Stories through food: Autumn 2020
- Eloise L
- Nov 29, 2020
- 9 min read
Updated: May 10, 2021
This semester has been a strange one. As I neared the end of this semester I realised I had a accumulated many photos of the food I have been baking and cooking. With more time spent inside my flat, I've more time to bake cakes again and cook interesting dishes.
There are many stories behind these pictures, and they document my time this semester very well. So here are the stories of my life in Autumn 2020 through food...
17th September
Porridge
The first one in the new flat! This was on Thursday of Welcome Week after my once a semester appearance at early morning karate fitness. My boring granola breakfasts were revolutionised this summer when I finally learnt how to make a good porridge from scratch. I usually eat this once a week when I feel like a treat and can be bothered to wash up an extra pan.
My secret to a good porridge:
Add half a mug of oats and a mug of milk (or in my case, soy milk) to a saucepan. Heat up and keep stirring. Once it starts to heat up and thicken, I add a chopped up banana (a good way to use them up when they start getting a bit too ripe!). After a few more minutes on the hob, I serve in a bowl with some frozen berries and honey on top. Yum!
4th October
Flat Dinners: Pizza
At the suggestion of my flatmate, we started Sunday night flat dinners. It's something I always wanted to do in previous years, but we never really got round to it. So once a week we take turns cooking for everyone and then have a meal together (or at least we try to!).
At the end of Week 2 it was my turn. Pizza is always a safe bet. But when I make this at home from scratch we have a bread machine that does all the work for you. It was surprisingly easy to make though, even without a bread machine. So after venturing out to the shops for some yeast, I prepared these lovely veggie pizzas. They were even a great success with the flatmates, and agreed with me that it's better when they're homemade - even better than Domino's!
The dough is just a simple combo of plain flour (strong bread flour would is ideal but not essential), yeast, water and salt; you can find plenty of recipes online. Then I leave to prove for at least an hour.
This time I tried pre-heating the oven trays to help get the bottom cooked. So I shape the pizzas on a baking sheet to put the toppings on. I've figured out that you don't need any fancy pizza sauces, any sort of tomato passata or pasta sauce will do. Then I load on with veg (in this case: peppers, mushrooms and fried courgette), then top with mozzarella and grate cheddar. Takes about 20-30 minutes to cook in the oven (this was luckily before our old oven broke...).
9th October
Crêpes
Juliette and Callum surprised me by turning up at my flat door at the end of their quarantine after returning from France. They came bearing some (slightly late) birthday gifts, including this lovely crêpe pan! This was my attempt at savoury crêpes. I melted cheese on them and served with some fried courgette and leftover ratatouille.
Of course, I had to have some sweet ones too. I decided to fry some apples and serve with some (dairy-free) chocolate ice cream. The fried apples is something I remember my cousin Juliette making with me in France when I visited their place by myself in the summer when I was 11. And this is the first time I have re-created them in such a long time, and it was a great dessert!
I mostly guessed the measurements of ingredients until the consistency was right, but it's just a mixture of milk (works fine when I use soy milk), eggs and flour, maybe with a pinch of sugar and salt. I also experimented with galettes de sarrasin (buckwheat flour pancakes) later in the semester when Juliette left me a whole load when they were moving back to France.
20th October
Vegetable Spaghetti
I think it's real name is spaghetti squash, but this is what my mum calls it. This is a rather special vegetable which, when cooked, comes out in spaghetti like strands! This particular squash is extra special as it comes from my grandma's allotment (which she has sadly had to give up now). So I was making the most of it.
I received this after a quick visit home with J&C before they were moving back to France. I was also given some lovely autumn raspberries from the allotment!
The taste of the squash itself is rather subtle but it's very nice. It's great as a side dish with a bit of seasoning. I also experimented with cooking up some sort of cheesy-squash-bake thing, which turned out ok, but I think I'd stick to it plain in the future.
To cook:
Chop the spaghetti squash in half longitudinally, coat with olive oil, season, and place both halves face down on a baking tray. Pierce the skin on the back with a knife a few times. Then just cook in the oven for about 30-40 minutes until soft. Then for the magic part - scoop out with a spoon and it comes out in spaghetti-like strands! It keeps well in the fridge for several days, and simply be reheated in the microwave.
28th October
Pumpkin Adventures and Muffins
After an unsuccessful trip to Cameron Toll to find a pumpkin on Monday of Halloween week, I was still set on having a pumpkin to carve this year. I'm not a big Halloween fan, but I do enjoy carving a pumpkin. However, I hadn't actually carved one the last 2 Halloweens since coming to uni. So after a long consultation with my mother on the phone, she inspired me to try out the pick your own farm shop, Craigie's. She suggested asking Juliette for a lift, but I was feeling energetic and in need desperate of an adventure.
The next day I got up and going to set off on my bike at 8am, aiming to arrive at the farm shop when it opened at 9am, and back around 10am to actually get on with my uni work. It was a lovely autumnal morning, without too much wind. And once you're out of the city centre, there are actually some really nice cycle paths around Edinburgh. The one I followed took me North-West out towards Cramond.
The cycle took about 50 minutes on the way there, and I arrived just after 9am. And there were pumpkins (albeit small ones)! I bought 2 and stuffed them in my small backpack. The way back had slightly more climb, and I was weighted down by my heavy bag. I was back in time to have a quick shower, and get on a call with my friend to discuss our Stochastic Modelling assignment.
All in all, an exciting expedition which allowed me to explore parts of Edinburgh I'd never been through, and take in the lovely autumn colours.
I spent Thursday evening carving this cute owl - I think it was worth the trip!
I managed to salvage the pumpkin seeds and some pumpkin flesh to cook. I roasted the seeds in the oven with some oil, salt, pepper and paprika, and they tasted great! It might have helped that these were good quality fresh pumpkins from a farm, rather than poor quality shop-bought carving pumpkins. I used my 200g of carved out pumpkin flesh to make some pumpkin muffins, ready for Strictly Come Dancing night on the 31st October. I'm not usually a huge fan of the taste of pumpkin, but they made some pretty nice cakes! This continues my trend of using vegetables (such as courgette) in cakes. Maybe I'll need to try beetroot brownies next...
I loosely followed this recipe (no sultanas, because they don't belong in cake & a lemon icing instead of cream cheese frosting, because yuck).
1st November
Flat dinner 2: Veggie Shephard's Pie
Another flat dinner came around and this time I fancied something warming and autumnal. Shepherd's Pie seemed to fit that criteria well, especially since Emily is mad about mashed potato. I'd tried a similar version before, but it was rather mushroom-y and not quite right. After some thorough Internet research, I took a combination of different recipes, and did my own version, as is often the way when I cook new things.
This Sunday night there was also a karate friends video call. So I took them for a cook along, as it takes quite a while to cook Shephard's Pie it turns out. It was nice to have a catch-up with some of last year's karate family, and have some company in the kitchen.
The Shepherd's pie turned out pretty well itself. I even bought some fresh parsley specially! It was basically a combination of: onion, garlic, chopped tomatoes, lentils, carrots and mushrooms. Then the top was just mashed potatoes with the fresh parsley mixed in. Took about 30-40 minutes in the oven, and went down pretty well with the meat-eating flatmates. I even had a few servings to eat during the week as leftovers.
3rd November
(Not so red) Red Velvet Cakes
This was a spontaneous bake before Tuesday night Bake-Off. I'd just been on the phone home and apparently my grandma had just made this recipe from her gluten-free recipe book (but I used glutenous flour...).
I got her to send it to me and it turns out I had most of the right ingredients in my cupboard, even ground almonds! I substituted the buttermilk for yoghurt instead. And of course, no cream cheese icing. I made some quick easy icing for these after the picture was taken instead.
I never really understood red velvet cake. It's only red when you add the food colouring, giving the illusion that this is not what it actually is - a chocolate cake.
Again, the cupcakes created a nice tessellating pattern due to my lack of muffin tray. I'll need to steal one from home when I go back over Christmas. Anyway, these were very tasty and went down extremely well with the flatmates. They were all eaten up within a day or two.
8th November
Apple Crumble
I had already made apple crumble in October, but this time I was doing it for an audience! It was also much more successful now that we had our new oven which was actually working properly! I filmed and took pictures while cooking for the Karate Club's Instagram as part of the mental health and well-being campaign. I realised the recipe I'd used previously would perhaps not be classed as a "healthy recipe", as I'd been asked provide. So this time I amended the recipe to use oats in the crumble topping and much less sugar (only 50g). You don't really need much sugar as there's so much natural sweetness from the apples.
Most recipes seem to just pop the apples and crumble in at the same time, but I like to pre-cook the apples a bit first to make sure they get nice and soft, and so I can mush them a bit. I added some frozen berries to the filling to make it a bit more interesting.
This is a great cosy dessert option for the chilly autumnal nights, and I always feel much healthier eating my homemade desserts than shop-bought ones. Last time I had it with custard (the dairy version, perhaps not the best idea given that I don't get on that well with lots of lactose), but this time I had it with dairy-free Swedish Glace ice cream (the best vegan one in my opinion).
Ingredients:
Filling: 4 medium sized apples (for cooking any type will do, but for eating raw Gala's are the best - this is not debatable), small amount of margarine, a pinch of ground cinnamon, and a handful of frozen berries.
Topping: 150g plain flour, 75g oats, 75g sugar, 100g margarine.
24th November
Bake-Off Final Brownies
Some years I get into Bake-Off more than others. I've always liked baking; it's only when I started cooking for myself that I started to enjoy cooking savoury dishes too. But this year, Bake-Off was a much needed weekly detox from other uni stresses. It's also been an excuse to bake for my flatmates (almost) weekly!
The final bake had to be something special, with Peter from Edinburgh Uni in the final! So I remade the brownies I made in October but with the addition of a salted caramel sauce, which I had never made before. They were delicious, albeit rather sticky. They also make a great dessert when reheated for about 20 seconds in the microwave and served with ice cream 😍.
After the extremely exciting episode of Bake-Off (Peter won of course!) we were feeling rather excitable. Inspired by Peter's love for badminton, I got out the rackets my cousin left for me when they were moving, and we played late-night living room badminton. This was at 11pm and literally went on for about 40 minutes. Maybe we were still giddy from the sugar rush of the brownies. Anyway, this was a great evening and we all got our fix of laughter therapy I think. What on earth am I going to do on Tuesday nights now???
Other special mentions
Quiche: I stole a quiche dish from last year's flat (don't worry, they'll never know as it wasn't on the inventory), and have loved making this French classic from scratch. I used to buy ready made pastry (puff-pastry for some reason, not sure why) but much prefer it now when I make my own shortcrust pastry. My favourite fillings are onion, courgette and mushroom. That may not sound very appealing but it tastes great.
Vegan Doner Kabab: This was the one and only takeaway this semester (possibly in my whole time at uni somehow?!). It was from the chippy down the road which has loads of veggie/ vegan options. But this was a bit of a disappointment, and reminded why I much prefer to cook homemade things. The tofu kebab just tasted burnt and there was too much of this spicy chilli sauce. This chips weren't too bad though. After a while you just feel full and greasy. The home cooking strategy also saves me fortune compared to ordering Deliveroo every day.
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