Pulled Pork

I can’t count how many times I have cooked this – any time of year it seems perfect, particularly when we have a load of friends round.  Very little hands on time, works a dream if you make it ahead of time and is an unbelievably economic way to feed a crowd. Did I forget to mention that it is also downright delicious.   Super tender, long cooked soft pork bathed in a sweet, spicy and tangy barbecue sauce stuffed in a soft bap with my crunchy, zippy fresh Christmas salad, topped with quick pickled onions and hot sauce.  Seriously, what is not to love.

I have made this with a whole shoulder and it made a huge amount, more than enough for 20 with extra for the freezer (a super useful number to have stashed away and it reheats a treat).  I tend to make this more often then with half a shoulder, rather easier to marinade and manoeuvre – last weekend one did 8 children and 6 adults with seconds.  I cooked it fully on Friday, shredded it (easier whilst warm) mixed it with the sauce and then reheated it in the oven on Saturday.  Too easy for words.

The Christmas salad (December 2013) despite its name is also a year round winner, crunchy and tangy, it works so well with the pork, they complement each perfectly.  Quick pickled onions (August 2014) bring a sweet/sour tang to the party and I couldn’t countenance my assembly without a good squirt of sriracha on top.

For pudding last weekend I made my son’s favourite, the Giant Strawberry Mivvi (June 2014), see the picture below.  This is a summer treat we look forward to all year and as it needs to be made ahead is another good one for entertaining.

Pulled Pork

1 heaped tablespoon paprika

1 heaped teaspoon smoked paprika

2 teaspoons fine salt

1 heaped teaspoon cumin

1/2 teaspoon cayenne

2 tablespoons soft brown sugar

20 turns of the black pepper mill

Shoulder of pork, around 5/6lbs

50ml cider (or white wine) vinegar

1 bottle good barbecue sauce

Mix the first 7 ingredients together in a bowl then rub into all sides of the pork.  Wrap tightly in cling film and leave in the fridge for at least 4 hours or up to overnight.  When you are ready to cook, preheat the oven to 200 and let the pork come to room temperature.  Put into a baking pan not much bigger than the pork, put the 50ml vinegar and 50ml water in the bottom of the pan (don’t pour it over the pork or it will wash off some of the spices) and cover with foil. Put in the hot oven and immediately turn it down to 160 and cook for 6-7 hours until the meat falls apart when prodded with a fork.   Pour all the cooking liquid into a pan, skim off the fat, pour in the barbecue sauce and simmer gently for 20 minutes until slightly thickened.  Meanwhile remove and discard the layer of fat from the pork, shred the meat and return to the baking pan.  When the sauce is ready pour it over the pork, mix well and serve.

New Slaw

New Slaw 3

What happened to good old fashioned coleslaw?  I say good but actually, so many times it wasn’t, sometimes in fact it has been downright terrible.  Limp, greasy, over oniony, short on seasoning, cabbage too big, drowned in cheap mayo etc etc.  Poor coleslaw has hung its head in shame and hidden at the back of the buffet table.  Until now and talk about a makeover – the humble coleslaw has had some sort of sonic reinvention, spruced up and started wearing international couture.  Asian Slaw, Spicy Slaw, Citrus Slaw, Moroccan Slaw – it’s thrown off its dowdy mayo, lost the Cole and got down and funky with the kids.   Spicy, herby, tangy or hot – Slaw can be anything you like as long as it is crunchy.

I love a crunchy salad and regulars to these pages will know I am not stranger to this type of side.  My Christmas Salad (December 2013), the Thai-ish Salad (November 2015), Carrot Salad (January 2013) and of course the Celeriac Remoulade (January 2016) are variations on the slaw theme.   They are all cheap and easy to rustle up, happily retain their crunch for a couple of days in the fridge and will go with a myriad of other things as well as being perfect for lunch on their own (I particularly like this ones with a piece of cold salmon).  There is an added bonus though and its a huge and resounding boom of a bonus.  Children love them.   Who knew that getting raw veggies into children could ever be so easy?  My son particularly likes my Christmas Salad and regularly has if for his packed lunch.   My daughter however adores this gingery, piquant New Slaw the best, told me it is her favourite salad and had it three times this week.

Carrots, fennel, beetroot, cabbage (green, white or red), radish, celeriac, apple, broccoli – any of these work well.  Then do you want a sharp, zingy dressing, maybe spicy too?  Or perhaps a creamy dressing, a little more traditional although I favour yogurt or creme fraiche here over the ubiquitous mayo.  Add herbs, lots of them and seeds are good too.  Sometimes I add dried cranberries or raisins as I love that little burst of sweetness.  Customise your slaw as you please, make your own bespoke version.  We eat one of these raw, crunchy types of salad a few time a week and this one is the current favourite.  Gingery, herby and with a little heat it goes perfectly with barbecued chicken and I will post my favourite grilled chicken recipe in the next week or so.  Meanwhile may the crunch be with you, it is delicious and you can just feel it doing you good.

New Slaw

New Slaw

The other day I didn’t have any cabbage so used more carrots and it was just as good.  Different but just as good and that is the point of these slaws really, add a little more or less of something as you please, make it your own.

3 carrots, peeled

1/4 of a small red or green cabbage, core removed and finely chopped

6 radishes, sliced

2 spring onions, sliced

A thumb of ginger, peeled

1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped

A small packet of coriander

A small packet of mint

A handful of raisins or dried cranberries (optional)

2 tablespoons olive oil, a light one

Juice of 1 lime, you may need 2 depending on their size and juiciness.

Grate the carrots and put into a large bowl with the radishes, onions, cabbage and chilli.  I use a box grater for this rather than an attachment in the processor as I find using this makes the veggies really wet.  Finely grate the ginger, add this to the bowl along with the olive oil and lime juice.  Season and mix well with your hands so that everything is combined.  Chop or snip the herbs over the salad, add the raisins/cranberries if using, mix once more and serve to happy faces.

 

 

 

 

Celeriac Remoulade

Celeriac Remoulade 2

I have piles of recipes waiting to be tried.  Stacks of pages torn out of magazines or newspapers waiting in boxes until the right day.   I tried various indexing systems but in all honesty when it comes to finding a certain recipe the usual answer is to sit on the floor surrounded by open boxes leafing through endless pages.  Eight times out of ten I will find the recipe I am after and all will be well but sometimes, occasionally I have to give up on the search.  So it was with a particular recipe for Celeriac Remoulade that I got from a cooking demo last year.   Before Christmas I looked everywhere but it was nowhere to be found so I had to start from scratch.  Not a hardship, it is delicious and fun fiddling around until the right combination is found.

I have served this twice alongside my Slow Roast Pork (recipe coming soon) and Christmas Salad.  The pork and two salads are piled up into a warm bap along with a few dressed green leaves and a good blob of chilli spiked yogurt.  Soft falling apart pork with the tang and crunchiness of the salads is a heavenly combination which seems to please adults and children alike.   After she had eaten this with us at New Year a friend asked me for the pork recipe and has now made it three times which thrills me to bits.  I thoroughly recommend you try it and I will post the pork recipe next week.  In the meantime enjoy this fabulous, crunchy raw salad with some air dried ham and if you’re not on the wagon a glass of cold cider, sensational.

Celeriac Remoulade

If you have a food processor with grating attachment this takes literally minutes to make but if not just use a regular grater and mind your knuckles.  This combination of yogurt and mustard is how we like it, enough of a kick but still child friendly.

1/2 a celeriac, peeled (approx 450g)

1/2 a bunch parsley, finely chopped

4 tablespoons Greek yogurt

2 tablespoons dijon mustard (you can use seedy mustard if you prefer)

1 tablespoon lemon juice

A pinch of salt

A pinch of caster sugar

Grate the celeriac using a processor or grater (see introduction).  Mix the yogurt, mustard, lemon juice, salt and sugar.  Mix together with the celeriac and parsley, I do this in a really large bowl so as to get it all properly incorporated.  Taste for seasoning.  This will serve 4 with a few slices of prosciutto or similar for lunch or 6-8 if you are having it with the pork and other salads in a bap.

Celeriac Remoulade

 

 

 

Thai-ish Salad

Thai salad 2

Right I must say from the off that this is a Thai salad in the loosest possible sense.  Yes there is coriander, lime juice, fish sauce etc but also apple and radish and I’m not sure quite how authentic they are.   That said, it is fabulous to eat and sometimes I am happy to throw authenticity out of the window.  I think I mentioned it with Paella (January 2013) – I am not trying to recreate an original dish, I simply want to make something good to eat.

This is crisp, crunchy and jam packed with flavours.  The ginger, garlic and (small amount) of chilli give this life and heat whilst the herbs and lime bring zip and zing to the party.  You can leave out the apple if you want but I love their tangy sweetness and likewise the radishes, if they are not your thing omit them but they add peppery crunch and a beautiful pink.

It is a bonus for me that my children like this.  My daughter is a bit of a salad phobe but she adores and this and happily ploughs her way through a bowlful, sometimes adding a little more chilli and then smacking her lips and puffing as a result.   Its good to see them enjoying a bit of healthy salad at this time of year when we are rather surrounded by root vegetables and a lot of hardy brassicas.

This is fab with pork chops or roast chicken (hot or cold) and also works very well with leftovers.  In particular I’m thinking leftover turkey here but then that would make it a challenger to my beloved Christmas Salad (December 2013).  Never mind, we’ll just have both.

Thai salad

Thai Salad

Make the dressing first so that the flavours can sit and meld for a bit.

Juice of 1 lime

1 tablespoon rice vinegar

1 tablespoon soy sauce

2 tablespoons light olive oil

1/2 tablespoon fish sauce

1/2 teaspoon caster sugar

1/2 teaspoon sriracha or other chilli sauce

Small thumb ginger, finely grated

1 small clove garlic, finely grated

1/4 white cabbage

1 apple

6 radishes

2 carrots, peeled

1/2 bunch coriander

1/2 bunch mint

Mix the first nine ingredients together to make the dressing.  Taste and adjust as you see fit, a little more chilli perhaps?  Finely chop the rest of the ingredients and mix in a large bowl, add most of the dressing and combine.  You may or may not need all the dressing, it rather depends on the size of your cabbage and carrots!   Enough for 4 as a side.

 

Courgette, Broad Bean and Feta Salad

Courgette and feta salad 2

I know I say that every new salad I make is my new favourite but truly, this is.  I must have made it six times in the last two weeks and still show no signs of getting bored.   Crunch from little new courgettes go amazingly well with the glorious double podded emerald green beans.  A flurry of snow white tangy, salty feta along with a lemony garlic dressing brings the whole thing together with a boom.   Completely fresh and seasonal and got to be good for you, what is not to love?  I implore you to make this while the courgettes are small and the beans are around.

Broad beans might not be everyone’s cup of tea when single podded and served in their sometimes tough, grey outer jackets.  This I would concur with, a reminder of school lunches, both chewy and a little bitter.  Unrobe them further however, reveal that stunning inner green and you are in for an absolute treat, a true taste of the English summer.

I admit you need quite a pile of pods to end up with 200g of the inner bean but it is a job I enjoy, sitting at the table releasing each bean from its cosy padded sleeping bag.  A gin and tonic would be the ideal accompaniment to this task and reminds me of sitting with my granny podding beans recently picked from her garden (she had the gin in those days obviously, not me).    Granny’s kitchen garden was one of my favourite places in the world and although its been many years since I was there I remember the rows of vegetables like it was yesterday.   My first taste of asparagus, artichokes and fennel came from here along with beans of all variety.  Fruit trees in one corner offered regular treats when I was wandering around and the strawberries and raspberries further delights if I could negotiate the netting on the fruit cage.  It was a dreamy place and the excitement of picking fresh produce has never left me.

You will see feta mentioned again and I admit it finds its way into a lot of my salads.  If you aren’t keen on it though a little labneh (simply drained yogurt) would be a perfect, less salty alternative or some fresh ricotta (Herby Ricotta, September 2014) a delicious addition.

Courgette and feta salad-2

Courgette, Broad Bean and Feta Salad

3 small courgettes

200g double podded broad beans,

100g feta, cubed

1 small clove garlic, crushed or finely chopped

Juice of half a lemon

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Salt and pepper

Fresh mint or marjoram, chopped to serve

Finely slice the courgettes and put into a bowl.  Blanch the beans in boiling water for 2 minutes then drain and run under cold water and drain again.  Mix the garlic with the lemon juice, olive oil and salt and pepper, taste and check you are happy with the seasoning but bear in mind the feta can be quite salty.  Turn the courgettes in the dressing and make sure they are well covered then add the beans and feta and mix the in gently, sprinkle with herbs and serve.  Enough for 4 alongside other things or 2 on its own.

 

 

 

Roasted Aubergine, Feta and Mint Salad

Aubergine and Feta salad

At this time of year I am happy to eat salad after salad.   By this I don’t mean just a regular green salad with a vinaigrette.  Rather piles of fresh crunchy vegetables with handfuls of fragrant herbs, texture from seeds or grains, creamy feta, labne or ricotta and all anointed with a punchy dressing designed to bring the components together.

I like a classic Nicoise or a retro Coronation as well as the next person and a perfectly made Caesar is a thing of joy.  More often though my salads will be veggie based, at once healthy and delicious whilst celebrating the bounty of salad leaves and vegetables spilling from the shelves during the summer months.  Tomatoes, courgettes, beans of all kinds, beetroot, aubergines, carrots, peppers either raw, steamed or roasted.   Loads of verdant green herbs bringing all their gorgeous flavours to the party and lots of salady leaves.  If there is meat or fish it will often be almost as a seasoning, some small cubes of chorizo or bacon for example or salty slivers of anchovy.

You will find lots of suggestions here, Green Beans with Tomatoes and Chorizo (September 2013), Christmas Salad (December 2013), Favourite Green Salad (January 2014) and Roast Vegetables with Pomegranate Molasses (July 2014).   I turn to all these regularly and honestly, never get bored of them.  Todays salad is a new kid on the block and celebrates that trinity of good friends aubergine, feta and mint.  I often use these ingredients in other dishes but this time wanted them to shine and along with some bulgar for body, leaves of rocket and a garlicky dressing it is a stellar combination.

Aubergine and Feta salad 2

Aubergine, Feta and Mint Salad

I have mentioned previously my determination to find a way to make all vegetables agreeable to my children but it would seem that aubergine may be my nemesis…..

2 aubergines, sliced and then cubed

1 tablespoon olive oil

100g bulgar wheat

1 large handful of mint, torn

100g feta (more if you like) roughly cubed

1 large handful of rocket

1 clove of garlic, crushed or finely chopped

1 teaspoon runny honey

Juice of 1/2 lemon

2 tablespoons olive oil

Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 200, turn the aubergine cubes in the oil and spread out on a baking tray (you may need two), sprinkle with salt and roast for 20-30 minutes until golden.  Put the bulgar wheat into a bowl with a pinch of salt and cover with boiling water to about 1cm over the bulgar and leave for 10 minutes.  After this time taste a bit, if it is still a little hard leave for a few more minutes before draining.   Meanwhile make the dressing by mixing the garlic, honey, lemon juice and oil, season with salt and pepper until you are happy with it.  Mix the bulgar with most of the dressing and then gently mix in the aubergine, feta, rocket and mint.  Taste for seasoning and just before serving pour over a little more dressing.  Serves 4 alongside other things.

 

Cannellini Bean, Parsley and Lemon….dip

Cannellini bean dip

Now I will be frank and say I am a little nervous about the title of this – if my children were reading (having not previously tasted and devoured it as they do) I am pretty sure they would move on, pulses not being much to their liking.

For me, I struggle with the word dip, it is just a bit…. you know.  Dip covers a multitude and can be a tub of generic supermarket gunk or a red, oniony side dish to uh, dip things in.  Rarely have I come across anything with the moniker dip that I have wanted to love or, in many cases, finish.  This little beauty will, I hope, shatter all preconceptions.

It came about, as many things do out of my kitchen, from necessity over organisation.  I wanted something to offer with drinks but frankly the larder was pretty bare but for a few tins of beans.  I always have parsley, lemon and garlic on hand and so it was that these were the volunteers, the ingredients that stepped forward from a skeleton line up.

I actually made this three times over Easter, once to serve with said drinks and twice to put on the table along with a mezze type picnic lunch.  With some toasty baked pita my children scoffed this with unseemly speed and didn’t even stop when they discovered the star ingredient.  I could not believe my eyes at this nor my ears when they asked me to make it again.  Today we are having it with some roast chicken, new potatoes and a big salad.  It is really good, beyond easy and properly useful of have up your sleeve, but what are we going to call it?

Cannellini bean dip 2

Cannellini Bean, Parsley and Lemon Dip

Taste this when it is all whizzed together, it should have lots of lemon juice to give it zing and you will need a really good pinch of salt, possible two as pulses seem to lap them up.  Serve with chopped carrots, baked pita bread, breadsticks or alongside a roast chicken or with a collection of other mezze type dishes.

1 can of cannellini beans

1 small clove garlic

Half a small packet parsley, approx 20g

Juice of 1 large lemon

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

Salt and pepper

Put all the ingredients into a small blender or a jug if you are using a hand held blender.  I find it easiest to put the lemon juice in first then you can pick any rogue seeds out easily, followed by the salt so it can dissolve in the juice.  The order doesn’t really matter though.  Whizz it all up, taste and check you are happy with it before decanting into a dish.  The four of us will polish this off between but that said, my husband and I could probably eat it all too.  You can double or treble easily if you have a crowd to feed.

 

Roast Cauliflower and other vegetables

Roast Cauliflower 2

I heard something absolutely extraordinary last week.  Whilst tucking into tea, my daughter stated the previously unimaginable “I love kale”.  I stopped talking and sat slack jawed in amazement.  This is the child that will shy away from vegetables apart from a grudging tolerance for peas and cooked carrots.  This the child who would normally show wide eyed panic in the face of anything cabbagy and try distracting tactics when I am dishing out.  Yet here she was and here it was – kale.   Now kale is one of the tougher and if we are honest more bitter winter leaves and so this particular entente was all the more surprising.  What was the magic, what was the secret alchemy you ask.  One of the oldest tricks in the book, a bit of olive oil, a sprinkle of salt and a brief sojourn in a hot oven.  That is all it takes to transform these frilly green leaves into a salty, savoury snack comparable (if not better) to the finest potato crisps.

The thing is I really want my children to like vegetables, I don’t want those stand off scenarios where I insist that vegetables are good for them while they will sit, mulish and resistant, eyeing me as one who wishes to enforce horror.  So I make it my goal to make their veggies more palatable, whatever it takes, I will keep trying different sauces, salsas and cooking methods until I have cracked it.

Roast Cauliflower

Cauliflower along with cous cous were two things my son had asked me, in all honesty, why God had invented.  He couldn’t bear either of them, couldn’t see their point and so some time ago having tried all other routes I thought to roast cauliflower.  What do you know they will now clamour over the last little floret and I can’t blame them, the oil, salt and hot oven trick turns these innocent little white sprigs into gold singed, roasty delicious mouthfuls.

These are not just something I serve to children and in fact the cauliflower in this form with the dipping sauce is a great choice to put on the table at the beginning of supper or to add to a tapas style spread.  The green sauce is my Fresh Herb Sauce (July 2013).

Roast Cauliflower

The addition of some chilli flakes to the cauliflower before roasting gives a lovely pop of heat but I generally don’t add them when doing this for children.  I have previously given the recipe for kale crisps, essentially just tear the leaves into mouthful size, turn in a little olive oil, spread out onto a baking sheet, sprinkle with salt and cook at 200 for about 7-10 minutes, turning once or twice and eyeing them like a hawk so they don’t burn.

1 medium size cauliflower

2 tablespoons olive oil

Sea salt

Preheat the oven to 200.  Trim the cauliflower , break into small florets and spread onto a baking sheet.  Pour over the oil and turn the cauliflower really well making sure every bit is coated in oil.  Sprinkle with salt and roast for 20-25 minutes until it is just turning golden brown and catching slightly at the edges.  Cool for a minute or two and taste, you might want a tiny bit more salt then serve with the green herby sauce.

Roast Cauliflower 3

 

 

Herby Ricotta with Pickled Cucumber

Herby Ricotta 1

Despite a few cool, misty mornings we have been enjoying a bit of an Indian Summer recently, my children were swimming in the sea three times last week (and even I joined them on one occasion…) and there are still shorts and summer dresses being sported in the playground.  We expect (and hope) July and August will be hot for the school holidays but September heralds a return to work so to have fabulous balmy weather always feels like a treat, a bonus, a little extra.

As such I like to eke out the summer feeling with barbeques and eating in the garden whenever possible.  If, however, you’ve had enough of those leafy green salads then try this for your lunch – smooth, creamy herb flecked ricotta which is unbelievably quick and easy to make (yes make yourself!) accompanied by sweet and sour crunchy cucumber.  The latter is a riff on my quick pickled onion and you could of course use that instead.

I like the ricotta spread on slices of baguette, topped with the tangy fresh cucumber slices, a little more substantial than lunches in the height of a hot summer but not yet a headlong dive into the autumnal soups yet to come.

Herby Ricotta 2

Herby Ricotta with Pickled Cucumber

You can use whichever soft herbs you like, I use parsley, chives and dill because that is a combination I love.  The dill along with the pickled cucumber give a bit of Scandanavian vibe and go together perfectly.   The ricotta would also be fabulous on little crispy toasts topped with chopped cucumber as a canapé and of course, prior to the herbing this ricotta is perfect for any other sweet or savoury recipe you have up your sleeve (so much better than supermarket ricotta and I struggle to find fresh around here).

300ml pot single cream (you can use double if that is what you have)

600ml whole milk

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

A handful of chopped herbs of your choice

Put the cream into a pan and fill the empty pot twice with milk and mix this into the cream along with the salt.  Bring to the boil and them remove from the heat and add the vinegar and give it a stir.  You will see the mixture separate, pour into a muslin lined colander and leave to drain for an hour or so until you have a crumbly creamy cheese.  Mix in the herbs and check the seasoning, you may need a little more salt and some pepper.  Heavenly.

Pickled Cucumber

Half a cucumber

1 tablespoon caster sugar

2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

Salt

Put the sugar and vinegar into a shallow bowl with a pinch of salt and leave to dissolve. Using a vegetable peeler, take long slices of cucumber avoiding the watery seeds in the middle and add to the bowl.  Leave for at least half an hour, stirring occasionally, for the cucumber to “pickle”.

This amount would serve two for lunch or more along side other dishes.

Roast Vegetables with Pomegranate Molasses

Roasted Veg Salad 3

I went into the larder yesterday and a pile of vegetables were gazing balefully at me.  I had bought them for the weekend but we had done other things and my menu plans had gone awry.  As I am going away I knew they needed to be eaten up, there is nothing worse than having to throw something away which was fine one minute and gone off the next.  So, courgettes, peppers, aubergine and onions all jostling for the top spot.  Aubergine curry, a provencal tian, soup – lots of things crossed my mind but it is hot and I wanted a salad.

I used to make a salad like this all the time in the 90’s – I can see myself now, in the kitchen of my flat, Oasis blaring and a vat of Bulgarian Cabernet Sauvignon on stand by.  It was great then and I’ve made derivations of it ever since but I wanted to jazz it up a bit.  I roasted all the vegetables and made a dressing with olive oil and pomegranate molasses.  The fruity tang was just the thing to bring this up to date, both sharp and fruity and along with some crushed garlic made the perfect dressing.  I’m not very keen on couscous, it always seems a bit pappy and, for me anyway, still has a whiff of school semolina about it.  Bulgar wheat however has bite and texture so that is what I used.  Piles of fresh herbs, the mint being one of the few things the fat slugs haven’t scoffed in the garden, and some rocket completed the picture.

If I’d planned this earlier I would have made some labne, strained Greek yogurt which I could have blobbed over the salad but some garlicky regular yogurt was an excellent alternative.  I had forgotten how much I adore this salad, roasted, sweet and slightly charred vegetables, the nutty bulghar, masses of verdant herbs and the lip smacking dressing.  This would go down a storm with barbecued meat or fish but is substantial enough to have for lunch on its own.  Truly a winner, I will be making this all summer and beyond.  Back in couple of weeks!

Roasted Veg Salad

Roasted Vegetables with Bulghar and Pomegranate Molasses

The following vegetables are what I had but use an equivalent amount of whatever you like.  Should I be overwhelmed with courgettes later in the summer (if the slugs don’t eat those too) I will make this with those and perhaps throw in some feta and chives.

2 red peppers

1 aubergine

2 courgettes

3 onions

Olive oil

1 bunch parsley, chopped

1 bunch mint, chopped

2 large handfuls rocket

100g bulghar wheat

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon pomegranate molasses

1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed

Half a lemon

Preheat the oven to 200.  Chop the vegetables into small and similar size pieces, turn in some olive oil, put onto baking sheets and cook for about 30 minutes turning occasionally until soft and just catching at the edges.  Remove from the oven and leave to cool.  Put the bulghar wheat into a bowl with a pinch of salt and cover with boiling water to about 1cm above, leave to soak for 15 minutes then drain.  Mix the garlic, oil, pomegranate molasses and some salt and pepper to taste.  In a large  bowl, toss the vegetables, bulghar, herbs, rocket and dressing, stir to combine and have taste, a squeeze of lemon will probably be all you need.  Serves 2 on its own or 4 as an accompaniment.

Roasted Veg Salad 2