Well, you cook fora
couple of Disney Dogsand,
before you know it, an animated mouse is knocking at the door demanding dinner. In this case,
however, Zelda was happy to oblige.
Stuart began life in a1954
children's novel by EB White. Incidentally, I would love have a bit of a
chinwag with Elwyn Brooks White. I would ask him how he could make such a fuss
of saving Wilbur inCharlotte's
Web, but place it in the context of a novel where pig farming and its
consequences are seen as acceptable. Don't get me wrong; I am glad that Wilbur
was saved, but what about all the others on the farm? I am not a militant
vegetarian: I don't campaign against meat eating and I cook my veggie dishes to
tempt carnivores, not to judge them, but I don't see how Elwyn can have it both
ways.
That aside, let's get back to Stuart who is a loveable little
character who found further fame again at the end of the 1990s with a series of
films, loosely based (but actually improving on) his adventures in print.
We know that mice love cheese, so I think that Stuart would be quite happy with this.
CHEESY LEEK PASTA BAKE 250g/ 8oz fusilli 2 leeks, chopped 1 small onion, chopped finely 100g/ 3½oz cheddar cheese, grated 25ml /1floz milk 25g/ 1oz butter 25g/ 1oz plain flour 100ml/ 3½floz vegetable stock 100ml/ 3½floz double cream (replace with milk for a lighter meal) 100g/ 3½oz breadcrumbs 1tbsp olive oil Preheat oven to 200C/ Gas 6 Cook pasta according to packet instructions.
Meanwhile, heat oil in a large pan and fry onion and leek until soft.
Add vegetable stock. In a separate pan, heat butter and add flour to make a roux.
Gradually add milk (and cream if using). Add to leeks. Add 50g cheese and mix well until melted.
Drain pasta and add to leeks, stirring well.
Place in oven-proof dish and spread breadcrumbs and rest of cheese over the top.
Noel Coward – what a
genius! I love Private Lives. I have a CD version and play it whenever I need a
boost.
Coward was a playwright,
actor, director, author, composer, singer, cabaret performer, etc., etc. His
wit was renowned and, although now often parodied, was unique at the time.
Here is his wonderful rendition
of Mad Dogs and Englishmen:
And here is (the also
wonderful) Neil Hannon’s version of I
Went to a Marvellous Party:
In 1935 Coward wrote a short
play called Red Peppers which was
part of a ten-play cycle known as Tonight
at 8:30. He performed in it himself, alongside Gertrude Lawrence. I think that if he came to
dinner he might appreciate me cooking something with red peppers as a main ingredient.
It would appease his legendary ego.
When choosing my dish, I
did wonder at first whether it might be too familiar and not flamboyant enough,
but then I thought that Coward was always one to take the obvious and elevate
it, so I would serve this – but with champagne!
Actually, with this tart
you can’t fail to impress, however ordinary it is.
This is one of the easiest
veggie mains you will ever find. Something similar crops up in many cookery
books, but this is my even simpler version.
One of the problems that I
have found in the past is that the filling makes the pastry soggy. This method
should take care of that.
ROASTED RED PEPPER TART
Ingredients
1 sheet pre-rolled puff
pastry
1 red pepper
1 red onion
2tbsp olive oil
2tbsp tomato ketchup
1 ball mozzarella
1tsp dried mixed herbs
Serves 4
Method
Deseed the red pepper and
chop into chunks.
Peel the red onion and cut
into wedges.
Place both in an oven
proof dish. Coat with the olive oil. Roast at 200˚C/ Gas 6 for about 15-20 minutes until soft. Keep oven
on at same heat.
Meanwhile unroll the puff
pastry, retaining the paper. Allow to rest for a few minutes. Then, cut into
quarters, doing the same with the baking paper the pastry was wrapped in. Score
along two sides of each rectangle and fold the strips over to the opposite
corner. Then repeat with the other sides. This sounds complicated but it isn’t, and don't try to make it look too 'neat'. Place each on a paper rectangle and put all four on a baking rack, on top of a
baking tray. Heat in same oven as peppers for 5 minutes then remove and allow
to cool for a few minutes.
Coat the base of each tart
with ketchup and sprinkle with the mixed herbs.
Rinse the mozzarella and
allow to dry. When the peppers and
onions are cooked, drain and dry on kitchen paper.
Then, scatter over the tarts
making sure you have an even distribution.
Tear the mozzarella into
chunks and place it around the onion and pepper.
Heat in the oven for 20-25
minutes until the pastry edges and mozzarella are lightly browned.
Carefully remove from the
paper and serve immediately.
Zelda had planned to test just
three recipes for the Columbo Cookbook project by Jenny at Silver Screen Suppers (there
is still one to come) but then she saw that there was a Johnny Cash one on
offer and couldn’t resist trying it too. Johnny made it with beef or venison, so
this is an ‘extra’ test recipe, adapted for vegetarians. The concerts Johnny Cash did at Folsom and San Quentin are amazing.
The Context
I have to declare an interest. I just LOVE Johnny Cash and all his music.
In 1974 he starred as gospel singer Tommy Brown in the Columbo episode Swan Song.
The Recipe and my
Variations
The recipe is an
adaptation of Johnny’s own, as written down by his son John Carter Cash and seen in Jenny's post here.
My job was to make it
vegetarian. I intended to do this twice, once with just the veg and the again
with meat substitutes, but I combined the two.
I looked at all sorts of
variations for the steak element but felt that it all came down to having meaty
chunks amongst the beans and mince, so I tried it with the ‘common or garden’
veggie burgers and it worked beautifully. Basically the ‘meaty’ taste would be
lost amongst the spices, anyway.
I halved ingredients where
possible or chose smaller versions (i.e. 1 small
onion).
Cooking this in April we
had no new peppers ready but plenty of home-grown peppers from last year in the
freezer.
The ¼ cup of chilli powder
seemed excessive. I used 1tsp and it was quite hot enough, thank you.
I also combined the cup/
gram/ tablespoon measurements of the other spices, linking them all into the
neat little ‘spoon system’.
I used dried herbs (sage,
oregano) although in the summer they would be fresh.
It’s not easy to get small
cans of beans in the UK so I bought full ones and just used half. (Later I used
the rest to make bean burgers.)
The beer caused
a great deal of discussion between someone who knows nothing about it and
someone who knows an awful lot.
In the end, we thought it would be best to look
for something American and my Man in Black was quite impressed with what I found
(taste-wise) Price-wise it gave him the Johnny Cash sneer!
Although it says 'lager' it was more like a bitter (or so I am told).
I had to reorder some of
the method and ingredients because veggie mince is dry and needs moisture and
flavour enhancements. This meant adding a bit of stock, but it also meant that
I could forgo the ‘fry, set aside and drain fat off’ stage.
I fried the peppers a bit
at the start to make them softer but didn’t keep raw onion and garlic to add
part-way through.
Because some beans had to
be drained and some not, I specified this in the ingredients list.
Ingredients
225g vegetarian mince
2 vegetarian burgers
1 small onion, chopped
finely
2 cloves of garlic, peeled
and crushed
1tbsp rapeseed oil
1 large tin (400g) chopped
tomatoes
200ml vegetable stock
½ green pepper, chopped
½ red pepper, chopped
2 jalapeno peppers,
deseeded and chopped very small
1 cayenne pepper, deseeded
and chopped
2tsp chilli seasoning
Salt and black pepper
1tsp chilli powder
1tsp cumin
1tsp sage
1tsp oregano
½ tbsp cayenne pepper
½ 400g can black beans,
drained and rinsed
½ 400g can pinto beans,
drained and rinsed
½ 400g can kidney beans in
chilli sauce
½ 400g can kidney beans,
drained and rinsed
170ml beer (this is half a
bottle) – Dave drank the rest
12g sugar
Handful of self-raising
cornmeal (made from 60g cornflour 20g plain flour, 1tsp baking powder, pinch of
salt)
Cooking
If the veggie burgers are
frozen, defrost them first (just enough to be able to chop them into chunks).
Then, heat the oil in a
pan and begin to cook the onion and peppers.
Then add the veggie
burgers and fry until they are browned.
Add the garlic and stir
until it has started to turn golden.
Pour in the tomatoes and add
the veggie mince.
Pour over 200ml vegetable
stock, mix well and heat to a brisk simmer.
Then add the herbs and spices:
chilli seasoning, salt and pepper, chilli powder, cumin, sage, oregano and
cayenne pepper (This is apparently, the order according to Johnny.) Taste and
adjust spicing if necessary.
Add the beans to the
mixture and adjust the spicing again.
When it is to your liking,
pour in the beer and add the sugar.
Simmer for at least 30
minutes.
Uncover, add a handful of
the cornmeal and stir it in.
Serving
Ooh this made a lot of
chilli! I put it in a big bowl and gave us individual bowls to put spoonfuls
in. We ate it with crackers (which were very useful to counteract some of the
heat).
The Verdict
I had a bit of a panic
when I looked at the ingredient list but it is very much a ‘chuck it in’ recipe
which made it really easy after all.
My resident Man it Black
thought that it was about the right level of spiciness, but to me it ‘burned,
burned, burned’ and a dollop of sour cream or plain yogurt would have been a
welcome addition to the table.
Just like Jenny, I halved Johnny’s original ingredients and it would definitely serve six. Dave and I ate it on the evening I cooked it, then we gave a portion away and froze the rest.
The Experience
This was fantastic fun. I
played Johnny Cash songs as I cooked and we loved the episode. I insisted on
being called ‘June’ all evening, too. Johnny can come for chilli at any time...
I must admit that Hector Elizondo
is not an actor I was previously aware of, but his filmography runs from 1963
to the present day and includes some very famous films such as The Taking of Pelham One Two Three and Pretty Woman.
In the 1975 Columbo
episode, A Case of Immunity, he plays Hassan Salah, the chief diplomat of
Suaria.
The Recipe and my
Variations
Hector's original measurements seemed
quite ambiguous, with varying amounts suggested. I have listed them as I used
them and found them to work.
Spaghetti or linguini is suggested but I prefer
spaghetti, purely because linguini is flatter and not as appealing to the eye.
The amount of olive oil
seemed excessive. I used 1tbsp and it was sufficient.
Hector’s shopping list
contains anchovies. I obviously wanted to make this a vegetarian dish so they
had to go (although piscaterians will be happy to leave them in). You could
make a very respectable meal using just the other ingredients, but as anchovies
add a depth of flavour I substituted capers as a salty alternative. I used chilli flakes rather than red pepper flakes but I suspect that they are very similar (if not the same thing).
I tried making it with the
rosemary but, to be quite honest, I don’t know what Hector was thinking about
as it seemed totally inappropriate. Perhaps he had a rosemary bush outside his
kitchen door or he just got the names of his herbs mixed up. It has to be basil
for serving, it really does, with a mixture of fresh herbs in the sauce.
I thought the sauce quite ‘orangey’
and dry, so I added the ketchup mix and allowed it to reduce.
I also added the pasta to
the sauce (instead of the other way round) and grated additional parmesan over
the serving dish at the end.
*Vegetarians will need to
make sure that the parmesan they choose is vegetarian, as not all are.
Ingredients
1lb/ 450g spaghetti
1tbsp olive oil
6 fresh cloves of garlic,
peeled and crushed
70g capers
1 tbsp chilli flakes
Freshly grated vegetarian
Parmesan cheese
Freshly ground black pepper
1 tbsp fresh chopped mixed
herbs
Basil leaves to serve
12 fresh tomatoes 2 tbsp tomato ketchup
Cooking
Put tomatoes in pan of
boiling water until skins crack.
Rinse the capers and chop them finely.
Sauté the garlic, capers and chilli flakes in the oil,
taking care not to let them brown.
Cool the tomatoes under
running water and peel.
Drop the tomatoes into the sautéed sauce. As you mix
them in, sort of chop them – you want the sauce to be a little lumpy.
Add mixed herbs and season
with black pepper.
Mix 2tbsp tomato ketchup
with the same amount of hot water and add to the sauce.
Allow to simmer gently
while you cook the pasta.
Make pasta according to
packet instructions and drain.
Add to the sauce and mix in a tsp of the grated parmesan.
Place in bowls, grate more parmesan over the top and scatter the basil leaves.
Serving
Hector didn’t specify how
many portions this made but this easily served two and would, I am sure, have
stretched further. (We did indulge a bit!) It would be good served with a lovely
green salad. And, remember for an arty picture, wipe the bowl before taking the photo.
The Verdict
It was certainly spicy! The
chilli flakes give a real kick.
It felt odd throwing away
all the tomato skins. I would be inclined to keep them on, chop them finely before
cooking, allow them to break down and enjoy them in the finished dish.
This makes a lovely quick
meal: from start to finish it was about half an hour, or you could make the sauce
in advance and reheat when you are ready to eat.
I’m not sure why this is
called Hector Elizondo’s Famous Pasta
Pomodoro. In a google search the only mention of it was via Silver Screen
Suppers; but maybe it will become famous after Jenny’s book.
The Experience
From the start, it smelt
delicious. We ate it in bowls with the episode on the screen.
Quick, easy and tasty: this
is a meal we will probably have again.
Dogs eating a vegetarian
meal? Why not? Anything can happen in this world.
In 1955 Lady, a beautiful
cocker spaniel, met Tramp, a mongrel from the wrong side of the tracks. She was
not the first and she certainly won’t be the last to be enticed down from her ivory tower by a bad boy with character.
Even if you haven’t seen
the whole film, you are sure to know the scene where they eat the meatballs and
end up chewing the same piece of spaghetti.
If I had them round for dinner, you know what I would serve...
SPAGHETTI
AND ‘MEAT’BALLS
Serves 2-3 (makes about 18 balls)
For the ‘Meat’balls
150g Quorn mince
1 small onion, finely chopped
4tbsp mixed herbs – fresh from the garden if
possible (or 2tbsp dried)
75g fresh breadcrumbs
1 free-range egg, beaten with a fork
1tbsp olive oil
200ml vegetable stock
2tbsp Bisto instant gravy granules
2tbsp plain flour
For the Sauce
1tbsp olive oil
3 garlic cloves, crushed
2 large tins chopped tomatoes
2tbsp red wine vinegar
½tbsp caster sugar
2tbsp fresh herbs or 1tbsp dried
2tbsp tomato ketchup
Plus:
spaghetti (about 100g per portion)
grated hard cheese
fresh basil leaves
First
make the meatballs
Heat the oil and fry the onion until soft.
Add
50ml stock and stir.Then add the mince, the rest of the stock and
the Bisto. Stir well until all the stock has been absorbed.
Allow to cool, then tip this into a bowl and
add the breadcrumbs, mixed herbs, eggs, lots of seasoning and the flour. Stir
well.
Heat oven to 220˚C/ Gas
7.
Making sure your hands are well-floured, roll
the mince mixture into golf-ball-size balls. (This can be a bit fiddly – you
may need to wash your hands a few times).
Spread the balls out on a roasting tray.
Roast for 10 minutes. Gently turn them over with a knife – be careful: they
will be hot – and the roast for about 10 minutes more until browned.
Meanwhile,
make the sauce
Heat the oil. Add the garlic and sizzle for 1
min.
Stir in the tomatoes, red wine vinegar, sugar, tomato
ketchup, herbs and seasoning. Simmer for 15-20 mins until slightly thickened.
When
ready to eat
Cook the spaghetti according to packet
instructions.
Add the cooked meatballs to the pan of sauce and
heat until sauce bubbles and meatballs are hot right through.
Put the spaghetti on plates. Spoon the sauce and
meatballs over spaghetti and serve with grated hard cheese and basil leaves.
Stuart began life in a 1954
children's novel by EB White. Incidentally, I would love have a bit of a
chinwag with Elwyn Brooks White. I would ask him how he could make such a fuss
of saving Wilbur in Charlotte's
Web, but place it in the context of a novel where pig farming and its
consequences are seen as acceptable. Don't get me wrong; I am glad that Wilbur
was saved, but what about all the others on the farm? I am not a militant
vegetarian: I don't campaign against meat eating and I cook my veggie dishes to
tempt carnivores, not to judge them, but I don't see how Elwyn can have it both
ways.
250g/ 8oz fusilli
