The Sacred Art of Eating

Some dishes from Nigella Express have managed to ingratiate themselves into our foody armoury. Thai curry paste + veggies (inc butternut squash and sweet potato) + coconut milk = curry is one of them, hardly rocket science but we would never have done it, pre 2008. The Doughnut French Toast is another. I grew up with Eggy Bread an almost weekly occurrence on the menu- for my brother at least- and yet I would never previously have thought to have it sweet.

This morning I got up, feeling most refreshed, at about 9am, and thought ‘I am going to be super girlfriend, I shall make little pancakes!’…but then I thought on it for a moment, remembered the half loaf of bread in the bread bin, which we wouldn’t be using for at least 24 hours…and hit on a winning idea.

In a bonus inspirational moment I heated up the left over chocolate sauce from last night’s Ice Cream & …, and stuck that in a wee dish on the side for dipping purposed. Big pot of tea on the side. Bingo!

You might well ask, how it is that we came to have left over chocolate sauce? And such a particularly small amount which we could surely have just finished last night. What can I say, we are a pair of abstemious puritans who know when to say ’stop’!!!

Two meals, two nights in a row, to give Dougal something to look forward to when studying and keep me engaged in the kitchen.

• Feta, Tomato and Pesto Tartlet
• Nigella’s Nectarine and Blueberry Galette

As you might be able to tell, I’d bought a packet of all-butter puff pastry but wanted it to do two nights. Seemed a bit much to scoff it all in a one-er!

The tartlets I created based on a bit of reading around on the internet. Pesto seemed to be the done thing to line the tart with, and we had a massive basil plant at the time, so I blasted some up in the food processor with pine nuts/parmesan/garlic/olive oil, which did the trick nicely. Then some halved baby plum tomatoes, loads of feta, and into the oven for a bit. Came out looking pretty foxy I think- I especially like the cutting on the diagonal!

Tasted pretty smashing too!

The following night, for pudding, I revisited Nigella’s galette, a hastily flung together pud, no poshness involved. Half the size of last year which made it look rather cute- but also the kind of thing you could polish off between two just fine! (I think we did still spin it out to a couple of sittings though).

We had no apricot jam (I think for the challenge I bought it specially, can you imagine?) but just the day before my mother had presented me with two jars of made-the-day-before raspberry jam (my favourite!) which I felt could hardly hurt the thing. So, pastry lined with a mixture of fabby dabby mummy jam mixed with cream, scattered with slices of fab nectarine (Waitrose Perfectly Ripe) and some blueberries out of the freezer. Again, bake for a bit and serve, well, however you like. We might have gone for greek yoghurt, I honestly can’t remember!

Bitterly cold nights might not suggest ice cream for pudding- but with the right sauce it works just fine. This was a revisit of Nigella’s pudding from the Everyday Easy chapter, so-called rhubarb and custard gelato.

When we cooked this for the challenge back in May, I was disappointed that our authentic Scottish rhubarb with its green bits and red bits made for a rather brown sauce, not the girly candy cane pink in the Book.  So when I spotted all pink rhubarb in Waitrose last week I jumped at the chance to make this yummy vanilla-stewed rhubarb again.

For two nights we had this over Luca’s ice cream. Very decadent, beautifully pink, and remarkably hot on a bitter winters night….