I realised it’s been a while since I actually wrote a recipe on here, and that being one of the main reasons for the blog I thought it was time I did. So here’s a run down of what we had for dinner last night, using the things bought from the market that morning which I’d written about yesterday and also a few eggs from the chickens in the yard. Thank you chickens.

On the menu last night was:

• Pan con Tomate
• Tortilla
• Blue Cheese Stuffed Mushrooms with Roasted Garlic
• Beetroot and Broad Bean Salad

Pan con Tomate

Really simple, just relies on good quality ingredients. Get some really nice thinly sliced bread, ciabatta, or a baguette type thing is good, ours was homemade (woo, get you). Toast the slices of bread. As you eat them rub the surface all over with a raw garlic clove, then drizzle with virgin olive oil, then rub with really ripe juicy tomato. Then eat it. This is one of my favourite things to do with a meal like this. We’d tried it in Spain (surprise) last year and have been hooked since.

Tortilla

This takes a while, maybe even allow about an hour or more altogether. Since I have nothing to do (woop!) this is fine by me. Even when I was working it was still well worth it. I prefer to cook the tortilla even slower than is probably really necessary as I’m sure it makes things taste nicer. Also this time I was cooking on a Rayburn which is definitely not a cooker for someone in a hurry. Perhaps they ought to be installed in houses throughout the country to force us into the joys of slow food.

1 onion, thinly sliced
3 potatoes, thinly sliced
6 eggs, beaten
olive oil

Heat the oil in a frying pan, not really sure how much it is, but it’s quite a bit, probably about 1/2cm on the bottom of the pan. Basically it needs to be enough to well coat the onion and potatoes and a bit more, so if you need to add extra, tip some more in.

Stir in the onion and potatoes so all are well coated in oil, put a lid on the pan and leave to cook over a low heat (erm no temperature control on my cooker as far as I could see, but it was pretty slow on one side anyway). Cooking on gas I’d put it as low as possible and let them sweat and slowly cook through, stirring round every ten mins or so for about 40 minutes. I think. I’ve never actually timed it, it may be longer. You can tell when it’s ready though as you can try a potato and if it’s cooked it’s cooked. Some little bits might stick to the bottom and onions go caramelly and a bit brown. This is good. They taste nice, just make sure you don’t let it get too stuck, scrape around when you stir.

Pour in the eggs. Again keep the heat low. Now you just leave it. The eggs will cook through, hopefully without burning and you don’t stir anymore from now. I always end up pushing the eggs away from sides a little bit as I just can’t leave it alone. You don’t need the lid on anymore.

After some time (20 minutes?) you will see that it looks as though the cookedness of the eggs is near the top. The whole thing will be quite firm all the way through, with just the top needing a little a little heat to brown it off. At this point I would usually do some fancy two plate manouver to flip the tortilla and return it to it’s pan to be cooked on the other side. This time however I was a little worried about the non non-stickness of the pan and also thought I might throw egg all over the kitchen, which isn’t mine, so just popped it in the oven for a little bit. You could also probably just put it under the grill for a few minutes too, sure that would be fine. And that’s it.

This makes a huge tortilla, which serves about 6 people, but Andy ate all of it that night. Only joking. We kept the rest in the fridge which you can then have for breakfast, or lunch as I did. Saving the effort of cooking another meal or 3. So really it doesn’t take that long. 1 hour divided by 3 meals = 20 minutes. Coolio. More time for sitting in the sunshine.

Blue Cheese Stuffed Mushrooms with Roasted Garlic

This is dead easy and quick to prepare. Very rich tasting. Not sure it’s that good for you, but who cares, I’m not eating it every night. This is quantities for 2 people, any more and I think you’d be sick, although you’d want to keep eating them.

8 mushrooms
Blue cheese (I used Danish, but any will do)
3 big garlic cloves, cut into thirds
Butter
Breadcrumbs
Black pepper

Pull out the stalks from the mushrooms and arrange them in an ovenproof dish.

Fill the centres with blue cheese.

Put the chopped garlic around the mushrooms with dots of butter.

Sprinkle the top with breadcrumbs and black pepper.

Put it in the oven at about 220 for about 25 minutes until breadcrumbs start to brown.

This was really really nice. As well as the mushrooms being mega, maybe the best bit is the scrapings of breadcrumbs and roasted garlic from around the dish. Mmm mmm mmm.

Beetroot and Broad Bean Salad

For some reason I’d been led to believe that cooking beetroot was a difficult task and that the only possible way to eat them was from a big jar of pickled vinegariness. For that reason I’ve not really eaten them since I was about 12 until recently when I discovered it was all lies. Beetroot are easy to cook and taste so much nicer cooked this way than pickled. You can even just roast them like a potato. It’s crazy. Who’d have thought it. You can roast a vegetable other than a potato. Wow.

1 beetroot per person, peeled and cut into chunks
Broad beans
A hard cheese, I used the Cornish Yarg we’d just bought but I think something like pecorino might be better
Olive oil
Balsamic Vinegar
Lettuce leaves

Prepare the beetroot and put it in a pan with about a tablespoon of oil and a couple of balsamic vinegar and enough water to cover. Bring to the boil and let it boil fairly rapidly until cooked and the liquid is reduced. This will take about 40 minutes. You may need the lid on to steam the beetroot of the liquid is going down too quick, or take it off if you need it to reduce more. Eventually all you want to be left with is cooked beetroot and a little thick tasty sweet juice.

The broadbeans need podding, dropping into boiling water for 2 minutes and then shelling. They don’t then need to be eaten by a cat, as half of mine were. I couldn’t believe it. Shelling broadbeans is such a mission I get Andy to do it. The salad was nearly ready to be put together, I’d turned my back for two minutes and the cat was on the table gobbling them down. AND when it saw me see it instead of stopping it started eating faster so it could eat as many as possible before I got close enough to shoo it away! And then after dinner the cat acts all sweet and meows and wants to curl up and sleep on your knee so you think it’s so cute you forgive it. Humph. Very cunning.

Anyway, back to the recipe. When the beetroot is cooked and the beans are out of their shells, arrange the lettuce on a plate, pile the warm beetroot on top, lay thin slices of cheese across (however much you like) and top with the broad beans (or what’s left of them if you have a cat. Grrr). You can drizzle any remaining juice from the beetroot over the salad.

The Beetroot and Broad Bean Salad (with less than the intended quantities of beans):

The cat that ate the beans lounging on my knee after dinner: