This light, fresh tasting lunch or supper dish is simplicity itself and prefect for when you are cooking for yourself alone. This morning I left the Spanish sun to visit the thickly snow covered French Alps, and brought with me the left over vegetables that I had picked for the farm shop yesterday. I am a bit weary after the long journey so want to eat something that is quick to prepare, but fresh and nourishing. I stopped off in the valley before coming up the mountain to get some basics in, butter, eggs, ham and bread. 

The beans from the veg garden are young and tender, so I fry them in olive oil for a few minutes, then I add some ham cut into small pieces. Continue frying for a few more minutes until the beans are cooked but still have some crunch. Turn the heat low and then add a couple of free range eggs that you have beaten a little to mix the whites and yolks, and seasoned. Stir the eggs around the pan and only let cook to a very soft set. Turn onto a warm plate and enjoy your Revuelto de Judias Verdes with crunchy fresh bread.

Revuelto translates as  –  turned over – referring of course to the turning over of the eggs in the pan. The soft scrambled eggs are regularly found on menus in Spain with combinations of vegetables and either ham or prawns. Asparagus and Prawns, Broad Beans or Sweet Peas and Ham, Spring Garlic and Ham, Mushrooms, or Morcilla the Spanish black pudding. In the Basque Country it is made with slow stewed Red Peppers and called Piperrada. Or try your own combinations………

I have just returned from a stay in the UK to be greeted by the same cool and wet weather that I thought I had left behind there. With all the rain the vegetable garden is bursting with produce – and plenty of weeds – but is too wet to get into right now,  and of course it is Sunday, so no shopping possiblities. Thankfully there are some squashes, onions and potatoes in the cold store, rabbit in the freezer and a couple of now slightly wrinkly red peppers in the fridge from before I went away. I decide to prepare a favourite roast for lunch, Rabbit with Summer Vegetables, this dish having the extra benefit of needing the wood burning oven, which will nicely warm the kitchen.

Normally for this dish I buy a whole rabbit and chop it into small portions leaving the bones in, but on this occasion I only have a boned saddle available, so that will have to do. Chicken can be substituted for the rabbit if you prefer. The cooking times will be the same, but use tarragon or sage in place of the thyme.

For the vegetables I always use potatoes and garlic, but then the rest vary depending on what is available in the garden or larder. Red peppers are great for colour and flavour, so those if I can, then any three or four others from the list below.

ROAST RABBIT WITH SUMMER VEGETABLES – For 4

1 Rabbit

400 grams potatoes

2 heads of garlic

several sprigs of fresh thyme

olive oil

salt and freshly ground black pepper

selection of vegetables –

2 large red peppers cut into quarters or sixths

2 medium courgettes cut into big chunks

2 medium aubergines cut into chunks

4-6 sweet onions peeled and halved

4 large carrots peeled and cut into chunks

butternut squash and or pumpkin peeled and cut into chunks

Put the oven on to warm up to 190 C.

Once the oven is up to temperature, put in a large roasting tray containing a couple of tablespoons of olive oil.

After five minutes or so when this is hot add to it the potatoes which are in evenly sized chunks. Sprinkle with salt and roast for ten minutes.

Season the rabbit with salt, freshly ground black pepper and fresh thyme. Break the garlic into cloves but don’t peel them. Cut the cloves accross their fattest bit only cutting half way through the clove. Leaving the skin on protects the garlic from burning while it is roasting, while the cut accross the middle enables the garlic to swell without bursting out of its skin.

Add the rabbit and garlic to the potatoes and cook for another ten minutes.

After this time add the rest of the vegetables to the pan. They need to be in one layer to cook properly, so if they don’t fit in one tray use two, dividing the meat, garlic and potatoes between the two. If the vegetables are too crowded they tend to steam rather than roast and end up soggy. Drizzle over more olive oil and seasoning.

Roast for another half an hour or until the vegetables are tender and browned at the edges.

If you are wondering why I have included the photo at the top of this post, look carefully at the wire and you will see a flock of starlings neatly and evenly sitting all the way along it. It is almost as though they have measured the distance between each other.

Yesterday I looked really hard for the pot of gold as I could clearly see the end of this rainbow in my neighbours orange grove, but alas, it eluded me. I didn’t let on to him how close he had been to being rich beyond his wildest dreams!

The rain was extremely welcome as I can’t order any irrigation water at the moment. In the recent storms and floods 14 kilometers of pipework that deliver water to all of us in the cooperative were washed away.

All this rain interspersed with warm sunny days has meant that the salads that can’t grow in the blistering heat of the summer here are green and tender and tasty. The asparagus is throwing up its autumn shoots and the herb bed hasn’t looked so healthy for quite a while. Here is a salad that glorifies these autumn offerings.

Grilled Beef and Goat Cheese Salad with Mint and Balsamic Dressing

Per person –

100 grams tender beef sliced very thinly

50 grams cheese – I used a fresh Goat cheese that I sell in the farm shop, but ricotta or mozarella work for this salad

6-8 spears of asparagus

Mixed salad leaves – mine were green and red lettuce, mizuna, pak choi, mustard greens, chives, basil and fennel fronds.

A handful of fresh mint

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

2 tablespoon olive oil

1 teaspoon lemon juice

salt and freshly ground black pepper

Spread the beef out onto a board and season with the salt and pepper. If you are not sure of its tenderness, then give it some hits with a meat tenderising mallet.

Heat a hotplate or heavy based griddle pan.

Lightly oil the asparagus and put to cook on the griddle. Turn from time to time as it is cooking.

Wash the salad and arrange on a plate.

Cut up the cheese and arrange on the salad.

Make the dressing. Wash and roughly chop the mint, put in a bowl with balsamic vinegar, olive oil and lemon juice and mix thoroughly.

When the asparagus is cooked al dente remove from the griddle and arrange on the salad.

Cook the beef on the griddle. This should only take 2-3 minutes each side. Remove to a board and cut into bite sized slices. Arrange on the salad.

Spoon the dressing onto the salad. Enjoy.

Throughout my teenage years I cooked this dish for the whole family almost every Saturday lunchtime. It was taught to me by my father who is from Sarajevo the capital of Bosnia of the former Jugoslavia. Jugoslavia was for over five hundred years part of the Ottoman empire, and it was not until my sister and I were holidaying in Turkey on a Gulet with some friends that we realise that it is a Turkish dish. Our cook on the boat – Hali – made it for us all one lunch time and our friends loved it and wondered how it was made, to which my sister and I announced in unison that we could make it with our eyes closed!

Quite a lot of English people think that they don’t like liver. And if their only experience of it is the stewed beef liver that was served to us at school, then I can fully understand them having a prejudice against it. But please give liver another chance. Think more those gorgeous liver pates and less the shoe leather of school dinners. Pork liver for me has the best texture and the sweetest flavour of all the livers, and this is what my family use for this dish although the with Turkey being a muslim country, lambs liver is used there.

For 4 people

1 large or two medium onions – finely chopped

1 red pepper – cut into strips – optional

500 grams liver cut into bite sized pieces

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Olive oil for frying

200 grams long grain rice

250 grams peeled plum tomatoes – either freshly peeled or tinned

Fresh flat leaved parsley – roughly chopped

Firstly put the rice on to boil. Use your usual method but you want the rice slightly al dente.

Heat the oil in a large frying pan and add the onions and peppers if you are using them. Fry over a moderate heat until the onions are lightly browned.

Season the liver pieces with salt and a generous amount of freshly ground black pepper. Add to the pan with the onions and cook stirring from time to time until the liver is just cooked. This will take about ten minutes. Do not cover. If the pan is covered the liver will steam and go tough.

To see if the liver is cooked enough, take out a piece and cut into it. It should be pink inside. If it is red inside it is not cooked enough and if it is brown you have gone too far.

Remove the liver from the pan leaving behind the onions, pepper if used and the juices. Add the tomatoes to the remains of the pan and stir to mix. Cook over a higher heat until the tomatoes have deepened in colour and cooked.

Drain the rice and add to the tomatoes. Stir well to mix together and cook for a couple of minutes for the flavour of the tomatoes to penetrate the rice.

Add the liver and mix again. Cook a minute or two for the liver to rewarm. Stir in the parsley. Serve with a green salad.

This is an everyday dish that is full of flavour and has a sophistication that belies its simplicity. And its just as easy to make for one or eight. Although the sauce looks creamy, it doesn’t contain cream and is not brimming over with calories.

A simple dish like this only needs simple accompaniment – plain boiled potatoes or pasta. If you like you can take the flesh off the bones of the chicken and reheat it with the sauce to go with pasta. A fresh crisp green salad on the side would complete the meal.

Per person

1 leg of chicken

2 cloves of garlic

white wine

olive oil or butter

salt and pepper

In a shallow pan that has a lid, heat a small amount of either oil or butter.

Season the chicken with salt and pepper and fry until lightly browned on all sides.

Peel and slice the garlic and add to the pan with the chicken. Continue frying for a few more minutes to lightly brown the garlic.

Add enough white wine to come half way up the chicken. Turn the heat down, cover and simmer for 40 minutes turning the chicken every 10 minutes or so.

After this time the sauce should have reduced, thickened and become creamy looking. If it still looks too liquid, continue cooking with the lid off until it thickens.

Check the seasoning and serve. As simple as that!

You can of course vary the flavourings. Any type of mushroom can be added at the same time as the garlic. Fresh chopped tarragon added half way through the cooking turns it into Tarragon Chicken. For a more robust dish, fry some lardons of smoked bacon with the initial frying of the chicken and then continue with the rest of the recipe.