The House Guest

There are many things I am not good at.  I cannot ride a bicycle, or drive a car.  I’m not very good at remembering faces, or names, or my keys.  My hearing is awful, as are my eyes.  I’m awful at packing, I’m not very good at planning things, thinking ahead, gardening.  I am in no shape or form funny, I cannot tell a joke. And, of course, I’m not very good at roasting meat. These are things I have mostly accepted, and resolved to try harder to improve on.  There’s one thing that I do find very tricky, and I don’t mean to portray myself as a social outcast, but I’m not very good at talking to people.  In general, I’m a pretty awkward person; this obviously isn’t helped by my bad hearing, poor eyesight, and inability to make someone laugh.  I’d like to be charming and charismatic, but in reality, well, it just doesn’t turn out like that.  I’m always nervous, not often relaxed, and I’m scared of most things.  This is something I do try and work on, but it’s not something that changes easily.

We had a houseguest staying for a few days.  He was a friend of my brother, and after the second night he had been staying with us, I realised I hadn’t had a proper conversation with him.  This wasn’t entirely due to my conversational inabilities.  We were both at work all day, and I’d been out both of the evenings he had been staying.  The only words we’d shared were goodnight, as I wandered into the sitting room where he was sleeping one night, forgetting that he would be in there (did I mention my awful memory?).

So on the third day of his stay, I could think of no reason not to cook dinner for us all, sit down and finally talk.  Because although I’m no socialite, something happens when I’m sat at a table laden with food I have cooked that makes me relaxed.  Perhaps it’s the fact that I’m more worried about a person liking my food than liking me, it takes the pressure off me socially.  Plus, if it’s a dinner party, there are people around who aren’t me.  So I invited one of my friends.

All in all, it was a success, aided in part by the bottles of wine and cider littering the table, but also by the kind of table laden with homely, unpretentious food.  I say that like I could cook a dinner that would seem pretentious. Maybe I could.  But when I’m cooking for someone who I’d like to know better, a simple tart and a vegetable stew is, in my mind, the perfect way to strike up a conversation.

Tomato Tart

For six (it’s good for lunch the next day too)

1kg tomatoes

200g mascarpone

75g Gruyere, grated

100g Parmesan, grated

1 garlic clove, finely chopped

two big handfuls of basil

salt and pepper

500g puff pastry

Preheat the oven to 200°c

Roll out the pastry, place on a floured baking sheet, and put in the fridge until you’re ready to layer it.

In a bowl, mash the mascarpone with the garlic, add the grated cheeses and the basil leaves, and stir until all mixed together.  Season with salt and pepper.

Slice the tomatoes.

Spread the mascarpone mixture onto the pastry leaving a finger space around the edge.

Layer the tomatoes on top, they will overlap, and it might not look beautiful, but you want as many slices as you can possible fit on.

Sprinkle over a bit of salt and pepper.  Some thyme leaves wouldn’t go amiss if you fancied.

Put in the oven for 30 minutes.

Turn the oven down to 150°c and leave the tart for another 35 minutes.

 Summer Vegetable Stew

For four

500g charlotte potatoes, or other small waxy potatoes, halved lengthways

Four or five shallots cut into wedges

3 leeks cut into chunks

5 garlic cloves, finely chopped

2 bulbs of fennel cut into wedges

6 big tomatoes, chopped

700ml vegetable stock

pinch of saffron

3 thyme sprigs

4tsp tomato puree

pinch of cayenne pepper

salt and pepper

lemon juice

grated gruyere (optional)

Sauté the potatoes, leeks and onions with the garlic for about 15 minutes.

Add the stock, the saffron, thyme, cayenne and tomato puree.  Season with salt and pepper, then bring to the boil and simmer until the potatoes are just becoming tender.

Add the fennel and the tomatoes.  Cook for another 10 minutes, until all the vegetables are cooked.

Add the lemon juice and cook for one more minute before serving with some crusty bread.  If you want some grated cheese on top, it is good, but we only had it because there was some left over from the tart.

A Glut

After my little rant about spring, I’m fully embracing summer in London. It’s warm, I’ve got a patio, and I’m getting used to the taste of cheap white wine. I’m not sure whether that’s something I should admit to. Anyway, here are the recipes from the first dinner in my garden in a while.

Of course, even in the sunny weather, I still find something to complain about. Whenever people start talking about a glut of something, I get jealous. It’s an obviously misguided jealousy, as I doubt anyone really wants a glut of anything. But the very word ‘glut’ makes me think of tomatoes. In the summer, everyone seems to be talking about a glut of tomatoes from their garden or allotment. They’re talking, and I’m thinking that I want a glut of tomatoes. I want to go out into the garden and think ‘well, what am I going to do with all these tomatoes?’

I cooked dinner for a good friend of mine who had just returned from a few months in Italy. If anyone should know about a glut of tomatoes, it’s him. He was probably fed up of the things, but my jealousy got the better of me, and I went out and found myself a glut of tomatoes. True, they came from a market, and true, I got overexcited and didn’t manage to use them all, but I can tell you it felt very good indeed.

So we had them in three dishes. I don’t know how often before I’ve made three separate dishes for a dinner for two, but I did, and they were all delicious. And red.

The tart is a variation on a Tarte Provençal. My picky friend doesn’t like olives though, and I thought, since I was forcing so many tomatoes on him, I could probably substitute them for the gooey saltiness of grana padano, but obviously, only as a favour to him. As you may be able to tell from the pictures, my tart is very rustic looking. I didn’t mean it to be. In fact, I was thinking about making it circular, but by that time I was feeling a bit rushed. The second dish was chicken legs cooked with tomatoes, basil and garlic, and we had a tomato-heavy simple salad as an accompaniment. We probably could have done with a simple green salad, but I had a glut of tomatoes to use up.

A (kind of) Tarte Provençal

For four

250g puff pastry

1 courgette, cubed

1 small aubergine, cubed

1 onion, peeled and chopped

8 sundried tomatoes

8 cherry tomatoes (or as many as you can fit on)

40g shaved parmesan or grana padano

a handful of basil leaves

a sprinkling of thyme

Preheat the oven to 180˚c

Saute the courgette, aubergine and onion in a little olive oil for ten to fifteen minutes. You want them to still be firm.

Roll out the pastry into any shape you fancy and prick all over with a fork.

Dress the basil leaves in a touch of olive oil.

Spread the cooked vegetables on the pastry, then season them with a little salt and pepper.

Follow with the cheese, tomatoes, sundried tomatoes and basil. Sprinkle with the thyme and bake for 30mins.

Chicken Legs with Tomatoes, Basil and Garlic

For four

Four chicken legs

10-15 cherry tomatoes

a bulb of garlic, sepertated into cloves, but not peeled

a big handful of basil

a glass of white wine

Preheat the oven to 180˚c

Rub the chicken legs with salt and pepper before squeezing them into a pan. It’s good if they’re snug, but you don’t want to layer them.

Toss the tomatoes, garlic and basil into the pan, followed by a drizzle of olive oil, and the white wine.

Put in the oven for an hour and a half. I covered mine for the first fourty five minutes, took it out to check everything was doing alright, and left it uncovered for the rest of the time to get a crispy skin.

These would be really nice served with some potatoes too, or some haricot beans thrown in the pan to cook in the juices.