I can’t believe it is almost time to go back to work. Where did the summer holidays go? Actually, the whole of summer was M.I A. I wore winter boots the other day. We’re living in crazy times….
Belle & Sebastian Plum & Feta Salad
But maybe because the réntrée, as the French would say, is about to commence I have had a particular song stuck in my head for about the last four days now. Luckily, this was one I could tolerate, unlike the last time which was Rooms Are On Fire by Stevie Nicks. Can you imagine 6 days of “There is magic all around you, if I do say so myself…”?
Ever wanted to bang your head into a wall just to MAKE IT STOP? That’s what that week was like.
This time is the fabulous Step Into My Office Baby by Belle and Sebastian. Who I love with an almost unrivalled deep and deadly…They’re clever and funny and named after a French book from the 1960’s. They have great album covers and witty whimsical lyrics…
Smart, funny, savvy, slightly nostalgic for a past that probably actually existed…If I was a band I’m almost sure I would be Belle and Sebastian.
And, as if all of that musical talent wasn’t enough, they’re also creators of a super refreshing salad!
I found this recipe in “Lost in The SuperMarket: An Indie Rock Cookbook “by Kay Bozick Owens and Lynn Owens and have been waiting for plums to come into season ever since. And those happy days have finally arrived. The shops are full of them.
As a complete digression…they are also full of hot cross buns. WTF is wrong with people? It’s JANUARY!!!. Ok, don’t even get me started…here’s the book….
And here is more of the Belle & Sebastian Plum & Feta Salad! Tangy from the plums, salty from the feta, sweet from the honey, fresh from the mint….and just look at the fabulous colours…
Belle & Sebastian Plum Salad2
I had mine with a very simple grilled salmon steak and it was a match made in heaven!!! The tanginess and saltiness of the salad cut through the richness of the salmon perfectly.
Belle & Sebastian Plum Salad3
But I think the Belle and Sebastian Plum and Feta Salad would also go really well with chicken or pork and it would be super wicked amazing with duck….
I’ll give you another B&S anecdote just for free…for YEARS, I thought their gorgeous song Piazza, New York Catcher was called PIzza, New York Catcher….food obsessed or what?
So here are my tips to make the réntrée more bearable:
1. Make this salad….it will cheer you up
2. Listen to some Belle & Sebastian… here’s some I prepared earlier…
3. Don’t look up “The Boy With The Arab Strap” at work thinking you will just get the Belle and Seb album cover. You won’t. And some of the images you will get will be definitely NSFW. Not to mention unsavoury.
Artichokes didn’t feature on the menu when I was growing up. I’m also not overly fond of the ones you get in the deli which taste more of the vinegar they come in that anything else. So, I had actually never eaten a fresh artichoke until last year…I‘m not sure what prompted me to buy some because let’s face it, they’re not an attractive proposition.
Water Lily Lamb Salad
I don’t mean the way they look, that’s awesome – the amazing colours, the gorgeous mix of purple and green and their sculptural shape…
They are almost like something that should be in should be in a bouquet rather than on your plate and, just to prove that point, here’s one I prepared earlier….
Artichoke-Kale-bouquet
Gorgeous. And functional. If you get a little peckish…pull off a leaf and have a nibble. Win. Win.
So, when I say they are unattractive, what I really mean is that they are hard work.
Imagine trying to explain the artichoke to someone from another planet…
“Well you’ve got to trim off the leaf tops with scissors, then brush them with lemon so they don’t go brown”
Yeah but if you didn’t cut them, you wouldn’t have to…
“Never mind about that. Then you have to scrape out the choke…
Scrape out the what?
“The choke…it’s kind of a hairy bit at the bottom…”
It has a hairy bottom? And you EAT this?
Uh Huh.
Removing the choke
Why’s it called a choke?
Not sure but if you don’t remove it all sometimes the fuzz can get caught in your throat and apparently it can be very painful.
Oh my God. This hairy bottom vegetable wants to kill you. You humans are bonkers. Anyone else would run a mile from this thing…There’s no way I”m eating that. Might come in handy as a weapon though…
Ok, so I”ll just dip these deliciious leaves in melted butter and eat them myself shall I?
What?
That’s a traditional way of eating them. You dip them in melted butter and then you drag ’em through your teeth…
Why aren’t more foods dipped in melted butter? As far as I can ascertain the only things that are regularly dipped in butter are artichokes and lobsters both which are pretty good anyway. Why aren’t we doing this with some of the revolting stuff (beetroot springs to mind) to make it taste better? I guarantee more people would like Brussels Sprouts if they came liberally doused in melted butter. Just saying.
Anyway I digress. You know what is also good? Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens…but a few more of my favourite things are mayonnaise, lamb and capers.
And all of these delicious things can be found in the Nancy Spain recipe for Water Lily Lamb Salad. And this time, I really did prepare one earlier….
Water Lily Lamb Salad 2
Apart from the cutest name ever, the Water Lily Lamb Salads are pretty damn good and would make a great starter for a springtime lunch. It’s such a lovely way to present the meal as well…albeit, I cooked my artichokes for the full 25 minutes as recommended by Nancy and they kind of fell apart, hence my slightly awry water lillies in the photos! Tasted great though. Still, I’ll cook them a lot less next time. You could sub in chicken for the lamb as an equally deliciious variant. Or an egg salad would be incredible…
And, if you needed any further incentive to eat artichokes, Marilyn Monroe was crowned the Artichoke Queen Of California in 1947. And look where it got her…
No, not dead of a barbiturate overdose at the tender age of 36…wow, you people are cynical…
Marilyn Monroe – Artichoke Queen
I”m going to be spending my week hanging around greengrocers, waiting to be crowned queen of something.
Then again…why limit myself to produce when I can crown myself
So last time we left off, I had been eating for love and beauty for 4 days and loving it.
However, through the week, I began to see a certain theme running through my dishes…
Day 5
I made two recipes from Eating for Love and Beauty.
The first was a delicious Egg Curry.
Egg Curry
This was very tasty, spicy and quick to make. I will definitely make this again. Also, I didn’t have fenugreek because…well who has? However, I noticed my Garam Masala contained fenugreek, cumin and coriander so I used that in lieu of all individual spices.
Egg Curry
I think we all know eggs are a symbol of fertility…I had my egg curry with a Rice Exotica – Saffron & Lime Casserole. Rice Exotica huh? I think the Swami might be getting a bit saucy!
Rice Exotica
Sadly, the Rice Exotica, was the least sexy dish of the week. Probably because in my first mouthful of it, I bit directly into a clove which spoiled entire dish for me Yes, it was my fault and I should have been more careful when I was counting them as I fished them out but still, not good. I was also not happy with the texture and I only par boiled my rice initially! I like my rice light and fluffy and this was a bit too mushy and stuck together for me. I dread to think what it might have been like had I cooked it all the way through the first time as per the recipe.
If I was going to make the rice again, which is unlikely, I would probably not cook it at all before bunging it in the oven with the nuts and spices. Hmmm…maybe I will try it that way. Sans the cloves!
Next up was an Eggplant Dish….and lo and behold, the internet tells me that eggplants are a symbol of abundance or fertility, passion and devotion. See what I mean about a theme beginning to develop?
Day 6 – Eggplant Gourmet
This was AWESOME!…
Earthy eggplant, sweet, sour..all sorts of deliciousness rolled into the one dish. The flavours reminded me very much of a Sri Lankan Eggplant dish that sometimes contains cashew nuts…and maybe dates?
(Dear mother given you have started to chime in on here, maybe you could offer some insight into the constituents of an eggplant moju???)
Either way, I had some cashews left over from the Rice Exotica so I dropped them in for extra flavour and crunch. I’m definitely making this again….
I also ate it more as a side dish than as a main. It’s also pretty good cold on crackers or some tzatziki on pita bread.
Eggplant Gourmet
Day 6 – Lovers Dandelion Salad
If you’ve read my earlier post…(here)…you know I have a bit of a penchant for a bit of foraging. So the Swami’s Lover’s Dandelion Salad was as good a reason as any to go comb the local environment for some dandelion leaves which, luckily, were plentiful.
I loved this salad. There is something about bitter greens that makes me feel incredibly virtuous and just oozy with health! Again, I had no fenugreek sprouts so I just used a sprout combo. I was becoming curious about why the Swami used fenugreek in so many dishes so I did a bit o’ research and hello…fenugreek is sometimes used to cure erectile dysfunction.
When the Swami wants you to eat for love, she doesn’t muck about!
She also says this salad is good for those suffering from mental or sexual debility. I ate mine for lunch a the office and it kind of worked. It certainly gave me a mental boost for the afternoon!
Lovers Dandelion Salad
Day 7 – 21 Essences of Kama Sutra
I followed the Lovers Dandelion Salad with the 21 Essences of Kama Sutra Salad although I guess I only had 19 Essences as I subbed a yellow pepper for the red and green peppers and could not find soy sprouts for love or money. Then again, I used my handy sprout combo per the last recipe so maybe I had more than 21 Essences of Kama Sutra! The Swami offers no comment on what the 21 Essences of Kama Sutra is good for. I think she’s letting the name speak for itself.
21 Essences of Kama Sutra
This was also a very nice salad, although if I made this again, I wouldn’t bother with the Lotus Nuts. In the first pack I bought there were two dead moths. That made me gag and I had to throw them out. The second lot of lotus nuts was, thankfully, mothless but also largely tasteless.
I read on the internet Lotus Nuts are good for irritability. Well guess what? After the moths, and having to make two trips to the Asian food store to buy them, then finding they taste of sweet F.A. I guess they are. I was certainly a lot more irritable after all that palaver than I was before I started!
And quelle surprise, also apparently good for impotence!
Day 8
It’s Plum Wonderful
I ended my week with the Swami’s recipe for an uncooked Plum Pudding which is basically dried fruit held together with jello. It’s really tasty, and has all the flavours of a plum pudding but is fruitier and not so heavy. It would be a perfect alternative to a heavy pudding, particularly here when it is warm at Christmas.
Plum Wonderful 2Plum Wonderful 3
I recently read that a good maxim to use when trying to moderate your alcohol intake is to abstain one day a week, one week a month, one month a year.
It doesn’t work for me alcoholwise as I am aiming for far more than one AFD a week but it’s certainly a philosophy I can embrace when it comes to adopting the principles behind Eating For Love and Beauty.
That book, which also had a whole host of other good advice was:
Apart from the moths and the failure of the Rice Exotica, Eating For Love and Beauty has been fun and I feel really healthy. It is winter here now and whilst people around me have been dropping like flies with all sorts of horrible lurgies, I have never felt haler or heartier!
I really want to go to the Swami’s retreat now….
I’m going spend my week trying to find a yoga class I can do at lunchtime so I can exercise for health and beauty as well as eat for it. Enjoy your week whatever you do!
We had a little birthday celebration at Retro food For Modern Times last week. I also spent the week reading a bit more of Swami Sarasvati’s Eat Your Way to Love and Beauty. Whilst none of the recipes here are from that book there is certainly more than a hint of nourishing my inner goddess about the recipes I made as part of the celebrations. And yes, I did just write the words “nourishing my inner goddess”. Feel free to vomit.
I kicked off the celebrations with a hefty dose of booze. No lame Swami Sarasvati mocktails here. When this blog celebrates we turn straight to the Goddess of entertaining Martha Stewart for inspiration (and alcohol content). And her cucumber and lime gimlet got the festivities off to a fine start.
Cucumber and Lime Gimlet
Now, you may be wondering how I can justify the whole nourishing the inner goddess thing (Ok, I’ll stop saying that now) whilst guzzling gin? Well, it turns out my inner Goddess is a bit of a booze hound. Who knew?
Secondly, I figure the health affirming properties of the cucumber must go some way to counteracting the negative effects of the alcohol. Yin and yang right?
There is a bit of pfaffing around with this recipe in that you need to make up a mint simple syrup and steep some cucumbers in gin beforehand but it is worth the effort. It is delicious and an amazing colour! And we had sparklers!
Next up…was my Green Gazpacho. Now, I don’t think I have banged on about my love of this Spanish delight yet but believe me, summer without gazpacho is, in my opinion, not summer at all. It is no longer summer here but luckily all the ingredients were still readily available. I also really wanted to try this with some of the super tasty Black Russian tomatoes I love so much!
Green Gazpacho ingredients
If you are planning on making a gazpacho, green or otherwise, please do not go all Atkins and leave out the bread – it really is integral to the texture of the dish. Gazpacho without bread is glorified tomato juice. And no one wants that.
The basic gazpacho recipe follows but you can play with the quantities of ingredients as much as you want. It’s pretty forgiving. And sometimes you need to play around with it. Strangely enough, I wanted my green gazpacho to be green. So, imagine my utter dismay when I blitzed the above and the result was a horrible looking baby pooh brown. It tasted good but looked atrocious!
I had some watercress in the fridge and I kept adding sprigs of it into the mix until it became greener. The watercress also added to the flavour!
Green Gazpacho with an Avocado Garnish
That, along with my dessert was going to be it. Three dishes and done. However, my greengrocer was selling tarragon this week which is a rarity in itself. I love tarragon but it seems to be fairly scarce so I buy it whenever I see it, then figure out what to do with it.
And what better use for tarragon on a week when we are nourish…(I can’t bring myself to repeat it but you know what I mean) than making a Green Goddess Dressing. This is an awesome dressing zingy with tarragon, lemon, chives, yoghurt…lots of my favourite flavours….
Green Goddess Dressing Ingredients
And it looks like this:
Green Goddess Dressing
It’s a gorgeous pale green and it looked super cute in the jug my friend Ali gave me for a birthday present last year.
To go with the dressing I made a salad of steamed asparagus, broccoli and beans with some raw zucchini, mixed sprouts, avocado and some toasted pine nuts and pumpkin seed kernels and I also made a rice and quinoa mix.
Healthy lunches here I come!
Veggies, Seeds and Sprouts with mixed rice and quinoa
This salad is amazing, you can almost feel the health bursting out of you as you eat it. And again, just use whatever vegetables you have. The Green Goddess recipe is here:
Finally, I wanted a retro style dessert. I recently bought Wobble by Rachael Lane which is filled with delicious sounding recipes for lovely jellies. I love the old-fashioned look of these jellies so they seemed a perfect finale to the celebrations.
I made a version of Rachael’s Persian Delight (below) but with a straight jelly, not a blancmange for the rose layer and a third layer of pomegranate. I would have liked to top mine with the candy floss as per the picture in Wobble but the only place I could find it was a high-end department store who wanted an arm and a leg for it.
Seriously, where is a fun fair when you need one? Although I always find those places a little creepy. I’ve read way too many books where bad things happen in places like that to be entirely comfortable. And don’t even get me started on clowns…. Thanks Stephen King et al, for another innocent pleasure ruined…
The rose layer got a little lost but all in all this was a very pretty dessert and it tasted amazing!
Pistachio, Rose and Pomegranate Jelly
In lieu of candy floss we had more sparklers…
Pistachio, Rose and Pomegranate Jelly 2
The recipe for the Persian Delight is found here.
Persian Delight Jelly from Wobble
Finally, I thought we might have a little look at what we might expect over the next 12 months. This is what PBS has to say on the subject of one year olds:
“One-year-olds are just discovering their creative abilities”
And
“They experience a wide range of emotions and have tantrums when they are tired or frustrated.”
And
(They) have no understanding of true “writing,” but many enjoy experimenting with marks and scribbles on a surface.
Hmm…sounds suspiciously like the next 12 months may be quite similar to the first 12!
Thanks to everyone who reads this for a fabulous year! It has been heaps of fun at this end and incredibly satisfying to watch this grow from an idea into actuality.
I’ll be spending the week marking and scribbling on surfaces and some of it might even end up in here.
Thanks again, I hope you continue to enjoy this for the next 12 months and beyond!
Last week I mentioned how much I loved the tv show Get Smart. Thinking back, the main attraction probably wasn’t the humour, the wacky contraptions, the escapades or the resolution where good always triumphed over evil. The main reason I loved this show was Agent 99, played by Barbara Feldon.
She was my first inspirational role model. She was smart, sassy, and gorgeous; she wore great clothes and had fabulous hair. More importantly, not only was she a woman forging a career in a male dominated arena, but she would often get the better of the boys (and look glamorous as she did so). Plus, she was a secret agent! What a woman! I so wanted to be her!
Who am I kidding – I still want to be her!
But, having been very disappointed in the recipe offerings from Don Adams, the worst of which is mentioned in the last post, I was a little wary about looking at the recipe from Barbara Feldon.
No fear needed, this is a super salad recipe. I have never understood why cauliflower isn’t used raw more often. I think it has a lovely, nutty flavour. I also love radishes and cucumber and the other ingredients in this salad. I happened to have some celery and some cherry tomatoes in the fridge so I threw them into my mix but this would be delightful as is! I also did not let the ingredients sit in the dressing for half an hour as suggested but dressed the salad and ate it immediately. The addition of the egg is a nice touch and makes this more of a “meal” than a “side”.
California Triumph Salad Ingredients
If you are looking for a salad dressing to have with this, Sybil Burton Christopher’s Salad Dressing from Singers and Swingers perfectly fits the bill.
She was also quite the female role model. Ms Ashley has this to say:
“When Richard Burton took up with Elizabeth Taylor, everyone felt sorry for Sybil. But not for long. She packed up and moved from England to Manhattan, where she was instantly one of the most popular girls in town. She opened Arthur, a fabulously successful discotheque, and married the lead singer of group she booked into the club”
Talk about living well being the best revenge!
I made a minor change to this recipe, as I am not a fan of raw garlic in a salad, so I smashed up a clove of garlic and let it sit in the other ingredients for about an hour so the flavour would infuse the mixture but I fished it out before I dressed the salad.
Finally, after feeling very virtuous about eating the salad, you can splurge on dessert by making Barbra Streisand’s Instant Coffee Ice Cream. A word of warning though, the mix tastes overly sweet before freezing. This is lessened, once it is frozen but you might want to reduce the marshmallow content from the original recipe depending on your sensitivity to sweetness.
The pretzels work really well, adding some crunch, some toastiness and some saltiness which further reduces the impact of the sugar. Given the current predilection for salted everything, Babs may have been displaying some culinary prescience in this combination!
Not only is she a singer, actor, film producer and director, she’s got some cooking nous as well!!! If I didn’t admire her so much, she’d be kind of irritating!
So let’s hear it for this trio of fabulous women of 1967, not only for their fabulous food offerings but for acting as role models to generations of young women who have been inspired to forge their own careers as hard-working, independent, successful and glamorous women!
I’ll leave you today with a little gem I found on the youttubes of Barbara Feldon singing a song called “99”. I have been listening to it obsessively all week. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find an original video – everything I found was stills or clips from the show. This does have a good selection of great hair and clothes and also some goofy dancing from my favourite ever Get Smart Episode, the Groovy Guru.
