Chicken Enchiladas

Wow, it's completely apropos that my last post... SIX MONTHS AGO... was complaining about juggling work and daycare. I literally have no time at all between waking at 6 (if I'm lucky!), breakfast, nappy bag, changing baby, feeding baby, cycling baby to daycare, cycling on to work, shower, work eight solid hours, cycle home via daycare, empty dishwasher, cook dinner, refill dishwasher, put baby to bed, then crash back to bed at 9pm. I've taken to making my dinners in advance at the weekend, so that the "cook dinner" part of that deluge is just a 5-10 minute reheat and serve. That means a lot of repeated, tried-and-tested recipes, and a lot of pretty boring staple food, like beef stew or lasagne.

I was at a friend's birthday party / pot luck, and another friend wanted to know more about the food I was preparing: huevos rancheros. I explained what I was up to, and she asked me if it was on my blog. I said yes... but I haven't been updating it recently. We had leftover refried beans and I said I'd probably make some enchiladas to go with; so here is the recipe, for my friend who wanted to know what exactly I DO with leftover refried beans :)

Ingredients

• a medium roast chicken (ready-roast from the supermarket is fine)
• two red peppers (capsica)
• a large brown onion
• four cloves of garlic
• 1 flat tablespoon ground cumin
• 1 tsp cocoa powder
• 1-2 tsp chilli flakes (to taste)
• a cup or so of tomato salsa
• 8 tortillas
• cheddar, colby, or monteray jack cheese
• 3 spring onions
• sour cream

Method

Strip the meat off the chicken, roughly chop, and reserve. If the chicken came with stuffing, feel free to eat it, or chop it in, too. Dice the red peppers; halve, and finely slice the onion. Fry them together in a little oil for 10-15 minutes over a low heat until extremely sweet and tender. 

(Or, you could roast a chicken whole, surrounded by halved onions and red peppers, then dice everything up afterwards. Your call!)

Crush the garlic into the red pepper and onions, and fry for another minute, then add the cumin, cocoa, and chilli, if using; fry for another minute, until fragrant. Stir in the diced chicken, and half of the salsa.

Spoon the mixture into the tortillas, rolling them up and pushing them together in a deep roasting tray. Scatter grated cheese and finely diced spring onions over the top. You can cover and refrigerate it at this stage, and it'll keep in the fridge for a few days.

Bake at 180C for about 15 minutes (or 20 from the fridge), until the cheese has melted and the edges of the tortillas are just beginning to crisp.

Serve hot, with the rest of the salsa, sour cream or guacamole, and refried beans, if you like :)

Faux Middle Eastern Lamb Tart

OK Uncle Richard, you can look away now! This is a totally inauthentic bit of fusion food that I've taken even more time-saving liberty with than the original. But it was surprisingly tasty, and I think I will make it again.

Ingredients

• 1 red onion
• 500g lean lamb mince
• 1 tbsp tomato paste or three tomatoes
• 3 garlic cloves
• 1.5 tsp ground coriander
• Pinch of dried chilli flakes
• 3 tsp cumin seeds, toasted
• juice of a lemon
• a generous handful of finely chopped mint, plus extra leaves to serve
• 3 sheets frozen puff pastry
• two more tomatoes
• handful of chopped flat-leaf parsley
• hummus made from one tin of chick peas
• 1/2 to 1 pack of feta cheese, to taste

Lay the pastry out to defrost, preheat the oven to 200C, and make the hummus, if you haven't already.

Finely chop the red onion and fry gently for a few minutes, until translucent and soft. Add the lamb mince and fry, breaking it apart, until browned. Crush in the garlic and stir through the paste, or finely chop the tomatoes and stir them in. Add the spices and fry for a few minutes, until fragrant. Turn the heat off and add half of the lemon juice, cumin seeds, and mint. (The mixture will appear undercooked compared to e.g. moussaka; you can cook it for longer, but it will get a blast in the oven later, so don't make it too dry.)

Spread the middle third column of each pastry sheet with hummus, then top with the lamb mixture, and scatter over the crumbled feta. Loosely fold over the outer thirds of the pastry to form a fat edge. You can slightly crimp the tops and bottoms of the sheets if it looks like the juices are going to run out. Bake in the oven for 25 minutes, or until the pastry is risen and golden.

Meanwhile, dice the remaining tomatoes and combine with the parsley and the remaining mint, cumin seeds and lemon juice. When the tart is finished, top with this salad, the reserved mint leaves, and serve.

Pumpkin Chilli

Finding myself with a surfeit of pumpkin from the garden, and a craving for chilli, I searched around until I found this recipe. It really is a delicious combination, and you won't even notice that this is not a 'con carne'. That said, I love to throw in a little chorizo or bacon to smoke things up a bit. I modified the ingredients slightly, since I don't know what was in their 'chilli powder', but I assume you wouldn't want an Indian-style chilli powder, and that's all that's available here. You can leave this in the fridge for a few days and the flavours will keep developing.

Ingredients

• 1 medium red onion, chopped
• 2 red or green peppers, chopped
• 750g butternut squash or eating pumpkin, peeled and chopped
• 100g of smoked bacon or cured chorizo, finely diced (optional)
• 4 garlic cloves, crushed
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground paprika
• 1/2 to 1 tsp chilli flakes (up to you)
• 1/2 tsp cocoa powder
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 can diced tomatoes, including the liquid
• 2 cans kidney or black eye beans
• 300-500ml vegetable stock
• 2 avocados
• sour cream (optional)
• crispy tortilla strips
• fresh leaf coriander (optional, for garnish)

Method

In a large Le Creuset or sauce pan, sautée the chopped vegetables (onion, pepper, squash, garlic) and bacon or sausage, if using, in one to two tablespoons of olive oil on medium-high heat, stirring frequently, until the onions are translucent. Turn the heat down to medium-low and add all of the spices canned ingredients and stock, and stir. Don't use all of the stock if it looks like it will make the chilli very runny, but feel free to top up as it cooks if it looks too dry. Cover for about one hour, stirring occasionally.

By the time your chilli is done, the butternut squash should be nice and tender and the liquid should have reduced a bit, producing the hearty chilli consistency that we all know and love. Serve the chilli in individual bowls, topped with diced avocado and sour cream, if using. Use the strips to eat mouthfuls of chilli!

Caponata (Aubergine and Tomato Stew)

The title is totally unprepossessing, and I'm sure memories of poorly-cooked ratatouilles are sending you scrolling away from this screaming. HOWEVER! I implore you to stay. Try this recipe! Particularly in summer, when aubergines and tomatoes are in plentiful supply. The capers and olives make a fantastic contrast with the fresh vegetables, and it's amazingly filling as well. Yes, it's Jamie Oliver. Yes, olive oil must be glugged. But you won't be disappointed with a new away to jazz up those med veg.

Ingredients

• 2 large aubergines, cut into large chunks
• 1 heaped tsp dried oregano
• 1 small red onion, peeled and finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely sliced
• 1 small bunch fresh flat-leaf parsley, leaves picked and stalks finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons salted capers, rinsed, soaked and drained
• 1 handful green olives, stones removed
• 2-3 tablespoons best-quality herb (or at least wine) vinegar
• 5 large ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped
• 2 tablespoons slivered almonds, lightly toasted, optional

Fry the aubergine and oregano in olive oil on a  high heat for around 4 or 5 minutes, giving the pan a shake every now and then. (Depending on the size of your pan you may need to cook the aubergine in batches.) When the aubergines are nice and golden on each side, add the onion, garlic and parsley stalks and continue cooking for another couple of minutes. Feel free to add a little more oil to the pan if you feel it's getting too dry.

Throw in the drained capers and the olives and drizzle over the herb vinegar. When all the vinegar has evaporated, add the tomatoes and simmer for around 15 minutes or until tender. Taste before serving and season if you need to with salt, pepper and a little more vinegar. Drizzle with some good olive oil and serve sprinkled with the chopped parsley leaves and the almonds if you like.

Osso Buco

Still winter, and I'm still craving those yummy sticky warming dishes. Here's one I've never made before: osso buco, a Milanese speciality of cross-cut veal shanks. I was inspired by seeing a cheap pack of ox-tail at the butcher's, and figured a cow's tail is probably pretty similar to a calf's leg. I followed this recipe from taste.com and it was pretty yummy and very rich. So much so that we only had fairly small servings -- one large piece of ox-tail per meal was more than enough. So this recipe would serve six people, or maybe four if they've been hill-walking or ice climbing!

Ingredients:
Osso buco

• 1kg veal shanks or ox-tail
• 2 tablespoons plain flour
• 2 medium red onions, coarsely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 3 medium carrots, thickly sliced
• 2 sticks celery, thickly sliced
• 410g can crushed tomatoes
• a glass of dry white wine
• 250ml beef stock (cube/powder is fine)
• 2 teaspoons dried Italian herbs (oregano, thyme, rosemary, mint)
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste

Gremolata

• 1 garlic clove, crushed (optional)
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
• 1 tablespoon finely grated lemon rind

In a deep casserole dish with a lid, toss the veal shanks in flour and fry briefly to caramelise. (Or skip, if you're strapped for time). Chuck everything else in, stir well, and cook, just simmering, for about six hours, or until the meat is falling off the bone and the vegetables have disintegrated into a thick sauce. Check every so often to make sure it's not burning.

Combine the gremolata ingredients and serve on top of the osso buco, on a big pile of fluffy mash or gooey polenta.

Lazy Stuffed Peppers with Gorgonzola

Peppers are coming into season as the weather properly warms up, so I started looking around for recipes to use up the inevitable giant cheap bags at the market. I found this rather fiddly recipe that had an interesting flavour combination I hadn't tried before. I knew I couldn't be bothered with all that string nonsense, and doubly so when we found a big $1 bag of sweet pointed peppers just beginning to wrinkle into overripe territory. So we skipped all that stuffing malarky, and just bbq'd the peppers into tender, charred strips, made the stuffing separately and laid it over the top. Lovely!

Ingredients:

• 6 pointed or 4 bell peppers
• 50g pine nuts
• 2 garlic cloves
• 140g long grain rice
• 350g vegetable stock
• 4 spring onions
• 2 tomatoes
• handful each of parsley and basil
• 150g gorgonzola

Slice the peppers lengthwise and remove all the pith and seeds, but leave the stems on. If you are using large round bell peppers, slice them into thirds so that each piece can lie flat on the bbq. BBQ or grill for 5-20 minutes, skin-side-down, until the flesh is sweet and the edges are charred (the cooking time will depend strongly on the thickness and ripeness of the peppers, and the heat of your grill or bbq).

Meanwhile, dry-fry the pine nuts until golden, then set aside. Heat a little olive oil in a frying pan and crush in the garlic, then tip in the rice thirty seconds after it starts to sizzle. Stir, fry for a further thirty seconds, then pour in the stock; cover and simmer until the rice is cooked. Finely dice the spring onions and herbs, and dice the tomatoes, then stir into the rice, replacing the lid to let everything wilt a little, and the flavours mingle.

When the peppers are done, place them on a serving plate, skin-side-down. Dice the Gorgonzola and stir it, and two-thirds of the pine nuts, through the rice, but don't completely combine the cheese; allow little pockets to remain. Tip the stuffing onto the peppers and scatter with the remaining pine nuts, and a few torn leaves of basil.

Tabbouleh

I combined a couple of tabbouleh recipes to generate this delicious accompaniment to some freshly-grilled lamb chops from the butcher's. It's really important to have some good fresh herbs to hand; you can't substitute or reduce them without reducing this from tabbouleh to a mere cous-cous-with-bits-in. On the other hand - you can totally substitute cous-cous, if you don't have time to cook bulghur wheat or just don't fancy the flavour.

Ingredients:

• 75g cous-cous
• a slice of butter
• 1/2 tsp vegetable stock powder
• two ripe red tomatoes
• a couple of hot radishes
• a spring onion
• a good handful of flat-leaf parsley
• a good handful of fresh mint leaves
• juice of half a lemon
• olive oil

Pour boiling water over the cous-cous in a 2:1 water:cous-cous ratio and stir through the butter and stock powder; microwave for a minute or two then leave to stand to cook through. Cool if you have time. Dice the tomato and radishes; finely chop the spring onion and herbs. Combine the cooked cous-cous, herbs, tomatoes, radishes and lemon juice, then drizzle with olive oil just before serving.

Huevos Rancheros

Decided to do something a little different after Zumba today - well, I decided the night before, since it helps to cook the refried beans in advance. In the morning, it was a matter of minutes to put the ingredients together, and then enjoy a protein-rich meal with a big cup of coffee.

Ingredients:

• 400g refried beans
• three cloves of garlic
• a tin of chopped tomatoes
• Cheddar cheese
• 4 tortillas
• 4 eggs
• fresh coriander
• guacamole or sour cream

Put the tortillas on a large, foil-covered or well-oiled baking tray. Spread on the refried beans. Drain the tin of tomatoes and slice the tomatoes into wedges; dot on top of the beans. Try to make a bit of a well with the beans and the tomatoes. If you like your egg runny, separate the white and pour it into the well; cook under a hot grill for a couple of minutes until it is almost cooked. Cover with cheese and plop on the yolk, then grill for a further minute until the cheese is sticky and melted and the yolk is hot. Cut into wedges and serve garnished with a few leaves of fresh coriander, with plenty of guacamole or sour cream to go with.

Butter Chicken

When I visited India, we had one particularly amazing meal out at a rather fancy restaurant, where the meals cost a whole $10! A friend of mine ordered this and I remembered that it's often cited as the measure of an Indian restaurant; if the butter chicken is good, then everything else is probably good too. His was excellent. We've had a couple of chicken breasts in the freezer for a while and I've been intending to do 'something Indian' to them. Then at the Good Food and Wine show I picked up a really nice 'butter chicken' spice mix and all the pieces fell into place. I don't normally use spice mixes but I tried a bit with some bread and olive oil and it tasted so much like the real thing from India that I couldn't resist :)

I used this taste.com.au recipe for a starting point, although we dropped the amount of yoghurt since I was worried cooking it would make it separate, and we found the overall result bit too tomatoey, so this recipe has a reduced amount of puree. We couldn't bring ourselves to pour in the amount of cream they said to use, but feel free if you weren't using those arteries anyway! We served it with some plain rice and spicy & sour green beans: perfect counterpoint.

Ingredients:

• two large chicken breasts
• 2 tsbp yoghurt
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp turmeric, 2 tsp garam masala, 1/2 tsp chilli flakes, 1 tsp ground cumin, 1 tsp ground cardamom, 1 tsp ground cinnamon, 2 tsp of paprika (or 4 tbsp of butter chicken spice mix!)
• 2 tsp grated fresh ginger
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 125g cashews, roasted
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 Indian bay leaf or normal bay leaf
• 200g can tomato puree
• 150ml chicken stock
• 125ml double cream (double the quantity for extra richness)
• fresh coriander, to garnish

Slice the chicken breasts into bite-size pieces. Put in a bowl and toss with the yoghurt, lemon juice, spices, ginger and garlic; marinade overnight, or for a couple of hours if possible.

Blitz half of the cashews in a blender until well-ground. Gently fry the onion in a little oil, then add the chicken and toss about until the spices are fragrant. Tip in the ground cashews, tomato puree, bay leaf and stock, and simmer for fifteen minutes, until the chicken is cooked. Stir in the cream and warm through; serve over rice, topped with a handful of coriander leaves and the remaining toasted cashews.

Salmon and Runner Bean Pasta

This is the sort of crazy yet strangely delicious thing I create when I get home just twenty minutes before my evening telecon with Cambridge.

Ingredients:

• a generous handful of runner beans
• a couple of ripe tomatoes
• a handful of fresh oregano, finely chopped
• a cooked salmon fillet (I suppose tinned salmon might work!)
• a 75g--100g tub of really good pesto
• packet gnocchi

Slice the runner beans into cm-thick diagonal pieces and put on to steam. Chop the tomatoes and fry in a preferably non-non-stick frying pan. After  a minute or so, when they release some liquid, add the oregano. Set the gnocchi on to boil. When the runner beans are done and the tomatoes are well-softened and starting to dissolve, drain the beans and pop them in with the tomatoes. Turn off the heat and flake in the salmon. Season well with black pepper. Cover and allow the flavours to mingle. Meanwhile, drain the gnocchi, return to the pan and stir with the pesto. Serve the gnocchi topped with the sauce. I found it didn't even need parmesan!

Romesco Sauce

Saturday's an easy day for me to cook fish as I have time to cycle to the fishmonger, which lies in the opposite direction to the market where I do the vegetable & meat shopping. So after buying lots of great vegetables, including a bucket of tomatoes for $3, I headed over to the fishmonger thinking that I would get some fish that would go well with a recipe I found online for Romesco sauce. Luckily they had some red mullet fillets going quite cheaply, and they're awesome for the barbecue. Sophie's BBQd potatoes clicked into place as the best carb to go with, minus the garlic as the sauce is pretty strong. Perfect summer evening fare, before a trip into town to see Place des Anges flying live over the rooftops of Perth.

I slightly modified the sauce recipe because I don't like the taste of raw garlic, and I didn't have any hazelnuts. I'm also lazy and couldn't see the point of blanching the almonds. This made enough for about eight people, so we had a dollop each with dinner and have been eating the rest spread on bread and vegetables for lunch. Lovely!

Ingredients:

• 6 medium-size ripe tomatoes
• 1 head garlic, sliced in half crosswise 
• olive oil
• 1/2 cup whole almonds
• 1/2 or a whole red chilli, to taste
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp red wine vinegar 
• 1 slice stale bread

Cut the tomatoes in half equatorially, and place cut-side up in a large roasting dish. Slice the head of garlic in half the same way, and place each half in the middle of the roasting dish, cut-side up, so they are surrounded by tomatoes and in the centre of the oven. Drizzle or brush generously with olive oil and roast for 70 minutes at 200C, until the tomatoes are very soft and going golden brown around the edges. If the garlic shows any sign of burning, put the halves back together. Leave the tomato and garlic to cool properly - at least half an hour.

While the oven is still hot, lay the almonds and chilli on a baking tray and pop them in for 7-8 minutes. Set a timer so they don't burn! Remove the chilli from the tray and soak in boiling water from the kettle for ten minutes.

We're getting really good at making
these potatoes :)

When the tomatoes are cool, pick them up one half at a time, and pinch off the skins. (Eat them if you like, they're delicious!) Drop the rest of the tomato, seeds and all, into a food processor (off). Squeeze the roasted garlic out of their wrappings into the food processor, and discard all the papery skin. Add the salt, vinegar, almonds and soaked chilli, discarding the water. Add about half a cup of olive oil. Blend on medium for 40 seconds or so, then check the sauce - it should be starting to emulsify. If it is very runny, add some of the bread and continue to blend. It should be spoonable, not fluid, and coarse, rather than completely smooth.

Roast Tomatoes and Croutons with Cold Lamb

We're beginning to run down the fridge before I leave for Canberra, so we quarter and roast about a kilo of tomatoes with a big handful of oregano, marjoram and thyme  from our overgrown herb box. With some crispy croutons -- bread, cubed, tossed in olive oil and roasted in the still-hot oven for ten minutes -- the hot tomatoes perfectly complement cold lamb chops left over from yesterday, their acidity cutting through the fat of the lamb.

Gnocchi, Asparagus, Tomatoes, Ricotta, and Pine Nuts

This meal needs a name! I call it... asparagus-fallback pasta! I make this all the time, just varying things a little each time. Tonight we use sun-dried instead of cherry tomatoes, gnocchi instead of fusilli, ricotta instead of creme fraiche, and top the lovely pasta-asparagus-loveliness with pine nuts and parmesan, and a good grating of black pepper. Just so simple, perfect for a quick meal after work. And ready almost as quickly as setting up Game of Thrones on the projector :)

Lasagne

Mmmm, hearty food. We made this on Tuesday night, ready to be baked on Wednesday, after we got home from swimming. Worked out well, although I wish I had an oven with a timer so that in future it could be waiting for us as we arrive! It's always worth making a big quantity of lasagne; we're limited by the fact that our kitchenware hasn't yet arrived so we only have the one Le Creuset tray. But we certainly made enough for two meals - so this serves four.

Ingredients:

• 500g good quality beef mince
• 1 white onion
• 1 red onion
• 1 carrot
• 2 sticks of celery
• 250g of white mushrooms
• 4 small cloves of garlic
• 2 340g tins of diced tomatoes
• 4 bay leaves
• a handful of fresh oregano, or 1 tsp of dried
• 2 tbsp plain flour
• 2 tbsp butter
• 500ml milk
• 10-12 sheets of lasagne; enough for three layers in your tray (you can lay them down and test it out beforehand)
• grated cheese, to top
• salt and pepper

Dice the onions, carrots and celery, and cut the mushrooms into 1/2-cm wide slices. Fry with the beef mince for 10 minutes, until the beef has browned and the onions have softened. (For years I fried everything separately, as I was taught, and I've found that for a sauce that then goes on to cook for ages, it makes absolutely NO difference.) Crush the garlic into the mixture, then add the tomatoes and herbs. Stir well to combine, then cover and simmer for an hour and a half, stirring occasionally so as not to let it stick to the bottom.

Meanwhile, prepare a white sauce - I prefer to melt the butter in a pyrex jug in the microwave, stir in the flour, slowly add the milk, then microwave for four minutes, stopping every minute to stir well. Season the white sauce and tomato sauce to taste. Soak the lasagne sheets if they are the kind that need it.

When you're ready to assemble the lasagne, add the ingredients in layers; my favourite is: tomato, lasagne, tomato, white sauce, lasagne, tomato, lasagne, white sauce, cheese. At this point it keeps perfectly well in the fridge for a couple of days. When you're ready, bake it for 45 minutes at 200C; if adding straight from the fridge, put it in while the oven is cool and start timing from when it reaches 200C; this will allow your tray time to heat up without cracking. Serve with a green salad or some steamed veggies.

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.

Tomato Salsa

I love a fresh tomato salsa! It goes so well with spicy Mexican dishes or even just with nachos and cheese. Not that I'm allowed such things at the moment, or it would put my wedding dress fit in danger. Today it made a lovely accompaniment to some vegetarian fajitas.

Ingredients:

• 2 large tomatoes or a bag of cherry tomatoes
• small bunch of coriander
• juice of a lime
• 1/2 tsp large-flaked sea salt or chunky rock salt

If the tomatoes have thick skin, blanch them in boiling water and quickly peel the skins off. Otherwise or afterward, roughly chop and put in a bowl. Finely chop the coriander, squeeze in the lime juice and combine with the tomatoes. Just before serving, add the salt and stir briefly; the tang of unexpected salt is a lovely contrast to the tomatoes.

Asparagus and Tomato Pasta

This is a frequent weekday staple for us during the May-June asparagus season. It's simple, requires little preparation and is totally nutritious and delicious. Nom nom nom nom...

Ingredients:

• enough pasta for two
• a fat bunch of asparagus
• 4-5 ripe tomatoes or 20 cherry tomatoes
• 2 cloves of garlic
• a small bunch of basil
• a generous handful of pine nuts
• a few tbsp of crème fraîche
• a squeeze of lemon juice
• Parmesan cheese

Set the pasta boiling in plenty of water for the packet time. (We're addicted to tricolore trottole but you can use whatever you like!) Snap the asparagus and slice into bite-sized pieces, and roughly chop the tomatoes. Peel the garlic and put it in a crusher.

Heat a few tbsp of olive oil in a heavy-based frying pan until it begins to shimmer. Add the asparagus pieces and toss around for one minute. Add the chopped tomotoes and crush in the garlic; stir well and simmer for about five minutes, stirring occasionally, until the asparagus pieces are just tender. Meanwhile, dry-fry the pine nuts until golden. Drain the pasta and toss in the crème fraîche and lemon juice, then serve topped with the asparagus and tomoatoes, torn basil, the pine nuts, and some grated Parmesan cheese.

Lotte a l'Americaine

Another of my dad's signature dishes, and often wildly overcomplicated in Internet versions, this recipe is an absolute delight in the summer. It's very much a treat - tonight because I will be departing for Croatia tomorrow for a conference. Monkfish are also sadly, not really in season; I should wait until late summer but the last tail at the fishmonger looked so tempting! I skip the traditional fried bread tonight, as the hot weather has dimmed my appetite, and instead knock back a few glasses of home-made elderflower cordial.

Ingredients:

• 400g tail of monkfish - or enough for two
• plain flour
• a large clove of garlic
• 4 ripe, red tomatoes
• a large shot of brandy

Remove the bone and any remaining skin and scales from the monkfish, wash and pat dry. Slice into bite-size pieces, erring on the side of large rather than small. Toss in a small dish with a few tbsp of plain flour and some salt and pepper. Heat a glug of olive oil in a frying pan to almost-smoking hot, and add the monkfish pieces. Fry (in batches if you have to) for a couple of minutes each side until golden, but not necessarily cooked through. Remove to a plate.

Meanwhile, chop the tomatoes into small pieces, and when the monkfish are done, scrape them from the board into the pan, and then crush in the garlic. Deglaze the pan using the tomato juices, and simmer for 7-8 minutes, until the tomatoes are softened but not totally dissolved, and the sauce has thickened. Return the monkfish to the pan, pour over the brandy, give it a few seconds to warm up and begin to evaporate, and then set fire to it. Enjoy the flames, then serve immediately :)