Category: Vegetarian

Spinach Pancakes

Hello friends and welcome to a return to the wonderful vintage cookbook, The A-Z of Cooking. The last time I visited this book was back in 2016/17 when I cooked a LOT of recipes from it. There were only a few recipes left that I wanted to cook and this one for spinach pancakes with tomato sauce was top of the list! I love the combination of spinach and cheese – in spanakopita, in cannelloni and these pancakes did nothing to change my mind!

Spinach Pancakes 1

 

The finished pancakes looked very much like cannelloni!  And to be honest, while the taste was great, this was a lot of work.  The sauce needed to simmer for a few hours, the pancakes took some time to cook, the wrapping and rolling was fiddly.  Alas, no two of my rolled pancakes were the same size!  By the time these came out of the oven I was almost too tired to eat.  It was only the day after that realised this recipe was in the “Night Before” chapter of the A-Z.  It would have been far less tiring to make the sauce and pancakes the day before!  

Spinach Pancakes 2

Maybe because I was thinking of cannelloni, the method of cooking seemed a bit odd to me.  The recipe says to fill the pancakes, place them in the baking dish and then sprinkle cheese over the top. You were then meant to serve the sauce on the side.  

Spinach Pancakes 3

I did this but about half way through the cook, I gave into to the urge to pour the sauce over the top!  I then added more cheese.

 

Spinach Pancakes 4

Deeelicious!

Spinach Pancakes with Tomato Sauce – The Recipe

Spinach Pancakes Recipe

My notes on the recipe

  • I used frozen spinach
  • I subbed ricotta cheese for the cottage cheese
  • Leave yourself plenty of time – this took me around 3 and a half hours all up.  

 

And, if l like me you can’t get enough spinach and cheese, here are some other ways you can spin these flavours!

Have a great week!

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Summer Vegetarian – January 2003

Hello Friends and welcome to Twenty Years Ago Today for January 2003.  It’s summertime here in Australia and living is easy. We want some no-muss, no-fuss food – and if we can slap it on the BBQ – so much the better!  The magazine I am using for this month is Super Food Ideas from December 2002.  The theme is summer vegetarian…will the magazine meet the challenge?

Pineapple Rum Crush

Here’s the menu I devised from the recipes in the magazine.  I was able to meet my challenge of relaxed summer vegetarian food quite easily – there were a few options for the opening drink, the starter, side and dessert.  There were not so many vegetarian mains but I really liked the sound of the sweetcorn and zucchini burgers!  And the fussiest eater in the world loves peanut brittle so we appeared to be onto a winner, winner vegetarian dinner!

Summer Vegetarian Menu

Summer Vegetarian Burgers2

Pineapple and Rum Crush

This was summer in a glass!  Rum and pineapple is a classic tropical flavour combination.  I also liked the refreshing scent of the mint.  This is a perfect hot-weather drink!

Pimeapple and Rum Crush Recipe

ChunkyAvocado Dip

I did not make this as I could not find a ripe avocado for love or money the day I wanted to make it!  Here’s the recipe.  This came from an advertisement for Tupperware, hence the mention of the serving vessel.  Chunky Avocado Dip

Sweetcorn and Zucchini Burgers

I was excited to make these because I love a zucchini fritter and I love a corn fritter.  Also, I picked the zucchini and the parsley from my garden! What could be better than combining the two?  Unfortunately, these were not good.  Usually, when I make zucchini fritters, I squeeze the water out of the zucchini after grating them.  This recipe did not say to do so and, when I am cooking a recipe for the blog or for Tasty Reads, I follow the recipe exactly.  Maybe because I did not squeeze my zucchini (which sounds like a euphemism if ever I heard one) the mixture was a mess!  I had to add almost double the amount of flour suggested to get something that would even hold together.  The burgers tasted too much like flour and not enough like sweetcorn or zucchini.  I would not make these again.  If you want to try them, I would try squeezing the moisture out of the grated zucchini.  Or for a really good recipe for zucchini fritters, use this one from Epicurious which is one of my faves!

Sweetcorn and Zucchini Burgers2

Tomato Salad with Creamy Dressing

This was good, nothing special but a tasty tomato salad.  We are about to have a bumper crop of tomatoes from the backyard so  I might be making it again very soon!

Tomato Salad (1)

Peanut Brittle

This was a semi-fail but entirely due to user error! The recipe says to microwave for 6-8 minutes.  I do not cook with my microwave very often and got a bit panicky when at the six-minute mark the dish I was using to cook the brittle in felt very hot.   The mixture inside it looked like something normally seen in the crater of a volcano about to explode.  I lost my nerve and stopped the cooking process!  As a result, the candy creation was not brittle but had the consistency of fudge.  It was delicious though!  Next time I will hold my nerve and cook it for the full eight minutes!

Peanut Brittle (1)

My Nigella Moment

For first-time readers, this refers to the moment at the end of Nigella Lawson’s cooking shows when she sneaks back to the fridge to have another bite of something delicious.  In the context of these Twenty Years Ago posts, it is something contained in the magazine that does not fit with the overall menu theme but I’m sneaking in because it was really good!  This  month, my Nigella  moment came from an article on Asian food which included one of my restaurant favourites, Thai Fish Cakes.  This is my go-to starter when eating Thai but I have never even contemplated making these at home!  I loved these!  They were deliciously tasty and were very close to the ones you eat in restaurants. I will definitely make these again! Also, happy Lunar New Year Everyone!

Thai Fish Cakes (1)

I hope you have enjoyed my trip back to the vegetarian food of 2003.  It certainly had some mixed results.  The absolute highlight for me were the fishcakes, they were sensational! The cocktail was pretty good too!

Future Twenty Years Ago Today Posts

I have been thinking about these 20 Years Ago Today posts and I decided that, whilst I love doing them, the risk is that the menu themes will get a bit predictable and will be limited to the food that I like.  To give me a challenge and to hopefully really highlight what is featured in my 20-year-old magazines, I have come up with a list of menu themes and each month I will randomly select a theme and see if I can build a menu from that theme out of the magazine in question.  Some of the themes are serious, some are based on actual food preferences of people I know (for example, the Fussiest Eater In The World once told me he did not eat white food. Except for potatoes, bread, rice, cauliflower, fish, milk, yoghurt….the list goes on!) and some I made up to challenge myself!   You can find the list of themes here:

If you would like to contribute a theme, please let me know,  I’m up for any challenge you can throw at me!

Have a great week.

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Death on The Nile – Roasted Potatoes and Artichokes

Hello crime readers and food lovers!  I’m going to kick this one off on a very personal note.  Middle Eastern Food is probably my favourite style and flavour of food. I love the largesse of the many plates of food, all designed for sharing that is so much a part of the cooking of this region. So I was hugely excited to read Death on The Nile.  Surely we would get some hummus, flatbread, falafel, slow-cooked lamb, maybe some baklava to finish….I was so up for this.  And was bitterly disappointed. There is not much food at all mentioned in Death on The Nile.  Hence we are eating Potatoes and Artichokes.  The potatoes and artichokes are not a bad dish, in fact they were really tasty!  Just not what I was expecting!

Potatoes and Artichokes1

Death on The Nile – The Plot

Linnet Doyle,  a beautiful heiress, is honeymooning in Egypt with her husband Simon.  The two should be in the realms of newly wedded bliss however their trip has been spoiled by Linnet’s former friend and Simon’s former fiancee Jacqueline de Bellefort who is stalking the couple.  In an effort to evade Jackie, the couple embark on a trip down the Nile.

On a side trip to Abu Simbel, a large rock falls off a cliff, just missing Linnet.  Accident?  It could not have been Jackie, she was on the boat.  However, a few days later, a drunken Jackie shoots Simon Doyle in the leg.  That same night, Linnet is shot dead.  Again, it could not have been Jackie, after the incident with Simon, she spends the entire night both heavily sedated and under the watchful eye of one of the other passengers.

So, who killed Linnet Doyle?  Good thing Hercule Poirot is also on board the Karnak to solve the crime!

We have:

  • A love triangle that leads to murder
  • Stolen pearls and a missing stole
  • A dodgy maid
  • Shady business dealings
  • Kleptomania
  • Alcoholism
  • A rebellious young man with communistic leanings
  • And Colonel Race, who we last saw in Cards on The Table joins Poirot on the Karnak

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Death on the Nile – The Covers

There is not a lot of variety in the covers for Death on The Nile.  They are largely images of the Karnak or Egypt.  Poirot features in a few and of course, we have a few “beautiful girl in peril” pulp-type covers.

Death on The Nile Collage

But where I ask you is the crazy?  I have come to expect a few totally off-the-wall covers and was unable to anything really oddball.  I also could not find any non-English covers which also seemed odd given that this is such a well-known and loved Christie novel.

The Recipe – Roasted Potatoes and Artichokes

I found this recipe for Roasted Potatoes and Artichokes on Real Simple.  It was nice but I thought I could do a bit better.  So there is my revamped version.  You can of course keep it (real) simple and use the OG recipe

Print

Roast Potatoes and Artichokes

A simple and flavourful side dished based on a recipe from Real Simple and inspired by Death on The Nile!

  • Author: Taryn Nicole
  • Cook Time: 50 minutes
  • Total Time: 50 minutes
  • Category: Side

Ingredients

Scale
  • 500g chat or new potatoes
  • 2 tbsp olive oil plus one more for dressing the cooked potatoes
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp smoked paprika
  • 4 garlic cloves
  • I 275g jar of marinated artichokes
  • Juice of 1/2 a lemon
  • Black pepper, freshly ground
  • 56 sprigs of parsley, mint, chives or a combination of  them

Instructions

  • Par boil the new potatoes in salted water until they are just tender.  This will depend on the size of your potatoes but it took me 12 minutes.
  • Drain the potatoes and cut them in half.
  • Heat your oven to 180C.
  • In a bowl big enough to hold the potatoes mix together the olive oil, salt and paprika.  Toss the potatoes through and then place them cut side down on a baking tray.
  • Put them in the oven and roast for 20 minutes.
  • Drain your artichokes and pat dry.
  • After twenty minutes and your artichokes and the garlic cloves to the baking tray with the potatoes. Cook for 15 minutes
  • Chop your herbs and add to the extra olive oil with the black pepper and lemon juice.
  • Remove the roasted garlic from the oven.  Squash down cloves so the roasted garlic puree comes out and add this to your oil and lemon mix.  Do this one by one and taste as you go so you can get the dressing to your desired level of garlicky goodness.
  • Once you are happy with the dressing remove the potatoes and artichokes from the oven.  Place into a bowl and stir through the lemon / garlic / herb dressing.
  • Enjoy while reading Death on The Nile!

 

Notes

Adding some onion wedges with the artichokes would also work well here.

If you wanted to sprinkle a little feta cheese over the top of the finished dish would be delicious!

Any leftover garlic can be kept in the fridge for a few days and added to anything that needs garlic.

Potatoes and Artichokes 3

Dr Bessner’s bulk moved up and down appreciatively. “Ho, ho, ho, it was very funny that!  Doyle, he tells me  about it.  It was a telegram all about vegetables – potatoes, artichokes, leeks – Ach!  Pardon?”

With a stifled exclamation Race had sat up in his chair.

“My God,” he said.  “So that’s it! Richetti!”

He looked round on three uncomprehending faces.

“A new code – it was used in the South African rebellion.  Potatoes mean machine guns, artichokes are high explosives  – and so on.”

Agatha Christie – Death on The Nile

If you would like to read of another instance where Artichokes were compared to weapons, click here.

Links to The Christieverse

  • Christie has a short story also called Death on The Nile.  We will come to that one in due course.
  • Miss Van Schuyler says to Poirot that she has heard of him from a mutual acquaintance, Rufus Van Aldin.  He was a character in The Mystery of The Blue Train
  • The death of Mr Shaitana featured in Cards on The Table is mentioned.  It is said that it occurred a year earlier.
  • Poirot mentions a case in which a red kimono was found in his luggage.  This refers to Murder on the Orient Express
  • Poirot also speaks of attending an archaeological site which references Murder in Mesopotamia

Potatoes and Artichokes 4

 

The Film

Of course, we were not going to talk about Death on the Nile without mentioning the Kenneth Branagh film of the same which was released this year.  We saw it in the cinema and, although the reviews have been universally bad, I thoroughly enjoyed it.   I was not a fan of  Kenneth Branagh’s Poirot in Murder on the Orient Express; this has not changed.  But I thought the film looked beautiful.  The scenery was spectacular and really made me want to go to Egypt to see those sights for myself.  I also loved its over-the-top opulence.  And I thought Gal Gadot and Emma Mackey were both perfectly cast.

 

Other Food & Drinks Mentioned in Death on The Nile

Lots of booze here and not much food!

To keep things neat, next up we are going to read the other Death on the Nile, the one contained in Parker Pyne Investigates.  Will I get falafel and hummus this time round?  I’m both doubtful and hopeful!

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Vegeree

Hello friends and welcome to the best of February!  The nicest thing I made this month was a vegetarian kedgeree (vegeree geddit) from Jamie Oliver.  This recipe is from his Everyday Superfoods book and it is a belter!   Kedgeree is a dish of spiced rice, usually made with smoked fish which grew to prominence in Colonial India.  Traditionally, Kedgeree is a breakfast dish but I had mine for dinner. And as much as I love a bit of smoked fish, this was so delicious I am not sure if I will even bother to try the classic version after eating this one!

 

Vegeree1

This is a dish to eat with your eyes before shovelling it down.  It is so pretty and bright.  I can see why it became popular for breakfast – those bright reds and greens and yellows would put a smile even on my totally-not-a-morning-person face.  I used normal basmati rice, not brown and beans not peas for my vegeree.

Vegeree – The Recipe

I apologise for the state of this page.  It is more than somewhat food splattered!!! (but the sign of a good recipe I always think).

Vegeree (2)
Vegeree via Jamie Oliver

Other Favourites of The Month

Reading

The Best book I read this month was Fuzz: When Nature Breaks The Law by Mary Roach.  I loved learning about the different interactions between humans and animals. Not as fun but also fascinating is the book I am partway through – Going Dark: The Secret Social Lives of Extremists. As someone who mostly reads fiction, it was good to have two non-fiction recommendations this week!

Feb Faves

Cookbook

Our theme for our Tasty Reads Cookbook Club this month is Charity Shop book and we spent a lovely Saturday morning having brunch and then shopping for our books.  I bought three books during our shopping which was quite the haul.  The one I am cooking from is a massive tome called Australia’s Favourite Recipes. From the photography in the book, I initially thought it was from the 1970s or 80s but I later found out it was published in 2010!  Unfortunately, I am somewhat regretting my choice – not because of the dated photos but the book is so tall that it does not fit into any of my bookshelves!

Australia's Favourite Recipes

I was intrigued to find within its pages a recipe for a chicken dish called Shakuti.  This is possibly a recipe for the Chicken Xacuti mentioned in the Tim Key episode of the Off-Menu Podcast.  I had never heard of this curry before.  And now I have a recipe!  The Baader-Meinhof effect at work!

Watching

We saw Death on The Nile which I LOVED. The scenery was spectacular and made me want to go to Egypt to see the sights myself.  The Dining with the Dame for this will be later this year.

Listening

I’ve started listening to the Twin Flames podcast and am very much enjoying the current series of Rabbits.  The Rabbits novel is also great!  I’m devastated that the shipping for Path Cards outside the US is so expensive.  I would buy a pack for sure if it was anywhere near reasonable!

 

 

Moving

Along with my beloved Zumba classes, I am now doing Sh’bam classes at the local gym and LOVING them!  I love an exercise class where it feels more like fun than hard work and this certainly fits the bill!  Looking forward to shifting some of those covid kilos through dance!

vegeree2

Tomorrow is a public holiday here to celebrate Labour Day.  I will be celebrating the introduction of the 8-hour workday with a sleep in, a trip to the gym and some baking which hopefully will feature here shortly!

Have a wonderful week!


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Detox Soup

Hello Friends, consider this post my public service announcement for the year.  Detox Soup is my New Year’s Day present to you.  For anyone who is planning to imbibe on 31st December, a large bowl of detox soup should set us on the path to recovery on 1 January!

Detox Soup1

I found the recipe for Detox Soup in 365 Good Reasons to Sit Down and Eat by Stephane Reynaud which is an excellent book on (mostly) French cooking.  It was my choice for our Tasty Reads Cookbook Club for November and this is both the first recipe in the book and the first recipe I made from it.

Since then, I have made this soup a number of times, it has become my go-to meal for when I want something quick, easy and life-affirming or when I want to feel virtuous.  When I am feeling not so virtuous, it goes very well with some grilled cheese on crusty bread!  I don’t really believe in “detoxing” but eating this soup does make me feel like I am doing something positive for myself.

Detox Soup 2

Whether or not you use the Detox Soup to ease your aching head and over worked liver or to add a moment of positive self care into the first day of the new year, can I suggest you make some early and keep it in the fridge for the first?  It will be there when you need it the most!

Or it can add  a moment of positive self-care into the first day of the new year.

I have already made my batch although we currently have a sick dog so I doubt I will be drinking on NYE in case I need to make (another) trip to the emergency vet.  🙁

Detox Soup 4

The Recipe – Detox Soup

Complete with a picture of someone looking very hungover made from the ingredients!

Detox Soup recipe

 

Those of you with an eagle eye may have noticed that there is some sliced fennel in my soup which is not in the recipe.  The second time I made this soup I had half a fennel in the fridge that needed using so I sliced it up and added it into the pot.  I really liked the flavour it brought so I add it in all the time now.  I also use vegetable stock instead of water in my soup.

This also explains why I have garnished my soup with a fennel frond and not the celery leaves in the original picture.  Speaking of which…I think I have done not too bad a  job of replicating that picture…

Detox Soup Collage

If the hair of the dog is more your bag, 1 January is Bloody Mary Day so you can get your vodka on with one of my favourite Bloody Mary recipes here.

I think for most of us, 2021 was not the remedy to 2020 that we were all hoping for.  Lord only knows what 2022 has in store for us!  Whatever it brings, I hope you and your loved ones stay safe, healthy and have a wonderful year!