of a community. I smiled because I knew that I’d be hard-pressed to find anything like that in the Netherlands, till I read Gnoe’s Grassland – a Netherlands-based blog and discovered she received a weekly Groentenpakket (vegetable package). I smiled but that’s in her corner of the Netherlands, and not mine.

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