Quaran-cuisine: The Iso Kitchen Diaries
- Tasha's Eats
- Apr 15, 2020
- 5 min read
Hello! I hope you are all doing well and are keeping safe during this strange time. I, as I’m sure many of you, have got a little bit of extra time on my hands and thought now would be as good an opportunity as ever to spur my blog into action once again! I am also in my element at my parent’s home in the countryside for lockdown, as I have access to a much bigger kitchen, with an aga and an unlimited array of spices and seasonings. I have been upping my cooking game and am excited to share some fab recipes that I have been trying, experimenting with and creating!
I thought, in the name of keeping this a regular activity, I might work on publishing a weekly newsletter as well as my usual recipe and review posts, sharing a few dishes, recipes, cookbooks and ingredients that I have been loving each week! Hopefully, this will provide a touch of inspiration/variety for your feed and encourage anyone to get their cooking mojo on.
To start with, here are a few dishes of mine that I have made this week:
Baked cod with quinoa and wild garlic salad, roasted lemony chicory and sautéed kale/Salad bowl/Cauliflower pizza/Roasted veggies with buckwheat, marinated tofu and green sauce
Here is my ode to cauliflower, the love of my life. There is honestly no other vegetable that gives me as much joy as cauliflower. The versatility, the taste, good when crunchy and raw, and just as good when roasted and melty. Although it is in season now, I use it all year round. It is wonderful blitzed up into couscous and used for a light summer salad, or in an autumnal roasted-veg traybake, as well as stews, sauces or curries. This week alone I have roasted it, used it in salads, made it into pizza and had it served in a shakshuka! And, it is wonderfully affordable. In truth, my fridge is not complete without this wonderful ingredient. Next week I plan to make a cauliflower couscous and chickpea salad, with a yoghurt dressing. Delightful.
My favourite seasonal ingredient of the week has been wild garlic. This one really is in season for a smidgeon of the year, so savour its lovely vibrancy and punchy flavour! However, right now it is about the only thing we can get our hands on easily and that is just by going up the hill and picking endless supplies of it on our daily walk! There is more of this than anything else in our fridge right now ... We have been chopping it into quinoa and couscous salads, adding it into risottos and stir fries and whizzing it up into green sauces drizzled over fish or folded into pasta. A recipe I haven’t managed to get around to but would love to try is pea and wild garlic fritters, perhaps with a yoghurt dip or a runny poached egg, mmm. Equally, it would be a lovely addition to a fishcake.
Foraging for wild garlic!
Now for a new tradition – a food waste hack/tip of the week! My favourite (mostly-discarded) part of a vegetable is the humble broccoli stalk. Get rid of that fibrous, stringy outer layer and you are left with a tender, sweet green stalk. I would recommend slicing this into wafer-thin pieces and frying it in a little oil to create a crispy garnish, or chopping it into fries and stews, or creating pesto! This week I wizzed them up in a blender with some olive oil, lemon juice, tons of garlic, nutritional yeast and a handful of rocket and herbs to create a fabulously light and zingy pesto sauce! Would recommend …
Please see my recipe for ‘Broccoli Stalk Pesto’ on my blog: https://tashasrussell.wixsite.com/website/post/broccoli-stalk-pesto
Cookbook of the Week:
Cookbook of the week this week is Sarah Raven’s ‘Good Good Food’. Sarah Raven really is a goddess. She is excellent at coming up with recipes that are light and healthy but has mass appeal. Her recipes are not strictly vegan/vegetarian but include a lovely mixture of meat, fish and vegetarian options in the form of salads, centrepieces and sides all of which float my boat as they are packed with colour, variety, flavour and nutrition. A few of my favourites have been the 'Parsnip rocket and lentil salad with tapenade dressing' (pg.138) and the 'Adzuki bean and root veg chilli' (pg.232) and I am hoping to try the 'Sweet potato salad with watercress, ginger and soy' (pg.122) and 'Courgette Meatballs' (pg.206) soon.
Recipe of the Week:
Fabulous Ottolenghi’s ‘Prawn Orzo’. We are rotating chefs in our family during the week, each taking turns to cook the family a dinner of choice and mine this week was the latter. It was a huge success as it was filling but not too filling, flavoursome but not overpowering, meat-free but not completely vegan (my family still have rather an old-fashioned stigma about veganism that I am steadily trying to overthrow..). It was also pretty lock-down friendly as we used large Atlantic frozen prawns, which I defrosted just before, and mostly store cupboard ingredient such as chopped tomatoes and the orzo itself. We used fresh stock, but I am sure stock pots would work just as well. The only adjustment I made was to roast halved cherry tomatoes with lots of Himalayan salt and olive oil before stirring them in at the end to add a richer, caramelised flavour. I also threw in some fresh herbs at the end.
Blog of the Week:
This week's is a slightly biased one … you guessed it, our own Detox Kitchen blog! Really though, it is always my go-to as there is so many recipes that wouldn’t naturally come to mind, but still using simple, seasonal and minimal ingredients. It must say something that I eat it every day and have still not tired of it. A recent favourite is the DanDan noodles, which are a recent Detox creation and are DELICIOUS! It feels decadent but still uses only healthy ingredients and fats. A guilt-free Sichuan fakeaway of sorts. A couple of others on my list are the ‘Rosemary Farinata’ and the ‘Crispy mushrooms with creamy cannellini beans, greens and griddled limes’. Sounds fancy but very doable!
Instagram:
The Insta account I am loving is @minimalistbaker. All is said in the name. Other than the deception that it is just a feed dedicated to baked goods. It does include a variety of recipes, with a blend of dishes, dressings, sweet treats and food hacks. Everything is tasteful, beautifully aesthetic without the extra frills and fancies, and, unsurprisingly, minimalist. Dana is a wizard when it comes to making delicious creations out of very simple, natural ingredients. I also love that she is completely honest and transparent and very engaging, as she posts the process of experimentation as well as her final products.
Podcasts:
Lastly, I just wanted to shout-out my favourite podcast, which is of course food-related. I am sure you have heard of it already as it has been in the charts indefinitely, but it is ‘Table Manners with Jessie Ware’. This is the successful charts singer - there is quite a bit of music talk weaved into the dialogue - partnering with her mother Lenny. It is, as Lenny would say ‘fabulous’. A raw demonstration of classic mother-daughter dynamics and the comfort of the home paired with witty, light-hearted conversation with celebs over a seemingly-glorious plate of home-cooked food.
Other Material ...
If you are interested, please see my latest restaurant review on my blog: https://tashasrussell.wixsite.com/website/post/dishoom-reviews
Great post Tash!! Very inspiring and cheerful. Loved the pics as well! So intrigued about the courgette meatballs so will definitely have a look into that. & keep on chipping away at that ole veganism stigma! xx