Fresh vegetable side with mustard dressing

This is a great little side that I picked up (and adapted slightly) from Mellissa Bushby's book "The Vegetarian Kitchen"

It is delightful as a side to any meat dish, but if you want to have it for lunch and as a vegetarian main or if you haven't made any starches as a side, then I would just suggest adding a few boiled new potatoes which you then cut in half before you spoon on the dressing. I varied the veges that Ms Bushby had used and also omitted the sugar from the dressing - which personally, I don't think it needs.*

Ingredients - for two people as a side
Veges
2 large carrots - cut julienne
1 generous fistful of french green beans -top and tailed
2 courgettes - cut into circles
2-3 baby new potatoes -halved

Dressing
3-4 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp cider vinegar
2 tsp dijon mustard (try for the grainy kind)

Bring a pot (size dependent on the number you are cooking for) of salted water to the boil.

In the meantime, mix together the dressing ingredients and add salt and black pepper to taste.

Add the potatoes to the boiled water first and then 2-3 mins later add the rest of the veges and boil until al dente (crisp) or just done.

Drain and plate

Spoon the dressing over the veges.

Serve warm, as Mellissa suggests!

If you would like a wine suggestion I suggest a well-cooled dry chenin blanc or pinot grigio.

(*I should add here that where I can I try and avoid adding sugar to anything that can do without it - but that may be because I get my fair share of the heady white powder in the form of macaron mixture. And a girl has to watch her figure - which means that this makes a great meal if you've recently been indulging!)

Thai Vegetable Soup with Coriander Pesto.

The First of September announces spring in the Southern Hemisphere, but here in Cape Town, despite the tantalising appearances of sunny days, the wind still has a chill about it as it ushers in cold-fronts which deliver rain well into October.

And on those rainy days, as on cold ones, there are few things more comforting in winter than a warm soup, and at that one that has a little heat. Soups are also perfect for winter because they are packed with vitamins that ward off colds. I love soup, from the simple to the thick vegi-packed variety. But this soup has a delicate aroma which sets it apart and hints at the balmy warmth of those places which are famous for their spicy foods in the same way that spring hints at the heat of the summer that is to come. I really think that this soup is something of a treat in terms of flavour which comes from the sesame, flax and sunflower seeds which you heat up with coriander seeds before adding the vegetables. Garlic is fantastic in all seasons not only because of its flavour, but also because it has mild anti-septic and decongestant properties that help guard against colds and flu.

The coriander pesto is an addition which makes this a soup that can be served at a dinner party and will impress. The chili in this pesto adds punch to the soup.
Add a few prawns (two or three per person) to add body and serve as a main.


Ingredients:

Soup
15ml sesame seed oil
1 tblsp sesame seeds
1 tblsp sunflower seeds
1 tblsp flaxseeds
1 tsp coriander seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds

1 small cinnamon stick

small clove of garlic

2 leeks

4 spring onions

a small bunch of coriander

2 medium sweet potatoes

1 small butternut

3 large carrots

1 litre chicken stock

Coriander pesto

a large bunch of coriander

1/2 cup of lemon juice

1/4 cup olive oil

30ml flaxseed oil

1/2 cup pumpkin seeds

1/4 cup sunflower seeds

1 chili

1 large clove of garlic.

Cut up the spring onions and leeks into rounds and toss together with the shredded coriander. Crush the garlic. Cut the carrots julienne. Cut the sweet potato and butternut into small cubes. (This part requires a little effort and can also be done in advance and frozen and taken out when needed) Alternatively, just get it ready cut from the shops! No need to slave away when the convenience is there for the taking (off the shelf)

On a heavy-based pot, throw in the seeds and allow them to slowly toast. Be careful not to let them burn and you should see oil from the sesame, sunflower and flax seeds. Add the cinnamon stick. The cumin seeds may pop, so just be careful and when the seeds are toasted, remove from the heat. Add a little more sesame seed oil, if you need to, and then throw in the leeks, spring onions and garlic. Allow this to become translucent. Add the rest of the vegetables and stir while they fry briefly. Add the chicken stock and bring to the boil, topping with water as required until the vegetables are tender.

The coriander pesto is easiest to make with a hand held blender but can be made in an ordinary blender if you stir the mixture around the blades. Needless to say- BE VERY CAREFUL when you do this and make sure that the blender is off: I switch it off at the plug each time, just out of caution. You can also shake the blender when the power is on, but be careful again, not to overheat the motor. If you are using a hand held blender simply pop all the dry ingredients and lemon juice into a bowl. Drizzle in the oil and blend until smooth. Otherwise place the same ingredients into the blender blend as best you can as you drizzle in the oils. It may not turn out super-smooth but the texture that you do get is interesting and, I think, adds to the flavour. Pop into an airtight, sanatised jar to keep in the fridge or spoon a tablespoon immediately on each serving of soup . Stir in the pesto before eating and serve with crispy chiabatta rounds drizzled with flaxseed oil.

You can make the pesto a day before and the flavours will intensify. The pesto will keep for a week in the fridge and can be tossed into warm couscous and served as a side dish or add a tomato and onion salsa and crumble a hard-boiled egg (one per person) on the top and grind some fresh salt and pepper and serve as a light meal. Otherwise this makes a great base on crackers topped with a dollop of Crème Fraîche, lemon zest and a smoked mussel.

Bon Apetite!

Vegaterian Dinner Party Part 1 What is a dinner party?

For the first time last week I threw a vegetarian dinner party. I must say that I love a dinner party and it is something that people seem to do very little in Cape Town, perhaps because doing it properly is something of a logistical challenge. I read a lot about dinner parties in the UK Gaurdian; the English seem to be obsessed about their possible demise in society, what constitutes one and whether the said gathering, that constituted both guests and dinner was, in fact, a dinner party. Just the other day I read how week Jay Rayner of the Gaurdian was moved enraged by Alan de Botton's comments in The Times on dinner parties.

Well, I had to concur with Jay, that a dinner party is more than just serving out microwave dinners and asking intimate questions. The dinner is an intimate affair, yes, but the resulting conversation is only intimate if it is unforced and usually the feeling is enhanced by wine, selected especially to compliment the meal.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2010/may/28/alain-de-botton-dinner-party
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/real_food/article7137210.ece

But a dinner party doesn’t have to be excessively formal because the cook has gone to the trouble of exciting their guests’ tastebuds with delicious and thoughtfully prepared food that has been paired with wine. Ok, wine pairing is not always strictly necessary since I usually ask my guests to bring some to supplement what I have got, but I do feel that there should be a moment in each of my guest’s evening when, as they are eating and drinking in a wash of entertaining chatter, that they stop to think, hmm, this tastes delicious, and thus that they are really enjoying themselves. Putting the right people together is also essential, but on the off chance that as the host, you’ve misjudged your guests, then they should at least be happy that they came for the food and wine!

The Awe of Aubergine : Aubergine Rolls

Aubergine, also known as eggplant and perhaps more commonly known as the Brinjal or melongene, is a wonderful vegetable, I must admit to the fact that the deep purple colour of the skin never fails to elicit a sense of mystery and luxury about the fruit. One cannot help but feel that there is something magical about the fruit or, and indeed it was believed that because of the skin’s deep and ethereal colour, that the fruit was poisonous – but rest assured, it is not!
Aubergines actually come in a range of colours and are closely related to the tomato. Well no wonder- tomatoes must be one of God’s best gifts to the world and its relation; the aubergine does not fall short of the family accolades. Aubergine can be substantial without being heavy and it is unsurprising that tomato and Aubergine marry wonderfully together in a dish.
Aubergine appears in a range of countries' dishes, from the  Middle East, Thailand and China, North Africa, Turkey, Greece and Spain.  
Whenever I make aubergine, I always wash it, cut it and then cover the cut pieces with quite a layer of refined or coarse salt. I then leave this for anything from ten minutes to an hour. This known as "degorging". Many people say that you don’t have to do this, especially since the flavour of aubergine changes when it is cooked. But for me this does more than just remove any bitterness from the fruit (caused by the nicotinoid alkaloids in the plant which you can see in the brown watery runoff) as well as the fact that it helps to reduce the instance of oil absorption which happens because the fruit is rather spongy– which is not cool if you are using an expensive olive oil or if you are watching your weight! I also know some people who seem react badly and get terrible headaches from the nicotinoid alkaloids even after the fruit has been thoroughly cooked. Here I think that degorging helps and, though I am no scientist, I suspect that cooking aubergine with tomato also counteracts their affect.
But enough of that, let’s get back to the deliciousness of what can be made with the aubergine! Because the fruit is quite a rich, this also makes a substantial vegetarian dish if you leave out the chicken.
Ingredients
2 large aubergines, sliced into rounds to a medium thickness ( +/- 1cm)
4 chicken breasts, cut into thin slices (one for each slice of aubergine)
Sundried tomatoes, washed and left to soak in crushed garlic, 3 generous tblsps olive oil and a healthy dose of Oregano.
Calamata olives (depipped and finely chopped)
100g Mozzarella or ricotta cheese, depending on your preference
Two cans of whole peeled tomatoes
Salt and fresh black pepper
Toothpicks
small bunch flat-leaf parsley roughly chopped.
To make
Degorge the aubergine slices as described above. You will find that this also makes the slices more pliable and easier to roll.
If you are using ricotta cheese, you can add the chopped olives, a good pinch of salt and crack of black pepper and mix it up.
Rinse the aubergine slices well.
Season the chicken slices with the salt and pepper.
The rest is fairly easy:
Take a slice of aubergine. Place a slice of chicken on top of that. Then add a bit of the olives (if they are not in the ricotta cheese), one or two sundried tomatoes, a slice of mozzarella or spread a teaspoon of the ricotta mixture and roll up the slice and secure with a toothpick. Place in an ovenproof dish that has been lightly greased with olive oil. Drizzle the remaining oil and herbs from the sundried tomatoes over the top (pop in any sundried tomatoes that you may have left over too. Save about half for the top. Squash over two cans of whole peeled tomatoes with all the juice. Drizzle over remaining flavoured oil and a bit of crumbled ricotta.

Pop in a hot oven (220 degrees Celsius) and allow to cook for 15 minutes. Reduce the heat to 150 degrees Celsius and cook for a further 20 minutes.
Serve on top of cous cous that has a little bit of nutmeg sprinkled into it and then top with the tomato sauce that has formed as part of the dish with a generous pinch of freshly cut flat-leaf parsley.

Enjoy!

Freshly layered Broccoli and Stilton Lasagne

So it's Friday and if all you want to do is settle down comfortably on the couch with a glass of red and something delicious and just a little bit indulgent, then this is the dish. Fresh layered lasagne is all the rage at the moment. No more of long prep only to be followed by an hour of cooking time in the oven. This lasagne is so easy it can be made in one pot before you plate it up - another plus for a Friday night, who after all wants to have a pile of dishes to do after a hard week of work and your plan is to lull off to sleep watching a DVD?

Oh, and who said that broccoli has to be boring? This is a flavoursome and morish vegetarian lasagne. If you wrinkle up your nose at (what I think is a particularly diverse, not to mention vitamin and mineral-packed vegetable) this recipe should change your mind. Many people discard broccoli stems, but this is my favourite part- cut it into centimetre-thick disks so that it gets tender when you cook it. But this is not a lesson in there virtues of broccoli; it’s a post about lazy Friday nights. But I will say this: Broccoli olive oil, origanum (oregano, as it’s known in some places) and crushed garlic is a combination made in culinary heaven. Add shavings of parmesan, or a sprinkle of feta, stilton, blue cheese, goats milk cheese and you have a most delicious side-dish which I could gobble just on it’s own! But for a more filling and satisfying meal, then just add pasta as I have here. Adjust accordingly, but here I have given the quantities for four people.

Fresh layered broccoli, stilton and olive vegetarian lasagne

300g Broccoli (divided into florets and the stem thinly cut)
30 pipped Calamata olives
3 good lugs of olive oil
1 clove crushed garlic
1 small red chili
A pinch of salt
Fresh black pepper
Origanum
40g Stilton cheese

6 pieces of lasagne pasta, broken in half

Parmesan cheese for serving



Bring a large pot of water to the boil with a good pinch of salt. Place the pasta into the water. In a steel colander, place the broccoli and place this on top of the pasta and cover with a lid.

After three minutes remove the florets. If the pasta is al dente, then remove that into a bowl and cover with some of the pasta liquid.

In the pot, heat up the oil, garlic, chilli, salt and pepper and origanum. Toss in the broccoli and the olives. Take off the heat and sprinkle over half the cheese. Toss again and add a little of the pasta water so that you get a little bit of a creamy sauce.

Place a layer of pasta (one per person) and cover with broccoli and sauce. Add another layer of pasta and some more broccoli. Distribute the left-over stilton between the portions and the layer. On top put a final layer of pasta and then grate on a sprinkling of Parmesan, a crack of black-pepper and another lug of olive oil. If you want, you can pop this under the grill for a minute or two, but if you have worked quickly, it should still be warm, so serve immediately.

Drink with a wooded Chardonnay (if you want to be fancy) but the stilton will happily accommodate the tannins of your favourite red blend.