Three alternatives to ketchup and spaghetti

Well, it’s the end of the month again. Worse, it’s exam time. So not only do you lack money. You also have little time. Hence this frugal blog post: no pictures, no poems and no-pennies recipes (almost) – written as I wait for my apple tart to cook.

Of course, when I were a lass, ketchup and spaghetti was what we ate at such times, shivering in shared houses as the mould crept across the ceiling. Aye, it were look-chérie!

But I understand that the youth of today have more exotic tastes, so here are three alternatives:

• Ketchup and rice
• Dog food
• Ketchup and string.

Only kidding. After all dog food and string have become so expensive these days. Here are my real suggestions.

1. Pasta, pesto and baked beans

This is one of my favourite meals, so it’s more of a reminder than a recipe. The proportions roughly are 125g of pasta, a quarter of a small jar of pesto and a half a standard can of Heinz per person. And if you have the misfortune to be a student in a country where there are no Heinz beans… well, scour the Internet until you find someone like the wonderful Clarence from Clarence and Cripps, who imports and dispatches them at astonishingly reasonable rates.

2. Pasta, butter and grated cheese

Another classic. Foodie types may witter on about half-parmesan-half-pecorino, but I think bog-standard, bagged’ngrated, industrial Emmental works best. The trick is to put plenty of butter, salt and pepper ­­– and to stir your drained pasta with the butter and cheese back on the heat ever-so-briefly to make sure the cheese melts. Amounts of everything to be determined by instinct and availability.

3. Love-hate spaghetti (aka pasta with marmite… and butter of course)

Yes, it sounds disgusting even to marmite lovers, but domestic goddess, Nigella said it worked – and it does. Shame her reputation has taken a bit of bashing this last week, but that was for substances other than yeasty spreads. The trick again is plenty of butter. Nigella suggests 50 grammes of butter for 375 gees of pasta, but I usually put at least 25 grammes for one serving of spag, with a small spoonful of marmite. The method is to melt the butter in a saucepan, then to stir in the marmite and mix, before chucking in the pasta and stirring it around. Add nothing more for sheer heaven on a plate.

And if you have the misfortune to be a student in a country where there is no marmite… well, Clarence stocks it.

Quiz question of the week

Q: How do you tell when you have passed definitively from the old world to the new?

A: When you use the term “care package” to describe the box of beans and chocolate hobnobs your mother sends you. Still, better than calling it a “tuck parcel”, I suppose.

Tip of the week

If your apple tart burns slightly while you are writing a blog, simply sprinkle it with icing sugar and no one will know. 

Cullen skink

Scotland has given so much to the world: bagpipes, man-skirts and Michael Gove to name just a few examples. My personal favourite, though, is cullen skink, the comfortingly creamy smoked-haddock soup. So imagine my joy when I heard about the recent rediscovery of a Robbie Burns poem dedicated to the delicacy! Of course, this juvenile verse lacks the polish of his classics, ‘To a Mouse’, ‘To a Louse’ and even ‘Address to a Haggis’. But it captures my feelings about cullen skink quite uncannily.

To a soup
On drinking a bowl of cullen skink

The best laid ’cipes o’ mams an’ men

Gang aft a-gley

But “a finer soup than the skink o’ Cullen”?

Tha’ I canna say.

Tatties an’ alliums, thou art blest

When mashit wi’ milk in the soup that’s best –

All cozyin’ up tae the fish so yeller

(I ken, I ken, ’tis a blastit smeller).

Cawl, chowder, bouillabaisse,

Minestrone, wonton… och, they’re less

Than home’s auldest kindness o’ cup.

Aye, life tastes better when I thee sup!

O cullen skink,

Ye may wel stink

O’ smokit wee haddock fishies.

But pleasure ye spread

An’ put worries ta bed,

Wen steamin’ in ma ikea china dishies.

Leekie all a’cock,

Teacek o’ tunnock,

Girders wrought intae irn bru,

Haggis, porridge, deep frite marsbar too…

Ium! We hae meat and we can eat.

Sae let the Lord be thankit.

More! We hae skink and we can drink

God’s culinary comfort blanket.

Enough bad poetry. Bring on the recipe…

Takes: about 40 mins

Serves: three as a main course if you’re generous with the bread

Ingredients

About 400 grammes of smoked haddock fillets (preferably not the bright yellow kind, despite what the poem says) – or other smoked white fish

Something from the allium family (one medium-sized onion or two leeks – or possibly even a small bunch of spring onions)

Two biggish tatties (that’s potatoes to us Sassenachs)

A generous knob of butter

About 300 ml of water (OK I admit it, I usually use half white wine, half water)

About 500 ml of milk (OK, I admit it, I usually use half cream, half milk)

Something green like a bit of chopped parsley, chives or tarragon (optional)

Salt (probably not much, as smoked fish can be salty) and pepper

Method

Melt the butter in a medium-sized saucepan over low heat. Meanwhile, chop up the onion. (If using leeks, remove the tough outer layers and the topmost ends, slice up what’s left and wash off any grit.) Then fry the onion bits (or leeks) gently in the butter for about ten minutes, so that they go translucent and soft without going brown.

While the onions are cooking, put the fish in a small saucepan, cover with the cold water and bring to the boil. After a couple of minutes’ simmering, the fish should be cooked – that is, opaque, and easy to flake and skin. Take the fish out of the water (but don’t throw this precious cooking liquid away), remove the skin and flake it up with a fork.

You should still have time to scrub your two potatoes and cut them into 1–1.5 cm cubes before the onions have finished cooking. If not, hoots mon!, they just can fry a little longer.

Once the onions are cooked, add the potato cubes, stir them round and fry for a minute or two. Now add the cooking liquid from the haddock, bring back to the boil, put the lid on and simmer until the potatoes are well mashable (about 25 mins).

Now add the milk (and/or crème fraîche or sour cream) and bring back to the boil.

At this point, you’re pretty much done. You can either bung in the flaked haddock and mash the whole lot with a masher or you can liquidise the mixture with a hand blender, before stirring in the haddock. 

But I think good old Felicity Cloake has got it just right in her Guardian column. She takes out a large spoonful of potato and onion and replaces it with half the haddock, before blending. Then she stirs in the reserved potato and haddock bits to give some pleasing lumps.

Garnish with green stuff and eat with crusty bread or toast. Life will immediately seem better.



Tip of the day
You can give your cullen skink some fancy new-world name like "smoked haddock chowder", but it will immediately cease to be comfort food. Same goes for Frenchifying. Hachis parmentier and riz au lait are simply nowhere near as feel-good as shepherd's pie or rice pudding.

The adventures of Super-Veg

Everyone knows that an ordinary tin of tomatoes and an ordinary any vegetable will make, when combined, an acceptable pasta sauce. But there is something you can add to an ordinary tin of tomatoes to turn it into the most delectable pasta sauce ever. Is it a herb? Is it a grain? No, it’s a super-vegetable.

From mountain rescue to bleeding radiators...

From snatching ordinary any vegetables from the jaws of evil predators...

To tackling bad-ass books...

Super-Veg has some very special powers. But when he’s done saving the world, he flies away home to a Simple Sicilian peasant existence (also known as Norma life).

Seriously, though, aubergines (or are they “eggplants” where you live?) do have some wondrous properties. Almost meaty at times, they are capable of absorbing huge quantities of olive oil when fried – or of shrinking to about half their original size when roasted. Curiously too, they taste nicest when burned and served with tomatoes… hence these two recipes for pasta alla Norma (aka "simple Sicilian spaghetti").

Recipe 1: pasta alla Norma

Takes about half an hour and makes three or four servings.

Ingredients

• 1 to 2 aubergines
•  2 or 3 cloves of garlic
• 1 tin of tomatoes (400g)
• 1 slab of feta cheese (200g)
•  Olive oil for frying
• Salt and pepper for seasoning
• Basil or oregano for extra flavour (optional)
• Pasta to serve

Method

Slice up your aubergines. Jamie Oliver reckons they should be this shape and I tend to agree (but I’ve no idea why it's better than rounds).

Put a generous sploosh of olive oil in a large non-stick frying pan, heat until very hot and fry your aubergine slices on both sides until your smoke alarm goes off. Honestly, they really do taste nicer burned.

You’ll probably need two or three rounds of frying to get through all the slices, adding oil each time (although they do start to release oil once cooked). Be careful when you add more oil and slices, as – if the pan is hot enough – the little blighters will start spitting at you. Also, the second batch will probably cook a lot faster than the first.

Once all your slices are fried, let the pan cool down, while you chop up the garlic. Add more oil if there’s none left in the pan and fry the chopped garlic gently for a couple of minutes (You may be able to do this off the heat if you get them in the pan before it cools down completely. On the other hand, if you’re impatient and add it too soon, your garlic will burn – and unlike aubergines, garlic definitely doesn’t improve when browned.)

Now add the tin of tomatoes and simmer gently for about five minutes, still on a lowish-to-medium heat. If you’re using dried herbs add a sprinkling of them now and stir in. Meanwhile, cut up your feta cheese into cubes or crumble it roughly.

 Add the singed aubergine slices to the pan and stir them around. Cook for another couple of minutes until they’re hot again, then add the feta and fresh herbs (if using). Stir to break up the cheese, heat through and season to taste with pepper and possibly a little salt (depending on how salty your feta is).

Add to pasta for a truly delectable experience.

Recipe 2: Even simpler Sicilian

Takes about an hour and makes three or four servings.

Ingredients

As above.

Method

This version is, truth be known, slightly less yummy and takes up to twice the time, compared with the first recipe. But it’s easier on your smoke-alarm batteries, kinder on your neighbours’ eardrums and doesn’t spit at you. Also, you can go tackle a bad-ass book, while it’s cooking (but do keep an eye on it, just in case).

Heat your oven to about 200 degrees centigrade. Chop your aubergine into cubes, place in an oven-proof tray, sploosh with olive oil, stir to coat and put in the oven. After about 15 minutes take it out, give it a stir and maybe add another sploosh of oil if the cubes are looking dry.

After another 15 minutes, add the garlic – finely sliced (don’t ask me why, it’s nicer sliced than chopped if roasted) – and stir, before putting back in the oven. The cubes of aubergine should be browning nicely by now.

After another 10 minutes, the aubergine should be well browned and the garlic cooked. Now add the tomatoes and dried herbs if using. Heat through in the oven for about 5 minutes. Then stir in the feta (cubed or crumbled) and fresh herbs (if using) and pop back in the oven. After another 5 minutes, it should all be hot, the feta should have melted in and you can eat it with pasta, just like before.

Tip of the week

Aubergine (and mushrooms for that matter) can be diced up nice and small and fried with onions to create a kind of student version of mincemeat – which you can use as the base for chilli sin carne or faux Bolognese sauce. Ideal for those evenings when you just can't look another lentil in the eye.

A cheesy saga

Once, two siblings of the brassica (aka cabbage) family were living a bucolic existence. She was complex and beautiful – fractal even at times.

 

Unashamedly romanesco, she also had rather intellectual leanings – given her rustic background.

He was sturdier and simpler, with a taste for far less challenging pursuits.

But despite their differences, they were family, they were organic and everything in the garden was lovely. Sometimes life really was a bed of roses.

Other times were just green and idyllic.

Then one day they both drowned – deliciously – in cheese sauce. The end.

The magic moral of this tragic tale is that even cauliflower and broccoli become heavenly when coated in cheese sauce. The same goes for that most horrid of pastas: macaroni. The weird thing is that cauliflower and macaroni taste yummier in cheese sauce than regular nice foods do. The trick is to go heavy on the sauce, light on the stuff inside it and generous with the browning on top. Here’s how you make the sauce.

Cheese sauce

Takes about 15 minutes and coats enough pasta and/or vegetables for about three main-course servings.

Ingredients

• 2 ounces or 100 grammes of butter
• 2 ounces or 100 grammes of plain flour
• 1 pint (an ye olde worlde British pint, which is 20 fluid ounces) or just over half a litre of milk
• 4 ounces or 200 grammes of grated cheese (as strong as possible) – plus an extra ounce or two to give your dish a brown, bubbling topping… mmmm
• salt, pepper and optional spoonful of mustard to taste

Melt the butter on a low to medium heat.

Stir in the flour to make a paste and cook gently for a minute or two.

Now pour in a sploosh of milk and stir into the paste until it’s smooth again. Now pour in another sploosh and repeat. Repeat again. And again.

Carrying on doing this until all the milk is absorbed and the mixture is too liquid to be called sauce. This is fairly tedious, especially at the beginning. Sometimes at the beginning too, the paste gets thicker before it gets thinner (some science-defying kitchen magic that I don’t quite understand). But towards the end each sploosh is easy and quick.

Once the milk is all in the pan, heat gently stirring occasionally – or heat more vigorously stirring all the time – until the sauce thickens. Then simmer gently for a minute or so.

Now, like a good fifties housewife, you know how to make a white sauce. Or, as we know it in foodier, less housewifely times béchamel sauce (of lasagne fame).

You can turn your béchamel into cheese sauce by stirring in the grated cheese (and some mustard if you like). Or you can turn it into parsley sauce by mixing in – you guessed it – chopped parsley. Or simply grate in some nutmeg for a slightly sophisticated flavour. But only cheese sauce can be used to make cauliflower or macaroni cheese, which you do as follows…

Take some vegetables or macaroni. The one-pint-of-milk sauce recipe is enough for a large cauliflower (ordinary or romanesco) and a stump of broccoli. Or it will do 300 grammes of macaroni. Alternatively 200 grammes of macaroni and a stump of broccoli will make broccaroni cheese, which is a healthy compromise. The method is obvious, but I’ll tell you anyway.

Cook your florets of vegetables and/or macaroni in boiling water (save time by doing it while you make your sauce). Timings are about 5 minutes for broccoli, up to 10 minutes for cauliflower (depends on how big you make your florets) and as on the packet for the pasta. Then put them in an ovenproof dish, pour over the sauce, stir to mix/coat if necessary and top with the additional grated cheese (and breadcrumbs if you want to add a bit of crunch). Heat in a hot oven for about 15 to 20 minutes. Or bubble under the grill for about 5 mins, keeping a watchful eye over it.

Thank you for being a saucier’s apprentice.

In next week’s brassic classic…

Marcel Sprout goes in search of the Turnip Perdu.

Tip of the week

Speed up your sauce-making and reduce the likelihood of lumps by heating the milk first. And if it does go lumpy, simply deploy the magic wand that is your hand blender.

End-of-the-month soup

This recipe is for those grim weeks when your pesky parents haven’t advanced next month's allowance and you have no dollars left to buy food. Alternatively you can use it when you’ve been spending too lavishly on creamy-soft leather satchels and dubious designer haircuts.

Beware, though. This soup is just like oysters. If there’s no R in the month, do not eat it. That's because it's a vacation month, so your pesky parents should be providing for you directly – from bourgeois emporia or overpriced gastropubs.

Ingredients

• 1 onion
• 6 ounces of red lentils
• 1 400-gramme can of tomatoes (doesn’t matter if it’s a bit bigger)
• A knob of butter (or a zizi of oil)
• A stock cube
• Herbs and/or spices – try cumin (ground or seeds), ground coriander (tastes nothing like the leaf, honest!), curry powder or other mixture (such as garam masala), basil, oregano, thyme... whatevs
• Salt and pepper

The cupboard really was bare

Method

Takes 40 minutes or so and lasts for at least three meals (unless you have company)

Slice up the onion and fry it gently in butter or oil in a medium saucepan. After about 5 minutes it should be transparent. Now add the lentils and toast them for a bit. If using spices, fling in about a teaspoon of them now and fry gently with the lentils for a minute or so. Pour in the can of tomatoes, then use the tin to measure out three cansful of water. Fling them in too. Bring to the boil, add the stock cube (and dried herbs if using) and stir. Then simmer on a low heat with the lid on for about half an hour – or until the lentils have turned to a comforting mush. If using fresh herbs (yes, unlikely I know, but you might have a droopy basil plant on your windowsill) add them at the end and simmer for another minute or two. Then blend with your hand blender. Or not as the case may be.  Adjust the taste with salt’n pepper and the consistency with water if you want to.

Soup simmering

Soup blended

Serving suggestion

How many differences can you spot?

Variants

1. Fling in any tired vegetables that may be lurking with intent to go mouldy at the bottom of your fridge.
2. If feeling really poor, leave out the tomatoes and measure the water with something other than the empty can.
3. If feeling really, really poor leave out the tomatoes, use less water, call it dal and eat with Tesco Everyday Value rice (6p a serving) or the Canadian equivalent.

Tip of the week

You can eat this any time in the month, not just at the end. Alternatively eat it all month long and spend the money you save on coiffing your lovely locks or quaffing many fine artisanal beers.

Bonus: joke of the week

What did the maple tree say to the slouching basil plant?

Syrup!

What did the basil plant reply?

Quit pesto-ing me.

OK, I'll get my coat and go to the gastropub.

5 things to do with a special-offer sweet potato

Well you asked...

1. Boil it
And mash it. Peel, cut into chunks, put in a saucepan, cover with water, add a pinch of salt and bring to the boil. After about 15 minutes it should be soft enough to mash (but check by sticking a knife into it). Mash with butter, add salt'n pepper to taste and enjoy on its own as comfort food or as an accompaniment to pretty much anything.

2. Roast it
Heat the oven to about 200 degrees Celsius. Peel then cut up your sweet potato (or yam, as I think they call it in your part of the world) into shapes of your liking (chips, rounds, cubes, moons...). Then put it in an ovenproof dish, sprinkle with salt and pepper, add a glug of olive oil and stir to coat. I even added a sploosh of maple syrup for a Canadian twist. Roast for about half an hour or until browned on the outside and soft on the inside.

3. Soup it
Chop up an onion and fry gently in butter (and a saucepan, obviously) for about 5 minutes or until transparent-looking. While that's going on peel and chop up your sweet potato. Then add it to the onion, stir, fry for a minute or two more and cover completely with water. Bring to the boil and add half a stock cube. Put a lid on the saucepan, reduce to a simmer and cook until the potato is well soft (about 20 mins). Then add a couple of large dollops of cream, sour cream or crème fraîche (or a generous splash of milk).

Bring back to a simmer and cook for another 5 mins or so. It may curdle, but don't worry – it'll all recombine on blending... which is what you do next. Season to taste and add a bit of water or milk if it's too thick.

All sorts of variants are possible. You can combine with carrots and/or potatoes to make your sweet potato stretch further. You can add any herbs you want. You can even add a chopped red chilli, lime juice and (optional) coriander for a Thai twist.

4. Chilli it
Recipe to follow some other time. Suffice to say, sweet potato is brilliant in a veggie chilli or curry, because it's got enough starchiness to add substance, but not so much that you feel over-stodged eating it with rice or bread. In many ways, a yam combines the best features of a carrot and a potato – and cooks quicker than either of them. (By the way, the sweet potato is the large orange pieces in the photo – the small ones are carrots.)


5. Art it
The possibilities are endless...

In conclusion...
As so often in life, simplest is best. My expert tasters preferred their sweet potato boiled and mashed with butter. There's nothing more to say, except perhaps "My yam, my yam!" (and I used to be such a good punner in my youth).

Tip of the week
Stuck for a verb? Simply use a noun. Stuck for a carrot or a potato? Simply use a yam.

Cheezy chips and other stories

I've been feeling a bit guilty about posting that nice picture of an omelette, chips and salad without telling you how to make the chips and salad. Here's the picture again...

My even guiltier secret is that the chips are 100% faux. And the salad came from a bag. The magic bit is that by starting from raw potatoes and making your own dressing, you can achieve the perfect illusion of authenticity. And the salad dressing is a bit of saucy sorcery in itself.

Salad dressing (takes a matter of minutes)

Ingredients

• Extra virgin olive oil
• Wine vinegar (red or white) or balsamic if you prefer
• Sugar, preferably brown
• Mustard (preferably Dijon or wholegrain)
• Salt and pepper
• Most important of all, a jam jar or similar (preferably straight-sided, but Bonne-Maman-shaped will do)

Method

Pour about two fingers of olive oil into the jam jar. Now add about one finger of vinegar. The vinegar will sink to the bottom and the two ingredients will remain completely separate. Put the lid on and shake 'em up for a laugh. Then marvel as they separate again. As in your friendly neighbouring world super-power, nothing can bring the two incompatible factions together.

Vinegar sinks, oil floats.

Remove lid. Now add a generous teaspoonful of sugar and a teaspoonful of mustard, along with salt and pepper to taste. Put the lid back on and shake vigorously again, uttering magic words of your choosing.

Now your dressing should be thickened and fully combined into a delicious vinaigrette that you can pour over leaves or cooked vegetables to create a healthy side dish. Huzzaaah! Suck on that Harry Potter. And oh, would you believe it? Since I started writing this, your squabbling next-door neighbours have negotiated a compromise. The US government is open again. Hurrah, as well as Huzzaah!

Miraculous! Now they're inseparable and thick as thieves.

As for the salad dressing we have just made, it will keep for at least a week in its sealed jar in the fridge. Does the magic never end? 

Homemade oven chips (takes 1 hour)

Ingredients

• Potatoes (as many as you want to eat)
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Salt
• Optional rosemary leaves (you can always steal a sprig from a front garden or ornamental shrubbery if you can't bring yourself to buy herbs in a continent that think they're called urbs)

Method

Heat your oven to about 200 degrees Celsius. Clean your potatoes, preferably with a vegetable brush and some water – or peel them if you must. Cut into chunky chip shapes (quarter small potatoes lengthwise, while large ones will need to be cut into eighths or smaller). Put them into an ovenproof dish in a fairly thin layer, glug over some olive oil, sprinkle with salt (and rosemary leaves if using) and stir up to coat the chips in oil.

Raw oven chips. Warning, do not eat. Yet.

Put them in the oven for 55 minutes or so. If you want to make it really complicated you can stir them about half way through to brown them more evenly.

Suck on that Mr McCain. Easy as cheesy peas. Talking of which, you can transform your chips into highly alliterative cheeky chunky cheezy chips... and thus your two accompaniments will turn magically into a nutritionally balanced meal for the impoverished and/or lazy student.

Cheezy chips (takes 1 hour)

Ingredients

• Same as above
• A geneous handful of grated cheddar-like cheese from the dairy aisle – as strong as you can get it (O Canada, terre de honte laitière)

Method

Also same as above. Just add the cheese by sprinkling it over the chips about 10 minutes before the end of cooking time. Better still, cook enough chips for two meals, then reheat the left-overs the next evening with cheese on top.

Cheese before cooking.

Cheese after cooking.

Tip of the week

Banish the aroma of feet from your studio apartment by cooking cheese. Also, if you wait ages for a recipe, three will come along all at once.

Un oeuf is never enough

But with deux oeufs, you won’t want dessert – that is, if you turn them into a yummy omelette. Eggs really are one of nature’s miracles. And a properly cooked omelette is kitchen magic at its most wondrous Here’s how you do it…

Ingredients

• 2 eggs (or 3 if you’re really hungry)
• Sploosh of milk
• Salt, pepper
• Knob of butter to fry
• Filling (optional): ham, grated cheese, chopped herbs, fried mushrooms or use your imagination

Allow 5 minutes plus preparation time for filling and accompaniment.

Method

Break the eggs into a bowl. Add the sploosh of milk and the salt and pepper.

Find a small non-stick frying pan. Turn up your ring nice and hot. Melt your knob until it sizzles (fnar, fnar). While that’s happening, beat your eggy mixture with a fork. Tip it into the pan. As soon as the edges start to set, push the set parts into the centre and tilt the pan to replace them with runny stuff. Continue until you only have a small amount of runny stuff on top. This only takes a couple of minutes.

Remove swiftly from the heat, put your filling on top and fold over. Slide onto a plate. It doesn’t matter if it breaks. It still tastes the same. And it tastes even better if you add home-made oven chips and salad.

Tip of the week

One egg really is enough if you boil it and add soldiers. Or fry it and put on a piece of toast. Oh, and you will look cooler if you learn to break an egg with one hand. 

Roasted Mediterranean vegetables

I realise that peppers and courgettes aren’t your favourite vegetables, but they are delicious and go all caramelised when roasted with olive oil. They’re all the more delicious if (a) you’re not paying extra for your electricity bill and (b) you know the electricity you’re squandering by turning your oven on is hydro-generated and therefore even greener than a courgette.

Here in Europe, these vegetables are in season, so they’re nice and cheap too. Hugh Furry-Whittingtoff was going on about them in The Guardian a couple of weekends ago. I don’t know about Canada. (I suppose nothing will be in season soon.) Anyway, here’s a recipe.

Ingredients (serves 1 or 2 or 1 person twice)

• 1 onion
• 1 red pepper
• 1 green pepper
• 1 courgette (optional)
• 1 punnet of cherry tomatoes (optional)
• olive oil
• balsamic vinegar
• salt, pepper

Takes about 50 minutes, but you can forget about it for much of that time

Method

Preheat the oven to quite hot (about 200 centigrade = 400 Fahrenheit = 473.15 Kelvin).

Cut the onion into quarters. Remove the skin, root, stalk and any tough outer layers. Cut the quarters into halves and break up the layers. Put in an ovenproof dish. Wash the peppers and cut them into quarters. Remove the stalk, seeds and white pithy bits. Tap the peppers on the sink to get rid of any lingering seeds. Cut the quarters into slices about 3 cm wide. Add to the dish with the onions. Slice the courgette into half-centimetre rounds and add to the dish too.

Sprinkle generously with salt, splosh with olive oil, stir to coat everything with the oil and put in the oven for half an hour or so, till they look like this.

Once nice and roasted-looking chuck in the tomatoes whole (and washed) and cook for another 15 mins or so. If not using tomatoes just take out – and add pepper and balsamic vinegar to taste. If using the tomatoes, wait until they’re looking singed and squishy before add the flavouring.

Why do I start with this recipe? Because, you have just made a particularly acceptable pasta sauce (or accompaniment to almost anything) without using a tin of tomatoes. Huzzaaah!

Even more magical, you can now make the whole thing disappear. Huzzaaah again!

Tip of the week
Vegetables are cheaper if you buy them season. And most things are nicer if you roast them in olive oil. But maybe not Aristotle. Or chocolate.