Roast aubergine, tomatoes and mozzarella

 Singin' in the rain

Well after today, if one doesn't sing, one is liable to shoot oneself.  The nonstop downpour from 10 am through until now, almost bedtime, was enough to make the silly ducks and chickens who live in the garden next door gurgle or gargle.  The farmyard noises are a constant, and I try not to think stews and roasts and endless wonderful casseroles when I hear them.  Oh dear, now I've just lost about a dozen of you and any other vegetarians who read this, of course.

Perhaps you will give me a second chance as the meal I made tonight was all veggie, up and down the line, and not a feathered friend in sight, except through the window but I was on to better things by then. 

David often finds good recipes in the Times which he reads online each morning.  He can't send articles by email  from that form but he can photograph with his blackberry and then email me a picture of the recipe.  It works, sort of, to a point.  The quality of the print is fuzzy and the pics all look like swamps with rushes but the ideas are great.  And this one of Lindsey Bareham's (and on the strength of this and several other successes of hers, I've ordered two of her cookbooks) is so simple it's almost embarrassing to add but it's another way of attacking the mighty aubergine and a most attractive dish if done properly.  Not sure my pics will do it justice as I'm not good at multi tasking, but you'll get the general idea and if you like aubergines, then give it a whirl.

For 2 people:

2 medium aubergines
olive oil
6 large, ripe, vine tomatoes
2 garlic cloves (Lindsey says four, but unless you're alone for the weekend, be sensible!)
couple of handfuls of Basil leaves (recipe calls for 50 but life is simply too short)
2 buffalo mozzarella, drained (lump kind, packed in water)

Oven to 200ºC/gas mark 6

Line a roasting tin with tin foil, shiny side up.  Halve the aubergines lengthwise.  Cut a diagonal lattice pattern in each cut side about 2 cm wide.  Brush olive oil over the tops.  Roast for 10 - 12 minutes in the oven until the centres begin to soften.

Arrange the halved tomatoes, cut side up, around the aubergines and drizzle with oil and seasoning if desired.  Return tin to oven and roast for another 10 to 15 minutes until the tomatoes are squashy.  Remove from oven, scatter minced garlic cloves over aubergine and flip tomatoes so that they are arranged cut side down on top of aubergine.  Cut thick slices of mozzarella to cover the top and return to oven briefly until the cheese begins to melt.

 


Tear basil leaves over top before serving.

David prefers a grated hard cheese to the mozzarella which does get a bit 'stodgy' if the slices clump together.  Any cheese would work and goat cheese might be best of all.  Let me know if you have any other good ideas.

Bacon and ricotta cake with roasted tomatoes

Forgive me father readers for I have sinned; it has been two months since my last post.  Oh dear.  Moving house in the middle of an already busy summer has left me with very little time for attempting new recipes, despite the fact that I have a very nice new kitchen that is crying out to be used.  However, I will soon be on enforced home stay thanks to the Olympics and the official* advice to stock up with water and canned goods, barricade the doors, and stay away from the streets and all forms of public transport for the next three weeks.

The upside of this is that it should give me more time for experimentation in the kitchen, so I will hopefully get back into a more consistent blogging routine soon.  To start off, here's a recipe I tried recently that I can tell will become part of my regular repertoire.  Easy, not too time intensive (10-15 minutes to prepare, 45 minutes to cook), and absolutely delicious both warm and reheated.  It works equally well as a side or a main dish, and could be adapted for vegetarians by omitting the bacon (although I must say, one of the two reasons I could never be a vegetarian is my love for bacon.  The other would be my love of a really good steak).  So without further ado:

Bacon and ricotta cake with roasted tomatoes
(adapted from Waitrose Recipes)

  
For the cake:

• 1 medium potato, peeled and quartered
• 225g bag baby spinach
• 1 or 2 40g packs crispy smoked bacon (the original recipe calls for 4 packs, but I only used one and that seemed to work just fine, so I would recommend reducing that)
• 4 tbsp Parmigiano-Reggiano, grated
• 250g ricotta cheese (the recipe called for 500g, but again, I used half that with no adverse effects)
• 2 large (or 3 medium) eggs

For the tomatoes:

• 300g cherry tomatoes, halved
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp caster sugar
• fresh thyme or oregano
• 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar  

Before you start, preheat the oven to 180°C (gas mark 4) and grease and line a 900g loaf tin with baking parchment.

Place the potatoes in a pan, cover with cold water and bring to the boil. Simmer for 10-15 minutes until tender. Drain and allow to cool slightly, then grate coarsely.  While the potato is cooking, place the spinach in a pan, splash with a little water and cook over a medium heat for 1-2 minutes, or until just wilted (microwaving in the bag works equally well - just follow the instructions on the pack). Drain and cool in a colander, then squeeze out any excess liquid and chop roughly.  Crush the bacon into a bowl and mix in the spinach, potato, Parmigiano-Reggiano, ricotta and eggs. Season with pepper. Tip the mixture into the loaf tin. Cook for 25 minutes.

While the cake mixture is in the oven,  chop the cherry tomatoes in half and place in a roasting tin, cut side up. Drizzle with oil and sprinkle with the sugar, thyme or oregano and season. After the cake has had 25 minutes, put the tomatoes on a lower oven shelf, beneath the cake, and continue to cook for about 10-15 minutes until the cake is just firm to the touch and the tomatoes are cooked.

Leave the cake to cool slightly in the tin, then turn out while still warm. Drizzle the tomatoes with balsamic vinegar and serve with slices of warm cake.  Et bon appetit!

*This may not have been the message that LOCOG and Transport for London have been trying to convey, but everything they have said thus far has had that effect!

Prawn and orzo stew

We have a hung jury.

I recently discovered orzo.  Well, I'd heard the word but never bothered to find out exactly what it was, imagining it, in my ignorance, to be either a soft and niffy cheese or perhaps the entrails of an animal.  As neither concept appealed, I simply skipped the page without learning more.  I see you knowledgeable orzo fans all smiling condescendingly, as well you might.

That all changed when I started seeing orzo combined with many ingredients that I do like to cook with and we are now firm friends. I wish I could say the same for my entire family - with orzo, not with me!  I've used it in two completely different recipes in the past month, both of which I've judged successes and my youngest (not so young, anymore) was most complimentary.  David, however, finds this  ingredient troublesome, as he says it's pasta trying to be rice and it fails on both counts.  Sigh.

Orzo's hybrid nature is precisely what appeals to me.  It doesn't have long stringy bits to get tangled around the other ingredients, it's neither grainy nor gluey nor desiccated as rice, improperly cooked, can be.  I like orzo  because it's effective in a soup, stew or casseroles and marries up successfully with fish, chicken, seafood, vegetables, in fact any savoury ingredient.  Ergo, I'm not about to give up in my quest to get that last all-important orzo vote and so proclaim it not guilty as charged.

We've debated the merits, in this blog, of altering and amending original recipes and this one as it came, had a couple of flaws from the get-go so I changed it slightly and, I think, improved the whole.

650 ml chicken broth
500g broccoli florets
400g tin tomatoes
275ml uncooked orzo
400g uncooked prawns, peeled and deveined
400g ratatouille (either tinned or home made if you're fortunate to have some you made earlier)
½ tsp salt
good grinding of black pepper
pinch ground red chilies (my own addition)
handful fresh basil, roughly chopped
15g butter



Bring the broth to a boil in large pan.  Stir in the tomatoes and orzo and simmer for about 6 or 7 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Add  broccoli, prawns, ratatouille and seasonings and cover, continuing to cook for a further 5 to 7 minutes until prawns turn pink and broccoli is cooked but not mushy (be careful here as the broccoli is the litmus test of doneness).  Stir in basil and butter and serve over crusty bread.



The ratatouille (my own addition) thickens the stew to a good consistency .  Kit and I truly enjoyed our Friday night supper but David still needs convincing that orzo isn't pasta in rice's clothing.

Cherry tomato clafoutis

As predicted, following up my last post has been difficult.  The past month been busy, and I haven't had much time for anything more than everday cooking.  A few new things have been tried.  An easy stir fry of braised red cabbage, pancetta and peas that works equally well as a main course or a colorful side dish.  A delicious lemon curd layer cake that went over a treat with colleagues and family.  Nothing that seemed like a worthy successor to the pie chart pie, but I'll never blog again if I keep thinking that way, so I have decided to (re)start afresh with something simple that I made over the Easter weekend: a cherry tomato clafoutis.

A clafoutis is traditionally a sweet dessert, most commonly made with cherries.  However, a recent edition of Good Housekeeping included a recipe for a savoury version which looked good, so we decided to try this out to accompany our barbecued chicken.  It's incredibly simple, but works very well and is aesthetically appealing (at least until you serve it - then it collapses somewhat).


Cherry tomato clafoutis

 60g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
3 large eggs
100 ml milk
3 tbsp shredded fresh basil leaves, plus extra to garnish
150g cottage cheese
250g cherry tomatoes
salt and pepper to taste, if desired


Mix together the flour, baking powder, eggs, milk and seasoning.  Then whisk in the basil and the cottage cheese.

Pour the mixture into a shallow baking dish (that can hold about a litre), and arrange the cherry tomatoes in the mixture as you please.  You can either drop them in whole or slice them in half and add them, cut sides down.

Season the lot with black pepper and cook in an oven set to 180 degrees C for about half an hour until the egg is a golden colour and has set.  Garnish with the remaining basil and serve.  Depending on how many people are dining, this could either work as a main course, with a green salad on the side, or as a side dish to accompany meat.  Either way, it passes my mother's 'back pocket' test and will certainly be made again!

The original Awesomesauce!

This is one of the most basic recipes in my culinary repertoire, but it's also one of the most beloved. It's very easy (and cheap!) to make, there's plenty of wiggle-room, and it freezes very well. One batch generally makes about six to eight portions - depending on how hungry you are!

One of my fall-backs when there's nothing in the house is pasta, because there's always usually the basic ingredients for some kind of sauce: a tin of tomatoes, an onion, some cheese. And if those things aren't at hand, then the shops are only five minutes away. I also find that home-made pasta sauces, even when extremely basic, often taste nicer than pre-made sauces from jars. Maybe it's the whole getting-to-lick-the-spoon part.

Awesomesauce was thusly named because it is totally awesome. Sadly I've already made my latest batch a few weeks ago so there are no photos at present - the frozen lumps of sauce in tupperware containers don't look that appealing! - but I've at least taken a snap of the raw ingredients, which are waiting around for when the next batch is made.




Yep, that's pretty much it.


1 tub of Dairylea cheese spread (at least the 300g one, but larger also works)
1 or 2 tins of tinned tomatoes or you can use tomato passata if you want it smoother (or even one of each)
1 or 2 onions (depends how onion-y you like it)
A few spring onions


Chop up the onions. The pieces don't need to be too small; you can leave them in large rings if you like. The size of my onion pieces is directly related to how much I can chop before my eyes begin to sting. (NB. At least the up-side to deadly onion fumes is being able to reenact the "why are you crying?" scene from Mad About You.)

Put the onions in a large saucepan and cover with water. Bring to the boil and then let them simmer until they're soft. (NB. You can also start by frying the onions instead.)

When the onions are done, drain the water and then add in one tin of tomatoes. Put the saucepan back on the heat and mix this together, chopping up the tomatoes as you go if you've used whole ones. Or you can just leave them whole if you prefer.

After a few minutes of this, add in the tub of cheese spread. Continually stir this in until there are no unmelted lumps of cheese left and your sauce is looking rather, well, saucy. It should be a rather bizarre pale pink colour. Keep the heat fairly low, you don't want it to boil. Once the cheese and tomato have mixed together thoroughly, have a taste. You might find that you want to add in a second tin of tomatoes - in general, I add the entire first tin and then only the tomatoes from the second. It all depends on how cheesey/tomato-y you like things, and how big your tub of cheese was to begin with.

The last step is to add in the spring onions, which of course you have already chopped up into little discs. Toss them in, stir them through, and you're done. If your pasta is ready, then dinner is served! If not, cover the saucepan and just let it sit. It can easily be reheated - I tend to make it around lunchtime and then just leave it in the pan until my other half is home to do the pasta. It also, as I've mentioned, freezes very well.


And there you have it, the original, no-frills Awesomesauce! You can of course add or change ingredients; several of my bastardisations include:

Using Philadelphia cream cheese instead of Dairylea - which then necessitated putting in a lot of pepper because Philly tastes less cheesey. (There are of course other cheese spreads you can use, I just used Dairylea first time because it was the cheapest!) This variety is wittily known as Philly-pepper-awesomesauce.

Adding in some chopped peppers, or sugar peas - these tend to go in just before the spring onions, because I like them to be still be mostly crunchy.

Frying up some diced chicken and putting that in as well.

Or bacon! Bacon makes the world go round.

Crushed garlic, or garlic powder, also makes for a wonderful addition.

If you have some cherry tomatoes hanging around, put them - whole - into the boiling water when you're doing the pasta. When the pasta's done, carefully take out the tomatoes and then pop a few on top of each serving of sauce. Of course I assume this also works for raw cherry tomatoes, but I like the trick of boiling them through.

I don't think I've tried anything else, but really, the sky's the limit with a base as basic as this one!


Oh yeah - as for the type of pasta to use? We originally started with shells because they hold the sauce very nicely, but spaghetti also works wonderfully. The sauce isn't terribly thick, but it is nice and clingy.

In praise of tinned tomatoes

Tinned tomatoes belong to that category of things that you take completely for granted. You always have at least one tin in the cupboard somewhere, don’t you? Everybody does.

Well, I thought I did. It was mid-afternoon, and I’d been working to a deadline and hadn’t really spent much time thinking about dinner. I knew I had some frozen cod fillets that represented potential protein, and turned to a cookbook standby—Off the Shelf, by Donna Hay. It’s a book about cooking with what you have on hand.

I glanced through the recipe and thought, “Perfect. I have all I need,” and set out the cod to defrost.

A couple of hours later, I came down to get started. I went to the cupboard where I keep the tins to get the tomatoes the recipe called for—and nothing. Chickpeas: yes. Lentils: check. Tuna: enough to feed an army. No tomatoes.

Fortunately, there is a 24-hour convenience store at the end of the street. Most of the merchandise is heavy-duty junk food made from edible oil by-products sold at exorbitant prices, but they have a tiny shelf of real (albeit packaged) food, hidden at the back. I threw on a coat, ran down the street, and wonder of wonders, there were two tins of real tomatoes on that shelf. Evening saved.

I’ll get to the recipe in a minute.

The experience got me thinking. What are the absolute staples that I should always have on hand, no matter what? I did an inventory, typed up the result, and I plan to tape it to the inside of my pantry cupboard door. Next  time I am heading out to a supermarket, I will check to make sure that I actually have the things on that list, and if not, I will stock up.

The list was surprisingly long, and in certain categories there are several items (you can’t get by with just one type of vinegar, for example). So…what’s on your standby list? What has to be there to make you feel that you are ready for a siege? What are the must-haves versus the nice-to-haves? In what category do you put mustard? Artichokes in a jar? Tarragon vinegar?

All contributions welcome. Here’s the recipe, modified to suit my non-exacting standards.

Tomato and basil poached fish

A puddle of olive oil

2 onions, chopped anyhow

Garlic

3-5 thinly sliced potatoes (I leave the peel on and use a mandolin to slice them)

½ cup fish stock

2 medium-sized tins whole peeled tomatoes (but diced is OK too)

2 firm white-fleshed fish fillets, enough for two people

Basil pesto, or fresh basil chopped, if you have it

Heat a deep frying pan. Add some oil, the onions and as much chopped garlic as you think is reasonable for two people. Cook the mixture until the onions wilt. Add the potatoes, stock, and tomatoes. Cover. Give it another 5 or so minutes.

Remove the cover and stir to break up the tomatoes a bit if you are using whole tomatoes. Let it reduce and thicken – this takes maybe 5 minutes. Maybe more. Put the fish on top. Give it a few minutes each side. When it starts to fall apart a bit, it’s ready.

Take out the fish, and stir the pesto through the tomato mixture. Put the tomato mixture on the plate and put the fish on top. Serves 2.

Aubergine and Tomato Bake

I've always had an ambivalent relationship with aubergine (or eggplant as I knew it in Canada). What a singularly unromantic name for such a beautifully-coloured vegetable. Part of the problem is that so many recipes require the chef to slice, salt and press between dinner plates with kitchen towel to absorb the 'bitterness'. I've never had a bitter aubergine that I'm aware of, even the ones not salted and squashed.

About 30 odd years ago, a vegetarian friend of David's served us a wonderful tomato and eggplant casserole in which the eggplant was boiled and mashed with tomatoes, eggs, breadcrumbs etc. That dish became a stock favourite of ours for a long time. Then I rather fell off the aubergine circuit when mangetouts hit the scene.

However, I'm fond of them still, have revived my affection in fact, and Alex has been using them to great advantage recently in several recipes, so tonight I decided to take the plunge:

2 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed (I never ever use more than one, and if we have to be in circulation the following day it really isn't fair on the general public!)
2 x 400g tins chopped tomatoes
150g quinoa
1 tbsp tomato paste
large handful of basil, roughly chopped
2 medium sized aubergines, cut into medium sized chunks
50g parmesan, grated (I often use grated low-fat cheddar to reduce the fat content for the cholesterol-conscious! )

Preheat grill to medium. Heat half the oil and gently fry the onion for about 5 or 6 minutes. Add garlic and fry for a further 2 minutes. Add tomatoes, quinoa, tomato paste, and 300ml just-boiled water. Simmer for 20 minutes until quinoa is tender. Stir through most of the basil and season.

While this mixture is simmering, heat the rest of the oil in a frying pan and fry aubergine on a low heat for about 15 minutes until softened. Add a little water to the pan when the oil is absorbed, as it will be and very quickly too!

Spread quinoa and tomato mixture on the bottom of a two litre casserole. Top with the aubergine and sprinkle the cheese on top. Grill for about 5 minutes until the cheese melts and bubbles and the dish is piping hot.

Garnish with a few basil leaves and serve at once. Crusty bread goes well with it and you will get 4 very good-sized servings from this recipe.

And two days later, the reheated leftovers are amazing.