An aromatic and very special soup for a friend.

As I'm sure you all know, there are some dangerous types on the internet. We've all heard horror stories about foolish types who have been too trusting and got themselves into a pickle with a stranger that they've met online.

With this in mind, I was suitably cautious when posting a Gumtree advertisement for a new flatmate in January 2009. I waited anxiously, having described in detail the available room and my personality, hoping that I would get a response - preferably from someone on the right side of sane.

When I answered a call one afternoon, from a breathless and excited woman, I didn't realise that this person would become one of the most valued and admired of my friends, someone that I would grow to love, and to consider one of my very best friends.

I showed Gemma around the flat as she sold her personality to me in what I later recognised as true Gemma style: effectively and without pause for breath.

She moved in with me a few weeks later, and history was made.


Gemma and I live separately now. We both moved in with our lovely boys earlier this year: she stayed in East London with her man - and I moved to North London with Mr Meat.

So nowadays, we obviously don't see each other as much as we did when we were flat mates. I know though, that we share special bonds with those with whom we have lived, and I still feel very close to my friend Gemma. For this reason, I know that I will be weeping with happiness for her and her new husband when she gets married next year.

I wish them both every happiness, and hope that their future is the place of sunshine and laughter that they deserve.

A few months ago, I had Gemma over for dinner. I cooked her an aromatic fish soup, with apple tarts for dessert. She was kind enough to compliment it, as she is always kind about my food, and asked how to make it herself.

Here's the recipe, a special treat fish soup. You'll need a food processor, stick blender or MagiMix for this one, sorry!

Gemma's fish soup.
(From Nigel Slater's Appetite - my favourite book)


For the spice paste:
1 or 2 chillies
2 or 3 cloves of garlic
An inch of root ginger
About 2 stalks of lemongrass
A few coriander seeds
A handful of fresh coriander
1tsp ground turmeric
A glug or two of sunflower oil, (or something else with no flavour)

And the rest:
500ml stock, (make it homemade or very good quality, this dish relies on a tasty stock)
1 tin coconut milk
1 lime
About a teaspoon of Nam Pla, (fish sauce)
A handful of mint
1 medium sized piece of cod, or similar white fish
Enough noodles to feed you
1pkt of king prawns

Prepare the bits and bobs for the spice paste. Halve and seed the chillies, peel the garlic, peel the ginger, chop it up and slice the lemongrass into disks. Throw it all into the food processor with the rest of the ingredients for the paste. Don't forget a few glugs of oil to lubricate it all and to let the blade spin properly - but not too much!

Once blended, the paste will be a beautiful, rich shade of green:

Put a deep saucepan onto a high heat and fry half of the spice paste, (put the other half in the fridge for another time), moving it around the pan. After a couple of minutes, throw the stock and coconut milk in there and bring it all to a boil. Turn the heat down and allow the soup to simmer for about ten minutes.

Meanwhile, cook your noodles according to the instructions on the packet, and cut your cod into bite sized pieces. Once the soup has simmered for its allocated time, add the fish and then the prawns. Remember that they don't need long to cook, just a couple of minutes.

Season the soup with salt, lime, the fish sauce and the mint leaves, divide the noodles into bowls and ladle the hot soup over the top. It will be delicious and aromatic.

This is not a frugal supper. It's a very special treat.

Congratulations on your engagement, Gemma and Gary!

A substitute summer.

I have had a manic week. It's been mental. Luckily, the beginnings of spring has cheered me and I'm feeling very positive. Isn't it amazing that a few buds on the trees can make everything suddenly seem so achievable? It's marvellous.

If summer's coming, then it's time for a picnic!

When Mr Meat and I were first together, he worked late shifts. We could only see each other in the evenings after ten o clock. During a rare heatwave, Mr Meat complained to me that he was missing the summer. Because I was feeling romantic, I decided to surprise him with a night picnic, with loads of picnic type treats laid out on a blanket in my living room. He said that it was the nicest thing that anyone had ever done for him, which may have been an exaggeration, but it made me happy. It was a nice thing to say.

Because it's not very warm in the U.K. yet, it's not quite time for a park-picnic, so I've settled for a carpet-picnic for now. Hopefully it's warm enough where you are to enjoy a picnic outdoors, here are some of my suggestions for nice picnic fare.

My perfect picnic foods


Fried halloumi
Prawns
Tomato salad
Crusty bread
Pizza muffins
Cured meats
Chopped up fruit
Cider

How to make them


Fried halloumi


Cut the halloumi into slices about a centimetre thick and fry them in a good glug of olive oil. Squeeze lemon juice over the top while it's cooking, if you like.

Tomato Salad

(Really nice served with the halloumi and crusty bread.) Just chop up some nicely ripe tomatoes, season with salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil.

Prawns

Fry some king prawns in butter with a couple of crushed garlic cloves and a chopped up chilli.

Pizza muffins

200g plain flour
1tsp baking powder
2 eggs
A few big glugs of olive oil
A pinch of salt
A few tomatoes, maybe 3 or 4
Some dried oregano
Half a mozzarella ball
A few grates of parmesan
1tsp tomato puree

Preheat your oven to 180c. Mix together the flour, baking powder, salt and oregano, before beating in the eggs and enough olive oil so that everything starts to loosen up. It'll still be thicker than normal muffin mix though, so I added a couple of tablespoons of water. Just keep going until you get the right consistency, (which should be like thick double cream). Once that's done, tear up the mozzarella, chop up the tomatoes and add them to the mixture along with the tomato puree and a couple of grates of parmesan. Mix it all to incorporate, pour into a muffin tin and bake for about 20 minutes, until they're beautiful and firm and golden.

These things make up my perfect picnic, which I think is a glorious thing. What a treat.

Happy summer.

A chicken disaster.

I did something terrible last night. Or rather, I forgot to do something, the result of which is terrible. I didn't defrost the chicken. Now I am cooking off piste, as it were, as I am now off the meal plan. I'm in unchartered territory, what am I going to do?!


Well fear not, oh frugal followers, because it was recently my birthday. This means that I have a packet of king prawns in my freezer and a box or two of arborio rice! Yes I know it's that these ingredients are not low-cost, but since they were already in my store cupboard, they count as a bargain dinner in my book, and in the nick of time too, my tummy was starting to rumble! Time for some of my Dad's Thai Prawn Risotto I think... It's a good job Mr Meat is partial to a prawn or two!

Due to his cholesterol, my darling Papa can't eat saturated fat. This means no butter, cheese or cream is allowed. Unfortunately, butter and cheese are two of the key ingredients of risotto, one of Dad's favourite things. Rather than face a risotto-free existence, he decided to reinvent the dish to suit his new diet. With no cheese or butter, an authentic risotto was out of the question, so instead Fa uses chilli and lemongrass to add flavour, and he uses thai fish sauce to add richness and depth. The result, I believe, is staggering. Bravo Pops!

Dad's Thai Risotto with King Prawns


1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 stick lemongrass (dried or fresh, I use dried but only because that's what I've got. If you're using fresh then remember to bash it a bit with the back of your knife before using.)

A couple of kaffir lime leaves

1 chilli, deseeded and chopped (I use frozen chilli, because it's cheaper and less wasteful than buying packets of fresh chillies all the time and not using them up)

Arborio risotto rice, about a handful per person

A packet of king prawns (Sainsbury's often do a 2 for £5 on these)
About a handful of frozen peas
A glug of white wine
Enough stock to cook the amount of rice you're cooking, (check the packet)
Nam pla (thai fish sauce) to taste

Chop up your onion and get it frying nicely in a good glug of olive oil, put the garlic in there too, don't bother to chop it, just squash it with the flat of your knife and take the papery skin off. Get it all lovely and soft and golden, then chuck in the kaffir lime leaves and the lemongrass. Let them warm through and  add your arborio rice. Let it cook a bit, give it a bit of a bash around on a high heat to let some of the starch out.

Add your glug of wine, (be as generous as you can afford to be, as this will add richness to the gravy and you'll appreciate it later), allow that to evaporate and add a splash of your stock. At this point, shove a slice of lemon in there along with your chilli, the flavours will really marry and it'll be amazing.


 If you've cooked risotto before, you'll know the drill. Keep stirring and add another splash of stock once the previous splash has all boiled away. One your rice begins to look really good, have a quick taste and see how it's cooked. It should be soft but with a tiny bit of bite to it. Add the prawns and the peas, (they cook so quickly you won't overcook the rice by adding them now).

Shake in a couple of drops of fish sauce, maybe a teaspoonful. I know that fish sauce smells really grim, but you won't regret adding it to your risotto, I promise. It adds a great depth of flavour and a very Thai sort of taste. Season with a bit of pepper and some salt if you used proper stock instead of a cube. Congratulations, your dinner is ready!

The estimated cost for this dinner is £4.70, which is really not that cheap in my book. However, it would make it onto the "Feed your Family for a Fiver" campaign, which is guess is not bad going.
Hopefully I will remember to defrost the chicken one day. If that happens then I'll post some delicious chicken-y recipes soon.