V is for vegetables, and what a lot of those we have to choose from!  Not only do we have home grown varieties but many, many imported vegetables that would never have been seen a few years ago.  There is a big drive now to reduce the ‘food miles’ by buying locally grown produce instead of items that have travelled a great distance before arriving on our shop shelves.  One of the best places to buy freshly grown local produce is your local farmers’ market.  A search on the internet will give you a directory of farmers’ markets in your local area, or look for local farm shops that sell produce grown on their own land.

Vegetables can be eaten raw, as crudites often served with dips, or can be cooked in a variety of different ways.  Steaming is the best way to cook most vegetables as this method preserves the goodness that is otherwise lost by the direct contact with water that you get from boiling.  Roasting is another way to cook vegetables, and also frying as in stir fry.  You should never over cook your veg; al dente, or firm to eat, is the ideal as more goodness is left in the produce.

A really tasty vegetable recipe that is high in iron is spinach with chickpeas.  Heat a little oil in a frying pan and cook 4 crushed garlic cloves and half a diced onion until they are translucent.  Stir in 300g of spinach and a 400g tin of drained chickpeas, adding half a teaspoon of cumin and half a teaspoon of salt to the mix before lightly mashing the chickpeas as they heat through.  This is great as a side dish accompanying pork chops and is served in many Spanish tapas bars with crusty bread.

Words beginning with V not immediately associated with food and eating include:

• vandyke, which is to make a ‘v’ shaped cut or a zig zag pattern around the circumference of a fruit of vegetable.  It is also said to be a dish made with triangle shaped toast, pastry or potato eaten in 17th century England, the name referring to the pointed beard of popular artist Sir Anthony Vandyke (1599 – 1641),
• venus, a commonly used name for a cockle amongst shell fish sellers, however the venus is actually a clam, not a cockle.

T is for tomato, and one of my recent discoveries is the tinned organic cherry tomatoes.  I love them and they are wonderful to cook with.  Indeed if you find any recipe that says ‘add chopped tomatoes’ try adding the these cherry tomatoes instead, they are really good.  I also now cook with fresh cherry tomatoes instead of other tomato varieties.  I use the cherry tomatoes whole.  They cook wonderfully and are full of flavour.

A quick and simple starter is tomato, mozarella and basil salad.  Slice your tomatoes and slice a round ball of mozarella.  Layer the slices on a plate, alternating between tomato and mozarella, then tear some fresh basil leaves and sprinkle over the top, drizzle with a little olive oil, then sprinkle  coarse freshly ground black peppercorns on top of the olive oil.  Serve with crusty bread to soak up all the lovely juices.  A simple and tasty starter, especially good for a hot summer day.

Words beginning with T that are not immediately thought of when considering food and eating include:

• thrush, no longer eaten in England but still eaten in some Mediterranean countries,
• tiddy oggy, a vegetarian Cornish Pasty, replacing the steak with an extra potato, and
• Tom and Jerry, not the cartoon characters but a festive drink in the USA, a variant of eggnog made with brandy and rum and topped with nutmeg.  This drink is served hot.

R is for radish, and its secret life.  Did you know a radish can sprout from seed to a small plant in just 3 days?  With names such as Bunny Tail, Cherry Belle, Champion, Red King, Sicily Giant, Snow Belle, White Icicle, French Breakfast, Plum Purple, April Cross, Black Spanish and the Rat Tailed Radish these salad vegetables offer really good nutritional value, containing vitamin B6, riboflavin, magnesium, copper and calcium, and their exotic names make them appealling to the consumer.  They are also rich in folic acid, ascorbic acid and potassium.  The tops can be eaten as a leaf vegetable, although more commonly used is the bulb.  The seeds of some species can be used to create seed oil , used as a biofuel.  This oilseed radish grow well in cooler climates.  In Mexico they have a festival in December to celebrate the radish.  So you see the humble radish really does have a secret life.

R is also for roast dinner, a must on Sundays, rump steak, which is actually the tastiest cut you can get, although sirloin comes a close second place, and R is for rosti potatoes.  To make your own delicious rosti potatoes peel the potato and place it into a pan of boiling water without cutting it into pieces.  Boil for about 8 minutes so it remains firm.  Place the pan under the cold water tap and cool the potato down quickly.  Get a greased baking sheet and grate the potato so it falls in a small pile on the buttered sheet.  Melt some butter in a pan and drizzle a little of it over the top of the grated potato.  Bake in the oven until the top of the potato is brown and crispy.  This potato goes very well with steamed fish and vegetables.

Words starting with R that you don’t instantly connect with food and eating include:

• rat, a rodent that is not known in the UK for being edible, however it was widely eaten during the seige of Paris in 1870, and is a dietary staple in some parts of Asia.  Eating rat meat was also the main theme in the book King Rat, a 1962 novel by James Clavell,
• reindeer, classified as venison but not really eaten in the UK or Ireland, however other countries such as Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia and Alaska do eat reindeer meat, and
• Rob Roy’s pleasure, a Scottish dish consisting of venison braised with herbs and vegetables and a dash of claret!

Q is for quail, a lovely small game bird that is farmed nowadays.  They are very tasty to eat, although there isn’t much meat on them.  Also quails eggs are very delicious in salads.  They are quite fiddly to peel being so small, but well worth the effort.

A dish that often is not made at home but is simple and tasty, if a little time consuming, is the quiche.  These come in various flavours, the most well known being quiche lorraine, named after a place, not a person.  Quiche lorraine started life as a simple open pie with a bread based crust and containing smoked bacon or lardons, however it has evolved as more ingredients have been added to the popular recipe over time.  Now it is best known for containing bacon, onion and cheese in the egg custard mix that lines the shortcrust pie case.  Some people also add tomato.  Originally this dish was cooked in a cast iron pan and the edges were not crimped.  More often now the dish is cooked in a flan dish and comes out with lovely crimped edges, making the pastry nice and crisp.

To make your own quiche you need to prepare a pastry base first.  This can be made using 175g of plain flour and 75g of butter.  Rub the two ingredients together forming crumbs and then add enough cold water to squeeze the mix into a dough.  Don’t add too much water or the mix becomes a sticky mess!  You can add a little more flour if you feel you’ve overdone the water but don’t go too mad with the flour as you need to have the ratio of flour to butter so the crust crisps.  If you don’t feel confident making pastry you can always buy the ready made version.  Some people like to leave the dough in the fridge overnight before rolling out.  This is quite important if you are a warm handed person, as cold hands make the best pastry because the butter does not melt so much.  Whatever you do make sure you put the rolled pastry case in the fridge in its dish for a few hours before completing the recipe.  It will make the pastry less soggy after cooking.  Now you need to blind bake the case for about 20 minutes in a medium heat oven.  Gas number 5 should do nicely.  (190c/375f).  Line the pastry case with greaseproof paper or baking parchment and weight it down with something, I use balls of the leftover pastry mix, some use baking beans, whatever you use it must not burn when in the oven.  After 20 minutes remove the parchment and return the pastry case to the oven for 5 more minutes.  Leave it out of the oven while you prepare the filling.  To do this fry your bacon so it’s cooked through, and also the other ingredients you are using, be they onion, tomato or anything else that needs cooking.  Put a layer of cheese in the cooked pastry case and add your cooked ingredients on top.  Now beat 5 eggs together with 100ml of milk and 200ml of double cream.  If you like seasoning add salt and pepper before pouring this mixture over the top of the cooked ingredients and cook in the oven for 30-40 minutes, or until your mixture is set, at gas mark 3/160c/325f.  If you like herbs you can sprinkle a couple of sprigs of thyme leaves over the top before cooking.  It adds a unique flavour to the dish.  For a vegetarian option leave out the bacon and instead use tomatoes, onions and cheese.

Words beginning with Q that are not automatically thought of when considering food and cooking include:

• quinine, a drug used to treat malaria, but is also added in small doses to tonic water in both India and the USA for flavour,
• Queensborough, another name for the ugli fruit, discovered by a prominent orchid artist, Henry Queensborough Levy, in Jamaica in the 1920′s.

Definitely one of my favourite times of the year is when Shrove Tuesday comes around and we can eat pancakes with freshly squeezed lemon juice and sugar on them.  It is a popular food in America, with pancakes being eaten all of the time, rather than once a year in February on Shrove Tuesday, as we often do here in the UK.

P is also for pasta, and it comes in many shapes and forms.  One of my favourite pasta dishes is lasagne and the recipe for today is a vegetarian option, spinach and mushroom lasagne.  A lot of people don’t cook lasagne at home but it really is very simple to make.  You need a deep dish so you can put the layers of mix on top of each other.  Heat a little oil in a frying pan and add a  clove of finely chopped garlic.  Give this a minute to soften then add your spinach.  I use a 300g bag of spinach and wash it well before adding it to the pan.  Cook for a couple of minutes until the spinach has softened.  Remove this mix from the pan, add a little more oil, then add another finely chopped clove of garlic and your mushrooms, about the same weight as the spinach will be sufficient.  Cook until your mushrooms are browning.   Next add a tin of chopped tomoatoes and a handful of chopped herbs, basil and oregano work well with this dish.  Add the spinach back into the pan and heat through before removing the pan from the hob.  Now for the sauce.  Some people use cheese sauce or white sauce for the layers, but I think creme fraiche works very well, and there’s less to do as you can use it straight from the tub!  You will need a 4-500ml tub of creme fraiche for this recipe.  Next we need to put it all together, so starting with a layer of lasagne sheets on the bottom of your lightly greased dish, next put a layer of the mushroom and spinach mix, then a layer of creme fraiche and a layer of grated cheddar cheese, repeat this at least once more or twice if you have enough mix, finishing with a layer of pasta with creme fraiche and grated cheese on top in that order.  Bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes, or until the pasta is softened, and serve with garlic bread and a fresh crispy salad.  It really is a quick and simple supper that is tasty and popular.

Words beginning with P that are not instantly associated with foods and cooking terms include:

• packet, a term used in both Cork and Limerick for the Irish black pudding known as drisheen,
• peacock, and the female peahen (known as peafowl, with peachicks being the young), during the medieval period many types of fowl were eaten, in poorer houses common birds such as chicken were consumed, but on the tables of the gentry the more exotic creatures were offered for consumption, and peafowl were commonly eaten,
• Peggy’s leg, a stick of boiled sweet, a bit like rock sold at the seaside, found in Ireland.

O is for onion, that oh so versatile vegetable that we include in a great number of dishes we prepare.  It seems that the humble onion is the base for such a lot of the taste dishes acquire, and yet we don’t give it the credit it is due.  On its own onion is great raw in salads, makes wonderful onion chutney, onion marmalade, onion bread and onion relish, amongst other things.  There are so many uses for our humble onion.

Onions are great with pork and a tasty little recipe is for pork slices with onion.  Slice the onions and slice some lean pork into strips.  Mix half a teaspoon of rice wine, half a teaspoon of cornstarch mixed with water and a quarter teaspoon of salt to make a marinade.  Place the pork slices in it and leave for about 15 minutes.  Fry the onions until soft then add the pork miture and fry until the pork is cooked.  Add another quaarter teaspoon of salt and up to half a teaspoon of cornstarch mixed with water to thicken the sauce.  Don’t foget to keep stirring the frying ingredients to prevent the cornstarch from solidifying.  Serve on a bed of rice or with thread noodles.

O is also for oatcakes, a great Scottish cracker,fairly bland in flavour but great with cheeses, also olive, a strong flavoured fruit that can be eaten alone or mixed in with salads and cooked dishes.  Olives are very popular in mediteranean cooking.

Words begining with the letter O that are not immeidtaely associated with food and eating include:

• oblade (or obladi), not the song by Marmalade (obladi, oblada, life goes on…), but a fish, abundant in the mediteranean and close the the sea bream,
• opossum, a marsupial from the western hemisphere that was once widely eaten in the United States, it is still eaten in South American countries,
• ostrich, although it is more widely known now that ostriches are bred for meat.

N is for nectarine, a gorgeously juicy, sweet fruit that is simply delicious when ripe.  A great and tasty recipe that is so easy to prepare is seared scallops with nectarine and chilli.  Simply fry one chopped nectarine and two finely chopped chillis in a little hot olive oil for 2 to 3 minutes, then add 4 scallops and cook for one minute on each side.  Serve on a small bed of salad leaves with chopped parsley mixed with them.  It’s a delicious starter or double the ingredients for a lunchtime snack with crusty bread.

N is also for noodles, a simple to prepare and filling addition to your meat and vegetable dishes.

‘N’ words not immediately thought of in food and eating terms include:

• nigella, not Nigella Lawson (a great UK chef), but a black seed used in Indian and Middle Eastern cooking as a spice,
• noggin, but not Noggin The Nog, a popular UK children’s programme in the 60′s (yes, I am old enough to remember it!), but a measure, mainly for alcohol,
• nun’s beads, walnut sized balls of blended cheese, egg yolk and breadcrumbs, wrapped in puff pastry and deep fried.

M is for mushroom and something a little bit different this time as I have included a short video of a great and tasty mushroom starter I often use.  It is so simple to make and will impress your guests or family.  For something a little different I sometimes chop slivers of bacon and sprinkle them over the top before cooking.  Mushrooms are so versatile they have a variety of uses in cooking, from raw sliced mushroom in salads to tasty additions to stews and casseroles.  There are also a wide variety of mushrooms available with different tastes and textures.

Things beginning with M that are not automatically thought of when considering food and eating include:

• maid of honour, a small tart whose base is made of creamed butter, sugar, egg, salt and baking powder and filled with a variety of ingredients including flavoured milk curds, and jams mixed with cherries or almonds,
• marigold, both petals and leaves should be eaten, in particular added to salads such as purslane, cucumber and marigold salad – add chopped leeks, basil and any other herbs you have that suit your taste, lemon or lime juice, olive oil and salt and pepper to the chopped ingredients.  The marigolds can be snipped with a pair of scissors.  Toss the ingredients together in a bowl.  Lovely flavours.  Add pine nuts for ‘crunch’ if desired, or shavings of parmesan cheese before mixing.

L is for lemon and a fabulous quick dessert I put on the site a couple of weeks ago, quick lemon cheesecake.  You can watch the video and see how to make this great dessert by clicking here: quick lemon cheesecake.

L is also for lamb, one of my favourite red meats, delicious on its own or in a dish such as neck of lamb hotpot, or lamb casserole.  For added flavour when cooking a leg of lamb joint for dinner, pierce a couple of holes into the lamb and pop a clove of garlic in each hole before roasting.

L is also for latte.  I had to mention that as although it means ‘milk’ in Italian it is one of my favourite drinks here in the UK and I am an expert at spotting latte serving places all over the world!

Words beginning with L that we might not associate with food and eating include:

• lamb’s wool, not the sort you knit a cardy with, but a warming drink made by mixing ale with pureed apple and spices,
• lark, although we don’t eat it today it was apparently was commonly found in pies, roasts, grilled and set in aspic,
• lights, ‘this little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine’ (tell me if you sang along!), a common name in Scotland for the sheep’s lungs used in haggis recipes.

K is for kiwi, a fruit also known as the Chinese gooseberry.  It has a sweet-sour taste and can be added to fruit desserts such as fruit salad, and is especially good in pavlovas.  It is a rich source of vitamin C but can cause stomach irritation in some people when pureed.

K is also for kale, a strong vegetable most people eat boiled or steamed, however I enjoy kale as a vegetarian option with pasta as follows: steam your kale until tender but not too soft then mix in a bowl with pine nuts, feta cheese, halved cherry tomatoes (I find the organic ones far tastier) and pasta, finally drizzling with olive oil, or make a light olive oil dressing by adding red wine vinegar and whole grain mustard to the olive oil and shaking together in a jar before drizzling over the top.  Be sure not to add too much dressing or it will overpower the other flavours.

One thing beginning with K that is not immeidately associated with food and eating is:

• kangaroo, which is a very low fat, red meat, containing less than 2% fat.  It is widely available in Australia and has a unique flavour.  Because of the very low fat content kangaroo has to be cooked carefully, although anything you normally make with beef or lamb can be made with kangaroo meat.