everyday experiments with food
Since I was barbecuing beef on the Weber tonight, I also char-grilled some halved zucchini and red capsicum. Served up here with some sliced red onion, crumbled feta cheese, currants, freshly cracked pepper and salt, and drizzled with vino cotto. Tasty and looking sharp.
I’ve become a fan of Jamie Oliver’s shared platters, so at least in the summertime they pop up fairly often in our house, either inspired by his “15 Minute Meals”, or my own simpler creations like this. Yes, I could have added some goat’s cheese, but I was saving that for dessert!
Lettuce and baby chard leaves from our garden
Cherry tomatoes (also from the garden)
Redo onion and fennel bulb, sliced thinly
BBQ grilled peach slices
Green and purple basil leaves (yes, garden too!)
Drizzled with honey and lemon juice
Freshly cracked black pepper and salt
Colourful. Tasty. Healthy.
This is such an excellent dish. It’s not too different from making a quiche. What makes it special is the sweet-sour roasted garlic and whatever combination of cheese you choose. My recipe is adapted from Yotam Ottolenghi’s recipe in “Plenty“. I’ve added the greens (and changed the cheeses a little). Yotam is my ‘go to’ chef at the moment. Maggie Beer’s website is here. She is extraordinary and her website and cookbooks are excellent. Maggie was behind me on the queue for a flight once, and I wanted to turn around and say “your pastry recipe has changed my life” but that just sounded a bit, you know, fannish… Anyway, here’s the recipe.
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Here’s a simple vegetarian pasta that I made up the other night.
Slice half a large leek thinly. Saute it gently in butter until soft. Add 1/3 cup of white wine and reduce. When half of the liquid has evaporated, add halved cherry tomatoes and continue to simmer until the liquid reduces some more. Add 3-4 tbsp good quality pesto.
Meanwhile cook the spaghetti. Drain and reserve a little of the cooking liquid. Add a 3-4 tbsp of this to the pesto sauce.
Pan fry some sliced haloumi over high heat until brown. Mix the spaghetti, pesto sauce and haloumi together. Top with fresh basil leaves and some shaved parmesan or grana padano. Squeeze some fresh lemon juice on top and add cracked black pepper.
Very fresh and fine indeed.