Dad's Cuisine

ROASTED SWEET POTATO AND COURGETTE IN LIME, GINGER AND BASIL DRESSING Add a bit of the exotic to your midweek supper with this roasted sweet potato and courgette in lime, ginger and basil dressing!  Roasted sweet potato and courgette in lime, ginger and basil dressing I can very clearly remember the first time I heard of a sweet potato. I was 11 years old and chatting to my schoolfriend Lizzy, who hailed from Kenya. We were both boarders at our all girls' school in south-East England.  On a cold and dreary Sunday that didn't seem to end, we began lamenting about what we missed most from home, and the conversation inevitably turned to food (it usually does with me). We both desperately missed our Mums' cooking, of course. But then Lizzy mentioned how much she missed sweet potatoes. Now, I loved potatoes in all forms - mash, chips, crisps, wedges: you name it, I'd eat it - but I had never heard of sweet potatoes. "What do they taste like?" I aske...

LENTIL DHAL WITH SPINACH  A mild Indian vegetarian dish filled with aromatic spices that's healthy, tasty and easy to make. Lentil dhal with spinach There are so many variations on recipes for dhal, an Indian staple and one of the few vegetarian meals that Dad actually requests when he goes to an Indian restaurant. I know that Dad misses decent Indian cuisine.  He spent his childhood in Burma and India, so his definition of comfort food is curry , curry and more curry.  When Mum and Dad met, he let her know pretty quickly that the way to his heart was through rock n' roll and food. Mum worked in the music industry and took him along to the best nightclubs and parties to rub shoulders with the stars of the sixties music scene, so the rock n' roll part was covered. And as for curries; Mum - a Welshwoman who grew up in London - rolled up her sleeves and got to work mastering the art of making the perfect curry, learning alongside an Indian woman she met when t...