new season tomatoes

i’m loving the change of season – it’s taking place slowly and feels like it is arriving very late but the fact the sun is shining, it’s feeling warm enough to open some windows and i’m able to walk around the house barefoot rather than cosied up in fluffy slippers, are all signs of good things to come.

so too is decent-tasting tomatoes. these beauties were a sneak preview of some of the deliciousness that foodari will is getting into stock, having been grown down the road from london, in kent. we had them as part of a simple salad with some wonderful croutons, buffalo mozzarella, shallots and a thyme, balsamic and red wine vinegar dressing. delicious. and, to add to the excitement, apparently the kentish asparagus harvest should be kicking off in the next week or so too…

melting mozzarella and greens

london has become quite chilly over the past few days and stodge with gentle flavours is what i have been craving. in fact, this dish started off as an idea about stuffing cabbage leaves with a creamy leek and mushroom mix, but soon shifted towards pasta when i realised my cabbage was past its best.

it was also a great way to use up a random mix of other green vegetables that needed a bit of tlc. leeks and fennel were softened in melted butter with lots of garlic. i then added some reconstituted wild mushrooms and shredded sundried tomatoes plus a handful of marinated roasted artichokes and some leftover wilted spinach. a spoonful of flour was added and cooked for a minute and then i poured in the water from the mushrooms plus a couple of spoons of double cream (the dregs of a pot from the previous week) and some crème fraiche to lighten it all up. this was mixed with almost cooked pasta, chunks of mozzarella and then topped with breadcrumbs and grated cheese (a lurid red leicester!) before being heated through in the oven.

the greens made everything taste healthy whereas the stringy pockets of melted mozzarella made it taste decadent. perfect for a chilly sunday evening.

a special mozzarella and tomato salad

the buffalo mozzarella and vine tomato salad that i had at the little gloster has been on my mind a lot. thankfully a version of it has also been on my table a lot over the past week.

at the heart of this dish are three things:

• rich, creamy buffalo mozzarella - or you could use burrata for a double-dose of indulgence.
• delicious tomatoes - not so easy to find with the dreadful weather we’ve had (my tomato bushes have barely got going this year) but i’ve been using isle of wight oak-roasted tomatoes to bump the flavour of the dish as  whole (slow-roasted or sunblush would also do the trick).
• a dressing of lemon zest, chopped fresh mint, chopped red chilli, a little garlic (i’ve used smoked garlic or black garlic to soften the flavour) plus good olive oil

sometimes i’ve added a few dressed salad leaves and other times i’ve left it just as tomatoes and mozzarella. if you can manage it, don’t use all the mozzarella or dressing as these, left overnight to marinate, make a wonderful toast topping.

and if you want another recipe for tomato and mozzarella salad, try this version, which is oomphed up with  parmesan, mint, basil and tomato jam.

pickled pumpkin – version 2

 

this is the second pickled pumpkin recipe i made. the pickling mix varies quite a lot between the two recipes – rowley leigh's recipe uses cider vinegar, brown sugar, maple syrup and spicy flavourings whereas this skye gyngell recipe uses white wine, a much smaller amount of vinegar, a small amount of caster sugar plus herbs and mustard seeds.

truth be told there wasn’t a massive difference in the end flavour apart from a slightly more vinegary chilli kick to the first recipe. i’d happily use either version in future and would probably mix and match between the two recipes.

this dish was very different – the spicy sweet pickled squash contrasts well with the bitter leaves (i used a mix of radicchios) the creamy buffalo mozzarella and fresh basil oil. interestingly the few pecans added a really important contrast of textures – don’t be tempted to miss them out. the similarity was that once again i think this is best served as a starter so you don’t get bored of the pumpkin’s very simple flavour.

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first courgettes

we ate the first courgettes from our garden this weekend. as ever, i wanted to eat them raw and took my usual approach of ribbon-ing them, tossing with olive oil and lemon juice and zest and then using this to create a salad.  home-grown courgettes are so different from those you buy it really is worth eating them raw.

here the courgette ribbons are misxed with smoked proscuitto, rocket and an amazing silky-soft smoked buffalo mozzarella from natoora - it has an intense smoky flavour and the softness is very different from scamorza, which had previously been my only experience of smoked mozzarella.

delicious and i can’t wait to harvest some more courgettes.