Patatas Bravas

We love these as a tapas with lots of other dishes.  This is my recipe, not so different from others but this is simple and we like it.  I hope you do too.

Ingredients
6 cloves garlic
1 400g tin chopped tomatoes
1 tsp oregano
a pinch of sugar
4-5 tbsp olive oil
3-4 medium old potatoes
1 large onion
1 large red pepper

Method
Heat the oven to 200C. 

Prepare the potatoes by peeling and chopping into 1cm cubes.  Now boil them in salted water for 4 minutes then drain well leaving them in the pan. Add 2 tablespoons olive oil and shake them in the pan to coat thoroughly.
While the potatoes are boiling, line a roasting tin with foil.  The tin should be big enough to take the potato cubes plus chopped pepper in one layer.  Add 1 tablespoon olive oil to the tin and place it in the oven.  De seed the pepper and cut off the white veins, slice into 1cm wide strips, then cut into 2cm long pieces.  Finely slice 2 cloves garlic.  Add these to the pan in the oven and give them a shake to make sure they're coated with the hot oil.  If the potatoes are ready, add them too, if not, put the pepper in the oven and add the potatoes when they're cooked.

Make the tomato sauce while the potatoes and peppers are roasting. Heat 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil in a small saucepan.  While the oil is heating, chop the onion and add it to the pan over a medium to high heat.  Now, peel 2 cloves of garlic and slice finely, then add this to the pan.  Fry the onion and garlic until they are lightly browned, then add the tinned tomatoes, a pinch of sugar and the oregano.  Mix well together and cook over a medium to high heat to reduce to a thick sauce.

The potatoes and peppers are cooked once the potatoes are nice and golden.  When this happens, take them out of the oven and tip them into the tomato sauce, then mix well and serve.  They're best served hot, but almost as good cold.

Summer bean and courgette salad

I wanted a nice light salad for the summer weather.  Well, the weather is hardly summery, yes we have beautiful sunshine but the temperature hasn't really got above 20°C today, still, we're having this anyway as it turned out so well!

Ingredients
175g podded broad beans
140g frozen peas
400g tin butter beans, drained and rinsed
1 courgette
1 tbsp chopped thyme
1 pack feta cheese, crumbled

For the dressing
3-4 dessert spoons extra virgin olive oil
1 dessert spoon white wine vinegar
1 tsp Dijon mustard
½ tsp sugar


Method
First, prepare the courgette by topping and tailing it, then slice thinly using a potato peeler.  Add a little salt to the strips and gently mix them together making sure you don't damage the strips.  Cover and leave until you cook them.

Cook the broad beans in boiling, unsalted water for 2-3 minutes or until tender, drain them and leave to cool.  While they're cooling cook the peas in the same way.  While the peas are cooking, make a start on podding the broad beans - it's easy to do, just use a thumb nail to pop the grey outer skin, then pop the bean out and throw the skin away.

This takes some time, so you can also cook the courgette while peeling beans.  To cook the courgette, place a little olive oil on a griddle, heat it and add the strips in batches, cooking them on one side only until they start to brown, then fish them out and put them aside, doing this until all are cooked.

Now crumble the feta into roughly ½ cm cubes.  When the peas are cooked, the broad beans peeled and cooked and the courgette fried mix them all together in a bowl with the butter beans and thyme and mix well together.

Make the dressing by adding all the ingredients to a bowl and whisking together.  Drizzle the dressing over the salad and serve with some nice, crusty bread, I use some Corn Bread from Tesco that's lovely. 

Stir-fry the courgettes in 2 tbsp of the olive oil for five minutes, tip into the bean mixture and season well with salt and pepper. Add the thyme leaves. Whisk the remaining olive oil, white wine vinegar, Dijon mustard and sugar together, and season with salt and pepper. Mix into the bean salad along with the crumbled feta cheese. Pile into a serving bowl and chill until required.