casa mitchell everyday.

so, things have been crazy busy at casa mitchell lately. i've had preparation for our spring menu at work (not to mention easter weekend and the royal wedding, phew), my garden has been bursting into activity every time i turn my back for more than ten minutes (there are blossoms on my strawberry plants already, and my red lettuces seem to be making the push to be eaten at an alarming rate), and my mum's partner bob is moving in today so i've had to make a concerted habit to stop leaving piles of my crap everywhere. difficult, because i have a tiny attention span, which i blame on overstimulation. i leap from one task to another without even thinking about the mess i'm leaving behind; it's a pretty terrible habit.

all of this hasn't left an awful lot of time for the slow cooking i'm so accustomed to, and the weather is too nice to be inside pottering and stirring and fussing anyhow, no matter how much i enjoy it. so i've regressed somewhat into habits i had at university when i had a deadline on, or was possessed by some academic obsession that meant i barely left my desk. i've been making up massive batches of things that can be dipped into by the bowlful here and there. it's not necessarily the most exciting way to eat; but food can't always be the central focus of life, even i'm not that optimistic. the trick to doing something like this for a week or so, or so i find, is to make sure that a) you choose something appropriate to the task you're asking of it (to remain something you want to actually eat for a couple of days, namely), and b) you make sure it's possessed of enough colour and flavour to keep your interest (dishes that improve in flavour over time are your friends here). then it crosses the line from being boring to making you feel like an enterprising little kitchen-squirrel, stashing stuff away for later. brilliant, right? right. so here's two of the things i whipped up for just this purpose this week just past.

blue cheese and walnut coleslaw

1/2 red cabbage

1x red onion

4x celery sticks

50g walnuts

2 tbsp creme fraiche

about 75g blue cheese (i used danish blue cos it's what i had in the fridge)

juice of a lemon

couple of tablespoonfuls of creme fraiche

apples to serve (totally optional)

okay so this is easy, you don't really need me to tell you how to make coleslaw, but whatever. i grated the cabbage, and finely sliced the onion and celery in the food processor, then chucked it in a big bowl with the walnuts. i crumbled the blue cheese into the creme fraiche, squeezed in the lemon juice, and whisked like mad, then tossed the veg in the dressing until everything went a kind of surreal lilac, and seasoned to taste.

everytime i grabbed a bowlful of this i served it with chopped apple (you want a tart variety with this rather than a sweet, i used some tiny unnamed variety that was not dissimilar to a cox's orange pippin, but use whatever you can get), like so:

so this is the first of many batches of coleslaw i will be making in the warmer months. when i was younger, my dad always homemade coleslaw for barbecues, the traditional kind, with white cabbage, onion and carrot, and while monumentally better than shop bought stuff for obvious reasons, i'm pretty sure he dressed it with heinz salad cream, so i have never really tried to replicate it. having spent four summers in a row on the sunny south coast, beach barbecues, garden barbecues, and southsea common barbecues were de rigeur from about april to september, and i've got a few years of coleslaw making under my belt as a result. in truth, i love it in all it's forms, and think it's one of the easiest barbecue staples to calibrate to whatever else you're cooking. in my time i've made wasabi dressed chinese cabbage versions, apple and mustard white cabbage variants, all sorts, but my heart still lies with the red cabbage for colour purposes alone. the minute red cabbage meets dairy it goes the bizarre purple colour you see above, a colour that you almost instinctively think food should not go; it feels almost transgressive in the eating, like you've cheated nature into becoming an artifice or something. it reminds me a bit of the barbecue scene in edward scissorhands (the only film guaranteed to make me cry on every watching, by the way), where all the (totally stylin') technicolour housewives are force feeding him all these psychedelic pastel coloured foods. or like, maybe if john waters directed a coleslaw or something. either way, i may have mentioned that virtuous vegetable cooking isn't really my style; i leave that to tumblr's massive californian vegan contingent. so yeah, this recipe has a lot of dairy. why? because it's awesome. especially if you add in the apples. the tastes all blend and contrast together in such a way that you forget you're essentially eating raw veg. blue cheese, cabbage and walnuts? there's no way it isn't going to work. and this was ideal for some mid-digging eating out on the bench in the garden while i read american short stories and tried not to get sunburnt.

so the second recipe is maybe a little bit more substantial. i flicked through nigel slater's tender, looking for inspiration for the excellent spinach i keep buying lately, because it's all well and good eating it raw with oil, lemon juice and salt while i pad around my little veg plot, but that isn't exactly gonna keep me going on a saturday night shift, is it? i went with this indian influenced little beauty:

an indian inspired dish of spinach and potatoes

potatoes, 500g

a large onion

vegetable oil or melted butter, 2 tablespoons

garlic, 2 fat cloves

a small green chilli

ginger, a 2cm lump

black mustard seeds, half a teaspoon

turmeric, half a teaspoon

spinach, 450g

the juice of half a lemon, probably less.

scrub the potatoes, cut them into large pieces, then either boil in deep, salted water or steam until tender. drain and set aside.

peel and finely slice the onion. warm the vegetable oil or butter in a large pan, then add the onion and cook till soft and just starting to colour. finely chop the garlic, chilli and ginger and stir them in with the mustard seeds and turmeric. continue cooking briefly, stirring the onion and spices regularly so they do not burn.

add the cooked and drained potatoes and a wineglass of water. bring to the boil and simmer for four or five minutes, until and crustings of onion and spices stuck on the pan have dissolved into the liquid. turn up the heat so that the liquid bubbles almost to nothing and the potatoes are starting to take on some of the colour and flavour of the spices, then add the spinach, thoroughly washed and trimmed of it's toughest stalks. season generously with salt and a little ground black pepper. once the spinach has wilted and is bright green, check the seasoning, squeeze over a little lemon juice, and eat.

here is mine, enjoyed in the garden while i read up on planting peas:

again, just look at the colours on that. way brighter and zestier than the traditional saag aloo, and an interesting bowlful to eat but with enough starch to keep me on my feet for the lengthier shifts. this was a pleasure to eat sat on my bench in the sunshine before work, collecting the last few minutes i had to myself before a series of intensely demanding weekend shifts.

so, not the most glamourous of cookery from me today, but i'd be lying if i said i was creating intricate and complex dishes every evening and baking cakes every other day as standard. especially not when life is this hectic.

on the grass being greener.

ok, wow. so of all the rash and ill-thought out decisions i've made in life, turning vegetarian and then starting a food blog with somebody talented enough to make me really, really wish i hadn't is right up there near the top. i had the luxury of seeing process-pictures throughout the day yesterday and they were so good i ended up showing them round at work, as and when i received them.

is anyone else surprised that the first ethics post came from the meat eater? you shouldn't be. realistically speaking, i am aware of the already massive count of preachy veggies in the world, and don't plan on joining their ranks. i am completely and totally with ed on the fact that if you will eat meat you should be responsible about it, and i agree with absolutely every point he makes in his thoughts on it. my own departure from the flesh was fuelled in part by disingenous friends and associates who were economical with the truth of the provenance of what they served, and discussing with my vegetarian friend (who was at the time studying a masters that involved numerous explorations into impacts on marine environments) the omissions and oversights involved in the labelling of seafood. 'responsibly fished, sustainably caught' langoustines are still trawled, which still means bycatch, which to me is very irresponsible indeed. it became something i couldn't think about anymore, and as someone who strives to live their politics it became something i simply couldn't do any more. it's a personal decision, however, and i really don't want to get into all the things i disagree with because i would be here forever, however i will say that if more meat eaters were as responsible as ed (and previously, me; i ate offal in my time), then there probably wouldn't be any need for angsty conscience-guideds like me to go vegetarian and make people feel carnivore's guilt in the first place.

i do, i have to admit, find it highly amusing that the weekend ed was making something so inherently animal-y, i was indulging in the kind of worthy, earthy cooking, that so many people associate with vegetarianism. you know what i mean, the kind that makes everybody think we're all neil from the young ones, not to mention undernourished and not real food fans. i find all those notions laughable. i have not, as yet lost any fierceness since i gave up eating body parts, nor have i declined in health. and as for not being a real food fan? well, really? i think we all know by now that i am almost childishly guided by appetites and within my dietary parameters and environmental beliefs, a total hedonist, it just comes out in different ways.

so, let's talk bean curry shall we? i have to say even when still an omnivore i made dishes like this allllll the time. why? because it's the kind of food i like. it's boldly flavoured and coloured, it fits in with my big-dish approach (you can blame my desire for abundance on my late northern-irish great grandmother's early influence), and it's, on a practical level, enough to keep your average highly strung barmaid going through a friday night shift. so without further ado, from nigel slater's tender vol. I, i present you with (the recipe for, fuck copyright law, i can reproduce seventeen percent of whatever i choose for educational purposes, and the author is correctly credited):

cabbage with beans, coconut, and coriander

enough for 4-6

dried haricot beans, 200g

onions, 2 medium

vegetable or groundnut oil, 2 tablespoons

garlic, 3 cloves

green cardamoms, 8

coriander seeds, 2 teaspoons

yellow mustard seeds, a teaspoon

cumin seeds, a teaspoon

ground turmeric, 2 teaspoons

chillies, 3 small, hot

chopped plum tomatoes, two 400g cans

a pinch of sugar

coconut milk, 250ml

fresh coriander, a large handful

a lime, maybe 2

for the greens

a soft, leafy cabbage, such as spring greens - a good handful or more per person.

soak the dried beans in water overnight. the next day, boil the beans till tender in deep, unsalted water. drain and set aside. (if you are using canned beans, rinse them under cold running water, then set aside.)

peel the onions, cut them in half and slice them thinly. add them to the oil in a large, deep pan and let them soften, colouring lightly over a moderate heat. this often takes longer than you might imagine, a good fifteen minutes at least. peel and chop the garlic and add to the onions.

crack the cardamom pods open and extract the tiny seeds. crush these coarsely, using a pestle and mortar or a very heavy rolling pin, then stir them into the softening onions. crush the coriander seeds and then the mustard, and add them to the onions, with the whole cumin seeds, ground turmeric, a generous seasoning of salt and pepper. cook, stirring regularly, for at least five minutes, so that the spices toast in the heat.

meanwhile, seed and finely chop the chillies, and add, with the chopped tomatoes, 400ml of water and a pinch of sugar, followed by the cooked beans. leave to simmer gently over a low heat, with the occasional stir, partially covered with a lid, for about thirty five to forty minutes.

mix the coconut milk into the sauce, simmer for a further five minutes, then add the coriander leaves and the lime juice. when the curry is almost ready, make a tight fist of the greens and shred them quite finely. steam or blanch briefly, then serve with the curry.

okay, so i'm going to let the colours of this badboy speak for themselves. i am such a visual magpie (note the bright red hair and penchant for chaotic sequinned clothes) that i insist on brightly coloured dishes like this in months like january. this really is the kind of food i love cooking. slowly adding spices to a big pot and filling the house with the smell (anyone who lived with me in university will attest to this; coming home to the smell of indian spices was a regular occurence for them). i think the only changes i made were using canned beans, and using a coffee grinder i devoted to spice-grinding a long time ago. i haven't been serving this with rice, but eating it by the huge bowlful, steaming the greens as and when i need them, as i'm not major on carbs where i don't think they're necessary (pasta with garlic bread, j'accuse). if i was making it for a non vegetarian friend, i might perhaps lazily fry some parathas at the stove, glass of wine in hand, just to stop it seeming so lentil-brigade, but myself i preferred to just appreciate the deep spiciness of the beans with the clean mineral taste of the cabbage. oh, and regarding cabbage; haters to the left. you don't like it because you've had it cooked badly. all kinds of cabbage are a thing of beauty and have their rightful place in cuisine. i mentioned that northern irish great grandmother, right?