Watermelon, Feta and Mint Salad with Lime and Cardammon

I don’t know about the rest of the world but down here it has been 33 degrees for the last few days. That is hot even for the kiwis, let alone somebody still used to Scottish temperatures. On the plus side I can get a watermelon bigger than my head for $2.99 - perfect to cool and rehydrate my melting body.

- Start by making a cardommon suger syrup. Bring to the boil 00ml of water and 200g of sugar, boil for 2minutes then turn off the heat and add half a teaspoon of ground cardommon seeds. Allow to cool.

This makes quite a lot but Rachel Allen says it will keep forever in the fridge. Although I dare you not to eat it all a lot sooner.

- Chop up your watermelon into chunks, mix with the same or a little less feta cheese, some salt and ground black pepper.

- Squeeze over the juice of a lime, and spoon over a few dessertspoonfuls of the cardammon syrup.

- Top with a handful of fresh mint leaves and pop back into the fridge to keep cool, but eat it quite soon.

We had ours with Coronation chicken and baked potatoes and then because it was so good I made some more the next day as a foil for some spicy salmon burgers.

Roast Onion and Thyme soup with Feta

Intensely savoury, dark and interesting this one, quite salty from the feta and with a depth that if you look into it for too long will show you your future . . .

- Put the oven on to hot, say 200 centigrade.

- Peel and slice some onions. Mine were a little bit smaller than an apple so for a pint of soup ( 2 peoples worth ) I used 5. Slice them to the size you want in the soup.

- Put the onions into a roasting dish and add in a clove of garlic crushed, peeled and chopped, the leaves and tips from a handfull of fresh thyme sprigs and a tespoonful of whole cumin seeds.

- Pour over enough olive oil to coat everything and lob in a tablespoonful of butter and some ground black pepper.

- Place in the oven and cook, stirring occasionally until the onions start to blacken and char at edges. Ten to twenty minutes probably.

- Turn the oven down low, maybe 130 centigrade so that it is just bubbling and leave to cook nice and slowly until the onions are soft and honey coloured. This will take a while, another twenty minutes to half an hour or more even. The slower the cooking the more the sweetness of the onions will come out.

- Once cooked transfer into a saucepan, oil and everything and top up with a pint and a quarter of vegetable stock.

- Simmer gently for ten minutes or so to allow the flavours to blend check for seasoning and serve with some creamy feta crumbled in.

I had the oven on at the time so roasted the onions but there is no reason you cannot cook them in a frying pan on the stove. Just keep the heat down low and watch that they do not burn,

Leek, Bacon, and Feta Pie

Sometimes when your wife has been ill for over a week with a stomach bug and is now bunged up with flu and rather grumpy, it's best to do what she says. And so when she said leek pie instead of the suggested pumpkin and bacon thats what I made. Luckily leek and bacon is my favourite pie . . . .

First make some pastry. I use two cups of plain flour to 4 ounces of butter, salt and a couple of tablespoonfuls of cold water.
- Put the flour in a bowl with a pinch or two of salt.
- Slice up the butter, add it in and rub it between your fingers with the flour until the mixture has the texture of breadcrumbs.
- Add a tablespoonful or of cold water and mix again (I use a table knife for this) until the mixture sticks together when gathered up with your fingers. Depending on the weather and your flour you may need more or less water, I usually use two tablespoons on average. Less is better than more.
- Wrap the pastry in gladwrap (clingfilm) and pop it into the fridge while you make the filling.

- Put the oven on to hottish, say 200 degrees.
- In a pan or covered frying pan fry some bacon, say six rashers chopped up into half inch slices, until browned.
- Add in two leeks halved and sliced into quarter inch slices along with two or three sage leaves sliced thinly, and a quarter inch slice of butter. Turn the heat down and cook until the leeks are soft and translucent.
- When the leeks are almost down take the pastry out and roll it out to about an eighth of an inch.
- Lay the pastry into a buttered pie dish, cut off the excess and roll it out again for the lid.
- Stir a dessertspoonful of plain flour into the leeks and leave to cook for a few minutes longer.
- Put the leeks into the pie base, tuck in some chunks of creamy feta and lay the lid over squashing the edges together to seal, and cut a little slot in the middle to let the steam out.
- Put the pie into the oven until the pastry is nicely brown, twenty minutes maybe. The filling is already cooked of course so no need to worry about it, it just needs to warm through.

We had ours still warm with some salad and a mustardy french dressing. It is also great cold - so guess what I'll be having for lunch tomorrow!

Pumpkin and Roast Beetroot soup

I have grown up not liking beetroot. To me it was always something that came in a jar tasting of vinegar and earth. And then one day I had it roasted, in a salad I should think, and everything changed . . . .

- First roast your beetroots, I like to speed things up by boling them first, so scrub a couple and pop them in a pan of cold water.
- Bring to the boil and boil for fifteen minutes or so until just tender when poked with a knife.
- Put the oven on hottish, say 190 centigrade and pop a dish in with some olive oil in to heat.
- Meanwhile you can get on with the pumpkin part which is my usual recipe, so cook slowly an onion and a couple of cloves of garlic along with a thyme stem or two in some oil until soft and golden brown.
- Once the beetroot has boiled drain and allow to cool so you can peel them and chop them into chunks.
- Take the dish out of the oven and put the beetroot into the hot oil along with a clove of garlic peeled and crushed and a few more thyme stems. Pop it back into the oven to roast for another fifteen to twenty minutes.
- To the onion and garlic add in half a small pumpkin, about a breakfast bowl full, peeled and chopped into thumb sized pieces, turn up the heat and cook until the pumpkin browns at the edges, stirring now and again.
- Add a pint and a half of vegetable stock and turning the heat down leave to simmer until the pumpkin is soft.
- Once the beetroot is roasted take it out of the oven and pour in a dessertspoonfull or two of balsamic vinegar and stir around.

There are two recipes going on at once here of course, but why not? - if I am going to all the trouble of roasting beetroot I am going to roast some extra. This mixed with some feta cheese and some more thyme leaves (I like thyme!) makes a lovely salad and if you then add a handfull of that new fangled microsalad, and some bread, you'll have tomorrows lunch. Anyway back to the soup.

- Add the rest of the beetroot to the soup. How much depends on how strong you want the flavour to be, I used about half as much as the pumpkin which gave a distinct but not overpowering taste.
- Allow to cool a little then fish out the thyme stalks and blend the soup until smooth - it will go a beautifull rasberry red colour.
- Squeeze in half a lemon and serve with crumbled feta cheese and still more thyme leaves.

One of the prettiest looking soups I have made for a long time and a gorgeous flavour, comforting and earthy with an orangy hint in there as well.




And thinking of rasberry red here's a memory from the past . . .