Pumpkin Pangrattato

Pumpkin was cheap at the market. Turns out that's because it has almost zero flavour at this time of year (midsummer). I have written down the basic recipe, which comes from Nigel's Tender, a book I have struggled to use well since it's aimed at someone growing vegetables in a much more temperate climate. I certainly remember the pumpkins in Cambridge being sweeter than the sad specimen I cooked tonight. Anyway, I include in italics the ingredients to include if you suspect your pumpkin is lacking a certain joie de vivre. And I'm toning down the amount of chilli: we had to have a yoghurt afterwards to cool down!

Ingredients:

• 750g pumpkin or butternut squash
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 1/4 tsp dried chilli flakes
• 1 1/2 tbsp rosemary leaves
• zest of an orange
• a handful of parsley leaves
• four handfuls of breadcrumbs
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 40g butter
• segments of an orange

Peel and deseed the squash, then cut into ~2cm pieces. Steam for 15-20 minutes until just tender. Crush the garlic into a frying pan with some olive oil and fry gently until just beginning to colour. Meanwhile, finely chop the rosemary and parsley leaves, and zest the orange. Add the herbs, chilli and orange zest to the garlic, then tip in the breadcrumbs and mix well; fry for a further 3-4 minutes until fragrant and just beginning to crisp.

Tip the pumpkin into a large roasting tray and taste; if it's lacking in flavour then season with the sugar, cinnamon, salt and nutmeg. Tip over the breadcrumbs and dot with butter. Roast at 180C or on a moderate bbq for 35-40 minutes until the crumbs are deep gold and the pumpkin is tender. If you like, stir through the orange segments before serving.

Sophie's BBQ'd Potatoes

This is a great way of preparing potatoes for the barbie, although you may have to allow a potato or two for wastage if you don't get the temperature exactly right :)

A little charcoal is good for you!

Ingredients:

• 4-5 potatoes
• olive oil
• 6-7 cloves of garlic, peeled and thinly slices
• 4-5 sprigs of rosemary

Cut the potatoes into large pieces width-ways and parboil, then cool and slice into thick pieces. Lay them out on a large piece of aluminum foil, and glug over a bit of olive oil, the garlic and the rosemary. Combine gently and then put another piece of foil over the top, and fold over the edges, so you have a neat flat parcel. Roast on the barbeque for 10 minutes per side, checking each time to make sure the potatoes aren't burning (too much).

Sophie's Pots with BBQ'd barramundi and a simple salsa.

Pumpkin, Feta and Rosemary Pizza

A few weekends ago we were out shopping in Cannington, which we've found a useful place to buy pretty much any and all non-food items. This time we were at a barbecue store, ostensibly to pick up barbecue tools, but as it turned out, mainly to buy random new things like skewers and a pizza stone! We had a little trouble with it at first as the instructions are impossibe: you're supposed to heat it in the oven, and meanwhile make your pizza completely, with toppings etc on top of the raw dough. Then you take the hot stone out of the oven and "with a quick flick of the wrist" transfer the raw pizza to the stone. Or in our case, "with a lot of cursing, and burning, clutching hands, transfer a messy goop of what used to be a pizza to the stone". The first one wasn't worth photographing.

This time we cheated and made the pizza ON the stone, then put the whole thing in the oven. It came out a little soggy on the base, so this isn't the best solution either. I think what we'll do next time is put the stone in the oven, roll out the base and prepare the toppings separately, then bring the hot stone out, put the base on, and THEN add all the toppings. In the meantime here is one of our favourite pizza recipes.

Ingredients:

• One pizza base
• 250g tasty eating pumpkin
• 2-3 sprigs of rosemary
• a fat clove of garlic
• 2-3 tomatoes
• 1 tsp oregano
• 150g feta cheese

Preheat the oven to 200 C. Peel and chop the pumpkin into smallish dice (about 1cm on a side). Place in a baking dish, drizzle with olive oil and tuck in the sprigs of rosemary. Roast for 20 minutes or until golden and tender. Meanwhile, finely dice the tomatoes, then crush the garlic into a frying pan with some olive oil and fry for one minute, then add the tomatoes, and the oregano. Sautee until the tomatoes have collapsed and most of the liquid has evaporated; about 7 minutes. Dice the feta cheese into the same cube size as the pumpkin. Roll out your pizza dough, place on the stone, spread over the tomato sauce, then add the pumpkin and feta. Bake for 20 minutes or until the crust is risen and golden and the toppings are beginning to crisp.

Stuffed Aubergines with Pumpkin and Feta

Not much to report tonight; we followed this recipe over on BBC Food, omitting the feta (as we'd run out), and swapping the walnuts for pine nuts, and it worked out splendidly. We served it with some cous-cous and apricots, and some sliced tomato with balsamic for a little acidity. Great to be in a country where you can get such lovely varieties of pumpkin!

Potato, Feta and Rosemary Frittata

Last night we popped over to Teri-aki with some friends; it's almost our default restaurant in Cambridge, with a nice range of sushi, sides and big noodle plates when you have an appetite. It once had a sister restaurant called Aki-teri, which served more Korean-style dishes including my favourite dolsot bibimbap. Unfortunately the owners converted it into a bar, which I think is a shame. On the plus side I can get my kimchi fix at Little Seoul.

Tonight we needed to pack for a five-day Easter weekend seeing my family in Edinburgh, so as usual there were a few things to use up before we departed. A couple of potatoes, yet more cheese from the SO's dairy-based shopping spree, some sad carrots and spring onions from the bottom of the fridge, juice that would certainly ferment if we left it, and of course somehow we'd accumulated two dozen eggs. So I thought for a bit, browsed the internet, thought some more, popped out and filched some rosemary from a neighbour's front garden (well, it overhangs the pavement!) and created this! Serves four - preferably outdoors with a glass of white wine.

Ingredients:

• 2 large or 3 medium new potatoes
• 3 fat sprigs of rosemary
• a bunch of spring onions
• 200g feta cheese
• 8 eggs

Scrub the potatoes, then cut into large even chunks, and simmer for 15 minutes until tender but not falling apart. Run under cold water until cool, then slice into half-cm-thick slices. If some parts are overcooked and show signs of falling apart, just slice them a bit thicker. In a heavy based stainless-steel pan that is safe under a grill, fry the potatoes in hot olive oil for 3-4 minutes on each side, until golden brown and crisp-edged. These don't need to be perfect, like sautéed potatoes; it's fine if they break up a little or aren't perfectly evenly toasted. It's still a good idea not to crowd the pan; I found I needed to cook them in two batches. Remove to a plate when they're done, turn the heat off, and add a little more oil to the pan if it has all been absorbed.

Cut or break the feta cheese into small pieces. Strip and finely chop the rosemary leaves, and roughly chop the spring onions, separating the layers so they're not in big pieces. Fry the spring onions and rosemary in the pan you used for the potatoes, tossing about for a couple of minutes so they become green and fragrant. Crumble in the feta and return the potatoes to the pan; combine gently until the components are mixed but not broken up.

Break the eggs into a large bowl and use a fork to break the yolks and combine them somewhat with the whites. Season well with black pepper; you won't need salt if your feta is fairly salty, as it usually is. Pour the egg mixture into the warm pan over the other ingredients and resist the urge to stir or flatten it out. Turn the heat back on to a low setting, and cook for 15 minutes, until it's only the top that is still runny. Preheat your grill to a moderately high setting, then move the pan under it and grill for 3-4 minutes, until puffed and golden. Allow to rest for a minute or two before serving.

We ate this tonight with a side of sliced carrots cooked in orange juice (use just enough to cover and simmer with a tsp of tarragon for 15 minutes), and a few stalks of chard cooked in their own juices for a couple of minutes, seasoned with toasted caraway seeds and lemon juice. All the better for being eaten outside in the garden. And the leftovers will keep us going during the long drive tomorrow.

Focaccia

A classic Italian bread widely adopted in the UK, focaccia makes a lovely accompaniment, being soft, gently flavoured and of an open texture well-suited to mopping up juices or eating with soft cheeses. Perfect with the barbecue we held in some surprisingly beautiful April weather! Once again I prefer to use a small starter for this bread, as I find it gives a more rounded flavour and reliable result.

Yesterday I experimented with some toppings, and the recipe I give below includes an improvement over my results: increasing the flavour adhesion by kneading some topping back into the dough before adding the rest as topping. You could of course vary the topping, or make them without and they would be just as delicious. I also used a braid technique to open the texture and give a marbled result; instead one could make the classic 'slipper' shape with one rough strip of dough.

Ingredients:
For the starter:

• 50 ml boiling water
• 1 tsp sugar
• 100 ml cold water
• 1 tbsp active dried yeast
• 100g wholemeal bread flour

For the dough:

• 75 ml warm water
• 65g olive oil
• 75 ml white wine
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 1/2 tsp dried mixed herbs
• 500g strong white bread flour

Topping ideas:

• 2 sprigs of rosemary, leaves stripped and roughly chopped or
• 100g of green olives, roughly chopped or
• 75g rehydrated sundried tomatoes, roughly chopped or
• a bunch of fresh basil or
• any combination of the above, or whatever you feel like!

Dissolve the sugar in the boiling water, then reduce to blood heat with the cold water, and activate the yeast, giving it 10 minutes to develop a frothy head. Stir in the wholemeal bread flour and leave for a couple of hours in a warm place to rise - it will just about double in size.

In a breadmaker (or by hand in a bowl) combine the starter and the rest of the dough ingredients. Set to dough cycle or knead until soft and elastic. This should be a very soft dough. Allow the dough cycle to complete, or if kneading by hand, give it 30 minutes to rise, knock back, and another 30 minutes.

Lightly flour two baking trays. On a lightly floured surface, knead in half of your topping ingredient. Divide the dough into four equal pieces. Roll and pull two into long strips, slightly longer than your baking tray size. Lay the two strips side by side and put half of the rest of your topping on top, then braid the two strips 'fatly' and roughly over each other with an open weave. Brush lightly with olive oil, transfer to a baking tray and lightly drape a warm damp teatowel over the top. Repeat for the other two strips and remainder of topping. If you like a salty result, you can add flakes of sea salt to the top, but do not mix this into the dough, or it will disrupt the yeast.

Preheat the oven to 190 C and allow the dough to double in size, then remove the teatowels and bake in the hot oven for 20 minutes, giving plenty of room in case the dough rises further. Serve warm and fresh! It keeps for a few days but it's unlikely there will be any left to save!