According to my daughter, these courgette fries are like “vegetarian calamari”. I know what she means.
While no one would confuse the texture of squid with courgette, they are similarly satisfying in flavour and crunch. And being baked, they are reasonably healthy as well.
I first ate them at a Vancouver restaurant called Las Tapas that I adored, and have been making my own version ever since.
I haven’t made kolokithopita in years. This satisfying combination of courgettes, feta cheese and phyllo pastry was a regular summer visitor when I used to grow courgettes – along with pasta alle zucchini and chocolate chip zucchini bread.
Last week my younger daughter announced that she was going vegetarian for a month. I’m very happy to support her with this ambition – we eat plenty of vegetarian meals already, and when I do cook meat it is seldom the main event, so it hasn’t made much difference to what I serve her for dinner. Continue reading
Beef goulash is one of the first dishes I learned to cook on my own. The original recipe is from Seventeen magazine – that’s how long I have been making this dish…;-)
On my work-from-home days, I often make a big bowl of steamed vegetables with cheese for lunch.
The idea for this dish came from some two-week, healthy-eating regime we followed years ago. Each day, you were presented with two choices of lunch – and whenever steamed vegetables with cheese was an option, I chose the other one.
Until the day I didn’t… and discovered that steamed vegetables with cheese is an immensely satisfying bowl of food. I’ve eaten it regularly ever since, with whatever vegetables are in season or on hand.
Tajine, cous cous, tajine, cous cous, tajine… When visiting Morocco, you have to go out of your way to avoid eating one or the other – or both – pretty much every day.
In Morocco, a tajine is both a slow-cooked savoury stew and the conical pottery cooking vessel in which they are prepared. So strictly speaking, while drawing on the flavours of Morocco, this fruit and vegetable tajine is not a tajine at all.
It is delicious though, and less oily than most I’ve eaten, especially those featuring chicken or lamb.
Continue reading
We were introduced to pasta alle zucchini by our lovely Roman friend Mariella. She was a bit dismissive when she served it for dinner one evening, describing it as simple family fare, but we found zucchini and egg to be a winning combination. Continue reading
This zucchini bread recipe comes from my high school cookbook – which is quite the period piece now, with its marshmallow Waldorf salad, Waikiki meatballs, ham and rice ring and “sex in the pan”.
The original recipe calls for raisins, but after substituting chocolate chips once, I’ve never switched back. It also makes two loaves. Sometimes I’ve halved the recipe by beating the three eggs together and only using half, but usually stick the second loaf in the freezer for later. Continue reading
Ten More Bites 