Vegetable Tikka Masala

It is so hard to make authentic Indian dishes at home if you use shop-bought spice pastes/rubs/cook-in-sauces/marinades, tinctures, unctions or spells. The best thing to do is make your own paste from easy-to-find- ingredients, and then make the sauce with coconut milk or tomato passata, or a combination of the two.

Today's dish is about as authentic-tasting an Indian dish as you will find outside of India. Of course, everyone knows that Indian cuisine in the UK is a poor, brightly coloured, overly sweet and bland pastiche of its native cousin, but compared with a Patak, Sharwoods or supermarket brand paste? No contest.

It's so easy to make the paste - just use garlic, onion, fresh ginger and fresh chilli blitzed in a processor, then add some easily-found dry spices. Once these have been fried in oil to release their essences into the world, you just add a couple of cans of wet ingredients - I used coconut milk and tomatoes, but you could use pulses (lentils or beans) in their cans with their own juices, or even water.

As far as the bulk ingredient is concerned; I fancied a veggie version, so went for a charred (and therefore 'tikka', in my view) aubergine and crunchy green bean version. The combination of flavours textures and colours was too good to pass up, but you could add any fish, poultry or meat you like. Lamb is the obvious prime contender, but I think shellfish, like mussels, would be a good dinner party dish. Just think of your guests faces when you serve them a mussel curry!

I serve my curries with bread and raita, but you could have rice, or forego the carbs entirely and have a crunchy raw vegetable side dish instead.

Cost-wise, this dish is not only nicer than shop-bought or take away curries, it's cheaper too. £1.50 per large serving is all.

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS:

1 thumb of ginger, peeled
3 cloves of garlic, peeled
1 large onion, peeled and quartered
3 flat red chillies, deseeded and halved
1 teaspoon each of cumin, coriander seed, and turmeric
4 tbsps olive oil
1 x 400g tin of tomato passata
1 x 400g tin of coconut milk
2 aubergines, cut into 3cm cubes
150g fine green beans, trimmed and cut into 6cm lengths
Salt and black pepper

Blitz the ginger, garlic, onion, chillies and dry spices in a food processor, and transfer to a saucepan with half of the oil. Fry the mixture on a low heat until the moisture has evaporated (you should be able to hear a gentle oily frying sound). In the meantime, roast the aubergines in a hot oven with the remaining oil until charred. Add the passata and the coconut milk to the onion mixture and reduce by half. Transfer the aubergines to the thickened sauce and add the beans. Cook on a medium heat until the beans are cooked through (5 minutes approx). Serve with rice or flatbreads and a chutney of your choice.

Oven-Baked Vegetable Noodles with Ginger and Sesame Oil

I hate stir-frying. I hate woks. I hate stir-fried food made at home. I hate all 'home-cooked Chinese food'. I love Chinese takeaways.

Chinese takeaways are not going to win Michelin stars, but the Chinese know how to cook food that caucasians like to eat. I'm talking about bright red crispy stuff in gloopy sauces. I'm talking about fried stuff with noodles. I'm talking about rice with bright stuff in it. I don't know how it's done and I don't care. I just love it (especially when it comes with a bag of free prawn crackers sitting on the top of the brown paper sack already leaking grease down the delivery driver's arm).

I'm a really good cook, and I love buying exotic produce from my Asian grocer, but I CANNOT MAKE CHINESE FOOD. I have a Chinese friend who has taught me how to make Chinese food , but I CANNOT MAKE CHINESE FOOD. So now I (almost) stop trying.

The problem is not the ingredients, but the technique. How many times have I wielded my wok and followed my good friend Yang's instructions to 'hey, only cook the vegetables for a few minutes!'? Yes Yang, after I remove the beautiful vibrant veg/meat/rice/noodles from the wok and put it onto the plate it starts leaching water until I have a 3cm pool at the bottom of the plate. The meat is hard and tasteless. The noodles have formed a crust on the bottom of the wok and are now scraped-off to form a stupid non-traditional gnarly crispy noodley garnish for the top of my crappy dish (I won't waste a scrap of food for any reason ever). What the eff?

The answer: Ditch the wok. Now by roasting everything in the oven, I just sit back and drink wine while waiting for my delicious dinner. No waiting for the wok to 'heat until blistering'. No getting covered in splats of oil. And definitely no watery slop.

The key is to oven cook the veg until all the water has been driven off and then keep adding things until everything is amalgamated. It is total stupidity that you must cook the veg for two minutes 'to keep all the vitamins in'. You want vitamins? Take a pill. For me, I want it to taste good.

Oh and while on the subject of taste? Fresh ginger and garlic with soy and sesame oil is a far better alternative to the stir-fry sauce nonsense served up in sachets in supermarket aisles (what is that brown goo? Wood stain?). Simple is always best - unless you're ordering food from your local takeaway, or you happen to have an Asian friend prepared to make you dinner.

This is no joke - the whole dinner comes in at £1.50 per very generous serving and is fairly close to rivaling my local Chinese takeaway for flavour. The recipe here is basic, but you can add some oven roasted meat or fish to the top. I made some salmon with mine and plonked it on top before serving. Delish.

Now, if only I could find a way to oven roast myself a few free prawn crackers...

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS:

Thumb of ginger, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
500g mixed stir-fry vegetables
1 tablespoon olive oil
400g ready-cooked egg noodles
1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
1 tablespoon sesame oil

Preheat oven to 220c. Mix together the ginger, garlic and vegetables and arrange in an even layer on a non-stick baking tray, then sprinkle with the olive oil. Bake for 20 minutes until well cooked (turning a few times), and then add the noodles, soy sauce and sesame oil, and mix everything together until well amalgamated. Bake for a further 5 minutes. Serve immediately.

Spaghetti Mr Ribeye

I was so jealous that my wife has her own favourite dish named after her ('Linguine Mrs Ribeye', no less), that I made up a dish and named it after myself.

Ta-da! SPAGHETTI MR RIBEYE!!!

If I'm honest, I'm slightly perturbed that my wife didn't make the dish for me and name it in my honour, but, well... she can't cook. At all. So I'll take one on the chin - and my tastebuds will thank me later.

Today's dish involves feta cheese and chillies - one of my favourite cheeses and my all-time favourite vegetable (or 'fruit' if you're pedantic). Actually, chillies may just be my favourite food of all time. I sometimes eat them whole on their own for an after-work snack with a glass of wine, cut-up raw on houmous, salads and burgers, or pickled on almost every other dish. But put chillies with feta cheese, and you have an atomic-super-duper-frenzy of a taste explosion. I'm getting a bit warm just thinking about it...

Smooth rich young cheese with fiery chilli. Mmm. Actually hold on... What if I were to roast some of the chillies to bring out their sweetness, and then have some raw ones on top to freshen the dish up? What an idea!

Regular Potless readers will notice that I have married together feta with roasted chillies in a dish before - in my Feta and Roasted Jalapeno Burger - but these days I am more of a veggie pasta than a burger guy (actually that's a lie; if I wasn't such a 'potential fatso', I would eat a burger a day).

And so it was born. The best pasta dish this side of Napoli, and the hottest dish this side of the sun. In a word...

'Fantabuloustasticerrificilliantissimo'. As they definitely say in Italy. Well, most days probably.

As ever, with my careful eye on the purse strings, this dish comes in at a very reasonable £2 per serving. Another reason why this is probably my signature recipe.

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS:

3 whole large red chillies
3-4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
3 cloves of garlic
1 x 400g tin of whole Italian tomatoes in their own juice
1 teaspoon of dried oregano, plus extra for dusting
Pinches of salt and pepper
Cooked spaghetti (250g uncooked weight), to serve
100g feta cheese, crumbled
2 red chillies, sliced, to garnish

To a blisteringly hot pan, add the chillies and oil and fry until the skins are slightly charred and roasted, then set aside until needed. To the oily pan, add the garlic and gently fry until it has the merest tinge of golden colour. Add the tomatoes, oregano, seasoning and about a quarter of the tomato tin filled up with water, and cook rapidly until the sauce is thick and unctuous (20 minutes approx). Add the spaghetti to the sauce (not the other way around) and mix to coat thoroughly. Top with the feta cheese, then the roasted and then the raw chillies. Lightly dust the dish with the extra oregano. Serve immediately.

Cheese Fondue

Mrs Ribeye and I have gone so 70's! It's amazing how fashions change and evolve, but mainly repeat, albeit with a slightly modern twist. A couple of years ago, there was no way that I could visualise buying a fondue set without thinking that I had gone a bit 'Austin Powers', but for some reason, these days, I reckon there is nothing groovier. Baby.

The thing is, I'd never made a fondue before and was a bit concerned about eating quite so much cheese in a meal. I shouldn't have worried. The fondue was quite simply the best thing I have ever eaten IN MY WHOLE LIFE. Where have you been all this time, my cheesy friend?

I word of advice on buying a fondue set: The Le Creuset one (ahhh, Le Creuset...) is about a hundred quid and, of course, is totally fab. But the Ikea one is thirty five quid and ... exactly the same as the Le Creuset one. I mean, exactly. So, the Ikea one it had to be (which gave me a chance to buy a sack of frozen meatballs too. Everyone's a winner).

Since I had never made a fondue before, I had to do a bit of research. The general consensus is that the 'correct' fondue, is a Swiss fondue. So I chose Gruyere and Emmenthal. Apparently I could have chose Vacherin too, if I knew what Vacherin was or where to buy it.

Also, I used brandy and lemon juice instead of the traditional kirsch, because I didn't fancy buying a bottle of kirsch just to make a fondue. My addition of a foil-wrapped triangle of Dairylea was a recommendation from a Swiss food blog, which assured me that this extra touch would help amalgamate all of the other ingredients. I'm not 100% sure how a tiny piece of processed goo is going to make any difference, but who am I to argue?

Fondue is a rich dish and an interesting and totally delicious main course. I served mine with a plate of salami and crudites, alongside the traditional crusty dipping bread. It would also make a cool drinks party snack with cold wine or beer. A quick note on the bread: Make sure that each piece has a piece of crust attached to it for secure spearing - otherwise, after a few goes, the fondue will end up more like a bread sauce.

Cost-wise, this one is great value. £2 per generous serving for a luxurious and trendy dish is a 1970's priced bargain.

My friend Ophelia, who is Swiss, has promised me a 'fondue cook-off'. But to be honest, she's gonna lose.

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS:

350ml white wine
50ml brandy
25ml lemon juice
1 clove of garlic, whole
500g mixed cheeses, grated (I used Gruyere and Emmenthal)
2 tablepoons of flour
1 piece of spreadable cheese, like Dairylea or Laughing Cow
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon nutmeg
Salt and black pepper
Crusty bread for dipping

In a fondue pot or casserole on the hob turned up to a high heat, cook the wine, brandy lemon juice and the garlic until the liquid has reduced by half. Turn the hob to medium and discard the garlic, then add the cheese and flour gradually, until everything is smoothly incorporated. Mix in the cheese spread, paprika, nutmeg and seasoning. Remove the fondue from the hob and transfer to a low burner. Eat the fondue by dipping the bread into the sauce and periodically stirring it to keep it lump-free and avoid burning.

Pasta with Gruyere, Pine Nuts, Basil and Garlic-infused Olive Oil

My wife is quite a complicated creature. At times she is a complete pushover (a description she hates - but who cares? She's a bit of a pushover), and at other times a complete P in the A. It can be a bit of a minefield working out which Mrs Ribeye will be coming through the door, and so the best policy is to tread fairly carefully, then try a bit of a joke at her expense before either apologising profusely or hammering my (frankly hilarious) point home. Gotta love marriage.

One way to convert an on-edge tiger to an affectionate pushover kitten, is to keep them happy with their favourite grub. Mrs Ribeye's catnip of choice is anything pasta-centric, hence Linguine 'Mrs Ribeye'. Today's dish is my newest invention, and quite frankly, it's a bit of a hit - which means I'm off the hook after winding her up just a little too much when she got home, after she spent the day telling her slightly (as in, majorly) diva-ish colleague, Dali, off all day.

Think of this pasta dressing as a kind of un-blitzed pesto, but made with gruyere instead of parmesan. If my friend Kumar had not resisted me making fondue last weekend, I wouldn't have had so much bloody gruyere in the fridge, so probably would have made this dish with whatever other cheese I had lying around - but gruyere is such a deliciously fab melting cheese, that in a way I'm delighted I have a large block (or two) in the fridge ready to use in other things.

I have chosen mushroom tortellini (not home made, of course, who could be bothered?) as my pasta, because Mrs Ribeye is quite the fan of stuffed pasta shapes (I think it's a Russian thing - she loves pelmeni), but this dish would be great with linguine or spaghetti, or even penne. It's dead easy to make and quick too - which means more time listening to the wife's 'interesting' work tales and less time hiding in the kitchen. Oh well, you can't have everything.

Oh, and apart from being easy and delicious, this dish is cheap too: £2.75 per serving.

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS:

3 tablespoons of olive oil
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
2 tablespoons of pine nuts
1 x 300g pack of tortellini, cooked as per the instructions
Handful of fresh basil leaves
100g gruyere cheese, shaved, using a potato peeler
Salt and pepper

Mix the oil and garlic together and set aside to infuse. Toast the pine nuts in a dry pan until golden and set aside. Cook the tortellini and transfer to a serving dish. Dress with the garlic-infused oil (taking care not to add the raw garlic to the dish) and garnish with the pine nuts, basil and gruyere shavings. Season to taste and serve immediately.

Linguine 'Mrs Ribeye'

Moderation moderation moderation.

I don't know why, but for many years I had an obsession with cooking everything either very very slowly - stews/sauces; or very very quickly - fish, roast chicken/beef/lamb. I somehow thought that all behaviour had to be polarised or it was considered dull.

This attitude towards extreme behaviour carried on into my life as a DJ (my mixing was of the 'slap it in and out' school), my social life ('live hard, work hard, party hard'), my professional life ('I haven't become a millionaire today? Boring') and my relationships ('You don't like my taste in music? Get out!').

However, as the years advanced, the yearning to become moderate has taken any of my hyperbolic emotions away from me. I now enjoy partying 'most of the night long'. I am happy in my work - whatever my financial status. My DJ'ing is smoother to listen to (and, er,  better), and my cooking is simpler, with more emphasis on  treating each recipe with individual care rather than trying to impose my blanket techniques on all my dishes. Oh and I have now learnt to bicker. I used to be fiery but as I have now hit my forties I find it far more agreeable to resolve conflicts with whinges and whines, rather than full scale war. There are less casualties.

Today's dish is a great example of how far I've come as a cook. I used to take two hours to slow cook the hell out of the ingredients to make a spaghetti sauce, until I realised that slow cooking leaves flavours dead and dull. So now, I take minutes to prepare my sauce and the results are superb. Fresh, vibrant tomatoe-y goodness, topped with a whole cubed mozzarella and enough freshly picked basil leaves to make them more of a central feature than a herby afterthought. Mrs Ribeye absolutely adores this dish and so I have named it after her.

This dish is simple, cheap and delicious. This is not, however, the reason I named it after my wife. Cost-wise, you're only looking at £2 per serving.

A quick note on the ingredients:

1. Use a LOT of garlic - this sauce is a celebration of the mighty bulb (but remember to remove the central bitter stem from each individual clove before chopping).

2. Use tinned WHOLE plum tomatoes, and then break them up later once the sauce has nearly finished cooking - the ready chopped ones emit their seeds into the sauce too early, creating bitterness.

3. Use a LOT of olive oil - the dish won't be greasy, I promise.

4. DON'T stir the mozzarella into the sauce - it's nice to have the slowly softening creamy chunks against the richness of the sauce.

5. Use LOTS of fresh basil - think of it as a salad garnish rather than a herb.

6. Use LINGUINE if you can, not spaghetti - it's somehow meatier and holds the sauce better.

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS:

3 cloves of garlic
3-4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
1 x 400g tin of whole Italian tomatoes in their own juice
1 teaspoon of dried oregano, plus extra for dusting
Pinches of salt and pepper
Cooked linguine (250g uncooked weight), to serve
2 balls of mozzarella cheese, cubed
Large handful of fresh basil leaves, for sprinkling

In a pan on high heat, add the garlic and oil and gently fry until it has the merest tinge of golden colour. Add the tomatoes, oregano, seasoning and about a quarter of the tomato tin filled up with water, and cook rapidly until the sauce is thick and unctuous (20 minutes approx). Add the linguine to the sauce (not the other way around) and mix to coat thoroughly. Transfer to serving dishes and top with the mozzarella cubes and basil leaves. Lightly dust the dish with the extra oregano. Serve immediately

A Righteous, Healthy Vegetarian Lunch

It's easy to spot a health food - it invariably looks and tastes like crap.

That's why hummus has had such an easy time of it. It is the only health food that I, and a billion like me, eat with any pleasure at all. I'm not saying that I'm morbidly obese or anything, but along with 98% of the developed world, I could probably do with losing some pounds.

I've tried eating less bread, meat, dairy and sweets and traded them for rice cakes, fish, light creme fraiche and dates, but to no avail - I'm still a wobbler. I'm sure that these foods are all amazingly good for you, but (as I have said earlier) they taste like crap. Alright, not crap exactly, but crappier versions of the other stuff, which means that I supplement these healthier foods with Cadbury's Flakes at any given opportunity.

So, with mere weeks to go until bikini season, I need to make a stab at shifting the spare tyre, and so this lunch is my attempt at redressing the balance after a long winter of storing nuts, so to speak.

But why should I lose weight? I'm cuddly, and cuddly is attractive, yeah? Or funny. Funny and fat is cool, right? Apparently not. Mrs Ribeye, who is herself 6' tall and naturally lithe, and one of those people who actually seems to lose weight after drinking a McDonald's milkshake, has given me the odd reproving glance. She says it's indigestion, but I don't believe her - it's definitely revulsion at my moobs. Plus, she seems to be laughing less with me than at me recently. So today is the first day of my diet. Well, not a diet exactly, more of a try at cutting down on the treats.

As you may remember, Mrs Ribeye and I have cut meat out of our weekday meals, so I can't exactly go on the Atkins diet - not that I would anyway; can you imagine all the vicious anger and bitchiness I would generate on a no-carb eating plan? I'm bad enough ON carbs.

So, a vegetarian (or fish, if the mood had taken me) healthy lunch today is the thing. BRING ON THE HUMMUS!!! What would I do without it? Salad with olive oil dressing is great as a side dish, but as the main feature? I think not. Slather some of the hummus onto salad veg and top with a few falafels and some jalapeno relish and I'm a step closer to my target weight of a metric half tonne.

Oh, just one thing, hummus is fattening - so don't eat too much. God, I hate my life...

Saving calories means also saving pounds - British pounds I mean. £1.50 per (not too) generous serving is all this lunch will set you back.

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS:

Chopped salad vegetables (I used lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, olives, fresh chillies, radishes and sweet peppers)
200g hummus
16 small falafel balls, baked
2 tablespoons of sweet jalapeno relish
1 tablespoon of paprika

Arrange the salad vegetables on a deep serving bowl and spread with the hummus. Add the falafel balls and top with the jalapeno relish. Sprinkle with paprika.

Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto and Vegetable Couscous with Fresh Oregano

So, here are a few facts to ponder:

1. I make Mrs Ribeye's packed lunch every day for work (henpecked, me? nah...).
2. Mrs Ribeye and I are on a 'meat in moderation' pact, meaning we mainly reserve eating flesh for weekends and special occasions.
3. I have a new herb garden (more like a couple of terracotta troughs, actually) on the roof terrace.

Put these seemingly independent facts together and what do you get? Couscous! With vegetables! And fresh herbs! Not so hard to guess really.

Mrs Ribeye loves pasta salad, but wasn't so keen on couscous until I told her that couscous is in fact pasta, but smaller. Now she loves it. I can't wait to tell her that liver is made of strawberries and black pudding has chocolate in it. No, really. Couscous IS made of semolina flour like pasta, so it is (in theory anyway) small pasta. In theory.

Anyway, since I started making this dish, the old finicky eater can't get enough of it. When she saw the fresh oregano, she asked me why I had put bits of the hedge on her packed lunch. Give me strength...

In the new herb 'garden', I have put oregano, French tarragon, apple mint and rosemary. Mrs Ribeye likes nicking off bits of the mint to put in her tea (bless her and her Russian ways) and I like nicking bits off the rest to jazz up our meals. Apart from using the oregano in this vegetarian recipe, I'm looking forward to the weekend to use it to 'herbify' a Greek lamb dish, or something.

This weekend is the Eurovision Song Contest and I have Ophelia, Kumar, Tanya and Ricardo over here for a barbecue/Eurovision extravaganza - let's hope this heatwave holds out (it probably won't). Watch this space for a barbecue recipe after I've figured out what I'm going to make. I'm feeling a bit hamburger-y, but peri-peri chicken is also on the cards. Go Engelbert!

Back to today though. Just gather up some spring vegetables and add them to a sun-dried tomato or basil pesto-flavoured couscous and then get busy with the fresh herbs. It's a wonderful late spring/early summer lunch or supper, or if you're Mrs Ribeye, a fabulous packed lunch to eat with your workmates in sunny Hyde Park. Luckyyyyyy.

Cost-wise, this set me back £1.50 per serving, but feel free to add whatever you like and you'll still stay way under your Potless budget.

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS:

100g dried couscous
150ml boiling water
50g sun-dried tomato pesto sauce
Pinches of salt and pepper
1 teaspoon of dried oregano
200g chopped vegetables (I have used artichoke hearts, fresh tomatoes and black olives)
Fresh oregano leaves to sprinkle

Add the couscous to the boiling water with the pesto, salt and pepper and dried oregano. Leave to stand, covered in clingfilm, until the water has been absorbed (10 minutes approx). Once the couscous has cooled to room temperature, add the vegetables and fold through. Sprinkle with the fresh oregano leaves just before serving.

Mushroom and Potato Frittata

What's the difference between a tortilla and a frittata? No, this isn't a bad culinary joke - the answer, is that a tortilla is 'flipped' in the pan to cook both sides, while the frittata is cooked one one side in a pan and then grilled to cook the top.

Now, don't say I don't teach you nuffink.

The reason I made this frittata, as opposed to a tortilla, is that I wanted to try out my new cast iron frying pan on both the hob and the grill. This is the first time I have not bought a non-stick pan - opting for a VERY heavy duty, seasoned, solid iron (100 tons at least), very grown up pan, that looks as if I will be able to hand it down to my great-great-great grandchildren, perfectly intact.

Anyway, did it work? The answer, is a resounding YES! I don't know what has come into me, but I feel so comfortingly 'olde worlde cook'-ish with my cast iron pan, that I'm considering never buying anything non-stick again. Teflon? Pah! If it wasn't good enough for Mrs Beeton, it isn't good enough for me. Turning 40 does strange things to you, I must say.

So what does this frittata taste like? Well, I think using the cast iron pan gives it a certain savouriness or something I can't quite put my finger on. I'm sure in a blind-tasting I wouldn't be able to tell whether or not I had used a non-stick pan, but food isn't all about empirical data. It's about history, nostalgia and dare I say it, a bit of romance?

Go and buy a non-stick pan NOW! If you don't buy one ready-seasoned, like me, you will need to fry in it a few times and not scrub off the cooking residue too much when washing it, in order to build up it's non-stick layer.

Do I really need to tell you that this dish is way under the Potless budget? Well, for completeness I will: £1.50 per serving. I thank you.

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS:


300g floury potatoes, such as Maris Piper, peeled and cut into 2cm dice
200g mushrooms, finely sliced
1 large red onion, finely sliced
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 teaspoon of thyme
2 tablespoons of olive oil
5 eggs, beaten
Pinches of salt and pepper

Boil the potatoes until soft. Fry the mushrooms, onion, garlic and thyme in the olive oil, on a moderate heat, until soft and translucent. Add the potatoes and move them around the pan to pick up all of the oily juices. Add the eggs and ensure everything is evenly covered. Cook until the bottom of the frittata is sealed (10 minutes approx). Transfer the pan to a hot grill and cook the top until the frittata is golden on top. Serve warm.

Greek Halloumi Salad with Hummus Dressing

I love that squeaky, rubbery cheese halloumi. After a few minutes of frying in hot oil, it transforms from an unpalatable bar of white waxy soapy stuff to a delicious savoury crispy gooey treat, perfect for a meat-free dinner. It's still a bit squeaky though.

So, with a bar of halloumi and the omnipresent tub of hummus in the fridge, I thought, let's make a bit of a healthy meal, after all of the birthday weekend tomfoolery. And this is it. I simply loosened the hummus into a vinaigrette base and coated a few salad vegetables with it before topping the whole thing off with fried halloumi slices. Delish.

In what other way could I fry a lump a cheese and call it a 'healthy alternative'? You gotta love the Greeks.

However, hummus is actually not Greek, despite it being served it in Greek-Cypriot restaurants up and down the UK. A decade or two ago, I went to beautiful Crete (I accept, not in Cyprus) and spent the entire trip searching for what I thought was the traditional Greek dish of hummus. No such thing. Yes, taramasalata and tzatziki adorned every dish in every taverna on the island (whether I asked for it or not), but hummus? No.

So, in the end, we ended up in a Cypriot restaurant, in Greece, before I got served the chickpea dip. And very delicious it was too.

I served this salad with Flatbreads, as you can see from the picture, and a very substantial and lovely meal it was too. Not exactly health food, but not too far off - especially if you fry the halloumi in olive oil, like I did.

All in all, this recipe comes in at a very reasonable £2 per serving.

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS:

1 block of halloumi, cut into 6 slices
1 tablespoon of olive oil
Mixed salad vegetables (I used lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes, olives, sweet peppers, chillies and radishes, all cut into 1cm dice)
Flatbreads, to serve

For the hummus dressing:

2 tablespoons of hummus
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 tablespoon of red wine vinegar or lemon juice
1 teaspoon of mustard
Pinches if salt and pepper

Fry the halloumi in the olive oil until brown on each side. Arrange the salad vegetables in large bowls and top with the halloumi slices. Mix the dressing ingredients together and pour over the salad. Serve with the flatbreads.

Masala Chips

Mrs Ribeye and I had a fabulous lunch at the Indian vegetarian diner, Sakonis in Wembley, on bank holiday Monday earlier this week.

Gotta love bank holidays, but gotta love Sakonis even more. I won't rave about it here, because I'll write a full review later this week as part of my Potless Budget Restaurant Review series. However, I will write about a stealthily brilliant dish I ate there. I say 'stealthily', because ostensibly this dish is a mere plate of chips with a spicy sauce on it, and while it may be more obvious to bang on about the diner's legendary potato bhajis or masala dosai instead, I won't, because masala chips, for all of its unpretentious concept and simple flavours and ingredients is utterly and completely incredible.

I am using oven chips here to keep the oil consumption to a minimum, and it won't matter whether the chips are fried or baked first anyway, because they're going to get deliciously soggy, once folded into the sauce. Weirdly enough, although anathema to usual chip recipes, sogginess is the preferred texture for a plate of masala chips. In fact, it may even be better to buy a plate of chip shop chips to make this recipe - I reckon they have the right 'sog' factor necessary for an authentic take on this Indian classic. Don't tell Sakonis, but Mrs Ribeye reckons my recipe is even better than theirs.

Anyway, back to bank holiday Mondays: We should have them twice a week.

Keep an eye out later this week for my Sakonis review. It's a corker. But in the meantime, if you fancy a quick hit of their delicious Indian veggie fare, whip up a quick batch of these masala chips for only £1 per serving.

Fabulous as a starter, side dish, or as a snack with drinks. 

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS:

1 large onion, coarsely chopped

1 red pepper, cut into 1cm strips

2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

3 chillies, cut into 1cm rings

1 tablespoon of sunflower or olive oil

200g tinned chopped tomatoes

1 teaspoon of madras or medium curry powder
1 teaspoon of black onion (nigella) seeds

500g cooked chips (French fries)

Pinches of salt and pepper
Fresh coriander leaves, for sprinkling

In a large wok, fry the onion, pepper, garlic and most of the chillies (reserving some for later) together until soft and translucent. Add the tomatoes, curry powder and black onion seeds and simmer for 10 minutes, until the sauce has thickened. Add the chips to the sauce and fold through until the chips are evenly coated. Season to taste. Sprinkle with fresh coriander and the reserved chillies before serving.

Middle Eastern Vegetarian Meze Platter

I would never have believed that refraining from eating meat would be this easy.

Mrs Ribeye and I have not allowed a morsel of land-dwelling animal near us since Sunday, and quite frankly, it's been a breeze. If I didn't love the taste of flesh quite so much, I may even consider going veggie full-time.

Whoaah! No way! I LOVE meat! There's absolutely no way I want to join the ranks of hemp cloth-wearing, yurt-owning, sandal-wearing veggies (although, in fairness, I have longish hair, love camping, wear Birkenstocks from May thru' October, and own a poncho which was hand-made in Nepal - but I promise, I am NOT a hippy).

No, I can't wait to sink my teeth into a hamburger - a treat that I have promised myself for Saturday lunch, Hooray! - but until then, it has been no hardship to eat the type of dish which I present to you today.

As you may know, I live but a short walk away from Marble Arch in central London, a major hub of Middle Eastern life and culture. Along the Edgware Road are dozens of delis, restaurants and grocers heaving with Middle Eastern delights, and there's nothing I like doing more than collecting a few of these things together on one plate and serving it as a sort of meze.

If you buy ready-made hummus (life is too short to make your own, surely?), you can jazz it up as I have here with sunflower seeds, olive oil, paprika and fresh chillies, and use it as a centrepiece dip for all sorts of delicious things.

Falafels are deep fried spicy chickpea fritters which can be bought from almost all supermarkets these days. One day, I may post a recipe for these (and for hummus, maybe), but until then buy them ready-made. As for anything else, let your tastebuds be your guide - there are no rules. I have chosen roasted and raw vegetables and, of course, flatbreads to mop it all up. Go Middle Eastern crazy!

My combination of ingredients set me back £2.50 per serving, but you could 'luxe' it up a bit with seafood or lamb - but then you would be lying if you called it a 'Middle Eastern Vegetarian Meze Platter'. So call it a 'Middle Eastern Meze Platter' instead.

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS:

1 large aubergine, cut into long strips
2 courgettes, cut into long strips
1 teaspoon each of garlic powder, ground coriander, cumin, salt and pepper
2 tablespoons of olive oil
300g hummus, ready-made
1 tablespoon of sunflower seeds or pine nuts
1 teaspoon of paprika
2 red chillies, cut into fine rings
12-16 falafel balls, baked or fried
100g mixed olives
1 large red pepper, sliced into thin strips
12 cherry tomatoes, sliced lengthwise
12 flatbreads, toasted and cut into wide strips

Preheat oven to 200c. Mix the aubergine and courgette strips in the garlic powder, coriander, cumin, salt and pepper and half of the olive oil, and spread them out, skin sides down, on a baking sheet, and roast for an hour. In the meantime, On a large serving platter, spread the hummus in the middle, in a thick layer with an indentation in the centre. In the indentation, pour the other half of the olive oil, followed by the sunflower seeds, paprika and chilli rings. Surround the hummus with the roasted vegetables, falafels, olives, pepper strips, cherry tomatoes and flatbreads.

Cauliflower Cheese

Mrs Ribeye and I eat WAY too much meat.

This morning we made a deal to eat no meat this entire week, and then I served us my Sunday Antipasti Platter for lunch, without it even registering that the ham and salami on it signified a very early (it was only 20 minutes after we made the deal, in fact) break in our pact.

The main problem is that to us, ham and salami are not really meat - they are just a normal accompaniment to lunch, which is why we know we have to cut down. For something to be called 'meat' in our house, it has to be roast lamb, beef or pork. Even chicken is considered a vegetable in certain dishes. This is a BIG problem, and something has to change.

So, starting from ...NOW, we will confine all foods (until Saturday) to vegetables and fish. Tonight, I'm making cauliflower cheese as a main course, rather than as a side dish to Marinated Bavette Steak or Beef Wellington, like I normally do. When I was eleven years old, I went to my friend Benjamin's house for dinner and his mum served us cauliflower cheese as a main course. How we all laughed when I got home and told my family that I was expecting some type of meat main dish to arrive at the table, then realised it wasn't, and then I hoped for a shepherd's pie for dessert.

Well, Benjy's family probably had it right, all those years ago. While I wouldn't make it a regular habit of omitting meat from my diet, I think some serious moderation is in order. I'm aiming for fish twice a week, meat twice, chicken twice and vegetables once, as the star of our evening meals in future. Who knows? We may even grow to like it.

Anyway, tomorrow night, I will be making my Vegetable Curry with Rainbow Raita with Onion Bhajis as a side dish. I really fancy some Mushroom Bhajis too, so I'll post the recipe very soon - we're only cutting down on meat - I didn't say we were on a low-calorie diet, for crissake.

A large cauliflower will serve two of us as a main course, and it cost me £1 at my local supermarket, which means that this dish costs only £1.25 per serving to produce. Veggie cooking is cheap!

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS:

1 large cauliflower, cut into small florets
2 tablespoons of plain flour
50ml olive oil
300ml milk
150g mature cheddar cheese, grated, plus 50g reserved for the topping
Pinches of salt and pepper
100g breadcrumbs

Simmer the cauliflower florets in boiling water in a large saucepan for 10 minutes. In the meantime, mix the flour and oil in a small saucepan and cook on a moderate heat for 5 minutes. Slowly add the milk until you have a thick sauce, and keep stirring it to avoid lumps. Take the sauce off the heat, add the cheese and salt and pepper and stir the sauce until the cheese has melted. Preheat the oven to 200c. Take the cauliflower out of the pan and transfer it to a roasting dish. Pour the sauce on top of the cauliflower and sprinkle with the breadcrumbs and the reserved cheese. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes, or until the topping is golden and crunchy.

The Ultimate Ratatouille

Ratatouille, the Provencal vegetarian concoction, must be the most overrated dish in the world. Animated Parisian mice cook it, restaurants the world over are named after it, and even Nando's (a Portuguese themed - not even French, for crissake - chicken restaurant chain) have it on their menu as a side dish.

Chuck some mushy, watery vegetables into a mushy, watery sauce, and you have a mushy, watery stew. With no meat in it. Big deal.

Ah, but if you take the time to drive the naturally occurring water out of the components of the dish, before you put it all together, you now have something I could be tempted to write a rodent-inspired CGI film script about, or maybe even eat with my piri-piri chicken.

Driving the natural water out of the ingredients is really what cooking this dish is all about. It concentrates the flavours, creates interesting textures and allows other flavours to penetrate. Sometimes, you want water and vitamins (which are killed off by long cooking - if you believe the nutritionists, which I do maybe 50/50) to be retained in your cooked vegetables, but not in ratatouille. If you eat this dish, you may want to take a multivitamin tablet to make up for the lost niacin and riboflavin, but please roast the vegetables until only their essences remain.

Now ratatouille is my favourite vegetable dish in the world. I even occasionally eat it without a side order of meat (that's something I can't say about salad).

You are well under your Potless budget with this one - £1.25 per serving is the cost. Enough left over to buy some chicken.

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS:

1 aubergine, sliced into 1cm thick dice
2 courgettes, sliced into 1cm thick rounds
1 large onion, cut into eighths
1 large sweet pepper, cut into 1cm wide strips
8 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon of dried oregano
400g chopped plum tomatoes, plus 1 extra can of water
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 teaspoon of dried basil
Pinches of salt and pepper

Place the aubergine, courgettes, onion and pepper in a bowl with the oregano and half of the olive oil. Mix well and transfer to a baking tray. Ensure that the vegetables are in a single layer, and roast in a 200C oven, turning once, until charred, soft and translucent (approx 1 hour). While the vegetables are roasting, Place the rest of the oil, the tomatoes, water, garlic and salt and pepper into a saucepan and cook on a moderate heat until the water has evaporated and the sauce has thickened (approx 45 minutes). Take the roasted vegetables out of the oven and transfer them to the sauce. Fold through the sauce until everything has amalgamated. 

Quick Vegetable Curry with Rainbow Raita

My old friend, Jerome, popped in for a flying visit and demanded dinner. Literally demanded. So, since he had brought a fabulous bottle of wine with him, and had a pathetic, needy look on his face, I had to think fast. With a couple of bags of Marks and Spencer prepared vegetables in the fridge, I thought: I know! Microwaved vegetables! Errmm, no. I needed a plan B. So, curry it was.

Curry is a favourite meal round at Potless Towers. All you need is a cupboard full of spices and a few staple ingredients, and a tasty meal can be made in super quick time. You can also make this dish with chicken, meat or fish - or do as I do here: simply use a variety of vegetables, whether fresh or tinned. Either way, the curry base is versatile and can be made in advance, and refrigerated or frozen, with the addition of the main ingredient coming at the last possible minute.

Although any curry will always put a smile on your friends' faces, it is the rainbow raita which pushes this dish up a few notches into Wow-land. You must add as many colourful salad vegetables and herbs to the yoghurt base as you can find, and then top the whole thing off with garish stripes of dried spices, to make a creative and delicious table centrepiece. Plus, the fresh, slightly acidic taste will set off the rich curry beautifully.

The Marks and Sparks 500g bags of prepared carrots, cauliflower and broccoli florets are currently on offer at 2 for £3, so this recipe happened to cost me only £1.75 per serving, including the raita and rice. You could also serve some pitta or flatbreads to make a more carb-laden, substantial feast - or use meatier ingredients, instead of the vegetables alone, and still be well under your Potless budget.

Serves 4

Quick Vegetable Curry

INGREDIENTS:

1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
Thumb of ginger, finely chopped
3 tablespoons of olive or sunflower oil
1 teaspoon each of ground coriander seed, ground cumin, turmeric powder, chilli powder, paprika
2 cardamom pods
Pinches of salt and pepper
1 x 400g tin chopped tomatoes
1 x 400g tin of green lentils or chickpeas in water
200ml water
2 x 500g bags of prepared vegetables
2 red chillies, cut into 5mm rings, for sprinkling
Handful of fresh coriander leaves, for sprinkling

500g steamed rice, to serve
Pitta or flatbreads, to serve

Fry the onion, garlic and ginger in the oil, on a moderate heat, until soft and translucent (10 minutes approx). Add the dry spices and salt and pepper and cook until their fragrances have released (5 minutes approx). Add the tomatoes, lentils and water and cook until the sauce is thick and unctuous (45minutes-1 hour approx). Add the vegetables and cook until soft (5 minutes approx). Transfer to a serving dish and sprinkle with the chillis and coriander leaves immediately before serving. Serve with the rainbow raita and steamed rice, and maybe some pitta or flatbreads.

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Rainbow Raita

INGREDIENTS:

400ml natural Greek yoghurt
1 sweet yellow pepper, cut into 1cm dice
1 carrot, finely chopped
1 stalk of celery, finely chopped
1 red onion, finely chopped
1 red chilli, deseeded and cut into 2mm rings
Half a cucumber, deseeded and cut into 1cm dice
Handful of fresh mint leaves, finely chopped
1 tablespoon of maple syrup
Pinches of salt and pepper
1 teaspoon each of paprika, ground coriander seed and turmeric powder, for sprinkling

In a bowl mix all ingredients, except for the dry spices. Season to taste. Once the ingredients have been mixed, sprinkle the dry spices on top, in attractive patterns (I favour two long intersecting parallel lines of each spice). Serve immediately.

Spicy Falafel Wraps with Yoghurt, Garlic and Mint Sauce and Chilli Salsa

Middle Eastern food is so brilliant - fresh flavours, spicy and colourful ingredients, and all within a stone's throw of our flat. Edgware Road is so full of fantastic delis and food emporia (plural of 'emporium' hopefully - or have I just invented a new word?), that I'm never far from inspiration.

This weekend, I'm going to have a Middle Eastern-themed party. Alongside these delicious falafel wraps, I think I'll also serve my Lamb Shwarma Wraps and my Lamb Kofte Quarterpounders.

I love a party - Saturday's get-together is starting at 5pm to allow for some early celebrating. One of my oldest friends, Jasmine, is travelling to far off lands to live, and we are all sending her and her boyfriend Guy off in style. In fairness, this is not the first time Jasmine has buggered off to live abroad. This is (by my reckoning) her third leaving do, but I don't care - any excuse for a party.

This dish comes in at £2 per large wrap - but as it's a party I would suggest that you make mini versions of all these three dishes and have a finger buffet. You could easily convert the kofte quarterpounders into little 'slider' burgers. Also, Morrisons Supermarkets do a packet of six 15cm diameter mini tortilla wraps, which are perfect for party food, if you don't fancy cutting these large warps into quarters.

Serves 4

Falafel

INGREDIENTS:

400g tin of chickpeas
1 large onion
3 cloves of garlic
1 tablespoon of fresh parsley
1 tablespoon of fresh coriander leaves
1 teaspoon of ground cumin
1 teaspoon of ground coriander seeds
Pinches of salt and pepper
Sunflower or vegetable oil, for frying

Pulse the ingredients together in a blender until you have a coarse paste. Form into sixteen golf-ball sized falafels and refrigerate until firm (1 hour approx). Deep fry until golden and crunchy (5 minutes approx).

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Yoghurt, Garlic and Mint Sauce

INGREDIENTS:

300ml Greek natural yoghurt
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 teaspoon of dried mint
Pinches of salt and pepper

Mix ingredients together and set aside until needed.

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Chilli Salsa

INGREDIENTS:

1 sweet red pepper, finely chopped
2 red chillis, finely chopped
1 red onion, finely chopped
2 tomatoes, finely chopped
Juice of a lime
A few drops of Tabasco
Pinches of salt and pepper

Mix ingredients together and set aside until needed.

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To Assemble the Wraps

INGREDIENTS:

4 large tortilla wraps
1 cucmber, cut into 1cm dice
Half an iceberg lettuce, shredded
150g green olives, coarsely chopped

Heat the tortilla wraps on one side in a dry frying pan until slightly toasted. On the toasted side, spread a large spoonful of the yoghurt sauce and place 4 falafel balls in a straight line over the sauce. Dress with the vegetables and top with a large spoonful of the salsa. Roll the wrap into a fat cigar shape and then roll into a piece of foil to secure, twisting the ends. Cut the wraps in half to serve.

Roasted Tomato, Sweet Onion and Goat's Cheese Tart

This is basically a very easy-to-make pizza. Just buy the pastry in a ready-made sheet (life is too short to make your own) and add whichever toppings take your fancy. I could not be bothered to make a tomato sauce from scratch, just to make this tart, so I used fresh tomatoes here. If I make my own Italian tomato sauce for a pasta dish, I usually steal a bit from it and keep it in my freezer just for this recipe.

If you don't like goat's cheese or onions, use mozzarella and asparagus, or a billion other creations. Salami and ricotta is insanely good - Mrs Ribeye's favourite, actually.

Puff pastry sheets are on offer this week at my local supermarket at just £1 for 2 sheets, so today this recipe comes in at £1.50 per serving, including a green salad. Even when the price goes back up to £1.79, this still comes in at a fantastic £2 per serving for a light lunch or winter starter. Or make smaller individual tarts for a fab snack with drinks.

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS:

2 large onions, finely sliced into half moons
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon of dried thyme
Pinches of salt and pepper
2 puff pastry sheets (425g total)
2 large tomatoes, finely sliced
200g goat's cheese, cut into 1cm dice
1 teaspoon of dried oregano
1 egg, beaten

Green salad, to serve

Preheat oven to 200c. Fry, on a low heat, the onions with the olive oil, thyme and salt and pepper until soft and golden (30 minutes approx). Lay out the pastry sheets and top with the onion mix, leaving a 2cm margin around the edges. Scatter slices of one tomato per pastry sheet over the onions. Dot cubes of goat's cheese over the tomatoes and sprinkle with the oregano. Brush the exposed pastry edge margins with the beaten egg. Bake in the oven until the pastry is golden and the cheese has melted (25 minutes approx). Serve one tart, with the green salad, between 2 people.