Savoy Chicken Stew (not a cabbage in sight!)

A classic Umbrian dish brought to us again through the pages of Ursula Ferrigno's Trattoria  and for those who know what this blog is meant to be achieving (working my way through 100+ cookery books to justify their space on my shelf) I can only defend myself by saying that if I return more than once to a book then it is most definately a keeper!

Not the best of photo's Im afraid, it was a bit of a rushed last minute 'aargh I forgot to take a picture' moment!

serves 4 -5

1 x 1.5kg free range chicken cut into 16 pieces (how do you do that? I only ever manage to get 12 pieces max when chopping up a chook)

1 garlic clove, peeled and finely chopped

1/2 medium onion, peeled and coarsley chopped

1 small carrot, ditto the above

1/2 celery stalk, you've guessed it, chopped

1/2 tsp chopped fresh rosemary leaves

85mls olive oil

2 small hot red chillies, seeded and chopped

salt & pepper (fresh ground of course)

175ml dry white wine

250ml canned tomatoes (that is one standard can)

Combine all your garlic, rosemary, onion, carrot & celery in a food processor and blend to a course puree. Keep for later.

Heat a large, heavy based pan over a medium to high heat and add all the chicken pieces. Cover and cook for 15mins, turning every so often until the chicken has rendered all it's fat and water and become golden.  Remove the liquid from the pan (I usually drain it into the stockpot which will be simmering with the leftover bits of chicken carcass, i'e the backbone, by now).

Return the chicken to the pan and pour over the olive oil, add the chillies and seasoning and then spoon over your vegetable puree.  Cover and simmer for 20mins.

Pour over the wine, simmer 15mins more.

Stir in the tomatoes and simmer for a further 15 mins.  Taste and season if needed.

Serve, I love to serve this with potatoes you see pictured. They are from the same book and have become one of our family's favourites. They are simply called

Crispy Roast Potatoes

to serve 4

2lb floury potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 x 1.5" chunks

1oz butter

2 tbsp olive oil

2 sprigs fresh rosemary, finely chopped

1tbsp fine dried breadcrumbs

Preheat oven to 200c

Fill a large pan with potates and cold water. Bring to the boil and boil for 2 mins. Drain.

Combine the oil, butter and rosemary in a large hob/oven proof dish that fits them in one layer. Heat over a high heat till butter melted and then add the potatoes and saute till beginning to brown. Season well and stir in the breadcrumbs. Transfer to the oven and cook for 20-30 mins till crusty without and creamy and soft within. Serve immediately.





At Elizabeth David's Table, not Jenny's :)

Today we are dipping for the first time in to a book written in honour of the late, great, Elizabeth David.  I had been aware she was a 'Food Hero (ine)' of the likes of Jamie Oliver, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Rose Gray etc but had never really come across any of her books until last year when her very best everyday recipes were compiled into the book At Elizabeth David's Table.  Complete with lovely pictures, which are absent in her original books. So of course I had to have it!

So after my first succesful foray into the wonderful world of Gnocchi with the Ricotta Gnocchi I was keen to try out more and came across today's recipe in the above book. It was not a disappointment, in fact it was very lovely and I wanted to share it....

GNOCCHI VERDI

Serves 4 as starter/ 3 as lunch.

Start making this the day before you want to eat it!

250g spinach cooked, drained well and patted dry, chopped finely. (original recipe says 500g but as I only had 250g I went with that and it worked and can't see how you would need more!)

250g ricotta

2 eggs

3tbs flour

45g grated parmesan

butter,salt, pepper and freshly ground nutmeg

to finish -

60g butter and plenty parmesan

Put your cooked spinach in a pan with the ricotta and a knob of butter and season well with the salt, pepper and nutmeg.  Stir all the ingredients together over a low flame for about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat, beat in the eggs, flour and parmesan. Leave in the fridge overnight.

When your ready to use, flour a board and roll out your mixture and shape into Gnocchi. It's quite a soft dough so take small amounts at a time to work with, makes life easier.  When they are ready drop into simmering salted water and cook till they rise to the top. Do it in batches rather than overcrowding your pan.  Have an ovenproof dish ready with 30g melted butter and a light sprinkling of parmesan and drop your Gnocchi into it as they are ready.  Once all are done dot another 30g butter over the top and a generous sprinkling of parmesan.  Put in a warm oven for 5 mins and if you want a crispier finish just pop under the grill for a minute or too after they are out the oven.

Enjoy, we did, will be making this one again too!



A new 'favourite'....

I've waited a long time to try out this dish. I spotted it in Mediterranean Escapes by Rick Stein when I first bought it years ago and wanted to try it as my hubby adores butterbeans and I knew he would love it. Unfortunately the key ingredient, a mallorcan sausage called sobrasada wasn't available to buy in the U.K at the time so when I saw it as a new addition to the range carried by The Tapas Lunch Company last week I was quick to order some to try. So quick in fact they also sent some free :)

So on to the dish in question. It's a wonderful one pot (well two if you count the tomato sauce pan)wonder, which I always like, less moaning by the dishwashers about the mess I have created! And the recipe is as follows..

• 100g/3½oz dried butter beans (ideally judión), soaked overnight, or 225g/8¾oz butter beans from a jar, drained and rinsed
• ½ tsp salt
• 4 free-range chicken breasts, skin on
• salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• a good pinch of peperoncino, or crushed dried chillies
• 75g/2½oz sobrassada, thinly sliced.
• 350g/12¼oz courgettes, trimmed and cut on the diagonal into slices
• 300ml/10½fl oz tomato sauce (see below)
• a small handful of flatleaf parsley leaves, chopped

                 For the tomato sauce

• 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1-2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 500g/1lb 2oz well-flavoured tomatoes, skinned or 1 x 400g/14oz can plum tomatoes
• salt and freshly ground black pepper

If using soaked dried beans, drain them, tip them into a pan and cover with fresh cold water. Bring to the boil and simmer gently for about 20-25 minutes until almost tender. Add ½ teaspoon salt and continue to cook until tender - another five minutes. Drain and set aside. I prefer just to open a can, less chance of forgetting to soak the beans!

 

For the tomato sauce, put the three tablespoons olive oil and garlic into a medium-sized pan and as soon as the garlic starts to sizzle, add the tomatoes and simmer for 15-20 minutes, breaking up the tomatoes with a wooden spoon as they cook, until the sauce has reduced and thickened.Season with one teaspoon salt and some freshly ground black pepper. Set to one side.

Season the chicken breasts on both sides with salt and pepper. Heat the two tablespoons olive oil in a large frying pan, add the chicken breasts, skin-side down, and cook for five minutes over a medium heat until golden-brown. Turn over and cook for a further five minutes.

Move the chicken breasts to one side of the pan and add the peperoncino or chilli flakes and sobrassada, and allow the sobrassada to melt into the oil. Turn the chicken breasts over in the now spicy oil until well coated then lower the heat, scatter over the courgettes, cover and leave to simmer gently for 15 minutes.

Uncover the pan, add the cooked or jarred butter beans and tomato sauce, re-cover and simmer for a further five minutes until the beans are heated through. Scatter with the chopped parsley and serve with either steamed rice or cooked pasta. Or simply with some bread, we found that was enough with it.

If I can't go to the Amalfi....

it can come to me, yay!  Through the pages of a wonderful book called TRATTORIA Italian food for Family and Friends.  I love everything I have cooked from this book so far and am actually rather upset that I have never tried today's recipe before. It is so good! And though I personally cannot confirm whether the food is actually like what I'll find in an Italian Trattoria when I fulfill my dreams of visiting the Amalfi my dear daughter was was actually there last year sat down to lunch and declared 'Ooh I've had this before at....' and named the restuarant. I was rather chuffed.  So here it is....

Ricotta Gnocchi

 

 

Now the recipe says serves 4, maybe as a starter, but I found it did 3 of quite nicely for lunch.

300g ricotta cheese (see below for recipe)

85g 00 flour, plus extra for dusting

1 crushed clove of garlic

2 egg yolks

sea salt, fresh ground black pepper and freshly grated nutmeg.

Mix the above ingredients together in a bowl. Be quite generous with the seasoning. Knead it lightly on a floured surface and divide up into 3 or 4 pieces to make it more managable. Roll the dough out in a sausage shape till it's about as thick as your little finger, mine was more like ring finger size actually.  Cut at an angle in to small pieces, about the length up to the first joint of your index finger. Loving all the fingers, much easier that working in cm! Boil up some salted water in a large pan and cook the gnocchi in batches till it rises to the surface. Scoop out and you can either get straight on to the next bit, or pop them in the fridge till later for a super speedy meal later on.

to cook and serve

200g of cherry tomatoes, halved

2tsp of flaked dried chilli

2 tbsp of olive oil

a handful of fresh basil, torn

Parmesan grated, to taste (nice big chunky grating, not fine, well that's my preference :-) )

Now simply heat the oil in a nice large frying pan, add the chilli, tomatoes and gnocchi and saute away for 5mins or so until the tomatoes cook down and start coating the gnocchi. Remove from the heat, stir in the basil and parmesan and serve.

Sit down and eat and be transported to Italy!

Now then, here's a great little recipe that enables you to make the ricotta you need for this recipe at a fraction of the price of buying it. It is a lovely soft creamy ricotta just like you buy in the shops!

Makes about 750g (you could half and make less)

Take  2+ litre carton  of whole milk and 250mls of double cream, put them in a saucepan along with 1.5tsp of salt and  the juice of a lemon juice. Heat it up to just under the boil,  stirring occasionally. Switch the heat off and leave it to stand for an hour. It should split up into curds and clear whey.  Transfer to a square of muslin and hang up to drain for 2-3 hours, then it's ready to use. Simples.  (you may find you have the curds but the whey isn't quite clear, if not heat it up again and add a tsp of white wine vinegar, it should instantly sort itself out).

I was most excited to find that the same author Ursula Ferigno has another book, Real Fast Vegetarian Food which I could buy for 1p + post from Amazon so that's on it's way :-) Oops, like I need anymore books!

Pizza with new potatoes, rosemary & blue cheese (v)

Of late I've been trying to introduce more vegetarian food into our menu and as a result today's entry comes from the newest edition to my bookshelf. River Cottage Veg Everyday by Hugh Fearnley- Whittingstall. I already know this is a book I'll be returning to often.

First of all you need a dough for your pizzas. You may already have a favourite one to use, if not you can't go far wrong with what Hugh describes as 'magic bread dough'. The following quantities will give you enough for 3 pizzas.

250g plain flour
250g bread flour
1.5 tsp fine salt
1 tsp easy blend, instant, dried yeast
1 tbsp of olive oil
325ml warm water.

Now there is 2 ways you could go about this, do as Hugh instructs and form a dough and knead for 5-10 mins then leave in a bowl till doubled in size, around an hour, before knocking back and using.  Or do it my way which I believe is more magical, just mix everything together till all flour is mixed in, put a bit cling on top of bowl and leave it. No kneading whatsover. Then come back 2-3 hours laters, knock back and use. 

Today I used it to make a pizza with new potatoes, rosemary and blue cheese. Well at least that's what the recipe was. To be honest someone who has recently developed a taste for blue cheese in this house had nibbled most of it when I went to get it. So today we had a 3 cheese pizza, a little bit blue, a bit of feta and some goats cheese. It worked well.

You'll need some precooked, cold new potatoes, about 300g. And 150g of blue cheese.

First of all put your oven on it's highest heat to warm up, preferably with a pizza stone in, failing that a large baking tray.

Meanwhile cut 2 onions into quarters and slice thinly. Add to a frying pan with some olive oil and cook slowly till soft, about 15 mins. Once they are cooked mince in 2 cloves of garlic and add 2 tablespoons of chopped fresh rosemary.  This mix will do 3 pizzas.

Divide your dough in 3 and roll a piece out thinly. Either put on a pizza peel or pull your hot baking sheet out the oven and work very quickly. Top first with the onions and then potatoes, finishing with the cheese. Season and trickle with a little olive oil. Put in the oven to bake for 10-12 minutes until crisp below and bubbling on top. Repeat with the remaining dough, I usually fit 2 pizzas at a time in my oven.  Serve at once.

Due to the serve at once instruction I'm afraid today's photo didn't get taken until after we'd eaten, kind of forgot in the rush, fortunately there was a bit left!

 

Dreaming of Venice.....

The most beautiful cookbook on my shelves by far is written by a lady called Tessa Kiros, all her books are gorgeous but this one really steals the show. The pages are edged in gold, the book mark is black velvet. The photograpy stunning, stumbling across scenes of Venice and little stories about the place as you flick through it.  It really is too lovely to get dirty in the kitchen and that may be why I haven't really cooked from it much yet, and to be honest even if I was never to I wouldn't part with it...  But fortunately that is not the case, the following recipe is one of my favourite things ever to do with the humble sausage.

In my head I call them Venetian Sausages but according to the book it is Sausages and Polenta, or as it puts it 'Luganega e polenta'.  I don't serve it with polenta as the family is not keen so we serve it with mash.

The recipe to serve 6 is as follows -
120g thinly sliced pancetta, chopped
6 good (and I mean GOOD) large pork sausages (about 650g) pricked all over
1 small onion, sliced
250ml white wine (or red is good too she says, I've not tried that yet to comment)

Begin by sauteing the pancetta till it releases a little oil in a frying pan which just nicely fits your sausages in. After the oil starts seeping add the sausages and cook till they are getting golden in places. Remove the pancetta and set aside till later to stop it overcooking. Add the sliced onion to the sausages and continue cooking till that is soft and golden.

Return the pancetta to the pan and add the wine and simmer for 15mins before turning over the sausages and simmering again for another 15mins. The sausages should be golden, the wine evaporated and everything looking once again like it's just frying in oil.  Serve a sausage per person along with the rich sauce over some polenta or mash.

 

I love to serve this with the cabbage that Tessa recommends - La Verza Soffagata - or Suffocated cabbage to you and me.

You simply fry a sliced onion till soft and golden in a few tablespoons of oil and then add about 750g of sliced savoy cabbage to the pan with a bit of salt and stick a lid on and cook down till it's wilted. Add 125mls of white wine and allow to bubble for a minute without the lid. Then add a couple of tablespoons of passata, 1 pint of water and a pinch of chilli. Put the lid back on, bring to boil and simmer for 30mins. After which take of the lid, turn up the heat and cook for another 10mins till most of the liquid has evaporated. By which time it should be lovely and soft, season to taste and serve.

Enjoy

 

 

Whilst we are here talking of Venice I would like to introduce you to my absolute favourite eating place, if I were to have one last wish it would be to return to this little corner in Venice and enjoy one last meal here. If you ever find yourself in this beautiful city, please seek it out...

Ostaria al Ponte

Granola

I was drawn to the following recipe due to 2 reasons, a complete lack of interest in commercial breakfast cereals, to the point I would often skip breakfast and a wonderful year for apples on my tree leaving me with ALOT of apples to find a reason for being. So I made a simple apple sauce out of them, jarred them up and hopefully they will keep me going in this stuff, which I can face quite happily each morning, for quite a while.

The recipe was found in Nigella Lawson's Feast book you can find it here

450g rolled oats

120g sunflower seeds

120g white sesame seeds

175g apple compote or apple sauce

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

120g brown rice syrup or rice malt syrup, or failing that, golden syrup

4 tablespoons clover honey or other runny honey

100g light brown sugar

250g whole natural almonds

1 teaspoon Maldon salt

2 tablespoons sunflower oil

300g raisins

Mix everything except the raisins together very well in a large mixing bowl.

Spread this mixture out on two baking tins and bake in a gas mark 3/170°C oven, turning over about halfway through baking and re-distributing the granola evenly during the baking process. The object is to get it evenly golden without toasting too much in any one place. This should take around 40 minutes.

Once it's baked, allow to cool and mix together with the raisins. Store airtight.

I don't stick to the ingredients list, dessicated coconut is often substitited for the sesame, or a combo of both, a mix of nuts is often used and sometimes some puffed rice cereal is substituted for a bit of the oats to give a lighter effect. Whatever use this as a base to work off and you can concoct your own 'favourite' granola.

Bocconcini di pollo con aceto alle mele

Just occured to me as I trawl my way through my cookbooks I might accidently learn a new language or two as I go....  It sounds so much nicer in Italian than - chicken bites wrapped in pancetta and sage with a cider vinegar dressing!

This lovely little dish is  from a book a dear friend gave me for my wedding anniversary a couple of years ago and I'm ashamed to say this is the first time I've cooked out of it. I've ooh'ed and ahh'ed and read it often enough but never got anything from page to plate before. Hopefully this will be the first of many. The book? Passione The Italian Cookbook by Gennaro Contaldo.

The recipe below is one he knocked up out of the blue when he found himself with some spare chicken breasts, as you do ;) Well I for one don't as a rule because most packs come with 4 breasts and I am usually feeding 5. Which is why I was so tickled with this recipe as you cut the breasts up into smaller bits, so making it easy to stretch.

It's so simple it barely needs instructions but her goes, I'm not going to specify quantities, you know how many you are feeding and how hungry you are -

skinless, boneless chicken breasts cut into 3 to 4 chunks depending on size of breast
very thin slices of pancetta, cut in half, enough for one for each piece of chicken  (now I'm sure if all he had in his fridge was proscuitto as I did the recipe would be called something different, it works too)
fresh sage leaves (one for each chunk of chicken)
2 tablespoons of olive oil

for the dressing -

120ml extra virgin olive oil
4 tbsp cider vinegar
1 tsp chopped fresh parsley
salt and fresh ground pepper

Simply lay a slice of your pancetta on your clean worksurface, top with a sage leave then wrap around a piece of chicken to encase it. Continue with the rest.  Then heat the olive oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat and and add the wrapped chicken. Turn the heat down a little and fry the chicken, turning often till the chicken is cooked through. Takes about 10 minutes.  Meanwhile whisk the dressing ingredients together to make the dressing and pour over the hot chicken.  (If serving cold serve the dressing seperately).

Simples....

In his book Gennaro suggests these as a starter or you could make ahead for party nibbles but I found with a lovely salad and some Rosemary Roasted Potatoes ( pre boil chunks of a nice potato like King Edward for 5 mins or so till just soft and fry on the hob with butter & oil and some chopped Rosemary to get browning started then toss in a few breadcrumbs and transfer to a hot oven for 20 mins or so, season well, yummy) it made a lovely main meal.  Another time I might ring the changes with a sprinkle of lemon zest and grating of parmesan over the pancetta too before rolling.  After all Gennaro was just messing with what he had in the fridge :)

As an aside, the plate you see the Bocconcini sitting in is part of a set that I 'liberated' from ebay.  They are very old and irreplacable and I'm terrified of breaking them but I'm also a very firm believer that you shouldn't keep things for best. Every day is 'best'! But only I'm allowed to wash them :)

Battata Hara

Coincidentally my next entry is another recipe from Yotam, not from is book though, this is one I tore out the newspaper a few weeks ago and have been waiting to try.  I was not dissapointed, I served it with some simply roasted Cod and Wilted Spinach but one of the comments was 'this is so scrummy yummy I could just eat a whole bowl of this'. So I'd say that was a success!

 

The recipe is as follows -

1 kg charlotte potatoes peeled and cut into 2cm dice

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp sunflower oil

7 garlic cloves peeled and crushed (I know it sounds a lot but go with it, it works!)

1 tsp pul biber (Turkish flaked chilli) or ½ tsp another flaked chilli

2 red peppers cut into 2cm dice

30 g chopped coriander

1 lemon plus 1 tbsp lemon juice

Maldon sea salt and black pepper

Heat the oven to 240C/465F/gas mark 9. Bring a saucepan of salted water to a boil, throw in the potatoes and cook for three minutes. Drain and leave in a colander until completely dry.

Mix the potatoes with the oils, two teaspoons of salt and some black pepper, and spread on a medium roasting tray lined with tin foil; the potatoes should fit in snugly in one layer. Put them in the oven to roast and, after 10 minutes, stir in the garlic, pul biber, red pepper and half of the coriander. Return to the oven and roast for a further 25-30 minutes, until the potatoes are nicely coloured and completely tender. Stir once halfway through the cooking.
Remove the potatoes from the oven and transfer to a large bowl. Stir in the lemon zest and juice, taste and add salt and pepper if needed.
Serve warm or at room temperature, stirring in the remaining coriander at the last minute.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

Introducing Yotam - Leek fritters

The first book from the shelf to undergo the 'shall I keep it?' test is Yotam Ottolenghi's Plenty.  Not a fair test as I knew it would!  I love Yotam's recipes in the Guardian each Saturday and bought the book on the strength of that, but for some strange reason it's sat on my shelf looking rather pristine still.  So it's time it started earning it's shelf space and we started today with Leek Fritters.  The name for these sounds a little boring, but they are gorgeous. I will definately be making these again.  The following recipe is to serve 4, I halfed it quite easily as there was only 2 of us for lunch.

Ingredients -

450g leeks, trimmed weight.
5 shallots ( I used an onion)
150ml olive oil
1 fresh red chilli, deseeded and sliced, or live a little and keeep the seeds in!
25g parsley leaves, finely chopped
3/4 tsp ground coriander
1tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp ground turmeric
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg white
120g self raising flour
1tbsp baking powder
1 egg
150 mls milk
55 g butter, melted

For the sauce -

100g Greek Yoghurt
100g Soured Cream
2cloves crushed garlic
2 tbsp Lemon juice ( I used Lime and will stick with that, it's lovely)
3 tbsp olive oil (I forgot to put that in, not sure what difference it would make but's it's great without)
1/2 tsp salt
20g parsley leaves
30g coriander leaves
(or do as I did and just throw in what you have, I used mix of parsley, coriander & chive but no where near quantity specified I don't think)

Start by blitzing sauce ingredients together. Set aside for later.
Cut the leeks into thick slices  and saute with the shallots with half the oil until soft, about 15mins, combine with the chilli, parsley, sugar, salt  & spices and leave to cool (oops was fine warm)

Now to the eggs, (when I halfed the recipe I used 1 egg and whisked the whites and used the yolk in the batter.) Whisk the egg white to soft peaks and fold into the vegetables. In another bowl mix the flour, baking powder, whole egg (I'd throw the odd egg yolk in here too) milk and butter to form a batter then add to the vegetable mix.

Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in your largest frying pan and use about half the mix to form 4 fritters, cook for 2-3 mins a side till golden, keep warm while finishing the rest. You should end up with 8 large fritters. Having said that I got 6 out of my half mix, but maybe they were smaller than his.

Serve warm with the sauce drizzled over, delicious!

I sat and flicked through the book whilst enjoying my lunch and all I can say is I really don't think it will be long before it gets another airing :-)

Have a peek at the book here .....

Roast Mediterranean Vegetable Lasagne

I challenged my dear daughters sense of food adventure last week with what I thought was a most delicious fennel and squash lasagne.  So to restore order and keep the peace I promised to fulfil their request for their favourite veggie lasagne.  This is a relatively new addition to our repertoire but instantly became a favourite.  I was asked to provide some vegetarian option food at a friends wedding earlier this year and after scouring my books and not finding anything that excited me I turned to the web and came across this, courtesy of Delia Smith.  So on to the recipe ….
Ingredients
First on the list is 9 sheets spinach lasagne I personally ignore that and make my own pasta. I  find a 2 egg to 200g of 00 flour mix makes about the right amount for my lasagne dish.  And it gives me the chance to use one of my favourite kitchen toys ...

 

As it’s Tales from  the Table it wanted a photo shoot .....

Now on with the rest ….

• 3 oz. Mozzarella
  
• 1 small aubergine cut into 1” dice
  
• 2 medium courgettes cut into 1” dice
  
• 1 ¹⁄₄ oz. plain flour
  
• 1 lb. cherry tomatoes skinned (so the recipe says, I don’t bother!)
  
• 1 ¹⁄₂ oz. butter
  
• 1 small yellow pepper de-seeded and cut into 1 inch squares
  
• 1 pint milk
  
• 1 large onion sliced and cut into 1 inch  squares
  
• 1 bay leaf
  
• 2 garlic crushed
  
• 1 grating nutmeg
  
• 2 tablespoons basil leaves torn so that they stay quite visible
  
• 3 Tbsp. Parmesan grated
  
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
  
• 2 oz. black olives chopped
  
• 1 Tbsp. Parmesan grated
  
• 1 Tbsp. capers
  
• Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 9 475F (240C)

Firstly chop all the aubergine, courgette, peppers and onions into 1 inch dice.
Then arrange the tomatoes, aubergine, courgettes, peppers and onion on a couple of roasting trays, sprinkle with the chopped garlic, basil and olive oil, toss everything around in the oil to get a good coating, and season with salt and pepper. Now place the trays in the oven for 30-40 minutes or until the vegetables are toasted brown at the edges.
Meanwhile make the sauce by placing all the ingredients (except the cheese) in a small saucepan and whisking continuously over a medium heat until the sauce boils and thickens. Then turn the heat down to its lowest and let the sauce cook for 2 minutes. Then add the grated Parmesan. When the vegetables are done, remove them from the oven and stir in the chopped olives and the capers. I also stir in another good handful of Basil for good measure . Turn the oven down to gas mark 4, 350°F (180°C).
Now, into your lasagne dish pour one quarter of the sauce, followed by one third of the vegetable mixture. Then sprinkle in a third of the Mozzarella and follow this with a single layer of lasagne sheets. Repeat this process, ending up with a final layer of sauce and a good sprinkling of grated Parmesan. Then place the dish in the oven and bake for 25-30 minutes or until the top is crusty and golden. All this needs is a plain lettuce salad with a lemony dressing as an accompaniment according to Delia but I usually find some Garlic Bread on the side is expected too in this house!
And the finished result (here’s one I made earlier, tonight's was sabotaged before I could get a pic, which is a shame as it looked better, great start to the blog!)

So, why are we here?

I have a confession, I’m a compulsive cook book hoarder. One delightful member of my family has declared my precious collection a waste of space as she alleges I do not use them all. This blog is going to the proof, as I work my way through each and every one (not every recipe, I must work out how long that would take, that would prevent me ever buying a new book and I can’t have that!).

So it would appear to be bit bizarre that the first recipe I am going to talk about is not from these shelves but sourced on the internet. Note to self – stop googling till this challenge is done!
I will be back with that soon …

Welcome

Come in, have a seat, coffee & cake? please feel free to pop in and chat.

I'll be back later.....