Vegetable paella

Despite buying a copy of Yotam Ottolenghi's Plenty about three months ago, I only today got around to making a recipe from the book - vegetable paella. A version of the recipe is available on the Guardian website, where it appeared two years ago. I highly recommend it.
Like many Ottolenghi recipes, this one looks quite intimidating at first. The list of ingredients is long and frighteningly precise. A quarter of a teaspoon? That kind of lightness of touch goes against all my instincts, and I have to fight to force myself to follow the recipe. It is well worth setting such concerns aside, however. Despite the multitude of ingredients, this recipe is quick and easy to make, and the precision of measurement results in a perfectly balanced and incredibly tasty end result. Try it.

Red pepper, ricotta and thyme ravioli

As of this week, I now officially have no space for any new kitchen equipment in my flat (please note if you are already thinking about buying me a Christmas present). This is annoying, because I have also just applied for a new mortgage and have worked out that it's likely to be another five years before I can afford to buy a new place with a larger kitchen. That means five years without buying any new cooking gear. I'm sure I will survive, but it will take self restraint.

The reason for this storage crisis is that I have bought a new toy - a pasta maker. And today was my first attempt at making pasta with it.

The main attraction of buying a pasta maker was the ability to make stuffed pasta like ravioli and tortellini. I'm sure that homemade spaghetti and tagliatelle are sufficiently superior to what you can get out of a packet to make it worth the effort or the special equipment. But homemade ravioli allows one to be a great deal more creative.

The pasta dough itself was very easy to make - just flour and eggs blitzed in the food processor. It looks slightly odd at first, because what you're left with looks like a bowl full of yellow crumbs. But the crumbs come together into a stiff dough very easily.

The pasta maker itself took a bit more getting use to, but it was very satisfying feeding the sheets of pasta through the machine, watching them get progressively thinner.

The pasta maker came with a ravioli mould included - however, since I didn't feel like making star-shaped ravioli tonight (the novelty of that wore off before the machine had even arrived in the post), I decided to make the ravioli freehand.

For the filling, I mashed up a pack of ricotta with an egg, grated parmesan, fresh thyme and black pepper. For the sauce, I charred some long red peppers under a very hot grill before blitzing them in the food processor and then mixing them with garlic and red chilli sautéed in olive oil, more fresh thyme, and the juice of a lemon. Amazingly, the ravioli did not fall apart as soon as they hit boiling water, which I was convinced they would do. The end result was very impressive and far better than anything you can buy in a supermarket. It definitely wasn't a quick meal to prepare, but it was worth the effort, and I'm sure I will be experimenting more in the near future.

Beanburgers

I've recently developed the rather strange habit of storing up bread crusts and the stale ends of loaves, turning them into breadcrumbs and freezing them. This is not an attempt to reinvent myself as Marguerite Patten, though it's not as if I've had any specific recipe in mind.
Anyway, the other day, I thought of a use: beanburgers. This recipe makes 8 large patties. It more or less demolished the supply of breadcrumbs, which I have now set about replenishing. I'm not sure what I'll make with them next, but by the time I have an adequate stock, I will no doubt have worked it out.

1 can of red kidney beans, drained and rinsed150g of small green lentils1 small can of tomato puree1 small can of sweetcorn1 red pepper, finely diced4 cloves of garlic, crushed2 eggs2 teaspoons of ground cumin2 teaspoons of cocoa2 chillies (1 red, 1 green), finely chopped1 teaspoon of saltHandful of chopped fresh coriander250-350g of white breadcrumbs
Cook the lentils in a pan with plenty of water, boiling them hard with the lid off for 10 minutes and then simmering for a further 30-40 minutes. Drain and allow to cool. Mash the red kidney beans with a potato masher. Mix in the lentils, followed by the tomato puree and the spices. Then add the sweetcorn and pepper. Then beat in the eggs, followed by the coriander. Finally, add the breadcrumbs slowly, mixing constantly until the burger mix reaches a consistency where it can still be moulded easily but isn't wet and squelchy. Form the mixture into 8 balls, roll them in some more breadcrumbs, and then flatten to form patties. Shallow fry the burger buns in vegetable oil over a medium-high heat until browned and crispy on the outside.