Beer pancakes with eggplant and urda in tomato sauce

 

Eggplant – aside from whiskers on kittens and raindrops on roses-  is one of my favourite things. If you too pop eggplant and ricotta rolls as if they were sweets, think that “salata de vinete” (Romanian for eggplant salad) with onions is totally acceptable breakfast fare, take second helpings of moussaka, polish off the entire bowl of moutabal yourself when “sharing” mezze and don’t notice that there is no meat in “melanzane parmigiana”, then you might like this amalgamation. Beer, eggplant, tomato sauce and “Urda” (Romanian type of cheese) in one dish – how can this not taste good?

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Tomato cream pasta with smoked bacon

Warning: this dish can engender serious feelings of satisfaction and well being.

Cream and tomatoes along with cream and roasted red peppers make dreamy, greedily good comfort food. Think cream of tomato soup, roast red pepper and smoked paprika cream, light and fluffy roast red pepper flan and (yes) cream of tomato ice cream with basil sauce.

Now this particular recipe evolved from a surfeit of post ganache making “sweet cream”, a small container of roast Romanian tomato sauce in the freezer and a sad looking piece of smoked bacon lurking at the back of the fridge. It was also the day of yet more gruesome dental treatment. Creamy, carbo comfort food was never more deserved.

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Roast red pepper, courgette and chick pea soup

I love roast red peppers and their smoky sweet flavour and in Autumn when the markets are piled high with them I try and think of as many uses as possible. A simple salad of roast peppers, olive oil, roast garlic and sherry vinegar and freshly crushed coriander is one of my “go to” salads and the classic cream of smoked paprika soup is one of my ultimate comfort foods. The roast red pepper and walnut pesto has saved many a “what shall I cook for dinner?” situation and doubles up as a winning spread for crostini. Red peppers (cooked not raw – yuck!) are just a fabulous ingredient and of course packed full of all manner of healthy vits and minerals. This soup is one of those “meal soups” that with some good bread is a meal in itself, yet thinned down with a little water is also a great starter. It happens to be a vegan recipe too and its fast aside from the peeling of the roast peppers which is a bit fiddly (although in the recipe I tell you how to cheat).

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