What are you cooking now?

[french frank]

Snapped up a packet of pork belly strips in the Coop clearance cabinet (Use by 17 Feb) this morning so am now cooking Rillons de Tours for later consumption over the next week. My slightly healthier version of a confit. Good for an aperitif or with salad for a main course.

[JasonPalmer]

Turkey sandwiches are a big thing at the moment at my house.

[french frank]

A frugal soupe au lait: Very finely chopped leek, rinsed and broken up to form 'strings'. Sautéed in whatever (olive oil this time could be butter, spread, meat fat). Add some small broken up cauliflower florets because they were in the fridge, though ususually it would be potato cut into tiny dice to cook quickly. Freshly dried thyme. Add mix of boiling water plus veggie stock cube. Think whether anything else can be chucked in. Simmer. Add milk (dairy or plant) to add a better colour. Bring up to simmer temperature again. Serve topped with freshly grated nutmeg (essential). Shall I dry roast almond flakes to scatter over top? Might, might not. No, I don't think I will. I might have added a glass of white wine, but only had red so didn't.
À la soupe!

[oddoneout]

I had it again today! Plus a proper helping of cabbage becaiuse I like it (yesterday was just a bit of leftover which I chopped up and put into the kimchi). If you like kimchi, I reckon this is a winner.

I had "proper" kimchi a good few years ago at an interesting session put on by an organic gardening group about fermentation and other methods of preserving produce. The person doing it had developed various versions including one that wasn't so heavy on the chillies, which I very much liked.
My reservations are that the ingredients are very much ones that now do not agree with me, but in theory the kimchi process should make them more digestible. I know that the jar/tin version is different from the fresh/home prepped version and so some of the benefits may not be the same, due to pasteurisation, but as it is only a small jar and didn't cost too much I felt it was worth a try. I just need to plan it so that the following day is free from meeting people/going places in case things don't go well! I do need to get some more sweet potatoes though; they seem to store indefinitely, only starting to sprout after months (I grew some plants last year from the sprouts - the "slips" that you can buy from seed catalogues, just out of interest), so worth having in stock even if I don't use them that much.

[french frank]

I find I need something sharp tasting or salty with sweet potato. The kimchi sounds like a good option and I got a small jar from Lidl recently so might try that out.

I had it again today! Plus a proper helping of cabbage becaiuse I like it (yesterday was just a bit of leftover which I chopped up and put into the kimchi). If you like kimchi, I reckon this is a winner.

[oddoneout]

I thought I wouldn't like sweet potato (being sweet, I thought) but when I saw the recipe I had to try it as I love kimchi. Very healthy combination! My hawthorn jelly has been going down very well with stilton too. Really worth doing.

I find I need something sharp tasting or salty with sweet potato. The kimchi sounds like a good option and I got a small jar from Lidl recently so might try that out.

[french frank]

Will bear the hawthorn jelly in mind. We have two trees, but Mrs TS tends to use the berries to make hawthorn tea. The jelly sounds nicer, although stilton is a no go for me. Wish I liked it.

You don't have to have stilton with it! It's just that the hawthorn is strong enough to cope with stilton. I'd have it with any French cheese but not sure about any other English cheese. Not sure they have the right taste but to each his own. Any way you can just have the jelly on ordinary bread and butter. I've got one small jar of rosehip jelly left but I don't think I'd have that with stilton. With camembert maybe.

[teamsaint]

I thought I wouldn't like sweet potato (being sweet, I thought) but when I saw the recipe I had to try it as I love kimchi. Very healthy combination! My hawthorn jelly has been going down very well with stilton too. Really worth doing.

Will bear the hawthorn jelly in mind. We have two trees, but Mrs TS tends to use the berries to make hawthorn tea. The jelly sounds nicer, although stilton is a no go for me. Wish I liked it.

[cloughie]

Hugh Fearnley Whatnot has a good recipe for a sweet potato and peanut( butter) bake . Very easy , very nice, very high cal.

I assume you mean Eatsitall

[french frank]

Hugh Fearnley Whatnot has a good recipe for a sweet potato and peanut( butter) bake . Very easy , very nice, very high cal.

I thought I wouldn't like sweet potato (being sweet, I thought) but when I saw the recipe I had to try it as I love kimchi. Very healthy combination! My hawthorn jelly has been going down very well with stilton too. Really worth doing.

[teamsaint]

Simple Korean dish: sweet potato stuffed with kimchi. My own addition for lunch was some chopped bacon and bits of cooked shredded savoy cabbage which needed to be eaten. I saw the recipe* for the sweet potato and kimchi in one of the newspapers, and then spotted a small tin of kimchi in the Coop (2 portions so I may have it again tomorrow).

* if you can call it a recipe - just boil or bake the sweet potato, then slit it open and fill with kimchi.

Hugh Fearnley Whatnot has a good recipe for a sweet potato and peanut( butter) bake . Very easy , very nice, very high cal.

[french frank]

Simple Korean dish: sweet potato stuffed with kimchi. My own addition for lunch was some chopped bacon and bits of cooked shredded savoy cabbage which needed to be eaten. I saw the recipe* for the sweet potato and kimchi in one of the newspapers, and then spotted a small tin of kimchi in the Coop (2 portions so I may have it again tomorrow).

* if you can call it a recipe - just boil or bake the sweet potato, then slit it open and fill with kimchi.

[Belgrove]

What to do with a bumper crop of quinces? Turn them into membrillo. Much of yesterday was spent peeling and chopping the rock hard fruit, then simmering and sieving, then boiling with sugar to an alarmingly eruptive lava-like consistency, and finally setting in a cool oven to transmute the initially pale flesh into a fragrant orange paste - what a palaver. Radio 3’s sequence Soundscape of a Century provided a perfect background to the effort - like an eight hour long Words and Music.

[french frank]

Actually I'm not cooking it at the moment but found this recipe, perfect for the cost of living crisis: Provençal Aigo Boulido (boiled water). Boil the water with bay leaves and lots of garlic. Put a slice of stale bread in a bowl and sprinkle with grated cheese and some fresh sage leaves. Pour the garlicky water over the bread/cheese and let it infuse for a minute to bring out the herby flavours.

If very hard up, leave out the cheese.

[cloughie]

Two favourite books of Provençal recipes here - Cuisine of the Sun by Mireille Johnston ( who made a celebrated French cookery series for the BBC In the early 1990s ) and Lulu's Provençal Table by Richard Olney . Both are marvellous .

We have Mireille’s 2 French Cookery Course books - very good and a particularly tasty recipe of her’s is Salmon with Lentils. Also excellent is Patricia Wells’ Bistro Cooking.

Almost met Mireille at the BBC Good Food exhibition at the NEC many years ago but got fed up of waiting as she was in a long conversation with Claudia Roden!