Wraps have revolutionised lunchtime chez Ang.

I used to be locked into a standard dieter’s lunch of houmous served with strips of pitta bread and carrot sticks, and felt quite hard done by if I’m honest.  (I know it’s weird, but I always struggle with lunch, especially if I’m dieting.  Any other meal is relentlessly creative, but lunch is a big old mental blackspot for me.)  But now, my imagination has been sparked and I’m now packing all sorts of goodies into wraps.  The Leon sweet potato falafel wraps have become a bit of a family favourite—especially good with some thick slices of gherkin or cornichon—and I’m quite fond of making a Mexican chicken wrap with some really hot salsa.

However, my darling du jour is this sexy roasted butternut squash and dolcelatte wrap.

Believe it or not, this delicious wrap is not only diet-friendly… it’s good for you.  I’m no nutritionist, but olive oil is full of monosaturated fat and heart-healthy and the butternut squash is bursting with betacarotene goodness, antioxidants and fibre.  The dolcelatte is less of a nutritionist’s dream, but is still a valuable source of calcium and the small serving size keeps the calories and evil saturated fat to an acceptable level.  And as they say… everything in moderation.  But enough of the health credentials of this wrap, how does it taste?

Bloody gorgeous, thanks for asking.  The sweetness of the roasted squash is balanced beautifully by the rich saltiness of the cheese and the salad gives great texture and freshness. I added a few little drops of balsamic glaze which enhanced the sweet-salty tastes, and let me indulge my old dipping habits.  This is a fabulous lunch that feels far too voluptuously extravagant to ever be diet fare.  But it is, and I love it.

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I recently received a Triple Award from Jeanne over at Cook Sister!  Thank-you so much, Jeanne!

The rules for recipients are:

• Include the award logo in your blog or post.
• Nominate at least 10 blogs which show great Attitude and/or Gratitude!
• Be sure to link to your nominees within your post.
• Let them know that they have received this award by commenting on their blog.
• Share the love and link to this post and to the person from whom you received your award.

I’m passing this award on to:

• Sophie of Mostly Eating
• Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella
• Erin of The Endive Chronicles
• Debbie of Words to Eat By
• Bron of Bron Marshall
• Lisa of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives
• Jules of Stone Soup
• Hannah of Bittersweet
• Maria of The Goddess’s Kitchen
• Kieran of Ice Cream Ireland

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Ahhh… January.  I can just about make out the pounding of feet as everyone rushes to the gym or to slimming groups to atone for festive excesses or to Finally Get Thin.  I’m no exception, hence the brief silence while I’ve been wrestling with salad leaves and trying to work out how to factor baking treats into my new and improved diet.

To ensure that enthusiasm and motivation levels remain high, I’ve been trying out new recipes rather than just relying on old favourites.  And so, the latest addition to my healthy culinary arsenal are these fantastic sweet potato falafel wraps which are (a) good for you and (b) absolutely divine.  So divine that I’ve been raving about them ever since I made them!

Sweet potato falafels may sound a bit odd, and well… un-falafely, but they’re a really delicious alternative to the traditional fat-laden falafel.  Using gram (chickpea) flour to bind the mixture provides just the right amount of chickpea flavour to make your tastebuds say aaaah, yes, this is a falafel and the sweet potato ensures that the falafels stay moist after baking.  Genius, really.

The author of this genius is Allegra McEvedy, ex of the River Cafe and Robert Di Niro’s Tribeca Grill and current of Leon.  If you’ve never heard of Leon—hardly surprising if you’re not a Londoner—then let me enlighten you.  It’s a London-based chain of fast food restaurants which focus on healthy, yet yummy, food.  Simple as that.  But wait!  Before you wrinkle your nose… the food is big, bold and packed with flavour rather than being cardboard diet-fare.

I must admit that I’ve never eaten at Leon, but fully intend to the next time I’m in London.  I have, however, been cooking up a storm from the Leon cookbook ever since excerpted recipes appeared in the Guardian and they’ve all been fantastic.  It’s also a bloody good read—Allegra writes in a very warm and chummy way, so you feel as though you’re having a good old gossip about food with a friend as you read through it.  I should also mention that Leon is a book of two halves: an illustrated guide to ingredients with food-pairing tips as well as a recipe book.

But back to the falafels!  I stuffed a portion into a wrap along with plenty of Gem lettuce and some surprisingly sweet baby tomatoes, a generous spoonful of aïoli and a drizzle of sweet chilli sauce.  With an extra bowl of salad on the side—I couldn’t get as much into the wrap as I wanted—it made for a superb lunch which was heartily approved by the whole family.
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On a cold day, there’s nothing better than a hot bowl of soup.  Thick with a variety of colourful vegetables and, ribollita is just the sort of soup I had in mind when the weather took a chilly turn last week.

Ribollita is a traditional (peasant) Tuscan soup whose name translates as ‘reboiled’.  As it sits on the stove for a few days, being reheated and dipped into whenever one is hungry, it develops amazing flavour.  True Tuscan ribollita goes through several stages: the soupy first stage, a starchier second stage where the soup is layered with some stale bread and then it turns into almost a hash.  This is documented beautifully over at Hedonia, complete with gorgeous photographs, for the curious amongst you.

As much as I love a good culinary adventure, I just wanted soup.  No, I wanted very good soup, so I elected to follow Skye Gyngell’s recipe which replaces the bread element of the soup with farro.  Except that I couldn’t find farro, even after making a special trip to Waitrose—no hardship, I got to pick up some of their new cupcakes—so I substituted another ancient grain: spelt.  And as I had a bag of dried borlotti beans kicking around the larder, I used those instead of buying a bag of cannellini beans.  Channelling my inner peasant-girl!

Incidentally, if you have difficulty cooking dried beans, then soak them for up to 24 hours, rather than just overnight.  I know, I know… forward planning is required, but if your beans are a bit on the elderly side (alas the expiry date on the package is next to useless where pulses are concerned) then they’ll need an extra-long soak to enable them to cook all the way through.  I have not-so-fond memories of spending hours boiling chickpeas, only for them to remain horribly hard and mealy in the centre.  After trying the bicarb trick, the flour-paste trick, and cooking them in bottled water (in case my tap water was too hard) I soaked the beans for a full 24 hours and, voila!  Perfectly cooked chickpeas.

But back to the soup.  Straight after cooking had finished it was good.  After sitting for a few hours and being snacked on, it was great.  Reheated the next afternoon for lunch it was absolutely divine.  Intensely savoury, rich, filling and just bloody gorgeous, really.  It still tasted fresh and wholesome, which is quite remarkable after such a long cooking time.

It vastly amuses me that an old and thrifty Tuscan peasant soup is now so fashionable.  But I guess bold flavours will never go out of fashion, and now that I’ve discovered it, I’d never want to be without this soup…

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My palate has never grown-up sufficiently to enjoy bitter leaves; no matter how gorgeous raddichio may be, it just doesn’t work for my poor tastebuds who invariably accuse me of trying to kill them each time I eat it.  However, I adore any sort of grain or pulse based salad.

Thankfully the Ottolenghi cookbook more or less specialises in my sort of greedily abundant, slightly sweet and carbohydrate rich salads.  If you thought the butternut squash and couscous affair was good, this butterbean and sweet chilli salad will knock your socks off.

You’ll need a little advance planning to make this fresh and zingy salad, but remembering to soak some butterbeans overnight isn’t hard, is it?  Freshly cooked butterbeans are way better than the canned ones for this salad—adding the still-warm beans to the rest of the salad ingredients allows all the flavours to start mingling and get into the silky beans. You can vary the heat of the salad by using different brands of sweet chilli sauce—I find they vary from ‘a chilli was briefly shown to a bottle of sauce’ to ‘blow your head off hot’, so choose your favourite one!

The salad tastes lovely warm, but in my opinion is far better after sitting in the fridge for a few hours to allow all the flavours to mature further.  If for some crazy reason there’s enough left to last overnight, then I brighten it up again with some extra herbs, scattered over just before serving.

This is perfect for lunches and as a side dish with some juicy grilled lamb chops.  With some crusty bread to mop up all the juices, it makes a fabulous light meal.

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For some unknown reason, Yotan Ottolenghi and his eponymously named restaurant/deli/takeaway/shop of delights have managed to sail blissfully below my foodie radar for months.  Clearly I’m not as tuned in to current food trends as I thought!  Jeanne, of Cook Sister! fame, was the my introduction to Ottolenghi and how could anyone forget her ‘Dear John’ letter to Nigel Slater combined with a declaration of love for Yotan Ottolenghi?  That’s the sort of thing that makes a girl sit up and take notice!

A few moments with Google revealed a most amazing group of shops, some more restaurantish than others, and all blessed with the most amazing-looking foods.  So when I was indulging in retail therapy a few weeks ago, I positively pounced on Ottolenghi: The Cookboook.  A quick flick through the pages was enough to confirm to me that I needed this cookbook.

I love the pictures in this cookbook.  Heaping platters of bold, bright salads, mounds of the biggest, fluffiest meringues you’ve ever seen, beautiful cupcakes… all showcased against brilliant white walls like modern art.  Which is exactly what Ottolenghi’s food is.  Modern, edible art.  And delicious, too, if the recipes I’ve tried are representative of them as a whole.

My copy is bristling with bright pink Post-Its marking recipes that I’m dying to make.  Which are, well… rather a lot.  So far I’ve made five recipes from the book, which have all been astoundingly good and enjoyed by everyone I’ve foisted them on to.  But my favourite, by a long shot, is their couscous with dried apricots and butternut squash.  I’ve already repeated this glorious salad, which is perfect for lunches and picnics, and the only thing I’ve changed is to use the zest of a whole lemon rather than half as I just adore the extra zing.

This couscous salad may seem fairly ordinary on first glance–roasted butternut squash and apricots are turning into a bit of a modern classic–but the lashings of fresh herbs, lemon zest and cinnamon elevate it to something truly special.   I should mention that this is totally toddler-approved.  Lucas had his own bowl of couscous, which he duly demolished and then proceeded to eat half of mine! And as for me… it was so good that I opted to have it as an evening snack instead of a bowl of sorbet.  That’s how good it is.

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I just can’t think of a good name for this bread. Swirly bread? Savoury swirl bread? No, I think two-tone Italian bread just about covers things.

The two-tones in question are tomato and basil and cheese and ham, making this loaf perfect for cheese or ham sandwiches. Even better… cheese and ham sandwiches!

This is an easy adaptation of my Farmhouse White Bread, which is such an easy and friendly dough to work with. I wanted to make something a little different when we had some friends over for lunch, and since I had an abundance of fresh basil I decided to work that into the dough along with some other classical Italian flavours: tomato, Parmesan cheese and Parma ham.

You don’t need to run out and buy Parma ham especially for this recipe. Proscuttio will work just as nicely and I’m sure that almost any kind of ham would work. I just happened to have a couple of slices of the good stuff left over from another recipe, so used them up rather than let them dry out and go to waste.

As you’d imagine, all the flavours work together really well, making this a nicely balanced savoury loaf that can stand on its own as some seriously good toast or go onto make amazing sandwiches. If you happened to have any leftovers, then you could make a great savoury bread and butter pudding with them.

And as a nice additional bonus, for kids of all ages, you get the excitement of seeing different shapes in each slice you cut!

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Maro is a Ligurian sauce of fresh broad (fava) beans, mint, olive oil and Pecorino cheese. Like pesto it can be used in several ways. Here, I’ve used it as a spread on bruschetta, but it can also be used to dress pasta, stirred into soups or used as a condiment alongside boiled or roasted meats.

You’re supposed to use fresh broad beans for this recipe, but the ones at the supermarket looked a bit ropey so I opted to use frozen podded beans which were probably much fresher than the ones in the vegetable department, anyway.

Shelling beans was a new experience for me and I was shocked to discover how thick the skin surrounding the beans themselves were. I pinched at loose bits of pale green bean skin, tore, then popped out the bright green and tender beans into a fresh bowl.

Once I got into the swing of things it went quite quickly and I could almost picture myself doing this whilst sitting in the shade of an olive tree at a beautiful wooden table in Liguria. Alas, the sound of a bus driving past jolted me back to reality.

A quick blitz in the mini food processor with the rest of the ingredients and the maro was made. It tasted great straight away, but I decided to chill it for a while to let the flavours blend.

When hunger struck, I sliced up some pain de campagne–alas, no ciabatta–rubbed it with some garlic and olive oil then toasted it in the oven to form bruschetta. When cooled slightly, I piled the gloriously green paste on top of each piece, drizzled some extra-virgin olive oil all over and then tucked in.

The maro was smooth and creamy with an initial hit of garlic, then the fresh flavour of the beans. I was only going to have a couple of bruschetta but I wound up going back for more and more… The lasting impression on my palate was the cooling sensation of mint. I’m not normally a fan of mint in savoury foods, however, this worked somehow and I think it is the cooling/refreshing feeling after each mouthful that made the maro absolutely addictive for me.

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Red pepper pesto? Heresy, I hear you cry! Well… not really. Pesto simply means a pounded sauce, or in these modern times–blitzed in the food processor. Sure, the classic Ligurian sauce contains basil and pine nuts, but you can legitimately call any number of variations pesto.

I’m really proud of myself for finally knocking pesto off my very long Things to Make list. I feel rather silly for having taken so many years to make it, to be honest, but it has (or rather, had) a weird intimidation factor for me. No longer! What could be easier than tossing a couple of peppers in the oven, peeling them, then throwing them in a food processor with some other goodies for a few seconds? Well, opening a jar, but work with me here!

Roasting peppers can turn even the most appallingly bad peppers into something quite delicious. I always make a point of buying the ugly and unloved peppers as they tend to have the best flavour and that really paid off today. I tried roasting one on the gas burner but quickly abandoned that idea after a couple of glowing embers flew off the underside of the pepper. With visions of the Towering Inferno in my mind’s eye, I turned the oven on full blast and threw the peppers in. I have no idea how long they took–I pottered around tidying and cleaning while they roasted, with the occasional peek in the oven whenever I happened to remember that it was on. I transferred them to a bowl when they were blackened all over, and collapsing in on themselves.

After that, I grated the cheese, tracked down a clove of garlic–am I the only person who keeps losing heads of garlic in their kitchen?–and collected the rest of the ingredients. After some light peeling, I threw everything bar the olive oil into my tiny food processor and blitzed away. In a few seconds I had pesto! Why had it taken me so long?

When dinner-time rolled around, I simply stirred the pesto into some penne rigate–don’t forget to add a few tablespoons of the starchy cooking water from the pasta–and dished it up. No dusting of parmesan, no shower of greenest parsley… I wanted to taste every last drop of pesto.

Luscious.

Despite my heavy-handedness with the parmesan, the smoky flavour of the peppers shone through clearly. The non-traditional almonds provided the same slight knobbly texture as pine nuts usually do, and the occasional bit of crunch where the processor missed a bit. I’d class it as a huge success.

Next time I’m going to save some pesto to spread on some crusty bread, perhaps paired with a rosemary-spiked cannellini bean spread. Or stir it into soup….

My head’s a-whirl with possibilities!

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Way back at IMBB 6: Grillers and Barbecuers Delight, I admired Deb’s Char Siew Bao. Over a year later I’ve finally managed to get round to making some of my own, my only problem was that I’ve never actually tasted the real thing…. So, I’m unable to tell you all if these are as good as the real thing.

I opted to go the whole nine yards and make my own Char Siew–exactly how many spellings are there for this? I think I ran across at least four–as we’ve recently moved house, and I haven’t managed to scope out a good Chinese takeaway yet. It was definitely worth the effort but to minimise the time I spend hanging around the oven in the future, I think I’d make a couple of kilos of Char Siew at a time. As much as I love cooking, I resent having to spent an hour chained to the oven basting religiously. Far better to do it in one large batch.

My bun dough recipe is adapted from several recipes found on the internet. A lot of people complained that their dough turned out dry, so I opted to use full-fat milk and real butter to add moisture. It worked beautifully. The crumb was fine, fluffy and deliciously moist. The amount of sugar used in the dough is quite frightening, especially for what is supposed to be a savoury snack, but I promise you the whole thing works.

All in all, I’m really proud of these bao. I have no idea how they match up to the real thing, but I know that they’re incredibly addictive. I’m having real difficulty stopping myself from gobbling up the last two–I’ve even come up with all sorts of plausible excuses to give to Dave, as I promised to save them for him! The sweet, fluffy dough is a perfect compliment to the intense sweet, salty, savoury of the pork filling. Every bite is a delight and as soon as the last crumb is gone, you’ll be plotting another batch.

I wish I could eat bao every day….

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On Saturday I made a huge bowl of hummus, and promptly amazed myself with how gorgeous it was as compared to shop-bought ones. I always intend to make it myself but never seem to get around to it…. This time, however, I was determined!

The recipe I used came from Sally Schneider’s “A New Way To Cook” and is a slightly reduced-fat version of traditional hummus. (This recipe makes loads, by the way.) Alas, once I’d finished blitzing it in the food processor I decided that it wasn’t quite to my tastes and wound up processing in more lemon juice and some extra-virgin olive oil to create a thick, tangy puree.

I’ll definitely add toasted cumin and coriander when I next make hummus, but I’ll probably improvise all the other quantities. I’m thinking now that there’s little point in having a rigid recipe for hummus – everyone seems to like it made in different ways. A vague method would be much better!

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