Radish Leaf Pesto

Dear Friends,

Fat camp is going OK.  I'm learning how to eat healthy and seasonal food.  Yesterday I made radish leaf pesto.  I thought I hated radishes, but I gave them a try anyways.  Here is the recipe in case you were wondering...

Radish Leaf Pesto

• 2 large handfuls of radish leaves, stems removed
• 30 grams of hard cheese, like pecorino 
• 30 grams pine nuts
• 1 stalk of wet garlic, or one clove garlic
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon cider vinegar

Then you just blend all the ingredients in a food processor.  And its done like - bingo, bango, bongo.

Tony Perkins said you can eat it with radish chips or thin it out with vinegar and oil and use it as a salad dressing.  Or you could make crepes with mushrooms and goat cheese and serve it like this...

It is surprisingly delicious.

In other news, it's been raining here so we haven't gotten to go off the blob yet.  But it was OK this morning and we went hiking.  I've also been doing arts and crafts. I will have to show you soon.  Hope all is well where you are.

Love,

Kelly

PS.  Send chocolate.

Cool As a Cucumber

Spring has finally sprung here in England, and along with the house, I think my body can use a little spring cleaning too.  All of winters stodgy meals have taken it's toll on me, so for now, I'm trying to go back to the basics, (and back to my thighs NOT touching) by eating mostly fruit and veggie based dishes.  I will admit that the sugar in this recipe probably isn't the best for my spring cleaning regime, but give me a break will ya?

Ingredients

• 1 cucumber, sliced as thinly as possible
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp rice vinegar
• 4 1/2 tsp sugar
• 2 tsp red chili flakes
• 1 tbsp sesame seeds

Mix salt, vinegar, sugar, chili flakes, and sesame seeds in a small bowl to make a dressing.  Pour over cucumber.  

Bingo, bango, bongo - DONE!

This cucumber salad hit all the right notes.  It's an excellent combination of sweet, sour, and spicy - though it was pretty fiery so you may want to use less chili flakes to tone it down a bit if you're not a real spice lover.  

Sweet Potato Hash Browns

I haven't been cooking anything fancy lately.  We've been too busy with the move for me to do much experimenting in the kitchen.  I'm just trying to keep my cooking short and sweet and move along to the next task.

One thing that has been reoccurring a lot lately is sweet potato hash browns.  Sweet potatoes are nutritious and delicious, and by cooking sweet potatoes this way instead of baking them in the oven, it saves a lot of time.  This dish is pretty versatile so nothing is exact and don't get yourself worked about about anything.  It'll turn out.  I didn't add any onions or leeks this time, but sometimes I do, so you could try that if you wanted.

Ingredients

• A handful of mushrooms
• 1-2 sweet potatoes, (grated - done in a few seconds with a food processor)
• a Paula Deen sized knob of butter
• Salt and pepper to taste.

 In a pan, brown your mushrooms in a bit of butter.  When they are tender, add your grated sweet potato.  Cook the sweet potatoes and mushrooms stirring frequently until everything is tender, adding seasoning. Depending on your preferences you may want them to brown a little to add that extra crunch, or add some more butter if you're channeling your inner Paula and if they're not getting soft enough.  Obviously its up to you!

Serve with some eggs, sunny side up.

Its pretty much the perfect dish at any time of the day.  Its sweet enough for breakfast, but not overly sweet for dinner, and obviously lunch is no problemo.  If you grate extra sweet potato, it keeps perfectly well in the fridge and makes whipping this up even quicker and easier.

Perfectly Poached and Pretty Eggs

Thank you all for your egg-cellent ideas yesterday!  I'll definitely be using them so look forward to a few more egg posts.  Unfortunately, on Saturday, thanks to a shady job done by our builders, the power went out to our kitchen and conservatory.  Which means no washing machine, no dryer, no dishwasher, and no oven.  Oh and the power to our fridge went out so we have extension cords all over the kitchen.  Anyways I didn't cook too much this weekend.  But our gas stove still worked (thank god for that) so I was able to light it up with a match and make some poached eggs.

Now I know this isn't innovative and it's probably old hat to a lot of you foodies out there.  But I love poached eggs and surprisingly every time I make them for company the person is shocked at how easy and delicious they are.  So I figured someone would benefit from this post.

Ok so you start with a pan of water.  Turn the heat way up and wait for it to boil.  Add a splash of cheap white vinegar.  Then crack your eggs and slip gently into the water.  A little trick I've learned is that if you put toast in the toaster at about the same time as you put the eggs in, they'll be finished at almost the exact same time (maybe 3 minutes or so).

When the egg whites are solid (you can check by cutting a little into the white bit - if anything spills out its not finished! - this isn't rocket science I know!) take them out of the water using a slotted spoon and place on a paper towel to dry.  This is a delicate procedure.

Now you can butter your toast, or if you live England, your crumpets.  Oh how I LOVE crumpets.  I mean its basically just bread with extra nooks and crannies for the butter to melt into.  Yum.

Personally I always add that delightful Australian yeast spread, Vegemite , to the crumpets.  I think it makes everything just extra tasty.  But Vegemite haters can skip that step.  Make sure you add some salt and pepper and you're ready to slice into it.

You should have a nice gooey yolk.  Doesn't that look de-lish?  Well I ate it and I can tell you it was.  Simple perfection.  Enjoy!

Egg-cetera!

Dear Friends,

  

It looks like Easter came early this year.  I am writing to you to seek your advice.  I know I usually post recipes for you, but today I need your help.  You see, since we don't have a car in London, we have our grocercies delivered.  We received an order today, and instead of getting a dozen eggs, we got 7 packs of half a dozen eggs.  They didn't charge us for them, so we decided to keep them.  However, now we have 42 eggs!

Do you have any fabulous recipe ideas involving huge numbers of eggs?  What's your favorite way to eat eggs?  Do you like them over easy or sunny side up?  Hard or soft boiled?!  Please do share!

We eat poached eggs all the time.  And I have a feeling we'll go through a few for omelets.  Maybe we'll make eggsalad... But do you have any better ideas?  This seems like a great opportunity for eggs-perimentation.  hahaha get it?.... well I think I'm funny. 

Thanks for your help!

Cheers!

Kelly