Roasted Sprouts & Bacon with Mashed Cauliflower, Feta & Soured Cream

Really two meals combined ...

Roasted Sprouts & Bacon

Oven on at 180C.

Par-boil some Brussels sprouts, half and drop into a roasting tray with shredded fatty bacon and a few cloves of garlic.

Omit the bacon and add in some coconut oil or olive oil for a vegetarian alternative.

Commit to the oven for about half an hour.

Mashed Cauliflower, Feta & Soured Cream

Steam some cauliflower and crush with feta cheese and soured cream.

Serve

Roasted sprouts down first, cauliflower over and a good knob of butter on top, shredded spring onions to garnish.

Walnut & Mushroom Curry

After yesterday's lovely breakfast curry, I rather fancied another today ...

So, what do I have in? No meat, no fish. That'll be another vegetable curry, then. I have some mushrooms, some fresh peas in pods, an onion, some spices and a store cupboard can of coconut milk. I have a lovely large plum tomato.

That'll do ...

Walnut & Mushroom Curry

If you were after a formal set of ingredients, here's the best I can do:

Ingredients

For two people

For the curry ...

Small Onion
Ghee/Coconut Oil
1 tsp Turmeric Powder
1 tsp Coriander Powder
Half tsp Fenugreek
Half tsp Asafoetida
8-10 Chestnut Mushrooms
Handful Peas
Large Plum Tomato
6 Medium Green Chillies
Bunch Flat Leaf Parsley
1 tsp Poppy Seeds
Sea Salt
Black Pepper

For the sauce ...

Handful Walnuts
Half Can Coconut Milk
Couple Cloves of Garlic
Piece of Ginger

... and garnish:

Boiled Egg
Parsley

Madness

... I mean, Method.

I say Madness, since that was pretty much what it was. I often begin cooking with no real idea how it will turn out. Seeing what happens to the ingredients as I go, feeling my way with where it will go and just going with flashes of insanity when they happen ... that's ancestral cooking.

Take a large skillet and melt your fat - ghee, for me. If one of your vegan friends was round, you could make this vegan with coconut oil and omit the egg at the end. Scatter in the chopped onion and lower the heat so the onion can cook through slowly and caramelise.

I like to pour my spice mix in at this point, so, in with the turmeric, ground coriander, fenugreek and asafoetida.

Now, make up the sauce ...

When I opened the cupboard to get a can of coconut milk, I noticed the half bag of walnuts which really wanted finishing. Mushrooms and walnuts go together. What could go wrong?

So, into a receptacle, put a handful of walnuts, a couple of cloves of garlic and a bit of ginger. Pour in half a can of coconut milk and blend it up - I use a stick blender and found half a can was about right for a thick, but pourable stodge which form the sauce for the curry.

Walnut & Coconut Sauce

Back to the curry ...

Drop in the mushrooms, sliced; and a handful of peas, stir through, add some black pepper and some sea salt.

Pour in the sauce, wetting up with a little water.

Scatter in some poppy seeds and a good bunch of parsley, rough chopped. Parsley works better than coriander. Besides, I used my coriander yesterday and I have parsley today. Trust me, parsley works better.

Top and tail the tomato, cutting into a large dice. Add to the curry.

Raise the heat a touch and reduce.

Take your chillies, slit down the side and toss them in whole while the curry reduces. This will release some heat into the dish and cook through for those who like to eat whole chillies. Yum!

Meanwhile, boil an egg and prepare some rice, if that's the way you swing. I do, so I'm happy to do so. Steam off some cauliflower and crush - it makes a presentable and fast Cauliflower Rice.

Ready to eat?

Serve out a mound of rice or Cauliflower Rice, spooning the reduced curry alongside.

Garnish with a sprig of fresh parsley and your boiled egg, cut into segments.

Did it work? Damn straight, it did! What a wonderful curry! Walnuts are good for you, mushrooms are good for you, eggs are good for you, coconut milk is good for you, spice is good for you ... what a great meal!

Settling Vegetable Curry

While I was out being wined and dined at the very excellent Prashad, Mrs made herself some pancakes ... with regular flour. Nice, I'm sure, but this morning she was paying for it after a bad night and continued stomach pain ...

Time for a healing Curry!

Having enjoyed Britain's absolute finest vegetarian curry myself the previous night, I was very happy to continue. Mrs does not like "Curry" so I presented it jokingly as an Ayurvedic Breakfast ...

Nothing planned, just a case of selecting a few vegetables. Spur of the moment.

I began softening a large onion in ghee, added in some turmeric, sliced garlic, black pepper and a little smoked sea salt. Softened, I continued with some shredded fennel, chillies (shredded) and ginger (minced), finally some sliced courgette.

Splash of water and cook on for a few minutes before adding in chopped tomatoes.

Cook on for a few more minutes, adding in poppy seeds and fresh chopped coriander.

Meanwhile, I made up a little green salad of rocket, avocado oil and cider vinegar, crunched up with some pine nuts.

Served out, the curry alongside the salad and complimented with a couple of avocado segments.

Breakfast served, tummies healed, the day ready to be got on with ...

Champion!

Savoy Cabbage Pilaf

... a little puzzle.

I have a Savoy cabbage to eat and visiting family. Vegetarian visiting family, which on the face of it is simple: cook the cabbage, dinner done! While delicious, it's not especially nutritious and so, time for something fringe ancestral yet highly vegetarian.

I have a bag of "Broth Mix" which would appear to be a mix of spelt, lentils and peas. I also have regular white rice. With a few other ingredients, a well rounded dish with good macronutirent distribution can be made.

... and so I made up a sort of spelt, rice and lentil risotto, cabbage, avocado and tomato stirred in.

Start out with some good fat, coconut oil in my case, into which you soften a chopped onion and a few cloves of crushed garlic. Add the dry ingredients, add some bouillon, black pepper and water to cook through.

When the risotto is soft, stir through shredded cabbage and cook through for a few minutes.

Just prior to serving, stir through some chopped fresh parsley, cubed avocado and chopped tomato. Garnish with a good blob of soured cream and some paprika.

Primal Chow

I have absolutely no idea what to call this dish ...

It's a "use up" and "make it up as you go" kind of dish, which is pretty much how I cook, but this one is also curiously vegetarian. It is meat-less because I have no meat or fish available. And so, just a like a hunter/gatherer I have to do without when I don't have.

All I did here was to gently fry off some butternut squash in goose fat, adding in some sliced courgette and cooking through until the squash had gone beyond firm while the courgette retained some firmness.

I added a chilli, some black pepper and then turned out onto a plate tossing some avocado pieces over and some buffalo mozzarella.

With a good splash of olive oil, some freshly milled black pepper, Icelandic ash salt, shredded spring onions and some freshly chopped parsley, the dish is ready.

It was satisfying and it was good!

Cauliflower Cheese

One you all of us paleo+ primal some dairy is alright by me folks out there ...

So many cheese sauces are built on a flour-based roux - melted butter, flour and milk. My cheese sauce wipes that slate clean and goes back to basics: cheese and something to let it out.

If you're in, you'll need cauliflower, cheese, double cream (heavy cream for folks following from the wrong side of the Atlantic), English mustard, sea salt and black pepper.

Yes, English mustard. I simply can't see this working with other mustards although, if you're in a fix for English, I think I'd be bold enough to say that a chopped chilli would be fun.

Anyway ...

Talk a good sized cauliflower, sufficient in bulk for two people. Cut the florets off the stalk, reserve the stalk for soup or something and put the florets over some boiling water to steam. Sprinkle a little sea salt over to bring out the flavour of the cauliflower.

Grate some cheese. How much? Well, enough to cover the cauliflower. As a general figure, 300g ought to be plenty. Cheddar is excellent, mature perfect, but go with any hard cheese ... or even experiment with some soft cheeses. As an aside, blue cheese and spot of cream, melted, works lovely over purple sprouting broccoli.

In a saucepan pour in a little cream - 50ml is good to get that 300g of cheese started. In with the cheese and on a low heat just get it melting. The cheese will melt and that little cream will just let it out so it's not just melted cheese but a sauce. Stir in a half teaspoon of English mustard.

Look at the consistency once melted and add in a little more cream to just let it out to a running sauce - it should pour off a spoon.

We're done ...

Spoon out the cauliflower into a bowl and pour over the sauce, garnished with whatever herb you have kicking about and a grind of black pepper.

For a more sumptuous version, sprinkle more cheese over and place the bowls under the grill for maybe a minute, until the cheese has melted.

Paneer & Vegetable Curry

Curry. Not complicated, nor magic. Simply good food, spiced up.

Folks often break out in a cold sweat at the thought of cooking up a curry as the complexity of the spice blends seems so bewildering to a newcomer, but we'll simplify it and start out with a good, basic spice mix which can have complexity worked in as you become more confident.

Our ingredient list is quite simple:

• Base - Onion, garlic, ginger & chillies
• Spices - Ground coriander, ground cumin, turmeric, asafoetida & fenugreek
• Fat - Ghee or butter
• Protein - Paneer (Cheese)
• Vegetables - Marrow, courgette, aubergine & peas
• Garnish - Black mustard seeds, lemon wedge & coriander
• Flavouring - Sea salt & black pepper

Paneer is an Indian curd cheese; milk set off with lemon juice, pressed overnight and cut into cubes. Yes, you can buy it. Do check the ingredients, which should read no more than milk and more likely acetic acid than lemon juice for a commercially produced cheese.

Paneer is the protein base for this otherwise vegetarian curry. Vegetables provide the rest of the bulk and it's your choice as to what you put in. I went with marrow, courgette, aubergine and peas. Cauliflower, squash, potato, carrot, daikon, mushrooms, whetever you fancy can all go into this curry.

Proportions do not have to be exact. Cooking is about taste and flavour - if you want more of something, put more in. If you like less of something, use less. If you cook too much for one sitting, great ... you've got lunch sorted, or a simple base for another dinner that will just need bulking out.

I'm going to base this around one large onion, which I find sets out the right proportion for two people, one hungry person or for one with leftovers.

Let's build this curry ...

Base

Every curry has a base of onion.

Usually, caramelised, with garlic, ginger and some chillies. Tomato, sometimes, but notice I don't use tomato in this curry.

Shred a large onion and settle it into a heavy based skillet with an inch off the end of a stick of butter. Yes, an inch. Butter provides a wonderful flavour to this dish. Use ghee if you prefer, but butter is all good to me. We're not going to be cooking this on a high heat, so don't worry about hitting the smoke point or fat oxidisation.

Let the onions caramelise on a low heat for about 20 minutes.

The onions will become darker, but should not catch. Keep the heat low. This caramelisation releases all the sugars, which make the flavour of this dish.

Once nicely browned, add in a couple of cloves of minced garlic, a little ginger and a couple of chillies. Sea salt and black pepper, just a pinch and a grind.

Spice

Every curry has spice.

Let's make a simple spice mix from a teaspoon of ground coriander, teaspoon of ground cumin and teaspoon of turmeric powder. Add half a teaspoon of fenugreek and half a teaspoon of asafoetida.

Bung the lot into your skillet, stir well and cook on for another 10 minutes. That's 30 minutes in total.

Paneer

Cube up your cheese into large chunks, say an inch cubes and toss through the onion spice mix. Some folks like to fry off until brown, but I don't. I like just coated in the spice mix.

Vegetables

Add in your vegetables in good sized pieces. My marrow, courgette and aubergine were cut into inch cubes and dropped in along with a good handful of peas.

Stir through, top up with hot water just to cover, raise the heat to bring up to the boil and then reduce to a good simmer until the food is cooked and the liquid reduced. I guess another 20 minutes, or so.

Garnish

Towards the end of cooking, add in a teaspoon of black mustard seeds and some fresh coriander, chopped.

Taste. Taste is everything. I could list ingredients and quantities until the cows come home, but it's of no use or validity, since taste is personal. You might like a little more spice, more chilli, more salt, more butter. Add it in at this point.

Serve

Once served out, garnish with fresh coriander leaves and a wedge of lemon.

That's it! Curry. Easy, simple concepts and a good base for you to play around with ...

Drop out the cheese and add in some fish, perhaps some chicken, large prawns, you get the drill.

Gratin Dauphinoise

Traditional French, from the Dauphiné region, a rustic dish of potato, garlic and crème fraîche.

Rustic is the key here because like much French cuisine, this has been elevated to the ridiculous in terms of technique and ingredients.

Let's take it back! It's a simple dish after all  ...

Fancy it? You'll need the following:

• Potatoes
• Cream or Crème Fraîche
• Garlic (Cloves or Powdered)
• White Pepper
• Sea Salt
• Butter

Peel and slice the potatoes. If you have a mandolin slicer, great, otherwise use your vegetable peeler or a good kitchen knife. Slice into your cooking bowl so that you have the quantity to use and keep going until the cooking receptacle is maybe three quarters full.

Like all ancestral cooking, we're not limiting ourselves to this one meal - leftovers are great! Make a big batch and enjoy the rest re-heated.

With sufficient potatoes, we can now add the rest of the ingredients.

If you're using powdered garlic, sprinkle some over, along with white pepper and sea salt. Mix well and give another sprinkle ... mix well ... you get the drill. Cloves of garlic should be crushed and stirred into the cream to ensure it is well distributed ...

... and so, onto the cream. Using double cream or crème fraîche, pour in enough to coat the potatoes as you mix them into the cream with your hands. Use a little to start with - you can always add more.

Pat the potatoes down to make a flat cake and dot some butter over which will crisp up the top and giev a lovely flavour and texture to the dish.

Into the oven set to 175C (350F?) for an hour, or so. An hour is good for maybe an inch and a half thick and thinly sliced potatoes. You'll want longer and perhaps a lower temperature if yours is deeper or thicker slices.

See? I told you it was easy ... or "rustic" ...

Serve alongside whatever it is you're eating ...

We finished off a corned beef and vegetable stew and had some turkey sausages on top, and we'll have the leftovers later in the week with some haddock, pickled vegetables and chimichurri.

Vegetable Stew

Beans, properly prepared, represent a reasonable source of protein while their dietary dangers are reduced to a level that our bodies in good order can deal with.

I was reminded of this after our daughter gave us a granddaughter the other day and I set about to fill her freezer with good food that can easily be defrosted and heated through. She eats vegetarian. I don't want to make her up ugly, heavy pasta dishes, but I do want to make her something good, wholesome and primal, and therein lies a problem: protein.

What I did was to make up a huge batch of vegetable stew: onion, squash, aubergine, courgette, peppers, mushrooms, chopped tomatoes, tomato purée, marjoram, Worcestershire Sauce, a touch of bouillon, sea salt and black pepper. Butter beans provided the protein, to be boosted with cheese, freshly grated and melted over upon re-heating.

Sounds reasonable ...

It was a compromise, but nevertheless, good food with protein from acceptable sources, both primally and from a vegetarian standpoint.

... and so, I thought it's about time we had another experiment.

I made up exactly the same for us. It was very tasty and the beans made an interesting change for us. I do have to confess that I wimped out on trusting them for protein and quickly fried off a piece of tail end sea bass fillet each. Without the fish, it would be perfectly vegetarian.

We have leftovers ...

Tomorrow, they'll be mixed with some sausages and grated cheese over, maybe a fried egg.

Blast from the Past! Curried Parnsip Soup

Autumn is officially upon us!

After a sharp spell of Artic breeze, we're once again enjoying that late September warm spell, but all around the office are coughs and sniffles.

Thankfully, unlike last year, I'm not affected ...

... just in case, here's a blast from the past ... exactly one year ago: Curried Parsnip Soup

Mega-Cheesecake!

What's better than Cheesecake?

MEGA-CHEESECAKE!

Cheesecake is a perfect Paleo+ dessert made from single ingredient cream cheese and cream. Please please please check the ingredients - there is no need for gums, fillers or other ingredients.

Cream cheese is a cheese from cream ... nothing more. Cream is cream ... nothing more.

Made for our neighbourhood BBQ, yes, I could have taken round good meat, but our host had that covered with a superb array from a local farm shop.

I took a dessert ... I would have got a snap of the cake being served out, but it went ... in seconds ... literally, seconds. I'll do two next year.

So, Mega-Cheesecake ...

I have a 10" cake tin with a removable band - perfect for this.

You can make a base if you like - use what you will, gluten-free biscuits, coconut flour, whatever. I usually don't both with a base, since the cream cheese is the whole point of this but in this case, I did ... I used Digestive biscuits (not paleo, not even by a long stretch) and coconut oil.

Coconut oil is so much better than butter. It sets rock solid in only about half an hour, so mash up some biscuits, soften some coconut oil and pour into the biscuits. Spread out across the base of the tin and set in the fridge.

Once set, make the cake!

Two parts cream cheese and one part cream. To give you some hints, I used a 300ml carton of cream and 600g of cream cheese. Whisk together with some vanilla bean paste and a hint of honey - local Yorkshire honey from the Denholme Gate Apiary, for me, one tablespoon. Spoon over the base and pat down level.

Dress the cheesecake with strawberries, cut in half and laid out in circles, one large one as the prize in the middle.

Beautiful, eh?

Mega-Cheesecake was no match for a bunch of hungry Halifaxers ... we decimated this poor cake in seconds!

Cottage Cheese & Samphire Salad

Bloody Hell! Where's the meat ... or fish?

Yeah, some days you just fancy something very light and very simple. Truth be told, I'd not got anything defrosted. My bad.

Anyway ...

In the absence of fish or meat, dairy provides a good protein and carb balance, and from good sources it's not at all bad.

I guess dairy was kicked out of the initial definition due to perceived intolerances by most of the population that was being considered. Once Paleo went global, huge and vast portions of the world showed themselves not to be intolerant, and even the scope of dairy opened up - sheep, goat, reindeer, buffalo; and huge and vast portions of the world showed that dairy was simply not an issue.

If you are not lactose intolerance, carry on ...

<soapbox>

Lactose intolerance aside, there is the secondary issue of A1 beta casein; a protein has been implicated as a potential factor in diabetes mellitus, ischaemic heart disease and also as a modifier of behavioural symptoms associated with some neurological conditions such as autism.

You will find that most of the cow milk that you encounter will be A1 type, from Fresian and Holsten breeds representing the majority of milk cows in Europe, the US and Australia. A2 type milk can readily be had from other species:  sheep, goat, reindeer, buffalo; but there is hope for cow milk: Guernsey and Jersey breeds carry a very high incidence of A2 type milk.

For real world eating, fermented and fatty dairy is safest from cow milk and many ancestral eaters are happy to include them in their diet, myself very much included.

</soapbox>

Here, Cottage Cheese, a curd cheese made from setting milk with rennet.

That's the cheese ... simply spoon over some samphire which has been immersed in boiling water and retrieved quickly. Nutritionally, samphire is packed with goodness - strong in iodine and in vitamins A, C, B2 and B15, amino acids and minerals, such as iron, calcium and particularly magnesium.

Chop some salad ingredients over: tomato, cucumber and chilli.

Garnish with boiled egg slices.

So, presenting a light, vegetarian and ancestrally-focussed dish: Cottage Cheese & Samphire Salad

Nordic Pickled Beetroot Starter [Quick & Dirty]

Pickled beetroot is really cool!

Whether packed or in jars, pickled is such a fun way of enjoying beetroot.

I like both, but jars of pickled beetroot offer us a fun way of presenting eggs once the beetroot has all been eaten. Simply boil a couple of eggs and pickle them overnight in the remaining coloured vinegar, topped up with water if necessary. Next day, you'll have purple eggs!

That's an aside ...

Here, the eggs were simply boiled, sliced and presented on a plate with sliced pickled beetroot.

Crème fraîche over, sprigs of dill to garnish and black pepper, icelandic ash salt and some paprika for texture and colour.

þar! Nordic Pickled Beetroot ... a perfect, simple starter idea.

Wild Garlic Pesto

Literally, a paste, pesto is classically made up from basil, garlic and pine nuts, pounded into a paste.

Pesto can be made from all manner of herbs and nuts to provide a bountiful array of tastes; here, wild garlic and hazelnuts.

Someone has decimated my nearest resource of wild garlic. I'm not pointing a finger, but that patch was very close to a fine restaurant who seem to be making a big deal of the seasonality of wild garlic at the moment ... but I digress.

Reaching one of my other nearby patches, I collected up a little more than I usually do with the intention of making up batches that could be stored as pesto and garlic butter.

Keeping the concept local, I simply blended the wild garlic with hazelnuts, pouring in a little olive oil (perhaps rape seed oil would have been a more "local" thing to do, Yorkshire being the finest producer of rape seed oil, mechanically extracted) and souring with cider vinegar rather than lemon juice. Sea salt and black pepper to taste and you're done.

Bonus idea: Wild Garlic Butter. Simply blend some wild garlic and whip into butter. This can be frozen.

Courgette Fritters

... a spur of the moment starter.

With surplus courgette that would be leftover from the main course and a couple of egg whites sitting in the fridge, this little starter was whipped up in no time!

... from scratch, you'd need:

• Courgette - half a courgette works out well for two people, serving a couple of fritters each

• Onion, Garlic & Chilli - onion should be about half the volume of the courgette, the chilli de-seeded and thinly sliced and wild garlic work out really well if you can get hold of some

• Sea salt, black pepper and spices - coriander and cumin give this a warming Middle Eastern flavour

• Eggs - Use one or two whole eggs or just the whites if you've used the yolks for something else and are wondering what to do with the whites

• Starch - for binding; arrowroot, manioc, cassava, potato, whatever it is you use

• Fat - for shallow frying

Grate the courgette, slice up the onion and chilli. Mince the garlic. Mix together in a bowl.

Season.

Crack in an egg and mix with a fork. The egg should give the mix a sloppy feel. Add another egg if you don't think it's quite wet enough.

Spoon in the starch a little at a time and mix into the courgette. I use polvilho azedo (or, "sour starch"), the kind used for those Brazilian Cheese Puffs. You're looking for a loose mix, but don't sweat it if it looks too loose.

In a skillet, warm a generous amount of fat - goose fat, in my case. You can pour the fat into a ramekin for another use after cooking.

Using a spoon, drop in dollops of the courgette mix and cook through. They will self-level, so no need to press down or stress about rounding the shapes. Flip over a couple of times to ensure that the fritters are well cooked each side.

Serve up with a cooling bowl of yoghurt and lemon juice alongside. Don't do dairy? Squeeze some lemon juice over and enjoy.

Wild Garlic Soup

Wild garlic! Spring has sprung!

Wild garlic emerges in woodland and sheltered areas, and for a couple of months you can pick this natural bounty, shredding a few leaves and folding into dishes for a heady garlic aroma. Make the most of it - it is a short season.

There are a number of species of wild garlic: Allium Tricoccum, or Ramp, in North America and Allium Ursinum, or Ramsons, across Europe and Asia are a couple of the more prolific species.

Do be aware, that in certain areas of the world, wild garlic is endangered! Allium Tricoccum is a protected species under Quebec legislation and are considered a species of "special concern" for conservation in Maine, Rhode Island, and Tennessee.

I collected a good handful of Allium Ursinum, a name related to bears (ursus) who, apparently, go wild for this stuff! I take care to pluck the leaves, leaving the presently young bulb underground. Once they have matured a little, I'll pull up some bulbs.

Just ready, these new, young leaves are now mature enough to have a good flavour but have not yet flowered, so remain quite sweet. What better way to celebrate the coming of this wonderful plant than with a simple soup?

Making up a soup is simple ...

The base for all good soups is onion and garlic, softened in butter. To this, I also added celery.

Once softened, I added some water, bouillon, celery salt and black pepper. Stir in.

Cube up some potato and drop that in, raising the temperature to a good boil until the potato is softened.

Blend ... roughly.

Amounts? I'm cooking for two here and used maybe eight large leaves of garlic, a couple of long stalks of celery, a small onion and half a potato that might be large enough to bake.

Serve out into wide-brimmed bowls and garnish with some superfluous leaf: parsley, in my case.

Tenderstem Broccoli with St Agur

Similar to Purple Sprouting Broccoli in Dolcelatte, a dish I love doing when that broccoli is first in season, this paleo+ entrée is so simple and so tasty ...

In my fridge, I have a packet of St Agur cheese. From the Auvergne region of central France, this cow milk cheese is finer than Roquefort and creamier than the better known Blue D'Auvergne, a cheese with an Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée grant.

Yes, any creamy blue cheese will do ... please please please don't get caught up in recipe fever. Use what you have; Adopt, Adapt & Improve.

Simply cut the cheese into pieces and place in a pan over a low heat to melt. If your cheese is more crumbly than creamy, just add in a little cream to help it along.

Steam your broccoli, pour the cheese onto a plate and layer the broccoli over. Grind some freshly milled black pepper over and you're done.

The cheese brings a pungency, almost akin to anchovy and caper to the playground, the broccoli punching through with its strong fist of iron.

C'est si bon, non?

Primal Mac & Cheese

Granted, this is really stretching the boundaries of primal eating, what with it being primarily a cheese and cream dish ... and one based around pasta, but please read on ...

Perhaps one for your vegetarian friends, or perhaps just for that 80/20 meal where you really don't fancy neolithic junk, but do want something simple, filling and ... well ... homely?

Mac & Cheese, I gather, is a dish at the heart of American cuisine. Sure, we have it here in Blighty, although call it Macaroni Cheese, but it's not something we'd immediately shout out when someone asks, "what's your favourite comfort food?".

So, why make it?

Well, I have a glut of cheese and a couple of turnips. Reason enough?

Primal Mac & Cheese

First we need the "Mac" ...

Here, I peel some turnip and then cut it into matchsticks about an inch long and perhaps a fifth of an inch square.

Boil for a few minutes until softened but still with just a little crunch, drain and set aside to allow the remaining steam to evaporate.

Now, the Cheese ...

You'll need cream (heavy cream, I think it's called in the United States) and some cheese. I used cheddar and a cheddar-like goat's cheese. How much? Well, probably just over half a cup of cream (say, 150ml) to 250g of cheese per apple-sized turnip. You can multiply that up.

Warm up the cream, add a dollop of English Mustard and then the cheese. Warm it through on a low heat until the cheese is combined and the sauce looks sumptuous. Yes, English Mustard, not grain, not American or Continental ... English ... it has the right bite without that sourness.

Now, pour the Mac into the Cheese ... Ecco! Mac & Cheese.

Want to primalise it more?

Shred some streaky bacon and leek, fry off together.

Meanwhile, steam some cauliflower, pouring the Mac & Cheese over the cauliflower and topping with the leek and bacon, and some chopped hazelnuts to crisp up under the grill (broiler) for a few minutes.

Neo-primal Heaven!

For another great emulation of neolithic comfort food, check out my Primal Lasagne.

Cauliflower & Feta Bhajis

I got this idea from somewhere, or other, possibly even off a vegan website ... wherever it came from, it's a sound idea!

You need the following: cauliflower, feta, eggs, starch and chives.

The starch I use is sour starch, or polvilho azedo; the starch used for those gorgeous Brazilian Cheese Puffs.

I used about half a large cauliflower, a 200g block of Greek feta, two small eggs and maybe a couple of tablespoons of starch; I guess, since I just sprinkled it over until it felt right. This made the six you see pictured.

So, cut your cauli in half, trimming off the outer leaves and large pieces of stalk, retaining the lot for soup. Steam it, then crush it (not mashed or puréed) and let it cool so it doesn't melt the cheese. You don't want it steamed to mush, but you do want it just a little more done than still crunchy.

Crumble in the feta and a good amount of chives.

You should have ...

... crack in a couple of eggs, some starch, sea salt and black pepper ...

... the mixture should be loose, loose enough to flatten out under its own weight.

Of course, you could add all manner of flavours in here, chilli, curry, whatever. I kept these really plain since we were eating it with a Tilapia Shito, which is very hot anyway.

In a frying pan, melt your favourite fat: goose fat, for me. You need more than just enough to fry, but not so much as to be shallow frying.

Spoon the mixture in and let it relax itself, no need to use moulds or rings.

After a couple of minutes, check if you can lift it with a palette knife. No? It starts to fall apart? Leave it a while longer. Yes? Flip it over.

Keep them warm in the oven until you're ready to eat ... enjoy!

Insalata di Caprese

Simply, salad in the style of Capri, a simple salad of sliced fresh buffalo mozzarella, tomatoes, basil and seasoned with salt and olive oil.

I'm happy with some dairy, erring on the fatty and fermented style and for the most part from goat milk.

I'm always on the lookout for other sources of dairy: sheep, reindeer, buffalo, to name a small few.

Proper mozzarella is from buffalo milk, and this one was found in a very pleasant little Deli. It would have been rude not to ...

... as it would be to serve it any other way.

Often, this salad is served with slices of the cheese, tomato and basil all together, but I wanted to make more of a centre piece of the cheese, so the tomato and basil sat alongside.

Olive oil and balsamic vinegar over, and sea salt over the tomatoes, Icelandic ash salt over the mozzarella.

Very good indeed!