A Rich Cabinet

There’s been a recent glut of sweet baby courgettes, which need only the minimum of cooking (eg, stirfry) - or none at all. I found that sliced very finely lengthways they made a good addition to a salad of green leaves, with a dressing of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. So I’ve been on the lookout for more good recipes…

Courgette and Tomato Salsa
raw courgette salad

Note to self: Tomorrow’s dinner, maybe. There’s wet garlic in the shop at the moment: could work really well.

Update: And so it did. I cheated though, and turned it into a meat dish by adding the chopped up meat from a chicken drumstick, roasted in the oven with the garlic. (And I deglazed the juicy gunk from the bottom of the roasting tin and added that to the risotto as well.)

Belle’s Spinach and Leek Pie: sounds excellent. Like her Orange-chocolate marble cake, although I never do baking.

Recipe ideas from Recipe*zaar

Various leftovers needing to be used up within the next day or so (for one person):

Mushrooms
A small leek
Handful of green beans
Half an onion
Mixed salad leaves
End of a loaf of granary bread

So: slice and saute together the mushrooms, leek, green beans and onion, with some garlic, in olive oil. (If you worry about fat and possess a usable grill, you could grill them instead.) Chop a half-inch slice of bread into (roughly) cubes and in another frying pan with just a little oil, make them into crunchy croutons. Arrange the salad leaves however you fancy them around a plate. (I also had some cherry tomatoes that I chopped in half and scattered around the edge.) Make a salad dressing of some kind, whatever you’d like really. Tonight I just mixed together olive oil with a bit of balsamic vinegar. When the vegetables are ready, dump them straight on top of the salad leaves. Then scatter the croutons over them. Finally the salad dressing goes over the top. Eat straightaway.

If I’d had any, I could have fried some bacon in with the veg. Other vegetables that would probably work: peppers, courgettes, etc. You could do cubed potatoes (parboil then saute) instead of the croutons.

When you have access to sweet baby beetroot, make the most of it. And I don’t mean the ready-cooked-vacuum-packed kind that has been smothered in vinegar. (Although I’ve always liked the artificial-additive-packed (probably) pickled beetroot in jars, for some reason.)

Beetroot is really easy to cook. Whatever you do, don’t chop it or peel it. Just top the stalks, leaving at least half an inch (or a centimetre) and wash it gently. If you break the skin, the flavour leeches out during cooking. I have yet to try roasting it, but it’s supposed to be extremely good too (it should be wrapped in foil and roasted at a medium temperature apparently). I usually boil it: put the beetroot in a pan with plenty of water, bring to the boil, cover and simmer very gently. Small beetroot will take at least an hour to two, older large ones could take three or four hours. To test them, don’t prick them, instead squeeze gently: they should give and the skin should move easily under your fingers. (But it’s hard to overcook them if the simmering is gentle, so if you’re not sure, just give them a bit longer.)

This is what you’ll get.

Once cooked, they’re easy to peel (even once they’ve cooled down). You don’t need a knife, the skin will just come away under your fingers. (And don’t believe people who tell you that you need rubber gloves or you’ll be indelibly stained: just wash your hands in hot water and it’ll soon come off. But keep it away from your clothes. This is why I should buy an apron.) Then they’ll keep in the fridge for a few days. The most purple food in the world.

They go beautifully with things like potato and hardboiled egg and finely chopped spring onions in a salad. I make a sweet/sharp salad dressing: olive oil, wine vinegar, honey. Mix together, adjust to taste (add salt & pepper if you like), and then add a few spoonfuls of the red liquid you cooked the beetroot in (and/or the juice that comes out of them when they sit in the fridge for a while), and add it to the dressing. Whisk vigorously, pour over the chopped up beetroot/potato/egg in a bowl and mix thoroughly. It will be both very pink and very tasty. Or for a more elegant version as a side salad, slice the elements, arrange them on a plate and drizzle the dressing over them. (I got to use the verb ‘drizzle’! Like a real food writer!)

I also found this great BBC recipe for Cheddar and chunky beetroot mayonnaise baguette. NB, though, that I don’t have a blender and wouldn’t get one out just to make a sandwich for myself anyway, so I simply chopped the beetroot fine and stirred vigorously. But it really does make a good snack lunch.

Yeah, I know, I already started to eat it again…

Because I have quite a large packet for a single person to eat up. Possible options (I’ve never tried any of them before)…

Green beans with lentils

French beans-aloo ki bhaji

Green bean and mushroom stirfry

Update: I took the basics of the green bean and mushroom stirfry and added a couple of leftover cooked potatoes in the fridge and bacon… (oh, but brown rice? I’m sorry, but brown rice is disgusting). It sounded rather dull, so I made up a sauce: soy sauce, miso, just a little tomato puree, a dash of hot chilli sauce, lemon juice and some water saved from the rice. Taste the mixture and tweak it to suit your palate, and add it towards the end when the vegetables are nearly cooked, just to let it cook a couple of minutes.

I found a very good one online the other week. Is this the one? Hmm. It’s the nearest thing I can see today, though I must have made some changes if so. I’m unlikely to use the vegetable bouillon, for a start. (And I’m not convinced about the sugar either.)

Oh and I have no courgettes in the house but I do have red pepper to use up. I’ll probably use fresh cherry tomatoes rather than dried. And I might snip in an anchovy or two.

Update: I really don’t think that would have worked. This is better. Much simpler. But still probably not the one I had before.

What actually happened went along the lines of:
Cook pasta, then drain. (Keep back just a little of the liquid.)
Meanwhile, chop fennel, red pepper, onion and cook gently a frying pan in olive oil. Oh yeah, and a garlic clove.
When nicely soft, add halved cherry tomatoes, cook a couple minutes more, then mix into the pasta.
Warm through. Add a couple of spoonfuls of creme fraiche. [Actually, left this out last time, and I think I liked it better. A squeeze of lemon gives a nice tang though.] Season.
Serve up with plenty of parmesan.