Eating Alone Archives - Retro Food For Modern Times

Hello Friends and welcome to Cooking The Books! Each year I try to think of something new to do here to keep both you and me interested! The pandemic brought the idea to cook my way through all the novels of Agatha Christie, my ever-expanding magazine collection brought us my 20 Years Ago Today Posts. My obsession with both old and new cookbooks has now spawned Cooking the Books. This might be a review of something new and exciting in my collection. Or something old and exciting in my collection. Basically, it’s an opportunity for me to cook from some books that otherwise would be languishing on my bookshelves. And that’s no way to treat a cookbook!

Girl Dinner: The Book

Girl Dinner is a new addition to my collection and it is a super fun book! For those of you not familiar with the concept of Girl Dinner, author Jamison Diaz-Imlah explains the concept as follows:

“Girl dinner is a simple meal made by arranging ingredients that are readily available in the store or kitchen pantry. It started on TikTok when a user named Olivia Maher responded to a video mocking medieval peasants who had to eat bread and cheese for dinner. Olivia’s response was simple – “But that’s my dinner!”- and the girl dinner was born”

Friday night has long been my Girl Dinner night – it is ususally something snacky, nearly always includes cheese and is just fun quick food!

Above all for me, this book was fun! The recipes aren’t going to win any awards for ingenuity. This is not Heston inspired food. But it is simple food, beautifully presented and let’s face it, we’re probably far more likely to cook from this book rather than a modernist creation on a busy weeknight! Recipes include a Smoked salmon bagel, a croque madame and a Boursin and potato omelette. But, they are given fun and witty names – Holey Art Thou, Broke Madame and Sometimes You Get The Bear respectively. These really tickled by love of puns! My favourite name was “All I care about is pasta and like three people”. Swap out pasta for cheese and that is me in ten words!

Girl Dinner also contains some great ideas for eating for one. I feel this is an area where people may tend to skimp on presentation or care for ingredients. This book acts as a little form of self love in showing that food for one can look beautiful as well as being quick to prepare and mostly healthy!

I would say, for me, the only drawback to Girl Dinner is that some people may not be able to access some of the exact things that the authors suggest you use as your hack ingredients. For example, are Greek meatballs and caulilfower gnocchi available everywhere? I don’t know, I’ve never bought a ready made meatball and I don’t like gnocchi. Having sald that, I’m sure some type of meatball or gnocchi will be available if not specifically Greek and cauliflower. Or you could make your own. Or skip that recipe. Theres a lot to choose from!

Girl Dinner: The Look

One word: Gorgeous!

But here’s a few more: Beautiful Food, presented and photographed beautifully. Here are a few examples:

Can you believe this spectacular salad takes only 10 minutes to make?

Here is a Turkey and Brie Melt AKA Living for Leftovers

These Greek Meatballs (Sunday Kind of Love in Girl Dinner language) are high on my list of things to make:

Girl Dinner is fun and vibrant – the authors talk about combining simplicity with style and this is exactly what you get!

Girl Dinner – The Cook

I’ve made three things from Girl Dinner thus far. Above you can see Holey Art Thou and Sometimes You Get The Bear. The third thing I made was a Whipped Feta which is called Everyone’s Doing It.

I made the most amazing girl dinner, using the Whipped Feta in two different ways. The first was as a base for a Greek inspired salad (pictured above).

I simply spread some of the whipped feta on a plate, and added chopped tomatoes, cucumber, kalamata olives and red onion. I usually have dill on my Greek Salad but I didn’t have any so I added some mint from the garden instead. This was delicious. So fresh and so easy to do! This with some bread would be a perfect lunch for me! I could also eat Greek Salad everry day. I absolultey love it and this was an interesting play on a classic.

As I was having this for dinner, I wanted something a bit more substantial. So I also added my take on Prawn Saganaki. Again, I used the whipped feta as a base, swirled in some tomato paste, some roasted and roughtly ground fennel seeds, some prawns, chilli flakes and some chopped tomato and red onion. Ten to fifteen minutes in the oven and voila!

This was so good. I loved the little kick of pickle brine in there! It was also great both hot and cold! Here’s the recipe:

All in all, for me? Girl Dinner = Girl Winner!!!!

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of Girl Dinner from the publishers (Thank you so much). Regardless of this, the thoughts and opinions above are entirely my own.

Have a great week!

Today is a twofer as I have a whole mess of things that I want to get out before I go on holidays….less than a month to go now!!!!

I was intending to do two posts from The Margaret Fulton Cookbook, which is the current selection over at The Cookbook Guru. But they were both about eggs so I thought I may as well combine them and do a kind of then and now. Because you see, one of these recipes comes from the 1977 edition of the book which I own. And the other comes from the 2010 edition which I borrowed from the local library. Neither features in both.

So, this time, it’s up to you to guess which is which….leave a note in the comments along with what you most like to cook and, if you get it right, I will send you a vintage Margaret Fulton Recipe from the 1977 version. You can choose from:

The First Course
Soups
Eggs
Fish
Poultry
Meat
Vegetables
Salads
Pasta and Rice
Desserts
Cakes
Biscuits
Entertaining
International

But now, on with, on with, on with the show.

Tapenade Eggs

I was really worried about this one. Because tuna is pink and egg yolks are yellow and olives are black and the good Lord only knew what colour of hot mess might end up being crammed into some poor unsuspecting egg whites!

I think that colour is called puce. But that is not a nice word, particularly when describing food. Actually I have no idea what that colour is called. But it’s inoffensive, and given the ingredients, could have been a lot worse!

I made these for dinner one night.

When I get back from holiday I am going to start a series of posts on the stuff that I eat when Mark is working nights. Sometimes it’s the best. And sometimes, I steam a bunch of asparagus, make some toast into soldiers and microwave a jar of hollandaise sauce. And I sit and dip.

I won’t post that but I do find I tend to veer from the more experimental or foods he is not fond of (vis a vis the AMAZING prawn and fennel fritters I made the other night) to just plain lazy which can also sometimes be pretty awesome. Both of these recipes are from what I call “Me Alone” nights.

Whilst the Eggs Tapenade were pretty good on the night, I had some left over which I took for lunch the following day and….AWESOME….I don’t know what happened in my fridge overnight but those ingredients totally chilled out and got to know each other a little better and the result was spectacular! If you make this try it out – eat one fresh, then let the mix sit overnight. And let me know if you too could really taste the difference!

Tapenade Eggs Recipe

125g pitted black olives
6 anchovy fillets, drained and rinsed
3 tbsp capers, drained
100g tuna in oil, drained
1 lemon
1/3 cup olive oil
8 hard boiled eggs

Crush the olives in a mortar or chop in a food processor. Add the anchovy fillets, capers, tuna and the juice of half a lemon. Pound or process until the mixture has formed a fairly smooth paste.

Still pounding, or with the motor running add the oil in a slow steady stream.

Taste and add more lemon juice and pepper to season.

Set aside (can be made a few days ahead and stored airtight in the refrigerator).

Halve the eggs lengthwise. Mash or sieve the yolks and mix with the tapenade. Pipe or spoon into the egg whites and arrange on a serving platter.

(I also decorated my eggs with some chopped parley, chopped piquillo peppers, capers, toasted pine nuts and a sprinkle of smoked paprika).

Eggs Princess

How could I resist a recipe with this name? And thank the Lord for the night time. And this recipe. Because it lead me to MY discovery of the year. And I’m highlighting the word my here because I really don’t know if this is a super amazing thing that not so many people know or if you have all known about it forever and I was the one “discovering onions”. I have absolutely no idea of what that means either but it is a phrase my family use when you come late to the party on anything.

Mum. Elucidate. Please.

But here is my discovery and it has seriously CHANGED. MY. LIFE. You can poach an egg to perfection. In a microwave.

Perfectly poached eggs in 50 seconds.

FOR SERIOUS.

Here is a link.

Microwave Poached Eggs

And if you all knew this and didn’t tell me before? You’re too mean! I love a poached egg. I also love a poached egg with a creamy ham and mushroom sauce with a dash of cayenne!

The recipe says to serve this with toast triangles as a lunch dish. I popped mine on a toasted English Muffin and had it for another dinner alone!

Eggs Princess Recipe

4 poached eggs
180g mushrooms, sliced
90g butter
180g ham, diced
1 tbsp parsley, chopped
2 egg yolks
pinch cayenne pepper
1 tsp lemon juice

Saute the mushroom in 2/3 of the butter in a frying pan. Add the ham and half the parsley. Heat through on a low heat.

Mix cream, egg yolks, remaining butter and lemon juice in a double boiler. Stir with a spoon or whisk until slightly thickened then season to taste with salt.

Heap ham mixture into a serving dish (or an English Muffin) and arrange eggs on top.

Spoon sauce over eggs and sprinkle with parsley.

So, retro lovers over to you.

Which is the vintage recipe and which is the modern? You’ll have a week from the date of posting to post your guess and the section of the Margaret Fulton Cookbook from which you would like your recipe to come. And if you cook it really quickly, you could even get if featured on the Cookbook Guru which is featuring this awesome book until the end of June.

Good luck and have a great week!

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Retro Food For Modern Times

Category: Eating Alone

Girl Dinner