Chickpea and sweet potato curry with an egg poached inside it

Habits are funny things. They aren't easy to form, but they aren't as difficult as they first appear either. Sometimes they are painstakingly hard to break and other times painstakingly easy, yet they are one of the most important things in life. A bad habit can be detrimental to our happiness just as a good habit can shape our life in the most wonderful way. I now can't seem to get into the habit of blogging twice weekly, something that used to come very easily to me. Giving up eating processed sugar every day after the indulgences of Christmas is another habit I am trying hard to break and seems almost impossible to fully achieve. Although I am still eating sugar on most days, it's getting less and less. As a result of breastfeeding my appetite is larger than normal (and it's usually pretty big already), so I am replacing processed sugar with more of other foods. I am focussing on foods that can be more beneficial to Delfi, such as vegetables, fruits, grains and nuts, eating often and filling up so that I don't have room left for evil sugar. As tends to be with new habits - each day is easier than the last and before you know it, what seemed impossible a few weeks ago becomes second nature. I learnt this from practising Kundalini yoga, which is all about habits, and just knowing this is enough to change your life. Nothing seems insurmountable anymore once you know. This curry is packed with all the good stuff.  Some people say the spicy food can give the baby colic, other people say chickpeas and spinach are culprits, but I ate this for 2 days and Delfi was fine. Sweet potatoes are a super effective and healthy way to thicken curry, just make sure that they cook until they become mushy.

Ingredients

200g dried chickpeas, soaked overnight
200g spinach
2 sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
1 onion
2 garlic cloves
1inch of ginger, peeled and chopped finely
1 inch of turmeric, peeled and chopped finely
1 green chilli
1 tablespoon garam masala
3 tablespoons rapeseed oil
1 egg per person
Salt
Rice to serve

Using a pestle and mortar or a blender make a blend out of the onion, garlic, fresh ginger, turmeric, chilli, garam masala and the oil. Fry this in a large pan for about 5min, adding a tiny bit of oil after a couple of minutes so that the spices don't burn. Add the chickpeas and cover with about an inch of water. Turn the heat down and simmer for about 20min, then add the sweet potatoes. Simmer for a further 30min before adding the spinach and the chopped tomatoes. Cook for another 10min then season with plenty of salt. Crack the eggs into the middle of the curry and cover the pan. Cook on a very low heat for about 3minutes. Serve with rice.

Bento lunch: Pea curry, omelette and red rice

Having partied away the last few days away in Madrid, I'm really very proud to have been motivated enough to make a bento for work on my return. It must be testament of the effectiveness of this little course I've been taking online. And I believe that this book I've been reading on my travels has also helped - it's incredibly inspiring! So here is my second attempt at bento making: pea curry, omelette and red rice

The omelette served as a divider between the two, as last time I spent ages messing around with cardboard to make everything neat -this is by far a better solution. From now on,  I will always try and find something dry and solid to use as a divider in my bentos - perhaps some tofu or fish. The red rice was created by adding Polish borsht soup (in powder form) to the rice as it was cooking. This is super easy to find in supermarkets and gives the rice a sweet-savoury flavour

Pea Curry Ingredients

Frozen peas
Onion
Garlic
Ginger
Mustard seeds
Turmeric
Fresh coriander
Grapeseed oil
Salt and pepper

Blend the top three ingredients together with some turmeric and a splash of water in an electric blender or crush using a pestle and mortar. Heat the oil and fry the mustard seeds for a couple of minutes, before adding the onion/ginger/garlic mixture. Turn the heat down and fry for a few minutes before adding the frozen peas and cover in hot water. Finally add the coriander, some salt then cover and cook for about an hour. If there is too much water left at the end, crank the heat up and steam it off - we are trying to get a dryish consistency

Sunny lentil cakes with chilli and coconut

Sometime in the 1940s Lesley Blanch wrote a rather unusual cookbook for her time - Around the World in 80 Dishes. In it, she wrote this:

"...There is a popular misconception that southern food is rich and that southern passions run high. Nothing could be further from the truth. You must go to the north - the dark, ingrown, seething north of Ibsen household - if you want to find overwhelming passions and those rich nightmare-producing meals, which I feel may have been responsible for some of Dostoievsky's great flights. This north of the Karamazov's brothers, of Anna Karenina's ill-fated love, of Gosta Beling's Atonement, is the land of blinis and bigos, kouloubiak, and pickled herrings, sour cream, indigestion and introspection. The Mediterranean on the contrary, is all lightness - light food, light loves, air, sea, blueness and dalliance"

 And on this note, I decided to move away from the darkness and into the light this weekend with some lentil cakes. I don't absolutely agree with every word that Lesley wrote up there, yet I do admit that there is some truth in it. At this time of the year especially, Slavic food can be a bit dark and brooding. And I have been focusing on it a lot of late. I like to eat seasonally and I don't want to start pretending I'm in Greece in the the middle of July right now, because that would be weird. But lentil cakes... they are exotic and sunny - yes, easy to make - yes, versatile enough to eat for lunch and as a beer snack - yes (I put a pinch of paprika and a squeeze of lemon in my beer last night, Mexican-style), and they don't feel morally wrong to me, because the lentils are dried anyway. Then I had to decide what to eat with the lentil cakes for lunch

 

And I couldn't lie to myself any longer. What I really wanted to eat was this tomato salsa-esque salad with coriander, chilli and lime. Unseasonal unfortunately, but somehow much needed. As they say: "Everything in moderation. Including moderation". My quest for seasonality will continue this Winter, but my body needed some tomatoes today. And the lentil cakes were gorgeous - crispy on the outside and soft and flavoursome on the inside in a way that I didn't even anticipate. What I know is this: A combination of Kundalini, cats and spicy lentil cakes can bring light into your life if you choose to let it in

Ingredients

Red lentils, soaked overnight
1 red chilli
4 tablespoons dessicated coconut
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon turmeric
4 tablespoons flour
1 egg
Handful coriander, finely chopped
Salt
Oil for frying

Soak the lentils overnight, then drain and combine with all the other ingredients. Make little balls out of them, and keep adding flour until they stick together. Place them in plenty of hot oil and pat down, then cover and turn the heat down a bit. Fry for about 10-15 minutes on each side

Curried aduki beans

Look, some meals, like people, just aren't that photogenic

And we all know this doesn't make them any less worthwhile. Sometimes, in fact, it's the opposite. Just as you wouldn't want all your friends to be models, it would also be unhealthy to be too concerned with how photogenic your food is. I have nothing against models, of course, a close friend of mine used to be one and she's an incredibly interesting person. However, she is not your average model, or person, in fact, and I still believe that if all your friends were models, your life may be a little dull. More often than not, the camera doesn't capture the more important qualities in life and is all too easy to trick with superficialities. It's like parties where everyone looks amazing on the photos aren't usually the best parties. Or the way a beautiful landscape can look a bit flat once you've tried to immortalize it... I think I've proved my point now. So I do hope that you try my new recipe, because even though it may not look like the most beautiful meal out there, it was one of the most delicious I've made in recent weeks and probably the most healthy too...

Ingredients

Aduki beans (soaked overnight and cooked according to packet instructions - aprox 300g

Half an onion

Garlic clove

1 green chilli

2 inches of ginger root

Handful coriander

Juice of 1 lime

Coconut oil

2 handfuls cherry tomatoes or more

1 tsp turmeric

1 tblsp garam masala

Tin of coconut milk

Sea salt

(Handful cooked brown rice to serve if you wish)

Blend the ginger, garlic, onion, turmeric, chilli and a bit of lime juice, either in a blender or by hand with a pestle and mortar like I do (or get LT to do), then fry with the coconut oil. After 5min add the cooked aduki beans and a splash of water, then very soon after, the cherry tomatoes. Cover and allow to fry for about 5min, stirring occasionally. Add the coconut milk and chopped coriander, then cover again and continue frying for 10min. Add the garam masala and salt and keep stiring. Finally, add the lime juice. Either serve this on top of the rice or stir the rice in at the end. Make sure you save any leftovers for lunch the next day, this tastes great at room temperature also

Brussels sprout and curry omelette

Since you are still reading this you must be a pretty open-minded individual. You may pat yourself on the back if so inclined

As I scoffed this just a moment ago, I realized that it pays to be open-minded. It's another strange and unusual way to eat the seasonal brussels sprouts. You just need a handful, chopped finely. Brown them in butter for about 10min, then add the eggs which have been previously beaten with salt, pepper, a pinch of chilli powder, some turmeric and a splash of single cream (or milk). Allow this to cook on a low heat for a while, then fold in half, and cook for a little longer. I ate this with a good quality mango chutney (Greeta's is the one I like). And you can find some more ideas with what to do with brussels sprouts here. And here

Minty lamb with herbs and black pepper and carrot and pea curry

I love cooking with other people because you always learn something new, even when the person cooking with you feels like they have nothing to teach you. That down there is a picture of a couple of curries myself and my cooking-partner, Dan, made before the "detox". It's in inverted commas now due to the bottle of rose wine I had on Saturday and the fact that ate half a chocolate bunny in one sitting yesterday - I was only meant to nibble on an ear, but things got out of hand - anyway, back to the curries: the pea and carrot one is similar to a Polish dish my mum makes - the similarity between  cuisines from such different parts of the world never ceases to amaze me. The other one is a really fresh- tasting lamb curry with mint and coriander - and it's something really quite special. Both of them are from "50 Great Curries of India" by Camelia Panjabi

Lamb with herbs and black pepper

(serves 6)

2 cups coriander leaves

1/2 cup mint leaves

1/2 cup fresh grated coconut

About 20 cashews (unroasted)

6 green chillies

Pinch of mustard powder or 1/2 mustard

4 tblsp oil

1.5cm broken cinnamon stick

4 green cardamon pods

3 cloves

2 onions, finely chopped

4 garlic cloves

2.5 x 1.5cm peeled ginger, chopped

1kg bones stewing lamb, cubed

1/2 tsp turmeric

1.5 tsp coriander powder

3/4 tsp cumin powder

100ml yoghurt, whipped

salt

1 tblsp lime or lemon juice

1 tsp ground black pepper

1/2 tsp garam masala

I know, I know, I just had to write that list so I do realize how long it is, but believe me the recipe couldn't be easier. We blended the fresh mint, coconut and coriander with the nuts, chillies, mustard and a bit of water to a fine paste in the food processor. Then you heat the oil in a frying pan, and add the cinnamon, cardamon and cloves. After 1min add the onions and saute until they're turning brown, before adding the garlic, ginger and lamb. Turn the heat up and saute for 5min. Add the all the spices apart from the garam masala (turmeric, cumin and coriander) and fry for few more minutes. Make sure all the lamb is well-coated, then turn the heat down again and add the yoghurt really slowly, stirring all the time - two people at this point make the job easier, because one can stir continuously while the other one pours. If you are cooking on your own, then take care, maybe even take it off the heat for this bit, because you don't want it to curdle. Now, the green paste and a bit of water go in - it says 400ml, but I just follow my instincts with these things rather than being too precise. Bring it to the boil, then turn it right down and allow to simmer for about 45min. Just before serving, check the seasoning, add the lemon juice, freshly ground black pepper and the garam masala powder

Peas with carrots and cumin

(serves 2)

3 tblsp oil

2 onions, finely chopped

1 green chilli finely chopped

1 garlic clove

1cm x 1cm piece of ginger, finely chopped

1/4 tsp coriander powder

1 tsp cumin powder

1/4 chilli powder

1/2 cumin seeds

1 tomato, chopped

150g peas

2 carrots, diced

salt

Heat the oil in a frying pan and saute the onion until it turns brown (about 25min), then add the chilli, garlic and ginger. Saute for 3min, before adding all the spices. After a couple of minutes add some water (aprox 3 tblsp) and cook for a further 3min. Then the tomato for a couple of minutes, and finally the carrots, peas and salt. Cover and cook until tender - just keep tasting the carrots basically, and when they are soft enough for you, it's ready

Both these curries were great in their own right, but we decided that they are not necessarily meant to be eaten together. In fact, probably not. It's not that they tasted odd together, but they did nothing to compliment one another. One was simple, nice and undeniably good for you (if it was a person, it would be the girl-next-door type), the other one - probably not that great for you, but when something is that tasty, you just don't care: everything else pales by comparison and you think about it for days afterwards. It's unusual, complex, deep and rich - an undiscovered star of the curry world!

Going back for a second to learning things from people through cooking - what I learnt during this session is that I need to slice my onions way more finely than I had ever bothered to - it makes a massive difference to the taste of the curry. I will sharpen my knives and not be so lazy about this in the future, and if you haven't been doing so already I beg you to do the same. They should be as translucent as you can get them, you won't go back i promise you...

Spicy mung beans and rice

When will I ever learn not to get drunk on Sundays? Really, I'm old enough to know better

The thing is that, recently, my weekends have actually been quite sensible, it's just those bloody Sundays I can't get under control. Of course, it's always fun at the time otherwise I wouldn't do it. But what I was really looking forward to the whole of last week was having the whole of Saturday to myself, in my flat. I spent it pottering round, cleaning, doing laundry, reading cookery books and generally sorting stuff out. And in the evening, rather than going to a party, I chose to watch series 2 of The Mighty Boosh. Heaven. I also made this mung bean dish. This is a first for me as I've never cooked mung beans before. Previously, I've used this recipe for lentils and thought it could work. It did. Even better than with the lentils, which tend to fall apart. The measurements down there make about 4 portions

Ingredients

250g brown rice

250g mung beans

2 red chillies

Small onion

2-3 inches ginger

Garlic clove

2 tblsp garam masala

Olive oil

Butter

Salt

Soak the mung beans according to packet instructions. Fry the chopped chillies, garlic, ginger and onion for a couple of minutes in a mixture of olive oil and butter, then add the garam masala powder. Add a tiny bit of water so that the spices don't burn. After a few minutes add the mung beans and rice, and cover with a couple of inches of water. Bring this to the boil, then cover and allow to simmer for about half an hour. Add salt. Keep making sure that it is still liquidy and add more water if it dries up. After half an hour, try a tiny bit and see if it is soft, if not cook for a further 10min. Finally, add some more butter and fluff it all up gently. It's really nice served warm with a fried egg and some tabasco (if, like me, you're a heat addict), or cold as a bean-rice salady type thing

Sweet & Spicy, Brick Lane

Just a quickie today, before I head off to the airport and hope to take off for Poland. There's always a massive drama about getting there, with everyone literally praying for my safe arrival, and hoping that my luck hasn't run out on me just yet - somehow, every year, despite loads of flights being cancelled and airports closed, magically, on my day of travel, they reopen and my flight is the one which hasn't been affected

My mate from Hong Kong, Matt, has been here for the past few days. It's been amazing having him, as he's such a grounding influence, I wish he was around more. This is where we went for my birthday curry the other day. It's my favourite curry house on Brick Lane, because it's not like all the others - it's more of a canteen than a restaurant, filled with old men, and there's no people standing outside trying to drag you in

There's one thing that you absolutely have to order if you come here - it's the thing with the egg in it up there, and it's called Aloo Keema. It's the best curry type thing I have ever eaten! The veggie samosas are pretty tasty too...

I kind of feel like there's something really special about the food here because when I came here for my friend Tishy's birthday a while back, when I was coming down with a horrible cold, and when I woke up the next morning my cold had disappeared! To be fair, this has only happened once and when I trekked here and got a take away last time I was ill, apart from being very tasty, it did nothing. But still, it was very impressive the first time, so I wouldn't rule out it having some kind of special healing powers... just make sure you bring your own booze. We washed everything down with a bottle of posh prosecco, drunk from their plastic cups - love it! After my birthday curry we decided to go "for just one free drink" to the Vibe bar down the road. Unbelievably, DJ Vadim, whose Xmas mix I have been listening to for the past month, was playing! This is why I believe that my legendary good luck is still in good speed and I will fly today. Perhaps it's a weird thing to base my hope on, but that's just how I roll, Poland here I come!

Three ways with Marrow

I work in Isleworth, so for the past year and a half that I have been here, the only distraction I have had is walking around Tesco's in my lunch hour. You can, therefore, imagine my joy to have recently discovered Osterley Park - a neo-classical mansion house with massive grounds, with cows and ponies, and lots of old, old trees. There is also a farm shop. And it's cheap! So this is how I came to be cradling a marrow on my way home from work the other day, my bag having snapped under the strain of the huge vegetable

I have never cooked a marrow before, so I decided look to the internet for inspiration, as you do. What I found was a world disturbingly obsessed with stuffing marrows. After having carried the marrow like a baby for about two hours, I was reluctant to then start stuffing it. It seemed a bit harsh. So I disregarded all the suggestions, and went with my gut instincts to treat the marrow with a measure of tenderness. I split it into three and each piece made two portions of food. So for one pound, you're getting great value for money with this one!

Marrow Curry

Chunks of peeled marrow

Onion

2 inches fresh ginger

2 garlic cloves

2 green chillies

1 tsp chilli powder

1 tsp turmeric

Tin of chopped tomatoes

Pinch of cinamon

Sesame oil

Pinch of cinamon

Fry the onion, garlic, ginger and chilli in the sesame oil for a couple of minutes, before adding the turmeric and chilli powder. Stir it in well and add a tablespoon of water, so that the spices don't burn. After another couple of minutes, add the chopped marrow. Make sure it's well mixed with the curry spices and oil, and cover the pan. You want to cook it like this for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Finally, add the tin of chopped tomatoes and cinamon, and cook for a further 20 minutes or so. Serve with chapatis, naan or rice

Fried Marrow (1 portion)

Thickly sliced mallow

3 tbsp plain flour

Garlic salt

Black pepper

1 tsp paprika or cayenne pepper

1 egg

Olive oil for frying

Dipping sauce of your choice

This was delicious and so simple to make. I combined the flour, salt, pepper and paprika, and beat the egg. The marrow was sliced into 2 cm thick pieces and peeled. I made sure the whole bottom of a frying pan was covered in the oil and heated it up to sizzling. The you dip the marrow slices in the egg, making sure all sides are covered, and immediately into the flour mixture. Lower it into the oil carefully, and fry until golden - it will take about 5-7 min each side. I used a Caribbean chilli sauce for dipping, a bit of sour cream wouldn't have gone amiss

Roast Marrow

Marrow chunks

Red pepper

Yellow pepper

Leek

3-6 garlic cloves

Thyme

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

My friend told me that in Spain, marrow is often roasted with red peppers. I ate this as a light supper, then took the leftovers to work and stuffed them into a baguette with some goat's cheese for a delicious sandwich. I don't think I need to go into a great amount of detail about how I roasted the vegetables, so just a quick rundown - peel and chop the marrow into bite-size cubes; deseed and chop the peppers; and wash and chop the leek. The garlic cloves I bruised with the side of a knife and didn't even bother peeling. Cover everything in plenty of olive oil, and season with thyme (fresh or dried), as well as salt and pepper. Roast for about an hour at 200 degrees C, moving the vegetables around every 15 min or so, so that they brown evenly with lots of crispy bits. Long live marrow, the gentle giant!

Nourishing dhaal

Sometimes all you want is some lentils and rice - simple, nourishing food. There are so many different ways of making dhaal, that I have a different method of each different type of lentil. Yesterday, I used green lentils. These need to soak in cold water for a couple of hours before you use them. I used the stuff below to flavour them

Ingredients

Green lentils

Clove of garlic

A couple of green chillies

Cinamon stick

Ginger

A few cardamon pods

Vegetable stock

Coconut milk

Rice

Olive oil

Salt

Once I'd soaked the lentils, I fried the chopped chillies, garlic and ginger off in some olive oil for a couple of minutes before adding them, plus the stock, to the pan. I then added the tin of coconut milk, cinamon and cardamon seeds, as well as plenty of salt. This needed to be cooked for about 45 in total. Therefore, I put the rice on after about 25 minutes

I cooked and ate this dinner in cyberspace, somewhere between London and Athens. I was skyping with my friend Karina for about 3 hours, who was also cooking dinner. So it was a really lovely evening, sharing a meal and a couple of glasses of wine while catching up with someone who lives so far away.

And here's another type of dhaal recipe