Jolly Delectable

I love the alchemy of flavours. Cooking for my loved ones is my zen.

[princesofmagic]

[jollydelectable]

Dear friend kindly gave us some pears so I sliced them up and owen dried them.

Perfect mid afternoon snack or accompaniment to cheese and wine.

[jollydelectable]

Simple pleasures and luxuries in life. Like having a Saturday brunch of fresh chanterelles with scrambled eggs after a night of dancing and loving :)

[jollydelectable]

Four years ago, on this day.....

Those of you who know me well, know how much I love cooking healthy, fresh food and also, how much I love this wonderful and quirky place called @Petersham Nurseries

I have been going there for the last sixteen years, both to spend nice time with good friends and to soothe my sorrows.

Six years ago I was allowed to spend time in the kitchen itself and to be part of the Sunday lunch service. I.e. I prepped food and then plated appetisers and starters along the wonderful, kind and friendly kitchen crew.

As a surprise, they then showed me to a table and I was treated to a delicious meal, which I enjoyed that much more for knowing how much care, effort and love went into its preparation.

[jollydelectable]

Trying vegetarian diet?

In order to be able to stick to vegetarian diet, you need to try to make it as interesting and satisfying as you possibly can. 

One of the things that will help is making sure your dishes have plenty of umami flavour: 

Umami (/uːˈmɑːmi/, from Japanese: 旨味 [ɯmami]) or savory taste is one of the five basic tastes (together with sweetness, sourness, bitterness, and saltiness). It has been described as savoury and is characteristic of broths and cooked meats.

Besides creating an explosion of "mmm" for your taste buds, umami has been linked to some health benefits too: People who eat more umami-filled foods have a healthier appetite, body weight, and overall health, according to a recent study

How to introduce umami into your cooking? 

You can use umami paste. Most supermarkets nowadays stock either Clearspring or Taste 5 or even their own brand of umami paste. 

However there are many other ways how to add umami into your cooking. Here are some of the umami rich ingredients: 

Tomatoes - fresh, sun-dried, tinned. Try slow roasting juicy tomato halves, sprinkled with a bit of smoked sea salt, pinch of coconut sugar, and a drizzle of olive oil. (Sun dried tomatoes in oil are fantastic as is the oil they are kept in - use it to make popcorn or flavour your salads with it etc). 

Eggplant - roasted, grilled, pan fried, smoked, pickled

Mushrooms - fresh, dried, pickled, roasted, grilled, pan fried. Cep oil

Truffle - truffle salt, truffle oil

Olives, olive tapenade

Capers

Cheese - parmesan, aged pecorino, aged manchego, mature cheddar

Nuts - toasted, roasted

Seeds 

Nut oils - hazelnut, walnut, sesame, pumpkin 

Smoked rapeseed oil

Tamari soy sauce

Miso

Nutritional yeast flakes 

Marmite

Liquid Aminos

Garlic - fresh, roasted, garlic granules

Seaweed sprinkle 

[jollydelectable]

So chuffed with this! Beautiful fresh crop of shiitake mushrooms. Odered them from https://www.merryhill-mushrooms.co.uk last Saturday. Arrived on Wednesday and today we already had the first few in a delicious brunch.

Merryhill Mushrooms

Grow your own Mushrooms - Award Winning Mushroom Grow kits, Chestnut, White, Shiitake And Oyster Kits. Mushroom Infused Salt and Vegan Jerky

[jollydelectable]

[jollydelectable]

Vegetarian paella

Good quality live oil 

1 large white onion, peeled and roughly chopped

2 romano peppers, deseeded and roughly chopped

2 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed

350g paella rice

1/2 teaspoon of saffron strands (usually 1/2 0.4g packet) 

2 heaped teaspoon of smoked sweet paprika

1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper

Smoked sea salt 

225g ripe plum tomatoes, skinned and roughly chopped (with a sharp knife, make a cross at either end of the tomato and then plunge the tomatoes into hot water for 1 minute. Skin will start coming off easily)

1 mid size courgette, diced 

Fine French beans, roughly chopped

50g frozen petit pois (keep in the freezer till using)

1 unwaxed lemon for garnish

You will also need a shallow pan with a base diameter of about 26-30 cm) and a capacity of about 4 litres.

Peel, chop and prepare everything first. 

Boil a kettle and put the saffron into a small tea cup and cover with hot water. 

Heat the oil in large pan over a fairly high heat.

Add the onion and pepper to the pan and fry these over a medium heat for 6-8 minutes. Now add the garlic, smoked paprika and cayenne and cook for another minute followed by the tomatoes. 

Season with sea salt. 

Now add the saffron together with the water it was steeped in.

Mix thoroughly. 

Now add about a litre of boiling water. 

Bring everything up to a gentle simmer, turn the heat down and cook, uncovered, for 10 minutes. After that, pour the rice into the centre of the pan. Bring everything back up to the boil, give a final stir and simmer, still uncovered, for about 10 minutes. During that time, shake the pan occasionally.

Next, add the courgette and the French beans, to the pan and continue to simmer for 10-15 minutes, or until the rice is cooked, adding a little more hot water if you think it's necessary. Now shake the pan again, making sure the rice is completely immersed.

Add the frozen petit pois.  

The rice at the edges of the pan will take longest to cook, so to test that the paella is ready, take a little of the rice from the edges and check it's cooked through, then remove the pan from the heat and cover with a clean tea cloth for 5 minutes to absorb some of the steam.

The paella is now ready. Serve it garnished with the lemon wedges.

[jollydelectable]

Simple yet healthy and very tasty snack!

Organic linseed, toasted in a large nonstick pan, cooled, ground in a food processor or spice mill and then mixed with a softened, lightly salted goats butter. Delicious spread on a toasted bread or crackers, topped with boiled eggs or slices of cheese, vegetables and herbs.

[jollydelectable]

Thinking about going vegetarian?

If you are thinking about going vegetarian, good on you! 

Healthy, balanced vegetarian diet is beneficial for your health and also much better for the environment. 

In my experience, to be able to stick with being vegetarian, and what more - to actually enjoy it, you will need to consider a few things: 

In order to stay healthy, you will need to make sure that you get all the protein and necessary minerals and vitamins from your new diet. It isn’t simply a case of getting rid of all the meat and eating more carbs and vegetarian processed food. 

What usually people miss when going vegetarian is the umami flavour. That can however be easily replaced with imaginative recipes and ingredients. 

The other important thing to think of is texture. 

[jollydelectable]

You are the butter to my bread, you are the breath to my life.

from Julie & Julia

[jollydelectable]

As in life, it is important to be able to take whatever ingredients you currently have and try to make something delectable out of it that would bring joy to yourself and the people around you.