Chicken Salad with Garlic and Yoghurt

Yotam Ottolenghi’s recipes are always delicious and usually vegetarian so I was intrigued by his chicken salad with garlic and yoghurt which I caught sight off in the Guardian. And anyone who has met me twice knows yoghurt, salad and garlic are surefire winners. Plus I am always on the hunt for cooking chicken without drying it out because dry chicken is the stuff of horror movies.

Fennel and Lemon Risotto

Organic vegetable boxes! What fun!

Ruth gave me some fennel from hers haul last Saturday and I spent a large part of this week debating with myself what to do with it. I don’t buy fennel often; I’m not entirely sure why, maybe its because its strong flavour demands forethought, maybe because in my head it is a vegetable for special occasions.

Feta and Spinach Souffle

After a long week of moving house and starting an internship, I’m finally able to get back into the kitchen. Yay!

Spiced Sweet Potato Pancakes

So I was a little dubious of cooking with pomegranate, more so because it required a special trip to Waitrose (because apparently they are too exotic for Coop) and an obscene effort to extract the seeds. I was happy to swallow my words. The contrasting tastes of the sweet-bitter pomegranate, the salty feta and the subtly flavoured patties bounced of each other. The herby yoghurt and creamy avocado provided welcome moisture. I found this recipe attractive and tasty, a lovely vegetarian summery meal, not that I am naïve enough to hope for a summer in this country.

Carrot cake

 I never imagined it would be so traumatic cooking with my 20-year-old sister, newly returned from university in Exeter. It was a titanic struggle. I now feel physically and mentally drained, almost unable to write this post.

Egg-fried rice noodles

So this evening in an ideal world I would be preparing for my interviews tomorrow. But I am desperate to tell you about what I cooked last night although I’m afraid I don’t have a photo at the moment because I forgot to take one in my haste to eat. I will add one soon because I will definitely be cooking this again.

Aubergine in garlic and tomato

I’m going to share with you a very simple recipe for aubergines in tomato. The beauty of this recipe is that it requires very few ingredients and very little hard manual labour in the kitchen but it is absolutely delicious, especially if you are an aubergine fanatic like me. The aubergines should be so tender as to melt in the mouth and enveloped in a rich, garlicky tomato sauce. I served it with (soft) boiled eggs and some crusty walnut bread; the contrasting textures balanced each other perfectly. It made a perfect light summer-time lunch.