Pancakes

Well, I made pancakes today for lunch to go with my berry compote. I haven’t made them for ages, and I have to say they were a little bit tough. Not quite sure what I need to do to fix that. The berry compote went with them very nicely. I remember now that we used to have lemon and sugar with pancakes quite often. I managed to get some photos of course, like the one above.

My pancake recipe is one cup of flour, two eggs and enough milk to make a thin batter. The flour is folded into the eggs (and milk) which start in a well of flour in the centre of the bowl. I seem to recall that I used to add some melted butter to the batter too. Perhaps I’ll try that next time.

Berry Compote

I’ve been looking at a recipe for berry compote recently and finally got around to making some. Here it is prior to cooking. A cup of frozen mixed berries, about a cup of fresh strawberries, caster sugar and a vanilla bean. Plus a tab of water. It should go well with pancakes, or perhaps crepes is a better term for what I make. Haven’t made them for ages though. I remember making them for the family on Sunday morning, many years ago. With blackberry jam and cream. The berry compote should be slightly classier though. That vanilla bean was quite expensive – $5 for a single bean. Gives a nice smell though.

Pasta Shells and Tuna

Tonight’s dinner was tuna with pasta. Quite a nice change on the usual tuna with rice. Basically just pasta, tinned tuna, onion, parsley, and dressed with olive oil and lemon juice, salt and pepper. I must admit tonight I used lime juice as I don’t currenlty have any lemons.

Soup

The weather is getting cooler and I decided to have some soup for lunch. I was origially thinking of pumpkin soup, but ended up making this sweet potato and green apple soup. Guess I find pumpkin awkward to work with.

Basically it’s about 200g of sweet potato, a small green apple, small onion, chicken stock, with some oil and seasonings. Sautee the onion and sweet potato, add apple and stock and cook for about 10 – 15 mins. Blend and reheat. This is actually seasoned with sumac, although there is some salt and black pepper in there too somewhere.

Balsamic Lamb Salad

Tonight I’m cooking another Donna Hay dish – balsamic lamb salad. This was a bit of a problem for the lone cook, because finding a piece of lamb the right size and shape to slice after cooking required that I buy a fillet of about 1kg. I’m not sure what to do with the rest, a curry maybe. Haven’t made one of those for years. Hardly worth it, for one.

Anyway, the lamb is marinating in a combination of balsamic vinegar, orange juice (equal parts), with sugar and oregano leaves, while the potatoes are cooking. I’ll pan fry the lamb about 3 – 4 minutes each side. I cut a fairly thick piece off the fillet, which should end up still quite rare inside. I also have some salad greens – rocket and spinach I think it was. Pic to follow.

So here it is. That’s one (or two) rare piece of lamb. I must admit I popped the pieces back in the pan for a minute, cut sides down, before eating. Very tasty actually. I haven’t had meal like that for ages. I don’t usually take the trouble.

Degenerate Kedgeree

Was a time I ate kedgeree very frequently, for breakfast, lunch or dinner. My kedgeree was boiled rice, onion fried with some curry powder, peas, tuna and hard boiled egg, plus some turmeric for extra colour.

Gradually it became more simplified. I don’t often boil an egg these days. Usually give the fried onion and curry powder a miss too. And the peas. So tonight I had boiled rice and threw in some tinned tuna. It was kedgeree, once.

Lunch

I have a meal/shot planned for lunch today. I’m back at work tomorrow after the Easter break, so I’m making the most of having a bit of time. Today’s lunch is a recipe from one of Donna Hay’s books, featuring antipasto vegetables and fetta cheese with couscous. I find Donna’s books a great source of inspiration both for the food and the photos.

So, I’ve just come back from the supermarket. Acquired chargrilled eggplant, marinated artichoke hearts and some antipasto mix for variety. Also some Bulgarian fetta, my favourite kind. Also a packet of couscous, as I had run out. I seem to have a dozen packets and jars of polenta, but no couscous. Perhaps before lunch I’ll grab a bottle of wine, but maybe not as I do have a fair bit of work to do even though I’m not actually ‘at work’ today.

OK, so here’s the result. Very tasty lunch it was too. The couscous was a little dry but that was probably a result of taking so long to take photos before I ate it. I didn’t go for the wine in the end. Probably a good thing.

Smoothie

Lately I’ve  been making a berry and mint smoothie for breakfast quite frequently. I’m sure it’s a lot healthier for me than the bacon and egg sandwiches I’ve had so often in the past year or two. Ingredients are:

• a few ice cubes
• about 100g of frozen mixed berries
• a couple of hundred grams of fresh strawberries
• a couple of biggish desertspoons of yoghurt (I use Greek style natural yoghurt)
• a good slosh of apple juice (about 100ml)
• a couple of handfuls of rolled oats
• a dribble of honey
• some chopped mint leaves to taste

I blend this in my blender. I’m not sure what the different settings are supposed to do but I usually use the puree setting for about half a minute. This does leave a few chunky bits but then I rarely try to use a straw as shown in the pic above. It’s very refreshing and surprisingly filling. An ideal breakfast for one. Takes about two minutes to make, including the blending.

Hello world!

Welcome to Cooking for One. I’m a busy person who often struggles with preparing good food. I often feel why bother if it’s just for me. Even shopping for one can be problematic.  I hate throwing food out but I often find vegetables and herbs past edibility in my fridge when I try to take meal preparation seriously. In this blog I’ll discuss issues related to cooking for one, and provide some of my favourite recipes. As I also do some food photography I’ll be showcasing some of my work as well.