Girl-on-a-bicycle-with-a-pet-monkey inspired Stuffed Tomatoes

Ever feel like you don’t have time to breathe let alone cook? That’s when you need your list of fast, easy comfort food dishes that require no thinking and no particular talent to make and always taste great. Big giant Romanian tomatoes and peppers are at their best in late summer and early autumn and provide the original convenience food – scoop them out, fill with your filling of choice , bake, pour a glass of wine and eat!

Fillings? I love a green lentil and bulgur filling (although its not a super fast one as you need to cook the lentils first) or the classic rice and sultana filling and to serve with a garlic and mint yoghurt sauce Turkish style. But for convenience and speed the way of cooking stuffed tomatoes in the South of France cannot be beaten.

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Baked “Pastrav Afumat” (Smoked Trout) fishcakes

These fishcakes are the posh version of the smoked mackerel fishcake (same method and quantities) and are just a little bit more subtle and refined. Romania teems with decent trout and its easy to find the smoked version. I often flake it into a rucola salad and add some citrus slices and a light vinaigrette for a fast lunch or dinner party starter. But as a comfort food you can’t beat the combination of mashed potato, smoked fish and a crunchy coating. The beauty of this recipe is that it can be served as a starter with a tzatiki sauce or as a main course with some green salad, crudités or a beetroot salad.

These are easy to make and instead of frying them, I bake them, which reduces the fat content dramatically, stops your kitchen smelling like a fish and chip shop and lets you do other things while they bake!

Gadgets & Gizmos

A baking tray, a potato masher is handy but a fork will do

Ingredients: serves four

600g of mashed potato (no butter or milk added)

200g smoked trout

A bunch of parsley roughly chopped

A bunch of spring onions finely chopped

Some lemon zest (1 lemon)

Salt and pepper

1 egg for the mixture

1 egg for the coating process beaten in a shallow bowl

1 packet of breadcrumbs, ‘panko” if you can find them, or home made slightly coarse ones.

You can also flavor with horseradish or tarragon – whatever your favorite fish flavorings are.

How To

Cut and peel the potatoes (approx 650-700g before peeling and cooking) and boil in salted water.

As the potatoes boil, line the baking tray with aluminum foil or baking paper. Brush with oil. (do this before your hands are covered in potato fish mixture, which of course I have never tried to do at all).

Beat the one egg in a shallow bowl.

Cover a plate with a thick layer of breadcrumbs.

Cook the potatoes until they are nice and soft and “mash-able”. Drain them and mash/crush with a fork. They do not need to be a perfect puree- a little potato texture is nice here. Don’t be tempted to blend or blitz or else you will end up with potato glue – handy for wallpapering but not what we want here. The potato mash should cool down fairly quickly – I speed things up by running cold water over them as I drain them in a colander. The mix should be cool when you add the fish.

Flake the fish, keeping an eye out for bones. Do this with your fingers because then you are more likely to feel any errant bones.

Mix in the parsley, lemon zest, salt, pepper and one egg

Scoop into little patties and mold with your hands.

With a fork and spoon dip into the beaten egg mixture and drop carefully onto the breadcrumbs. Roll around (the fishcakes not you) until coated and place on the baking tray.

Bake for 30 mins at 180C. You may need to turn them over once to achieve an even golden color on both sides.

Enjoy with a tzatiki sauce or even a tahini and coriander sauce as pictured here due to the yoghurt running out. Garnish with lemon wedges if you want extra lemon flavor.

Roast pumpkin and ginger soup

The golden leaves of autumn, the first feeling of winter chill, a bounty of deep orange pumpkins and inevitably the first sniffs and sneezes of the season. Only one thing to do – gather up pumpkins (or butternut squash) and some fresh ginger and treat yourself to this seductive silky soup that just happens to pack a serious antioxidant punch.

This is one of those recipes that you really can adjust and tweak to your own taste. I often add some carrots or red lentils and I love to make the soup with orange zest and juice too (thinned with some cream for a dinner party). Sometimes I feel in a curry mood and add some curry powder and turmeric. I am guessing that it will work well with smoked paprika as well but have yet to try that combo. Sometimes I garnish with olive oil and toasted pumpkin seeds and sometimes I add cream and a little crispy bacon on top. And for dinner parties I serve in individual cups and saucers – very pretty. Its such a fabulous soup base that you can develop your own twist very easily.

The method is simplicity itself. The roasting makes life easy (no peeling and chopping a hard uncooked pumpkin) and deepens the flavor at the same time so really there is very little to do except blitz and season. Once the pumpkin is roasted the soup takes just minutes.

Ingredients:

1 medium pumpkin,

1 large onion, diced

2 cloves of garlic chopped roughly

2 tbsp olive oil,

50g ginger, peeled chopped finely

1 tsp ground coriander seeds

1 tsp turmeric

1 liter chicken or vegetable stock

Optional: 300g boiled carrots (great use of leftovers)

Pumpkin seeds – 50g

How To

Preheat oven to 180C

1. Cut the pumpkin in half, or if a really big pumpkin into quarters. Place on a baking tin and bake. Nothing else needed at this stage – any aromatic expensive olive oil is just going to evaporate off so just leave it naked to bake.

2. Chop the onion up roughly (nobody is going to report you to the onion chopping police because the soup is blitzed up) and fry in the same pan you will make the soup in, just gently until translucent. Add the garlic and fry very gently. Add the coriander seeds, ginger and turmeric.

3. When your pumpkin is cooked (approx 45mins-1 hour) a knife will slice through it like butter. Leave to cool until you can handle the heat. Scoop out the seeds and discard. Scoop out the flesh which will be smooth and soft and place in the pan with the onions and spices. If you are using carrots add them now. Note that this same flesh can be used for pumpkin pie and for pumpkin cup cakes, so if you have loads and loads – freeze it!

4. While you are scooping out the pumpkin put the seeds in to roast (10-15 mins) and release their flavors.

5. Add 1 liter of your stock (if it’s made with a cube it wont be the end of the world) and bring to a boil.

6. Once the pumpkin is ready, add this to the onion and ginger mix and add the stock. Bring to the boil and simmer for five minutes.

7. Blitz your soup until it is completely smooth. Add more stock or boiling water or milk if it is a little thick.

8. Serve in large bowls sprinkled with the roasted pumpkin seeds scattered over the top, some parsley or lovage (“leustean”) and drizzled with good olive oil. Eat with some great bread and feel a whole lot better.