Black pepper tofu & eggplant

August 26, 2023

   

Cindy heard the See Also podcasters raving about this Smitten Kitchen twist on one of our favourite Ottolenghi dishes and was quick to pop it into our rotation. We've made the black pepper tofu for a bunch of special occasions, and this seemed like a less fiddly variant that incorporates a few more veggies without losing any of the punch that had us fall in love with the original version. 

It was exactly that - baking things first means that the eggplant is falling-apart-soft. Our tofu didn't really get crispy, but I think our baking trays got a bit crowded. It starts out looking like an astonishing amount of food, but everything shrinks down to a more appropriate, serves-4 kind of size. Cutting down on the pepper and fresh chilli and just adding a drizzle of chilli oil at the end is the perfect approach for our household, meaning each person can make their plate as intense as they want. Vegan version below - the original has butter instead of Nuttelex.

We served it straight up with rice, and a little bean stir-fry or something would still be a nice side to add, but it's pretty perfect on its own. I suspect we'll make this version a few more times before we go back to the original again!

Black pepper tofu & eggplant

(from this recipe on Smitten Kitchen)

500g firm tofu

1-2 eggplants (you want about 500g)

sunflower oil

1 tablespoon cornflour

4 tablespoons Nuttelex

1 medium red onion, sliced finely

5-6 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

1/2 cup tamari

1 tablespoon brown sugar

1-2 tablespoons ground black pepper

salt

chilli oil for serving

Preheat the oven to 220°C.  Cut the eggplant and tofu into rough 2cm cubes. 

Toss a tablespoon or two of oil with the eggplant cubes and a generous sprinkle of salt. Spread the eggplant on a baking tray or two with another drizzle of oil. Toss the tofu cubes with the cornflour and a bit more salt and spread those cubes out on the rest of your baking tray real estate (this was two very full baking trays for us, but all squeezed into one for Deb from Smitten Kitchen somehow). 

Roast for 20 minutes and then gently flip the tofu cubes and stir the eggplant around a bit before roasting for another 10 minutes. 

While everything is roasting, melt the Nuttelex in a large saucepan and gently cook the onion and garlic for 10 minutes or so, until it's beautiful and soft. Stir in the tamari, pepper and brown sugar and simmer for a few minutes. 

Stir the roasted eggplant and tofu back through the sauce and serve, over rice or breads or however you like!

Leek & mushroom quiche

October 30, 2021

   

Last week while planning the grocery shopping, I decided I felt like a quiche. I wanted crumbly pastry, savoury mushrooms and a creamy filling. I didn't have a particular recipe in mind so I googled "mushroom quiche smitten kitchen". While I don't cook her recipes regularly, Smitten Kitchen's Deb Perelman has a thorough approach I admire, and she seems to tend mostly towards dairy- and egg-laden, European-style recipes. Sure enough, she had several options for me to choose from and I picked out a Julia Child/Martha Stewart splice from 2007.

I made a head start in the morning, getting a pastry ball into the fridge and cooking the leeks and the mushrooms. The approach was unusual to me - both the leeks and the mushrooms are cooked lid-on with some excess liquid before it's evaporated off. (It's supposed to be port in the case of the mushrooms, but I made do with white wine vinegar and a sprinkle of sugar.) The leeks in particular really mellowed through this process, though I don't think I cooked off quite enough liquid (more about that in a minute).

It was a struggle to stretch the pastry across the full expanse of my pie dish, so in the measurements below I've added notes for increasing its quantity by 20%. Meanwhile, I couldn't pour all of the eggy milk mixture in so I've decreased the milk by 33%! I'm not going to decrease the egg quantity because this quiche needs all the setting help it can get. My first three quiche slices were actually served with a dessert spoon, completely collapsed. I may have brought this upon myself, leaving the leeks too liquid as I mentioned above, and lazily layering them with the mushrooms and then pouring over the eggy milk at the end. If I make this again, I'll properly stir together the leeks, mushrooms and eggy milk as originally instructed, and I've worded the recipe below accordingly. 

As you can see from the cross-sectional photo below, this quiche is more leek than mushroom, and I might tinker with the proportions. That's just about personal preference, though - the flavour of this quiche was already excellent, and I achieved the crumbly/creamy/savoury experience I was hankering for. We've been teaming it with this this spring salad.

   

Leek & mushroom quiche

(slightly adapted from a recipe on Smitten Kitchen, 

where credit is extended to Julia Child and Martha Stewart)

pastry

1 1/4 cups plain flour (would try increasing to 1 1/2 cups next time)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon sugar

113g butter (would try increasing to 135g next time)

1-3 tablespoons ice water

filling

3-4 leeks, white part only, sliced into rounds

1/2 cup water

salt and pepper

3 tablespoons butter

5-6 large white mushrooms, sliced

1 tablespoon white wine vinegar

1/2 teaspoon sugar

3 eggs

1 1/2 cups milk (would reduce to 1 cup next time)

1/4-1/2 cup grated tasty cheese

Make the pastry in a food processor. Start by mixing together the flour, salt and sugar. Dice the butter and add it to the flour, processing until the mixture resembles coarse sand. Add the water, processing between each tablespoon, until a dough forms (I used only about 1 1/2 tablespoons this time). Turn the dough out onto a sheet of plastic wrap, form it into a thick disc, then wrap it in the plastic and refrigerate the dough for at least an hour.

When the dough is ready, preheat an oven to 200°C. Roll the dough out between two pieces of plastic wrap, until it is large enough to fit your pie dish. Remove one side of plastic and gently ease the dough into the pie dish. Remove the second layer of plastic wrap and tidy up the pastry edges. Prick the base of the pastry with a fork. Line the pastry with baking paper and pie weights (I have some old dried chickpeas for this task!), and bake the pastry for 8-9 minutes. Remove the weights and baking paper and bake the pastry for 2-3 minutes more, until it is just starting to turn golden. Set the pastry aside to cool a little while you prepare the fillings.

In a medium-large saucepan, place the leeks, water, a bit of salt and 2 tablespoons butter. Set the saucepan over medium-high heat with the lid on, boiling the leeks for about 10 minutes, until all the leeks are very soft. Turn down the heat and remove the lid, continuing to cook and regularly stir the mixture until most of the liquid has evaporated - this could take up to 30 minutes. Set the leeks aside in a large bowl.

Return the same saucepan to medium-high heat, this time placing the remaining tablespoon of butter, mushrooms, vinegar, some salt and the sugar into it. Cover the saucepan with a lid and cook for 8 minutes, then remove the lid and cook off most of the liquid. Turn off the heat, and add the mushrooms to the bowl of leeks.

Preheat an oven to 190°C. Whisk together the eggs and milk with some salt and pepper, then pour them over the leeks and mushrooms, stirring them all together. (I actually layered leeks > mushrooms > eggy milk in the pastry and it wasn't ideal.) Gently pour it all into the pastry and level it out. Sprinkle over the grated cheese. Bake the quiche for 25-30 minutes, until puffed and browned.

Potato soup

April 2, 2021

 

   

We had a soup craving over Easter and wanted something to get us through a few long weekend meals. Cindy googled for potato soup recipes and knew that we could trust Smitten Kitchen for something good. We simplified Perelman's fancy garlic steps and made tofu chicharrones to top things off instead of bacon bits, but the basics are the same: a rich and creamy soup, with a good hit of garlic that warms up your insides. 

Potato soup

(a recipe from Smitten Kitchen, 

where it's credited to Cook's Illustrated)

3 tablespoons butter

2 leeks, washed and sliced small (white and light green parts)

5 cloves garlic, minced

5 cups veggie stock

2 bay leaves

1 kg potatoes (we used Dutch creams, the recipe asks for russets), peeled and cut into 1cm cubes

1/3 cup sour cream

salt and pepper, to taste

Melt the butter in a big saucepan and then throw in the chopped leek, stirring frequently for 5-10 minutes until it softens (you don't want it to go too brown though). Throw in the garlic and cook for another minute or so.

Add the stock, bay leaves and a good shake of salt - at least half a teaspoon (although it depends a bit on how salty your stock is). Add in the potatoes and simmer over medium heat until they're tender - about 20-25 minutes.

Pull out the bay leaves and stir through the sour cream. Whizz everything together with a stick blender until it's beautiful and smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste and then serve.

We topped it with spicy tofu chicharrones and a shake of parsley, but you can add bacon bits, grated cheese, or whatever you feel like.

Cauliflower pesto pasta

May 24, 2020

One of our fruit'n'veg deliveries included a surprise packet of pasta, and it sat on the edge of our kitchen table for several weeks before I got around to planning a meal with it. We tossed around a couple of our usual ideas (soy bomb meatballs? green veges and pesto?) and I browsed a few cookbooks. Cauliflower pesto popped out from our underused Smitten Kitchen Cookbook: I'm fond of pesto, and liked that there'd be some extra veges in this version.

Even with our big food processor on the blink, this pesto came together effectively using our less powerful stick blender attachments. None of the veges need cooking, simply picking up on the pasta's ambient heat: grate over some extra parmesan and you're done! The flavour was good but subtle; I reckon I'll double the pesto-to-cauliflower ratio in future. It's a quick weeknight-friendly meal with only one tiny downside: while serving the long, spaghetti-like pasta I found myself flicking little cauliflower specks all over the kitchen!

Cauliflower pesto pasta
(slightly adapted from a recipe in Deb Perelman's The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook)

1 small or 1/2 large head of cauliflower, split into florets
1 clove garlic
generous pinch chilli flakes
1/2 cup almonds or pine nuts, toasted
55g parmesan, plus extra for garnish
4 sun-dried tomatoes, preferably not packed in oil
1 tablespoon capers
2 tablespoons fresh parsley
1/3 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon white wine vinegar
salt and pepper
500g linguine

Fill a large pot with water and bring it to the boil.

While the water is heating, prepare the pesto. In batches that fit your food processor, pulse the cauliflower until it resembles couscous, and transfer it to a large bowl. Empty out the food processor, then use it to blend together the garlic, chilli flakes, almonds/pine nuts, parmesan, sun-dried tomatoes, capers and parsley to form a coarse pesto. Add this pesto and the olive oil to the cauliflower bowl, and stir everything together well. Season with salt, pepper and the vinegar.

When the water is boiling, add the linguine and cook as instructed on the packet. Reserve 1 cup of the cooking water and drain the rest. Toss together the pasta, cauliflower pesto, and 1/2 cup of the cooking water; add a little more water if the pesto feels too thick or clumpy. Serve the pasta, and grate a little more parmesan over each plate.

Gingerbread layer cake

April 25-27, 2016

I've had a jar of molasses in the cupboard for a while, and I've spent that time trawling for suitable recipes and excuses to bake with it. It's taken a few months to get it into this gingerbread layer cake, baked to share with our cat-sitter and friend, Tash.

The recipe comes from Smitten Kitchen - I know that Deb Perelman is a bit of a perfectionist with her recipes, and I like that she takes understated, realistic food photos in her own small home kitchen. (They're still a good deal prettier than mine, I know.) I trust her to bake a good cake.

In fact, I think I just entrusted her with baking my first layer cake. The batter was pretty well-behaved; with oil and not butter for the fat, it didn't even need creaming with an electric beater. It just called for a bit of patience as I baked and cooled the three layers, one at a time, late on a Monday night. I whipped up the mascarpone cream on Wednesday morning and stacked up my cake with care, ignoring Perelman's cranberry garnish entirely.

For a vegan version, I'd recommend replacing the eggs with ground flax seeds in the cake batter. I'm not sure how best to replicate the whipped dairy cream, but I reckon coconut cream or yoghurt is the best bet.

Here the cake and cream have a surprisingly light texture. With a cup of molasses, a cup of brown sugar and a cup of white sugar in the cake batter, it's as sweet as Kimmy Schmidt. It's also got Kimmy's brutal aftertaste, a heated, malty mix of molasses, stout and ginger that depends on the triple-layered whipped cream to remain palatable. A small slice goes a very long way (and here it differs from Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, because I polished that off in just a few days).

Gingerbread layer cake
(a recipe from Smitten Kitchen)

cake
1 cup stout
1 cup molasses
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup caster sugar
3 eggs
3/4 cup vegetable oil
2 cups plain flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
pinch of ground cardamom
spray oil for greasing cake tin

mascarpone cream
500mL cream
1/2 cup icing sugar
120g mascarpone

Place the stout and molasses in a large saucepan and bring them to the boil. Turn off the heat and whisk in the bicarb soda - the mixture will froth up but hopefully be contained by your large saucepan. Allow the mixture to cool to room temperature.

Preheat an oven to 180°C. Trace and cut out three pieces of baking paper to fit the base of a springform cake tin. Line the tin with just one of them, and lightly spray the tin inside with oil.

Place the sugars in a large bowl and whisk in the oil. Whisk in the eggs, one at a time, until smooth. Whisk in the cooled stout-molasses mixture until smooth. Sift over the remaining cake ingredients, and stir them into the batter until just combined.

Pour one third of the cake batter into the tin and bake it until it passes the skewer test, about 20 minutes. Allow it to rest in the tin for 5 minutes before gently turning the cake onto a cooling rack. Repeat twice more with the remaining cake batter to form three cake layers.

To make the mascarpone cream, pour the cream into a large bowl and sift over the icing sugar. Whip the cream with an electric beater until soft peaks form. Add the mascarpone and whip it into the cream until well combined.

To assemble the cake, carefully transfer one cake layer to a serving plate. Pour a generous cup of the mascarpone cream onto the centre of the cake, spreading it out but leaving about an inch cake border. Transfer a second cake layer onto the top; its weight will push the cream out towards the edge. Repeat the process with another generous cup of cream and the final cake layer. Make the top layer of cream thick and wavy and spread it right to the edge of the cake.

Refrigerate the cake for at least an hour before slicing and serving, with any extra mascarpone cream on the side.

Apple breakfast crisp

May 25, 2015

This recipe is me trying to heave myself out of another breakfast rut. Our vege boxes come with a lot of apples at this time of year, some of them mealy, and I just knew that there was a breakfast crumble out there for them. I trawled my cookbooks but came up short. Isa, Heidi and Deb had muffins and waffles and eggs 'til Tuesday, but nothing that'd get apples into my workday breakfast.

Once I hit google it turned out that Deb Perelman did actually have exactly what I needed, an oaty apple crisp especially designed for breakfast. I threw in a couple of pears with the apples, swapped honey for barley malt syrup and slivered almonds for raw cashews. It's not too distant from my ol' fruit crumble manifesto, though it taught me a couple of important tricks. First, you can melt the butter instead of blending it cold into the crumble. Second, it's worth baking apples well beyond my habitual 20 minutes to bring them to that collapsing, apple pie stage. 

These aren't startlingly innovative tricks, but I appreciated them just the same. I've been enjoying my buttery collapsed apples for days with a couple heaping spoonfuls of yoghurt and even plotting future batches. Different flour! Skip the sugar! Other fruit and nuts! And what about vegetable oil, eliminating the need for melting entirely? But always lots of oats, lots of baking and a smidge of cornflour.

Apple breakfast crisp
(slightly adapted from a recipe on smitten kitchen)

200g mixed fruit (I had 5 apples and 2 pears)
2 tablespoons lemon juice
3 tablespoons caster sugar
2 tablespoons cornflour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch of salt
110g butter
1/4 cup barley malt syrup
1/2 cup flour
2 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup raw cashews, roughly chopped
1/2 cup shredded coconut

Preheat an oven to 180°C.

Peel the fruit, remove any cores and chop the flesh into bite-size pieces, placing the fruit in a medium-large baking dish. Stir through the lemon juice as you go to prevent the fruit from browning. Sprinkle over the caster sugar, cornflour, cinnamon and salt, and stir it through to evenly coat the fruit pieces.

In a medium-large saucepan set over low-medium heat, melt the butter and the barley malt syrup together. Turn of the heat, and stir in the flour, rolled oats, cashews and coconut. Pour this granola mix evenly over the apples in the baking tray. Bake it all for 45-55 minutes, until the apples are softened and bubbly. Keep an eye on it as it bakes, and cover the dish if the top gets too brown.

Christmas shortcuts

December 25, 2013

This year we hit the one of the more traditional points in our Christmas cycle, sharing lunch with Michael's extended family on the Sunshine Coast. Everyone else tends to focus on chicken, ham and prawns so we always make sure to bring a vego dish or two. This time around we streamlined a couple of recipes from the archives, so as not to take too much time or create excessive mess in someone else's kitchen. 

Zucchini ribbons in pesto are even quicker when you buy a tub of ready-made pesto - just shred up the greens, pour over the pesto, add a squeeze of lemon and toss it all together. It's light and refeshing, and lasts well into the next day without getting wilted or slimey.

For something more substantial, we revisited the Moroccan Soup Bar-inspired chickpea thing. Since we were serving it at room temperature, we only needed heat to toast the almonds and fry some garlic, whisking together the yoghurt dressing and folding in canned chickpeas in a bowl. Rather than frying pita bread, I hatched the idea of substituting plain corn chips. They had the right crunchy, slightly grainy texture and were gluten-free as a bonus. The salad gave our lunch a little heft, though the leftovers were notably soggier come dinner time.

Catering for twenty-five, the table also boasted mini pumpkin quiches, potatoes and a couple more fresh green salads so we weren't left wanting for food or company.

Creamy pea pasta

December 1, 2013

I've had a minor pea epiphany lately. I've been hating on the frozen ones all my life, and it seems probable that I've just been eating them seriously overcooked. It turns out that they don't have to be all squishy inside - with the quickest of boils they retain much of their bite. They're still not quite the equal of freshly podded specimens but you couldn't make pea prep quicker or easier than popping the frozen fellers into your pasta water.

I pulled this trick for dinner last week. I'd flicked through cookbooks while Michael made brunch,  and liked the simple springtime look of Deb Perelman's sweet peas and shells alfredo in The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook. I simplified a little further with my frozen peas instead of fresh, and then struck out on my own when it came to the sauce. 

Perelman's alfredo consisted largely of butter, cream and parmesan but I decided to cook up my own vegan alternative. Lots of cashews, a little nooch and miso, plus an extra shot of lemon. Taste-testing from the blender, I was very pleased with myself - it was smooth, very creamy and arguably cheesy. The effect was a little blander once mixed with the pasta and parsley, so there's room for more savoury flavouring (I think I might include some garlic powder next time). My plate got the small boost it needed from a tomato salad.

Creamy pea pasta
(inspired by a recipe in Deb Perelman's
The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook)

1 cup raw cashews
250g small pasta shapes
1 1/2 cups frozen peas
3 teaspoons white miso
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast flakes
zest and juice of a lemon
salt, to taste
pinch of white pepper
2 tablespoons parsley, chopped

Cover the cashews in water and soak them for at least 4 hours.

Resume cooking when the cashews are ready. Bring a pot of water to boil and cook the pasta as directed on its packaging, adding the frozen peas to the pot for the last 4 minutes.

While the pasta is cooking, blend the cashews with 1/2 cup of their soaking water until creamy. Add the miso, nooch, lemon juice, salt and pepper and blend thoroughly. Taste and adjust the flavours to your liking.

Drain the pasta and peas, then return them to the pot. Stir in the cashew sauce and parsley. Serve the pasta in bowls, sprinkled with lemon zest.

Snickerdoodle cake

March 31, 2013

I took this Long Weekend At Home opportunity to dig into The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook's sweetest section, the bit I've been most keen on the whole time. It was tough but fun to choose amongst the cookies and pies and syrupy fruits, and eventually I went with the gooey cinnamon squares. I just couldn't imagine this gooey butter cake layer that Perelmen was so taken with - I imagined the texture of cheesecake and the flavour of vanilla in butter. The photograph kept me guessing, revealing little more than the crackly cinnamon-sugar top.

The vanilla part seemed so important to me that I bought a jar of fancy extract from the markets. It was so intense that it turned the gooey layer grey. Actually, I didn't really get my gooey layer at all - I guess I cooked it a little too long and it was just... more cake. A sweet super-vanilla-charged cake with a crackly snickerdoodle-style topping, best enjoyed with some fruit on the side.

Snickerdoodle cake
(slightly adapted from the gooey cinnamon squares
in Deb Perelman's The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook)

bottom layer
1 1/2 cups plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
115g butter, softened
3/4 cup castor sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup milk

middle layer
1/4 cup light corn syrup, golden syrup or honey
1/4 cup milk
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 1/4 cups plain flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
170g butter, softened
1 cup castor sugar
1 egg

top layer
2 tablespoons castor sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Preheat an oven to 180°C. Line a large rectangular baking dish with paper.

Start with the bottom layer. In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder and salt. In a larger bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until fluffy. Beat in the egg and milk until well combined, then gradually beat in the flour mixture. Drop big spoonfuls of the mixture across the baking dish, then use the back of a spoon to smooth it out into a single layer.

Next, the middle layer. In a small bowl, whisk together the syrup, milk and vanilla. In a medium bowl (I used the same one as above without washing), stir together the flour and salt. In a large mixing bowl (I used the previous one without washing), beat together the butter and sugar. Beat in the egg until well combined. Gradually add the flour mixture and liquid mixture in turns, beating as you go, until everything is well combined together. Drop big spoonfuls over this mixture over the bottom layer and the smooth it out into another single layer.

In a small bowl, stir together the sugar and cinnamon. Sprinkle it evenly across the top of the cake.

Bake the cake for 25-30 minutes, until the sugar topping has browned.

Plum & poppy seed muffins

March 21, 2013

In The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook, Deb Perelman confesses that she formulated seven muffin recipes before finally submitting this one. I wasn't quite sure what would mark a particular muffin as the best of seven but I was willing to find out, and pack the proceeds on a work-sanctioned road trip to north-western Victoria.

I guess it starts with an attention to detail that I don't quite have - two kinds of sugar, two kinds of flour, two kinds of fat, two kinds of flavouring. And one of those fats is browned butter, quite a stretch from the vegetable oil in so many other muffins. I'm not an experienced butter browner, and I kept a pretty close eye on mine, but still somehow panicked that I might have burnt it beyond use. Thankfully essjayeff was on hand twitterwise to encourage me onwards. After a few minutes cooling, my butter smelled a little like caramel and it did ultimately add a nice depth to the colour and flavour of these muffins.

The other thing going on here is fruit - lots and lots of fruit. This muffin batter is little more than a binder for a bag of plums. I really pushed it to the limit, erring upwards in my plum weighing and then omitting the fruit from two of the twelve muffins (due to allergy concerns). I just barely got away with it - my muffins did set through and have remained just on the pleasant side of soggy even a few days later.

In the end, I'm almost impressed that Perelman took a mere seven attempts to strike so close to muffin perfection.

Plum & poppy seed muffins 
(almost as instructed in The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook by Deb Perelman)

85g butter
1 egg
50g castor sugar
50g brown sugar
180g yoghurt
60g wholemeal flour
125g plain flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
pinch of ground cinnmon
pinch of ground nutmeg
2 tablespoons poppy seeds
390g plums, stones removed and flesh diced

Preheat an oven to 180°C and grease a muffin tray.

In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter. Swish it around occasionally and keep cooking it until it starts to brown. Take it off the heat and set it aside to cool.

In a large bowl, whisk together the egg and sugars. Stir in the browned butter and yoghurt.

In a smaller bowl, sift together the flours, baking powder and soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Stir in the poppy seeds. Pour these dry ingredients into the larger bowl of wet ingredients, stirring them together until just combined (a few lumps are OK). Fold in the diced plums.

Spoon the batter into the muffin tray to make 12 muffins. Bake them for 15-18 minutes, until golden and cooked through (use the skewer test). Let the muffins sit in the tray for a couple of minutes before gently transferring them to a rack.

____________

Ladies' Parlor

As advertised

Zucchini ribbons in almond pesto

December 30, 2012

My mum generously arranged to have The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook mailed to me for my birthday. While I always find Deb Perelman's baking recipes the most enticing, our holidays were warm and we weren't lacking for indulgence. Instead I bought some almonds and a lemon on our way home from the picnic and tried this light, summery zucchini salad for dinner.

Michael has never been a zucchini admirer, but he deemed these raw ribbons to be his new favourite way to eat the vegetable. Perhaps he'd had a touch of the sun, but actually I agree that this is pretty great. And so simple! There's no reason why we shouldn't make any kind of pesto we want, really, and I'll not judge anyone who cuts prep time down to 2 minutes by using a few tablespoons of their favourite jarred pesto.

Zucchini ribbons in almond pesto
(slightly adapted from The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook by Deb Perelman)

2 tablespoons roasted almonds
1 tablespoon grated parmesan cheese
shake of garlic powder
pinch of chilli flakes
squeeze of lemon juice
pinch of salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 medium zucchinis (about 300g)

In a spice grinder or similar, blend together the almonds, parmesan, garlic and chilli to a coarse meal. Stir in the lemon juice, salt and oil (my grinder didn't play nice here, so I reckon simple stirring should do). Spoon the dressing into the bottom of a bowl.

Use a vegetable peeler to slice the zucchini into ribbons, and stack them on top of the dressing in the bowl. Lightly toss the zucchini through the dressing, trying to evenly coat the ribbons in pesto. Serve it up!