Caponata

I first had this some years ago in a restaurant and absolutely fell in love with it. Amazingly, I’ve never made it myself; it’s been just one of those items on the ever-lengthening list of things that I never quite get round to….until today!

The first thing to say is that it makes quite a large quantity (which is no bad thing, let me tell you!) The recipe says it serves 6 but, as part of an antipasto platter, it would easily serve 12. The second thing to mention is, I cooked it for about twice as long as the recipe stated because I like the aubergines to be really soft and buttery.

I’m reliably informed that Caponata keeps well in a jar in the fridge with a thin layer of olive oil on the top to seal it. However, it tastes so good that I’m not sure you’ll be keeping it long enough to be bothering with that! Best eaten at room temperature, rather than fridge-cold, with plenty of fresh bread. If you want to serve it hot, it's brilliant with couscous and it can also be used as a seriously good pasta sauce.

There are umpteen recipes for Caponata on the net; I followed this one...

http://www.antonio-carluccio.com/Caponata

If it’s good enough for Antonio Carluccio, it’s good enough for me!

Beetroot, Feta and Walnut Salad

Beetroot…I think it’s another one of those 'love it or hate it' foods. I've always loved it but until today I’ve only had it pickled from a jar or from a shrink-wrapped packet bought at the supermarket. Well, I am so excited, I’m fit to burst – I have just made a salad with our very first home-grown beetroot plus some gorgeous salty-sharp feta and toasted walnuts! (Really, I must get a life…I should not be this excited about a root vegetable!)

It was absolutely delicious and like no other beetroot I’ve ever tasted; I don’t know whether that’s because it was only dug from the garden this morning, because it was organically grown or because it was freshly cooked…probably a bit of all three but, whatever the reason, I have had a slice today of my own little beetrooty heaven!

4 medium raw beetroot

3 tomatoes, cut into largish chunks

½ a small red onion, thinly sliced

3 or 4 good handfuls washed salad leaves

200g feta, roughly crumbled

50g walnut halves

1 tsp Dijon mustard

1 tsp grainy mustard

1 tsp runny honey

juice of ½ a lemon

few grinds of black pepper

2 tbsp olive oil

Wrap the beetroots individually in foil, place directly onto the oven rack and roast at 200C for 30-40 minutes until tender. While the beetroots are cooking put the walnuts into a small baking tin and toast in the oven for 8 minutes (put the timer on, they turn to charcoal very quickly!)

When the beetroots are cooked and cool enough to handle, slip the skins off and cut into wedges through the root ends.

For the Honey Mustard Dressing - whisk the two mustards, honey, lemon juice and black pepper together in a small bowl then gradually whisk in the olive oil until the dressing thickens.

Chop or tear the salad leaves into bite-sized pieces and divide between two serving plates; top with the chopped tomatoes and red onion followed by the beetroot wedges, feta and the roughly chopped toasted walnut halves.

Drizzle over the dressing just before serving.

Serves 2

Courgette and Feta Fritters

Another courgette recipe; you can tell they’re doing well in the garden this year! That's one of the things I love about ‘growing-your-own’ –  when everything starts to come to fruition at once you have to find ways of using it. Good job we love ‘em!

If you have as many courgettes as me you can freeze them; just chop them into largish chunks and pack into a Tupperware box before freezing. They’ll collapse somewhat when they’re defrosted, so I wouldn’t attempt making these fritters with them, but they’ll be perfectly OK for either of the soups I’ve posted recently.

I like fritters, they’re great hot and fresh with some new potatoes or wedges and a salad, but if you have a couple left over I can recommend them for lunch next day in a soft flour tortilla with a dollop of sour cream and some leafage with a few olives on the side. Delish!

400gm Courgettes
1 heaped tbsp plain flour
2 eggs, beaten
1tbsp finely chopped fresh herbs (thyme and chives are nice)
Grated zest of one lemon
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 shallot, peeled and finely chopped
100gms feta, crumbled into small pieces
2tbsps olive oil for frying

Grate the courgettes, salt lightly and leave to drain in a colander for 15 min. Meanwhile put the flour, eggs, shallot, herbs, garlic and lemon zest in a bowl and mix. Place the salted courgettes in the middle of a clean tea-towel then wring out the tea-towel** over the sink until the courgettes are almost dry. Add them to the bowl with the feta and mix well.

Heat the oil in a large frying pan and add a tablespoon of mixture for each fritter, flatten it out a bit and cook until the underside is golden, then turn and cook the other side. Put on a paper-towel lined plate while you cook the rest of the mixture.

Serve with new potatoes and a salad.

**Your tea-towel will look a bit wrecked, but it’ll be fine after a hot wash!

Moroccan Veggie Parcels with Aubergine Sauce

I made these little parcels last Sunday; we had three people round for lunch and I didn’t want to do a nut roast or similar – I was after a lighter, more summery type of thing. For some reason I broke my golden rule, the one I’ve stuck to all my life, and cooked something that I had never cooked before! I always have a dry-run of a new recipe before I unleash it onto guests but, in this instance, I can only assume I had a rush of blood to the head or possibly a severe attack of over-confidence….whatever it was, I must be mad!

In the event it all turned out rather well; I chose a Simon Rimmer recipe, which used to be on the BBC website but which has now been deleted (grrr!), but luckily I have a crafty copy on Word. I served it with tomato, olive and almond couscous and a leafy salad.

Moroccan Veggie Parcels

For the filling

1kg/2lb 3oz cooked sweet potato, cut into cubes

100g/3½oz chickpeas

100g/3½oz spinach

2 onions, sliced, fried in a little oil until softened

1 tbsp chopped fresh mint

1 tbsp chopped fresh coriander

1 tbsp chopped fresh flat leaf parsley

1 tsp sea salt

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

pinch chilli flakes

1 tsp turmeric

1 tsp paprika

1 tbsp runny honey

1 tbsp chopped dried apricots

1 tbsp flaked toasted almonds

300g/10½oz ready-rolled puff pastry, cut into 6 x 15cm/6in squares

2 free-range eggs, beaten

flour, for dusting

For the aubergines

2 aubergines, cut into 1.5cm/½in thick strips

100ml/4fl oz olive oil

1 tbsp tomato purée

3 tomatoes, chopped

1 garlic, crushed

1 tbsp ground cumin

1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley

Preparation method

1. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6 and dust a baking tray with flour.

2. Mix all of the filling ingredients in a bowl until well combined. Shape the mixture into six equally-sized balls. Place a ball into the middle of each square of pastry and wrap the pastry around the filling. Flatten slightly, brush with the egg wash and chill in the fridge for ten minutes.

3. Place the parcels onto the floured baking tray and bake in the oven for 25 minutes, or until golden-brown.

4. Meanwhile, heat 50ml/2oz of the olive oil in a frying pan and gently fry the aubergine pieces for five minutes.

5. Stir in the tomato purée, tomatoes, garlic and cumin and cook on a low heat for 25 minutes.

6. Add the rest of the olive oil and season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Cook for a further five minutes, stir in the parsley and serve alongside the pastry parcels.

Now, far be it from me to criticise Simon, but I think when I make it next time I’ll give it a few refinements:

• Double the chilli flakes in the filling to give it a bit more zing
• Halve the amount of sweet potato, it made far too much filling for only six parcels
• Double the chopped apricots because they got a bit lost in amongst all the other flavours
• I should point out that I used a tin of chopped tomatoes because I thought the sauce would be a bit dry with just three fresh toms to provide the ‘sauciness’ and I also chopped the aubergines into chunks rather than strips

None of this is meant to suggest that they weren't fine as they are, it's just that I always mess around with recipes when I've made them once, to bring them into line with our particular taste. Our guests are omnivores, but they were very complimentary and I don’t think (?!) they were just being polite. On the whole I’d say it was very successful and definitely one to do again. The aubergine sauce was brilliant; I think it would make a good filling for lasagne...must give it a try.

Serves 6

Eating Out

Do you eat in restaurants much? I'm sad to say we’ve almost given up on it; it’s just not worth the effort.

Is there a chef in the entire bloody country who knows that Parmesan is not veggie? I don't think so, judging by the look of the menus out there!

When I first went veggie I was under the mistaken impression that, although the eating out situation wasn’t great, things were bound to improve as time went on. Well, how wrong I was. Things are no better at all; you can still go into almost any mainstream restaurant and find the vegetarian ‘choice’ limited to one starter and one main course (both of which most likely include non-veggie cheese!) and as for wine - well, don't even ask!

I just don’t get why mainstream restaurants won’t offer more choice to veggies. Can they not understand that it is not only veggies who like to eat vegetarian food? Even confirmed omnivores will sometimes choose a veggie meal if it’s imaginative, tasty and well-presented. If they offered a good selection of vegetarian dishes, rather than the token ‘soup of the day’ and the tired ‘pasta bake’ that we usually get, their restaurant would appeal to more people and those same people would most probably eat at the restaurant more frequently; I know I would. Appealing to more punters would seem to be a sensible business move to me but, clearly, not to your average restaurateur.

It would be lovely if I lived in an area of the country where we had a selection of veggie eateries to choose from but, sadly, there is only one veggie café nearby. It’s a 'communal tables, knit your own yogurt, Jesus-sandal-wearing' type of establishment that really belongs back in the Hippy days of the 1960s; it’s not the kind of place I’m comfortable in.

If I was twenty years younger I would seriously consider starting up the kind of veggie restaurant that I’d like to eat in: medium-priced, nice surroundings, friendly professional staff and a competent innovative chef cooking a small selection of seasonally changing dishes (say...four starters, six mains and four puddings) with a good choice of veggie wines and cheeses....and no sign of a communal table!

In my dreams....

Banana Bread

This is a really lovely banana bread which I had nothing whatsoever to do with; my nephew made it and brought it with him when he came for lunch yesterday.

It’s moist, flavourful and spicy; it's also much darker and richer than the banana bread I usually make, from St Delia’s Complete Cookery Course, circa 1984 (!) I’m sure Delia will be gutted to know that she has now been cast aside like an old sock because, having prised the recipe out of him, I shall be using this one in future!

I’m reliably informed (by said nephew whose sister, my niece, now lives in Sydney) that banana bread, lightly toasted and buttered, is a favourite breakfast in Australia. Now, why have I only just found this out? Just think of all those lost years when I could have legitimately been eating cake for breakfast! There has obviously been a serious gap in my education, this is the sort of useful information I should have known… it’s nothing short of a disgrace! 

2 eggs

270g light soft brown sugar

3 over-ripe bananas, mashed

270g plain flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp ground ginger

1½ tsp ground cinnamon

a handful of pecans, roughly chopped (reserve 8 whole ones)

140 g melted butter

Beat the eggs and sugar together until well combined then mix in the bananas; add all the other ingredients, except the butter, and mix well; add the butter and mix to form a very soft batter.

Turn the mixture into a well-greased 2lb loaf tin, lay the whole pecans on top and bake at 180C for about 45-50 minutes until risen and cooked through. Test with a skewer and bake for a further 10 minutes if necessary.

Cool on a wire rack and store in an airtight tin.

Update: 12/7/11

I am happy to report that toasted banana bread with a little unsalted butter and some homemade marmalade is an absolutely scrummy breakfast! Well, I had to try it, didn’t I - it would have been rude not to!

Italian Vegetable Soup

They've started already; the courgettes are on the march! I wasn't expecting the onslaught quite so soon, but they seem to like the weather we've been having this year.

Every year about this time I start cooking recipes to help me use up the courgette mountain that has arrived in the garden; allotment holders and hobby gardeners across the land will all be very familiar with this same annual scenario.

I use them regularly in two different soups, fritters and a couple of salads; I also add them to roast veg as well as stir-fries and a vegetable tart. Admittedly, after a few weeks we get a bit courgetted-out but I still get a ridiculous sense of pleasure from just wandering outside and picking something that will be on our plates within half an hour. I’m easily pleased.

This soup may just look like a rather speckled tomato soup but the courgettes add a subtle sub-taste whilst the pesto gives it an Italian twist.

1 onion, chopped
1 courgette, sliced
1 400g tin of tomatoes (you can use fresh tomatoes if you prefer)
1 red pepper, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
750 ml veg stock
a heaped tbsp of tomato pesto (I use Sacla Organic)
3 or 4 sprigs of basil

Fry the onion, courgette and pepper in the oil for 5 mins, add the garlic and continue to fry for another 5 mins; add the stock and tomatoes and simmer gently for 15 mins.

Take off the heat, add the basil and the tomato pesto then blend with a stick blender until smooth. Thin with a bit more stock if necessary.

Serve in mugs with plenty of good bread.

Serves 4