Recipes to Nurture

I'm not a kitchen goddess. Actually, my signature dish is baked potato with cheese and coleslaw, all mashed together.

I can also make a lovely recipe from Nigella Lawson's Forever Summer - "Prawn and Black Rice Salad with Vietnamese Dressing". But it's so easy, I really can't take any credit for that.

But Véronique told me about this book, called Recipes to Nurture, by an Irish author, Aine McAteer. Her feedback was so positive that I had to try it. It's macrobiotic food. I don't really know what macrobiotic means, I just see the recipes in the book as simple vegetarian (+ fish) food, with no butter, no milk, and plenty of exotic Japanese ingredients.

It took a little while to get it from Amazon, as it's not available new on the .co.uk site.

Brendan and I had a look at it, and we prepared a list of what ingredients we needed to get from the Asia Market - a variety of seaweeds and Japanese condiments. We found most of them in the Asia Market on Drury Street. The main thing we didn't get is umeboshi vinegar (a vinegar from the umeboshi plums), but I'm sure we'll find it the next time we go. It's a matter of reading all the labels on the shelves! Easy when you know what you're looking for!

So, yesterday, I tried my first recipe and it was a success. I made pumpkin and coconut milk bisque. The only "exotic" ingredient was garam masala, a mix of Indian spices. It was very easy to make and very tasty. Big success. The only downside is that I'll be expected to cook more often in future!