Sun Dried Tomato & Sprouted Red Linseed Tapenade

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Alive, Alive – ooh!
Firstly, you may or may not have noticed that this little corner of the Internet has been a little quiet of late. Reasons for this being, firstly various holidays taken by me and Lola and secondly has been work – I have been closing up a large and frantic tender – and Lola has recently started a new job. Food, sadly has been low on our list of priorities.

I ate some wonderful Polish food in Gdansk, great sauteed potatoes and pork fillet pounded thin and tender in a  rich creamy sauce spicy with green peppercorns (for breakfast – ahem). The other memorable food experience was cooking a ratatouille in an empty swimming pool in the centre of Berlin.

So following these late nights of both partying and working – with all convenience food that goes with them, I felt like I needed a little cleanse. So I’ve been eating raw food  for the last few days. I’ve been sprouting seeds sporadically over the last few years, it’s great fun and very easy to do.

Simply soak 1 tablespoon of seeds in water over night  - then drain and place on a saucer/plate/sprouter. Rinse the seeds once/twice a day and watch as they triple in size and explode apart with shoots. I’ve bought a few packets of pre-mixed assortments of seeds in health food shops, but have also successfully sprouted mung beans, chickpeas, cress and various lentils. It’s amazing to think of so many store cupboard ingredients being able to transform themselves so readily with just some water and daylight.

I’ve added these most often to salads, but also go great in curries, stews and soups – as garnish or an integral part of the dish. This was the first time I used them as a part of a dip,  Sharp, tangy, hot and garlicy – goes great with crudities.

Ingredients
4 sun dried tomatoes in oil 
a big handful of any kind of sprouts (I used a mixture of brown lentils, red linseed and mung beans) 
1 clove of garlic (less if you’re not a big garlic fan) 
A good squeeze of lemon juice 
2 small cherry tomatoes 
1 tablespoon of olive oil 
1 tablespoon of tahini 
a few sprigs of parsley 
Salt and freshly milled pepper

Add all ingredients,  except the fresh tomatoes, into a blender and blend to your desired consistency -  I added in the two small tomatoes at the end to thin it out a little and give it a better consistency. I’d love to know what you think of this yummy cousin of hummous twice removed !

I’ve been busy in the kitchen – making various things to go in jars – spicy tomato chutney and homemade mustard – can’t post till they’ve had some time to mature so stay posted!

Guacamole

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Alex, a regular reader of this blog, asked me to post a recipe for Guacamole a long time ago. I made this ages ago and have only jut gotten around to blogging it...

Hope i can remember the recipe now!

Alex was also asking me where you can buy ripe avocados as she finds they are always too hard when she buys them. In my experience, this is just something you have to live with! Your best bet is to buy them 3 or 4 days before you need them, and then you can store ripe avocadies in the the fridge which will slow down their mushening process. Otherwise you can put the unripe avocados in a paper bag overnight with some ripe bananas and that should speed up the process.

Ingredients:

2 very ripe avocados

1 clove garlic

1 red chilli

2 tbsps sour cream

1 lemon

Cut the avocados in half around the pip and pull the two sides apart. Scoop out the flesh with a spoon, making sure to scrape all the green goo near the skin off, this will make your guacamole a nice bright green colour rather than, say, the colour of an avocado bathroom set!

Mash the avocados in a bowl with the juice of the lemon until it is the consistency you like, not too lumpy Crush the garlic and add to the mixture, chop the chili finely an stir in (depending on how hot you like it, thinly use half and de seed it first!). Finally stir in the sour cream and serve!

I ate my guacamole in a tortilla wrap with some strips of steak that I marinated in lime juice and garlic before flash frying them. Also in there was some rocket leaves and some cherry tomatoes. Super yum!

Baba Ganoush

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Along the lines of hummous but with Baked Aubergine instead of chickpeas! The name always reminds me of a baby elephant for some reason, so healthy though it won't turn you into an elephant

2 Aubergines
1 serving spoon of tahini
Lemon juice
3 cloves garlic
Olive Oil

Score the skins of the aubergine and bake in a a hot oven for 30 mins. When cooked, cut in half, scoop out the insides and discard the skins. Pop mixture into a bowl along with the tahini, garlic, lemon juice, ad a small drop of olive oil, mix well and season. Allow to cool before serving.

We served this with some freshly baked bread for dipping, some various cheese, meats and salad. We also served it alongside some hummous. As I said it was like hummous, not a replacement!!

And with this I bid you farewell for a few weeks, I'm off on my holidays to France in the van with the Mr Delo. Lola will keep you updated in Ireland. I promise to write some recipes up while I'm over there, and hopefully have some beautiful sun-drenched pictures to go with them. They'll be coming from this little kitchen in this little van....