Cucumber & Noodle Salad

This is stupendously easy to do, quick, and can result in small people eating something that at least carries the label of 'salad', even if it doesn't feature a towering mound of lettuce (still working on that). The best noodles for this, I've found, are the relatively chunky 'quick noodles' that take 2-3 minutes, rather than rice noodles or anything closer to vermicelli.

Ingredients:

2 blocks of quick cook noodles
1/4 cucumber, sliced and quartered
Tbsp sesame oil
Tbsp light soya sauce
Juice of one lime
Sesame seeds

Method:

Cook the noodles and then drain well in cold water. Add the cucumber, sesame oil, soya sauce and lime juice and then turn through until well coated with all the noodles separated. Sprinkle with sesame seeds to serve.

Watch out, it's the tahini mousse!

It's the accidental discoveries that make pottering in the kitchen a sight more rewarding than feeling your synapses slowly dissolve as you watch another episode of Strictly Come Boredom. Here's my latest incidental dish - tahini mousse. What began as an asian salad dressing morphed, through a slight misjudging of measures, into the fluffy, delicate and playful cousin of that vegan staple, houmous. It was served up last night with a similarly asian-inspired chick pea salad, a green salad and some crusty bread.

Tahini mousse ingredients:

2 cloves garlic
4 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp tahini
Juice of a lemon
2 tsp rice wine vinegar
3 tbsp water
Dash of soya sauce
Dash of mirin or tsp of sugar

Method:

First of all crush and then finely chopped the garlic. Top tip on garlic that I learned from a tutor at the Vegetarian Society cookery school called Ursula Ferrigno, is that it likes to get crushed first, chopped later. Then lightly fry the garlic in half the olive oil, which I find takes the edge off and sweetens it a little. Then add this, plus all the other ingredients barring the water, into a small food blender. Blend it for a minute or so, and then start adding the water, bit by bit, until the mixture in the blender is light and comes up to a fluffy little point if you stick your finger into it. Not hugely hygienic that last bit, but if you're cooking for family and haven't just changed a nappy, I reckon it's ok.

Slightly asian chick pea salad ingredients:

2 peeled carrots
Tin chick peas
Juice two limes
Tbsp fresh coriander
Tbsp sesame oil
Cup of soy-toasted sunflower seeds

First of all toast the sunflower seeds. To do this put a good couple of handfuls of them into a frying pan, without oil, and then start to toast them on a low to medium heat. As they start to brown, hurl in a few dashes of soya sauce, preferably tamari if you have it, and continue to toast, stirring steadily to mix the soya sauce through. Continue for a couple of minutes and then leave to one side. As they cool down, they'll crisp up, and make a really good snack with beer, if you're not about to mix them into another dish.

Peel and finely chop the carrots, rinse the chick peas, and then turn through in a bowl with the lime juice,  coriander and sesame oil. Then at the last minute introduce the seeds, this stops the salad dressing taking a bit of their crunchy edge off.

To serve:

Last night we had the mousse above and the chick pea salad with a mixture of watercress, lettuce, cherry tomatoes and cucumber all from those lovely people at Riverford, who leave a box of veggie goodies on our doorstep every week. Yum.

Making a bit of a meze

Here's tonight's dinner... Have managed to dodge the tofu tonight and go all 'club med' with a bit of a meze based around a nutty aubergine couscous and some dolmades (stuffed vine leaves). There's also some of the houmous I made yesterday and a green salad drizzled with olive oil, lemon and some balsamic syrup.

Now, aubergines. I've managed to win over my beloved to the joys of aubergine, principally by slooooooowwwwwww cooking. It's practically the only vegetable that likes to be overcooked. Take a while with it, and then take a little longer.

Anyway, here's how to make the couscous.

Ingredients:

Two medium sized aubergines
One courgette
One small onion
Three cloves garlic
70g mixed chopped nuts
Tbsp crushed, dried chives
250g couscous
4 tbsp olive oil
Sea salt
Boiling water

Plus, to serve:

Dolmades
Houmous
Fresh green salad

Method:

Chop the aubergine into chunky, quarter slices and then coat them in sea salt and let sit for ten minutes in a colander. This draws out some of their moisture and takes out any natural bitterness. After ten minutes rinse them with some boiling water then leave to dry.

Meanwhile, chop the courgette into similar chunky slices, crush the garlic and slice the onion. Heat oven to 200 degrees centigrade and prep a good sized roasting dish - NOT aluminium by the way, as that would mess up the flavour of the aubergines.

When oven's ready, roast the aubergines, courgette, onion and garlic in the olive oil for 20 minutes.

While the veg are roasting, Make the couscous. I do this by boiling some water in a small or medium pan, then add some sea salt and olive oil and then the couscous. Leave a couple of centimetres of water above the level of the couscous, cover and leave to stand for a good ten minutes or so.

After the veg have been roasting for 20 minutes remove from the oven, mix through and then toss in the chives and mixed nuts. Mix through again and then put back in oven for another 15 minutes or so. Mix through a couple times more. Basically it's done when the nuts and aubergine are nice and browned.

In a mixing bowl, fork the couscous out of the pan, this fluffs it up and separates it. Now add the vegetables from the roasting pan and mix through. If it needs it, add a little more olive oil.

To serve, arrange the couscous, salad, dolmades and houmous together, and dress with some lemon zest, drizzly bits of balsamic, and anything else you have to hand. Lovely!