After the buzz of the first supperclub the house ended up in disarray. Good disarray but nonetheless the kitchen in complete pandamonium was not conducive to too much cooking so a few takeways were in order. S partial to a plate of fish and chips and on the recommendation of my bro, we tried Beatties on the Cavehill Road. The verdict was it was good, tasty fish freshly cooked.  I never actually get my own chips - I try to fool myself that eating S's chips out of the bag doesn't really count. Anyway, I can also report that the chips were goooood.

Only so much you can take though and given the autumny turn of the weather, today calls for soup.

I bought a nice cauliflower earlier in the week intending to add a cauliflower curry to a lentil daal I made on Sunday. Didn't happen and so it goes into a spiced cauliflower cheese soup, I use a masala paste I made for the dal.

Masala paste:
2.5 tblspns coriander seeds
1 tblspn cumin seeds
tspn fennel seeds


Toast these on a dry frying pan.


Grind them in a spice grinder or pestle and mortar along with:


half tspn peppercorns, a chilli or two depending on how spicy you like it, half tspn poppyseeds


Once nice and fine tip into a bowl and add a couple of tblspns sunflower oil, a tblsp of white wine vinegar, a thumb sized piece of finely grated ginger and two or three finely grated garlic (I use a microplane for this) mix and keep in the fridge for a week or so.  I doubled this amount as it seems a lot of bother to go to for just one dinner.  Add other spices to taste - you might try some cardamon seeds 

A quick and tasty supper last night. Siobhan had bought many peppers last week and they were looking very accusingly at me from the fridge.  What to do with them? A rummage around uncovered some cherry tomatoes, onions, haloumi. The result a sweet, salty olive oily roast peppers stuffed with tomatoes, onions and haloumi.

As many peppers as you are cooking for - allow one and a half per person (or two if you are greedy like me and S)
a block of haloumi
a red onion finely chppoed
punnet of cherry tomatoes
olive oil
salt and pepper.

Heat the oven to 200
If you are using bell peppers, you may want to stick them under the grill first to soften them. if you are using those long sweeter pointed peppers you shouldn't need to.

In either case, half them, take out the stalk and seeds.  Arrange in an over proof dish - they should be nice and snug.

Quarter the tomatoes, add finely diced onion, some salt and pepper.

Roughly dice the haloumi and mix with the tomatoes and onions. Fill your pepper halves with the cheese mix and pur over a good drizzle of olive oil.


bake in your oven, covered for around 20 mins. then take the foil off and bake for a further 20 mins until the cheese and tomatoes look cooked and the peppers are soft.


You should have lots of nice tasty juice from this and I like this best served with cous-cous. here's how I do it - simple, takes 5 minutes. A cup of cous-cous, tip into a heavy bottomed pot with a lid add a cup of boiling water with some marigold buillion dissolved in it.  Mix in a slug of olive oil. Cover with a lid for 10 mins or so and then fluff up with a fork.