Jane Green's Blog, page 133

Spinach and Chickpea Coconut Curry

The easiest dish in the world, and SO good

1 can chickpeas drained and rinsed (or 2 cups home cooked)

1 can organic diced tomatoes

2 medium potatoes, cut into small cubes, parboiled

Good handful of torn up spinach leaves (about 2 to 3 cups)

5 cloves (or one eighth teaspoon ground cloves)

1.5 teaspoon turmeric

1 can coconut milk

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 teaspoon salt

Directions:

Combine everything in a saucepan and simmer 30 minutes. Serve with rice or pita.

Almost Flourless Orange Cake with Marmalade

Almost Flourless Orange Cake with Marmalade
Ingredients
1 orange
3 eggs
1 cup confectioners' sugar
¼ cup plain flour, sifted
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup ground almonds
½ cup marmalade
Icing sugar for dusting
Optional: small carton whipping cream, rind of 1 orange
Method
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease an 8″ springform cake tin and line it with greaseproof paper.
Put the orange in a pan, cover with water and simmer for 1 hour (or nuke in a microwave for around 25 minutes) until soft. Cut the orange...

Jane and Hugh do lunch…

I am back from London, back from cooking lunch for Hugh Grant. I can't tell you all about it yet, because I have written a piece for Parade magazine, but when it is out - in December I think - I will post it.

However, I will just say this...

He was utterly delightful - generous, thoughtful, and disarmingly good company.

He is welcome to come to my kitchen for lunch any. Time. He. Wants.

The food (on to more important stuff...) was entirely delish: Roasted tenderloin of pork with fig, prosciutto a...

Camel Coats

Everywhere I look I am being told that this season's essential buy, the one thing that you must have in your closet if you are to be taken seriously as even an amateur fashionista, is a camel coat.

I love camel coats. I have found myself salivating over pictures of women in drapey, soft, buttery camel coats, and I am longing to join the in-crowd with a camel coat of my own.

But here's the problem: I don't actually go anywhere. Ten years in the suburbs has found me fully embracing suburban...

All is not lost, Katie

I have spent far too much time worrying about Katie Holmes. I know I shouldn't, I do not know the girl after all, but she seems to have given her daughter an inordinate amount of power and choice. I have known children who have been treated as precious adults from the get-go, and they have continued to throw tantrums when they do not get their way, long past the age when they should have done. I once had a seventy-year-old man throw a toddler tantrum in my kitchen, that was so shocking, we...

Could you take your phone conversation outside?

According to Gawker.com, a team of researchers at Cornell University have definitely proved that hearing a cell-phone conversation is infinitely more distracting than hearing a regular conversation, because it is a "half-a-logue" which is less predictable, therefore requires more brain power to ignore.

It doesn't help, presumably, when the person in question is practically shouting in a quiet space. I am astonished at the lack of manners when it comes to cell phones. I am regularly with...

Delicious things I have cooked recently

Beloved had his annual high school reunion the other weekend, whereupon a pack of men stepped over the threshold of our house and instantly regressed to teenagers. I love these men, almost as much as I love Beloved, but the wives had decided to wisely stay away, apart from one brave soul, and I thought it best to provide lots of food and drink, then disappear and leave them to it.

I had recently read an article in one of the English papers listing best summer recipes. I wish I could remember w...

My most favorite things in the world…

This past weekend Beloved got stuck in Massachusetts, and I got stuck at home. I wasn't entirely stuck - I saw my Boyfriends on Saturday for lunch, then ran back and forth between our two houses, both of us building and renovating, then ran into an old friend in Trader Joe's, and persuaded her back for a cup of English Tea. I knew it would work because she lived in London for a long time, and although firmly ensconced back home, where she grew up, her Anglophile tendencies are strong, and...

Venus Flytraps in my garden

I have spent the Summers of years gone by ankle-deep in dirt, weeding the garden, and eating all the produce it yields: tomatoes, cucumbers, edamame, corn, lettuce, onions, radishes, garlic, squash, eggplant, beets, brussel sprouts, cabbages, melons and so on.

Since living in the rental for the past four years, I have also been fighting a losing battle with the deer and the critters. They lie in wait the day before the tomatoes are ready to be picked, and swoop in to steal them all. I haven't ...

The End of Summer

I have had a glorious summer this year. Lots and lots of time with The Smalls, lots of hanging out at the town pool and the beach, lots of bike rides, and lots of hanging out.

Last year, Summer whizzed by in a flash. I kept meaning to have some lazy time with the family, but I never seemed to leave my house, and all of a sudden, it was Fall, and too late. But this year I was present. We didn't go anywhere, other than zig-zagging across the country for book tour in June and July, and turned...