Vegetable

Illustration of a citrus lemon

A beautiful Sunday is a day you might need nearly-ready food from the freezer.

For me, that’s food I prepared and partly cooked some other day and froze until needed (a label about ingredients and what needs to be done is a help).

So it was today – a glorious autumn day, which began earlier than usual with a walk down to the water’s edge. For some time, I just stood and stared. The sea turned into a magical montage of pale, silky blues. It only happens occasionally.

Then it was pretty much work as usual until I went to visit a local friend, just five minutes away through the village. By the time I arrived home, again, nearly three hours later, preparing and cooking from scratch was impractical.

But reserves lay in wait. I had an eggplant baked yesterday alongside the evening meal, with the flesh removed from the skin when it cooled, and put into the fridge.

What to do with it, now? Perfect with a few additions as a side dish to roast parsnips, carrots, swede and red pepper marinated in lemon juice, olive oil and garlic, and roasted until in the oven until they were about three-quarters done. Those, I had frozen a few days ago when I was in a cooking mood (Moon in Cancer).

These vegetables came out from the freezer tonight and straight into the oven for half an hour. Then I added lots of fresh thyme leaves plucked from my windowsill.

While that hummed in the oven, I added some yoghurt to the eggplant flesh, squeezed a clove of garlic into the mixture, tasted, pondered, added two teaspoons of tahini (brown, as it happens), and the juice of a dried lime. The last was taking advice from Cardamom and Lime, which has become my favourite recipe book. Ah yes, and a splash of the good oil - zesty green Greek olive oil.

Incidentally, I tried the broad beans and dill dish from Cardamom and Lime last night (I added fresh cubed fennel, as well). Due to unexpected delays, the dish was left on the hob for longer than it needed and became soggy.

In this situation, take out the quantity of rice mixture from the cooking container, put it on a flat plate, and hence into the microwave. Give it a minute on high heat. That should fluff it up again.