Butternut squash, pomegranate, feta and mint salad with pine nuts

Now HERE is a salad that will bring a smile to your face on a sunny summer's day, and just in time for the London heatwave. I came across it in an issue of the Sunday Times Style supplement, which I normally never read.
Admittedly this is soooo North London, and the very fact that I am able to waltz into my local supermarket and pick up a pomegranate year round is a serious luxury, and one which I don't take lightly.
That said, the original recipe has said that you can happily replace this one ingredient with another sharp, sweet fruit, like a handful of juicy black cherries is what. I also think slices of orange could work.
It is a fantastic mixture of flavours - deep earthy spices roasted, then tempered with creamy feta and sharp, sweet pomegranate, rounded off with the refreshing mint, with the texture of the squash delivering a lovely big bite. It works well with some nice crusty bread, and I think couscous would be equally nice. It's also a nice counter to the more traditional tomato-cucumber-rocket-leaf. It also looks divine, and when we brought it to a picnic last weekend, it was one of the first things to get finished! Yum, yum, yum.

Butternut squash, pomegranate, feta and mint salad with pine nuts (serves four people)

• 1/2 to 3/4 of a large butternut squash
• 2 tbsp crushed chilli flakes (less if you like it with a milder kick)
• 2 tbsp coriander seeds
• 2 tbsp cumin seeds
• 2 tbsp pine nuts (dry toasted)
• 150g feta cheese
• 1 pomegranate
• Bunch of fresh mint

For the dressing:

• 1/2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• A good pinch of caster sugar
• Leftover pomegranate juice (1-2tbsp, taste as you go)
• A small pinch of cinnamon
• 2 tbsp olive oil

Grinding spices

As always, pre-heat your oven. Something in the region of 200C is good. Next, peel your butternut squash, and chop into semi-circle slices (carefully, squash is very slippery and can be tough to chop!) about 1/2 a cm thick. 

Grind your spices in a pestle and mortar with a decent pinch of rock salt and ground black pepper. The mix doesn't have to be perfectly ground into the same texture, mostly just try to crush the coriander seeds. I sadly don't own a pestle and mortar, so I put whatever I'm crushing into a small plastic bowl, and use a rolling pin. It largely works but the spices tend to fly out everywhere. 

Spread the butternut squash across two roasting trays - you don't want to crowd them too much, so do use two trays, and drizzle with about 1 tbsp oil for each tray. Then divide over your spice mix, and use your hands  to make sure it gets a nice coating. Then put it in the oven for about 25 minutes, and check in every now and then, agitating the tray so it doesn't stick and maybe flipping the squash over so they brown on both sides. 

Meanwhile, you can dry toast your pine nuts. Keep an eye on as they don't sizzle, so you forget about them more easily than you think! You can also start picking your seeds out the pomegranate. The best way to do this, I find, is to slice the fruit cleanly in half, then over a bowl, use your hands to break each half apart, and use your fingers to root out the pockets of seeds. Try to save as much juice as possible for the dressing (and don't wear anything white while you're doing it.)

When the squash is done, remove from the oven. It should look somewhat like the below, and not too dried out. 

Butternut squash, ready to come out of the oven

To make a dressing, the original recipe invites you to use that most North-London of all ingredients, pomegranate molasses. I had no such thing, so into a jar I put the juice of the pomegranate that was reserved in the bowl (crushing seeds with a teaspoon if I needed more juice, around 1 or 2 tbsp), 1/2 tbsp balsamic vinegar,  1 tbsp lemon juice, and a small pinch of cinnamon. To add some sweetness, a pinch or two of caster sugar did the job, then top up with 2 or so tbsps of olive oil, and shake or whisk well.

Next, take your squash, scatter over a large plate, then crumble over the feta, leaving decent sized chunks. Add the pine nuts, and top with the mint and pomegranate. Drizzle dressing over just before service, and enjoy outside in the lovely sunshine (if possible!)

Pomegranate seeds, so pretty

Credit where credit is due: Modified from recipe by Gizzi Erskine in the Sunday Times

Vegetarian tagine with couscous and hummus

Roasted vegetables are one of those unique ingredients in a meal I find - they drag even the most bland or plastic 'panini' or salad right up into the higher echelons in one move. So what happens when you take a holy combo of red pepper, parsnip, carrot and red onion, roast them until they're sweet and caramelized, put them in rich, heavily spiced tomato sauce and serve with couscous and hummus? Good things happen, that's what.
 So: technically it's a vegetarian tagine. Extremely straightforward and brilliant for leftovers, plus (of course) is a seriously tasty meal. It's also low-cal if you care about that sort of thing.  It's a very straightforward tagine, doable by anyone. Cheap too, so what's not to love? (Apart from the fact it isn't terribly beautiful.

Admittedly, this isn't exactly seasonal, but do you have any idea how many times I've been caught in a moody downpour this month on my way back from work? This is ideal grumpy-comfort food, simple to make, warming from the inside out without the guilt of a pizza binge. The opposite, even - the original recipe actually informs me that this gives you your entire five-a-day in one handy meal.
Perfect for rubbish rainy June evenings, Sunday nights or whenever you want something hot and comforting without lots of effort. This is also pretty great if you're trying to serve a large group of people, given it's basically a quick stew. And feel free to replace the veggies - sweet potato in place of peppers would be nice, or courgette (although do adjust roasting times.) This would also be a wonderful side-dish for any Moroccan spread a treat, so if you feel like being extra creative, serve with falafel, lamb, pitta, salad, mint yoghurt, chicken in harissa, coriander-spiced meatballs... the list is endless. 

Vegetarian tagine with couscous and hummus (serves 2 with leftovers)

• 2 carrots
• 2 small parsnips
• 2 small red onions or 1 big one
• 1 red pepper
• 1/2 green pepper
• Handful of dried apricots (I chop mine, you can leave them whole if you prefer - you can see them in the bag in the photo)
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 400g tin of chopped tomatoes
• 1 tbsp cumin
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp chilli powder/flakes
• 2 tsp honey

Plus 150g couscous and pot of hummus, to serve.

It's a very simple recipe. Chop up all your veg into even sized chunks, spread across two or three roasting tins. You can put them all in one, if you like, but crowded veg won't roast properly.  Leave the onion in about 8 wedges, though - not too small.Drizzle with a little olive oil, ensure evenly coated (try not to disturb the red onions from their wedge-shape, I find they dry out terribly when separated into thin strips.) Put into oven on a high heat, around 200C, for 20 to 30 minutes, taking it out to shake the veg and check on it occasionally. When the veg is roasted to your liking, remove from the oven.
Next, put a tablespoon of oil in a sauce pan, and add your spices. The amount I use is a lot higher than the recipe suggests, but I find it's far tastier this way - nothing worse than an under-seasoned meal! Stir the spices into a paste on a medium heat, until very fragrant, then add your apricots, honey and then your tomatoes. Refill half the tin with water, give a shake, and add to the tomatoes and spices mix on the stove. Turn  up to the boil, then reduce to a simmer until it thickens to your liking.

Adding the veg to the thickened spicy tomato sauce

Around this point, you can make some couscous. Everyone has their own recipe, but for me I like to fry a knob of butter in a pan, add two crushed cloves of garlic for a few moments, then add a shake of cumin or paprika. Then add 120g of couscous (for two) with 150ml of water, and crumble in half a vegetable stock cube. Bring to the boil, then cover with a lid and take off the heat. Fluff with a fork five minutes later, after the water has been absorbed. When the tomato sauce has thickened enough, add your roasted vegetables until heated through, then serve and enjoy! If you have a sprig of coriander floating about, it probably wouldn't go amiss, for garnishing purposes either. 


Credit where credit is due: BBC Good Food

Bulghar wheat and spinach pilaf

This is a perfectly gorgeous dinner - an onion-y, chilli tomato-ey delicious platter of grains you can scoop and scoop and scoop from. It's also brilliant for entertaining - just up the quantities. This would also work extremely well at a picnic or barbecue, is still delicious cold, and is easy to prepare in advance. It's also a very straightforward thing to make, it's almost a salad - almost, but SO much more fantastic. This is a brilliant one for summer, so if you've been enjoying the sunshine, bookmark this one as a nice warm weather lunch or dinner.

The only unusual ingredient in this, with the exception of Harissa used on the tomatoes (any Mediterranean shop - I get mine in Phoenicia in Kentish Town), is bulghar wheat. This is available from my local supermarket, and is a quick-cooking form of wheat which has been parboiled. It looks like Demerara sugar - don't put it in your coffee - and has a slightly nutty but wonderfully versatile flavour. It is an absolute doddle to make - simmer, then leave to soak, 25 minutes start to finish. And it's rich in fibre, low in fat, and a popular staple in Middle Eastern food. A little research also turned up that it's really rich in minerals, - iron, phosphorus and zinc (the most common nutritional deficiency) to name a few. 

I feel like many people my age really neglect the sheer amount of variety  on offer, especially when it comes to grains. Couscous was a massive discovery for me when I was a student, and most people I know have never heard of bulghar wheat.  That said, I'm fortunate enough to live in a place where I'm frequently baffled by the sheer expanse of ingredients on offer in my local supermarket, even, let alone if I was to take the bus into Soho. However,  you can substitute couscous for bulghar wheat, if you like, and still enjoy the deeply refreshing and satisfying pilaf. And healthy to boot, seriously. This is a dream food. My new aim for the summer is to make this and bring it to the park to be eaten with maximum joy.

Bulghar wheat and spinach pilaf (serves 4-ish)

To make things easier, and following the original recipe's lead, I've kept the ingredients separated into sections. 

Tomatoes

10 to 12 plum tomatoes (sliced into segments)

4 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

1.5 tsp Harissa paste (or a sprinkle of chilli flakes if you don't have it.)

2 tsp Muscavado/soft, dark sugar 

Pilaf

170g bulghar wheat

295ml vegetable stock 

1 onion (finely chopped)

2 cloves of garlic (peeled and sliced)

300g spinach

Decent handful of mint (chopped)

4 tbsp olive oil

Feta cheese 

Onions (which get scattered on top)

2 onions, (thinly sliced into semi-circles)

2 tbsp olive oil

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1.5 tsp Muscavado/soft, dark sugar 

1/2 lemon (juiced)

Pre-heat your oven to 200C and start with your tomatoes as they'll take around 30 minutes. I've already used this method in the breakfast recipe with soda farls - sometimes chilli tomatoes are just what the doctor ordered to perk your morning up. But slice the tomatoes, and in a small bowl, mix the olive oil, Harissa and balsamic. Put the tomatoes in a roasting tin and pour over the sauce, using your hands to ensure a nice even coverage, then sprinkle over the sugar to result in some delicious caramelised tomatoes.

Tomatoes roasted in Harissa, balsamic and olive oil 

These can be hot or cold when the pilaf is served - and they are DELICIOUS. Sweet and chewy with a fantastic chilli kick to offset the sugar. Cooks perks deem, in my view,  you definitely get to have a snack on one or two of these lovely tomatoes of them before dinner is served. 

Meanwhile, start on your pilaf. Put the chopped onion in 2tbsp of olive oil in a nice big pot (that you have a lid for) and fry for a few minutes until softened, then add the garlic and let that soften as well. With your 295ml (I'm sure 300ml would be fine...) stock at the ready, tip in the bulghar wheat on top of the onions, stir, and quickly pour over the stock. Bring to boiling, then turn the heat right down to a low simmer for around 15 minutes - I like to give it an occasional stir . After this time, you can turn off the heat completely, put the lid on and let it sit for 10 minutes or so. You can chop your mint now, if you haven't already. 

While this is happening, you can get on with your spinach. Probably do this in two goes, as I get spinach everywhere when I try to do 300g in one go.

Spinach prior to frying - this is about as soggy as I let it go. If you have a few unwilted leaves left, it's nice to have a mix. 

Rapidly rinse the spinach then use your hands to shake the water off it. Put it into a big pan on a high heat and let it wilt slightly then drain into the sink and let it sit for a few minutes until it's cool enough that you can squeeze out some of the excess water. I don't like the spinach to lose too much of its shape, and I think it tastes much nicer when its closer to raw than completely steamed and bitter. Roughly chop chop chop on a chopping board, then throw it into a frying pan, or the pot you used to wilt it if it's dry enough in 2tbsp of olive oil. Fry very briefly, then add to the pilaf. I usually don't wait for the pilaf to be fully done before adding. Put it in, give it a stir, replace the lid.

Now you just have to do your onions, which are rapidly fried until crispy. On a high heat, add the onions and stir frequently, and right when they are getting good and crispy, add the cinnamon (just a pinch!) and the sugar, then take off the heat.

Onions, crisping up

To assemble, on your nicest, biggest plate (if you have one), tip out the bulghar and spinach. Then scatter over the mint. Then add the tomatoes and finally the crispy onions. Take a good handful of feta and crumble over, then tip over your lemon juice.

Serve with whatever you like - I find hummus is a lovely thing to put with it, and if you want to make sure your guests are damn well fed, you can also make up some falafel and an olivey-Greek salad to go with it!

Falafel, Greek salad and the bulghar wheat pilaf on its way to the table.

Credit where credit is due: 101 Cookbooks

Quesadilla and chunky salsa - quick weekend lunch!

I used to work in this café in the town I grew up in on the coast of south west Ireland which would be pretty quiet during the winter and absolutely heaving with tourists during the summer. I remember once a coachload of German tourists all ordered the same thing - a toasted panini and we only had one grill! That was interesting, to say the least.

We had a kind of a tex-mex thing going alongside the brownies, bagels and soups, and I got a taste for this particular chunky salsa I used to make in buckets and now I'm devoted to it. It's more of a salad, than a salsa and I love it - it's the perfect foil to spicy jalapeno and greasy fried quesdailla - five ingredients: tomato, white onion, lime, coriander and salt. It is utterly delicious on plain salted tortilla chips as well and takes two seconds to make. I don't purport to know ANYTHING about Mexican food by the way - my idea of Mexican is basically peppers and onions covered in fajita spice with chicken. I don't even like beans, for god's sake. But this is really yummy, I promise - just no guarantees about it being authentically anything other than being delicious thanks to the combined wonders of cheese, butter and carbohydrate.

Chunky basic salsa

• Handful of coriander (finely chopped)
• 2 tomatoes
• Half a white onion
• Half a lime, juiced
• A decent amount of table salt

 

Chop the tomato cleanly in half, then slice into three or four thick vertical slices without disturbing the semi-circle shape of the tomato if possible, then turn it round and slice again making chunks - a sharp knife here helps or you'll end up with tomato mush and water! Do the same with the onion half, and mix together in a big enough bowl that you'll be able to thoroughly encorporate the salt, lime juice and coriander. Use your hand to make sure all the flavours blend, if you can be bothered - and taste as you go. More salt than you think you need is often the secret.

Quesadilla with cheese and jalapeno

Below are the ingredients per quesadilla - this is a really nice open recipe, so feel free to experiment. Avocado, roasted chicken strips, mince, quorn...or substitute the cheddar with feta and make it with spinach and sundried tomato! And work from there. This is my favourite though.

• 1 tsp of soft-ish butter
• 1 tortilla wrap
• 1 or 2 handfuls of grated cheddar or similar
• 4 or 5 jalapenos, depending on how much heat you like

Get a large frying pan good and hot, and have your cheese pre-grated at the ready. Smear a tsp or equivalent of  spoonful of butter on the underside of your wrap, then using your hand, put the tortilla in the pan and move it around so the butter coats the pan and wrap nicely as it melts. It'll sizzle pretty loudly if you're doing it right. 

Rapidly sprinkle your cheese over roughly one half of the wrap, quickly add your jalapenos, then fold the wrap over and press down with a spatula. The cheese will melt, the tortilla will crisp, flip it over until it gets lovely and dark but don't let it burn and don't panic if some of the cheese oozes out.

Slice it up like a pizza and serve it with some sour cream if you have some. So bad for you. And yet so good. And it really only takes about 2 minutes to make one. Enjoy!

Vietnamese Hot and Sour Salad

Soy sauce and tofu haters look away now - this is one hell of a zingy salad which is the perfect antidote to heavy, rich winter comfort food. Now that spring is here, this salad, teeming with lemon grass, coriander, mint, lime, soy sauce and beansprouts is the most amazing way to wake up your tastebuds. I kid you not, the first time I ate this salad, the main thing that concerned me was WHEN CAN I MAKE THIS AGAIN. It also falls nicely into the healthy territory, unless you're keeping an eye on your sodium intake or over-do the vegetable oil with the tofu.
This is also a pretty impressive 'entertaining' dish, as it looks gorgeous on the plate (you should assemble it yourself though, it's a bit fiddly.) And be warned, it is a little on the salad-y side in terms of portions. But so, so amazingly good. As I've said in my previous post on Tofu Sambal, tofu is something most people find a bit too weird to try to cook with but I'm a hell of a convert and at £1 it's pretty cheap protein. I do literally have to stop myself eating it as it's cooking now, I love it so much, and we usually have a couple of packs knocking around the cupboard for a stir fry.
That said I'm no wild evangelist of tofu as a dietary staple - I'm more aware of how the knock-on effect of mass farming of soya beans can be damaging to the environment,  (although nowhere near as bad as the energy that goes into farming a single cow), and additionally regular consumption of soy-products can interfere with your internal chemistry, oestrogen in particular. And I find it comforting that in places like China where the use of tofu is really common, it's often put alongside chicken and pork in dishes. Tofu's a brilliant alternative protein source and tastes really nice, but that said I'm making steak tomorrow! Everything in moderation! Hooray!
Enough out of me about bloody tofu already.


Vietnamese hot and sour salad
For the dressing (make while you're pressing your tofu - lets the flavours mix)

• 80ml of lime juice (about two limes juiced well)
• 80ml of soy sauce
• 3 tbsp grated carrot
• Pinch of chilli flakes
• 2 garlic cloves (crushed)
• 4 tbsp caster sugar (NEEDS to be fine sugar, otherwise whizz in a blender)

For the salad 

• One pack of tofu 
• 100g beansprouts
• 125g of rice noodles
• Large handful of mint 
• Large handful of coriander 
• 2 lemongrass sticks
• 2 spring onions
• 2 tbsp roasted peanuts (chopped)
• 7 or 8 nice cherry tomatoes, or equivalent in plum tomatoes
• 1/2 a cucumber. [I've made this for someone who hated cucumber and substituted stirfried pak choi, fyi, so don't write it off if you don't like cucumber, I know there's a surprising amount of you out there!]

Step one with tofu is always press it - which simply means carefully taking it out of its package, wrapping it in a single sheet of kitchen roll or clean tea towel, and leaving two dinner plates on top for half an hour to an hour. While that's happening, make the dressing.

Juice the limes, and measure out the juice in a jug to get 80ml, although it won't matter all that much. Add 80ml of soy sauce to the lime juice, bringing the liquidmark up to about 160ml. Crush in two peeled garlic cloves (I have no idea why Jamie Oliver always loves shouting about crushing garlic with the skin on, he maintains it's just a nifty trick but I always find I end up crushing in about half of what I should get, and end up picking bits of garlic skin out so I can get the whole clove in.). Grated and add the 3 tbsp of carrot, a pinch of chilli flakes and finally 4 tbsp of caster sugar. Whisk, whisk, whisk, then have a little taste. I like that really salty punch that soy sauce gives so add a bit more if you like, otherwise, maybe a little more lime, just go with what you think it's best.

After you've let the tofu press, and have drained off the excess water and patted dry with another piece of kitchen roll, slice into thin strips. Put a decent amount of vegetable oil in your best non-stick frying pan and get it quite hot, then delicately add in the strips. While they sizzle away, you can get to the chopping stage.

Using a large knife, if you have one - which it almost always is worth having even if you're only an occasional cook - finely chop the coriander and mint together. Carefully slice off the tough outer skin of the lemongrass, and chop them into thin slices, then add to the coriander and mint, chopping all the while, then chop and add the two spring onions. Put the whole fragrant mix of herbs in your largest bowl, which you'll eventually be mixing the noodles in with. 

If your tofu is still looking a little anaemic and is still not golden, keep frying, and turning every now and then, otherwise feel free to take it off the heat and leave to drain on a piece of kitchen roll. Put a large-ish pot on your kitchen counter, add the beansprouts and noodles and pour over the boiling water. Slam the lid on and leave until the noodles are soft.I used to be able to buy uncooked rice noodles, but now I can only find ones which are already soft, disappointingly. Still, let it sit for five minutes or so.

Using chopsticks to mix the noodles and beansprouts with the chopped herbs

While the noodles are sitting in water, slice your cucumber horizontally into long strips, and cut your tomatoes into halves or quarters, whatever's easier to pick up with chopsticks. Arrange the cucumbers in a round shape (like in the picture) on two plates, and dot the edge with tomatoes.

Drain the softened bean sprouts and noodles over the sink and try to let as much water drip off as possible. Then tip into the big bowl with the mint, coriander, etc. Use chop sticks, if you find it easier, to mix throughly, then tip into the centre of the two plates. Finally, add the tofu on top and sprinkle over some chopped peanuts if you like. Serve the dressing at the table, and enjoy!

Sweet potato ratatouille

And I'm back after the Christmas break, having received two wonderful cookbooks which made me desperate to get home and start creating meals again.  And it has been great!

But with Christmas break comes that post-binging guilt, and I find ratatouille is a perfect mix of comfort food while still being healthy. I read something once, complaining about ratatouille - that its very essence is aubergine, so how can you have one without? But sadly for me, I hate aubergine - no amount of pressing or salting or anything can seem to make this vegetarian-staple taste any less revolting and bitter to me. It's a shame as it's also a gorgeous vegetable, and is a lovely shade of purple (I used to dye my hair 'aubergine' when I was 14) but it's just not for me.
No, the main ingredient in this ratatouille is sweet potato. I don't know quite why I avoided the sweet potato for so long, but I did. It is a fabulous vegetable, and especially for these post-Christmas times when you're so hungry after nibbling all day long, but don't want to binge on carbohydrate. It does the job of regular potato, but fills you up nicely while still being a healthy vegetable. The original recipe also calls for butternut squash, but we had sweet potatoes and wanted to use that up. In any case, you can substitute 1/2 a butternut squash for sweet potatoes.

This has a nice amount of veg in it. Just look at that picture. Don't you feel healthier just looking at it? And the best thing about this ratatouille is that it is genuinely delicious. There is no sense of 'eat it up, it's good for you' and that stifled grimace of swallowing down healthy stuff. Right before typing this, me and my boyfriend were picking bits of veg out of the roasting tin to eat cold. It's that tasty. And a little bit of ground rock salt once served pushes it from that over into 'can't stop eating' territory. This recipe is taken largely from Yotam Ottolenghi's marvellous vegetarian cookbook, 'Plenty'.

Sweet potato ratatouille (makes enough for 3)

• 50ml sunflower oil
• 1 small onion, diced
• 3 garlic cloves, sliced
• 1/2 green chilli 
• 1 small red pepper, diced
• 100g french beans/fine beans
• 1/2 a courgette, diced
• 1/2 a small potato, peeled and chopped
• 2 tomatoes, peeled and chopped
• 1 parsnip, peeled and chopped
• 2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped
• 1/2 tbsp caster sugar
• 1/2 tbsp tomato puree
• Chopped coriander to garnish (if you have it lying around, or can use it up. It makes a lovely addition to the flavour as well.)
• Rice to serve

The original recipe insists you have all your veg prepared before you start, but with each chucking of veg into the pan, you have to wait five minutes for it to cook. If you feel confident at chopping, just chop as you go. Otherwise you can be prepared. It's up to you. This takes about 45m on the hob, followed by about 30m in the oven, so do bear in mind.

After adding the water and before leaving to simmer for 30m

Chop your onion and add to a pan on a medium hot heat with 40ml or so of the oil, and fry for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, chop your chilli and pepper, and slice the garlic, then add to the pan. Give it a good stir, then leave to fry for another 5 minutes. After the time has elapsed, add the parsnip (and if you are using butternut squash here instead of sweet potato, add at the same time.)

In order to make sure everything is cooked properly, five minutes after the parsnip (and squash) go into the pot, you want to carefully lift the veg out with a spatula or slotted spoon and put in a bowl, leaving behind as much oil as possible. Throw in your reserved 20ml of sunflower oil, then put the courgette, sweet potato, and beans into the pot. Let cook for 5 minutes, stirring on a high heat - the sweet potato is lovely if it gets a tiny bit brown round the edges -  then chuck the contents of the bowl on the side into the pot and mix all together. Lovely.

Put the tomato puree and sugar in, mix as throughly as you can, then add about 100ml of water, or however much it takes to come half-way up the side of the veg in the pot. Don't cover it by any means. Put the lid on, turn down the heat and leave it for 30 minutes. 

Bearing in mind you want to put your rice on at some point (I have a rice cooker - well worth getting - so I just stick mine on now and it keeps warm), carefully spoon out the veg from the pot into a roasting tin and then pour any remaining liquid over, although I seldom have any. Season damn well with salt and pepper, then into the oven for another 25-30m.

When you're done, the vegetables will be soft and smell delicious, and there'll be no liquid, and it will taste absolutely amazing. Put coriander on top. Yum yum. Happy January everyone.

Credit where credit is due: Yotam Ottolenghi's 'Plenty'

Spicy tofu sambal

I have so many friends who are confirmed carnivores. They relish the idea of a rare slab of steak, all bloody and meaty and succulent. The natural antithesis to this is of course tofu. The reactions some people have to this pretty innocous ingredient can be pretty negative. Of course, it doesn't exactly scream appetising. White, wobbly and jelly-like out the packet, and purportedly without flavour, tofu is sometimes viewed as the premise of hippies and weird vegetarians among many of my peers. Although, I have convinced a few to try it! It's just damn good stuff. And it doesn't taste like rubber, I swear!

In any case, it's been bloody snowy in London recently (and my flight home to Ireland on Thursday hangs in the balance of the weather, argh!) and this spicy, hot African-inspired dish really hits the spot. Made by reducing tomatoes down, with a spicy kick, onions garlic and my favourite spice, ginger, served with tofu soaked in soy sauce then fried alongside some green beans stirfried in chilli and garlic. How does that not sound amazing? This is probably my most favourite dish to eat out of everything I can cook, to be honest. It's gotten to the point where I have to try to stop myself from eating the salty umame goodness of the tofu as I marinade it. Also, the beans that go with this dish are absolutely goddamned incredible. The first time I had them, it was a revelation.

Ah, lovely tofu. You're not so bad.

The secret ingredient in this - and in the name - is Sambal, or Sambal Oelek to be precise. This is where the fact that my boyfriend is Dutch comes into play. A lot of Dutch cooking has a strong Indonesian flavour backgrounding it, for obvious reasons. So wen we go to the Netherlands, Sambal Oelek paste and Kejap Manis (a sweet Indonesian soy sauce) are two things I always try to stock up on if we are low at home. In the meantime though, some kind of chilli sauce - not sweet chilli sauce, though - will do the trick. 

Sorry about the gloves, it's really cold in my house at the moment.

As with almost everything, this is good for two hungry people.

Spicy tofu sambal with garlic and chilli green beans

• One pack of tofu 
• Soy sauce
• 4 tbsp sunflower oil
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 4 or 5 large tomatoes (ripe and cut into chunks) or a 400g tin of chopped/plum tomatoes
• Good pinch of rock salt (1/2 a tsp)
• 2 fat cloves of garlic
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 2 tsp light brown sugar
• 1 tbsp Sambal Oelek or chilli sauce/paste
• 1 tbsp tomato puree

First things first, you always want to press the tofu or it might just end up falling-aparty and watery and will put you off for life. Take the tofu out of its box (it looks like this in our local supermarket), wrap it in a single sheet of kitchen roll, and put on a plate or in a shallow bowl. Put two dinner plates on top for at least half an hour - this will gradually press the water out of the tofu. Next, drain the water, and cut into 8 chunks, then marinade in a few glugs of soy sauce. You may want to turn your pieces over half way through to ensure nice coverage but it won't matter.

In your biggest non-stick pot (or separately, in a small non-stick frying pan but do remember to add the oil back into your main pot), fry the tofu - but leaving the soy sauce marinade behind, don't chuck it all in! -  in the sunflower oil until brown on all sides, then take out and set to drain on kitchen paper, leaving behind as much sunflower oil as you can. 

Now add your onion and give it a good stir, and let it fry on a medium heat for about five minutes, until it's approaching a soft state. Then add your ginger and chopped or crushed garlic. Mix throughly, then add the chill paste, tomato puree, and sugar. Give it a really good mix, then add salt, and your tomatoes. If it's out the can, no worries, just throw it in. Otherwise, add your tomatoes and 80ml or so of water. You want to bring this up to the boil, then lower so that the tomatoes break down and turn into a sauce, but chunkiness is good. If you're not using a rice cooker, you might want to start thinking about putting your rice on now. After 10 minutes, or however long you want to leave it, you can reintroduce the tofu off the plate into the pot, which will heat it up again.

Chilli green beans

• 2 cloves of garlic, crushed or chopped finely
• 1/2 a red chilli, chopped as finely as possible
• 120 - 160g of fine green beans (trimmed, if not already)
• 1 - 2 tbsp of soy sauce

Add a good glug of olive oil to a frying pan - nonstick is best otherwise you're asking for sticky garlic burned to your pan - and let it heat up. Then throw in all the beans, toss them so they get a nice even coating of olive oil, and let them sizzle away for a bit until they start to get some colour and soften up, a few minutes maybe. 

Put your garlic in and mix it through, then QUICKLY add the soy sauce, or it'll burn. I don't usually pay much attention to how much soy sauce, I know a 'glug' is woefully inaccurate amount but that's usually what I do. Or two glugs. Hah.

Then add the chilli and stir until everything is soft and tasty, and darkened. Try one of the beans and make sure that its not deceptively done-looking on the outside but still too crunchy on the inside. The contrast between the salty, garlicy greens and the sweet, spicy tofu sambal is quite amazing, and well worth the extra effort. Serve with rice.

Shakshouka (eggs poached in spicy sauce)

Ah Shakshouka, how I love thee. So delicious, cheap and veggie, healthy and spicy and hot and warming on a damp, freezing cold night, shakshouka is one of our regular dinners. This is a fairly bastardised version of the probably much more traditional versions online, but I find this recipe does just the job for me. It also great for using up the bits and pieces out of the fridge, is high in protein and so immensely soothing to eat, like a big bowl of soup full of veg and spices and gloriously yolky-and-runny poached eggs. This is cobbled together from a few recipes and is kind of a vegetable-rich (and therefore better) version of Uova in Purgatorio, in my opinion. Again, Middle Eastern-inspired food makes great and flavoursome vegetarian food without skimping on the all-important protein.
Plus, look at ridiculously gorgeous it is. All that red and yellow! Mm. Makes enough for two very greedy people. 

Shakshouka 

• 4 tbsp (1/4 of a cup) olive oil
• 4 eggs
• 1 400g tin of plum or chopped tomatoes
• 2 peppers (green and yellow are nice)
• 1/2 a white onion, diced
• 1 red chilli pepper
• 3 or 4 cloves of garlic, crushed
• 1 tbsp ground cumin, chopped
• 1 tbsp paprika (use smoked if you have it) 
• Handful of chopped parsley
• Handful of crumbled feta (in the above picture, I've used a bit of goat's cheese as an experiment, as we had no feta.. it was nice!)
• Hummus to serve, if you have it, and some toasted pita to scoop up the last bits. 

You might cringe a bit at adding spoonful after spoonful of olive oil, but I urge you not to skimp on it, the veg need to soften and stew slightly, and the olive oil will help bring out the flavour so wonderfully. Heat the oil, and add the chilli pepper, the diced peppers, and the onion and stir over a medium-low heat until softening, around six minutes.
Add the garlic, cumin and paprika - feel free to chuck in more spices as you like, I like things stronger tasting than this recipe -and give it a quick stir for two minutes. By now the smell should be absolutely gorgeous.

 If you're using plum tomatoes, tip the tin's worth into a bowl and use your hand to crush them up, otherwise just into the bowl with 4 tbsp (1/4 of a cup) of water. Heat up to boiling point, then reduce the heat to medium and leave to thicken.
 Give it at least 5 minutes - the original recipe recommends about 15! But see how thick it's getting. You probably don't want it to reduce down to nothing, it's nice to have a bit of runny sloppiness in a dish like this. Add a good sprinkle of salt and use the back of a wooden spoon to make four indentations in four corners of the sauce and carefully break an egg into each indentation. 

Put the lid on and give it about three to five minutes, until the white has set and the yolk has juuuuust cooked. Again, you don't want anything over-cooked or thickened here. 
Right before it's time to eat, sprinkle over your parsley, and feta, and try to skilfully slop out of the pan with a wide spoon into a pasta bowl so it still looks pretty. Pita and hummus are lovely with this. 
Credit where credit is due: inspired/modified from Smitten Kitchen

Quick, easy falafel

I love falafel - it's tasty, substantial and technically counts as one of your five a day as it's made from chickpeas (which is like 60p a can) and a whole lot of spices. It also keeps great in the fridge, so any that you have left over can be thrown into a salad or eating with some pita and hummus the next day.
Although this doesn't have the fast-food appeal of something that's been deep fried (indeed, what does), it's really easy to throw a load of stuff you might have sitting in your fridge - a tomato, a bit of bagged salad, Greek yoghurt - and make a spread which is really impressive. And it takes about 20 minutes from start to finish, or even less.
The golden rule here I think is that in my opinion it's very hard to over season. The original recipe I got this from used a tablespoon of cumin, and that was all. You can probably double or triple this - I just throw a fair whack in. 

The only thing you might have trouble finding is Harissa spice, a Moroccan chilli-and-rose paste which goes great in Middle Eastern cooking. This recipe is fine without it as well, of course (I can't stand recipes that hinge on you being able to find pomegranate molasses, etc.) If you can find one though, or even one of those supermarket 'rubs' which you're supposed to smear over a chicken, throw it in by all means.
This makes enough for two people comfortably... 

Easy falafel 

• 400g can of chickpeas 
• 1/2 a red onion
• Three or four cloves of garlic
• Handful of fresh parsley
• 2 tbsp ground cumin
• 1 tbsp of smoked paprika (if you have it)
• 2 tbsp dried coriander 
• Pinch of chilli flakes (if you want a little heat)
• 1 tbp harissa paste
• 4 - 8 tbsp flour

Drain the chickpeas before you start anything else, and give them a rinse in the colander, then dry off a bit with some kitchen towel and leave to sit for a bit, to dry a bit more. Meanwhile, chop your red onion half fairly finely, chuck it in a bowl. Do the same with the parsley, and garlic, add to the bowl, along with the spices, and the harissa (not the flour yet.)

Use either a food processor or a hand-held blender (I got mine for £3.99 from Sainsburys and it does the job nicely) to mash it all into a fairly consistent paste. Don't worry about getting ALL the chickpeas mashed up, just most of them. 

Start adding your flour, mixing through with a wooden spoon - I find you need way more than you will think. Basically you want to add enough so that it's still sticky, but not so impossibly sticky that you can't pick it up. You want to mould them into burger-shapes (my boyfriend insists that round ones taste better - but this is because you have that shape when they're deep fried! Burger-shaped is the best way to go.)  You're going to want to dust your hands with flour when picking up little handfuls.Put them to one side, then fry, or just add straight to a medium-hot frying pan as you go, with a good glug of olive oil, fry until crispy and brown on both sides then serve with pita, hummus (sprinkled with smoked paprika like in the picture is lovely), and anything else you can find/be bothered with! Rocket salad, chopped tomato, feta, couscous, roasted vegetables, etc - it's all good. 

Addendum: I tried making this from 'real', untinned chickpeas once which needed to be soaked, boiled, etc, and the end result was so disappointing and the effort needed so much more that I really don't think I'll be trying that again... 


Credit where credit is due: inspired/modified from the BBC