Vegetable

Season: July to September. Slow-roasted tomatoes provide a rich, intense base for this, my all-time favorite ketchup. The spices and seasonings I have used are good old-fashioned ones–those our grandmothers would have kept in their kitchens. However, if you like, you can fire it up by adding a couple of teaspoonfuls of ground chiles. Don’t expect the ketchup to be the same color as a commercial variety; it will be a warm orangey red color.

Season: May to June: Spotting the first tips of asparagus pushing their way above ground in late spring is one of the greatest moments of the growing year. Use a good but not really expensive olive oil (see p. 30). When the asparagus has been eaten, the flavored oil can be used to make a lovely salad dressing. You will need one jam jar that is about 8 inches high, with a capacity of about 16 ounces, and a second jar with a capacity of about 8 ounces.

Season: July to September: Harissa is a North African ingredient used to enhance many fish and meat dishes, as well as couscous and soups. I also like to use my version to make a fruity, fiery dipping sauce (see below) to serve with pork, fish, or prawns. The strength of the paste depends on the variety and quantity of chiles used. The chances are that this recipe, which I would describe as moderately hot, will merely tickle the palate of out-and-out chile freaks. But all you need do to make it more fiery is increase the amount of chiles, include more of their seeds (see below), or perhaps add one or two very hot little dried chiles.

Season: July to September. I love the gutsy flavor of these tomatoes and like to serve them as part of a crisp smoked bacon and beet salad or a hearty couscous salad with plenty of fresh cilantro. There are times, though, when I can’t resist eating them from the jar! Ideally, the fruit would be sun-dried, but slowly drying them in a very low oven achieves similar and very pleasing results.

Season: August to September. For me, tomato passata is an essential pantry ingredient. I use it as a base for my roasted tomato ketchup (see p. 187), as well as for pasta sauces and curries. The best time to make this preserve is when tomatoes are at their cropping peak–smelling strong, sweet, and aromatic when picked from the vine. This recipe uses 4 1/2 pounds of fruit but, if you are using bought tomatoes as opposed to homegrown ones, I suggest you negotiate a good deal with your local grower and buy a boxful or two. You certainly won’t regret it. You can’t buy passata like this one!

Season: winter. Onions are one of the most versatile ingredients in the culinary world, but they are not often given the chance to be the star of their own show. A recipe like this puts that right. Long, slow cooking turns a panful of red, white, or yellow onions into a fantastic rich sauce-cum-jam that’s brilliant served with sausages and mashed potatoes, and a heap of other dishes too. Try it with cheese on toast or with cold meat in sandwiches, or stir a spoonful into a creamy pumpkin soup.

Season: September to November: A good pickled onion is perhaps the doyen of the preserves cupboard–but how do you like yours? Crisp or soft, sweet or sour, mildly spiced or chile hot? The beauty of this recipe is that it can be used to make your onions (or shallots) just the way you like them. I like mine sweet, so I use honey in this recipe, but you could dispense with honey or sugar altogether if you like a really sharp pickle. I also go for cider vinegar, rather than the more traditional malt, because the flavor is less aggressive. The blend of spices used here suits me nicely, but you could also use coriander, cumin, or celery seeds–or any other spice you fancy. If you want crisp onions, use cold vinegar; if you like them soft, heat the vinegar first.

Season: July to September. This is a wonderful way to use up an abundance of cucumbers, be they long and uniform green, or the short, knobbly-skinned type. It’s also very quick and easy to make if you use a food processor. This is not a true preserve, as the cucumbers are not brined and the pickle is very light, but it will keep well in the fridge for a couple of weeks in a sealed container. I love this sweet condiment with all manner of salads and in sandwiches, but it’s especially delectable with hot-smoked trout or salmon.

Season: June to early July. Tall, willowy, feathered sweet Florence fennel, with its creamy-white, bulbous bottom, has to be one of the most alluring vegetables to grow in the garden. It’s not easy to cultivate in every soil, but if it likes your particular situation, you should be able to grow plenty to use with gay abandon in the summertime, with some left over to preserve for later in the year. It’s only really worth making this pickle if you have a supply of freshly harvested bulbs when they are pale green and tender. All too often, the imported stuff is yellow and coarse. You have to discard much of the outer bulb, and it certainly isn’t worth the expense or trouble of pickling. This lovely light pickle is delicious with smoked or oily fish and in winter salads. It nearly always makes an appearance at our Boxing Day lunch.

Season: May to August. Garlic is the strongest-tasting member of the Allium family, and the moodiest too. It can change character considerably depending on how it is treated. Left whole and cooked slowly, it is gentle and soft. Chopped up, it will release a little more of its pungent aroma, while crushed to a paste it attains the strong, sometimes bitter flavor that makes it notorious. When pickled, it remains crisp to the bite, but the flavor becomes really quite mellow – you can eat the cloves straight from the jar. I like to slice the pickled garlic cloves finely and scatter them over salads, serve them whole as antipasti, or nestle lots of them around a slowly roasting joint of lamb. Garlic grows well – not just in the vegetable patch, but also in containers, tubs, and even flower borders, where it can help ward off aphids. New season’s bulbs, with their soft white or purplish pink skins, are mild and sweet – and much better for pickling than older, drier-skinned garlic, which can be bitter.

Season: Late summer to autumn. The beauty of this recipe is that it is so very simple. Moreover, you can turn up the heat or cool it down to suit your mood by the variety of the chile pepper you use. In the late summer and autumn, look for hot fruity habaneros, rich mild poblanos, tiny hot Thai chiles, or flaming jalapeños to use in this sizzling jelly relish. I like to use red bell peppers, as they are symbolic of the heat, but, of course, there’s no reason why you can’t use yellow, orange, or green, or a mixture of all four. Use this punchy jelly with cream cheese, smoked mackerel, rice dishes, and crispy stir-fried vegetables.

You’re guaranteed to get a bit of brown butter–flecked icing in every bite of these pillowy spice cookies. Offer them at a Halloween party or as part of a Thanksgiving dessert buffet.

These are like tiny inside-out carrot cakes, with the signature cream cheese frosting on the inside and spiced “cake” on the outside.

This classic ingredient comes in handy. Double or triple the recipe and keep some in the fridge at all times for seasonin’ bread, sauce, or your best friend.

We’ve rolled two New Orleans classic pies into one to make a rich, deep, and satisfying dessert. It’s a real restaurant favorite that has been known to make visitors from the South go wild.

A few years back, we were closed on Sunday. People kept turnin’ up anyway, so we gave in and opened with a limited menu. We created this soup just for that day. It has a good Sunday vibe.

Here’s a stew that comes and goes on our menu, rotating with a couple of other meat stews. It’s lighter than the others and is simmered with ten different vegetables. It’s healthy food for your meat-lovin’ soul.

This has been the Dinosaur’s Wednesday soup special for as long as I can remember. It’s a good, hearty soup that’s perfect for places like Syracuse and Rochester, New York, that are blessed with six months of winter a year—not that folks stop eating Corn & Potato Chowder in the summer. Made with fresh corn, just picked and cut from the cob, this soup takes on a real summer attitude. Best of all, you can make it in less than half an hour any time of the year.

Now this is real comfort food. It makes me feel like I’m doing something good for myself every time I eat it. Delicious and healthy—what more do you want?

Texans like meat, and in Texas, chili is all about meat and spices. We make ours with chunks of sirloin and season it with a blend of ancho chiles, which lend an earthy, sweet, raisin flavor, and pasilla chiles, which give a spicy, deep taste. Our Texas Red Chili is a “wanderin’ special” on our menu, showin’ up every now and then. During deer season in November, we may even make it with venison.