This is number one in an occasional series dedicated to using up half-opened and often forgotten packets of dry goods from the back of, for the sake of this blog, we’ll grandly call the larder. First up the cheap, nutritious, humble, and ever dependable chickpea. The convenience and ready availability of the tinned variety has meant its shrivelled cousins have …
Strictly speaking, for this recipe you should have a special set of fire tongs and a cone of sugar called a Zuckerhut, however in the spirit of the Tory engineered ‘cost of living crisis’ we’ll improvise and save you dear reader(s) €149 plus postage and packaging. So have a rummage through your kitchen drawers and see what you can find …
We obtained our wild garlic from a bucket hanging on a railing in London Fields. A sign said ‘Wild garlic, help yourselves’, so we helped ourselves. I suspect by the time this is posted the bucket will no longer be there, so in that event dear reader(s) you might have to take a more traditional tack, and forage for this …
Arguably an obvious choice. Undeniably a tasty one. There was mild panic when a trip to Sainsburys was met with an empty shelf where the Mozzarella should have been. Hopefully this was down to an oversight by the manager rather than a consequence of Brexit, but it is too dismal to speculate. On the fruitless walk back along London Road …
When a succession of veg boxes leaves you with a cumulative glut of lettuces, you come to the realisation that there is only so much you can eat in traditional salad form, and cooking seems to be limited to braised side dishes, either solo or avec pois. But worry not dear reader(s) for there is hope (especially if like me …
We here at Yumblog Villas are always reluctant to post soups (upload, not mail) as they are so simple we fear you might be insulted dear reader(s) and flounce off in one of your famed over-dramatic strops. However, lockdown lends itself to the desire for something comforting and warming and besides we had all the right ingredients in the form …
Thought it would be safer to put ‘falafels’ in inverted commas as the absence of chickpeas and the inclusion of halloumi, would probably leave us open to criticism from ‘The Guild of Master Falafel Makers‘ as well as purists, pedants, trolls, stupid people and no doubt the odd het up vegan. We here at Yumblog don’t want any trouble, especially as …
Consider the humble chickpea. Nutritious, ubiquitous, tasty, cheap, and as versatile as a 46-piece socket set. It can be stir-fried, casseroled, tagined, enstewed, devilled, saladated, hummouserised, soupified, and in this case, masalaed. If you’re contemplating doing something interesting with a tin of chickpeas this weekend, we here at Yumblog Villas urge you to give this a go.
…or beetroot soup made with leaves. Not knowing whether beetroot leaves are a tasty and nutritious alternative to chard or a toxin filled time bomb of agonising death, I thought I’d better check their edibility before posting this recipe. Turns out they are perfectly benign and not dissimilar to the aforementioned chard.
Hey meat-eaters! Invited a hapless vegetarian over to your barbecue? Why not forego the meat-free delights of (Sp)Asda and surprise them by serving up something which is actually tasty for once – fr’instance, this hearty succulent and colourful burger packed with thought-provoking flavours and textural anomalies!
I’m always reluctant to write up a recipe for soup as it seems far too simple to warrant a post and possibly risks insulting your no doubt exemplary culinary skills dear reader(s). After all, your average soup is usually just a few veg zhuzhed up in olive oil or butter, simmered for 20 mins in stock and liquidised to the …
A monthly review of this site’s stats shows that in your endless and futile search for all that is novel and inconsequential, on average you lot spend only 11 fleeting and no doubt twitchy seconds reading Yumblog. For fuck’s sake, dear readers, you’re a capricious bunch … sometimes I wonder why we bother. …8, 9, 10, 11, time’s up … …
…not to be confused with a Vinegaroon which is an ugly and menacing critter you definitely wouldn’t want to share the dinner table with. If you are short of time AND have been lucky enough to get hold of some juicy ripe flavoursome tomatoes (i.e. you live outside the UK) you can skip the whole 1½ – 2 hours slow …
There are as many varieties of flat breads as there are varieties of Heinz products, or indeed bi-pedal humanoid aliens living amongst us – 57*. I can’t vouch for all of them, but this particular variant is tried, tested, easy to make, and very tasty. We laced ours with cumin although you could of course flavour yours with whatever spice …
This could possibly be the last comforting soup of the season as summer has finally reached these parts and the Pennines are roasting under 40 degrees of searing Yorkshire sunshine. Evenings are now spent sitting in the dappled shade of Hebden Bridge olive groves, drinking ice-cold Albariño, and listening to the song of the cicadas high up on the parched …
