White chocolate coeur à la crème for Cook the Books

I am a contrary soul. Ask almost anyone and they will tell you that I almost invariably go left just because everyone else is going right. It means I haven't read The Kite Runner or The Da Vinci Code. And it means that I have never read Orangette, Molly Wizenburg's blog (or in fact any of the other "must-read" blogs. Must-read? Not for me!)

It means that the current Cook the Books bookclub selection, Molly Wizenburg's book, A Homemade Life, was an entirely unknown quantity for me.

What a treat it was! Warm, funny, very moving, it's a series of short pieces that hang together as autobiography, interspersed with recipes.

There were a number of dishes I wanted to try, and in fact a number I have and still will, but it wasn't long before I realised that it had to be the white chocolate coeur à la crème. Unlike Molly, I don't have a strong association between the 80s and white chocolate (I thought the 80s was all about kiwi fruit with meat and strawberry vinaigrette) but I do have strong nostalgia for coeur à la crème.

More than 20 years ago I bought my mother a set of coeur à la crème moulds (was it for a birthday or Christmas? That I cannot remember). She memorably used them (I think following the traditional Elizabeth David recipe, which is slightly savoury and contains whipped eggwhites) for my aunt's wedding lunch, and served them with pears poached in red wine. Although actually I can't remember if that was the same occasion.

So my mother actually has the right kit for these delights (which, just in case she is wondering, would go very nicely with sauternes if she is planning a birthday menu for Bill...). I don't. But I do have an actual proper cheese-making mould from my Forging Fromage endeavours.

A small amount of melted white chocolate is whisked through cream cheese and folded into whipped cream, then the mixture is drained in cheesecloth-lined moulds overnight so it becomes firm enough to turn out, yet light and luscious as a mousse. Unfortunately at the 11th hour I realised that I had run out of cheesecloth, so I had to line my mould with my jellybags, the seams of which left some pretty deep indentations in my glorious pudding.

In Molly's book, she serves this with a berry puree (there were lots of berry purees in the 80s. Ubiquitously called coulis). I served it with some rhubarb compote. Unfortunately I managed to make the rhubarb completely inedible - no idea what went wrong but it was horrible. The coeur à la crème, however, was divine.

Meat Free Monday: Crispy tofu & spicy tomato sauce

Jamie Oliver's The Nicest Pan-Baked Sole begat Deb's Pan-Baked Tofu begat this. Which actually doesn't resemble either of the other dishes except in that there is a tomato-based sauce!

I made a spicy tomato sauce with lots of pickled hot wax chilli, capers, garlic and basil, with an extra kick of smoked hot sauce. While that simmered until it was quite thick and fairly dry I sliced a block of smoked almond and sesame tofu into steaks, dusted them with cornflour and fried them in a little vegetable oil until they were nicely crisped. Placed the tofu on the sauce and served immediately.

Onions baked with parmesan and cream

The title says it all really - par boiled onions, bathed in seasoned cream and parmesan, baked until bubbly and divine and the cream thickens to a gorgeous rich sauce. It's a Nigel Slater recipe, and the man does know what he is doing. Although, bizarrely, there is no mention of nutmeg which is just wrong really. Of all things, onions, cream and parmesan love nutmeg. So I added a good grating of fresh nutmeg when I seasoned it.

With all that divine decadence (™ Sally Bowles), you only need very simple (not to say bland) flavours alongside. A roasted chicken, with lots of garlic, a big pile of peas. You don't even need butter on the peas, and it is not often I say that!

Sandwich heaven - torta

Continuing my love-affair with Mexican Food Made Simple... I cannot believe I hadn't had a torta before! A split ciabatta bun, toasted in the chorizo juices, laden with refried beans (and as an aside, I can't believe how good homemade refried beans are!) avocado, lettuce, coarsely-chopped fresh tomato salsa. A curl of freshly-grilled chorizo. A little chipotle mayo. Heaven.

It's a very clever combination of ingredients. The earthy beans, creamy avocado and sparkling acid salsa are equal players with the crisp refreshing lettuce, fatty, spicy sausage and subtle fire of the chipotle mayo. All conveniently encased in a sandwich thick enough to keep your fingers moderately clean.

I am particularly proud of this one because I entered it in a competition on Thomasina Miers' facebook page and it won. My prize funded an extremely pleasant dinner at the Covent Garden Wahaca, which was a celebration of the fact that Paul now has a job in London, so not only does he get to come home every night, but we can also do extremely decadent things like meet up after work for a meal!

I am also hoping I can sneak this under the wire to Deb's Kahakai Kitchen for her Souper Sunday (soups, salads and sammies) round-up!

Chilli chilli bang bang

Thanks for your comments everyone - the panic is over, our photos are not lost. Unfortunately, the entire Windows operating system seems to have died, so I am trying to figure out Gimp for my photos etc.

It also seems that Chromium + Blogger is not a good mix - it seems to be ridiculously complicated to position my photos in posts now! So I apologise if the formatting of my posts is a bit whacky for a while.

When I came home to discover that a small, hairy animal had walloped one of our Hungarian Hot Wax chillis, I suddenly had to find a use for a large quantity of them.

We'd been talking about slicing some to

pickle, like a jalapeno, so I made a

couple of jars of those. I didn't really work from a recipe, I just read the label on the jar of commercial jalapenos in the pantry. I packed the sliced chillis into hot sterilised jars and poured over boiling pickle

(vinegar, salt, peppercorns and a touch of calcium chloride), then as the slices floated I packed in more.

I left them for a fortnight before we tasted them, and I am extremely happy with the result! They aren't quite as firey as our jalapenos, but the flavour and texture is exactly right.

I also made a jar of chilli relish. This was inspired by my brother-in-law's pizza relish,

a versatile, pungent mixture of minced chillis and garlic, the precise recipe for which is a closely guarded secret.

My version is not a closely guarded secret.

Hungarian Hot Wax Relish

6 or 7 Hungarian Hot Wax chillis - still green but beginning to change colour

6 or 7 cloves of garlic, peeled

1tbs coarse salt

75ml white wine vinegar

Grind the chillis, garlic, salt and vinegar to a chunky puree. Place in a small saucepan, bring just to the boil. Pack into a hot, sterilised jar and store in the fridge.

So far, this relish has appeared on burgers, in a toasted brioche with cheese and a fried egg, has enveloped prawns for some delicious tacos, and has snuggled up with mozzarella and gorgonzola in some killer quesadillas. I actually need to make another jar PDQ, with the rate we are getting through this one.

I won't let the cat harvest the chillis this time though.

Technical difficulties

Please enjoy this picture from Urchin's kittenhood while we establish whether every photo we have ever taken is gone forever...

Leftovers: chicken rice with nuoc cham

This was basically this Diana Henry recipe, although I didn't have enough leftover chicken, so I augmented the protein with a thin, rolled Chinese-style omelette. I also added thinly sliced carrots and red peppers to the dressing to give a nice salady crunch to the warm, soothing rice.

Very satisfying, very delicious!