When I was living in Manchester I wrote a series of posts called  Laura’s Lesson’s about cooking lessons I was giving to my housemate in exchange for piano lessons. It seems they have had some success, we went to visit Laura last weekend, and she cooked us a lovely meal, very tasty vegetable stew, with sweet potatoes and lots of coriander, yummy. I did take photos to show off my former student’s achievements, but our camera has broken (sob!) and the photo is no more.

One worrying thing Laura mentioned, apparently she was scared to cook for us! It seems we (well Andy) has got himself a reputation for rating meals, and she was worried her her meal would be judged. Hope this isn’t putting other people off cooking for us! I promise we’re not like some evil restaurant critics, coming round on the pretense of wanting to see much missed friends, then harshly judging your hospitality. Besides Andy gave the meal 8 out of 10, so you had nothing to worry about… erm.

Anyway, given the clear success of the lessons I’m feeling more confident with my new student, who I like to call Erm (still can’t quite bring myself to call Andy’s parents by their first names, it makes me cringe! What’s wrong with me? Sure they’ll find this hilarious anyway).

So for Erm’s first lesson she’d said she’d like to make some dips and nice salad, so we made a quick hummous, tzatsiki, a mixed green salad with balsamic dressing and a nutty roast vegetable bulgar wheat salad. It’s all turned out brilliant! I was especially impressed with the bulgar wheat salad, which is delicious, and thought I should share the recipe. Also the quick hummous is a pretty handy alternative to my other recipe, which although works out much cheaper takes a lot more time and preparation.

Nutty Roast Vegetable Bulgar Wheat Salad

• 1/4 of a medium sized squash, peeled and chopped into smallish chunks
• 1/2 a red pepper, chopped into 6
• 1/2 a yellow pepper chopped into 6
• a small handful of sultanas
• 10 almonds, sliced
• olive oil
• 200g bulgar wheat
• sweet chili sauce
• 50g wensleydale (or other white cheese) cut into smallish cubes
• S+P

1. Pour enough boiling water over the bulgar wheat just to cover and then put a plate over the dish to trap the steam. Keep checking while cooking the veg etc to see if it needs a bit more water.
2. Preheat the oven to gas mark 6. Put the squash in a roasting dish with some olive oil, sweet chili sauce to taste and sprinkle over the almonds. Put in the oven for 15 minutes, then add the peppers and cook for a further 15 minutes.
3. Stir the roasted veg, sultanas and cheese into the bulgar wheat (which should be ready by now), and add more olive oil if required, and season.

Quick Hummous

• 1 tin of chickpeas, drained
• juice of half a lemon
• 2 tsp tahini
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 glove of garlic
• pinch of salt

1. Put all the ingredients on a blender and blend until smooth. You may need to add a little water, more lemon juice or stock if the mix is too dry.