Pear and Avocado Salad with Tahini Mayonnaise

From The Penniless Vegetarian, David Scott, Rider, 1993.

There was a pear in the fruit bowl just begging to be eaten so I got hold of an avocado and made this very simple salad.

The pear and the avocado were both peeled and cut into slices that were arranged on serving plates. A dressing was made of mayonnaise and tahini in an easy ratio of a tablespoon mayonnaise to a teaspoon tahini. For this salad I used three of each. Stirred together this made a really tasty dressing.

This was the easiest of salads to put together and it made a light and appetising starter.

Taste: ✔✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔✔

Sautéed Green Beans with Artichokes and Green Olives

From Commonsense Vegetarian, Murdoch Books, 2011.

I was using green olives with a potato salad so thought I’d continue with the green olives and make this dish.

Sufficient green beans for two people were topped and tailed and blanched for 2 minutes, then drained and put aside.

Some spring onions were cut into lengths about the same as those of the beans. Now some oil was heated in a pan and the beans and the onions were added with a couple of small rosemary sprigs. The vegetables were sautéed until lightly browned. They were then taken off the stove.

While the vegetables were still hot some green olives were added with capers, some canned artichoke hearts and a little vinegar and olive oil. They were seasoned with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

This dish went really well with the warm potato salad. I always find that I get pleasing results from dishes made using this particular recipe book.

Taste: ✔✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔

Warm Potato Salad with Green Olive Dressing

From Commonsense Vegetarian, Murdoch Books, 2011.

Browsing through cookery books is always a pleasure and you never know when you are going to come across something you really want to make. When I saw this potato salad with green olives I knew that I wanted to sample it. I do like green olives—and, of course, potatoes.

It was all very easy to make. I cut some chat potatoes in halves and put them in a pot of salted water to bring them to the boil and then simmer for about 15 minutes.

While they were cooking the dressing was made. In a bowl I placed about 10 green olives, chopped; about a tablespoon capers, a goodly amount of chopped parsley, a crushed garlic clove and the juice of half a lemon. These were mixed well and then olive oil added, about ¼ cup. The ingredients were beaten well and when the potatoes were drained and let cool just a little were poured over. The salad had a touch of salt and freshly ground black pepper added and it was then carefully tossed. Easy.

This met my expectations. The comforting potatoes were nicely brought to life with the zesty flavours of the dressing. Worth remembering.

Taste: ✔✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔

Tomatoes alla Tiana

From Elisa Celli’s Italian Light Cooking, Prentice Hall, 1987.

I was planning to have a meal of vegetable side dishes. One was to be a warm potato salad with green olive dressing and the other was to be sautéed green beans with artichokes. I was looking for something bright and tasty that might accompany them. I settled for stuffed tomatoes.

I cut the tops off two large tomatoes and scooped out the insides, which were kept.

I now chopped half an eggplant into cubes and about an equal amount of button mushrooms finely. Two garlic cloves were chopped finely. All of these were fried in olive oil for about 5 minutes. Into the pan now went the scoopings from the tomatoes, a finely chopped onion, a handful of chopped parsley, a pinch of cayenne pepper and a pinch of dried thyme. These were sautéed for another 5 minutes and checked for seasoning. This mixture was packed into the tomatoes. A slice of cheddar cheese was placed over the top and the tomatoes went into a 180ªC oven for 15 minutes.

These turned out to be tastier than I thought they would. I always begin with a little doubt when stuffing vegetables but generally find the results worth the effort.

Taste: ✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔✔

My Simple Yet Decadent Chocolate Mousse

From The Urban Cook, Mark Jensen, Murdoch Books, 2011.

I don’t often make desserts and when I do it frequently becomes obvious that I lack some of the techniques. It became obvious when I made this chocolate mousse. The solution is to make them more often, I suppose.

It’s a wonder that I even began this because to begin with I was unhappy with the name. I don’t feel that you can call a dessert ‘decadent’. Decadence is a state of moral decay wherein one becomes totally self-indulgent. A mousse is hardly a candidate for this though, if it is good enough, it could tempt a person to becoming self-indulgent. But it is unfair to cast the decadence onto the dessert rather than on the person eating it. During the Nazi era much art was declared decadent. Again, for me, while the art may portray decadence or perhaps encourage decadent behaviour, the art itself cannot be decadent.

My second reason for hesitation was that the recipe in the book had such heavy overprinting of art and dark screens that it was difficult to read easily. Not a good presentation for working from.

Anyway I had the ingredients on hand and felt like something chocolaty so went ahead.

The recipe called for chocolate and Cointreau (I used 110g chocolate and 1 tablespoon Cointreau) to be placed in a bowl over hot simmering water (not touching the water) to let it melt while stirring occasionally. The chocolate didn’t melt into a nice saucy texture but went thick and difficult to stir. I have been informed since that you should never let liquid get into chocolate when you are melting it or this happens. The recipe however definitely said to melt the chocolate with the Cointreau in it.

The chocolate was then taken off the heat and 45g butter stirred in. This did soften the glug somewhat but I also found at this stage that there were still a few small lumps of chocolate that had not fully melted before it thickened. I went ahead with the recipe as there was not much that could be done at this stage.

Three egg yolks were now stirred in while the whites were being beaten in the mixer until they were firm. These were then folded into the chocolate mix and this was spooned into glasses for serving later.

This was a most disappointing mousse. Part of the failure could be laid at my lack of technique but much of it is the failure of the recipe. Had my knowledge of technique been better I would not have mixed the Cointreau into the chocolate when melting it. But a recipe that does not give better instructions is more to blame in my view. The mousse was thick and needed the addition of lots of cream to make less heavy eating. The chocolate still tasted nicely chocolaty but that can only be attributed to the good chocolate that was used.

Taste: ✔

Ease of cooking: (not easy due to poor instructions) ✔