This richly-flavoured Italian dish of layered cheese and vegetables is traditionally made with aubergines, but you can use the courgettes in this week’s veg boxes as well or instead. It’s delicious with a green salad and crusty bread. This version is from BBC olive magazine.
Serves: 4
Preparation / cooking time: 75 minutes
Ingredients
olive oil
2 garlic cloves , thinly sliced
2 x 400g tins chopped tomatoes
1 cinnamon stick
1 small bunch basil, shredded
3 medium aubergines
2 balls mozzarella, sliced
a handful grated Parmesan (or vegetarian alternative)
Method
Heat the oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Heat 2 tbsp oil in a pan, add the garlic and sizzle for 2 minutes. Add the tomatoes and cinnamon and simmer for 15 minutes until thickened. Stir in the basil and season.
Slice the aubergines lengthways about 1/2cm thick. Brush both sides with oil, season and griddle (chargrill), turning a few times until completely tender (you could also do this in a non-stick frying pan). It’s important to get the aubergine as tender as possible, so give it time.
Remove the cinnamon stick and put a few spoonfuls of the sauce in the bottom of an ovenproof dish. Cover with the aubergine and mozzarella then repeat, ending with a thin layer of sauce (you’ll have roughly 3-4 layers). Sprinkle with Parmesan and bake for 30-40 minutes until bubbling and golden.
One vegetable that thrives during a wet English summer is Swiss chard. Camel CSA has a huge bed of it in rainbow colours and the picking usually involves us in a big team effort.
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall says: “This hearty dish gives chard the cauliflower cheese treatment. It makes a side dish to chops or sausages, but I’d happily eat it as a main course with a hunk of bread.”
Serves: 4
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 40 minutes
Ingredients
About 750g chard
Small knob of butter
About 50g breadcrumbs
A little rapeseed or olive oil
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
For the sauce:
300ml whole milk
½ onion, peeled and cut in two
1 bay leaf
A few black peppercorns
20g unsalted butter
20g plain flour
75g strong, mature cheddar, grated
25g parmesan or vegetarian alternative
(or mature hard goat’s cheese, grated)
¼ tsp English mustard
Method
Heat the oven to 190C/375F/gas mark 5 and lightly grease a shallow, ovenproof dish.
For the sauce, put the milk into a saucepan with the onion, bay and peppercorns. Bring to just below simmering point, turn off the heat and leave to infuse for at least 30 minutes, and an hour or two, ideally.
Meanwhile, separate the chard leaves from the stalks, and cut the stalks into 1.5cm slices. Bring a large pan of salted water to a boil, drop in the leaves and blanch for a minute or two, until just wilted. Remove the leaves with tongs, drain and, when cool enough to handle, squeeze out excess water with your hands, then roughly chop. Meanwhile, drop the chopped stalks into the boiling water and blanch for three to four minutes, until just tender. Drain, toss with a knob of butter, season and spread over the base of the oven dish.
If the infused milk has cooled completely, warm it gently, then strain into a jug. Melt the butter for the sauce in a medium saucepan over a fairly low heat, then stir in the flour to form a smooth paste (a roux). Cook gently, stirring frequently, for a minute or two. Remove from the heat and add a third of the milk. Stir vigorously with a wooden spoon or whisk until you have a thick, smooth paste. Add the rest of the milk in one or two lots, stirring it in until smooth.
Return the sauce to the heat and bring to a boil, stirring. Let it bubble for two minutes, stirring every now and then, to “cook out” any taste of raw flour, then turn the heat right down. Add the cheeses and mustard, stir gently until they melt into the sauce – don’t let the sauce boil, or it may curdle – and season.
Stir the chopped chard leaves into the hot cheese sauce and pour over the stalks in the dish. Scatter with the breadcrumbs and a trickle of oil, and bake for 20 minutes, until golden and bubbling.
- This recipe from is similar to one of my favourite comfort dishes – Swiss chard and potato gratin.
This simple dish is from TV presenter Dick Strawbridge, who lives in Cornwall. He cooked it with his son James on ITV’s The Hungry Sailors.
We’ll be using our homegrown basil in Camel CSA’s veg boxes this week to make it along with the potatoes supplied by James Mutton at Burlerrow Farm, St Mabyn.
We have a strongly-growing crop of basil in the polytunnel and can look forward to plenty more in the weeks to come.
Serves: 4
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes
Ingredients
For the gnocchi:
750g potatoes
300g plain flour
1 egg yolk, beaten
Pinch of salt
For the pesto:
2 garlic cloves
12 basil leaves
2 tbsp pine nuts
1 tsp sea salt
50 g parmesan cheese, grated
(use a vegetarian version to keep it a veggie dish)
4 tbsp olive oil
Method
Peel and roughly chop the potatoes and boil for 15-20 minutes until soft.
Push the potatoes through a metal sieve, or a potato ricer, to make a smooth purée. Allow to cool and mix in the flour. Beat in egg yolk and a pinch of salt until it forms a dough. Knead to ensure it is smooth.
Roll the dough into a long thin sausage then cut into 1 inch pieces to form the gnocchi. Using the prongs of a fork, make an indentation into the top of each gnocchi.
For the pesto, grind the garlic, basil leaves, pine nuts and salt together in a mortar and pestle to form a paste. Stir in the parmesan and olive oil.
Drop the gnocchi into boiling, salted water and cook for a couple of minutes. The gnocchi are ready when they rise to the surface of the water. Remove, drain and coat in the pesto.
As cucumbers are so plentiful at the moment, here’s another idea for using them – it’s from Yotam Ottolenghi’s book Ottolenghi.
With large cucumbers (as opposed to the mini ones found in the Middle East), he advises halving the cucumber along its centre and scooping out the watery seedy core with a teaspoon.
Serves 4
Preparation: 10 minutes
Ingredients
6 small cucumbers (about 500g) – or 1-2 of the CSA ones
2 mild red chillies, thinly sliced
3 tbsp roughly chopped coriander
60ml white wine vinegar or rice vinegar
125ml sunflower oil
2 tbsp poppy seeds
2 tbsp caster sugar
salt and black pepper
Method
Chop off and discard the end of the cucumbers. Slice them at an angle, so you end up with pieces 1cm thick and 3-4cm long.
Mix together all the ingredients in a large bowl. Use your hands to massage the flavours gently into the cucumbers. Taste and adjust the amount of sugar and salt according to the quality of the cucumbers. The salad should be sharp and sweet, almost like a pickle.
If not serving immediately, you might need to drain some liquid off later. Adjust the seasoning again afterwards.
A tasty-sounding salad from Nigel Slater’s Tender Vol I: “At first rich, then intensely warm and piquant, this is a perfectly balanced salad for accompanying fish or maybe a grilled steak. It is just the job with freshly dressed crab or smoked trout or eel.” The potatoes should be warm when you dress them.
Serves 4
Preparation: half an hour draining the cucumber
Cooking: 20 minutes
Ingredients
half a cucumber
500-750g new potatoes
for the dressing:
a good pinch of caster sugar
1 tbsp white wine or cider vinegar
generous tbsp Dijon mustard
4 tbsp olive oil
6 lightly crushed juniper berries
2 tbsp chopped dill (or substitute parsley)
Method
Peel the cucumber, halve it down its length and remove the seeds with a teaspoon. Slice the cucumber into chunks about 2cm in width. Sprinkly lightly with salt and leave in a colander in the sink for about half an hour.
Put a pan of water on to boil. Scrub the potatoes. Salt the water, add the potatoes and let them boil for about 15 minutes, until they are tender to the point of a knife. Drain and briefly set aside.
While the potatoes are boiling, make the dressing. Put the sugar and vinegar in a small mixing bowl and stir till the sugar has dissolved. Add some black pepper. Mix in the mustard, then gently whisk in the olive oil. Stir in the juniper berries, the cucumber and the chopped dill and set aside.
Slice the warm potatoes, letting them fall into the dressing, then fold them together gently. Leave for no more than 20 minutes, then serve.
I found this refreshing, summery dish while browsing through my Co-operative Food magazine (I like our friendly Wadebridge Co-op).
You can include the courgettes and the spring onions in Camel CSA’s veg boxes, but this week I’m afraid you’ll have to get the carrots elsewhere.
This recipe can be adapted in a number of ways. As I hadn’t got any sesame seeds, I sprinkled sunflower seeds on top. I also used juice from a whole lemon and omitted the honey. You could replace the spring onions with chives for a milder flavour.
Serve: 4
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Ingredients
2 medium courgettes
3 medium carrots, scrubbed
1 large eating apple
Juice of half a lemon
2 spring onions, trimmed and finely chopped
2 handfuls (about 70g) of nuts and dried fruit (optional)
For the dressing
1 tbsp mayonnaise
2 tbsp natural yoghurt
A little runny honey
2 tbsp sesame seeds to sprinkle on top
Method
Grate the courgettes, carrot and apple into a bowl. Add the spring onions and nuts and fruit, if using, and stir together.
Mix together the mayonnaise, yoghurt and honey. Add to the bowl and stir. Sprinkle the seeds over the top before serving.
This simple and satisfying dish comes from Veg Box Recipes. They say: “It’s a comforting dish for rainy weather and the combination of flavours helps make the fennel’s aniseed more subtle.”
Serves 2 (as a main dish)
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 1 hour 30 minutes
Ingredients
4 large potatoes (or 6 small), scrubbed
1 bulb fennel
2 gloves garlic, crushed or minced
300ml semi-skimmed milk, or 300ml single cream, or 150ml of each
1 free range egg
butter, for greasing
salt and freshly ground pepper, nutmeg to taste
(optional) tomato slices to garnish
Method
Preheat oven to Gas Mark 5 / 190C.
Slice the potatoes and fennel very thinly – ideally using a mandolin. Grease a large baking dish with the butter and arrange the potato and fennel slices in alternative layers with garlic and lots of seasoning in between each layer.
Mix together the cream and / or milk, egg and nutmeg with lots more seasoning. Pour the mixture over the vegetables already in the baking dish, cover and bake for about 1 ½ hours, removing the cover for the last 30 minutes until the top has browned nicely.
Potatoes and spring onions are the principal ingredients of this traditional Northern Ireland dish. This version comes from Irish cook Ita on allrecipes.co.uk. She says: “Great on its own, served steaming hot with extra butter which will melt through it. But it’s also the perfect side dish for good quality sausages.”
Serves 4
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 25 minutes
Ingredients
1kg (2 1/4 lb) potatoes, peeled and halved
250ml (8 fl oz) milk
1 bunch spring onions, thinly sliced
1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
50g (2 oz) butter
freshly ground black pepper to taste
Method
Place potatoes into large pot and fill with enough water to cover. Bring to the boil and cook until tender, about 20 minutes.
Drain well. Return to very low heat and allow the potatoes to dry out for a few minutes. (It helps if you place a clean tea towel over the potatoes to absorb any remaining moisture.) Meanwhile, heat the milk and spring onions gently in a saucepan until warm.
Mash the potatoes, salt and butter until smooth. Stir in the milk and spring onion until evenly mixed. Season with black pepper. Serve piping hot in bowls. Hollow out the centre to hold a big knob of extra butter.
A simple way of using the wet garlic in Camel CSA’s boxes this week comes from Riverford Organic Farms in neighbouring Devon. You could also use wild garlic leaves instead.
“Wet” or green garlic is freshly-harvested garlic that hasn’t been hung up to dry. It’s sweeter, milder and less pungent at this stage. You simply slice it up – bulb, stalk, leaves and all – into salads, stir fries or risotto. Or you can roast it whole.
Usefully, this is a salad recipe for one! It’s also good made with broad beans and rocket.
Serves: 1
Preparation / cooking time: 12 minutes
Ingredients
40g cooked pasta, preferably orecchiette or another small pasta
40g cooked white beans, eg cannellini or haricot (drained, tinned beans are fine to use)
a little oil for frying
small handful finely sliced wet garlic OR large handful wild garlic leaves
large handful salad leaves or watercress
juice ½ lemon
approx 2 tbsp feta cheese, crumbled
freshly ground pepper to season
Method
In a small frying pan, heat the oil and fry the wet garlic for a couple of mins, until just softened slightly. If using wild garlic, just wilt the leaves quickly.
Remove and drain on kitchen paper, and leave to cool. Place in a bowl and toss with the pasta, beans, lemon juice, lettuce and just enough extra virgin olive oil to coat the salad.
Season with pepper and transfer to a serving bowl. Crumble over the feta cheese to serve.
This recipe in Food Magazine comes from chef Dez Turland of the Saunton Sands Hotel in Devon. Dez says: “This fantastic light and simple summer dessert is a winner for any dinner party.”
Serves: 4
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 25 minutes
PLUS: At least two hours to chill the fool in the fridge
Ingredients
450g gooseberries
120g castor sugar
60ml elderflower cordial
350ml double cream
Candied gooseberries to serve
Sprig of mint
For the gingersnaps:
175g unsalted butter
100g dark brown sugar
100g castor sugar
60ml treacle
1 vanilla pod, seeds only
2 eggs
260g plain flour
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
¼ tsp salt
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
200g granulated sugar, for rolling
Method
Cook the gooseberries with the sugar on the stove until soft and starting to break down, then roughly blitz. Add the cordial and allow to cool.
Whip the cream until it reaches the ribbon stage and fold gently into the gooseberry mix, reserving a little to spoon into the bottom of each glass. Spoon the fool into each glass and refrigerate for at least 2 hours. Finish with candied gooseberries, if you have them, and a sprig of mint.
To make the gingersnaps: beat the butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add the treacle, vanilla seeds and eggs, then add all of the dry ingredients. Mix until combined, cover and chill for a least an hour.
When firm, roll into 1cm balls, then roll in granulated sugar, coating thoroughly. Place onto a non stick tray and flatten with the palm of your hand until 1cm thick. Cook at 180°c/gas 4 for 15 minutes, allow to cool on a wire rack.
Serve in glass dishes with the gingersnaps on the side for dipping.
Also try: Gooseberry crumble cake
