David R. MacIver

This was a very simple recipe, but it produced really good results.

How to make it: Take the aubergine, slice it in half lengthways and then cut the halves into strips so you you end up with long strips of aubergine each with some of the peel on them. Lay them out in a small roasting tin (you should basically be covering the bottom of the tin with the aubergine), cover in the marinade and roast for abotu an hour until the marinade has all evaporated leaving only goo and auberinge.

How to make the marinade: Adjust quantities to amount of aubergine. For one smallish auberigne I used about half a cup of water, two tea spoons of white sugar, one tea spoon of salt, one tea spoon of chipotle chiles in adobo, a dash of balsamic vinegar and liberal amounts of olive oil (probably a couple table spoons – roughly the amount you’d normally roast this much aubergine).

The time to evaporate the water and then roast the aubergine basically obliterates it, but in a very good way – you end up with very soft aubergine still just sticking to the peel. It’s sweet, spicy, slightly smoky from the chipotle in adobo, and very very tasty. I ate this served with corn bread, but it would probably work slightly better as a side dish to something else.

I was reading Wild Cooking earlier, and it mentioned Chakchouka. I didn’t read it too carefully, but it sounded delicious. So, when I got back from the gym feeling (for basically the first time since I embarked on this bizarre exercise in self flagellation) energetic rather than completely destroyed and with my body going “feeed meee proteeein!!!” it was basically inevitable what I would make.

That is to say, something which was almost, but not completely, entirely unlike chakchouka.

The ingredients lists are broadly similar though, and I’m definitely chalking this one as a win due to it being amazing.

Here’s what it was: Two bell peppers, one yellow one green, a handful of cherry tomatoes, pierced but otherwise whole, and three sliced linda mccartney vegetarian sausages, all fried in olive oil with salt and a dollop of chipotle in adobo sauce (this stuff is amazing. Spicey, smokey and slightly sweet. Get yourself some and thank me later). At the last minute, I added two lightly scrambled eggs and stirred till it coated everything, then served the whole thing topped with coarse grated parmesan.

This was a LOT of food. Way more than I actually needed.

I have no regrets.

Actually, the title of this dish basically sums it up, but it sure is tasty. Here’s how to make it:

Cube a small butternut squash. Toss it in olive oil and coarse salt. Roast for 10 minutes, then add an equivalent volume of gnocchi and toss it all together. Roast another 10 minutes. Add and toss about a third as much broken raw cashew nuts as you used squash/gnocchi and a dash of balsamic vinegar, roast 10 minutes more.

It’s really exceptionally tasty. I had a large first helping and then completely gratuitous seconds.

I’d meant to add rosemary, but forgot. It doesn’t really need it, but it would definitely have been an improvement.

I had a huge (and I really do mean huge) cauliflower from Abel and Cole that I wasn’t sure what to do with – it’s not a vegetable I normally use for much – so I figured I’d give Cauliflower and Cheese a try. It’s not exactly the most innovative recipe in the world and, while it’s one I like, not something I’m massively excited by. But why not? It’s not something I’d actually ever made before, and it’d keep well as a side dish.

I used the Good Housekeeping cauliflower and cheese recipe as the basis for this, but only loosely followed it. You could probably use any recipe for it that works well. But I tried the following variations on it:

• I roasted the cauliflower instead of boiled it. Basically all I did was floret it as normal, put it in the dish and roast it covered at 200C for 20-30 minutes with a bit of butter and salt (ok, a lot of butter and a bit of salt). Then I just added the sauce and cheese as normal on top of that.
• Additionally I added some leeks to the mix, roasting them along with the cauliflower.
• I added halved cherry tomatoes at the same time as the sauce.

This worked incredibly well. It took a nice dish and made it excellent. I had this as the main meal, served with a whole grain bread, and I’ve been very happily eating leftovers of it since.