who only by moving can balance

This has become a bit of a staple of our rotation for when the veg box is made of brassica, and also brassica, and finally some brassica (I do frequently actively opt in to this, to be clear, but also... brassica). However! As you might have noticed, I have just developed a special interest in picking things up and putting things down again, and this in turn means I am going hmm about eating more protein.

When previously mentioning this recipe I have noted that As Usual my household thinks it wants about twice as much veg as written for the quantity of noodle. To this the protein variation essentially adds: some tofu that you've tossed with soy sauce and five-spice or other flavouring of your choice and then baked; and some edamame beans.

Base recipe can be found at Ocado or the Graun, and a fuller write-up will appear under a cut at Some Point in the Hopefully Near future (if only so the instructions are in the order that I want them to be in!).

I have introduced my mother to this, I have introduced the Child's household to this, I am writing it down because clearly It Is Time for me to do so.

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At the weekend we made a mildly unusual detour to a fancy local bakery; one of the things they had on the shelves about which I went "oooh" was fig, hazelnut & anise bread. So that flavour combination (plus some spelt) was went into the oven this morning!

The way bread normally works around here is that I make it, via the Ritual Question of Do You Have Any Breadferences (Bread Preferences). To facilitate this call and response, A List of our Usual Options, doubtless to be added to. Suggestions welcome. :)

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This morning I had Physio at The Hospital Up The Road, which is a really good way to get me to actually go to the allotment (which is round the back of the hospital site, so the way this usually goes is I cycle to the allotment, drop my bike off, and then cut through to the opposite side of the site where Physio Happens, thereby not needing to faff about with bike locks).

Upon my return from physio (which was not... great; I got probably-a-cold two and a half weeks ago and my cardiovascular-respiratory situation is still Distinctly Not Happy) I actually paid slightly closer attention to my saffron bed -- the last couple of trips I've been all "ugh, nothing doing, I should really weed but UGH clearly the saffron has all DIED yes I KNOW that this is the traditional time of year for me to be convinced that The Saffron Has Died only to discover--" and indeed not only were there multiple clumps of saffron, most of them have flowers that are clearly going to happen Any Moment Now.

So today I have come home with six saffron strands, and am expecting A Bunch More, and have reinspected the saffron containers on the patio and established that one of those has them starting to come up as well -- and so now, obviously, I need to work out what to do with the RIDICULOUS RICHES represented by... maybe like two dozen strands of saffron. (Yes I also have a stash of shop-bought.)

Saffron & bay custard tarts with sticky blackberries? More saffron and cardamom panettone pudding (which we know we like)? Saffron rice pudding? All the saffron recipes from Sweet, which is possibly going to be my next cook-(almost)-all-the-way-through project? Lebovitz's saffron ice cream, to go with the planned quince sorbet? Saffron buns? Literally any of the obvious savoury options??? SO MUCH CHOICE.

Subtitle 50 irresistibly nostalgic sweet treats and comforting classics... featuring "Trinity burnt cream":

Also known as crème brûlée, old recipes for versions of this pudding are found in various parts of Britain and Europe. Its association with Trinity College, Cambridge goes back to at least the nineteenth century.

Despite my documented interest in crème brûlée and, you know, having grown up in Cambridge, I had somehow never come across this before?! And yet it's inexplicably clearly attested on Wikipedia. Nominally this means I should probably be indexing the "Ethnicity" of the dish as "English" as well as "French" but, frankly, je refuse, and even Trinity have the grace to say:

The story that crème brûlée itself was invented at the College almost certainly has no basis in fact.

It's not even like the National Trust is making a point of having all the recipes in this book be of British origin! Clearly-identified non-British culinary sources include Italy, Latvia, and Russia! (... the Welsh- and Scottish-origin puddings have headnotes mysteriously quiet on said origins, though.) AND YET. Crème brûlée! Trinity! Really.

Arancini. The small balls of risotto coated in breadcrumbs and then deep fried.

*Little oranges*.

This is not in any way an obscure or difficult to look up etymology, and yet somehow it was not until yesterday, on the tube, that I suddenly needed to look up from the book I was reading and *stare*.

(Earlier this week -- no, wait, late last week -- I was indexing a cookbook that included arancini. This week I am reading *The Land Where Lemons Grow*, because it's mostly a history of citrus cultivation in Italy with occasional recipes, so I wanted to read it Properly before indexing it and getting rid of it again. Apparently what it took for me to Have A Realisation was the combination in temporal proximity...)

I am working my way through cooking (almost) everything from East. I'm at the point where the major limiting factor is seasonality of specific ingredients (and my willingness to buy out-of-season, or lack thereof) -- so herewith recipes organised by Key Ingredient, for reminding myself of closer to the time. [This post lists 61 recipes!]

(Why like this? In part because I haven't worked out how to make EYB display to me the set of recipes from a cookbook that I haven't yet made...)

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Currently open in tabs: 12 cookbooks currently available via Oxfam Online, of which: one is a potential Project (Ottolenghi Flavour; I hadn't realised that it was entirely vegetarian or trivially renderable vegetarian); one is another Ottolenghi I have not looked through the contents of yet; one is entitled Mochi et Autres Pâtisseries Japonaises, which I am kind of fascinated by but probably won't be buying; and the remainder are ones that... have not yet been indexed on EatYourBooks, sufficiently interesting to me that I wouldn't mind doing the work but sufficiently uninteresting that I expect they'd then go straight back to a charity shop. (Okay, I say that but there are at least two exceptions.) They are at least mostly under a fiver?

I have made it to the end of page 10 of 60. With any luck a bunch of them will have sold by the time I've managed to finalise an order.

(No, my first indexed book has not yet been approved or indeed fed back upon. Yes, this means I still can't request to be permitted to index any of the ten or so currently in my stack and also, crucially, my possession. Also, there is some standard boilerplate that goes on the end of responses to e-mails: "Any time you have questions or suggestions, please email us - we love to hear from members." The co-founder replying to my e-mails has stopped including it.)

I have been gradually, ah, accumulating parsnips courtesy of the veg box. I... very much needed to Do Things with them.

Therefore today has featured smitten kitchen's honey & harissa farro salad and, also, soup.

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Things I have not made: the Dan Lepard ginger root cake; the Vanilla Black cookbook parsnip and hazelnut and Horlicks cake; the Ottolenghi parsnip and pecan cake with aniseed and orange. Things I did also make: the Waitrose 202...1? calendar self-saucing passion fruit pudding (because there were discount passion fruit and I Know What I Like And It's This), which on this occasion we are eating with discount custard rather than home-made cardamom yoghurt...