Sun-Blush Niçoise

Sun-Blush Niçoise

from The Accidental Vegetarian, Simon Rimmer, Mitchell Beazley, 2010.

I really like this cookbook. The author, a carnivore (to go part way to explaining the title), has a way of combining items in a way that is just that little bit different so you find you have a familiar recipe enlivened.

This is an ordinary salad but it has a special touch: cooked chat potatoes, green beans with capers for an added bit of flavour, added to the usual greens. Then add the tomatoes and green olives. Top it all off with a great dressing (although following the proportions for the dressing I would have had enough for several salads).

Taste: ✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔

Aubergine Butty with Pesto

Aubergine Butty with Pesto

from The Accidental Vegetarian, Simon Rimmer, Mitchell Beazley, 2010.

I rather like this book. It is written by a carnivore who bought a vegetarian restaurant before he really even knew how to cook. He just wanted to own a restaurant and, as he puts it, swan around talking to the customers while everyone else does the work. Of course, it didn’t work that way at all and he soon found himself battling with having to cook the meals himself.

As an untrained chef he had to make his own way, experimenting with different ingredients. He makes what he calls a ‘magpie cuisine’ stealing ideas from everywhere. The results look as tasty as they are fun to make.

Having read the title of this recipe I was intrigued to know what an aubergine butty was. I knew butties as a form of sandwich, usually with chips. This one turned out to be not so much a sandwich but a tower with the layers using aubergine as well as ciabatta to separate the layers. Fun to make and fun to eat—especially with a peppery rocket salad on the side.

Taste: ✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔