This to me is pure heaven on a plate. Roasted butternut squash, carrot, with baby leaf salad and sous sous. This has become a go to meal for me these days. Butternut squashes are very in season now as are carrots. Very simple to make. Just cut up the butternut squash into bite sized pieces and along withe the carrots, drizzle olive oil over them and sprinkle sea salt over them and roast in a hot oven until you see the tips of the veggies begin to char. Couscous is even easier to make. One cup of couscous in a bowl and add one cup of boiling water and leave to stand for around five minutes. Then fluff with a fork. iv’e added cherry tomatoes, red onion and baby leaf salad to complete this recipe. Quite often I also drizzle some French dressing over the salad for even more of a flavour hit but it’s delicious on it’s own.
main course
EVERYBODY LOVES PIZZA, DON’T THEY?
It says it all in the title really. But there are those out there who simply do not like pizza. I suspect it’s because they have never made their own pizza but have always bought those horrible massed produced frozen ones from the supermarket. Even when you are just buying the base to put your own topping on your not getting that real pizza taste. Here at Knobbly Plate we absolutely love our pizza’s. They are a brilliant way to use up leftover vegetables and so so simple to make as you will see. They can also be as affordable as you like from costing just a few pence to those of you who like to add those special ingredients such as fresh anchovies and capers where the cost goes up to maybe a whole £1 for a 12 inch pizza.
Some historical facts for you now….. Here at Knobbly Plate we think facts 6 & 7 fit in with our philosophy perfectly.
- The word “Pizza” was first documented in the Italian city of Gaeta in 997 AD.
- The ancestors of modern-day pizzas were simple flat breads, known asfoccasia in Italy that were sprinkled with different toppings.
- Foods similar to pizza can be traced back to the New Stone Age Period.
- Early pizzas were often sweet dishes, not savoury!
- Many historical records show that people have been adding different ingredients to bread to make it more appetizing.
- Most would never guess it, but pizza originally started off as a dish for poor people, sold in the streets and not a food for upper class people.
- It was in the 18th century that the poor around the area of Naples got accustomed to adding tomatoes to their yeast-based flat bread, and that’s how the modern pizza began!
- Today’s pizzas are characterized by a soft flatbread base, tomatoes and cheese.
- Pizza was introduced to the United States with the arrival of Italian immigrants in the 19th century.
- The first pizzeria in the United States was opened by Vincent Bruno in Chicago, in the year 1903.
- For the Base
- 10g Instant Yeast
- 10g Salt
- 300g Strong White Flour
- 200ml Warm Water
- For the Topping
- 400g Tinned Tomatoes
- 2 Garlic Cloves
- 1 Ball Mozzarella
- Few courgette ribbons( I used 6 on a 12 inch pizza)
- ½ Red Pepper
- ½ Red Onion
- Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- Handful Torn Basil Leaves
- In a bowl mix together the flour salt and yeast.
- Add the water and mix into a dough. Knead the dough until silky smooth and it forms a ball.
- Cover and leave to prove in a warm place until doubles in size.
- Roll out to 12 inches on a floured surface and place on your pizza try.
- Whilst the dough is proving make your tomato sauce by heating the tomatoes and crushed garlic until the tomatoes have thickened.
- Spread on to the pizza base.
- Scatter your toppings on top and bake in a very hot oven Gas Mark 9 for around 10mins until the pizza has puffed up and is bubbling.
Quinoa Salad with Beans, Peaches & Tofu
I came across this recipe when I was looking through Food Gawker. It’s an amazing resource for deciding what to cook each day by just searching with the ingredient you have. That is if I haven’t got an idea of my own to use which can be surprisingly often. The recipe I found was Super Grains Salad with Peaches, Tofu and a Fresh Mint Vinaigrette from Petit World Citizen and with a few tweaks I managed to turn it into a Knobbly Plate idea.
Now being a man as you know when it comes to salads I like mine to be quite substantial so adding bits on top for me has always been a good idea. In this case as I had some green beans I decided to blanche and add them to the salad. I also added some of my own cherry tomatoes from the garden but I will price those up as if I bought them for the final reckoning. To make it as affordable as possible I also switched the mint vinaigrette for a splash of French dressing that came out of a bottle that was lurking in my fridge. I know fresh tastes better but like you I absolutely have to watch the pennies and every penny saved is a blessing.
For the grains I used a mix that I bought from Tesco’s of red and white quinoa with bulgur wheat thrown in and it seemed to work very well. So what did the dish cost me to make? Well all in all and buying tinned peaches instead of fresh ones I managed to make this dish for a total of £4.59 which is a bit expensive by Knobbly plate standards but it will feed 4 people so that’s £1.14 per person. I think this dish illustrates very well the fact that if you eat seasonal produce then you can keep the price down. Salad vegetables are on the way out now and so they are starting to rise in price. As autumn approaches we are coming into the roots season so I shall need to be thinking more about what I can make with them. It was nice however to have just one more salad. Thank you summer for a wonderful season.
- 100g Quinoa Cooked According to Instructions
- 200g Marinated Tofu Sliced
- Handful of Green Beans Blanched
- 1 Red Onion Finely Sliced
- Handful of Seasonal Salad Leaves
- 480g Tin Sliced Peaches
- 12 Cherry Tomatoes
- ½ Cucumber Sliced
- 4 tbs French Dressing
- Mix all the ingredients together and drizzle over the salad dressing.
- Season with salt and pepper.