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a cup of chopped dried apricots
You can eat this with milk as a cereal, sprinkle it on yoghurt or porridge or simply stick your paw in the jar throughout the day. It makes one feel very fifties housewife, because as it bakes the house is bathed in a warm cinnamon-y glow.
Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan/Gas 4 and oil a large baking tray/cookie sheet.
Combine in a mixing bowl the oats, pumpkin seeds, almonds and desiccated coconut. In a separate large mixing bowl, mix all of the wet ingredients and the spices. Combine the dry ingredients into the wet.
Spread the mixture out evenly on the baking tray/cookie sheet, using a spatula to smooth it down. Bake for around 40 minutes, keeping an eye on the granola. When it starts to brown, turn the mixture over with the spatula to make sure it toasts evenly on both sides.
When it is ready, take it out of the oven, let it cool, then add the apricots.
Store in an airtight container and serve with milk or yoghurt, or eat as a snack when the whim takes you.
Musician’s breakfast (home-made bread with Parma ham) (#ulink_b6fdf2ff-bb60-5ad6-9efe-bf6118d59653)
MAKES ONE LARGE LOAF
450g/4 cups of wholemeal/whole wheat flour or spelt flour
100g/1 cup of rolled oats
20ml/1 large tablespoon of quick yeast
1 teaspoon of sea salt
600ml/2
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cups of warm water
1 tablespoon of sunflower oil
1 tablespoon of runny honey
My beloved is a musician. This, a strong cup of tea and Miles Davis on the stereo makes him a happy fellow of a morning.
In a large mixing bowl, mix together all the dry ingredients with a wooden spoon. In a large Pyrex jug, mix together the warm water, sunflower oil and honey. Add the wet to the dry ingredients in the large bowl, mixing them together. Cover and put in a warm place, like a plate warmer or airing cupboard. It should stay there for 20 minutes, or until it’s doubled in size.
Once it has doubled, take it out, stir it with the wooden spoon until the air is gone and it is back to its original size. Trust me on this. Place the dough in an oiled 1.5-litre/6
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-cup (23 x 13 x 6cm/9 x 5 x 2
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-inch) loaf pan, and banish it back to the warm place for another 20 minutes. Preheat the oven to 190°C/170°C fan/Gas 5.
Take it out, and put it in the oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour, depending on how it looks.
Serve with butter, mustard and a big slice of Parma ham—or, if you’re like me, simply butter and marmalade.
Indian sweet potato pancakes (#ulink_dd8eb1a4-de2c-5801-ae59-bc739083c8f1)
SERVES 2 HUNGRY PEOPLE WITH SOME LEFT OVER FOR TEA
2 egg whites
340g/1
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cups of cooked and coarsely mashed sweet potatoes
2 medium-sized spring onions/scallions, chopped
1
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teaspoons of curry powder
1 pinch of ground cumin
Salt and pepper
Groundnut oil
I once spent a few months in Bombay making a film that cemented two things: one, an actress I am not, but two, should all else fail I can now dance while lip-synching in Hindi. I love, love, love Indian food and, most of all, Indian breakfasts with a stress on the savoury. These aren’t really pancakes, more like latkes without the oil.
Beat the egg whites with a fork in a bowl. Combine everything else except the groundnut oil in a big mixing bowl with your fingers, putting in the egg whites last.
Heat a frying pan or griddle, rubbed with a little bit of groundnut oil, and place dollops of the mixture onto it. Remember: the bigger the pancake the longer it will take to cook, so keep them little and neat. Squash them a bit with a spatula once in the pan. They’ll take about 5 minutes each side on a medium heat, with another couple of minutes’ blast on the first side at the end.
Baked haddock ramekin (#ulink_506f74e7-bf26-50a4-a69f-17ab8f6f3cda)
SERVES 2 – ALREADY IN LOVE
Butter for greasing
1 generous piece of undyed fresh smoked haddock (about 350-400g/11-13oz)
250ml/1 cup of milk
2 bay leaves
Freshly ground black pepper
50g/
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a cup of grated strong/sharp Cheddar
Fresh parsley, to garnish
Don’t make this in the first throes of love or when you have people coming over. Haddock is not, and never will be, a sensory aphrodisiac. It is, however, delicious.
Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan/Gas 4. Preheat the grill.
Butter two ramekins. Halve the haddock and put a piece in each ramekin. Pour the milk over the top and add a bay leaf and black pepper to each. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven, top with Cheddar and blast under the hot grill for a few minutes. Chop some fresh parsley and sprinkle on top.
Autumn lunches (#ulink_0138b335-6af8-5ef9-909b-31a1a0e87acc)
Spinach and watercress salad with goat’s cheese (#ulink_42e5f59e-7102-5e04-b54f-c9e356c9ee78)
SERVES 2
2 eggs
90g/3 cups of spinach
1 small bunch of watercress
110g/
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a cup of soft goat’s cheese, crumbled
70g/
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a cup of toasted pumpkin seeds (or as many, or little, as you prefer)
For the dressing
1
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teaspoons of harissa paste
2 tablespoons of olive oil
This is an easy salad, so I suggest buying harissa for the dressing! You can find really good harissa in any good deli or Middle Eastern shop, and all you have to do is mix it with some smoky olive oil (see below), pour it on your salad and luxuriate in being a bit damn lazy.
Hardboil the eggs for about 5 minutes. Wash the spinach and watercress leaves and put in a salad bowl. Peel the hardboiled eggs, add them to your leaves and mix in the goat’s cheese. Mix the harissa with the olive oil to form a dressing. Scatter the pumpkin seeds on top of the leaves and dress.
Easy peasy!
French onion soup (#ulink_53a38e0d-fd0e-5db8-9632-c45750b7922a)
SERVES 4 GENEROUSLY
3 large yellow onions
1 tablespoon of butter
Slug of olive oil
2 litres/8 cups of stock—I used 4 cups of chicken stock, 4 of vegetable. Beef is the traditional choice, but I think this is as good
1 tablespoon of good aged syrupy balsamic vinegar
Salt and pepper
100g/1 cup of grated cheese—Gruyère is delicious, but Parmesan will do as well
Purists will argue this is nothing like the real thing, which should be made with beef stock and have a great molten island of bread and cheese on top. I use vegetable stock and lose the bread—it’s not as heavy, yet still as decadent and comforting. The trick is slooooooooow cooking the onions, so they impart their rich caramelly flavour to the soup. A drizzle of good balsamic vinegar also gives it a rich enigmatic taste, perfect for a blowsy autumn day.
Roughly chop the onions. In a large pot (I use a heavy-bottomed Le Creuset), melt the butter with a few glugs of olive oil on a low heat. You don’t want it to burn. Make sure the bottom of the pan is covered, by swishing it around.
Pour in the onions, mix them into the oil with a wooden spoon and sweat gently for about 40 minutes. If your heat is kept to the lowest setting they won’t need more oil. Sometimes this is helped by using a heat diffuser pad. Towards the end of the cooking, turn up the heat a bit; you want the onions to brown and caramelize, not to be charred to a crisp.
When the onions look golden and browned round the edges, pour in the stock. Turn down the heat to low again, stir, and add the balsamic vinegar. I don’t know why, but this gives the soup a mellow, sweet earthiness. Let it simmer for another 15 minutes, taste, add salt and pepper if needed and then, using a ladle, pour into bowls.
Pour the cheese in when you are about to serve.
Squid salad with chargrilled peppers and coriander/cilantro dressing (#ulink_ae76ed65-f8a3-513b-ba48-7502a3a34faf)
SERVES 4-6
1 large red pepper, chopped into four lengthways, seeds removed
1 large yellow pepper, chopped into four lengthways, seeds removed
Olive oil
Roughly 100g/4 cups of cleaned baby squid
For the dressing
1 bunch of fresh chopped coriander/cilantro
