The finished tarts

I found this recipe in Leiths Simple Cookery… I just couldn’t resist a little italian flavoured tart (who could?). They are delicious and quick to make and easy enough even for me (OK I admit I didn’t understand some of it).

I’m starting to really like this book. I reckon I’ll cook some more from there and post the results here…

The ingredients are:

• Puff pastry (1 roll of)
• A blob of Mozzarella
• Cherry tomatoes
• Green Pesto
• A little olive oil
• salt & pepper

Ingrediants

Get your sheet of ready rolled puff pastry, I know it’s cheaper if you roll it yourself. But do I really take the risk?

Get a large mug and cut out some reasonable sized circles from the pastry, then get a smaller mug and push it gently into the middle of your circles (try not to get it all the way through; more of a scoring), this will get the nice raised edged look when the pastry’s cooked. The inner circle needs to be about a centimetre in from the edge.

Put a large teaspoon of pesto (try out the MCC pesto) into the inner ring, cover the tray and put in the fridge. Not entirely sure why this is necessary but there you go  (not the pesto bit; the fridge).

Get you cups out

While your waiting for the “pesto to dry” you can slice up the Mozzarella and tomatoes.

Fifteen minutes after putting the pesto pastry in the fridge take them out, cover the pesto with the mozzarella, tomato slices and drizzle with a little olive oil. Add a pinch of salt and pepper and stick into an oven preheated to 200c.

In twenty five minutes you’ll have some of the loveliest italian tarts you’ve ever tasted. Add a bit of shredded basil on top of the tomato to finish it off.

Getting ready for the oven (see the inner circles)

Ingredients

• About 20  grapes, sliced into small chunks
• a good bunch of parsley, finely chopped
• a punch of toasted pin nuts
• olive oil
• good pinch of salt
• 1 “c” cup of cous cous

Add the cous cous, the grapes, half the parsley, the pine nuts and salt to a bowl. Add 2 seconds of olive oil (ensure bottle has a slow pour nozzle). Mix this together and cover with boiled water from a kettle. Then cover the bowl with cling film and leave to stand for 10-15 minutes. If unsure the water will have gone and the cous cous will have absorbed the lot…

Like I said in the beginning, this was an experiment, I think you could make this fruitier (I would though), maybe with apricots or similar.

Ingrediants

• 1 large onion, diced
• 1 pumpkin (half the size of a football)
• 4 garlic cloves
• 2 big leeks
• 1 green chilli
• 1 thumb of ginger
• A punch of curry powder (madras, or whichever you fancy)
• A pint of chicken stock
• 2 dollops of sour cream

First things first – 1/4 the pumpkin and take the seeds. Then chop it into chunks, 2 to 3 inches should do it. Put it on a roasting tray and cover with olive oil. Use your hands and get familiar with the pumpkin to make sure it’s well oiled up. Then chuck it in the oven at about 180′c. I am afraid I have no idea of the gas equivalent so I would think medium. Which is probably about half way round the dial. If someone could post up what gas mark that is…. Roast the pumkin till its starts to brown, I reckon about 15 to 20 mins, but keep a close eye on it to make sure it doesn’t burn.

Dice the onion and put in a pan with some hot oil. Turn the heat down low, put a lid on it and sweat it off. This should take about 15 minutes. While it sweats, finely chop the chilli (seeds and all), the ginger and the garlic. Add this to the sweated onions with a punch of curry powder. Sensi deemed that we would use madras, but you can use the curry of your choice. Roughly chop the leeks and chuck these in the pan when the onions have sweated off.

Add the roasted pumpkins to the sweated onions and spice and mix in 1 pint of chicken stock. cook it all up on low heat for abot 30 minutes, by which time it will all of softened up well. Bung it all the blender and whizz till it’s smooth. Back in the pan and add two big dollops of sour cream and stir. There you go, soup.

Madras is a hot curry and this was a very spicey soup. So if your palate is a little scared, use something milder, or just use a bit less. And you could just fry the pumpkin instead of roasting but, I think it’s a touch sweeter when roasted.

Ingredients

• 250g (or a couple of D-Cups) of Dried Chickpeas (soaked overnight)
• 5 garlic cloves
• 1 large onion, diced
• 2 dollops of tahini
• A punch of ground coriander
• A punch of ground cumin
• 1/2 bunch of fresh corriander
• Juice of 1 lemon
• Salt and Pepper

Put the dried chickpeas in a big bowl and cover with plenty of water. Soak them overnight. Drain the water from the chickpeas, lob them in the blender and give them a swift whizz to roughly chop them. Chop the cloves of garlic and throw them in with the chickpeas and whizz again. Then toss in the diced onion, 2 dollops of tahini, a punch of ground corriander and a punch of cumin. Give it another blend. Roughly chop the fresh corriander and add this to the mix.

Sqeeze the lemon juice out into a bowl. Tip the chickpea mix into another bowl and give it a stir with a wooden spoon. Now you need to add the lemon juice to the mixture but don’t do it al at once. You need to bind the dry ingredients together but you don’t want it too wet. You need to be able to form it into shapes about the size of a ping pong ball, without it falling apart. Don’t worry if it gets to wet, you can always add some chickpea flour or garam flour to firm it up.

Chickpeas are quite dry so you need something wet with it. Peel and dice a cucumber and put it in a bowl. Finely chop a small bunch of mint – finely, or else it may stick in your throat – and mix it with the cucumber. Add two big blobs of greek yoghurt and a splash of lemon juice, 1 second of olive oil and some seasoning. There’s your wetness.

Put a frying pan on a high heat with olive oil. You’re going to shallow fry, so the oil needs to be about 1cm deep. while it’s heating up, make your ping pong sized balls of falafel. Flatten the balls with your hand so they are about an inch thick. This allows them to cook quicker. Do about 6-8 falafel’s at a time. No more, because if you put too many in the oil at once, you will lower the temperature of said oil and they may well stick. Put your oven on a low heat, so you can put the cooked one’s in to keep warm if you are doing more than one batch.

Serve your falafels with pitta bread that should be warmed under the grill. Slice open the pitta, stuff in several falafels, some sliced tomato and a dollop of yoghurty mintness. Smashing. Incidentally, tahini is made from ground sesame seeds and is easy to get hold of.

Ingredients

• A splash of Olive Oil
• A splash of water
• 4 pinches of fennel seeds
• Savoy cabbage (the wrinkley one)

Cut the cabbage into quarters and remove the heart. That is the hard bit at the bootom which would be quite tough. So get shot of it. Then slice the cabbage quite thinly starting at either end. This way you will get lovely strips of cabbage.

Get your pan (with a lid), add a splash of olive oil and the fennel seeds then turn up the heat. When its hot chuck in your cabbage, being super carefull not to splash hot oil on your sensitive arms. This will be the frying lightly part. Keep the cabbage moving about with your wooden spoon, which achieves two goals; stirring the fennel in and not burning the cabbage. This will only take a couple of minutes.

When the lightly frying part is done, carfully add a splash of water. I say carefully, as, while the oil will be well mixed in, it is notoriously bad at mixing with water and may just spit at you a bit. How much is a splash? Enough to cover the bottom of the pan, I reckon. You can always add more. Bung the lid on, thus making your closed container. And braise away, for about, ooh 10 minutes. The best way to know if its ready is to try a bit, if you like what you taste , it’s ready.

It went really well with our Bangers and Mash. It adds a nice bit of colour and it’s good for you, so there. Try it with anything you fancy and see if it works

Ingredients

• Carrots
• Runner beans
• Courgettes
• Garlic
• Lime juice
• Salt & pepper
• Olive oil

Chop your veg into the reqired style, so you have carrotangle, runner bangles and courgangles. See the accompanying picture for vegetangle examples if you are not sure. Steam the carrots first, cos they take a bit longer, then chuck the beans in ( after about 5 mins).

Put the courgangles in a hot pan with some olive oil. Once it’s hot, add the garlic which you have finely sliced so it’s waffer thin. 5 minutes in, add the steamed veg.

A pinch of salt, a grind of pepper and the squeezed juice of half a lime, then toss it all together. Simple.

I don’t know what it is about lime, but your kitchen should never be without it. We had these vegetangles with Tuna fishcakes and it was Canon & Ball.

Ingredients

• 2 red peppers
• 1 medium onion
• 4 chunky garlics
• Good splash of Balsamic Vinegar
• and a good splash of Soy sauce
• 1/2 a cup of water
• Olive oil
• A teaspoon of honey
• Salt and Pepper

De-seed the red peppers in the usual fashion and cut into chunks. Also cut the onion and garlics into chunks. Then put a pan on the heat with olive oil and get it hot hot hot. Be bold with oil. Chuck all the chunkiness into the hot pan, along with good amounts of salt and pepper and more oil if needed, turn the heat down then sweat it. Stir in a good splash of balsamic vinegar, the same of soy sauce and a teaspoon of honey. Give it a big stir,whack the heat up for bubblation, once bubblation has been reached, turn down for simmeration.

When it’s been on for a while, maybe 15-20 mins, plop the simmered gubbins into a blender and blend. Taste. Add more seasoning to taste and there you go.

It has a fantastic colour and goes really well with loads of stuff that needs some vivid wetness; Fishcakes and Meatballs to name but two.

Ingredients

• 1 red pepper
• 1 medium onion
• 1 second of white wine vinegar
• A splash of hot water
• Half a punch of raisins
• Punch of sugar
• salt and Pepper

Finely slice the onion and the red pepper. Heat a splash of olive oil in a pan and sweat the onion and red pepper down with a bit of salt and pepper. Cook ‘em till they can’t cook no more.

While that’s sweating, put the raisins in a bowl with boiling water to plump them up.

When the pepper and onions are all sweated down, add about 1 second of white wine vinegar, a splash of hot water and a punch of sugar. Get it on a full heat and reduce it to a syruppy consistency.

Strain off the now chubby raisins and add to the syruppy goo.

And that’s it. Damn easy. And of course you could multiply the ingredients and make a much bigger batch. Keep it in your fridge in a preserving jar. or any old jar for that matter. Then you can smear at your leisure.

Ingredients

• 1 pack of button mushrooms
• 3 chunky garlic cloves
• 1 1/2 handfulls of hazelnuts
• 1 medium onion
• 3 handfulls of pinto beans
• 1 green pepper
• Small handfull of oregano
• Small handfull of thyme
• Pinch of mild chilli powder
• Pinch of cayenne pepper
• 3 childs breakfast bowls of chick pea flour
• 2 eggs
• Salt and pepper
• Soy sauce
• Salad
• Baps

This recipe demands the use of a blender. You can do all by hand if you choose but the blender is a bundle easier.

First off put the mushrooms in the blender till nicely chopped. Heat half a second of olive oil in a pan, add the mushrooms, some salt and pepper and a splash of soy sauce. Mushrooms are full of water, so the aim is to cook it all out. They will shrink down alot, but don’t let them burn. When that’s done put it to the side.

Now finely dice a medium onion in ubiquitous style and chop up the herbs. All this chopping can make your muscle a bit sore and, as Tom points out, “it’s like having a wank but without the payoff” (that’s probably self manipulation for our american cousins, or something). Incident ally, you could use dried herbs, but I think fresh is better. Also, you can finely dice the green pepper.

Back to the blender. Put in the 3 chunky garlics, the hazelnuts, the chopped onion and the diced pepper. Blend it up, but not to a paste, this needs to have substance. Rather like one of our deep conversations at the MCC. Add the pinto beans, give it a quick pulse, then out of the blender and into a suitably sized awaiting bowl, where you can add the chopped ‘erbs. Give it a stir then chuck in the cooked mushrooms, the chilli powder and the cayenne pepper. Again, mix it all up then get the chick pea flour in, one bowl first, then the eggs and mix. Add more chick pea flour but go slowly so you don’t end up with to dry a mixture. Remember. ’tis easier to add flour than to take it away. Finally, stir in a good grind of pepper.

This is a good time for a test patty. Make a small patty and add it to a pan with a spalsh of olive oil. We tried our first one with a coating of sesame seeds but found the flavour overpowering and they burnt easily.

Do not underestimate the importance of the test. We added more spice after the taste test.

Make up the rest of your mix in good sized patties into a hot pan. Start them off nice and hot, then turn the heat down to make sure they cook through but don’t burn.

Et voila.

Finally, make a smple salad up; sliced tomato, sliced cucumber, and some lettuce leaves. Then build your Burger in your own inimitable style. See the lovely picture for more help.

The MCC pretty much all agreed that this was tastier than a meat burger and with the Righteous red pepper and onion Relish plus the potato wedges we had with it, ’twas a threateningly good dinner.

Ingredients

• Potatoes
• Olive Oil
• Salt

First off, you need to par bake the potatoes. You could do it in the oven or the microwave. Personally, I don’t have a microwave; not after I read a story about a guy who slowly cooked his innards because he took the door of his microwave. He apparently detested wasting all that time opening and closing the door…

Par baking will obviosly depend on the size of potato, but seeing as they will need to be fairly big, about 30 mins should do it.

When they are done, whip them out and let them cool down. Then smear them with plenty of olive oil and roll them in Maldon Sea salt. Bung them back in the oven on full blast to crisp them up.

Then just cut them into wedgy type shapes, a splash more olive oil, then back in the oven for 10mins or so to brown them off.

And there you go.