MissLeonie.com

Yay! A productive and in many ways excellent day.

It started off a bit later than I expected because I had some trouble dragging myself out of bed, but after I sorted out that issue, things went swimmingly.

I was too full for dessert yesterday, so I decided to have my oven-baked apple & vanilla sugar concoction for lunch. I bought blueberries and blackberries at Tesco yesterday (they were on sale - I don’t intend to pay four pounds for some measly berries I can pick for free at home, no), and they went in the mix. I added the usual ginger, and some honey. Oh my GOD was it tasty. The blackberries are probably a bit tart on their own, but in the juice of melted sugar, honey and burst blueberries they were scrumptious.

I also got some work done, writing about four hundred words so far, and doing some Photoshop work on the graphic representation of the model I’m devising. That sounds a lot fancier than it is, really. I just don’t know how to work with the shapes in Word, so I cheat and use Photoshop.

This is so simple I can’t even call it a recipe.

Yesterday, I was seduced by a beautiful bowl of vanilla sugar at Tesco. It’s golden sugar, and it has a vanilla pod and everything. Of course, if you buy a hugely overpriced jar of vanilla sugar, you need to use it. The label suggested glazing fruit with it and I thought hey, these Granny Smith apples I really need to eat before they go off any minute now are fruit, so let’s give it a go. Yes, those apples in the picture are Granny Smiths, even though they look more like Golden Delicious ones after you’re done with them. This “recipe” isn’t a looker, but it makes up for it in taste, trust me.

Now, the jar didn’t have any suggestions on how to glaze the fruit, so I had to guess. Luckily, it turned out alright. I don’t like doing things straightforwardly, so I decided to add a little ginger too. It adds a little bite to the whole thing, a little spice to what is otherwise only sweet (the Granny Smith apples lose their tartness when you heat them through like this).

Basically, what you do is this:

• Slice two apples
• Put one layer of apple slices in an oven-proof dish
• Sprinkle with vanilla sugar (rather liberally)
• Sprinkle some grated ginger over the apples (a teaspoonful should do)
• Then one more layer of apple slices and more sugar

Shove the whole thing into a preheated oven (200°C). They’re done after about 10 minutes. I haven’t timed it precisely, but I wait until I hear the melted sugar bubbling, peek to make sure I’m not hearing things that aren’t there, give it another minute, and then take it out of the oven.

I ate it with some sweetened yogurt (same vanilla sugar at work) and the contrast between warm (hot) and cold, sweet and slightly sour was so good that I’ve been anticipating dessert all of today. It’s a great way to up my calcium intake (which is zero most of the time) and eat two pieces of fruit a day (after letting the oven destroy most of their nutritional value, probably).

My wonderful housemate Sarah (I have to say that cause she’s probably going to read this since she asked if I was going to post this on my blog - but it’s also true, so there) came up with the equally wonderful idea to make smoothies this afternoon.

We were both a little depressed as a consequence of forcing ourselves to try to get some work done on our dissertations, and it just wasn’t working. We went into town for some (student-budget) retail therapy, during which we bumped into a fruit seller on the side of one of the shopping streets. We walked home as quickly as possible and used the following ingredients to make two deliciously gloopy strawberry smoothies:

• 500g strawberries (halved)
• the juice of 2 oranges
• 1 peach (in small cubes)
• some grated ginger (about a teaspoonful)
• a squirt of lime juice.

Put everything in a pitcher of sorts, grab a blender and blend until smooth. You could add some yoghurt or alcohol of sorts if you were feeling adventurous, but it is exquisite in all its fruity glory too. Makes two very generous smoothies.

What better way to drink them than from tall wineglasses with a strawberry on the rim? Student-style extravagance has never been this tasty before.

PS. Another photo & story combo from Italy tomorrow!

To celebrate the one-week anniversary of sharing a house with just the two of us, Sarah and I went out for lunch today. We’ve decided to make this a sort of no strings attached but this is kind of fun weekly thing. Coincidentally, it has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that the other two housemates have finally buggered off - it’s just a convenient excuse.

This week, we went to a deli called Delilah. It’s a very cosy shop, stacked to the ceiling with all sorts of quaint kitchen apparel and mouth-watering food. There’s a row of seats at the bar, where you can sit down for a drink or something to eat. A plus is that it doesn’t totally break the bank. It’s not cheap, but you get a good amount of good food for your money, so it’s well worth it. I didn’t eat much dinner tonight. Delilah is also beautifully designed, making the most of the space it’s got, and right now, I really regret not taking a photo of the whole shop. Oh well.

I had a scrumptious Tuscan salami, capsicum and rocket sandwich. It had some fancy cheese as well, originally, but I asked them to hold it. It’s quite exciting to look at a sandwich menu and have no idea what half of the ingredients are. I don’t mind a bit of adventure in my food experiences, as long as the adventure is plant-based.

The food was simply amazing, and the staff are wonderful. They even ask how strong you like your tea! (Whenever I order tea here, I have to actively stop myself from yanking the tea bag out of the glass as the waitress is approaching my table.) In more amusing news - it turns out I will eat any amount of fatty meat as long as you call it salami. Mmmm.

My housemate Sarah and I went to visit Gloria Jean’s yesterday. Gloria Jean’s is a coffee shop that’s part of an Australian chain of coffee shops. They were on every street corner in Australia, and I’d often accompany Liam there on trips to fix his caffeine craving. I noticed this particular Gloria Jean’s shop on the bus one day back in September or October, and got really confused. What on earth was this one doing in Nottingham? Perhaps Gloria Jean’s wasn’t Australian after all (cue disappointment)? Or was it Australian-owned and slowly taking over England, making it even more awesome? Turns out it’s the latter (yay!).

Since discovering it, I’ve been meaning to visit. I’ve taken my time - again, I don’t normally go for coffee very often, because I don’t particularly like it. Thankfully, my high expectations (as far as Aussie-ness goes, not coffee, obviously) didn’t stop me from enjoying it all thoroughly. It’s nice to have a little bit of Australia in Nottingham. What’s more, this Gloria Jean’s was very much the same as the Australian ones. The décor was a great mix between dark and cozy, quirky and homely. And they even managed to brew me a cup of coffee I actually enjoyed. The passion fruit cheesecake that beckoned me from the display window was wonderful too. Suffice to say, I’ll be coming back.

I spent the afternoon babysitting the most awesome kid in the world. We ended up baking little Italian bread buns to beat the kind of boredom only a ten-year-old can experience. At his house, they normally use a bread machine, but we went old-school, fingers in goo. We came up with our own mix of Italian herbs (thyme, oregano, a touch of rosemary and some paprika powder (by the way, the paprika powder was a stroke of genius of the little one - first I thought I’d humour him and add .03 of a gramme of paprika powder, but then I was intrigued by the novelty and added a decent amount)), two pressed cloves of garlic and of course a glug of olive oil. There was plenty of dough to keep two hands busy, not to mention a choice of herbs.

It took a long time to make it all come together, for the dough to become soft like silk. We didn’t take things too seriously, though. Of course, then it was a case of getting a ten-year-old to wait 35 minutes for the dough to rise. We watched some cartoons (due to a lack of bottles for bottle football we had little choice in pastimes) and got back to our dough. Now, what to do with enough dough to make a big loaf of bread? I mean, that’d be boring, obviously.

The Babysit Kid suggested we make buns. What’s more, he suggested we add smiley faces. I rolled and kneaded the buns into shape while he cut a pair of eyes and a big smiley smile into all nine of them.

We let them rise a little more while the oven was preheating. The nine happy buns of Italian-style bread were cooked in about 18 minutes, beautifully soft at the core and nice and crispy on the joyful exterior. Not a bad way to pass a couple of hours with a bored (though hilarious) ten-year-old!

Ahh, the joys of cooking in a kitchen with working, clean equipment. Mum and I found this recipe on Taste.com.au and altered it a bit. I’ll write up our version below, the original can be found here. It had quite a bad review, but we simply couldn’t understand why, cause the ingredients sounded as though not much could go wrong. Turns out this pasta salad is delicious - and healthy to boot! It’s quite easy to make, except for some frustrating capsicum skin peeling. By the way - capsicum (Australian English) = red (bell) pepper.

Warm Chicken Pasta Salad

• 500g pasta (any pasta will do, or a mix of what you have left - we used regular macaroni and butterfly pasta)
• 4 chicken breast fillets
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 large red capsicum, quartered, deseeded
• some artichoke hearts, quartered (roughly the equivalent of the six artichokes from the original recipe)
• 3/4 cup semi-dried tomatoes, drained
• 1/2 big white onion, thinly sliced
• 1/4 cup firmly packed small basil leaves, torn
• 1 tablespoon vinegar
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

Cook pasta according to package directions (you can do this hours before you plan to cook dinner). Marinade the chicken with the mixture of one tablespoon of olive oil and one crushed clove of garlic. Preheat a barbecue plate on high heat and cook the capsicum skin side down (it’s OK if it burns; make life easier for yourself and try to blister as much of the skin as you can by maneouvring the quarters around). Place into a plastic bag and keep it closed. Stand for 5 minutes. Cook the chicken on medium heat until cooked through. Peel skin off the capsicum and discard. Slice chicken and capsicum. Place into a bowl with the pasta, artichoke hearts, sun-dried tomatoes, onion and basil. Combine the remaining olive oil with the vinegar and lemon juice, as well as one crushed clove of garlic and salt and pepper, shake and add to pasta salad. Toss to combine, munch.

PS. Leftovers taste great all cold straight from the fridge, too. I added some fresh chopped tomato, seasoned with salt and pepper.

So… I’ve been back less than ten hours and shit has already hit the fan, because one of my housemates suffers from a terrible disease called Twatbucket Syndrome (™ Mags). This time, it was about the designated spot for her bread in the fridge. I know, don’t ask. I don’t understand it either.

On the upside, I’ve brought back some awesome treasures, all the result of ferocious shopping at home. You’ve seen the gemstones, but you’ve thus far missed out on this cute little tin of Earl Grey & Lavender Tea by Revolution.

Mum and I spotted a fancy tea and coffee shop in Zutphen and went in for the kill. I couldn’t wait to get in the door when I saw Dilmah tea in the shop window, surrounded by stylish mugs and cups and all manner of tea and coffee drinking apparel. I used to drink a lot of Dilmah tea in Australia. It’s single origin tea that is produced in an ethically sound way in Sri Lanka. What’s possibly even more important - it tastes great.

Next to the Dilmah tea were the stylish tins of Revolution tea. Being a fan of both lavender and tea, I was immediately intrigued. My mum has a thing for quirky tins, so I treated her to one of these triangular slices of heaven. At the register, I noticed they sold smaller tins as well, so I treated myself to the tin in the picture. (Second listed on this page.) Cute, no?

You can definitely smell the lavender. I can’t promise you’ll taste it, mostly because I have no idea what lavender should be tasting like, but I can tell you it’s some damn fine tea.

• oil for frying
• 1 clove of garlic (pressed)
• up to half a red chili (depending on how brave you are), chopped finely
• 3-5 spring onions in rings
• half a red onion
• 50g fine green beans, halved
• noodles (check package for quantities)
• 1 pork chop, sliced quite finely
• 2-3 tablespoons of soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon of lemon juice

Boil some water and cook noodles according to packet instructions. If they need more than about 4 minutes, don’t add the beans until they have about that much time left. Otherwise, add them straightaway. Drain and put to one side.

Heat up a good glug of oil in a wok or frying pan. Once hot, add the garlic, chili, spring onion and onion. Stirfry the chili, onion and garlic mixture on a medium-high heat for 3 to 4 minutes. At this stage, everything looks like it could be a really good salsa (as per the picture at the top). I haven’t tried it (yet), but if I were to, I’d add a chopped skinless tomato, possibly two, and give it another couple of minutes.

Anyway, back to the pork stirfry. Once the onions go transparent and everything smells beautiful, add the pork and stirfry for about 1-2 minutes. Add the noodles and beans, stir a little, then add soy sauce and lemon juice. Stirfry on high heat for a minute. Eat.

I was planning to write about reading James Joyce’s Ulysses, but that will have to wait. Instead, I’m going to talk about food.

Meat and Leonie aren’t the best of friends. It’s not like I have ideological issues with eating meat, not as long as the animals were treated well during their lifetime. However, I don’t eat veal or lamb, because I feel that that lifetime shouldn’t be mere months. What bothers me the most about eating meat is preparing it. The texture of it, the smell, the fatty and bloody bits - I hate it.

In fact, during my first few years of uni, I struck many a deal to avoid cutting up chicken filets (I can think of nothing worse), including doing all the cooking and the washing up, as long as I didn’t have to touch it. I had to get over my chook-o-fobia when I moved into my little appartment: I was cutting the chicken, or I wasn’t having any. I know you can buy pre-cut filets, but they’re never quite up to my high standards. I want no grubby bits. None at all.

All this meat-avoidance has probably lead to the mother of all iron deficiencies. Because I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather, I decided to cook some good food today. I’ve also started taking daily multivitamins to make up for any nutrients I may be missing. It doesn’t hurt that these multivitamins contain 100% of the recommended daily allowance (RDA) of iron. This puzzles me though - if, as the bottle states, supplements are not supposed to replace a healthy diet, why do they contain 100%? Will I overdose on iron if I eat well in addition to taking supplements? I think that the supplement must only contain the full RDA of nutrients you can’t readily take in too much of, but it is a bit mindboggling.

Anyway, I cooked a lovely sweet and sour beef stirfry, after meticulously cutting up the diced beef. Yes, I really am that obsessed with the total annihilation of fat and blood. I got the recipe off a Dutch supermarket’s website. Beef, sweet and sour sauce, capsicum, onion and some green beans, and rice of course. If I were to cook it again, I’d add some garlic and a lot more sweet and sour sauce than the recipe demands. I felt healthy eating it though. Mission accomplished, for today. And the day after tomorrow, probably. I made plenty.