Roast Vegetable and Tuna Salad

The sun, I fear, is nothing more than a myth. A rumour. A figment of some deluded soul's imagination.

I honestly don't know how much rain has fallen here since the beginning of April. I don't know how many days of dreariness we've had. Sun beams that actually reached the ground in two months? I'll guess three. The final numbers aren't out yet, but I won't be surprised if 2011 turns out to be one of the wettest, if not *the* wettest since they started keeping such records in this area.

It's rained so much that I see thin strokes of fuzzy green on the pavement. With indoor humidity at about 83 per cent according to the wall gadget, the air seems thick and chilly. My Monet print umbrella is my most prized possession. More valued than my kitchen scale, more used than my merlot-hued patent leather near-stiletto boots, more needed than my Blackberry.

That said, the grass is lush and green and my dahlias, irises, bleeding hearts and indigo are thriving. But those are the only real positives I can think of. Oh...and I didn't have to wash winter's salt off my car.

I usually don't moan about cloud or rain, but enough is enough. Really, it is.

It would be nice to feel the sun's warm for more than an hour or so every so many days...or weeks.

The problem with weather like this is I'm still mentally stuck in wintery foodish themes. I'm still roasting meats and making stews. This just doesn't seem right for late May in the northern hemisphere.

I just can't get excited about frizzy salad greens or light broths...not when it's as grey as slate and the sound of rain coming down the chimney reminds me of Jacob Marley's clanging chains.

In hopes of kickstarting my summer cooking, I've taken one of my usual winter staples -- roasted Mediterranean vegetables -- and hoped to coax back the sun with the simple addition of another Mediterranean item: tuna.

Generally I roast a good quantity of vegetables (sometimes adding courgettes (zucchini), or fennel) and keep it in the fridge as a side to go with roast birds or beast, as an omelet stuffing or in wraps, but this time I'm using the same mix, cold, for a salad base.

I prefer to roast the vegetables (well, fruit) separately as I don't want the tomatoes' juices to run into the aubergines, but if you'd rather roast them together, that's fine. I don't pay attention to how much of anything I add to the vegetables--it's totally to taste.

The salad itself is quite adaptable--I use tinned tuna out of convenience, but you can use grilled or seared tuna. If you don't want to use fish, you can use poached eggs, grilled pork or chicken, tinned chickpeas or even cheese such as feta or halloumi.

Roasted Vegetable Salad with Tuna

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

For the tomatoes

3-4 ripe tomatoes, cut into slim wedges
olive oil
red wine
balsamic vinegar
salt
pepper
dried basil
chilli flakes, to taste
1 red onion, cut into slim wedges
6 garlic cloves, with papers left on

For the aubergine/eggplant:
1 medium aubergine (eggplant), skin on, diced into 1.25cm (0.5") pieces,
olive oil
salt
pepper
ground coriander
dried basil
garlic powder
onion powder
chilli flakes, to taste

2 Roasted peppers, sliced

red wine vinegar
canned tuna (see notes)
black olives
capers
black pepper

Method
Line two cookie sheets with tin foil and set aside. Preheat oven to 170C/350F.

For the tomatoes
Mix the tomatoes with olive oil, red wine, a splash of balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper, dried basil and chilli flakes. Let sit for at least an hour if you can.

Scatter the tomatoes onto the other tray and nestle in the onions and garlic. Pour the macerating liquid over the lot.

For the aubergine

Mix all the aubergine's ingredients together with the fruit (yes, it's a berry). and tumble onto one of two trays.

Put both trays into the oven and roast for 30-45 minutes, until cooked but not burnt. One tray may take longer to cook than the other, if so take out the trays as they are ready

Allow to cool a bit and combine the tomatoes, aubergines and peppers with a drizzle of red wine vinegar. Give it a stir and let cool to room temperature

To serve, portion onto plates, top with tuna, scatter capers and olives over top and lightly dust with pepper.

Notes:

- I prefer tuna packed in olive oil, but if you can't find it, use the type packed in spring water or broth. You can also use grilled tuna instead.

- If you'd rather not do this with fish, try poached eggs, grilled chicken, grilled pork, or chickpeas instead.

cheers!

jasmine

I'm a quill for hire!

Mmm...Canada: Roasted Fiddleheads

When I was six years old I took violin lessons. My teacher's name was "Mr. T" (shortened because his surname was long and hard to pronounce...I easily relate). He was old. Like 30 or maybe 35. He had a Tom Selleck-like mustache and the whole 1970s groovy thing happening...or at least he tried to.

Violin just wasn't my thing. I couldn't get the fingering right and even at that young age I knew drawing a bow across my instrument's strings made sounds akin to squalking turkey buzzard stepping on a set of bagpipes than an A, D or even G#.

I was awful. My fingers hurt. My ears hurt. I couldn't hold the neck correctly. My fingering was never right. I always got a tummy ache on lesson day. After a few months of this, my Dear Little Cardamummy let me quit and returned my instrument. I never saw Mr. T again.

It wasn't the end of my music education--I went on to play several other instruments (badly): piano, flute, harp and voice. At some point I'll pick up the piano again...and I have a hankering to learn the cello.

A couple of decades later, when I heard of a Maritime delicacy called "fiddleheads" my mind immediately went to Mr. T and that poor violin. Luckly, I've had better luck with the vegetables than the instrument.

Fiddleheads are the tightly curled tips of the ostrich or cinnamon fern, and is a spring delight. The violin-scroll like vegetable tastes like a cross between asparagus and broccoli.

They fall within the "not quite death defying" food family. In the 1990s there were several food poisoning cases where fiddleheads were involved.Even though the exact cause wasn't identified, it's believed that the ferns have a toxin which is killed with heat. Health Canada recommends the curled greens be thoroughly washed in several changes of cold water and boiled for 15 minutes or steamed for 10-12 minutes.

I've had them boiled and steamed, each time served with a melting pat of butter and a bit of salt and pepper. My favourite way of having fiddleheads, like asparagus, is to roast them in the oven with olive oil, salt and pepper and serve them drizzled with balsamic vinegar and a sprinkling of parmesan cheese.

I pity the fool who doesn't try fiddleheads.



Roasted fiddleheads with balsamic vinegar and parmesan


Fiddleheads
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Balsamic vinegar
Parmesan cheese, grated



Set the oven to 190C/375F. Lightly oil a baking tray.


Toss the fiddleheads in a bit of oil and scatter them on the prepared tray. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast for about 20-30 minutes or until done


Tumble onto a serving dish and drizzle with balsamic vinegar and sprinkle with parmesan.



cheers!

jasmine











I'm a quill for hire!

Is that a zucchini in your pocket...

...or are you just happy to eat with me?

The other week I mentioned a home-grown, pesticide-free courgette, courtesy of a colleague. Notice the singular? It wasn't a couple of squash it was one. See the spoon in the photo? That's a teaspoon. The veg in question was a 1.13kg (roughly 2.5 lb) beauty. Yup, it was a biggie.

A couple of chocolate loaves later and I was still up to my knees in zucchini (remember I am almost 5'1"). If the weather were cooler, they'be be roasted in some ratatouille and if I had a barbecue, I'd have grilled off some slices for a warm salad. But it was too warm for the oven and I don't have a barbecue. So I did the next best thing...I fritterised them.

Let's face it, there are worse things that could happen to a veg...I mean, they could be boiled to within an inch of their lives: any and all vestiges of flavour and inherant goodness they once contained are dissipated in a cafeteria worker's cooking pot.

Or they could be dehydrated and pulverised, mixed with a load of salt, polysyllabic preservatives and colourants to justify the "made with real vegetables"-type monicker on certain foods.

Fritters are incredibly easy--mix veggies into a batter and drop by the spoonful into a pan with about two to five centimetres of hot fat. Let the underside burnish and then flip over and fry the other side. Lift out of the fat (salt if you wish) and drain onto kitchen towels. Then eat while warm.

Curried Courgette Fritters
75g plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
salt
pepper
1 tsp curry powder (or more or less, depending upon taste)
1 egg, beaten
450g courgettes, grated and drained of excess liquid
1 medium onion, grated and drained of excess liquid
oil, for frying

Heat the oil until it shimmers.

In the meantime, sift together all the dry ingredients, stir in the egg and fold in the grated courgettes and onion.

Drop by teaspoonful into the fat-flatten each drop out a bit so the centres will cook through. Don't crowd the pan otherwise the oil's temp will drop and then soak into the fritters, making the greasy and leaden. When the underside is burnished, turn over the fritter and fry until it too is a lovely golden brown. Remove from the oil and blot on kitchen towelling.



Normally when I have fritters I eat them plain or with ketchup or barbeque sauce. With this batch I decided to pair them with a very garlicky home-made aïoli. It was good in theory...and eventually in practise. My first batch of fritters, while practically perfect, were paired with a very imperfect garlicky dipping sauce. It just didn't come together: it was lumpy and bumpy and separated far too quickly.

So I tried it again, about a week later, with a new batch of fritters (from yet another mutant zucchini). This time, I wasn't in the best moods when I made the fritters and well...you could tell. The fritters were thin and scraggley and seemed to take forever to cook regardless of how warm the oil got. I lost several because they absorbed so much oil, their edibility was in question.

The aïoli, on the other hand, turned out beautifully--thick and unctious and very, very garlickly. It's quite easy to make--it's quite similar to making mayonnaise. You can make it by hand with a whisk or with a blender (stick or jug versions).

Garlic aïoli
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 egg yolk
125 ml olive oil
125 ml canola oil (or other flavourless oil
salt
pepper
1 dspn mashed potatoes

Whisk together the yolk and the garlic. Drizzle in the oils while constantly whisking, to thicken the sauce. Whisk in the mashed potatoes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.


cheers!
jasmine

Taste of Yellow: Sweetcorn pudding

Last year 149 bloggers came together for Barbara of Winos and Foodies' Taste of Yellow in support of LiveSTRONG Day and The Lance Armstrong Foundation's awareness event for cancer issues and cancer survivors.

When she announced Taste of Yellow 2008 I knew I wanted to participate, but wasn't sure if my schedule would alow it. During the past week, when I caught up with my backlog of blog reading, I saw so many wonderful posts like Bron's, Annemarie's, Paz's and Ivonne's, I knew I had to carve some time out for it.

Most of us know someone who was afflicted by it or know someone cared for a sufferer. Some of us have had our own scares--as some of you know, I've had two breast cancer scares in ten years--I'm fine, but they were life-defining moments.

My contribution to this year's event is a favourite side dish that I usually make with ribs or pork chops, Nigella Lawson's Sweetcorn Pudding. It's tasty and easy and wonderful to eat on its own, especially after a very long day...


cheers!
jasmine

Related: Taste of Yellow: Cornish Saffron Cake and Happiness Soup

Feast: Easter Supper

Every Easter supper I try and go for something different, something I've never tried before. This is usually the time for first: the first roast chicken, the first leg of lamb, the first prime rib (etc). This year I was truly at a loss as to what I could do. No, I'm nowhere close to have cooked everything at least once, but I was looking for something a bit more fun than normal.

Then I remembered Meeta's Monthly Mingle theme: Arabian Nights. Apart from the "usual suspects" -- hummus, tabouli, baba ganouj--I've not really done a lot with Arabic-inspired foods. Well, one thing led to another, and I ended up with a hodgepodge of dishes from--or at least inspired from--various areas of the Mediterranean. These ideas and recipes were gleaned from a number of sources--Nigella Lawson, Claudia Roden, Nigel Slater, Delia Smith and a number of web searches:

My version of Jazar Bil Camoun Wal Toum (Carrot salad with Cumin and Garlic) used parsnips and carrots. Given my recent Savour the Season post on parsnips and the surprising lack of carrots in my fridge, I decided to make this Moroccan dish using the two veg. Simply blanch 600g of julienned veg, then saute in olive oil, garlic and cumin. Season with salt and pepper and squeeze some lemon over top. Serve cold.

This Lebanese spinach with chickpeas and onions (Sabanekh Bi Loubia) dish is normally made with either black-eyed or haricot beans (and caramelized onions), but I had a tin of chickpeas on hand. Soften an onion in olive oil, then saute garlic in olive oil and add a thawed packet of chopped spinach. Tip in the onions, season with salt and pepper, add the beans and squeeze some lemon over top. Serve cold.

I suppose the lamb is what started things off for this meal. I didn't want to do the standard rosemary-garlic version, but I saw a recipe for a date and mustard-glazed rack of lamb in The Toronto Star. The rub is made with rosemary, cinnamon, salt, pepper, cumin and coriander seed. The glaze used honey-dijon mustard, mashed dates, rosemary, cumin and garlic.


This aubergine and tomato curry is a cross between the most delicious dish my mummy makes and Lebanese aubergines with tomatoes and chickpeas (Mussaka'A Menazzaleh). Toast some black mustard seeds, cumin, coriander, tumeric, chilli pepper and garlic in olive oil and then tip in an onion sliced in half-lunettes and three chopped Chinese eggplants. Saute until soft. Add three or four chopped, very ripe tomatoes and add some water, a pinch of curry leaves, and salt and pepper. Stir in a tablespoon each of red current jelly and rice wine vinegar. Cook, stirring occasionally until it's all soft and oozy. Serve hot.

Possibly one of my favourite potato concoctions. I originally thought of it as Greek, but I found a Lebanese version of Roasted potatoes with lemon and coriander (Batata Bel Lamou Wal Cosbara). Boil a kilo of potatoes, chop into a very large dice, toss in olive oil, salt pepper and garlic. Roast at high heat (240C/475F) for about half an hour, or until crispy brown. Squeeze a couple of lemons over top and serve immediately.

I used this meal as the excuse to try Nigella's Turkish Delight Syllabub. I tried it before TFE and the exbf showed up and decided it was too rich for us...so what did I do (after I took this photograph)? I dumped everything into the ice cream maker and turned it into ice cream. Still too rich, but at least it's now frozen and buys me some time to figure out what I can do with it...right now I'm thinking of turning it into a frosting for a sponge cake.

And yes, here is the 2007 Easter Beanie picture. He wasn't pleased, but he forgave us...and no...he's not usually wall-eyed...I have no idea where that came from.






Cheers!
jasmine

tags: Nigella Lawson Claudia Roden Nigel Slater Delia Smith Monthly Mingle

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