May 24, 2024

You Are Who You Eat

I mean, what you eat 😇

 

It’s no secret that I love to cook – although dining out is of course another one of my passions. I thought I would share with you some of my recent simple recipes which I’ve put together at home. This is one of my favourite seasons for ingredients: Asparagus, crab, summer fruits, fresh peas, and the most flavoursome tomatoes. I’m not ashamed to say that for the past few years I have used the Selfridges Food Hall as my supermarket (such great produce there), and I’m also a big fan of Bayley and Sage, and the other small delis and shops in my area. Women who love food love sex of course, we are greedy for all life’s sensual experiences.

 

At home I cook mostly Mediterranean (Italian, French, Spanish, and/or Greek inspired), Middle Eastern, and Asian food. All these recipes I make up as I go along in the market based on my mood and what’s in season. I can do more complicated things of course, but this is how I typically eat at home. I am very particular about my ingredients, for example I spent many hours researching the very best olive oil (I prefer Greek to Italian, but could not find Greek that fitted my requirements so I guess we shall just have to go there to get the Greek oil directly 😙). In Europe, with olive oil there is just 1 harvest a year (winter). And like any fresh ingredient the moment the oil is bottled, it starts to deteriorate in quality and flavour. So for example if the one harvest is in November, and you buy your oil in October, it has definitely been sat around for nearly a year. Regular olive oil bottles won’t tell you when it was harvested, but the very top quality olive oils will put the date on the bottle, similar to how wine is dated. I have written too much about olive oil so at the very bottom of this blog I have continued the olive oil lecture only if you’re interested. I managed to find one that had been pressed just one month before, and this is the basis for a lot of my cooking. I also take one spoon a day as it’s so good for you – although not an enjoyable experience by itself!). Some days of course I am lazy or in a rush, but when I decide to cook properly I will go to great lengths to get really good ingredients. I love to shop so I just apply that skill to my ingredients. I find the process very therapeutic.

 

Also, I like to present my food beautifully, even if I am not entertaining guests, as I’m sure you agree, we eat with our eyes first 😉

 

On my menu:

Honey and soy salmon with prawn dumplings, asparagus and chilli dipping sauce
Salad of king prawns, asparagus, mango, courgette, chilli, tomato, cucumber, and red pepper
Grilled peppers. Love them cold as as a salad with anchovies, thyme, olive oil, and fried garlic.
Feta and watermelon salad with mint oil, mint, lime, pink peppercorn, and sumac
Simple prawn linguine, made with lots of olive oil, a little garlic, and white wine
Slow cooked Lamb kleftiko with Greek Salad
Rainbow fried rice with crab, shrimp, kimchi, and sesame
Bresaola and burrata salad with grilled courgette, strawberries, and tomatoes
Crispy potatoes with prawns, harissa yoghurt, chilli and chive

*No I wont cook it for you. I demand a dinner date instead 😘

More on Olive oil (a bit boring)

 

So what you want is a single estate olive oil: all olives from the same trees, from the same place, harvested at the same time, then cold pressed together, and then you want to buy the oil as soon as possible after it has been made, and also unfiltered. If you were being very strict about freshness, you would note that in Europe they harvest in the winter, so in winter you would buy from Europe, and in the summer, you would buy from the southern hemisphere (South America, south Africa, Australia etc, which have a summer harvest). The truth is it doesn’t really matter too much from a taste perspective, but olive oil has other great healthy components that you only benefit from if the oil is fresh. In the UK of course the idea of buying Australian Olive oil would be seen as outrageous, but the truth is, for half the year, it is much fresher than the oil from Europe. The most simple way to find true quality olive oil is to Google “2023 olive oil”. You probably think I work for the Olive Oil Society (if such a thing exists haha) no, I just somehow went down a rabbit hole when buying oil and now buying fresh oil is something I make a small effort to do. I realised that within reason, anything is interesting if you bother to find out more about it. Could have spent an hour scrolling on Instagram I suppose but I decided to take the time to find great olive oil instead.