Harissa explosion salad

What I really love about this salad is that each mouthful is an adventure in texture, conducted while taste buds are thoroughly stimulated.

You need:

·         One pickled red pepper, diced

·         As many jarred mushrooms as you can handle (the ones in oil)

·         A sprinkling of toasted sunflower seeds, then some more

·         Two handfuls of lettuce, finely shredded

For the dressing:

·         An almost empty jar of harissa – about a teaspoon left

·         Olive oil to fill the jar (about a tablespoon and a half)

·         A dash of vinegar (about a dessert spoon and a half)

Serve with:

·         Cous cous bake

·         Hardy bread

Ok, so here’s what you do – spread the lettuce over a plate and add mushrooms, pepper, and most of the seeds. Add the liquids to the harissa and shake up. Pour some dressing on it and mix it up well. Sprinkle the remaining seeds over the salad, serve with cous cous bake and bread and enjoy!

~Gwen

Eating out in Machynlleth: The Quarry Cafe

I used to work here, so it’s always a bit strange coming back as a customer. The Quarry Café is responsible for quite a lot of my cooking style, and I find their food very comforting. Some things have been the same since it started in the 70’s, like the thick wholewheat pizza covered in so much cheese your heart almost stops just looking at it. The very best thing in my opinion are the baked potatoes – they go in the oven around 9am, and so come lunch time they have been cooking in their own skins for a good few hours so the flesh is sweet and soft and the skin is soft and starting to fall away. Perfect.

This one was served with humus – made on site to an age old recipe –unchanged since hippy began, and yet different every time. Just one of the café’s charms! This one was roughly blended and extremely garlicky. Once when I was washing up in the kitchen, my colleague who was serving out front came in with a bewildered look on his face and said “a woman just made a complaint because she found a chickpea in her hummus.” Erm…

But if you think that’s dim witted, how about the time when a tourist excitedly told me about the ‘vegetarian butchers’ a few doors down - there’s a sign in the window which reads:

“All the meat in this shop is vegetarian. The animals eat the green green grass and we just speed up the process.”

Somehow this woman had failed to see the carcasses on show, or grasp that the meat was still made from animals, and wanted to tell me what a great town it was where even meat is actually vegetarian. Although I’ve never really understood the logic of this notice, I do admire the philosophy behind the statement. If the majority of the meat trade were like this enterprise, then the world would be a much better place. It’s a family run business, with its own abbatoir which only sources from local farms. They pride themselves on traceability, and you can ask for the contact details of the farmer who reared the pig who was made into your herb chipolata. Check it: http://www.wil-lloyd.co.uk/philosophy.htm

So, back to the meat-free lunch… my potato was complimented by an interesting salad of roast butternut squash, tangerine, dry roast cashews and desiccated coconut. It was delicious, and really good to have an experimental salad. Peeking out from behind the potato there is a bit of red onion coleslaw, made with homemade vegan mayonnaise. The whole thing was pretty damn tasty, in fact, the only thing that made it better was eating the skin with my fingers.

Tofu, Mushroom and Olive Scramble

This was an experiment well worth undertaking.

I mashed a block of plain tofu with a fork and sprinkled about a teaspoon each of bouillon and inactive yeast. Next I fried some diced mushrooms in a very small amount of oil, leaving a lid on them to keep the moisture in. When they started to brown I added the tofu mixture and a few halved olives. That's it!

This time I ate it with boiled potatoes, salad and a healthy dollop of hummous. Tomorrow I will have the other half in a pitta bread for my lunch.

Tomato, Mozzarella and Strawberry Salad with Fresh Basil

Does what it says on the tin. Lovely.

Serving suggestion: eat with hot buttered toast.

Mozzarella and Tomato Salad with Bruschetta.

Like all Italian food, the secret of this dish is the quality of the ingredients. This one was served with a mixed green salad and sprouted sunflower seeds.

Cut up the tomatoes and mozzarella and arrange them on the plates. Rub the basil between your fingers to release the flavour. Sprinkle it over the mozzarella and tomato, then add salt, freshly crushed black pepper, olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Toast the bread then rub it with a clove of garlic. Add a little olive oil, salt and pepper and you have a very tasty piece of bread which could be called a bruschetta.