Tag Archives: Nigel Slater recipe

Baked Peppers With An Unexpected Ingredient

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Not the usual cheese, rice or ground beef, but tofu gets stuffed into these peppers.
Not the usual cheese, rice or ground beef, but tofu gets stuffed into these peppers.

As my husband readied the grill for Italian sausages the other night, he looked at me dumbfounded as I pulled out a box of tofu from the fridge.

Yes, silken tofu is the surprising ingredient in these otherwise Mediterranean-influenced stuffed peppers.

Leave it to the one and only Nigel Slater to come up with this simple and inspired riff on a classic, replacing the usual rice, ground meat or cheese in stuffed peppers with custardy-soft tofu instead.

“Baked Peppers with Tofu and Olives” is from the noted British food writer’s newest cookbook, “A Cook’s Book” (Ten Speed Press), of which I received a review copy.

The 500-page book is a collection of 150 recipes along with evocative stories from this home cook’s home cook. These are unfussy recipes, many with 10 or fewer ingredients, full of an appealing carefree spirit.

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Stuffed Peppers Of A Different Sort

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Feta, olives and pesto make up the delectable filling for these stuffed peppers.
Feta, olives and pesto make up the delectable filling for these stuffed peppers.

Take summer bell peppers from supporting players to superstars.

The fruit that we mistakenly think of as a vegetable is so often relegated to a secondary role, cut up for salads, soups, and stir-fries, where it lingers in the background of so many other ingredients.

But “Peppers, Pesto, Feta” shines the spotlight directly on them prominently.

This super easy recipe is from ““Greenfeast: Spring, Summer” (Ten Speed Press), of which I received a review copy.

By best-selling food writer Nigel Slater, this is the companion cookbook to his “Greenfeast: Autumn, Winter” (Ten Speed Press), which debuted last year.

Like that book, this one is also vegetarian, comprising 110 no-frills recipes that take the simple approach to highlighting the fresh bounty of spring and summer.

The recipes all take their name from the three ingredients they most highlight. Most of them require only a handful or two of total ingredients, too, many of which you probably already have on hand, to create such delights as a salad of “Bulgar, Nectarines, Parsley,” the contrast of “Eggplant, Honey, Sheep Cheese,” the unique combo of “Green Falafel, Watermelon, Yogurt,” and a jammy compote of “Plums, Cloves, Bay Leaves.”

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Pumpkin, Mustard, Cream — And Fall

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A beauty of a red kabocha squash.
A beauty of a red kabocha squash.

As award-winning food writer Nigel Slater so astutely states in his newest cookbook, autumn and winter call for far different types of meals. With brisk weather and darker nights, they fairly demand more substantial and weightier fare to nourish and warm us through and through.

As his new “Greenfeast: Autumn, Winter” (Ten Speed Press) shows, though, that doesn’t necessarily dictate huge slabs of meat. In fact, in this cookbook, of which I received a review copy, he shows with 110 vegetarian recipes that even in the throes of deepest winter, you can feel mighty satiated with plant-based fare.

As always, his joyously descriptive writing is evident throughout, including in the introduction, where he unabashedly states, “There will be carbs. They protect and energize us. They bring balm to our jagged nerves.”

My kind of carbs -- fall-apart tender squash in a mustardy cream sauce.
My kind of carbs — fall-apart tender squash in a mustardy cream sauce.

Ah, a man after my own stomach.

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Puff Pastry Part II: Slim Apricot Tarts

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Fresh apricots adorn a round of flaky puff pastry.

With a name like that, I wish I could tell you these tarts were the new magic diet food.

If only I could hunker down with one all to myself and become instantly slim.

I wish!

“Slim Apricot Tarts” are majestic with fresh summer apricots. And fruit does a body good, doesn’t it?

Oh sure, the fruit does sit on a platform of buttery puff pastry. And the apricots do get brushed with sweet apricot jam before serving.

But it’s all good, isn’t it?

It sure tastes that way. The apricots are first par-boiled to get them squishy soft. You remove the pits and peel off the skins (throw them away or nosh on them as you toil away at this task). Then, you place them atop the puff pastry dough to bake.

The recipe is from “Ripe: A Cook in the Orchard” (Ten Speed Press), of which I recently received a review copy. The book is by the wonderful British food writer, Nigel Slater. If you have never experienced his elegant, evocative, winning prose — especially in books like my favorite “Toast: The Story of a Boy’s Hunger” (Gotham) — you are truly missing out.

Apricots from Frog Hollow Farm.

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