Jamie Oliver Roasted Stuffed Peppers

You know when you get a glut of veggies from the garden and you wonder what you can do with them all, well this is the day of  red peppers. I had 4 so found a Jamie Oliver Roasted Stuffed Peppers (love his recipes) and I can't begin to tell  you just how good this dish is. So if you have a few peppers around that need using here's how. Yellow or green work just as well. I always find Jamie's recipes so perfectly balanced and also easy to make.

You will need:-

1. 4 peppers

2. sea salt & ground black pepper

3. 1 clove of garlic (finely chopped)

4. 25 cherry tomatoes (I didn't have 25 so I just diced up some bigger ones)

5. 2 fresh chillies red or green (finely chopped) I also removed the seeds.

6. 1-2 TBspoons capers (rinsed & dried)

7. a good handful of stoned black olives chopped

8. fresh basil

9. 1 TBspoon wine vinegar

10. 3TBspoons olive oil

11. 4 slices of rustic bread

12. 4 mozzarellas

13. 2 handfuls of rocket salad

Preheat oven to 200c

Cut the peppers in half lengthwise - remove the seeds but leave the stems. Season with salt and place on a baking tin lined with baking paper,cut side up.

In a bowl mix together the finely chopped garlic, tomatoes, chillies, capers, olives and basil leaves. Season with salt,pepper, oil & vinegar and mix well with your hands. Fill the peppers with the mixture and cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes, remove foil and bake for a further 20 minutes.

Toast bread and then place a pepper on each slice, top with mozzarella and a garnish of rocket and a little drizzle of oil. As you can see I had mine with chips and  it was delicious and highly recommend.

Bon Apetite

Courgette Risotto with Black Olives & Feta

I only have three courgette plants and I think next year one will be enough to see me through the year given the amount that 3 plants can produce. I noticed that a couple needed picking and as it was raining decided to leave it till the following day before picking, and well it grew to epic proportions over night as you can see from the picture below.

I have stuffed, roasted, made soup and well there is a limit to how much you can do with them to make them exciting. But.... I have found a recipe and it is a sure winner and totally delicious.

Ingredients (serves four) 20/25 mins and very easy.

100g Feta Cheese, crumbled 

good handful of pitted black olives

good handful of flat leafed parsley, roughly chopped

4 tbls olive oil

1 large onion, finely chopped

3 courgettes roughly sliced

250 g risotto rice

1lt hot mediterianian veg stock

140g peas

1. Mix together the feta,olives parsley and 2tbls of oilve oil and set aside.

2. Heat the remaining olive oil in large deep pan, add the onion and cook for about 5 minutes until soft, add courgettes and cook for another couple of minutes, then add the rice and stir through.

3.Add a ladle of stock and stir until all the liquid has been absorbed and repeat until all the stock has been used, adding the peas a couple of minutes before the last ladle. Simmer unil rice is tender, Ladle into bowls, then spoon the feta and olive mix over.

I served mine with potatoes which I boiled and then removed the skin and lightly roasted them, at the last minute I added the skins and crisped them up. Delicious

Bon Appetit

Courgette and Basil Terrine

It would be really mean of me not to share this fabulous terrine with you, the last one I did if you saw my post a few weeks ago was with tuna which was really quite unusual and very tasty, best of all  quite simple to make. Well my DH was in the Haute Savoie last week on business and he was having an appero (drinks and nibbles before main meal) and was served small pieces of this Courgette and basil Terrine by Fabienne, who was his host for the week, and he thought it was so delicious that he asked  for the recipe.

This time of the year we have courgettes coming out of our ears, to coin a phrase, and the challenge is always to find something else other than soup or stuffed courgettes.  Well this is it, I made this today and I did taste a little bit while it was still warm and I think it is going to be very tasty indeed when properly chilled and,  as I sit here, it is doing that right now.

 I would say this would feed a good 12 for starters so I guess some of it will go in the freezer to keep the other half of the tuna terrine company for awhile. You could also halve the ingredients to make a smaller portion.

Turn your oven to 180deg    (Moderate)

Ingredients

1,2kg Courgettes (2lb 10oz)

5 cloves of garlic

4 tablespoons of olive oil

3 tablespoons of chopped basil

30g parmesan cheese (1oz)

100g of Swiss cheese (3.5ozs)

6 eggs

3 tablespoons of white breadcrumbs

Salt & pepper

Trim ends of courgettes and cut into very small pieces, take a large pan and add and heat the 4 tbls of olive oil and then add the courgettes,a little salt & pepper and stir fry for approx 30 minutes.
Finely chop the garlic and basil.

Break 6 eggs into a large bowl and add the chopped garlic, basil, the parmesan and the breadcrumbs and give it a good stir round.

Add the Swiss cheese into the courgettes mix and switch the heat off.

Now pour the courgette mix into the large bowl with the other ingredients.

Lightly butter a loaf tin and pour the mixture in

Cook in a bain –marie (I just used a deep dish and poured a little water in the base) cook for 45 minutes, switch the oven off and leave for 10 minutes with the door half opened for about 10 minutes.

Remove from the oven and when cooled place in the fridge to chill.

Serve in slices or dice

One point my DH mentioned was that Fabienne cut her courgettes much smaller than mine so next time I will do just that. Pause for appero!!!

We have now tasted it and it is light and totally delicious so thanks to Fabienne I have yet another great recipe to pass on. Hope that if you try it you will come back and let me know what you thought. Bon Appetit.