Black-Eyed Bean & Basmati Rice

Image from the cookbook

Some time ago, I was contacted by a PR lady who is trying to spread the word about a kidney care cookbook, written by TV chef Lawrence Keogh (head chef at Roast) - you might have seen him on Saturday Kitchen.

Lawrence wrote Rediscovering Food & Flavours after having a kidney transplant at the age of 35. The book contains 16 delicious recipes and is available free of charge from renal dieticians. It is designed to help people cook meals that are still exciting and flavourful, but move away from the dull low phosphate diets that many sufferers have to contend with. You can also download the book here, or email me and I'll send you the PDF file (& recipe cards) for you to download.


Black-Eyed Bean & Basmati Rice, from the recipe cards

Lawrence recently added 4 new recipes, Chinese Spare Ribs, Garlic Chilli Prawns, Black-Eyed Bean & Basmati Rice and Malvern Pudding, which are available on recipe cards. These new dishes are not only tasty and nutritious, but also safe to eat, without conflicting with any medication.

World Kidney Day is the second Thursday in March every year, and you can read more information on their website. One in 10 people will develop CKD (chronic kidney disease) in their lifetime in the UK alone, hopefully this cookbook will entice people into cooking and eating well balanced, tasty meals.



Black-Eyed Bean & Basmati Rice
From Lawrence Keogh's kidney care recipe cards

Serves 4

250g tinned black-eyed beans, drained & washed
150g washed basmati rice
30g butter
100g chopped onion
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon cumin seeds
2g chopped garlic
1 dessert spoon honey
10 twists of black pepper

Boil the basmati rice until tender, drain and keep warm.

Meanwhile, fry the onion in the butter until golden brown, then add the chopped garlic, ground ginger, ground coriander and the cumin seeds.

Now add the black-eyed beans and let it all cook together.

Add the honey and remove from the heat. Season with the black pepper.

Stir in the rice and serve warm.

You can also serve this chilled, as a rice salad to accompany meats or fish.

Note: On most low potassium diet sheets, beans and pulses are often on the avoid list, but as you can see from this dish, portion sizes and other ingredients in the dish can determine its suitability.



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This content belongs to Nicisme at Cherrapeno. All writing and photography copyright N Fowers © 2007-2010 unless otherwise indicated. All rights reserved.
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Make Your Own Marinated Feta

The sun is shining, the skies are blue - and very quiet I must add, as Britain struggles with the fallout from the Icelandic volcano this week. I'm in a summery mood and have been able to get out into the garden after the looooong winter.



I used to be able to buy marinated feta with sun-dried tomatoes, olives and chillies, but haven't seen it on the shelves recently. No matter, this recipe is easy and tastes just as good, if not better. One of the best things you can do with the feta is to stuff it into red peppers and bake them, serve with crusty bread - delish!


Cut the feta into cubes, add oregano, coriander and black pepper


Use a sterilised jar and cover with the oil

Marinated Feta
Adapted from The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook

350g feta cheese
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon coriander seeds (I used ½t of ground coriander)
1 tablespoon cracked black pepper
125g sun-dried tomatoes in oil
4 small fresh red chillies (I will slice these in half next time)
3-4 sprigs fresh rosemary
Olive oil

Pat the feta dry with some paper towels and cut into 2cm cubes. Place in a bowl and sprinkle with the oregano, coriander seeds and black pepper.

Drain the sun-dried tomatoes in a bowl and put the oil to one side.

Arrange the feta, chillies, rosemary and sun-dried tomatoes in a 750ml sterilised jar. Cover with the saved tomato oil and top up with extra olive oil if needed.

Seal and refrigerate for 1 week before using (it will keep for 6-8 weeks in the fridge). Serve at room temperature.



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This content belongs to Nicisme at Cherrapeno. All writing and photography copyright N Fowers © 2007-2010 unless otherwise indicated. All rights reserved.
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Raspberry Cream Cakes + DMBLGIT Thanks!

Scotney Castle, Kent

We had company over the Easter break and it was lovely to visit a few of the local tourist hot spots. We visited two castles, Scotney Castle and Hever Castle. Hever, the childhood home of Anne Boleyn, is our favourite place to take guests - there is a fabulous water maze, a yew hedge maze and it has the most beautiful gardens.


Raspberry cream cakes

For our Easter dessert, I made this super-easy strawberry cream cake again. I had some of the cream filling left over, so I made some mini raspberry cream cakes. I spent a blissful hour trying to master the art of making sugar curls - there is an excellent tutorial here - I followed it to the letter. The cooling of the sugar is the important bit, and you can just reheat it up again and again until you have made your sugar curls. I discovered that if you run out of time, just leave the melted sugar to harden in the saucepan, cover with a lid and the following day you can gently reheat it and carry on making the sugar curls. My curls were wound around a knife sharpening steel and slid off easily - I tried winding the sugar around a wooden spoon and unless it's well oiled, forget it!


Sugar curls


Cutting out sponge cake, then slice it in half


Place a sponge layer on the bottom, then raspberries round the edge, fill with the vanilla custard cream (recipe here) and top with another round of sponge


Dust with icing sugar and top with sugar curls


Glorious Hever Castle

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Many thanks to the judges of February's DMBLGIT event, my photo of Banoffee Macarons came 2nd place overall. To see all the winners and who was judging the event, please visit Snacksgiving, which is hosted by Nidhi.

Thank you!

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This content belongs to Nicisme at Cherrapeno. All writing and photography copyright N Fowers © 2007-2010 unless otherwise indicated. All rights reserved.
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