Genoa and Cinque Terre

A selection of photos from Genoa and Cinque Terre, summer 2012. No effects or colour enhancers used.

And me..eating pizza of course

 

All photographs copyright EatNowTalkLater © 2013. All rights reserved.

Roasted Aubergine

This is my new favourite way to eat aubergine. I make it all the time. The flavours intensify in the oven and every part of the aubergine becomes delicious. It’s easy, simple, and there is no waste!

You can adjust the flavours depending on what you are serving it with. If you’re serving with Italian food, use fresh basil, dried oregano, and lots of garlic.

*Here’s a little extra something for you. If you make too much, or you want to try something different – scoop the fleshy aubergine out the skin when it’s baked and mix in the food processor with a dollop of yoghurt for a delicious homemade dip.*

Ingredients:
2 cloves of garlic, halved
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp dried mint
pinch cinnamon
handful fresh parsley, chopped
squeeze of 1/4 lemon
Olive oil or garlic oil
salt & pepper

1. Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees C. Slice aubergine long ways and place on a baking tray.

2. Prick the aubergine with a fork and drizzle with olive oil. Rub the garlic onto it. Sprinkle the rest of the herbs and spices on top.

3. Bake for around 40 minutes depending on your oven. Before serving, use a knife to check the aubergine is soft and cooked all the way through.

I think it is delicious served as a side dish with Moroccan style lamb and cous cous.

Enjoy!

Summer Breakfasts

My six week holiday is coming to an end as I go back to work on Monday (and become a student again!) I have had such a brilliant holiday and seen so many friends, so thank you to everyone! I have surprised myself with how busy I’ve been, and so I have to apologise to all my followers for disappearing from Eat Now Talk Later recently. I’m sorry!

But now I’m back! It’s really hard to get back into blogging when you get out the habit and I wasn’t really sure where to start! So I’m just starting with a few photos of some of my favourite breakfasts from this summer.

Those of you who know me well, know I am NOT a morning person. I treasure my sleep greatly so I always resent the mornings. But, if you invite me out to brunch, I suddenly become all sociable! Ooh I do love a cooked breakfast!

Apologies for the quality of these photos, they were taken on my phone. 

Huevos rancheros at Banners, Crouch End. A lovely brunch with my darling friend Dasha. In the background you see gingerbread pancakes with bacon and eggs.

Toasted bagel with wilted spinach and a poached egg. Homemade brunch with my sister Danya-Zohar.

Birthday pancakes I made for Mr L, topped with nutella and banana.

Birthday pancakes for Mr L, this one with cottage cheese and honey.

Okay, I admit it. I love houmous and baked beans together!

Cauliflower Soup with Parmesan Dumplings

This is going to be a love it or hate it recipe! Cauliflower and parmesan are both strong flavours on their own but bring them together and you get a deep roasted richness with a kick from the black pepper. I have never made cauliflower soup before, but I have eaten the vegetable many times in my mother’s Indian food and my father’s Italian food. Back in December I was inspired by the Hairy Bikers to bring the British cauliflower back into fashion. You may have seen my Cauliflower and Chickpea Curry recipe, but at the time I also vowed to try and make my own soup with the beautiful, cheap and underrated vegetable.

Like most of my recipes, this totally reflects my cooking style. This is a cheap, nutritious and easy recipe which can be made in advance. You can also easily adapt this recipe if you don’t like certain ingredients. For example, feel free to use much less black pepper if you’re not a fan. Use pecorino or gruyère for the dumplings if you don’t like parmesan. *If you prefer a softer dumpling, use white bread; personally I prefer brown.

This makes a delicious starter or light meal.

Serves: 4-6 as a starter
Takes: 1 hr 15 mins

Ingredients:

1 Cauliflower (medium-large), washed and cut up into florets
Leaves of 1 cauliflower, sliced
1 white onion, peeled and diced
1leek, washed and sliced
4 cloves garlic, peeled
1 tsp whole black peppercorns
700 ml vegetable stock (or boiling water and 1 stock cube)
3 tbsps creme fraiche
Pinch of salt
Knob of butter
Olive oil

For the dumplings:
2 slices brown bread*
25g grated parmesan
1/2 the cauliflower leaves, sliced
1 tbsp dried parsley (or small bunch fresh)
1 egg

1. Preheat the oven to 150′. Place the cauliflower florets, garlic and whole black peppercorns on an oven tray and drizzle with olive oil. Roast in the middle of the oven for a total of 45 minutes.

2. I recommend that you prepare everything else after you put the cauliflower in the oven. This shortens the cooking time. So – prepare the other ingredients.

3. In a large saucepan, warm up 2 tbsp olive oil and a knob of butter. When it is warm and clear, add the diced onion. Softly cook for about 5 minutes, then add the leek.

4. When the onion and leek have both softened, add the vegetable stock and half the cauliflower leaves. Stir the pot, and leave to simmer for 10 minutes.

5. Put your slices of bread in the toaster or oven to dry out. Then, place them in your food processor with the other half of the cauliflower leaves, parmesan, parsley, and egg. Whizz it all up!

6. By now the cauliflower should have roasted for about 45 minutes. Check that it is cooked and softened. If not, leave it in the oven for 10 more minutes. If it is, you can now take it out the oven and add the cauliflower and garlic to the soup pot. Stir the soup and put the lid on. Save the peppercorns.

7. Grind the roasted peppercorns with your mortar and pestle and add a pinch to the soup and a pinch to the dumpling mixture.

8. Roll the dumpling mixture into little balls. You should be able to make 10-12. Lightly grease a tray and then cook the dumplings in the oven for 15 minutes.

9. Mash down, or whizz up your soup! Whatever machine you have to smooth it out will be fine! Stir in 3 dollops of creme fraiche and a pinch of salt to taste!

10. Serve hot with a swirl of creme fraiche and 2-3 dumplings per person.

Enjoy! I would love to hear your feedback if you try it!

Tip: If you like it spicy, add a pinch of smoked paprika to the soup. 

You may also like these recipes:

• Cauliflower and Chickpea Curry
• Roasted Red Pepper and Cherry Tomato Soup
• Tuscan style spicy tomato soup with a poached egg

Cherry Tomato and Aubergine Pasta

This is a super speedy, cheap and easy recipe. It is also a healthy vegetarian meal, involving two of my favourite vegetables, both from the same family (nightshade).

I just love tomatoes and you will always find them in my fridge, as well as tins in the cupboard. When we were kids, my sisters and I shared a children’s cookbook; we used to love making one of the recipes which involved cutting the top off a tomato, scooping out the inside and mixing it with cottage cheese, then putting it back in the tomato. It sounds pretty simple now but it was delicious and exciting when I was younger!

I also really like aubergines, but I’m a bit more picky about how they are cooked. Lots of recipes and websites recommend taking off the peel from larger aubergines as it can be bitter, but I actually prefer the peel to the inside. I don’t think I need to tell you how much I love pasta! I could eat it every day!

If you’re not a big fan of the aubergine, you could easily do this with sliced peppers or courgette instead.

The best thing about this recipe is that you can cook the tasty sauce in pretty much the same time as the pasta boils! Great if you’re in a rush but don’t feel like beans on toast!

Start to finish time: 20 minutes
Serves: 2

Ingredients:
2 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
300g Cherry tomatoes (or a tin of cherry tomatoes), halved
100g Aubergine, small cubes
1 tsp tomato purée
1/4 tsp paprika (optional)
1/2 tsp dried basil
salt & pepper

100g pasta per person

1. Boil plenty of water for the pasta.

2. Heat the oil in a separate pan on a medium heat. Add the garlic and fry until it starts to golden, then add the aubergine. Cook for about 3 minutes and then add the cherry tomatoes.

3. By now the water should be boiling, add some salt and then your pasta of choice. Turn down to a simmer and cook for the time stated on the packet, usually about 12 minutes.

4. Use those 12 minutes to add the remaining ingredients to the sauce: the paprika, basil, tomato purée and a pinch of salt and pepper. Cook on a medium heat stirring occasionally. Water will come out of the veg, but if it starts to dry up add a bit of water. Taste the sauce now, and if it is a bit tart, add a pinch of sugar.

Serve with grated parmesan or your favourite cheese.

If you love tomatoes as much as me, check out my previously posted recipes:

Roasted Red Pepper and Cherry Tomato Soup
Tuscan Style Spicy Tomato Soup with a Poached Egg
Mozzarella and Pesto Puff pastry Squares
Bloody Mary Cocktail

I’m finally getting involved with Presto Pasta Nights, this week hosted by HoneyB at The Life & Loves of Grumpy’s HoneyBunch! Check it out on Friday for the round up of lovely pasta recipes.

Cornish Delights

I’ve just come back from a lovely, relaxing, mini holiday in Cornwall; a beautiful place with its own fascinating history.

My particular interest in Cornwall, (as you may have guessed) was in its delicious and unique foods! I successfully stuffed myself for 4 days, eating fish, cooked breakfasts, pasties, scones and much more. The delicious choices are endless, there are so many places to eat, and snack. Definitely do not go there on a diet!

Here’s a few of my favourites from our little indulgent trip:

Fresh Fish

Having a long coastline and plenty of fishing villages means that there is a substantial selection of fresh fish and seafood restaurants. Rick Stein has even opened 4 restaurants in Padstow, Cornwall, as well as a fish & chips restaurant and seafood bar in Falmouth. The flavour of the fresh fish was absolutely delicious, the tastiest I have ever had in England.

From top left cockwise: fish pie at Polpear cafe, The Lizard. Rick Stein's fish & chips in Falmouth. Fresh fish sign at The Lizard. Traditional English Breakfast of smoked haddock and poached egg at the Camilla House, Penzance. Crab, prawn and smoked salmon risotto, East Looe.

Cornish Pasties

Although there are some earlier mentions of pasties (dating as far back as 1200), the most known history of pasties is that they were designed for the tin miners to eat at work, so that their dirty hands would not touch the food. The delicious beef, onion, potato and swede filling and main pastry casing would be eaten and the hard crimped pastry crust would be discarded. The traditional Cornish pasty even has Protected Geographical Indication in Europe, so that you cannot label it Cornish if it hasn’t been made there. These days you can get all sorts of fillings, I had a chicken and vegetable pasty in Falmouth, but there are also vegetarian, wholemeal, and cheese ones. As a tourist in Cornwall, the pasty is pretty exciting! I passed many pasty shops in every town, even the small villages seem to cater for the pasty craving visitor!

A selection of pasties from all around Cornwall

Clotted Cream

Clotted cream is made from the fat from full fat milk, boiled off and then cooled. For my non British friends – it is a delicious, thick, sweet cream which is traditionally eaten on a scone as part of a cream tea, with jam and tea. If you haven’t tried this yet, it really is the most scrumptious English treat in existence! There’s plenty of recipes online if you want to try and make it yourself.

In Devon, they spread the clotted cream first and then the jam, however in Cornwall they do it the other way around! I have to agree with the Cornish way!

Selection of cream tea from all around Cornwall

Other

And here’s a few extras I just couldn’t resist posting, plus a few pictures of the beautiful Cornish scenery.

Left: Summer fruit brioche pudding with Cornish ginger ale custard. Right: Beetroot and pear bruschetta with feta and pine nut salad. Both at the Old Sail Loft, East Looe

From top left clockwise: The Lizard, the Lizard cliffs, East Looe at night, St Michael's Mount, East Looe at sunset, The Lizard blackberry bushes, The Lizard cliffs, East Looe boats.

Cookies and Cream Fudge Brownies

Mmm what’s better than a delicious chocolate brownie warm from the oven and a glass of milk?

As it’s the last day of chocolate week, here’s my contribution! This is a yummy brownie I made recently with Oreo biscuits, from Lorraine Pascale’s cookbook ‘Baking Made Easy’. I bought this cookbook straight after watching her BBC series last year and I’ve tried many of the recipes. Baking is really the only type of cooking that I do follow recipes and hers are very simple and easy. I’m pretty confident with my cooking normally, I like to experiment with different ingredients and make up new dishes, but I would never do that with baking because it really is a complicated science and I wouldn’t know where to start. I can’t wait to try her new wheat free peanut butter brownie recipe.

This cookies and cream brownie recipe is nice and easy, and I like the use of oreos instead of nuts. However, I really need to invest in an electric whisk to speed things up! I tend to use less sugar than the 165g stated because I don’t like them too sweet. They always turn out delicious! Chewy and soft on the inside and crunchy on the outside. I recommend eating them straight from the oven with a glass of cold milk!

If you have a foolproof brownie recipe I’d love to hear from you! Also, if you recommend any other recipes from this book let me know.

Quorn Chilli Con Carne

No I’m not vegetarian. But I like to experiment with different ingredients and health is very important to me. It is commonly said that too much meat is bad for you, and I am personally quite happy eating vegetarian meals a lot of the time. However, I will definitely eat meat when I go home for Friday night dinner and my mum has made her roast chicken!

A quick, easy and cheap beef substitute is quorn mince. It is high in protein and fibre and low in fat. If you feel like you’ve had a bit too much meat recently, or you want to try out quorn, then here is a quick recipe for veggie chilli con carne. The only difference between this and a meaty chilli is the quorn and stock, so this recipe would work fine with beef mince as well, just leave it to cook for a bit longer.

If you haven’t eaten quorn before, or didn’t like it last time, I dare you to give this a go. Let me know what you think. Similarly, if you often cook with quorn and have any comments or tips, I’d love to hear from you. So far, the biggest thing I’ve learnt about quorn is just that it needs just a bit more spice and flavour than cooking with meat.

Start to finish time: 45 minutes
Serves: 6

Ingredients:
500g quorn mince
1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 tins chopped tomatoes
1 tbsp vegetable/sunflower oil
1 tin kidney beans
1 vegetable stock cube
1 red pepper, sliced
Handful of fresh coriander, chopped
1tsp lemon juice
Salt & pepper

Spices:
2 tbsps cumin powder
1 tbsp chilli powder
1 tbsp smoked paprika
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground coriander powder

1. Heat the oil in the pan and add the onion and garlic. Gently fry until softened. Add the tinned tomatoes and stock cube and cook for 10 minutes on a medium heat.

2. Heat the spices in a separate pan and then add to the pot.

3. Add the quorn, coriander, sliced pepper, lemon juice and the kidney beans and cook for a further 15 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Serve hot with rice, a tortilla and sour cream.

The spices that I’ve used make a delicious combination for any Mexican dish, whether it’s fajitas or burrito, or anything else. I like to make extra and keep it in a jar in the spice cupboard to save time next time!

Do you like quorn? What’s your favourite way to cook it? Are you also a non-veggie who eats veggie food?

Roasted Red Pepper and Cherry Tomato Soup

This morning on my walk back from the gym I was reminded why Finsbury Park is awesome. On my route I pass a grocery stall where a friendly man sells fruit and vegetables in £1 quantity bowls. Amongst other things, I bought 4 red peppers for only £1, a bargain compared to the supermarkets.

So walking back with my heaving blue plastic bags I got the idea into my head that I wanted to make roasted red pepper soup and I’ve been excited all day planning it. Although this is a fairly simply recipe, the roasting takes some time in order to get the best flavours from the peppers and tomatoes. If you’re really rushed for time you could add them to the pot raw and boil them, but I hope I can persuade you that the roasting is worth the wait.

I have a love/hate relationship with cooked peppers, so this is quite an unusual meal for me to cook. I wouldn’t normally eat them except when my parents make peperonata (an Italian dish of sliced roasted peppers with olive oil, garlic, and sometimes olives and capers; also known as peperoni in Italy). However, over a year ago I went to a sweet little tea house with my friend Sophie and we had red pepper soup which was absolutely delicious. I have no idea what they put it in but it was scrumptious. Since then, I don’t think I’ve eaten it again and certainly never made it until now, but I was so excited to try.

The smell of peppers and tomatoes roasting in the oven is absolutely delicious. I was tapping my feet and staring into the oven for a large part of the afternoon!

Start to finish time: 2.5 hours
Serves: 4

Ingredients

5 red peppers
15 cherry tomatoes (on the vine is best)
2 red onions, chopped
3 cloves garlic
3 tbsp olive oil
Knob of butter
2 tbsp tomato puree
500ml vegetable stock/500ml water and 1 stock cube
handful of basil leaves
A few parsley stalks, chopped
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp dried tarragon*
1/2 tsp paprika*
75ml cream
salt & pepper

* optional

1. Preheat the oven to 150 degrees. In a large tray, add the olive oil, garlic cloves and the peppers, whole and washed. Roast for about an hour in the middle of the oven, checking once or twice and turning the peppers.

2. Add the cherry tomatoes and bay leaves and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cook for another half an hour. Then, add the basil and turn the tomatoes and peppers.

3. In a large pot, heat the butter and a drizzle of olive oil. Add the red onion and cook on a low heat with the lid on until soft. Add everything from the oven tray into the pot, except the bay leaves and peppers. Put the lid on and let it cook slowly while you prepare the peppers. Don’t worry about all the liquid from the roasting tray, the cherry tomatoes release a lot of water in the oven which adds a beautiful flavour.

4. Pull off the pepper stalks and discard. Slice each pepper down the middle and scoop out all the seeds. Then, peel off the pepper skins. Add the soft cooked peppers to the pot and stir in. Add the stock, chopped parsley, tomato puree and dried herbs. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes.

5. Turn off the heat. Blend the soup, and then pass through a sieve to get rid of any rogue pepper seeds and to smooth. Return to the pot and add the cream, salt and pepper (to taste). You should now have a rich orange coloured creamy and smooth soup which tastes absolutely divine.

Serve with your favourite bread as a starter or main. It should last a few days in the fridge.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

All written content and photographs copyright Vered © 2011. All rights reserved.

‘The Summer Is Not Over!’ Salad

True to my blog name, I have eaten, and now I will talk about it. I cannot believe it is September tomorrow already. The sky is grey right now and schools starts again next week. I refuse to believe that the whole summer has gone and I didn’t even get a tan or visit Brighton!

One way I can cling on to summer on the last day of August is to have a yummy summery salad. I’ve just finished eating this and have the taste in my mouth that makes me want more. Alas, it is all gone. I’ll just have to have a banana instead.

My last day of August salad consists of some of my favourite ingredients, including goat’s cheese, and is a great way to eat a high fibre, low carbohydrate lunch. If you don’t like goat’s cheese, you could do this with cheddar or gruyère instead.

Goat’s Cheese Crostini Salad With Toasted Seeds

Start to finish time: 15 minutes
Serves: 1

Ingredients:
Romaine Lettuce
A handful of rocket
1 tomato
1/3 of a cucumber
1 slice of bread
3 tablespoons of mixed seeds (E.g. pumpkin, sunflower, sesame, pine nuts)
Hard goat’s cheese
Salt & pepper
Extra virgin olive oil

For the dressing:
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp honey
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp white wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon English mustard

1. Turn on the grill to 200 degrees. Slice the goat’s cheese and place on the bread. Slice the bread into 3 rectangles. Place the crostinis on a tray and drizzle with extra virgin olive oil and salt. Place under the grill for 5 minutes or until the cheese is golden.

2. Cut the lettuce, tomato and lettuce and mix in a bowl with the rocket.

3. Shake up the dressing ingredients and add to the salad. Stir it all up.

4. Toast the seed in a dry pan until golden and add to the top of the salad. Sprinkle salt and pepper, and then add the crostinis.

Enjoy! See you at the beach? Eh me neither.

Before going under the grill