Tonight's simple dinner

Swamped with courgettes at the moment, trouble is if I stop to eat them up the beans will overwhelm me.

These are really basic fritters, just sliced courgette dipped in a flour and water batter and shallow friend in peanut oil with a drop of toasted sesame seed oil added.

Served with rice, brown would be more wholesome but white basmati was good and a dipping/pouring sauce of soy sauce mixed with rice vinegar with shreds of ginger and garlic.

Processing

Three courses for Amy

Apologies for the pictures, I'd just forced myself into the kitchen to cook a three course dinner worth blogging and then I heard the news of her very untimely death. So I celebrated as I know she'd have understood. Poor Amy, so young and so lost.


Tomato Pepper Vodka Cocktail

If anyone wants the recipes say so in the comments and I'll update the post for you. ***Update*** Recipes at bottom of post ***


Courgette Custard Tart with Glazed Garden vegetables and roast potatoes


Strawberries and Peaches marinated in Rosé wine

Raise a glass to her, but don't ever drink too much.

Tomato Pepper Cocktail

For one serving:

1 medium tomato
1/2 roasted red pepper (for one person, easiest to take one from a good quality jar, but you can roast and skin a fresh pepper if you prefer)
3 Greek cured black olives (or Kalamata)
a little finely chopped green chilli to your taste
10ml vodka
5ml lemon juice
Salt if needed, most likely if you roasted your own pepper

Skin the tomato, take out the seeds and discard, chop the flesh into small dice. Chop the prepared red pepper into dice of a similar size to the tomato pieces. Remove the stones from the olives and slice the olive flesh into small slivers.

Mix all the ingredients together, taste for seasoning and adjust if necessary, cover and refrigerate until needed. Remove from fridge half an hour before serving, mix around again to combine the fruit and juices and serve in a chilled glass with such decorations as you prefer.

Courgette Custard Tart

for shortcrust pastry:

300g plain flour
150g vegan marg.
pinch of salt

Cut the fat into the flour and salt with a knife or pastry tool, then rub with the fingers gently to make flaky crumbs. Use just enough cold water (about 2 tbsp) to form a soft dough that can be formed into a neat ball. Cover and leave in a cool place for half an hour.

for filling:
500g grated courgette flesh
1 onion
splash of oil, not too much
170g tofu - soft or from longlife block
50g non-dairy milk
50g plain flour
15g nutritional yeast
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 to 1 tsp black salt
1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg

Heat the oven to 200C

Chop the onion and fry it in a little oil until it starts to colour. Add the grated courgette and cook over a gentle heat for 10 minutes or so to remove all excees moisture. If you want you can sqeeze the courgette flesh in a teatowel before cooking to remove some juice and hasten this process. Set aside to cool.

Mash the tofu with the flour, milk and flavourings to make a smooth batter. The black salt gives this an eggy flavour, use ordinary salt to taste if you prefer. Mix in the cooled fried vegetables.

Roll out the pastry and use it to line a deep muffin cup tray, there should be enough pastry for 12 tarts but if you prefer make a smaller amount of pastry for fewer tarts, left over filling cooks nicely in the oiled muffin cups and will make good 'eggs' for breakfast.

Prick the pastry lined cups all over to stop the pastry puffing up and bake blind for 10 mins. Then remove from the oven and fill the cups with the filling mixture. Return to the oven for another 20 to 25 minutes until the filling is lightly coloured and the pastry is golden.

Can be eaten warm or cold.

Peach Strawberry Rosé Pudding

is so simple you don't really need a recipe. Cut some nice ripe fruit into bitesize pieces, sprinkle on a little sugar if you like and douse in a glass of rosé wine - mine was a Minervois but any that you like will do. Cover and chill for an hour or so until needed. A little chopped mint sprinkled over at serving time adds some slight complexity.

Paranoid Salad and Tomato Tart

There have been a couple of very unpleasant food-poisoning events in Europe in the last few weeks, one in Germany and another in the south of France. A new form of e-coli is implicated, a particularly nasty variant which seems to kill 1% of all those who contract it and makes many more sick enough to need hospitalisation. After a lot of finger pointing at the Spanish, who appear to have been entirely innocent, the infection was tracked down to beansprouts and has been further identified as coming from some seeds supplied through an Egyptian wholesaler. At the moment I'm not aware of any other information about how the seeds became contaminated.

At the height of the first outbreak ALL salad vegetables were suspect and dire warnings were issued to avoid tomatoes, cucumbers and any sort of uncooked vegetable. Despite believing myself to be an educated sceptic and well able to understand a scientific argument I found myself unable to actually buy any of the vegetables from anywhere because, well, better safe than sorry.

I'm over it now but in case you ever find yourself in the grip of an irrational fear of salad here is a cooked version that will help you get your five a day without tears.

I had lovely vegetables from the garden, baby carrots, baby broad beans, tender young mange touts, some cabbage leaves from the baby cabbages and a courgette (not pictured)

Prepare your vegetables by washing well in cool water, then cut the roots and courgettes into small batons or cubes, shell the beans, top and tail the mange touts and cut your cabbage into small squares (take out the ribs). You could shred the cabbage if you prefer.

Bring a biggish pot of water to the boil, it needs to be quite large so that the temperature doesn't drop when you add the vegetables and keeps boiling. In turn drop your little piles of prepared veg into the pot, return to the boil for one minute and then scoop out, easiest with a slotted spoon or small sieve. Set the blanched veg to cool and drain while you attend to the next batch. When all the vegetables have been through the hot bath, drain well again and coat with your preferred dressing. I used a vinaigrette but if the salad is cool a mayonnaise or yoghurt dressing can be used. Cover and chill until needed.

To serve with the salad I had tomatoes that desperately needed using up before they went off so they were made into a very simple Tomato Tart with a yeasted dough crust, seasoned with a little garlic and some chopped chilli. I finished this with a balsamic reduction.

A Roman Supper

I've been dipping into recipe books looking for inspiration for the menus for the pop-up restaurants in the autumn. The first date is set, for Nottingham on the last weekend of November and so although it seems a long time ahead I really have to start planning and practising.

Not that this meal is likely to be making an appearance as it's almost painfully simple and homely. It comes in part from the Roman Cookery book I've used before and was appealing enough that when I read the recipe last night I knew it would have to be today's supper.

It's really all about the herbs which flavour the lentils and courgettes and the crispy crunchy texture of the lagana which accompany them. The lentils are cooked with red wine and stock and an onion, spiced with cumin and anise (although I substituted fennel seeds) and then made greenly aromatic with fresh oregano and parsley. The courgettes are lifted with lemon juice, coriander leaf and fresh basil. The recipe for the fried breads is here

The work in deciding on possible dishes for the autumn events continues and isn't as easy as just sticking pins into recipes and going with fate. The produce will be different in November which is practically winter after all, and there's a need to please more of the people more of the time.

Which is where I'm hoping anyone reading will help me. If you were going for a meal at a new vegan restaurant near you what would you hope to find on the menu, what's your favourite eating out food? Even if you usually read this in a reader I'd be really grateful for your comments.

Marinated Artichokes

A couple of weeks ago I took the harvest from two artichoke plants. Home grown artichokes, at least the ones I grow, are not as large and imposing as the sort grown in Brittany (and California) on farms dedicated to their production and tend to become tougher sooner but picked young they are still a worthwhile and delicious crop.

In an attempt to preserve some of the goodness for enjoying later in the summer these were marinaded in the jar, soaking up garlic, lemon and oil, making them ideal for adding to pizzas, sandwiches and as a salad garnish.

They are a bit tedious to prepare and if you're not aggressive enough with the trimming you may leave some tough bits behind which will detract from the finished product.

Pick your artichokes before they are much more than 5cm in diameter, keep a short stem as on young flowers the stem can be trimmed and eaten too.

Recipe:

Baby artichokes with short stems, enough to fill 1/2 litre jar after prep.
Salt
10 ml Lemon Juice (for precooking)

Marinade:
60 ml lemon juice
60 ml oil, light flavoured or olive or mix
120 ml 5% cider or white wine vinegar
2 cloves of garlic, large slivers (about 6 pieces)
1 green chilli pepper if liked
1.5 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
10 ml balsamico

Prepare artichokes, trim off tough outer lower bracts, peel stem, cut off top and discard. Tiny ones can be left whole, larger ones must be halved or quartered and checked for choke - remove if necessary.

Add salt and 10 ml juice to pan with prepared artichokes and add just enough clean water to cover. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes until artichokes are tender. Drain.

Pack into warm sterile jar whilst still hot.

Mix the marinade ingredients together in non-metallic saucepan and bring to a boil, pour over artichokes in jar tucking chilli and garlic down the sides with a clean spoon. Top up with boiling water if necessary. Seal with lid while hot.

Allow to cool, keep in fridge for 10 days, then use as required. Will keep for a few weeks in the cold, for longer storage they will need hot water bath processing after packing.

Pop-up Underground

Tofu Scramble with dutch oven roasted potatoes - the potatoes are that odd colour because they have a lot of blue colour in them naturally.

I did a whacky and slightly scary thing today. I announced on twitter that I would be doing a pop-up restaurant event in the autumn. I've no idea what made me do it, but it's said now, so that's what must be happening.

What's a pop-up underground restaurant? It's pop-up because it's available for a very short time. Pop-ups typically appear in unused spaces or non-food locations and after one or two nights, the show is over and they're on their way. Underground restaurants serve meals open to the public but hosted in private homes. It's on the edge of legality and most underground venues release their location on a need to know basis. Successful underground restaurants may have regular calendar dates scheduled for meals.

There is either a charge per head or donations are taken for the cost of food and preparation. Alcohol can't be sold, that really is illegal, but patrons are allowed to bring their own. The menu is fixed, sometimes themed and served supper style with all guests receiving each course at about the same time. Sometimes tables are shared as space is usually very limited in a domestic setting.

Have a look at MsMarmite's blog - she was certainly the first underground restaurateur I came across and is a great read. But of course, I've never eaten there because the food isn't vegan. It's too much to expect small concerns, often one person bands, to make extraordinary efforts to feed vegans if their usual metier is more mainstream. Which is where I come in...

I'm hoping to do at least one event in the UK this autumn, more if venues can be found so that the vegan supperclub joy can be spread around the country a bit. This really is a project that's just hours old so nothing is fixed at all yet, but it's going to happen.

Watch this space.

No Knead Bread

There's no need for that

Although I find a batch of no-knead dough in the fridge invaluable for flat breads and pizzas this attempt at a full sized loaf failed technically as it was under developed, under proofed and sadly a bit under cooked too. The last two can be blamed on the cook but the method really doesn't quite cut it for me on the texture of the finished loaf.

Still, I like to think it has a nice friendly appearance, don't you?

A stew for summer

The summer vegetables are beginning to be plentiful enough to make whole meals. This very simple little stew uses small artichokes, freshly dug floury potatoes and the tiniest just forming broad beans in their pods, each no longer than half my little finger.

For one person:

2 small artichokes
2 small/medium potatoes
about 15 baby broad beans or french beans
Olive oil
Garlic to taste
Juice of one lemon
Boiling water
1 tsp. sugar
Salt to taste
Green herbs (parsley, coriander) for garnish.

Prepare your vegetables. The artichokes need trimming around the base, the tough scales removing and the chokes scraped out, easiest if they are cut into quarters first. Make sure you get all the coarse bracts/leaves trimmed because they're a bit chewy otherwise at serving.

I peeled the potatoes because the variety has a dark skin that colours the water but it's not essential with light coloured sorts. Cube or slice in pieces to match the artichoke sections for size.

The beans should have any flower debris removed and be washed but need no other preparation.

Put the artichokes and potato in a heavy pan with a good dollop of olive oil. This is an essential part of the dish so don't skimp. Allow the vegetables to cook gently for 10 minutes or so, keep them moving so they don't stick. Throw in the garlic if using and stir.

Add about 250ml boiling water, the lemon juice, sugar and salt to taste. This will take a lot of salt because of the lemon and potatoes and it's good to add some at this stage but be a little cautious, much easier to add a little more seasoning at the end than take it out.

Bring back to a brisk simmer for 15 minutes or so. Serve in a bowl, with liberal chopped herbs and lots of bread. Eat with a spoon to enjoy the delicious salty, lemony, oily broth. Can be served hot or at room temperature.

Eating Greens

The Mr. has been here for a few days. One of the meals he requested was green vegetables, cooked. In the picture above is the selection I chose for him from the garden, rainbow chard, mixed leaf cabbage and the ubiquitous invasive weedy tree spinach called Magentaspreen.



The chard was stripped from its stems, the stems cooked briefly in boiling water and the leaves steamed above, drained well and dressed simply with lemon juice and salt.

The cabbage leaves were shredded finely and stir friend with cumin, mustard seeds, ginger and a little onion.

The tree spinach was blanched, drained, squeezed to remove excess moisture and dressed with soy sauce, a little balsamic vinegar and topped with gomashio.

I served the three dishes with a miso soup.