Iced chocolate whoopie pies

I kind of fell out of love with baking a little while back - there were no more occasions to celebrate and while it's a gorgeously peaceful activity, it isn't exactly kind to a healthy diet so my cake-output went right down. I was feeling quite uninspired anyway.


Then one day at work this book came my way: "Let's make Whoopies!" Cringe, what a title. Cupcakes have sort of had their hay-day, if such a thing is possible and everyone is desperately trying to cash in on the next thing which will be in 'vogue'. Macaroons had a while but being virtually impossible to recreate at home, everyone is pushing whoopie pies - essentially discs of cake sandwiched together and topped with icing or something more elaborate.
For St. Patrick's Day in mid-March, I decided to give these a whirl. They went down rather popularly, although I know for sure if I'd recommend the book (any book with a quote from Simon Cowell on the front cover should probably be avoided). The tone is a little bit too self-congratulating for a first time recipe book ("My husband's office manager described them as little drops of heaven....they have been tweeted around the world!") That said, I'm going to have another look through - the book is full of interesting recipes, and a lot of low-gluten or egg-free recipes, as well as savories - Gruyère-and-caramelised-onion whoopie pies, anyone? I found the whole baking process on the stressful side, but that may very well just be the first stab at a whoopie pie for me. And they didn't turn out like the picture!!!  No, I'm not sulking. 
I've come across buttermilk in recipes before, but have never bothered to buy it - I have no use for more than I use to bake, really, so I just make a substitution. With my soda farls I add a teaspoon of lemon juice to the milk but this book suggests putting in milk and Greek yoghurt at a 50:50 ratio. Very curious and interesting suggestion - and maybe to blame why my mixture was so thick! 

As you can see, I messed up slightly and ended up with too-tall pies, but they were still delicious, marvellously dense, brownie-ish cakes that were a bit messy but glorious to eat and went down astonishingly well at the St Patrick's Day party I took them to, even if my Irish-themed icing looks kind of minging on them!

Makes 12 or so

• 140g plain flour
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 40g cocoa 
• 1 tsp bicarb of soda
• 90ml buttermilk (or 45ml milk, 45ml greek yoghurt)
• 80g unsalted butter (softened)
• 140g light brown sugar
• 1 free range egg (about 50g - beaten)

Preheat the oven to 200C and line a baking tray - you're going to need quite a few, or do them in batches. They need to be able to spread out and I ended up making them too tall and thick and ended up with whoopie spheres rather than pies.
Mix together the buttermilk (or substitute) and vanilla and set aside. Sieve the plain flour, cocoa and bicarb. In your largest mixing bowl, cream the softened butter and the sugar until smooth and light.  When it's all nice and pale-ish, start very, very slowly adding your egg (which I always mix in a mug - so much cleaner!). My mixture is semi-dark as I decided to use up some darker sugar I had lying around. 

My mixture began to seperate here slightly, but it all worked out okay.  Add and mix through the buttermilk and vanilla, then carefully fold in the cocoa, flour and bicarb. My mixture was extremely thick as well here. I'm not sure if that's normal. In retrospect, trying to measure out Greek yoghurt in mls is a little challenging as it's quite form-holding, so you can use a tbsp if you prefer.

Start dolloping onto your tray (or three trays or so), or piping, if you think you'd prefer to do that and own a piping bag (I don't.) and cook for 8 minutes or so. The image below they ALMOST went a bit wrong, so do space them out generously, especially if you want flatter cakes than the ones I produced. 

NOW MIGHT BE A GOOD TIME TO CLEAN  UP! Look at the bloody mess I made. 

Meanwhile, you can make the filling and the topping. The filling is a delicious vanilla cream cheese mixture, while the topping is just a basic icing sugar plus food colouring.


Filling

• 50g unsalted butter (softened)
• 150g cream cheese
• 100g icing sugar (sifted)
• 1 tsp vanilla essence

Topping

• 140g icing sugar (sifted)
• 2 tbsp water
• Food colouring

For the filling, mix the butter and icing sugar until a nice smooth even paste, add the vanilla, then sift in the icing sugar and mix carefully with a wooden spoon so it doesn't puff out and settle EVERYWHERE. Be careful not to overmix as it'll get extremely runny and that's no fun.
With the topping, add water to the icing sugar drop by drop, stirring manically between drops - you may not need the entire 2tbsp as too-runny-icing is a problem that happens way too often with baking. Add as much food colouring as you like - a few drops normally do it.

Fresh out the oven!

Once the whoopie pies have come out the oven, it's not an exact science - simply smear a gluttonously thick spoonful of the icing between two cakes and squash together and drizzle over the icing, then if you want to add sprinkles, drop over while the icing is still wet.
Make sure you give them at least a few hours to set otherwise every time one gets eaten, 90% of the filling will end up on your hands! 

Lemonia, Primrose Hill, NW1

There's a reason I originally called this blog 'Hungry in Camden', and not something suffocatingly twee like “Nancy’s kitchen” or "My little cookery blog" (lol).  I've done a tiny bit of food writing before for a website run by my colleague, frequent a tonne of brilliant food blogs (which is intimidating to say the least), and love keeping up to speed as best I possibly can with all the various culinary-themed goings on – so want to start writing about restaurants in North London and beyond.

(But yeah, I'm not planning on dropping any side-splitting witticisms or clever, clever writing puns a la some critics, or come up with any groundbreaking new insight. And bear with my incredibly amatuer attempt to take photos without a flash in a restaurant. AlI that aside though, I can certainly tell what I like and what I don't…)

And I can definitely tell you that Lemonia, in Primrose Hill, I liked VERY much. I tend to find that Greek food, for me at least, has been a disappointing mishmash of boney fish (for some reason I always ordered the fish - idiot), lemon wedges and cloying feta. I've obviously never had properly nice Greek food. Which is a shame as I'm wild about Greek cheese, minty-citrusy flavours, yoghurt, hummus, pitta, charcoal - all that good stuff.

Enter Lemonia, widely-popular and massively well known.  We'd been planning to go to this one for over a year, but somehow never got around to it. We even got close enough to cancel a booking! Oh GOD how I wish we'd been sooner. On Wednesday, looking for somewhere un-fancy and relatively cheap but still special to celebrate our anniversary,  (we've just come back from Berlin so really no need to go all out in the slighest) we remembered Lemonia and sorted a table for the next night. Very little planning went into it - and isn't that always the way with the meals you enjoy the most? The NOPI soft opening was so rigourously planned by myself, booking online as soon as the system was announced, and all that jazz, but in the end it was just a little on the side of underwhelming in terms of a dining experience, although the food was marvellous (and massively overpriced if it had been full cost.) This was just a kind of, meh, we’ll see how we go endeavour, and oh boy, we went well.

Quick bit of research beforehand turned up this review from the very even-handed Jay Rayner from 2008, recommending to ignore most of the menu and just get the mezze for two, £18.50 each. Great advice – definitely do this. The menu is bloody massive and you’ll never get to sample so many of their excellent dishes.

Taramasalata

Within 10 minutes of sitting down, having polished off some lovely olive and carrot nibbles, we were tucking into a wide array of cold dips. I'm always a bit safe in restaurants, I like to choose my favourites, but if I'd done that, I'd never have had this oily, smokey aubergine dip before (and if you remember my sweet potato ratatouille post, I'm pretty anti-aubergine so this was a revelation to me.) And the weirdly-unpink but astonishingly delicious taramasalata, MY GOD, it was incredible. We were eating it with a fork by the end, having run out of pitta. Tabboleh, hummus, tzatsiki - everything was delicious. Although, I think I’d have preferred a stronger-tasting shop bought hummus, which I'm sure is sacrilege.

Five minutes into the cold starters, I realise I should have taken a picture.  

Onto the hot starters, which arrived swiftly like the cold starters. I love it when you're presented with an array of plates, tapas is one of my favourites for this reason. It just feels so brilliantly greedy and indulgent - clink, clink, clink, each plates goes down, and it's all for you, all for you! (And maybe the person you're eating with.) The hot starters included some slightly disappointing chewy calamari, which could have done with a crisper batter and a little more seasoning for me but I'm not the biggest fan of calamari anyway - plus deliciously zingy whitebait, sausage, halloumi, spanakofita (which had a weird beery taste, but it seems that may have been just me. ). Plenty to keep swapping from dish to dish, although not as universally delicious as the first course. Starting to get quite full at this point we realise we still had the mains to come. Shit! Oh well, we decided to 'power through', as the phrase goes.

The final course was thankfully simple and a reasonable size - a Greek salad that had a lovely, creamy feta which made my boyfriend go slightly mad with delight, a deliciously seasoned bulghar wheat side, with what I think were sliced onions, and a plate of chargrilled meats. Chicken kebabs, minty pork burgers and little lamb chops, all fantastically smokey. I feel the intense need to have a barbequeue now as soon as is humanly possible.

Main course

The food itself was pretty great, especially the cold starters, but the other main thing I liked so much about Lemonia was the atmosphere, the staff, the interior. On the cycle back from the restaurant (we were feeling daring - managed not to die on Camden Road) we passed Sardo Canale, a well-reviewed restaurant which we ate at but couldn't remember much at all other than that it was absolutely empty, silent and they sat the only other couple there right next to us. CRINGE. Any chance of having a nice meal, for both of us I'd imagine, ruined. But at Lemonia, the staff were wonderfully warm and attentive (we fell a bit in love with our grey-haired waiter because he was so nice), the entire central area is dripping with greenery and plants and feels airy and authentic, and the noisy chatter makes for a relaxing eating environment. 

And did I mention the price? £68 including service charge for a not-bottom-of-the -list bottle of Greek wine, tea and coffee, and enough food that we could burst, plus complimentary turkish delight and olive nibbles. Not bad, not bad at all.

Check it out. They don't have a website, but trust me, give them a call, order the meze (needs two diners at least though). I'm still thinking about that heavenly taramasalta. Oh jeez .They do lunch deals as well... argh.

Lemonia, 89 Regents Park Rd London NW1 8UY - 020 7586 7454

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Vietnamese Hot and Sour Salad

Soy sauce and tofu haters look away now - this is one hell of a zingy salad which is the perfect antidote to heavy, rich winter comfort food. Now that spring is here, this salad, teeming with lemon grass, coriander, mint, lime, soy sauce and beansprouts is the most amazing way to wake up your tastebuds. I kid you not, the first time I ate this salad, the main thing that concerned me was WHEN CAN I MAKE THIS AGAIN. It also falls nicely into the healthy territory, unless you're keeping an eye on your sodium intake or over-do the vegetable oil with the tofu.
This is also a pretty impressive 'entertaining' dish, as it looks gorgeous on the plate (you should assemble it yourself though, it's a bit fiddly.) And be warned, it is a little on the salad-y side in terms of portions. But so, so amazingly good. As I've said in my previous post on Tofu Sambal, tofu is something most people find a bit too weird to try to cook with but I'm a hell of a convert and at £1 it's pretty cheap protein. I do literally have to stop myself eating it as it's cooking now, I love it so much, and we usually have a couple of packs knocking around the cupboard for a stir fry.
That said I'm no wild evangelist of tofu as a dietary staple - I'm more aware of how the knock-on effect of mass farming of soya beans can be damaging to the environment,  (although nowhere near as bad as the energy that goes into farming a single cow), and additionally regular consumption of soy-products can interfere with your internal chemistry, oestrogen in particular. And I find it comforting that in places like China where the use of tofu is really common, it's often put alongside chicken and pork in dishes. Tofu's a brilliant alternative protein source and tastes really nice, but that said I'm making steak tomorrow! Everything in moderation! Hooray!
Enough out of me about bloody tofu already.


Vietnamese hot and sour salad
For the dressing (make while you're pressing your tofu - lets the flavours mix)

• 80ml of lime juice (about two limes juiced well)
• 80ml of soy sauce
• 3 tbsp grated carrot
• Pinch of chilli flakes
• 2 garlic cloves (crushed)
• 4 tbsp caster sugar (NEEDS to be fine sugar, otherwise whizz in a blender)

For the salad 

• One pack of tofu 
• 100g beansprouts
• 125g of rice noodles
• Large handful of mint 
• Large handful of coriander 
• 2 lemongrass sticks
• 2 spring onions
• 2 tbsp roasted peanuts (chopped)
• 7 or 8 nice cherry tomatoes, or equivalent in plum tomatoes
• 1/2 a cucumber. [I've made this for someone who hated cucumber and substituted stirfried pak choi, fyi, so don't write it off if you don't like cucumber, I know there's a surprising amount of you out there!]

Step one with tofu is always press it - which simply means carefully taking it out of its package, wrapping it in a single sheet of kitchen roll or clean tea towel, and leaving two dinner plates on top for half an hour to an hour. While that's happening, make the dressing.

Juice the limes, and measure out the juice in a jug to get 80ml, although it won't matter all that much. Add 80ml of soy sauce to the lime juice, bringing the liquidmark up to about 160ml. Crush in two peeled garlic cloves (I have no idea why Jamie Oliver always loves shouting about crushing garlic with the skin on, he maintains it's just a nifty trick but I always find I end up crushing in about half of what I should get, and end up picking bits of garlic skin out so I can get the whole clove in.). Grated and add the 3 tbsp of carrot, a pinch of chilli flakes and finally 4 tbsp of caster sugar. Whisk, whisk, whisk, then have a little taste. I like that really salty punch that soy sauce gives so add a bit more if you like, otherwise, maybe a little more lime, just go with what you think it's best.

After you've let the tofu press, and have drained off the excess water and patted dry with another piece of kitchen roll, slice into thin strips. Put a decent amount of vegetable oil in your best non-stick frying pan and get it quite hot, then delicately add in the strips. While they sizzle away, you can get to the chopping stage.

Using a large knife, if you have one - which it almost always is worth having even if you're only an occasional cook - finely chop the coriander and mint together. Carefully slice off the tough outer skin of the lemongrass, and chop them into thin slices, then add to the coriander and mint, chopping all the while, then chop and add the two spring onions. Put the whole fragrant mix of herbs in your largest bowl, which you'll eventually be mixing the noodles in with. 

If your tofu is still looking a little anaemic and is still not golden, keep frying, and turning every now and then, otherwise feel free to take it off the heat and leave to drain on a piece of kitchen roll. Put a large-ish pot on your kitchen counter, add the beansprouts and noodles and pour over the boiling water. Slam the lid on and leave until the noodles are soft.I used to be able to buy uncooked rice noodles, but now I can only find ones which are already soft, disappointingly. Still, let it sit for five minutes or so.

Using chopsticks to mix the noodles and beansprouts with the chopped herbs

While the noodles are sitting in water, slice your cucumber horizontally into long strips, and cut your tomatoes into halves or quarters, whatever's easier to pick up with chopsticks. Arrange the cucumbers in a round shape (like in the picture) on two plates, and dot the edge with tomatoes.

Drain the softened bean sprouts and noodles over the sink and try to let as much water drip off as possible. Then tip into the big bowl with the mint, coriander, etc. Use chop sticks, if you find it easier, to mix throughly, then tip into the centre of the two plates. Finally, add the tofu on top and sprinkle over some chopped peanuts if you like. Serve the dressing at the table, and enjoy!

Thin crust pizza for weekdays

For the record, I only ate half of this! Plus cold homemade pizza is great as lunchbox-fodder the next day.

Whoops - it's been a while! January and February got the better of me and combined with getting a bit cooked-out for my boyfriend's birthday and just trying to get through that last dark shivery part of winter I failed completely to update this. And I've had the pictures all along. But now look what it looked like over Camden when I got home tonight! Light! And sunsets!

This pizza is pretty fantastic stuff in any case. You can easily make this weeknights for supper, you can add whatever toppings you do or don't like, although it's nice with some pepperoni (not very veggie though) and a handful of rocket salad on top with a nice glass of wine on the side. Although don't go too crazy on the toppings, otherwise it doesn't cook properly and stays all soggy in the middle - my boyfriend always finds this out this hard way.

Flat crust pizza (makes 2 large pizzas) 

• 175ml (3/4 of a cup) of lukewarm water
• 1/2 tsp yeast
• 2 cups of plain flour (or strong flour)
• 1/2 tsp salt 

Plus, a tin of chopped tomatoes and rosemary for a tomato pizza sauce, plus toppings - mozzarella, pepperoni, peppers, onions, tomatoes, capers...

 The secret to this, apparently, is preheating your oven to some insane temperature then getting the pizza in quickly on a very hot baking tray so it crisps up perfectly, but I am nowhere near dextrous enough for that. I do pre-heat very hot, but, I tend to lay my pizza on the back of a tray, then 'decorate' it (hah) carefully before putting in the oven. Basically, step one, pre-heat your oven.

In a bowl, mix the flour and salt. Sometimes I like to try putting dried herbs in at this point - you can experiment as much as you like, it's just dough! If the yeast needs to be activated, stir into the water. Otherwise you can just add the yeast into the flour and mix well. I have spent my entire cooking life up to very recently not using a tbsp/tsp measurer and just kind of winging it, but I have to say this little spoon-device is pretty handy if you're a little on the perfectionist side.

Make a well in the centre of the dry and pour in the water, then use your fingers to mix. When the dough starts to begin to stick together, tip the whole lot onto a well floured surface. Here's how it looks before you tip it out. 

Knead for five minutes or so, the texture will change rather dramatically and get all smooth and tacky and elastic. Then using a chopping knife (I love this part) slice the ball in two. Et voila. Now all you have to do is find a handy method for making it into a nice thin pizza - I find a combo of rolling pin - well floured!! - and using my hands to pull it out is the best way.

At some point, you'll need to make a tomato-sauce to spread on top, so chop two or three cloves garlic or onion, whatever you feel like, and put into a sauce pan. Fry lightly in olive oil, maybe add a bit of rosemary or oregano, and then the chopped tomatoes. Give the sauce a stir, just bring to boiling, then take off the heat. Spread over the two pizza bases. Then add your toppings - leaving off the cheese - and put in the oven for five minutes. 

 This gives the base and toppings a chance to cook. Then after the time is up, remove from oven, add the cheese, and put back in the oven for about ten minutes until it's looking nice and crispy. Yum. If you have the oven space maybe this would be nice for guests, it's always fun letting someone top their own pizza.

Credit where credit is due: The Kitchn

Soda farls (with tomatoes, eggs and bacon, or whatever you like)

Let this be some Monday inspiration for you to carry you through the week to the weekend where you can settle in, have a cup of coffee and weekend papers, with some delicious brunch. 
This is a lovely recipe for soda farls, put up by Niamh, who runs the blog Eat Like a Girl. As soon as I saw this post, I knew I had to make these, not least of all because bread is definitely one of those things which people tend to be extremely wary of, and for a good reason, really. If nothing else, you get all psyched up having decided it's time to do bread, then reading the recipe realise there's about four hours of letting it sit around, while you're standing there in your apron, all ready to go! Plus activating the yeast can be a pain. 

I love Saturday morning breakfast 

My only proper experience of trying to make bread was an overly-spongy, oily foccacia which my boyfriend loved, because anything coated in oil, garlic and rosemary is guaranteed to hit SOME taste buds, but it was hardly a triumph and it took much too long. Boo to that! 
Whereas this recipe doesn't even need yeast! Make the dough, put it into a hot floured frying pan for about eight minutes, and you're done. Hot, fresh bread with your breakfast that 10 minutes prior was a heap of flour. Now that's a sense of smug achievement for you! 
I've included this one here with some roasted tomatoes, which I stuck in the oven as soon as I arrived back from Tesco, even before I started weighing out the flour, plus some scrambled eggs and some bacon. Yum yum.  For two people. 


Soda farls (with tomatoes, eggs and bacon, or whatever you like) 

• 115g plain flour
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 75mls buttermilk, or 75ml normal milk with a 1/2 tsp of lemon juice
• Pinch of salt

Before you do anything else, get on your tomatoes. Pre-heat the oven, and cut them in half and sprinkle over a pinch of dark sugar, a pinch of salt, a pinch of pepper, a pinch of oregano and maybe some harissa dry spice rub (that's what the rose-petal looking flakes are in the photograph), if you have it to hand! Put it in the oven on 180C, and keep an eye on it. If it starts to get too dried-out looking, just turn off the oven but leave them inside. They'll stay warm. 

Now onto the farls! Sieve the flour and bicarb into a mixing bowl, and add the salt. Make sure it's combined, then make a well in the centre and gradually add the milk, a little at a time, mixing all the while. You miiiiiight need a little extra splash of milk if it really won't come together at all, but you want it to just about stick into a ball. Knead it very briefly, for 20 seconds or so, then roll into a ball in your hands and put on a floured work-top. Push the round of dough out into a circle shape about 1cm thick (it will rise when you cook it) and cut into quarters.

Put a frying pan on a medium heat with a sprinkling of flour, and put the farls in, turning occasionally until they're goldeny-brown on each side. Once the farls are in the pan, get your scrambled eggs on (scrambled eggs must be cooked slowly, on a low heat, with butter!) and after a bit, your bacon. At the end, serve all together, with a big mug of black coffee (alright, tea if you must) and the weekend magazines. Then mooch around all day. Perfect!

Lovely smell at this point, as you can imagine! 

Credit where credit is due: Niamh of Eat Like a Girl

Sweet potato ratatouille

And I'm back after the Christmas break, having received two wonderful cookbooks which made me desperate to get home and start creating meals again.  And it has been great!

But with Christmas break comes that post-binging guilt, and I find ratatouille is a perfect mix of comfort food while still being healthy. I read something once, complaining about ratatouille - that its very essence is aubergine, so how can you have one without? But sadly for me, I hate aubergine - no amount of pressing or salting or anything can seem to make this vegetarian-staple taste any less revolting and bitter to me. It's a shame as it's also a gorgeous vegetable, and is a lovely shade of purple (I used to dye my hair 'aubergine' when I was 14) but it's just not for me.
No, the main ingredient in this ratatouille is sweet potato. I don't know quite why I avoided the sweet potato for so long, but I did. It is a fabulous vegetable, and especially for these post-Christmas times when you're so hungry after nibbling all day long, but don't want to binge on carbohydrate. It does the job of regular potato, but fills you up nicely while still being a healthy vegetable. The original recipe also calls for butternut squash, but we had sweet potatoes and wanted to use that up. In any case, you can substitute 1/2 a butternut squash for sweet potatoes.

This has a nice amount of veg in it. Just look at that picture. Don't you feel healthier just looking at it? And the best thing about this ratatouille is that it is genuinely delicious. There is no sense of 'eat it up, it's good for you' and that stifled grimace of swallowing down healthy stuff. Right before typing this, me and my boyfriend were picking bits of veg out of the roasting tin to eat cold. It's that tasty. And a little bit of ground rock salt once served pushes it from that over into 'can't stop eating' territory. This recipe is taken largely from Yotam Ottolenghi's marvellous vegetarian cookbook, 'Plenty'.

Sweet potato ratatouille (makes enough for 3)

• 50ml sunflower oil
• 1 small onion, diced
• 3 garlic cloves, sliced
• 1/2 green chilli 
• 1 small red pepper, diced
• 100g french beans/fine beans
• 1/2 a courgette, diced
• 1/2 a small potato, peeled and chopped
• 2 tomatoes, peeled and chopped
• 1 parsnip, peeled and chopped
• 2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped
• 1/2 tbsp caster sugar
• 1/2 tbsp tomato puree
• Chopped coriander to garnish (if you have it lying around, or can use it up. It makes a lovely addition to the flavour as well.)
• Rice to serve

The original recipe insists you have all your veg prepared before you start, but with each chucking of veg into the pan, you have to wait five minutes for it to cook. If you feel confident at chopping, just chop as you go. Otherwise you can be prepared. It's up to you. This takes about 45m on the hob, followed by about 30m in the oven, so do bear in mind.

After adding the water and before leaving to simmer for 30m

Chop your onion and add to a pan on a medium hot heat with 40ml or so of the oil, and fry for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, chop your chilli and pepper, and slice the garlic, then add to the pan. Give it a good stir, then leave to fry for another 5 minutes. After the time has elapsed, add the parsnip (and if you are using butternut squash here instead of sweet potato, add at the same time.)

In order to make sure everything is cooked properly, five minutes after the parsnip (and squash) go into the pot, you want to carefully lift the veg out with a spatula or slotted spoon and put in a bowl, leaving behind as much oil as possible. Throw in your reserved 20ml of sunflower oil, then put the courgette, sweet potato, and beans into the pot. Let cook for 5 minutes, stirring on a high heat - the sweet potato is lovely if it gets a tiny bit brown round the edges -  then chuck the contents of the bowl on the side into the pot and mix all together. Lovely.

Put the tomato puree and sugar in, mix as throughly as you can, then add about 100ml of water, or however much it takes to come half-way up the side of the veg in the pot. Don't cover it by any means. Put the lid on, turn down the heat and leave it for 30 minutes. 

Bearing in mind you want to put your rice on at some point (I have a rice cooker - well worth getting - so I just stick mine on now and it keeps warm), carefully spoon out the veg from the pot into a roasting tin and then pour any remaining liquid over, although I seldom have any. Season damn well with salt and pepper, then into the oven for another 25-30m.

When you're done, the vegetables will be soft and smell delicious, and there'll be no liquid, and it will taste absolutely amazing. Put coriander on top. Yum yum. Happy January everyone.

Credit where credit is due: Yotam Ottolenghi's 'Plenty'

Spicy tofu sambal

I have so many friends who are confirmed carnivores. They relish the idea of a rare slab of steak, all bloody and meaty and succulent. The natural antithesis to this is of course tofu. The reactions some people have to this pretty innocous ingredient can be pretty negative. Of course, it doesn't exactly scream appetising. White, wobbly and jelly-like out the packet, and purportedly without flavour, tofu is sometimes viewed as the premise of hippies and weird vegetarians among many of my peers. Although, I have convinced a few to try it! It's just damn good stuff. And it doesn't taste like rubber, I swear!

In any case, it's been bloody snowy in London recently (and my flight home to Ireland on Thursday hangs in the balance of the weather, argh!) and this spicy, hot African-inspired dish really hits the spot. Made by reducing tomatoes down, with a spicy kick, onions garlic and my favourite spice, ginger, served with tofu soaked in soy sauce then fried alongside some green beans stirfried in chilli and garlic. How does that not sound amazing? This is probably my most favourite dish to eat out of everything I can cook, to be honest. It's gotten to the point where I have to try to stop myself from eating the salty umame goodness of the tofu as I marinade it. Also, the beans that go with this dish are absolutely goddamned incredible. The first time I had them, it was a revelation.

Ah, lovely tofu. You're not so bad.

The secret ingredient in this - and in the name - is Sambal, or Sambal Oelek to be precise. This is where the fact that my boyfriend is Dutch comes into play. A lot of Dutch cooking has a strong Indonesian flavour backgrounding it, for obvious reasons. So wen we go to the Netherlands, Sambal Oelek paste and Kejap Manis (a sweet Indonesian soy sauce) are two things I always try to stock up on if we are low at home. In the meantime though, some kind of chilli sauce - not sweet chilli sauce, though - will do the trick. 

Sorry about the gloves, it's really cold in my house at the moment.

As with almost everything, this is good for two hungry people.

Spicy tofu sambal with garlic and chilli green beans

• One pack of tofu 
• Soy sauce
• 4 tbsp sunflower oil
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 4 or 5 large tomatoes (ripe and cut into chunks) or a 400g tin of chopped/plum tomatoes
• Good pinch of rock salt (1/2 a tsp)
• 2 fat cloves of garlic
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 2 tsp light brown sugar
• 1 tbsp Sambal Oelek or chilli sauce/paste
• 1 tbsp tomato puree

First things first, you always want to press the tofu or it might just end up falling-aparty and watery and will put you off for life. Take the tofu out of its box (it looks like this in our local supermarket), wrap it in a single sheet of kitchen roll, and put on a plate or in a shallow bowl. Put two dinner plates on top for at least half an hour - this will gradually press the water out of the tofu. Next, drain the water, and cut into 8 chunks, then marinade in a few glugs of soy sauce. You may want to turn your pieces over half way through to ensure nice coverage but it won't matter.

In your biggest non-stick pot (or separately, in a small non-stick frying pan but do remember to add the oil back into your main pot), fry the tofu - but leaving the soy sauce marinade behind, don't chuck it all in! -  in the sunflower oil until brown on all sides, then take out and set to drain on kitchen paper, leaving behind as much sunflower oil as you can. 

Now add your onion and give it a good stir, and let it fry on a medium heat for about five minutes, until it's approaching a soft state. Then add your ginger and chopped or crushed garlic. Mix throughly, then add the chill paste, tomato puree, and sugar. Give it a really good mix, then add salt, and your tomatoes. If it's out the can, no worries, just throw it in. Otherwise, add your tomatoes and 80ml or so of water. You want to bring this up to the boil, then lower so that the tomatoes break down and turn into a sauce, but chunkiness is good. If you're not using a rice cooker, you might want to start thinking about putting your rice on now. After 10 minutes, or however long you want to leave it, you can reintroduce the tofu off the plate into the pot, which will heat it up again.

Chilli green beans

• 2 cloves of garlic, crushed or chopped finely
• 1/2 a red chilli, chopped as finely as possible
• 120 - 160g of fine green beans (trimmed, if not already)
• 1 - 2 tbsp of soy sauce

Add a good glug of olive oil to a frying pan - nonstick is best otherwise you're asking for sticky garlic burned to your pan - and let it heat up. Then throw in all the beans, toss them so they get a nice even coating of olive oil, and let them sizzle away for a bit until they start to get some colour and soften up, a few minutes maybe. 

Put your garlic in and mix it through, then QUICKLY add the soy sauce, or it'll burn. I don't usually pay much attention to how much soy sauce, I know a 'glug' is woefully inaccurate amount but that's usually what I do. Or two glugs. Hah.

Then add the chilli and stir until everything is soft and tasty, and darkened. Try one of the beans and make sure that its not deceptively done-looking on the outside but still too crunchy on the inside. The contrast between the salty, garlicy greens and the sweet, spicy tofu sambal is quite amazing, and well worth the extra effort. Serve with rice.