Aubergines are back! The veg box this week had a gorgeous chubby purple one in there and I’m making ratatouille, one of my favourite dishes. Simple to make, colourful, bursting with goodness and flavour - I serve it with sausages and mash, on pasta or with brown rice and crumbled feta on top.

Ingredients
(slightly simplified) From Delia Smith’s essential kitchen classic Complete Cookery Course

1 plump aubergine
1 large or 2 small courgettes
1 bigish onion
1 red/yellow or green pepper (or 2 if you have them)
1 tin whole toms
1 fat clove of garlic
Splash red wine or tablespoon of baslamic vinegar
Tablespoon or 2 of Basil, olive oil, S&P

Serves 2 very well

1 Chop up the onion roughly and fry gently in olive oil for 10 minutes
2 Chop (and de-seed) the pepper into medium chunks, add to pan
3 Chop aubergine and courgette (Delia says to salt and drain but I’ve never thought it necessary) and add to the pan, stir once, S&P and simmer gently, covered for 30mins
4 Add wine vinegar to pan and stir. Crush garlic and add to pan, stir. Drain toms and add to pan, stir. Chop basil and add to pan, stir
5 Simmer uncovered for another 15 minutes, serve with any of the above, even nicer if you let it sit overnight and reheat

Hello, I’m back!

Apologies for a couple of weeks of silence but I have been holidaying in South West France, the Lot-et-Garonne region, wine and musketeer country. I thought I’d have an internet connection to keep in touch when I was out there but it proved to be intermittent at best and the pull of the sunshine, the view (vines and sunflowers on undulating hills) and a good book were just too strong to keep me slaving away at it.

I’ve a couple of other things to post about, not least a great trip to the strange and marvelous Albi cathedral (and gorgeous restaurant we found just steps away, of course!), but first I wanted to share with you my revelation about fresh herbs.

At home I usually have a packet of parsley, thyme or basil in the fridge - bought ‘fresh’ in a bunch they clearly pack a stronger punch than their dried cousins but then, at the house where we were staying (my Dad’s) there was rosemary, sage, thyme and bay, I picked them one evening to make a little bouquet garni to go in the lentil and goat’s cheese stew bubbling on the stove and the explosion of flavour was amazing.

I had not fully appreciated that herbs picked off the plant were so MUCH richer, deeper and more fragrant. As a foodie I am now totally sold on growing my own, I know that home grown veg is infinitely better, but without the space (my balcony is 1.5mx1m) I can’t see that happening - although a tomato plant or two are looking distinctly possible - herbs, however, are the next best thing and will make a real difference to your meal.

Plans to turn the balcony into a mini herb garden are afoot!

Did anyone catch this new series (Chinese Food Made Easy) on BBC2 last night?

Although the programme itself was pretty awful, the presenter Ching-He Huang is very attractive and passionate but somehow lacks charm and that special entertainer quality that can bring out the best in the guests on her show and generally the direction felt pillow handed, I will keep watching. What Ms Huang lacks in presenter skills she more than makes up for in cooking ones.

Her recipes look both delicious and simple, perfect for easy weekday suppers as they take only minutes to prepare (Honestly, she made a beef in oyster sauce with oyster mushrooms and spinach in 3 minutes, and whilst it will probably take me 15-20 that’s still a damn fast supper in my book).

As quick, tasty suppers are the holy grail of the urban foodie I will try out her recipes and post the best of them here. I’ll doubtless start with her (healthy) egg fried rice as it is a take-away favourite of Mr Foodie’s…

More to come soon.

I don’t often get out West these days anymore, London is often a quite partitioned city, once you have established your patch you prowl it constantly. However I was persuaded to Go West by a friend I can never resist, and I’m very glad I did.

Rossopomodoro (Notting Hill Gate) is a small restaurant with a handful of tables upstairs, another couple downstairs and a further 3 or 4 on the salubrious pavements of that little knot of shops on Kensington Park Gardens (parallel to Portobello Road). All dominated by a hulk of a pizza oven.

The restaurant is one of a small chain (3 in London, more worldwide) but feels more like an independent, they import all their ingredients and staff from Italy for a real flavour of Napoli.

Our waiter flirted us to our table and brought delicious dense ciabatta, bright olive oil and dark sweet balsamic whilst we chose our meal.

We started with a plate of antipasti cured meats, 6 in all, each a different shade, from brightest red to deepest claret, and all had that lovely waxy semi-opaque sheen that good cured meats have.

Next we went onto the pizzas, oh the pizzas, they were the real deal, abstract paintings on a plate. Mine was a big red round, surrounded by an uneven and exquisitely squishy dough, dotted with a round of cheese here, a juicy anchovy fillet there, a basil leaf, a dark intense olive. And the eating was even more of a pleasure, we enjoyed them to the last. My friend’s was one of those white pizzas, a glorious mixture of creamy textures made to soothe the senses.

We didn’t have room for puddings, only managing a very decent coffee each, but I saw several pass and they looked as theatrical as you always hope for in a pudding (well I do anyway), tall glasses and heaving plates covered in chocolate sauces and lots of cream.

All in all a delightful restaurant, and the easy 10 minute stroll back to the tube was just what was needed to aid the digestion.

4.5/5

Starters £5.40 - £13.50 (for a plate that easily serves 2)
Main £9-11 (pizza)
House wine £17-18

Rossopomodoro Notting Hill
184 A Kensington Park Rd.
W11 2ES
Tel. 020 72299007
www.rossopomodoro.com

If anyone is close enough to a Leon can I recommend their new avocado and bacon superfood salad, just out for summer. It is a delightful mix of leaves (I counted 3 kinds), quinoa, crispy bacon, avocado, a boiled egg and red onion all in a fresher than fresh yogurt and lemon vinaigrette, plus the staff are always a pleasure to talk to.

If you don’t know the Leon Restaurants then I’m sorry for your loss they really are the foodie’s own fast food restaurant - seasonal, free range, nurtitious and delicious with narry a chip or crisp in sight. They are run with love and care which comes out beautifully in their food, probably about the same price as Pret but much, much nicer.

If you do go be sure to try on of their sweet olive and fennel biscuits too, light and crumbly and quite a unique taste experience!

Lunch is always a tricky one, sandwiches can get boring and come with an inbuilt afternoon carb crash, eating out gets very expensive and all that packaging is just unsustainable. Below are a few examples of easy recipes that I find tasty and satisfying - just mix up whichever ingeredients you have handy or particularly like, you don’t need to add them all, sometimes I just pick 3 or 4 for elegance and simplicity.

Basic Vinaigrette
1 fork full of wholegrain or dijon mustard
2 big glugs balsamic
3 big glugs extra virgin olive oil
S&P

This is my essential vinaigrette, it was taught to me by my French mum, and her by her grandmother, passed down through the generations from rural France to Paris and now London, it is a simple recipe that never fails to bring ot the best in any salad - and actually I have poshed it up, you can even make it with malt vinegar and english mustard if you are desperate!

Mix ingredients in an empty mustard (or similar) jar in the order above, close jar and shake to mix, mixture should be unctuous (add more oil if too thin).

Lentil salad
Basic salad
Puy lentils, sundried toms, basil, handful red onion, fresh goats cheese (no rind), vinagrette

Variations - parsley/basil, real toms/sundried, feta/goat’s cheese, pepper/red onion
Also add - brown rice, chilli flakes, salami/chorizo, rocket

1 Cook lentils for 30 mins
2 Once cooled a little, add chopped up cold ingredients
3 Fridge until morning when you can add a good glug of vinaigrette, mix well and take to work to enjoy in the park at lunchtime (or at your desk if it is one of those days…)

Pasta Salad
Basic salad
Bow/fusili/penne pasta, basil, toms, black/green olives, sweetcorn/chopped peppers

Also add - tuna/feta/ham, capers, parsley, small tablespoon of mayonnaise

1 Cook pasta for 10-11 mins
2 Once cooled a little, add chopped up cold ingredients
3 Fridge until morning when you can add a good glug of vinaigrette, mix well

Other tasty lunches:

Hummus and crudites, cottage cheese and cucumber in wholmeal pittas (add some chopped olives, basil and sundried toms for extra taste - assemble as you eat) or LEFTOVERS, never underestimate how too much dinner can turn into next day lunch, tom dishes in particular taste fabulous left overnight, add a hunk of bread or a side of salad to complete the feast.

This delightful little Thai restaurant serves vegetarian and seafood dishes that are varied and authentic. Time Out loves the place and so do the AA (!) apparently, it isn’t hard to see why.

The restaurant is small with a handful of tables in the bright and bustling downstairs but it is even worth sitting in the smaller, less interesting upstairs room as the food is really vibrant and exciting and the service as sweet as you could want it. I have laughed a lot and eaten well in this little gem in East London.

4.5/5

Starters £4-5
Main £7-9
House wine £9

249 Globe Road, Bethnal Green, London E2 OJD.
Tel. 020 8981 5748
www.thethaigarden.co.uk
nearest tube: Bethnal Green

This one is a real corker, summery pasta in a bowl as the tomatoes and goat’s cheese are zingy and the spinach keeps the green taste fresh.

I found this by pure chance when searching for something to do with the spinach in my veg box, you know when you are just bored of the old favourites and fancy something new - well I think this one is a keeper, a pretty quick supper (35 mins) and certainly a really easy one!

Ingredients
From Jamie Oliver’s jamiesdinners.com website

2 cloves garlic
1 tin toms
Basil stalks/dried oregano
1 red chilli
Dash red wine vinegar (I used balsamic)
Couple of handfuls of spinach
100g fresh goat’s cheese (the kind without a rind)
Tagliatelle (6-7 nests)
Olive oil
S&P

Serves 2 well

1 Heat some olive oil and gently fry the garlic (crushed), chilli (pierced) and basil stalks (chopped) or oregano (sprinkled) for a minute
2 Add the tin of toms (leave them whole, you’ll squash them at the end, Jamie says this stops the seeds becoming bitter), S&P and simmer gently, half covered for 30 mins
3 After 25 mins put the tagliatelle on to boil
4 Back to the sauce, take out the chilli, add the dash of red wine vinegar and squash the tomatoes, turn off the heat and cover
5 Just before the pasta is ready add the spinach to the tom sauce and cover
6 Drain the pasta, mix in with the sauce and crumble the goat’s cheese on top - serve with a green salad and maybe a hunk of bread to mop up the sauce.