Author: Deborah M

Recipe Request: Couscous for a Crowd

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I can’t believe I never posted this here but apparently I never have. As someone has just asked for it, I take this opportunity to rectify the situation.

Couscous for a Crowd (Serves 6-8)

Ingredients

  • 2 c giant couscous
  • 1.5 c fresh mint, roughly shredded or chopped
  • 1 c sliced almonds, toasted (1)
  • 1 c dried cranberries (2)
  • zest of 1 orange
  • juice of 1 orange
  • dash of lemon juice (3)
  • olive oil
  • salt and pepper

Directions

Cook the couscous according to package instructions.  Drizzle with olive oil and toss to coat thoroughly. Then scatter some mint across the top and cover with a tea towel until couscous has cooled to room temp. Once the couscous has cooled, remove the tea towel and take larger pieces of wilted mint off top, then combine couscous, mint, almonds, cranberries, orange zest, and orange juice in a bowl.  Drizzle with additional olive oil (enough so that the couscous isn’t sticky) and season with salt and pepper. Toss to combine. Serve chilled or at room temperature.

This is one of those infinitely flexible things where you can add pretty much anything or mess with proportions to your hearts content and you’ll still end up with something yummy. And make extra ’cause it lasts in the fridge for a week and you’ll be snacking on it for days. Make a meal out of it and use up leftovers by adding some shredded cooked chicken.

(1) I leave these out sometimes – depends on who’s coming over and/or my mood. They do add a nice crunch in an otherwise not so crunch dish but I wouldn’t recommend other nuts. For some reason almonds work far better than others

(2) I sometimes add dried apricots as well. Whatever dried fruit you like, add.

(3) Depends on how much juice you get out of the orange and how sweet it is. If it’s too sweet for you after a good mix, add a dash of lemon juice to balance it. Or lime. Lime works the same magic.

Crafty Cardinal Creates Cutlery

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Ah, Bastille Day – I’d say something about it in French but my French is lousy. So rather than subject us all to that, let’s celebrate it by looking at a few French moments and highlights in culinary history.

Rich in dukes and cardinals – but also rich in culinary trivia.

Imagine it. It is 1637. Cardinal Richelieu, for reasons known only to himself – maybe his own safety (he wasn’t universally popular) or maybe he was put off his dinner watching people pick their teeth with pointy ends – suddenly orders the blades of his dinnerware to be ground down and rounded off.

Behold, the modern dinner knife was born. Continue reading “Crafty Cardinal Creates Cutlery” →

The Foodie Link Between Banbury and the Bard?

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Banbury is, as you may know, forever entwined with Banbury cakes – flat-ish oval pastry filled with spiced currants. They’re not unlike Eccles cakes and they’re still available in Banbury though not in the two shops most associated with them in days or yore. I present to you – the days of yore.

E. W. Brown’s Original Cake Shop, 12 Parsons street.

There was some dreadful idea being tossed around about turning that A. Betts High Street space (very much present and in use lately as a pop-up shop) into an arcade.

Betts’s Cake Shop on Banbury High Street in 1878

Yes, a gaming arcade. I am very much hoping the request for the change of use required will be denied. But never mind that now. I will complain about that elsewhere.

Banbury has another eponymous foodstuff lurking in its past and today seems a good time to mention it. Why today? Because today is April 23rd — anniversary of both Shakespeare’s birth and his death.

Banbury Cheese!

“Banbury cheeses, for which the town was noted until the 18th century, were first mentioned in 1430” (*). It was a cow’s milk cheese, yellow in colour and quite strongly flavoured, made in thin (about 1 inch) rounds.

“But wait!” I hear you cry. “What does this have to do with Shakespeare?”

In “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” Bardolf addresses Slender as “You Banbury Cheese!” – and this would have been commonly understood by the playgoers as an insult implying there wasn’t much to him (Banbury cheese being only about an inch thick.) That’s not to say Banbury cheese wasn’t popular – it was; in fact, it was better known than Banbury cakes at the time. It was just  … well, thin.

It was made in various places around the area but mostly in Grimsbury and Nethercote – what was then the Northamptonshire end of things (**)

And that’s not the only bardish thing about Banbury. No, there was a Shakespeare Inn on Parsons’ Street and we can still see the bust (sitting over the door at 46 Parsons St) that used to greet visitors to the Shakespeare Inn (1871-1891, I believe). *waves* Hi, Will!

And that is my culinary history trivia for the day. Happy birthday, Will.
_______________

* A History of the County of Oxford: Volume 10, Banbury Hundred

** Boundaries tended to move around a lot and originally Banbury straddled two counties.

Shakespearean Noshes, A Literary Nibble

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It is April 23 – National Cherry Cheesecake Day. Do we really need to expound on the glories of cheesecake? Don’t we all know it already. Instead, let us turn our culinary attention to Shakespeare. Yes, you heard me right. Shakespeare.

Today is the day of Shakespeare birth in 1564 (at best estimate) and his death in 1616. And on both those occasions, I bet food was prepared, served, eaten and shared. But which foods? Continue reading “Shakespearean Noshes, A Literary Nibble” →

The Art of Cooking. Now With Extra Art

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The other day, my friend Alexia (who ought to be writing her own food blog the way she rocks all things cooking and growing of her own produce) sent me a link to some beautiful illustrated recipes. Not illustrated with photos – we’ve all seen that. That’s the most expected thing in the world. No, these recipes were produced by an illustrator – Lucy Eldridge – working in watercolor.

Ms Eldridge not only produced some yummy recipes but some equally scrumptious illustrations to really tempt you into trying them. Well, OK – I don’t know if that’s why she did it. Maybe she just felt like illustrating them. But the artwork makes the whole thing even more tempting to me. I think I’ll try the carrot cake first.

That recipe and others can be seen in larger format on her site. While you’re there, take a look at her other work. Wonderful stuff.

Naturally, I went looking for other illustrators who might have done the same. Boy oh boy – am I happy I did.

I read about Felicita Sala in a post on Design Sponge (one of my favorite design and lifestyle sites). The recipe there was stuffed calamari and while I am a huge fan of calamari, I somehow have never had it stuffed. This situation must be remedied and I think this is the way to do it.

I can’t wait to try the risotto al radicchio as well. Check that one out as well as the others at Ms Sala’s own site  . I’ll tell you something else – the fact that you can purchase prints of these recipes has me rethinking the walls of my own kitchen.

There are even whole sites, dedicated to displaying and sharing the illustrated recipes of illustrators – sites like They Draw & Cook and Recipe Look. I’ve spent ages looking through them and I find it all really inspiring, both culinarily and artistically. I’ll definitely be trying some of these dishes.

What? Oh no – not drawing. The only thing I can draw is a bath. Seriously – I’m not being modest. I really suck eggs at that sort of thing. But these people rock not only the art of cooking but art itself as well. Cheers to them all.