summer dishes

[Gillthepainter Profile Website]

yes please, Strictly.

[strictlysalsaclare Profile]

OK, here goes!

Roasted Vegetable Dip/Spread - to serve 3 or 4 people

1/2 a red pepper
1/2 courgette
1/2 onion
1-2 garlic cloves
a glug of olive oil
2 tbsp cream cheese
1 tbsp mayonnaise
3-4 olives, depending on size

1. Preheat oven to Gas Mark 7.220 deg C or 200 Deg fan oven. Pour the oil into a small roasting dish and heat in the oven whilst you prep the veg. Peel the garlic clove(s) and leave whole. Slice the onion into thickish wedges, and the remaining veg into roughly Dolly Mixture sized pieces.

2. Once the oven is up to temp, roast the veggies for 25-30 mins and set aside in a bowl overnight to cool.

3. About 2-3 hours before you want to eat the dip, blitz the veg with a stick blender until smooth. Add the cream cheese and mayo. Chop the olives into small pieces, Give everything a good stir and chill in the fridge for a few hours to let the flavours mingle together. Serve with crackers, good toast, breadsticks or crudites


NOTE: Leftover roasted veg would also work well here. Aubergine would also be a welcome addition, as would any suitable herbs.

[Gillthepainter Profile Website]

Muchas grassy thanks.
I'll make that instead of taking hummus for lunch next week.

[Lusciouslush Profile]

I made a huge bowl of tabbouleh in the hot weather with plenty of lemon & a great way to use the mint & parsley that's growing like crazy in the garden - very refreshing & a good side with chicken as well as meatballs - couldn't believe how long it kept fresh in the fridge either - really handy to have some on standby, as it were.

[Uschi Profile]

It's not very summery today, but one of my summer staple is my mother's "chives sauce", a poor relation to Frankfurt Green Sauce, but a staple in my family nevertheless.

I mix single cream with some vinegar,pepper and salt, add loads of chives and serve it with sliced hardboiled eggs and boiled potatoes.

One can, of course, go the whole hog and use whatever green herbs one can get one's hands on, but I like the plain chives version. Very refreshing in summer.


My Turkish neighbour taught me how to make Kurdish bulgur salad, a twist on Tabbouleh. It's made with Aci Biber (a hot pepper sauce very similar to Ajvar), concentrated tomato puree, olive oil and lemon juice (all of which are mixed under the bulgur once it is soft.
Then grilled chicken cubes, loads of flat parsley, cubed cucumber, tomatoes and shredded iceberg lettuce are added. It can be eaten warm or cold.

[Gillthepainter Profile Website]

Oh, what lovely offerings Uschi.
Both of them.
I made eggs for family with the frank. gr sauce and it got devoured. They'd not had anything like it before.
Your second version will be a lot lighter (and quicker to make).


Lush
Gotta love that tabbouleh. And nice to put a bit of effort into something that lasts a few days.

[Uschi Profile]

Thank you!
I guess you can use whatever herbs you like, but in my family it's chives.
Parsley or dill are used with other dishes for some reason.
Odd, how traditions play out sometimes.

BTW, my mother used to call chives sauce "farm fast food". I guess that's what it was.

[Gillthepainter Profile Website]

Ha!
Good old Mamma Uschi.

I'm all for fff fast food when I can get those ideas from you. Anything to speed up the process sometimes.

[Lusciouslush Profile]

I like the sound of that chive sauce Uschi - & it just so happens I've tons of chives in pots outside - normal & garlic, so I'll be making it soon - & then chive butter before they all go over, well, that's the plan anyway!

[Uschi Profile]

Chives freeze really well, LL, so just chop them up and freeze them for winter.

[Gillthepainter Profile Website]

Guilty as charged of letting summer herbs die away.
Without harvesting them.

And having a rosemary bush, without ever using rosemary!

Good tip to chop the herbs first, Uschi, before freezing.
Rather than dragging out whole frozen floppy herbs you can only bung in a stew.

[Renée Profile]

Guilty here of letting some of the herbs die away, except for the oregano. My rosemary bush has only been used once.

[Lusciouslush Profile]

Into the freezer they will go then

Why does no-one use their rosemary?

I use mine quite a bit - not actually chopped up in a dish, but I often cut whole braches to roast underneath/or in a chicken etc. tucked in between lamb chops or in the pan of roast pots where it just flavours the fat gently without being overpowering - sometimes throw a handful on the bbq too.

[strictlysalsaclare Profile]

We use our rosemary, not as much as we'd like though. Mr Strictly pruned some of it back earlier this year so I dried some which we are getting through quite well now. Like LusciousLush I cut sprigs of it to either go into a slow cooker meal or put in a chicken cavity. I did use some of our dried rosemary in some HM sea salt and rosemary crackers, the recipe is based on a taco dough. They are sooo good with strong cheddar

We had the first of our homegrown tomatoes this morning - they were divine, so sweet and rich in flavour! Can there be a nicer thing to eat in the summer?

[jeral Profile]

Rosemary goes well with garlic and often some lemon juice or zest. Me being non-meat tends to mean e.g. potatoes or tomatoes, or white fish as belly insert or stuffing or crumb flavouring.

It also works well as a tofu marinade. There's a recipe here if anyone likes tofu, or to sub chicken:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink ... ecipe.html

[Gillthepainter Profile Website]

Jeral, I honestly haven't a clue how that recipe would taste.
What an interesting list of ingredients.
Which I do have in.

I have got a salad dressing/ olive oil marinade that I used to make up that lasted an age in the fridge.
which was rosemary herb and lemon based.
I've come back from Spain with a huge stash of evoo. I should make up the dressing shouldn't I.

[jeral Profile]

Yes you should make some dressing up! Seriously though, you can freeze EVOO if stuck for fridge space. It takes only minutes to melt as it doesn't freeze solid. I prefer small jars with plastic screw tops (metal rusts); small yoghurt pots (clingfilm top) would be ideal.

Re the recipe I posted, I'd swap the raisins out and use black olives instead in the salsa.

Do you have to pay customs/VAT on your stash?

[Gillthepainter Profile Website]

No, just buy it in the supermarket and bring it home, Jeral.

Clara - home grown tommies rock!
My ex-BIL dedicated his greenhouse to them. And he didn't even like tomatoes, but lovely growing them.

[Renée Profile]

Thanks very much for the tofu recipe, jeral. I really like the sound of it and I do have a pack of tofu in the cupboard, but not sure about the Use by date!

[jeral Profile]

Renée, check the tofu expiry date. Mine in the fridge expires Mar 2018. What? I guess it keeps. It'd probably sit there until then if I had to eat it as chunks since the texture makes me cringe, hence finding crumbed slivers (escalopes), being more crumb than tofu

Gillthepainter and strictlysalsaclare: How do people bear the smell of tomato plants, especially a greenhouse full? Nose peg? They are delicious though