Simple tomato ‘concasse’ pasta recipe

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I hear you ask, what on earth is concasse? I have no idea…but it tasted good!

Basically, we were feeling lazy, had no idea what to have for dinner, I had some fresh tomatoes left over from my box, some lovely basil we’d bought to feed Betty – she wouldn’t know if we borrowed some -and a craving for a filling, simple pasta dish. Google here I come!

In the end we used the tomato ‘concasse’ recipe from Michael Caines (of the hugely delicate goatee) I found online with no changes – unusual for me I know. Mr B found it simple and easy to put together, even with me heckling from the corner of the kitchen!

The recipe for you to have a go yourself can be found at

http://uktv.co.uk/food/recipe/aid/587546.

Have a try!

Summer Stew recipe – delicious!

Having already written this post once I’m slightly irritated to now be writing it again – it’s like I’m getting old and slightly senile and imagining that I’ve done things when I haven’t but I know I wrote this post. Thank you Google for letting me know that you would be deleting any trace of it…oh wait, you didn’t tell me did you? Rubbish!

Anyway, this was completely and utterly of my own creation and I was more than a little proud of myself whilst eating it – the only thing we were missing was some nice crusty bread so I would definitely recommend adding some of that…maybe a drop of wine But the flavours were really lovely and it took moments of prep to put together. Recipe as follows…

Jo’s Summer Stew
Serves 3-4

1 pack of 8 sausages (cumberland are always good)
2 carrots, cubed
1 leek, finely sliced
1 tsp thyme (I used dried but fresh would be fine)
500ml chicken stock (homemade is always better!)
2 tbsps white wine vinegar
1 tbsps dijon mustard
1 tin cannelini beans, drained and rinsed

1. Turn the oven onto 200 degrees C.

2. Heat a heavy based casserole dish on the hob and fry off the sausages until the are nicely browned all over. About 3-5 minutes.

3. Remove the sausages but keep the fat in the pan. Add the carrots and leek, fry for 2-5 mins until nicely softened. Add the thyme and stir to mix.

4. Add the stock, vinegar, mustard and beans. Stir to combine and bring to the boil.

5. Season generously and add the sausages. Bring back to the boil.

6. Put the lid on the pan and put in the oven for 30-40 minutes, taking the lid off for the last 10 minutes of cooking to get the top nicely browned.

Bobcat – M&D’s lovely, primadonna cat

I thought I’d share with you some pictures from the last bank holiday weekend of two of my favourite men Well Mr B might be my actual favourite…

 

Bob the cat

Bob and Mr B

Pensive

Garlicky chickpea fritters

Now I will put a warning on this recipe, I started to follow Nigel Slater but decided to diverge slightly as I didn’t have half of what he wanted. He suggests that you ‘de-shell’ the chickpeas. DON’T! It doesn’t take five minutes, it takes five years. You have a claw for a hand afterwards and want to scream, plus I think it made the final mixture a little thinner and smoother than I would have liked and the skin would have given more texture – made them more falafel like.

Chickpea Fritters
Serves 2

1 tin chickpeas, drained

2 cloves garlic

1 onion, peeled and chopped roughly

1 dried chilli

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 tsp coriander seeds

1. DO NOT PEEL THE CHICKPEAS, just live with the skins, they’re really not that bad!

2. Put the cumin and coriander in a pestle and mortar and grind to a fine powder.

3. Put the chickpeas, garlic, onion, chilli and spice mixture in a food processor and whizz until it’s all nicely mushed up.Season generously.

4. Heat some olive oil in a frying pan and form the mixture into little balls (slightly smaller than a golf ball). Add to the frying pan once the fat starts to thin and fry for 5-7 minutes. Try to leave them on the first side for 2 minutes or so – they seem to stay together the less you move them!

5. Serve with some salad, toasted pittas and tzatsiki…maybe an ice cold beer?