Cooking on gas

During the summer months cooking in our new home was never an issue, meals were easy; thrown together salads, occasional takeaways and plenty of celebratory wine sitting in the garden. With the arrival of the colder months however, the ancient cooker in the outdated orange and brown kitchen has been receiving a lot more attention. The cooker is free standing with a gas hob, gas oven and eye level gas grill plus a number of idiosyncratic limitations. Firstly, only three of the rings on the hob work in a reliable way; the fourth stubbornly refuses to stay lit unless you have about a day to coax it into a stable flame. The oven is spectacularly temperamental (as can be evidenced by my 'overbaked' competitive sausage roll making in a previous post). Close the oven door and the flame either goes out or flares up to cremation level. When attempting some oven chips those at the back incinerated whilst those at the front just sweated stubbornly and remained frozen (not a successful steak and chips). The grill, which caused some excitement at first with thoughts of bubbling cheese on toast, needs a cautious hand. It takes a few moments to catch yet when crouching down to check it has a tendency to catch immediately in a cloud of blue flame singeing unwary eyebrows.

Cooking has become based around one pan, or a maximum of two plus the grill. This means stews, soups, fritters and fry-ups and yes, still the occasional takeaway. With a weekly veg box to work through, most meals have been vegetable based and heavy on pulses and beans. Struggling for ideas to use up a couple of swedes that had been languishing for a while I tried Anna Jones's recipe for swede bhajis, serving them in flatbreads with plenty of mayo, mango chutney and shredded white cabbage, a successful weekend vegetarian lunch using only a frying pan and the grill.

Week day evenings have been warmed by simple soups, the perfect one pan dish after a knackering day at work. This recipe was adapted from one in the October edition of The Simple Things mag and made use of the abundant apples we still have as well as the knobbly parsnips and overgrown courgettes from dad's allotment. The beetroot raita was fab and the colour scheme kind of matches our current interior (every room is a shade of pink).

Spiced Parsnip Soup (adapted from a recipe by Bex Long, October 2019 edition of The Simple Things)

1-2 tbsp olive oil

1 small onion, chopped

3 parsnips, chopped (peel left on but some of the tougher cores removed)

1 large courgette (chopped)

2 apples, cored and chopped

1 tsp ground coriander

2 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp turmeric

1 tsp chilli powder

½ stock cube (I use low salt Kallo Organic)

6-800ml water

100ml almond milk

salt and pepper to taste

Fresh coriander

Beetroot raita

2 cooked beetroot (from a pack of ready cooked beetroot but not those with vinegar), grated

6 tbsp natural yogurt

1 tsp cider vinegar

1 tsp black mustard seeds

1 tsp vegetable oil

Salt to taste

Raita

Heat the oil and when hot add the mustard seeds and heat until they start to pop. This happens quickly so keep an eye on them. Remove from the heat as soon as they do and add them to the grated beetroot. Stir in the yogurt, cider vinegar and season to taste. 

Soup

Sweat the onion, chopped vegetables and apples in the olive oil for about 5 minutes making sure they don't brown. Stir in the spices and cook for another 1-2 minutes. Add the water, stock cube and milk and simmer for about 20 minutes then purée with a hand blender until smooth. Season to taste and serve with a dollop of the beetroot raita and chopped coriander.

Another really good spiced parsnip soup is this recipe from Jamie Oliver's new book Veg. The use of poppadoms in the soup is inspired and is really delicious. Do make the parsnips crisps as well, they are fantastically easy and even our fractious oven managed quite well with these. As with everything, you always miss what you can't have and despite the multitude of amazing dishes you can cook on the hob I've missed oven cooking more than I can say, drooling over pictures of cakes and roasts (even de-camping to my mum's with a bag of spuds and a chicken). Normal cooking will resume once we've saved enough for a major kitchen re-furb (fingers crossed!).