Coming to America: Day 5, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco

Purchased from the gift shop in the Japanese tea gardens.

Coming to America: Day 4, La Quinta

During the festival, we call La Quinta home. Today we are cruising around for food in our hired convertible before heading into the festival - the Japanese restaurant is closed so we head over to this Mexican place with serves dangerously large portions of food and jacuzzi sized pomegranate margaritas. Yeah!



Las Casuelas
NW corner of Washington and HWY. 111
La Quinta

I am a huge avocado fan. I lurrrrrve the avo. I like Mexican food because there is always a little of my favourite pear shaped fruit on the plate - except at this place where there is a whole lot of it. Check it out! There must be at least a box of avocadoes in this Fiesta Guacamole alone! (try making your own at home: diced avocado, coriander, red onion and chopped tomatoes, squeeze lemon juice over the top and a few shakes of tabasco - don't forget the doily)
The food here isn't mind blowing, but it's a million times better than any Taco Bill experience I had as a child. As soon as you are seated, you are given a basket of fresh corn chips and salsa that is semi-frozen, kind of like a tomato Slurpee, which makes it very enjoyable to consume in the desert heat.
We end up visiting this place twice over the course of our stay in La Quinta. The first time, I had a vegetable Quesadilla that came bracketed by rice and refried beans. It is such a huge serving that I have to eat my way up the middle - leaving most of the rice and beans. I feel bad about this wastage, but I just can't force rice and beans down in 40 degree heat.
The next time (with Alyson and Halle, below) I order a salad in an edible bowl. The salad is much more refreshing, it is layered with a cooked vegetable mix of corn, corgettes and peppers on the bottom, then lots of crispy iceberg lettuce, cucumber and tomato, then some cheese, sour cream and a huge ice cream scoop of guacamole on top. The edible bowl is a little disappointing though, I expect it to be like a huge Dorito but instead it tastes like...fried.

Yay! The margaritas, the happy waiting staff, the cooling water mist spray things

Boo! Why do the servings have to be so big? Surely if Americans ate realistic portions it would solve the food crisis

Cost: A few margaritas and a main will set you back £12
Service: 4.5/5

the loveliest lump of clay

Back in February I dragged a huge tagine home from the Atlas Mountains in Morocco. Last month I cooked in it for the first time. Now I'm finally posting the results. Slow cooking indeed.

A couple of things I did manage to do way back when were prepare the tagine (by soaking and oiling it) and preserve some lemons. Lemon preserving is perfectly suited for my kind of attention span. I had no trouble dumping them in the back of a dark cupboard and forgetting about them for weeks on end and they taste an absolute treat for the neglect.

Preserved Lemons
There are probably more techie ways to do this but I went with the directions given to me in Fes. Essentially, cut a cross in the top of each lemon, stuff the fruit with sea salt, squash the lemons into a tightly sealed jar with some lemon juice, water and more sea salt. Then leave them well alone for three to four weeks. I am happy to report that this method proved successful in my kitchen (though stuffing the lemons with salt was a bit of a bastard).


What you'll need for the tagine
Whatever veg your heart desires. I reckon aubergine would have been lovely but I went with what was in the kitchen:

1 Sweet potato (chopped)
1 leek (washed and quartered)
2 zucchini (sliced fairly thickly)
3 fresh tomatoes
1 tin of tomatoes
1 onion
1 fennel
1 preserved lemon
Cummin seeds
Fennel seeds
Paprika
1 bay leaf
Red wine
A handful of green olives
A handful of dried dates
1 tin of chick peas

Make a little veggie stock on the side
With so much veg getting skinned, chopped and grated, this is the perfect opportunity to put all the scraps and peelings into a separate saucepan and make some stock while your tagine is simmering.

Making the tagine
With an electric stove you need a rivet under the tagine to prevent the veggies at the bottom burning. If you are planning a real slow cook, it is advisable to do this with an open flame also.

Heat olive oil in your tagine on med-low heat then soften the onion slowly (I grated mine to make things a bit gooey). Add the chopped dates and a pinch of paprika.



Quarter the preserved lemon. Chop three quarters into small pieces. Toast your seeds in a separate pan, crush them then add them to the onion along with the chopped, preserved lemon. Stir through, followed by all the other veggies, the bay leaf and olives.

Cut your tomatoes in half and grate the flesh off the skin to pulp them. Add with the tinned tomatoes to the tagine. Pour in a generous splash of red wine, seal your tagine and let it simmer on a very low heat for hours on end (about four in this instance).



I think it's best to ignore the whole thing from here on in. If you open the lid too often you'll lose moisture. Just make sure the little bowl at the top of the tagine stays topped up with cold water so the heat circulates through. Twenty minutes before serving, mix in the chick peas. Cut out and discard the flesh of your remaining preserved lemon quarter then slice the skin into thin strips. Add this bit of tang to the cooked tagine to serve (along with some fresh coriander if you like or a few more olives).

Coming to America: Day 2, Coachella, California

We are wandering around in a grassy polo field in the middle of the desert.
Jack Johnson is playing on the main stage, so we go for food as far away from him as possible. Sarah and I are on the lookout for corn on the cob, but corn of a different variety catches Carters' eye. Veggie Corn Dogs the sign says. And the picture below says everything else you need to know about this culinary curiosity.



I refused to try it, but decided I probably should for the sake of research. Like most faux meats it's just too accurate and too synthetic to be enjoyable. It is comforting to know that when the world eventually does run out of food we'll probably have these things to nibble on in our little futuristic huts.

Coming to America: Day 1, Beaumont, Los Angeles

It is 4pm local time and we are two hours into our drive to La Quinta after enduring a 10 hour flight. I'm so tired I can barely stay on the road, so we make a stop at the next available place for refreshments, which happens to be a Dennys. Carters gets excited and orders a heap of random stuff. Eggs with hash browns, grits and pancakes. Except for the egg yolks, there is a serious white and brown colour scheme going on. After tasting the grits, I decide I'd be pretty happy if I never had to eat them again.
Sarah and I opt for veggie burgers with fries - the only other thing on the menu that isn't exclusively brown and white, and doesn't contain meat.

Coming to America

Hi everyone! I'm back! Sorry for the lack of posting action - I have spent the last ten days eating, drinking and shopping in various parts of The U.S of A, and boy have I got the arse to prove it. Gotta hit the treadmill now, but watch this space for more culinary excitement, Americano style.

Wimping out

Wimpy
Watney Market, Shadwell

It is my last day at work for the next 10 days and to celebrate in style we are going to...Wimpy (my place of work doesn't present itself with many glamorous lunch options). All I know about this establishment to date is that its name intrigues me, but on arrival, intrigue soon turned to fear when I laid eyes on the Bender in a Bun.



It's pretty nifty when you think about it, a scored sausage bent in a round to fit perfectly into a burger bun. Five points for creativity, but if you want to know what it tastes like I'll leave it to Guy because he lives to tell the tale.
I had the Quorn burger and Carters had the Beanburger. If I was dying of hunger I would choose Wimpy over McDonalds anyday.
Give Wimpy a miss if you are after healthy wholesome fare, however if it's 1980s fast food and raw community spirit with a tomato ketchup sachet you're after, this is the place to be.

Yay! Junk food with table service

Boo! The horrible feeling in your gut afterwards

Cost: A burger meal will set you back less than a fiver
Veg friendly: 3/5
Service: 3/5

Pretty halloumi

Posting this halloumi means admitting to the fact that I have watched Jamie At Home...but what the hell, it just looks too great to not rip off. Jamie Oliver used a basil leaf on his, but I've chosen to go with mint on mine because it echoes the mint flavour in the cheese nicely and basil isn't in season right now.

Cut 1 cm thick slices and squeeze with a little lemon juice. Shake some ground coriander over the top, turn and repeat on the other side. Lay a mint leaf over the top. Put a frying pan on medium to low heat, and splash in a little oil. When the pan is hot, carefully place the halloumi in the pan leaf side up. The key is to fry the cheese slowly over a low heat, allowing it to develop a delicious golden crust. When ready, carefully turn and repeat on the other side.

There's snow place like home...

Unlike Lily, I was foolhardy enough to venture out to the market for the weekly veg shop this morning. What is it about snow that makes you wanna get in amongst it, only to discover that it is much more fun to watch it through the window of your heated apartment?
Anyway, by the time I arrived home I was wet and freezing, but at least I had some lovely organic free range eggs and delicious fresh bread in my basket.
All I've done here is the usual mushroom, spinach and scrambled eggs combo, except I've cranked up the heat on the whole affair by mixing through a teaspoon of rose harissa to the raw eggs with a fork before throwing them onto the fire. I happen to have some raita (yoghurt mixed with cucumber and tomato) leftover from last night's little curry party that I have dolloped on top to balance out the heat.

I have the Sunday papers and the final season of The Sopranos in my hot little hands. So I'm going stay in for the rest of the day and leave the snowman/woman-making to someone else.

holey eggs, batman, it's a snow in!

This time last year we were sunning ourselves in Australia while our London compadres were experiencing the first flushes of warm spring weather. Not so today; as on Easter Sunday, we woke this morning to thick snow on the ground and heavy whirlpools of the stuff flying through the sky. That April warmth last year proved to be the best single two week spell of the year in London so I hope the continually crappy weather this time round bodes well for a hot, hot summer.

Not arsed in such climates to head out to breakfast or go to the market for supplies, I have only the local Tesco Express to supplement a fairly crappy fridge load; hence the egg sandwich in a hole trick to add a little bling to sliced bread (and to watch the flakes dance by).

Making it
Get your sides under way, including whatever sandwich filling you fancy (I cooked off some mixed mushies with red wine, stock, garlic and butter then popped them on some sliced cheese and added chopped spring onions.)



To do the egg thing, toast your bottom slice of bread on one side then lie it in a tight greased oven tray (or tin foil to prevent leakage) with the uncooked side facing up. Pile on your non-egg ingredients then take your top slices of bread and cut a circle in the middle with a pastry cutter or knife. Place them onto your sandwich base and push down gently so the sandwich is quite tight. Brush the top of the sandwich with butter or olive oil. One at a time, carefully crack the eggs into a cup so the yolk doesn't break and then, holding the cup low over the bread circle, gently pour the egg into the hole.

Cook on a fairly high heat in the oven for about 10 minutes, checking regularly to make sure the toast isn't burning. If need be, you can zap it under the grill for a bit at the end.