Penne with Cauliflower

Sometimes a recipe is so simple that it seems almost pathetic. But eating something that is all about one simple extraordinary flavour is what good food is all about. Important here is the freshness of the ingredients. Freshly grated cheese, (never the stuff in the green can) and black pepper straight out of the mill. Good quality olive oil.

This can be mushy cauliflower with macaroni or it can be something superb, depending on your ingredients and how you treat them.

Serves 6.

You will need:
125 ml EVOO
5 Cloves garlic, crushed
1 Head cauliflower, cored and separated into florets.
500g Penne pasta
125 ml flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
125 ml feshly grated parmesan cheese.
Salt & freshly ground black pepper to taste
Red pepper flakes to taste.

In a large sauté pan, heat the olive oil. add the garlic and cook gently until softened and lightly coloured. Add the cauliflower. Season with salt & pepper, stir well and cook until softened, about 15 minutes. Lower the heat, and simmer until the cauliflower is very tender, about 10 minutes more. It will break up a bit, that's fine. Meanwhile cooke the penne as per the instructions on the packet. Drain the pasta and add to the cauliflower, stir in the parsley and red pepper flakes and toss for a minute over high heat.

Serve topped with the grated cheese.

Tzaziki

This classic Hellenic dip is another good appetiser at barbecues and with drinks. It is important to use good thick yogurt. If all you can get is the supermarket mass-produced variety, leave it out of the fidge overnight and then put it in a sieve lined with a coffe filter for 6-8 hours to drain out the excess liquid. The result should be thick and spoonable. This is my own version.

Ingredients

• 250 ml Greek yogurt or 500 ml supermarket plain yogurt.
• 1 large clove garlic finely chopped.
• 1 seedless cucumber, or cut a regular cucumber in half lengthwise and scrape out the seeds.
• 30 ml finely chopped mint.
• 15 ml finely chopped dill fronds.
• Sea salt to taste.
• A few grinds of black pepper.
• Drain the yogurt for 6-8 hours on the countertop.
• Grate the cucumber, lightly salt and drain in a sieve for at least an hour.
• Rinse and squeeze the cucumber shreds dry.

Mix all the ingredients together, add salt & pepper to taste. Please do not use regular table salt - too acrid. Now you can put it in the fridge for a few hours for the flavours to combine. Give it a stir and adjust the salt before serving with pita chips. Yummo!

Fried Green Tomatoes

Simple, quick, delicious, different.

2 large green tomatoes, (really green)

1 egg beaten with 30 ml water.

Yellow Cornmeal or panko.

salt.

Slice the tomatoes into 1 cm slices, sprinkle with salt and leave for 30 mins. Dry, dip both sides in egg, then in cornmeal or panko, salted to taste. Fry in 1 cm of oil in a non-stick frying pan until golden brown.

Eat hot, dip in mayonnaise or pepper sauce.

Excellent as an appetiser and at barbecues.

Serves 4 as an appetiser.

Labneh, Chilli and Coriander Dip

This is so easy, and so delicious. I usually serve this when we are having a BBQ, great to leave on the table for people to dig into whilst standing around drinking grape or hop based beverages.

Labneh is strained yoghurt, readily available all over the Middle East. If you can’t find it substitute a mix of greek yoghurt and philly cream cheese.

You will need:

500g fresh labneh
Thai sweet chilli sauce
Big handful fresh coriander, chopped
1 tbsp sesame seeds

Big bag of Doritos nachos, the spicy ones are the best!

And then you need to:

Leave the labneh out of the fridge for a little while to soften. Tip it into a mixing bowl with about 1 heaped tbsp of sweet chilli sauce and a heaped tbsp of chopped coriander. GIve it a good mix.

Then into a large flatish bowl spread the labneh mix. Liberally pour the sweet chilli sauce all over the top. Sprinkle the rest of the coriander and then the sesame seeds. Serve with the nachos in a seperate dish.

Tomato Salsa

Purists will use plump, freshly chopped tomatoes for this recipe but I've been corrupted over the years and find a tin of chopped tomato is just perfect for the job.

Ingredients

• 1 tin chopped tomato
• 1 Indian red onion, chopped
• 4 tbsp fresh coriander, chopped
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 2 large limes, juice and zest
• 1 tsp salt

Mix the above ingredients together in a bowl, and season with the salt and lots of pepper. Chill before serving. This salsa also makes a great dip for before you eat, use plain nacho chips to dip.

Guacamole

Goo akka molay: a most wonderful thing. Do take care to scrape the avocado skins well to remove the deep green flesh that will adhere to the insides. Juice the lemon first and, as soon as you prepare each avocado, put the flesh in the lemon juice and swoosh it around to cover. This stops it oxidising and therefore blackening.
A ripe avocado will be soft to the touch at its thin end. By the way, never buy an avocado that doesn't have a stub of stem still on the head of the fruit - avocados are cut, not picked and if the stem is torn off, the fruit goes bad around the stone. Bet you didn't know that...

Ingredients

• 3 ripe avocado pears, stoned, peeled & chopped
  
• 1 lemon, zest and juice
• 4 spring onions, very finely chopped
• 2 large beef tomatoes, skinned, deseeded & finely chopped
• 1 tsp salt

Mash the avocadoes with the lemon juice and zest so that there are no lumps, and mix in the other ingredients. Chill before serving.

Sour Cream

• 1 pint double cream
• 1 lemon, juiced
• 2 tbsp chopped fresh chives

Fold the lemon juice into the cream until it thickens and sours. Too much juice will spoil the cream, so be careful. Mix in the chives, chill and serve. Alternatively, the Bridel sour cream that Spinneys sells is outrageously expensive but excellent. ;)