Category archive: recipes

I thought I discovered something extraordinary last week, when I put three egg whites in a bowl, loosely covered it with a saucer and stuck it in the microwave at full power for two minutes. Egg white omelette with no hassle and minimum washing up (if you eat it from the bowl itself.

I am however been told that it's like the 101 of microwave cooking – a style of cuisine I only have recently discovered due to work being done in our flat making the kitchen out of bounds.

So today I would like to share with you my variation on Tim Ferriss' three-minute 'slow carb' breakfast:

Ingredients:

• 3 egg whites
• half a tin of red kidney beans
• 1 small tin of carrots and peas
• 2 tablespoons of guacamole
• 2 tablespoons of salsa
• salt and pepper

Preparation:

1. Break the eggs in a bowl
2. Add salt and pepper to taste
3. Beat the eggs slightly
4. Cover loosely with a saucer or small plate
5. Cook in the microwave for two minutes on high
6. Remove from microwave
7. Pour beans on eggs
8. Pour carrots and peas on eggs
9. Warm up in microwave (optional)
10. Add guacamole and salsa

I love courgettes, I love Marmite. Once I tried mixing a teaspoon of Marmite into stir-fried thinly sliced courgettes, and it was yummy.

It works well with a bit of garlic and pepper but make sure you do not add any salt.

Ingredients (serves two)

• 3 courgettes
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 1 teaspoon Marmite (or Vegemite for a more delicate flavour)

Preparation

1. Heat oil in frying pan
2. Fry garlic clove until golden
3. Add thinly sliced courgettes
4. Cook until soft
5. Stir in Marmite or Vegemite

A few weeks ago we invited over some friends we went to Sitges with three years in a row, and we cooked a selection of tapas.

The dinner proved to be a success, firstly because of the lovely ladies and lads we invited, whom we do not see as often as we would like to, but also because of the selection of food.

We found out that tapas can be a very good choice for a Friday night dinner party (we had cooked some in advance, and only a little preparation was needed on the night when we came back from work) attended a varied mix of meateaters and vegetarians.

We served the following dishes and it was more than enough for a party of eight:

• Vodka flamed chorizo
• Spanish baked prawns
• Mozzarella peppers with chunky Italian dressing
• Feta and pepper tortilla
• Patatas bravas
• Manchego cheese triangles with quince preserve
• Tapenade
• Pork brochettes
• Spanish flan

All recipes (except the pork brochettes and the flan) are from bbc.co.uk, my favourite source for clear, relatively simple, tried and tested instructions to prepare good food.

We had some jugs of sangria de cava as aperitif, then wine with the tapas and dry fino Xérès with dessert.

It was really important that we got the sangria exactly as they do it at La Pinta, where we have lunch almost every day when we are in Sitges, and we used the following sangria de cava recipe contained in a selection of sangria recipes in PDF format:

• 1 bottle Spanish cava, chilled
• 1/4 cup white grape juice
• 2 tablespoons brandy
• 2 tablespoons simple syrup
• Ice cubes, for serving
• 1/2 cup sliced strawberries
• 8 mint leaves
• Stir cava, grape juice, brandy, and simple syrup together in a pitcher. Serve over ice, garnished with strawberries and mint

I love fish, but cooking fish is smelly.

As we often have our laundry to dry in the open space kitchen/dining room/living room (i.e. the only room in the flat big enough to open the clothes drier), I have been trying to come up with ways to cook fish that do not stink.

The following recipe is the Easy Bacalao (Puerto Rican Fish Stew Recipe) from Recipezaar, and it does not stink very much, probably because the fish is submerged in tomato sauce while cooking. I am taking the liberty of copying this recipe here (with a couple of slight amendments) so that I can find it easily when needed.

This Puerto Rican recipe somehow reminds me of North-East Italy, where a very similar dish is traditionally served with polenta. You can otherwise have it with a couple of slices of home-baked bread, or rice, or baby new potatoes.

Ingredients (serves 3)

• 600g frozen cod or haddock
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 can diced tomato
• 1 chili pepper, deseeded and chopped
• 2 tablespoons sliced pimento stuffed olives
• 1 tablespoon capers
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup water, as needed

Preparation

1. Heat oil in a large high-sided pan
2. Add onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 2 minutes
3. Add garlic and cook, stirring, for 1 minute
4. Defrost fish in microwave
5. Chop fish in 1 1/2-inch pieces
6. Add fish, tinned tomatoes, chili pepper, olives, capers, oregano and salt; stir to combine
7. Add up to 1/2 cup water if the mixture seems dry
8. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes

Often, especially if I haven't got time, I enjoy making 'mock-porridge' by pouring hot water on oats, giving it a stir and eating it straight away. Unorthodox but speedy.

Lately however I have tasted Dr B.'s porridge and it's so good I don't mind the extra calories. As it is not always easy to get the proportion and cooking times right, I have noted his settings down and I'm posting them here so I can find them easiliy:

• 45g oats
• 300g semi-skimmed milk
• 1 tablespoon sugar

1. Mix ingredients together in a microwaveable bowl
2. Cook in microwave oven, 2 minutes at full power, then simmer for 3 minutes
3. Stir and let it cool

A typical salad from Cataluña. I had it several months ago on the last day in Sitges before leaving for the airport, but it is best eaten during the colder winter months (January and February in Cataluña).

Xató recipe at massrecipes.com

Serves 6.

Ingredients

• 2 Heads Curly endive
• 3 Garlic cloves
• 8 Almonds; peeled and toasted
• 1 Or more Sharp chili peppers (or powdered cayenne pepper)
• 1/2 c Olive oil
• 1/4 c Wine vinegar
• 3/4 ts Salt

Preparation

1. Blend all the ingredients except the endives to make the sauce
2. Wash the endives
3. Separate the leaves
4. Soak the leaves in the sauce for at least one hour
5. Serve with cured ham, cold sausages, anchovies, marinated fish

I love these cookies. They are very spicy (among the ingredients are black pepper and cayenne pepper) and gingery. Last year I used some as Christmas tree decorations.

Icelandic pepper cookies recipe at allrecipes.com

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups butter, softened
• 1 1/4 cups white sugar
• 3/4 cup light corn syrup
• 2 small eggs
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons ground cloves
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

Preparation

1. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar. Stir in corn syrup and eggs; cream well. Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and pepper. Add dry ingredients to the butter mixture and mix until smooth. Refrigerate dough over night.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
3. Roll out dough to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut out cookies with a 2 inch round cookie cutter. Place at least 1 inch apart on cookie sheet and bake for 8 to 10 minutes in preheated oven.

About one year ago Dr B. felt like making curry. He seldom cooks, so I welcomed the idea with enthusiasm and sent him off to the market.

He came back with two kilos of brown Basmati rice, made two curries in a week with some of it, then left me to go through the rest when he realised that the rice he bought took over forty minutes to cook instead of the twelve minutes claimed on the label.

I remembered a technique I had once read in a Chinese cookbook to put rice on, set a timer and come back to beautifully cooked, fluffy rice that needs no draining.

You can follow my step-by-step instructions on how to cook rice at Instructables.com

Watched rice never cooks, originally uploaded by bitful.

There was a time when I used to make this every Thursday night. Then Tesco's Healthy Eating ready meals made my cooking redundant.

The other night I offered to relieve Dr B.'s grumpiness and frustration at not sleeping much because of continuous calls from work (he is on 24-hour support until the end of the weekend) by cooking a chicken Caesar salad. Halfway through it, we looked at each other and realised how much we'd both missed it.

A word of warning: although this is called 'salad', and my version is the healthiest around, the basic ingredients are very nutritious, and the whole thing can set you back several hundred calories, depending on quantity.

Ingredients

• Romaine or Cos lettuce
• Chicken breast, whole
• Thin smoked bacon rashers, light (or trimmed of all fat)
• Blue cheese, crumbled
• Caesar salad dressing
• Oil and vinegar

Preparation

1. Sear the chicken breasts on high heat on both sides in a non-stick pan
2. Turn the heat down, cover and let the chicken cook through slowly
3. In another non-stick pan, fry the bacon
4. Cut the bacon in small pieces
5. Chop and rinse the letttuce
6. Dress the lettuce in a little olive oil and vinegar
7. Place lettuce on large plates
8. Slice chicken sideways thinly and place on lettuce
9. Sprinkle with the chopped bacon and cheese
10. Top with Caesar salad dressing

Chicken Caesar salad, originally uploaded by bitful.

Most often enjoyed on Sundays at lunchtime, this simple British classic recipe goes very well with headaches, queasiness, the need to maintain a horizontal position, bad (yet compelling) TV and other signs of a hangover.

This sandwich is such an institution that experts at Leeds University have come up with a mathematical formula to make the perfect bacon butty:

N = C + {fb (cm) . fb (tc)} + fb (Ts) + fc . ta

More details on this formula in Scientists' 'perfect' bacon butty on the BBC News website.

Here is the quickest, simplest version you can have, as was lovingly prepared for me earlier today by Dr B.

Ingredients

• Bacon (any kind, but 2 to 3 rashers of back bacon are recommended)
• Bread (any kind, but traditionally you will need two thick slices of white Farmhouse bread)

Preparation

1. Fry bacon
2. Slice bread
3. Sandwich bacon between two slices of bread, add brown sauce (optional, to taste)

Another French-themed dinner last night, this time in honour of Bastille Day (and to reciprocate on two dinner invitations received well over two years ago – what took us so long?).

We had the baked camembert with home-made bread as a starter, and tarte Tatin for dessert (this time served with some gorgeous home-made cinnamon icecream prepared by Dr B.).

The main course was based on Delia Smith's coq au vin recipe,with a couple of changes to make it more user-friendly (read: we are breast men).

Ingredients (serves 6)

• 1 chicken leg or breast per person, with skin
• 1 bottle red wine (preferably Bourgogne)
• 25g + 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 tablespoon oil
• 200g streaky unsmoked bacon
• 18 button onions
• 250g button mushrooms
• thyme (fresh or dried)
• 4 bay leaves
• 1 tablespoon flour
• 2 cloves garlic

Preparation

1. Melt 25g butter and oil in a large frying pan
2. Brown 3 chicken breasts, skin-side first
3. Repeat with the other chicken breasts
4. Place chicken breasts in a casserole where they fit snugly
5. Chop and brown the bacon in the same frying pan, then add it to the chicken
6. Brown the onions (keep them whole) and add them to the chicken
7. Add crushed garlic, thyme and bay leaves to the chicken
8. Season with pepper and just a little salt
9. Pour the bottle of wine on the chicken
10. Cover and simmer on moderate heat for 45 minutes
11. IMPORTANT: refrigerate for 24 hours minimum, to let the flavours develope and merge
12. Just before serving, place whole mushrooms on top and simmer for another 15 minutes
13. Discard thyme and bay leaves
14. Place chicken, onions, bacon and mushrooms in a serving dish and keep warm
15. Bring the remaining liquid to the boil and reduce by one third
16. Make a paste with the tablespoon of butter and the flour
17. Stir the paste into the liquid
18. Pour the liquid on the chicken and serve

Coq au vin, originally uploaded by bitful.

British cuisine is quite special. Often, the name of the dish is the recipe itself. Cheese and beans on toast. Scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam.

Ok, I'll grant you these are not the most elaborate of recipes, but that's exactly why I'm so keen on them.

Today (or rather, on Thursday night, one of the rare occasions when Dr B. cooks splendidly for me): bangers and mash with red wine gravy.

Ingredients:

• sausages (our favourites are Tesco Finest Pork & Fresh Bramley Apple Sausages)
• potatoes
• butter, 1 large knob per person
• red wine
• Bisto gravy granules, beef flavour

Preparation:

1. put the sausages under a hot grill, turn from time to time until evenly cooked;
2. boil the potatoes;
3. whisk the potatoes, add the butter, season to taste;
4. make gravy according to instructions on packet, replacing half the water with red wine;
5. serve sausages on potato mash, cover with gravy.

Bangers and mash with red wine gravy, originally uploaded by bitful.

We are in the middle of British Sandwich Week 2007.

Unfortunately, we are also in the middle of our 'ZOMFG we only have three weeks to squeeze back into last year's swimsuits' week. There's no way I'm buying a larger size. I mean, my trunks were loose last year!

I know a sandwich can be a very healthy and nutritious meal with little calories and low fat.

However, you will beg to differ too if you had ever witnessed me transform a 400g pack of sliced bread, one of cheese singles and ten slices of ham into five sandwiches with the same ease a professional dealer shuffles a deck of cards – and then make them disappear into thin air in a matter of seconds.

[stares dreamily into the distance]

Right, we were saying? Ah, yes: trunks, diet.

:-(

Today the French are electing their new president. I hope they make a good and wise choice (hint: she would be France's first female president), I fear they won't.

Update: the French elected Sarkozy instead.

In their honour, here is a simplified version of my favourite dessert. I made it last night to celebrate one year exactly since we moved into the new flat.

It is taken from this list of tarte Tatin recipes. Quantities are for 6 to 8 persons.

Ingredients

• 12 small apples
• 250g puff pastry
• 90g unsalted butter
• 210g sugar
• 2 large pinches of cinnamon

Preparation

1. Roll out the pastry on a floured surface and refrigerate it
2. Peel the apples
3. Cut out the cores
4. Cut them in quarters
5. Put 75g of sugar in an oven mould and melt it on the stove
6. When it is dark brown, add 30g butter
7. Cool down and remove excess butter
8. Line mould with apple quarters (base and sides)
9. Cover with the remaining 90g of butter cut into thin slices
10. Sprinkle with the remaining 135g of sugar mixed with the cinnamon
11. Bake at 190C until a sharp knife falls into the apples under its own weight (approximately 30 minutes)
12. Cover with the rolled-out pastry, trimming away the excess and tucking it into the sides of the mould
13. Cook for a further 30 minutes
14. Let it cool as long as you can before turning it out on a serving dish
15. Serve with a dollop of double cream, crème fraîche, clotted cream or vanilla icecream

I have absolutely no idea how I came up with the idea of making a Finnish sweet bread for a picnic with friends on Hampstead Heath.

I seem to remember waking up at stupid o'clock, wanting to impress people with my culinary skills, then going to the supermarket, and the next thing I knew I was crushing cardamom seeds. Sans mortar and pestle.

It is absolutely delicious dipped in strong tea. Probably not very Finnish, but it makes me go yum just thinking about it.

This is a recipe I did not need to fiddle with to adapt it to my taste, so you can view the Bread machine Pulla recipe at cooksrecipes.com.

I always find that whenever I put together a meal with the only few ingredients I can find at home, it turns out quite well.

So on Friday night, after a short but hard week at work, the last thing I wanted to do was to fight for a trolley at Tesco. I knew we had fresh milk at home, so tea could be made.

I also knew that we had frozen blocks of cod, a can of beer, some flour and a bunch of potatoes that were starting to get a bit old, so…

… fish and chips!

I quickly looked up a recipe for batter and I was on a roll.

Ingredients

• Two blocks of cod per person (or any other fish, frozen or fresh, for that matter)
• 1/2 pint of beer (can be replaced with fizzy water if you do not drink)
• 125g flour
• 400g potatoes per person
• Oil (I only had olive oil so I used that for frying – you pick your favourite)

Preparation

1. Peel potatoes and cut into your favourite shape. I go for cubes/pyramids by simply slicing medium-size potatoes in eight
2. Soak potatoes for about fifteen minutes in salty water. My mother claims it makes them go crispy outside, and considering that roast potatoes is the only thing she cooks that is barely edible, I swear by it too
3. Put the potatoes in a greased oven tray and stick in the oven at, uhm, high for, er, as long as it takes to cook them. Sorry, next time I'll pay attention to the settings. Let's say it was around 200 C degrees, for 30 to 40 minutes. So do that well in advance. Also, move them around half way through so that they cook evenly.
4. Defrost fish in microwave (my mistake was pinging it for too long, which made it break up)
5. Mix beer and flour slowly, to stop the beer from going flat. Reserve a bit of beer for later
6. Heat enough oil in a pan for shallow frying
7. Test oil temperature by dropping a tiny quantity of batter in it. If it floats and cooks rapidly it is ready. If it sinks, the oil is not hot enough.
8. Carefully blend in the beer you had left aside into the batter. This will make it fizz and puff up nicely when fried
9. Coat the fish with flour, then roll it in the batter and fry it until the batter is golden and crisp

Serve with plenty of vinegar and a dollop of mushy peas – or, as they are pompously called at our local Riverside pub, 'Pea velouté'.

A word of advice: while the fish is cooking (it won't take very long), quickly wipe your kitchen surfaces and rinse the bowls where you had the flour and the batter. Do not leave them until the next morning. Flour and water equals glue equals a very grumpy me on Saturday morning scraping gunk off the counter with a knife.

But man, the meal was absolutely worth it.

Three days ago (April 5th) was Dr B.'s birthday and I made him a cake in the shape of a Dalek.

By coincidence a few days earlier I had come across a BBC Blue Peter Dalek cake recipe that was just perfect, as it involved no cooking. All you have to do is stick a couple of Swiss rolls together, make some chocolate butter icing and cover them, and then stick Maltesers, all sorts and liquorice strings on it.

I made the plunger with a birthday cake candle and a wine gum.

The eye was a birthyday cake candle holder.

It looked wonky and not very much like the "real" Dalek, 2005 redesign that inspired it, but it make Dr B. squeal with delight when he opened the fridge and saw my little surprise cake. I guess I managed to achieve the ultimate feat of making a Dalek look sweet.

When I sliced through the Dalek cake I felt I was avenging all the thousands of children that spent part of their childhood hiding behind sofas during the scariest Doctor Who episodes. I also felt my thighs expanding just by looking at the chocolate richness, but that's a different story, not entirely unrelated to the fact that I went running yesterday.

Dr B.'s Dalek birthday cake, originally uploaded by bitful.

We recently acquired a new dining table (our first) and can now finally have people over for proper sit-down meals.

As a first dinner party, I insisted that the five friends who helped us move come round. We are very grateful to them and pulled all the stops to make this a memorable dinner.

We dusted off Dr B.'s Jamie Oliver cookbook that had been hiding, completely ignored, in the back of a cupboard for the four years I have known Dr B.

We spent Monday night selecting recipes and making a shopping list.

Tuesday night we shopped for all the ingredients we needed.

On Thursday we bought a new microwave oven and then we spent three hours cooking everything that could be prepared in advance, and preparing a spreadsheet with details of all the actions to be performed on the night.

On Friday night we hosted, we cooked, we ate. But, most importantly, we realised that you should never, ever serve something at a dinner party that you have not tried before. This was a lesson we learned the hard way:

• the ciabatta, buffalo mozzarella and pancetta threaded on rosemary sprigs were too fatty
• the marinated pot-roasted beef was too dry
• the potato and horseradish cake was unsavoury and crumbly
• the tomatoes with baby leeks and bay leaves slow-roasted in vinegar tasted of, well, just vinegar
• the clementines with fresh mint, flaked almonds, dark chocolate shavings and syrup had too many ingredients and the syrup was just sugary water
• the pomegranate gin shots looked amazing on paper, but the gin was not cold enough, it overpowered the pomegranate and who on earth can stomach a shot of gin anyway?

Our guests glossed over the imperfections more or less graciously, and I bear no criticism to the recipes per se. However, if we ever made them again, we would most certainly alter some ingredients. quantities and cooking times.

Before agreeing to have a 100% Jamie Oliver dinner, I had consulted with a friend who suggested a few tried and tested, simple light recipes. Oh, how I wish I had listened to her.

• Our first dinner party, 30 March 2007 – a photoset on Flickr

I know, it's not Sunday. But believe me, once you try this, every day is going to be Thai chicken soup day for you too.

I think Dr B. first picked up this soup a few weeks ago. It;'s hot and rich, and full of chicken goodness.

I think it was me who bought a few packets of thick udon noodles (love the slurping sound!) and thought of combining the two.

We have been having it five nights a week for a couple of weeks now. The best, fastest, most satisfying winter meal I have ever had.

Ingredients (serves two)

• One carton (600ml) of New Covent Garden Thai chicken soup
• One packet (250g) of Amoy thick udon noodles

Preparation

1. Pour soup in pot
2. Place noodles in soup
3. Heat up soup as per instructions
4. Serve very hot

A variation on the basic goat cheese and walnut salad we often have.

Adapted from a BBC h2g2 salad recipe

Ingredients

• Washed baby spinach leaves
• Goat cheese
• Lemon juice
• Pine nuts
• Sliced mushrooms
• Garlic
• Olive oil
• Salt and pepper

Preparation

1. Toast the pine nuts in a hot pan until golden
2. Fry mushrooms in oil with garlic and let cool slightly
3. Grill goat cheese until golden
4. Make a dressing with oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper
5. Toss together spinach, mushrooms and dressing
6. Serve salad on individual plates
7. Lay cheese on salad
8. Sprinkle with toasted pine nuts

I love cheese. I adore bread. I go gaga for a sharp taste.

This is why the most common meal round here is some combination of these three elements.

Ciabatta, ham and a squirt of Daddy sauce.

In France I used to have the classic baguette, gruyère and gherkins sandwich.

Cheddar and sliced tomatoes on doorstop white bread.

But, more often than not, any sliced bread with any sliced cheese – and lots of houmous.

I call it Trinity. And it is just perfect.

Ingredients

• Bread, any type
• Cheese, any kind
• Something tasting sharp

Preparation

1. Slice bread if in a loaf
2. Spread something sharp-tasting on a slice of bread
3. Slice cheese
4. Put cheese on sharp-tasting element on bread
5. Cover with another slice of bread

Bread + cheese + houmous = Trinity, originally uploaded by bitful.

This was one of Jamie Oliver's ads for Sainsbury's in which he effortlessly throws a couple of unusual ingredients together, it looks scrumptuous and it ends with him repeating the campaign's slogan 'Try something new'.

We tried. And liked. So much so in fact that we had this every single week (on Monday night, which is The Scarsdale Diet's 'fish or shellfish' night) until the mere mention of the word 'tuna' made us slightly queasy.

Ingredients

• 1 thick fresh tuna steak per person
• Fresh coriander
• Fresh ginger
• Garlic
• Olive oil
• Balsamic vinegar
• Salt and pepper

Preparation

1. Chop coriander roughly
2. Chop ginger and garlic finely
3. Mix coriander, ginger, garlic, oil, vinegar, salt and pepper together into a marinade
4. Pour marinade on tuna steaks and ensure they are fully covered
5. Cover and put in fridge to marinate for at least half an hour (over an hour if possible)
6. Sear in hot pan on both sides making sure not to overcook
7. Serve with a mixed side salad

This grilled goat cheese and walnuts salad has something in common with the great British tradition that is cheese and beans on toast, namely that the title of the recipe is the recipe itself.

It is one of our favourite salads because it requires minimum shopping and can be prepared very quickly but it still has a sort of Ooh factor whenever we eat it.

Serve it on its own for a light yet very nutritious lunch. It goes fantastically well will a nice full-bodied red wine.

Ingredients

• Mixed lettuce leaves
• Goat cheese, 100g per person
• Walnuts
• Oil
• Vinegar
• Salt
• Pepper

Preparation

1. Cut the goat cheese horizontally (thin ones make only two slices each)
2. Place cheese slices on an oven tray lined with grease-proof paper
3. Grill cheese until bubbling and golden
4. In the meantime, dress the salad with oil, vinegar, salt and pepper
5. Put salad in individual plates
6. Place grilled cheese on top
7. Sprinkle generously with walnut pieces

This is one of our favourite recipes. We call it 'Nigella beans' or simply 'Nigella', because we first saw it on one of Nigella Lawson's cooking TV shows.

I think we originally saw it made with asparagus, but tried replacing it with French beans (cheaper and easier to find) and it works just as well.

Ingredients

• French beans
• Parma ham
• Balsamic vinegar

Preparation

1. Steam the French beans and let them cool.
2. Pour a generous amount of balsamic vinegar over them and stir to coat them well.
3. Wrap eight to twelve bean stalks, depending on size, in a slice of Parma ham.
4. Serve two to three bundles per person and drizzle with more balsamic vinegar.

This is the very first dessert I ever made for Dr B. It was Valentine's Day and it was the first time I was cooking for him. The menu made entirely out of Dr Atkins' worst nightmares, also featured breadsticks with Parma ham, and spinach and sweetcorn lasagna.

Ah, those were the days. We had met twelve days before, after having both being single for a while, which means we were able to eat small portions of everything and burn everything off by doing lots of exercise (we were both unemployed and my gym and his Ju-jitsu club were our second homes).

These days we tend to have sugar-free jelly for dessert instead, and I can't remember the last time I made a tiramisu, but here it goes:

Ingredients

• 3 eggs
• a pinch of salt
• 9 tablespoons sugar
• 300g mascarpone cheese
• sponge biscuits (use savoiardi biscuits in Italy, 'biscuits cuillère' in France)
• coffee
• grated dark chocolate
• (optional) rhum

Preparation

1. Make weak coffee (or dilute espresso with water) and let cool a little
2. If you wish, add liqueur to coffee
3. Mix together well the sugar and egg yolks until creamy and white-ish
4. Add the mascarpone cheese and whisk well
5. Add the pinch of salt to the egg whites and whick together until peaks are formed
6. Very slowly and gently fold the whipped egg whites into the yolks/mascarpone mix
7. Dip biscuits into the coffee and place alternate layers of biscuits and cream (starting with biscuits) into a container
8. Finish with a layer of cream
9. Sprinkle the grated dark chocolate on top
10. Chill for at least four hours, best overnight

Continuing the anniversary theme, here is the main course I cooked for my first Valentine's dinner with Dr B. (twelve days after we met) four years ago.

At the time I served it with a side salad and I made a tiramisu for dessert (we were thin then).

This recipe serves four.

Ingredients

• 1 pack (1 kilo) frozen spinach, finely cut if possible
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 large tin sweetcorn
• butter
• salt and pepper
• 200g grated cheddar cheese
• 1 large pot creme fraiche or double cream
• 1 pack (500g) lasagna sheets, preferably with spinach (green) and pre-cooked (no need to boil first)

Preparation

1. Press garlic and fry in a little butter
2. Add frozen spinach, lower heat, cover and cook until defrosted and hot
3. Add drained sweetcorn and cream
4. Simmer to heat everything up
5. Add half the grated cheese, salt and pepper, and mix through
6. In a baking tin, alternate layers of spinach and pre-cooked lasagna, starting and ending with spinach
7. Top with the rest of the grated cheese
8. Bake until cheese on top is a nice golden colour

I made this last night for Dr B. while I was having hearty British food (leeks, potatoes, sliced green beans and beef).

I have adapted the quantities and part of the preparation from the Thai beef salad recipe at iVillage.co.uk, and this usually is as a generous main course (sometimes the only course) for our dinner.

Serves two. Approximately 650 calories per portion.

Ingredients

• 400g to 500g beef (steak, not too thick)
• two teaspoons olive oil for frying
• about 150g mixed salad leaves
• 8 spring onions, chopped in large chunks on the diagonal

Ingredients for the dressing

• juice of 2 limes
• 1 tbsp Thai fish sauce
• 1 tbsp white wine vinegar
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped finely
• 2 tsp grated root ginger
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 red or green chillies, sliced lengthwise, deseeded and chopped finely along the width
• 2 tbsp freshly chopped coriander leaves
• 2 tbsp freshly chopped mint leaves

Combine all the ingredients for the dressing in a jar and shake well. Pour half on half of the lettuce leaves, toss and serve on two plates.

Fry the beef as much or as little as you like it, then slice it into strips and place on the lettuce. You may let it cool beforehand if you prefer. Pour the rest of the dressing on the beef and top with the chopped spring onions.