Unusual Nosh

I’d heard it said that many of us generally use the same twenty or so ingredients, without variation, when preparing meals, for our entire lives! Right, I thought to myself, I’m going to make a point of diversifying, exploring new tastes, and change my daily diet so I don’t become part of that deadly boring statistic.

As a result (or maybe this would have happened anyway) I have hoards of brightly illustrated cookery books (untouched by recent renovations) inviting me to try something succulent and delicious that I’ve never attempted before. Of course, I often end up with a lightly boiled egg for my lunch and nothing will ever change that but every now and then I roll up my sleeves and get stuck in to a new recipe with ingredients that I often can’t pronounce.

One summer, with my morning tea and toast, I read through a plain paperback (no pretty pictures!), From Anna's Kitchen: Plain and Fancy Vegetarian Menus by Anna Thomas and picked a recipe a day to suit my newly vegetarian daughter to prevent her starving to death. By plodding my way through the book I found, among other great recipes, a Mexican dish that is now a staple part of our family diet and a great favourite: Refried Beans with flour tortillas. As we speak, there is a pot of pinto beans cooking away with six cloves of garlic, a chopped onion and a bunch of fresh coriander. The resulting mush is then put in a hot flour tortilla with whatever you can find in your fridge i.e. salad (lettuce, peppers, tomatoes, spring onions etc), mayo, cheese, and salsa. It’s a brilliant dish when you’re expecting loads of people over and don’t want to spend a fortune.

My other favourite is Prannie Rhatigan’s Irish Seaweed Kitchen that introduced me to the delights of a huge variety of edible plants from the sea that can be dried and used as a source of vitamins and minerals and also as gelling agents (great for vegans) or natural thickeners. This book is full of amazing recipes for all kinds of everything from soups and stews, to bread and cakes and a hundred other things in between. Inspired, I’ve come up with my own recipe that makes for the most delicious meal ever as enjoyed by yours truly last evening.

Mary’s Seaweed Pizza

The base you can bake yourself (as I do with the help of a bread machine) or buy, and then slather on the following:
Make the tomato base by either of the following methods. Jessica’s version has a tin of tomato purée liberally mixed with olive oil and lots of dried sage.
Mary’s longer version: Sauté large chopped onion in olive oil, add 8 or more chopped soft tomatoes (they were going cheap which is why I came up with this method), and grated garlic (as much as you like) with pinch of salt and tsp of dark muscovado sugar. Boil and reduce until just delicious.

So, cover the base with either of the above and then layer on a handful of rinsed dillisk. Cover with slices of your favourite veg: red peppers, tomatoes, courgette, mushrooms et al. A secret passion of mine is anchovies but I’ve tried using tinned tuna to tasty effect.

I top mine with grated mozzarella and my vegan daughter cleverly tops hers with tofu that has been whizzed in the processor with a bit of oil to make it easy to pour over.

Bake in a hot oven for about 15 minutes and then enjoy!