Revision Food

So last time I popped in here, I was busy with the thesis. It had taken over my life. Life was wake up, library, lunch, library, dinner, work at home, sleep. Boring. And now that all feels like it was aaages ago. Because now there's revision. Yes, it's not enough that I had to write 30 000 thesis, words, I now have four exams to get through. Silly Oxford. And silly me for signing up to it!
Needless to say, revision's been pretty slow going. First of all, a group of us went away for a few days. Then, the boy and I went to London to see our family and friends. Then there was an election and I looove politics, so that was more important. We've both had interviews. And now it's hot. Really really hot. And much harder to revise.

Today was glorious and I just wanted to sunbathe. And as the evening approached, I could smell the bbqs. I'm jealous. I'd like nothing more than to spend the evening sitting outside with a drink and lots of grilled things. But I can't.

So instead, speedy food, perfect for revision.

It's an old favourite, but you can't beat couscous with roasted vegetables and a spicy sauce. Especially if you add chickpeas.

Couscous:
My trick with couscous is to stick it in a bowl, and add boiling water. Then, crumble in some stock, and some spices - I like cumin and coriander. That way is has much more flavour.

Veg:
I roasted courgette (zucchini), red onion, yellow pepper and mushrooms. That's a good range of colours.

Sauce:
Easy easy easy. Take one little tin of tomato puree. They cost about 25p in the supermarkets. Add spices - chilli, cumin, corriander, cinnamon - some oil & vinegar, and lots of lemon juice. Blend with a hand blender.

Combine all with chick peas! Yum!

A week in France and Pink Couscous

Sorry for the lack of posting, things are very different in the holidays and taking photos of cooking is hard.

I spent the past week in the South of France with my new boyfriend and his family. We've actually only been going out for 6 weeks, so it's pretty fast moving, but we had a lovely time. There was lots of sitting in the sun, and swimming, and even some table tennis and crazy golf:



We had lots of lovely food, lots of good cheese and wine, and the boy and I cooked dinner one night: goats cheese bruschetta, lamb chops with garlicy potates and roast veg, and then grilled peaches. We went out for dinner a couple of times; the first time I had foie gras pate, and then sea bass on oriental-style veg, with sesame seeds around the edge, dessert was sorbet, fruit and macaroons. It was all really lovely! The other meal out was a late lunch, and I had steak and chips, then tarte tartin, before getting on the plane.

Last night I made dinner for dad and I, that was also lunch for mum and I today. One of my favourite things about it was that the couscous turned amazingly pink. Here's a photo of the leftovers:



Pink couscous salad:

I roasted one cauliflower cut into florets for about half an hour, and three fresh beetroot, wrapped in foil with some salt and olive oil in for about 45 minutes.
I double podded fresh broad beans - removed them from the big pods, then boiled the little ones and popped them out.
I cooked about 400g couscous (probably a bit much, actually) by adding boiling water, stock, cumin, corriander and paprika, and covering until the water was absorbed.
I combined all the veg and couscous, and then added some toasted pine nuts, and cubed feta cheese.
I made a dressing with crushed garlic, lemon juice, extra virgin olive oil and white wine vinegar, and just whisked it together with a fork and dressed it all.
We served the salad with the leaves from the fresh beetroot, and some little cherry tomatoes.

It was great last night, and probably even better at lunch time today.

Pot Luck Cooking

On Friday nights I like to go to the Oxford Graduate JSoc (Jewish Society). It's a pot luck meal, so brings something with. You can bring a homemade or bought fish or veggie main, or dessert, or wine. We don't coordinate before hand, so anything can happen. They recently introduced a rule that the host has to provide a main dish, to avoid a repeat of the time when they only had desserts.

This Friday, the meal was very successful. There were about 10 of us, which is a good number: lots of people to talk to but you can probably talk to everyone. And the meal made sense: the host had made a roasted vegetable and feta tart, and there were lots of salads, and some desserts.

I wanted to use up left overs, as it's the end of term, so I made a couscous salad:



I used about half a packet of my wholemeal couscous, which made a huge amount! Couscous is so easy, you just add boiling water, and cover, and it cooks itself. I always add some stock to the water to improve the flavour.

I added to the salad:
Roasted cubed aubergine
Chopped dried apricots
Raisins
Toasted pine nuts and sesame seeds

I then made my tomato dressing, which I kept quite mild, as I didn't know the people who were eating it, but I like with lots of spice. It contains:

Tomato puree
Olive oil
White wine vingar
Paprika
Chopped garlic
Ground cumin
Ground corriander
Ground cinnamon

That all gets whizzed with a hand blender, and I mixed it into the salad.

I also could have added chick peas or halloumi, or other veg, but, as I said, I was using leftovers, and trying to avoid buying things!

It went down really well, and today for lunch I ate some left overs with spicy homous.

Theatre is over, work and cooking are on!

So I made it through to the end of my theatre week, and I'm back onto cooking, and lots and lots of work. I have to submit my thesis proposal next week, so I'm entirely focused on that (it's about Bill Clinton).

Dinner on Sunday night was partly cooked, partly from the freezer. The freezer part was mum's date and sherry chicken, which I think I've mentioned before. I love it. The sauce has lots of garlic in, nuts, dates and sherry, and it's really, really good. I decided couscous was the best thing to go with it, but I fancied doing something a bit different, so I defrosted some frozen spinach, which I cooked with lots of garlic and spices, then added the couscous to that. I had a corn cob in the fridge, so I cooked that, and took the kernels off, to mix in with the couscous. I did some green beans too - you can never have too many vegetables!

Then on Monday night I did some actual cooking! I had bought some reduced mackerel fillets during the week, so I defrosted a couple of those to grill. I wanted something interesting to go with them, so I found a recipe from Tom Norrington-Davies in Delicious Magazine for aubergine curry to go with mackerel:

Ingredients:
Four large fresh mackerel, gutted
Two medium aubergine
3 tbsp olive oil
1 small bunch corriander, with roots
1 red chilli
3 garlic cloves
1 medium onion
400g can toms or 2 large fresh toms peeled, deseeded and chopped
1 tsp sweet paprika
1/2tsp ground cumin
Pinch saffron
2 heaped tsp Greek yog (not low fat)
Lemon wedges to serve

Method:
Preheat oven to 200C/fan 180C/Gas 6
Season mackerel
Dice aubergines & cook in oven with some oil for about 25 mins, until tender
Then turn oven up to 240/fan 220/Gas 9
Separate corriander leaves and reserve
Chop stalks, chilli and garlic into a paste and cook over a low heat for about 10 mins
If using canned toms, drain in a colander and squeeze out excess juice
Add toms, paprika, cumin, saffrom & 200 ml water to pan and summer for about 2o mins, stirring occassionally
Add aubergine & some more water and cook for 10 mins

Meanwhile, make 2 or 3 diagonal slashes on one side of the mackerel and put on a baking tray in the oven for 10-12 minutes, or until the flesh comes off the bone with the back of a fork, rest for 10 minutes.

Put aubergine on a plate, then fish, then top with corriander and serve with lemon.

That recipe serves four, and obviously I was only making it for me, so I reduced it accordingly. I also found that the spice mix cooked faster than predicted. Plus, I added some ginger, as I had some, and left out the saffron, as I didn't have any. Oh and I didn't use yoghurt. And I had fillets not whole fish.. So I mostly followed the recipe! It was lovely though. Last night we had a really amazing formal dinner. It was our MCR (Middle Common Room, so all the graduate students in college) Summer Dinner, and we all got very dressed up for it. We had a group photo, then pimms in one of the prettiest gardens in college. Our starter was fillets of sea bass on a basil sauce with a cooked cherry tomato on top, served with white wine. The main was venison, in quite a peppery sauce, served on a potato rosti, with little silverskin onions, and mixed veg - including some asparagus, served with good red wine. Dessert was an amazingly rich chocolate pot, in a coffee cup, with a white foamy topping, with a chocolate dipped strawberry, served with college ruby port. Then we had our post-dessert savoury, which was a crouton of some kind, with blue cheese on the top. Pretty good dinner, really!

Weekend Catch Up

Goodness, I didn't realise it had been so long since I had posted. As usual in Oxford, it's a little bit nuts and I have sooo much to do. All the time. So, a quick round up, combined with some details about actual cooking I managed to do over the weekend!

Friday night I was at the Oxford Jewish Society. Friday night is the start of the Jewish Sabbath, and it's welcomed in with a traditional meal, as well as prayers over candles, bread and wine. I will, I promise, write a longer post about this at some point. We had a very traditional meal: chicken soup, containing noodles, chicken, carrots and kneidlach (matza ball dumplings) along with challah (bread thats plaited and contains egg), homous and egg mayo. Then roast chicken, potatoes, risotto and salad (ok, the last two are less traditional). Dessert was kosher cakes cut into heart shapes with fruit. All in all, a very nice evening.

Saturday seems like such a long time ago, I can't even remember what I had for lunch! For dinner, however, I decided to make my favourite quick dish: couscous salad with saute'd veg, chickpeas and harrissa dressing:

I always make my couscous with stock as well as water, and then I added some sumac before mixing everything else in.

I saute'd red onion, red pepper, leeks and mushrooms (really the only things I could get from Tescos on a Saturday night, but actually quite a good combination) in a pan, and mixed them through.

Normally I make my own harrissa dressing using spices (cumin, corriander, paprika), garlic, tomato puree and olive oil, but as I was in a rush and going out, therefore not wanting anything too spicy, I used a stir-through jar. Disappointing, the homemade is, of course, better.

But still it was good, shame my party was rubbish!

Sunday I thought was going to be spent entirely in the theatre, but I had a reprieve, so I went to JSoc bagel brunch, for bagels with egg mayo, and smoked salmon and cream cheese. It was really good - lots of smoked salmon.

I then made another of my favourite dinners, as I had time, not being in the theatre: Juliette-style fish pie. Just as I was finishing, I realised that I had forgotten to take a photo of it! But you'll have to take my word for it: it looked & tasted great!

I had bought some reduced smoked haddock during the week, and frozen it, so I defrosted a piece and poached it in some milk. Just quickly, for a couple of minutes.

Meanwhile, I made some mashed sweet potato, and cooked some sliced leeks and whole cherry tomatos in the oven. And I defrosted some spinach.

I combined it all: spinach (with some butter) and leeks on the bottom, then fish, mixed with some horseradish, then tomatoes, then mash. Lovely!