Asparagus and Roasted Peppers

From Easy Vegetarian, Ryland Peters & Small, 2007.

This is an easy side dish, colourful and flavoursome.

Firstly I put 2 red capsicums under the grill to cook until they were black and blistered. They were then taken out and put into a plastic bag until they had cooled. The skins now came off easily. The peppers were cut into decent sized slices.

While the capsicums were cooking a red onion was peeled and cut into wedges. They were put onto a grill pan and cooked until they had black grill lines on each side.

Now asparagus was laid on the grill and cooked for about 3 minutes.

The three vegetables were now placed in a bowl and balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper were added. The vegetables were tossed carefully in this and then plated.

Good eating. The onions and asparagus still had a little crunch to them and the capsicums were sweet and juicy.

Taste: ✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔

Fonduta

From Easy Vegetarian, Ryland Peters & Small, 2007.

I have always ignored recipes for fondue because I dislike the equipment to keep the fondue warm. However, when I looked at this Italian equivalent it has a sauce that does not need to be kept warm as it is eaten.

I grated 250g Fontina cheese. I measured out 125ml milk. I took a little of the milk and mixed it with ¼ teaspoon cornflour. Now I put the milk, cornflour mixture and the grated cheese into a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. This was all stirred until the cheese had melted.

I now took a little of the cheese mixture and stirred it into two beaten egg yolks. The egg mixture was poured back into the cheese and stirring over heat continued until the mixture had thickened. It was now poured into a bowl for serving, white pepper was ground over it and a little truffle oil poured on top.

We used bread sticks to dip into the fonduta and enjoy the cheesy sauce. Enjoyable, though not overly special.

Taste: ✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔

Ginger Asparagus with Cashews

From Easy Vegetarian, Ryland Peters and Small, 2007.

When I needed an accompanying vegetable dish, I turned to this quick stiry-fry.

The asparagus was cut in half and a little ginger was cut into fine sticks. These were stir-fried for a few minutes. Then some chopped roasted cashews were added with a little orange zest, some soy sauce and a touch of sesame oil. It only needed about a minute for this to heat through and it was ready.

While the orange zest added a nice contrast I found that the soy sauce and sesame oil were a little too strong for the more delicate flavour of the asparagus. Nevertheless, it was enjoyable and such a quick dish to make.

Taste: ✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔✔

Blueberry Buttermilk Pancakes

From Easy Vegetarian, Ryland Peters & Small, 2007.

The first item that required making for this recipe was the apple butter. Apples had to be peeled and chopped then put in a saucepan together with sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon and a drop of water. They were simmered until the apples had become soft. This took about 15 minutes. They were then mashed and butter was added. The mix was then cooked until it had thickened somewhat. It was then left to cool. It was delicious; I could have eaten it all then.

For the pancakes a mix had to be prepared. This was made with a mix of self-raising flour and cornmeal with bicarbonate of soda (125 g flour, 25 g cornmeal, 1 teaspoon soda). Caster sugar was added (40 g).

In a jug I beat together one egg, 350 ml of buttermilk and a touch of melted butter. This was stirred into the flour and sugar mix to make a batter. Blueberries were folded in, keeping some for decoration after.

The pancakes were cooked in the frying pan and then served with apple butter on top with a little cream and some blueberries.

While designated as a breakfast meal, there is never any time to prepare this sort of meal at that time of the morning so we had it as dessert—and a very enjoyable one it was.

The apple butter and the blueberries went well together and pancakes are always great to eat. These were especially light and full of blueberries to add juicy bites. I must remember that apple butter; it’s especially good.

This book came as a present for my partner at Christmas time but I seem to have snaffled it to use as it looks as though it has a lot of things worth trying.

Taste: ✔✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔