The Food Diaries

Red and yellow cherry tomato mini-bruschetta

I can’t get enough of a tomato bruschetta. So fresh, so easy to make, really healthy, and oh so pretty. Have some for a quick lunch on Saturday, serve them as an appetizer for friends, bring them along to a picnic.

Rub a cut clove of garlic on some toasted rye deli bread slices (or little rye rounds). Spread on some soft goats cheese (or the milder cheese curd or cream cheese). Add a dollop of black tapenade. Mound chopped red and yellow cherry tomatoes. Add a good sprinkling of freshly ground sea salt and pepper, a drizzle of olive oil, and some torn basil leaves.

There you have it - a perfectly formed

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Ottolenghi’s marinated buffalo mozzarella and tomato

The new Ottolenghi cookbook has finally been published!! Forget Gordon, Jamie, Heston, Delia, Nigella and co. Yotam Ottoloneghi recipes are all you need if you like to cook simple, fresh, vibrant and modern dishes - mostly all of a vegetarian inclination. He has a way of elevating vegetables and pulses to new heights of respect within the cooking repertoire.

Here’s my first recipe attempt from Plenty (available at Amazon) and what a simple, yet refreshing take it is on the traditional mozzarella and tomato salad:

Dry fry 1/2 tsp of fennel seeds till they start to pop. Crush in a mortar and pestle. Now add one garlic clove, peeled and crush. Mix in a small handful of shredded basil leaves (around 15), 2 tsp chopped oregano, the grated zest of 1 lemon (I substituted orange rind and the results were brilliant!), 2 tsp olive oil, 2 tsp rapeseed oil, 1/2 tsp Maldon sea salt. Mix in 250g buffalo mozzarella broken by hand into chunks. Set aside for 10-15 minutes. Cut 2 ripe tomatoes into wedges (cherry tomatoes will do just as well) and plate up along with the marinated mozzarella. Drizzle with extra olive oil and season with freshly ground pepper.

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Tomato Bruschetta - rustic-style

Have I mentioned tomato season has started?!

So here’s how to make one of my all-time favourite snacks. Toast a piece of rustic bread. Rub with a cut clove of garlic (as much or as little as you can handle). Add some chopped tomatoes, drizzle with olive oil, a dash of salt and pepper, and a torn basil leaf.

For a more elegant version, use French croutons or crositinis (thin rounds of baguette which have been dried) instead of the toast, and finely chop the tomatoes.

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Tomato vol-au-vent tarts

This is the kind of the thing I’d always prefer to serve as an appetizer when I have friends over (rather than my ubiquitous olives and crisps) but always seemed like too much hard work. Well, I think I’ve cracked it with help from Jus Rol ready to bake puff pastry vol au vent.

Keep these little flat disks in your freezer, and when ready to use pop them straight into the oven (220c) on a baking sheet. When they start to puff up (about 5-7 minutes) take them out and fill with a dollop of creamy basil sauce, quartered cherry tomatoes, and a little salt, pepper and olive oil. Now put them back in the oven till golden (another 7 minutes or so). To serve: garnish with a little more creamy basil sauce, olive oil, and a fresh basil leaf.

These can be made more substantial by substituting some goat’s cheese for the basil sauce.

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Tomato and mozzarella salad

You know summer is around the corner when the insipid and pale excuses for a tomato, which litter the supermarket shelves over the cold winter months are finally replaced by the real thing - deep red and fragrant - still smelling of the vines.

I’ve been waiting for months now to eat a proper tomato, so I’ve kept it simple - the smallish cherry variety, quartered and placed in a bowl with some rocket, torn pieces of buffalo mozzarella, a good dribble of olive oil, and some salt and pepper. I also like to serve it with a big blob of my basil cream sat in the middle.