Time on my hands to cook. Exotic cook....

 

This may not seem exotic to you, but it is to me.....

When I was young I was fed well, but along the typical British home cooking fare. Roast lamb and mint sauce, sausages and mash with frozen peas, cheese and egg salad. My Mum even baked walnut cake and iced fairy cakes. I have no complaints.

But I visited France when I was a teenager and stayed with a family 30 km south of Paris. And, Oh. My. Goodness. 

The Papa ground coffee beans fresh every day. I heard the electric whizz of the grinder each morning and it was the signal to get up. By the time I tiptoed down the wooden spiral staircase the strong smell of brewing coffee was drifting up. We drunk it from wide bowls and dunked tartines spread thickly with apricot jam.

And the salad served at the beginning of each evening meal was a revelation. Not just an iceberg or a little gem. It was all sorts of green leaves. The Maman actually went out into the garden and picked dandelion leaves, washed them, spun them dry and added them into the salad bowl. All the leaves were tossed with olive oil and a squeeze of lemon juice. It was good.

Everything we ate seemed to me to be exotic, we spent hours eating, bit by bit we would have salads, then steak with pepper, then crispy bits of fried potato with salt, green beans with butter and garlic, then bread and cheese; fresh batons of bread, chewy crust and springy centre, spread with deep yellow butter and aromatic Red Cow cheese...

I realised there was a world of food out there that I hadn't tapped into, and ever since then I have been dipping my toe in the water of exotic and tasty food. I have made some spectacular failures, mostly when I try to make the food more 'healthy'.

I was introduced to the famous Mexican tortilla with its spicy filling by a friend who had lived in America. She gave me a recipe to actually make the tortillas so I didn't have to use the dry, pappy shop bought ones; home made flour tortillas and just so much better. The one thing I didn't like was the rolling out of all these little discs of dough. It took forever, even when I trained one of my sons up to make and roll the dough too. 

Now practically all of my children have left home I don't have to make the same quantities of food that I used to, but I still don't like rolling all those little discs out - so we have been using store-bought ones mostly even though my husband doesn't like it. I got to thinking if I could make healthier ones, and after several hours of watching YouTube clips of people making tortillas I bought a tortilla cookbook and a press. Et voila!

 

And while idly shopping in TK Maxx I saw a tortilla warmer rediued to £3.00 so that went straight in the trolley....

  

And I have to say that the press is brilliant -no more rolling - and I get thin round tortillas with practically no effort. But the 'healthy' version of quinoa/oat/rice flours was a bit inflexible so I spread a topping on and ate like that [hummus, gherkins and yoghurt]. I have made some more dough with wholemeal spelt, so I will give that a whirl tomorrow and see if is more wrappable.