It’s gone cold again so I’m perfecting the art of typing whilst hugging a hot water bottle.
I’m warming my spirits with cookery pages filled with summer tastes and aromas. Warm garden scented tomatoes, basil, thyme, grassy green olive oil. Travel books transport you to different places, cookery books to different seasons.
Today I’m Eating My Greens with Sophie Grigson. Published in 1993, the book accompanied a 16 part TV series which I didn’t think I’d seen until I remembered Clarissa Dickson Wright and Cardoons.
Then, yet to become one of ‘Two Fat Ladies’, CDW was running Books for Cooks in London and appeared in this series as uncontested Cardoon champion. The Cardoon being a lost in the mists of time vegetable, akin to a giant edible thistle.
What I remember most is a clip of her driving away from her vegetable patch, a waving Cardoon forest strapped to the roof of her engulfed and barely visible car. A Cardoon caper of the kind dreamt up by Dad’s Army Home Guard as the lynchpin of a bumbled, decoy operation.
However Walmington-on-sea is not the place for a cold January day so, off to warmer places to see what’s on our tomato tasting feast today.
Winter sun with Moroccan Salad. Chargrilled green peppers – blistered skins removed, chopped and mixed with skinned, deseeded and chopped tomatoes tossed in a olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, cumin and fresh parsley dressing.
Summer in France with Tarte fine a la Tomate et au Pistou.
A thin disc of puff pastry spread with chopped basil and tomato puree mixed into olive oil and topped with fresh tomato slices and thyme. Imagine the smell and warmth coming from the hot oven as they’re ready in 10 minutes.
On to Italy, chasing the sun down into Tuscany. Pappa al Pomodoro – Bread and Tomato Soup.
And another Stuffed Tomato recipe – Pomodori Farciti for the collection.
Breadcrumbs, garlic, parsley, capers, the juicy bits from the scooped out tomatoes mixed with olive oil, put back into the tomatoes, dusted with grated parmesan and sent to sizzle and brown in a hot oven.
Basic Tomato Sauce. A base of olive oil, onion & garlic with tomatoes – fresh (skinned, deseeded, roughly chopped), tomato paste and basil.
Ring the changes all summer long with differing herbs, adding chilli or ginger, more garlic or none, glugging in a glass of red or white or the juice of an orange. Leave rough and chunky or sieve/liquidise for a smoother sauce.
And then back to the Village Hall in Walmington for a traditional dish with a twist – Summer Pudding but savoury, made with tomatoes and peppers.
Line a pudding basin with bread add the filling – a cooked mixture of onions, garlic, red and green peppers, fresh tomatoes (skinned and chopped), tomato puree, thyme, red wine vinegar and a spoonful of sugar. Cover the top with more bread, lay a plate on top of the basin, weight it down and leave overnight in the fridge.
Eat the next day when the sun is high in the sky.
