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Supper Club: Recipes and notes from the underground restaurant
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MsMarmiteLover’s Secret Tea Party
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V is for Vegan
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Get Started in Food Writing: Teach Yourself
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Organic Carrot Cookbook
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MsMarmiteLover aka Kerstin Rodgers.

Chef, photographer, author, journalist, blogger. Pioneer of the supperclub movement.

This is my food and travel blog, with recipes, reviews and travel stories. I also stray into politics, feminism, gardening.

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msmarmitelover

Aubergines or eggplant is one of my favourite vege

Aubergines or eggplant is one of my favourite vegetables & they do last a while in the fridge. Here I’ve made a fried aubergine sandwich something I had in a Sicilian market. It’s filling, simple & delicious. Many people do not like aubergines because of the texture but simply fried in olive oil, it is soft in the interior with a crispy ‘rind’. Recipe: cut 🍆into slices. Don’t bother salting or draining, modern cultivars aren’t bitter & don’t need it. Then fry gently in olive oil, a few at a time, not overcrowding the pan, sprinkle salt. Cut a slice of bread, scrape with a garlic clove, then a cut tomato. Add the aubergine slices on top. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, maybe a drizzle of balsamic. Eat cold or warm but warm is better. #lockdownlarder #quarantinecooking #pretendyouareonholiday #simplefood #solunch #isolationfood #eggplantrecipe #vegetarian #vegan #sunnydayrecipe #supperclub #sicilianfood

At least I can look outside. #lockdown #selfisolat

At least I can look outside. #lockdown #selfisolation #mygarden #england #spring #supperclub #darkskies #london #covid2020

Flour drawer: Coconut flour, gluten free, really d

Flour drawer:
Coconut flour, gluten free, really dry
Tapioca flour, bought to make vegan cheese
Tapioca starch
Plain flour
Maslin flour, Cumbrian millers magic, rye & wheat
Stoneground flour from Winchester city mill
Chestnut flour, sweet, used in cakes
Veg suet, for steamed puddings
Cornflour, for sauces and to thicken
Xanthan gum, good to add to gf flour to add stretchiness
Baking powder, raising agent
Arrowroot, for sauces, thickener
Green pea flour from hodmedods,
Fava flour from hodmedods
Yellow pea flour from hodmedods
All pulse flour is high protein, can be added to shakes
Chapati wheat flour
Buckwheat flour, gf,
Rice flour, for tempura batter, for age dashi tofu, for Vietnamese baguettes
Gram (chickpea) flour, for chapati, pakora
Polenta, for cakes & a savoury porridge (add cheese & butter)
Coarse semolina, to add texture to bread, focaccia
Gluten, to make seitan & high protein burgers
Water chestnut flour, not to be confused with chestnut flour, used in Asian cooking as a thickener
Blue grits, from blue corn, to make America grits, a kind of savoury porridge
Cal, from Mexico, to nixtamalise corn for tortillas
Graham flour, coarse wholewheat flour for pastry, cookies, cereal
Tsampa flour, barley flour from Tibet, used toasted on dishes and in salty tea
Sour starch, cheesy football Brazilian flour
Poppadom flour, urad dal flour, for poppadoms. Not perfected this yet,
Oat flour, for baking & oatcakes
Quinoa flour, gf, baking & yeast free breads such as soda bread
Matzo flour, Jewish ingredient for Passover when you can’t use normal flour: makes matzoh balls & in baking
Potato starch, used to make noodles, crisps, pao de quiejo ( Brazilian) and to coat & separate foods like wine gums
Tempura flour, rice flour for tempura
Spelt flour, perfect to create a sourdough starter, for bread
Swedish crisp bread flour, dark rye
Dark rye flour
White rye flour, bread
00 Italian wheat flour, for pasta 13g protein
Strong bread white wheat flour
Self raising flour
Sponge flour, extra fine self raising for cakes
The water mill Cumbrian granarius malted flour, really tasty wheat flour with malt flakes, made bagels
Fine semolina, for bread
Coarse semolina, ditto-

Leftover Carb and pulse drawer list: White star m

Leftover Carb and pulse drawer list:

White star maize meal from South Africa
Fruit and nuts muesli- nuts eaten
Porridge oats
Trahana, flavoured with mastiha, a Greek pasta that wasn’t very nice (even though I like mastiha)
Instant mashed potato, best before may 2011
Kasha, boil in the bag, Russian grain made from beet. Lots of protein. Boil, use in soups, stews, salads, stuff vegetables.
Quick cook organic grains & pulses, wasn’t very nice tbh but for soups & stews
Quick cook millet, peas & lentils, not very nice. Ditto.
Half box of matzoh, ok as dessert (https://msmarmitelover.com/2019/04/margot-bakery-queen-of-sourdough.html)
Condensed milk rusks from South Africa, quite nice
Yoki manioc starch from Brazil, good to make cheesy balls (https://msmarmitelover.com/2014/06/brazilian-cookery-cheesy-footballs.html)
Pearl barley, for soup or barley water
Rice vermicelli, for salads or soups or to be fried
Sardinian fregola tostata, like pasta, great for salads
Stellete pasta stars, great for soups
Couscous, great for salads or quick carb with stew (tagine) (https://msmarmitelover.com/2013/02/proper-couscous.html)
Quinoa, white, rinse then use as quick carb/protein
Red rice flour, used during Sri Lankan phase, need to look it up
South African samp, boil this carb
Carob pasta, use like pasta
Bulgur wheat, quick carb, use for tabouleh salad or quick carb (https://msmarmitelover.com/2013/04/recipe-bulgar-wheat-quinoa-salad-wi.html)
Long grain rice
Green tea jasmine sprouted rice, cook like rice
Black Venus rice, soak before cooking
Sushi rice, use like rice, similar to risotto or make hand rolls with sushi(add rice vinegar and rice wine for flavouring), or simple cook/steam and add protein, seeds such as sesame or Japanese sprinkles
Protein:
Curd sticks, soak and add to soups or stir fried
Black Calabrian chickpeas, need a lot of soaking. Good for stews, salads, but quite nutty & firm. (https://msmarmitelover.com/2016/11/parched-peas-for-bonfire-nig.html)
Split chick peas or chana dal, no need to soak, boil, use for soup or dal with spices.
Hodmedods whole yellow peas, soak, boil. Make dal, curry or soup.
Urid dal, washed, rinse several tunes, soak for 30 mins, cook.

Leftovers during the lockdown. I think my culinary

Leftovers during the lockdown. I think my culinary superpower is to use up leftovers. My only fresh food is blood oranges 🍊 so I’m creating a cucina povera Italian bread salad with oranges and ingredients such as sweet onion, stale sourdough, and from my pantry: anchovies in olive oil, salt, pepper and olive oil. Cut finely, toss together and leave for a while to mingle and soften. You can of course substitute oranges with lettuce leaves, or finely sliced fennel or chicory or whatever you’ve got that can be eaten raw. #livevideo on instastories now. #panzanella #lockdownlarder #substitutions #londonlockdown #leftovers #salad #stalebread #sourdough #supperclub #homecooking #askmeanything

Green veg that last: chicory/endive, cabbages, Bru

Green veg that last: chicory/endive, cabbages, Brussels sprouts, cauliflowers, root vegetables, are useful during the lockdown. Yesterday I made a chicory gratin: half the chicory hearts, make a white sauce, add mustard, add cheese, cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Take foil off, add a little more cheese and brown. Serve hot. #coronacooking #quarantinecookery #lockdownlarder #makenicedinners #eatyourveg #virtualsupperclub #supperclub #vegetarian #gratin #bittergreens #keepingyourspiritsup #selfisolation

My daughter @siennamarla editor of Labour List on

My daughter @siennamarla editor of Labour List on @bbcnews The Papers this morning with call outs for mum as self-employed with no sick pay during #Coronavirus, whether to visit grandparents and also good ole Kilburn high rd! #selfemployed #precarity #coronavirusuk #thenews #bbc #beautifulintelligentdaughter #onthetelly #lockdown #london #kilburn #politics

Another castella cake, this time with matcha green

Another castella cake, this time with matcha green tea flavouring and even lighter and airier. #japan #nagasaki #baking #cake #travelrecipes #castellacake #teatime #afternoontea #portuguesecake

Castella cake. A Portuguese influenced cake popula

Castella cake. A Portuguese influenced cake popular in Nagasaki, which is cooked over a Bain-marie, sabayon style, before baking, which gives a ‘cottony’ texture. Most recipes say it’s better after a couple of days and I found that to be the case. Rather good with a glass of sherry! I would like the correct mould for this- usually it’s a long narrow loaf tin or more accurately wooden box, but next time I visit Japan it’ll be on my shopping list. The Japanese are brilliant at western style baking but somehow they make it even lighter and fluffier. Recipe on the blog soon. Going to try a matcha version. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^#japan #castellacake #nagasaki #baking #cake #foodblogger #foodietraveller #msmarmitelover #traveljapan #chef #18thcenturyjapan #jrrailpass #solowomantraveller #dutchcolony #dejima #japan2020 #recipegatherer

Dekopon, Japanese citrus. It’s literally the mos

Dekopon, Japanese citrus. It’s literally the most mandarin flavour I’ve ever tasted. It’s hard to describe other than you won’t have tasted this kind of intense mandarin flavour since you were a child. I brought this back from japan, each fruit is quite expensive. It has this characteristic ’topknot’ on top. *****
#japanesecitrus #dekopon #citrus #winterfruit #japan #mandarin #foodblogger #foodietraveller #msmarmitelover #wintertravel #ingredients #globalingredients

The Udon House in kagawa, Shikoku. I did a masterc

The Udon House in kagawa, Shikoku. I did a masterclass in udon making which was an interesting experience which I highly recommend. You learn to make wheat flour udon noodles in the traditional way, they are a speciality in this province. Thick, chewy, slippery, most locals eat udon several times a day, in all their different forms. The traditional method means kneading with your feet, with those cute bi-toed socks. Then a series of complicated and fascinating manoeuvres - forming a chrysanthemum, then a hot cross bun, then rolled around a long rolling pin, two periods of resting for the dough, then finally cutting it into equal width strips. We also learnt how to make the classic dashi stock with kombucha and bonito. More info to come on this when I write it up. I want to return to this island. @udonhouseinsetouchi

Onsen, beppu. On the island of #Kyushu, japan, a t

Onsen, beppu. On the island of #Kyushu, japan, a town called beppu has an onsen tour, a hot springs tour, where you can get a local bus from one onsen to another. There are blue, red and sand baths: the blue is sulphur baths, where the water is a milky blue with an eggy sulphuric smell. The sulphur is made in small A framed thatched huts from the natural spring waters. The red is bubbling hot terracotta mud. The Japanese buy this mud to use as face packs. The sand bath, which I experienced, was one of the most bizarre things- you are clad in a Yakuta, a summer kimono, you lay down on hot sand facing the sea, an assistant covers you from head to foot, leaving only your face uncovered, with hot heavy sand and leaves you for 15 minutes. You feel your body pulsating, your heart beating hard, you feel enclosed but secure. 15 minutes feels like an hour. Then the assistant digs you out and you go for a shower in your cotton kimono. Beppu is a town full of steam: people cook their dinner at the onsen in baskets placed over steam chutes from the ground. I saw Japanese nibbling on sulphur steamed eggs. Elsewhere in town, you can visit communal steam kitchens, where you take your raw ingredients to be cooked in steam ovens, stacked in bamboo baskets. Steam pumps out from every orifice in the town, from manholes, from grates, from gaps in the rocks. I will be writing about all of this on my blog Msmarmitelover.com but giving you snippets of my journey through japan. My only question is: when can I return? #beppu #onsen #steambaths #sulphurbaths #steamcooking #steamkitchen

Japanese pancakes ‘dorayaki’ a bit like scotch

Japanese pancakes ‘dorayaki’ a bit like scotch pancake sandwiches. I’ve filled them with thick cream and South African bubblegum plums or pluots, only available for a few weeks in February. For the ham and high #shrovetuesday column. #japaneserecipes #japanesepancakes #dorayaki #recipe #pancakeday #sando #japaninspiration #foodstyling #iphoneography #plums #pluots #southafricanfruit #stonefruit #winterfruit #scotchpancakes

My new Japanese knife, slices through plants like

My new Japanese knife, slices through plants like butter. Bought in a shop in Kyoto. Patina on the knife like pools of rain, Japanese steel. Tropical wood handle. It won’t need sharpening for six months. In Japanese there are 500 words for cutting. “A samurais sword is his soul”. Yeah I watched Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai on the plane. #japan #travel #knives #kitchentools #samuraikitchen #foodtraveller #chef #cook #solowomantraveller #knifecollection #vegetableknife #vegetarian #supperclub #japanesefood #plantfoodninja #home #kitchenalia

Nagasaki atomic bomb monument #slideshow ▶️ th

Nagasaki atomic bomb monument #slideshow ▶️ this was incredibly moving but also interesting. You see neither clocks 🕰 clothing burnt and shredded down the side that was facing the blast up to 2 kms away, origami cranes in brightly coloured chains that are a symbol for prayers. Imagine this was an early prototype- any bomb dropped now would have an even more devastating result. I’ve always been utterly against nuclear energy- went to greenham common- it’s beyond human control. Too dangerous. The most affecting are the stories from survivors- Japanese but also prisoners of war that were being held there. I chose to go to #Nagasaki rather than Hiroshima because there is a life beyond the atomic tragedy there, a vibrant interesting city full of colour and culture. The yellow cake is castella, a Portuguese influenced cake that is popular here. The manhole lids leading up to the museum were so pretty. Is it Jeremy corbyn that collects manhole lids? He’d love japan. They make everything pretty here- everything from the humblest locker to a manhole to a pack of sugar. Details, form and aesthetics are important here which is lovely to see. #solotraveller #darktourism #japan #atomicbomb #nuclearbomb #travel #southernjapan #memorial #origamicranes #survivors #femaletraveller

Dejima, reconstructed ex Dutch colony from the 18t

Dejima, reconstructed ex Dutch colony from the 18th century. A mix of colonial and Japanese architecture- I love the colours and wallpapers. Each house smells of wood. Originally dejima was an island- so foreigners were kept off the mainland of japan. Dutch traders sold bars of copper and spices to the west. #nagasaki #dejima #18thcenturyjapan #historicalarchtecture #dutchcolony #copper #japan #history #travel #solofemaletraveller #slideshow #carousel ▶️

Chinese New Year becomes a 15 day lantern festival

Chinese New Year becomes a 15 day lantern festival in Nagasaki. It was sheer luck I turned up then. I’ve been travelling without a plan- just hopping on a train and booking my next accommodation while on said train. Bit stressful but it leads to lucky coincidences and the odd disaster. I love to research but this time I deliberately didn’t- wanting to be surprised every day. The question I’m most frequently asked- how did you know about this place? What gave you the idea? Japan is incredibly safe for a solo woman to travel. So taking risks, even in winter, is doable here. #carousel ▶️ #lovenagasaki #travelingsolo #japan #jrrailpass #lanternfestival #nagasaki #cny #yearoftherat #chinesenewyear #japan2020
#portcities #traveljapan #independenttraveller #solofemaletraveller.

I loved #Nagasaki. I love most port cities, they h

I loved #Nagasaki. I love most port cities, they have a special atmosphere. The atomic bomb museum was interesting & moving. I was lucky to arrive during the lantern festival which lasts 15 days after Chinese New Year. Nagasaki has one of the biggest Chinese communities in japan. It’s always been more open to outsiders. I also visited dejima the ex Dutch colony which has been rebuilt as the original. More pix from Nagasaki soon- such an interesting city. Very friendly too. #travel #nuclearbomb #memorial #japan #nagasaki #lanternfestival #cny #chinesenewyear #dejima #solotraveller #pink #incredibleview #instajapan #iphoneography

Sayonara ine no funaya. One of Japan’s most char

Sayonara ine no funaya. One of Japan’s most charming villages, rows of wooden boathouses or funaya, fronting onto the glittering sea. #travel #japan #boathouse #village #funaya #beachhutstyle #solotravel #exploringjapan #femaletraveller #seaside #coast

The pleasures of a good hotel. I stayed for one pr

The pleasures of a good hotel. I stayed for one precious night of luxury at @sowaka.hotel in Kyoto. From the welcome drink presentation ( champagne or nigari sake?) to the toiletries, tea set and complimentary Japanese pyjamas, it was exquisite. The wooden bathtub, the silk and rice paper sliding doors, the scent of cedar wood? In the middle of the night I woke up and saw the Japanese garden lit up like a living painting. In the restaurant I was treated to a rare and very expensive performance by geisha ( who are called geiko in Kyoto). They start training at 15, and are called meiko. They have real hair, and it takes 3 hours to get ready. Their kimonos cost a million yen. They aren’t allowed to wash their hair. They must sleep on a hard Japanese pillow. If they get married they must leave the profession. #travel #japan #kyoto #solofemaletraveler #luxurytravel #geisha #traditionaljapan #sake #japanesecuisine #kaiseki #foodietraveller #hotel #boutiquehotel #gifted #pressstay @labombance_gion @sowaka.hotel

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