When In Doubt Cook

We love Jamie Oliver in our house. In fact I used to love him when he was a size or two smaller, a few years younger, drove around on a vespa and called himself the Naked Chef. I loved his little lisp and his English accent and the groovy flats he lived in and the mates he used to have around to eat all of the delicious food he would teach us how to cook throughout his program. I loved that he was partial to Italian food and that he was so enthusiastic about EVERYTHING and still is. The curiosity and love and sheer enjoyment of what he does permeates in each one of his projects and he is a busy guy. Yeah, so what if he's sometimes a little cocky, what chef isn't?

Bottom line, we love his food, his enthusiasm, his charm and that he gives his time to educate the world about eating right. Its always surprising to me how disconnected we have become to our food. I suppose it shouldn't be surprising at all considering even fresh vegetables are now sold in packaging, let alone pieces of meat or processed food, how would a city kid ever know the origins of anything animal or vegetable? So the other day when my husband picked up his magazine Jamie I've been hooked (no surprise) and am trying my hand at a few of the recipes. Unfortunately, I don't think its sold in the States yet as I don't see the US price on it and all the measurements are in grams and milliliters which leads me believe it isn't. But I know we'll be cooking a lot from the recipes in the magazine particularly from the last section called the "Monthly Menu" because the meals are so quick and simple, I'll share the ones we like. Meanwhile Jamie has an iphone application for recipes in addition to all his books and many mini meal programs for free on You Tube. I could go on and on, you'd think I was his publicist? I made this pastry pizza last night and it couldn't have been easier or more delicious. And my husband, my toughest critic, he loved it, only don't call it pizza.

Puffed Pastry Vegetable Tartlets/ Pizza - Adapted from a recipe from Jamie Oliver's Magazine Jamie

Makes 4 squares

Ingredients:

500 Grams/ 17 Ounces Ready Made Puffed Pastry
Flour for dusting
Olive Oil
Salt
4 tsp Pesto (store bought or use garlic cloves, basil leaves, parmesan for home made pesto)
Handful of Cherry tomatoes
1 Roasted Pepper
4 Asparagus
1/2 Zuchini (Courgette)
1-2 cups Parmesan Cheese
1 Ball Mozzarella Cheese
1- 2 cloves of Garlic (for pesto)
Fresh Basil (bunch if you are making your own pesto a few leaves if only using for the topping)

1. Take out Puffed pastry from refrigerator to soften, preheat oven to 200 C. or 390 F dust a flat surface with flour for rolling out dough.

2. You can easily use store bought pesto for the base but its easy enough to make your own pesto by throwing a fistful of basil leaves into a blender together with 4-5 tsp of olive oil, a handful/ cup of grated parmesan cheese, a clove or two of garlic (I put two as I love garlic) and a pinch of salt, blend until a smooth consistency. If you have pine nuts you can throw a few in too but they aren't necessary. Set aside.

3. Roasted peppers are also available in most supermarkets in a jar. But if you have the time it's really easy to roast one carefully on a low flame on your stove, obviously holding the stem or even using tongs to hold the pepper over the flame so that you don't get burned, rotating before the skin gets too scorched. You could slice them up in thin strips and oil a grill pan if you have one and grill them. You can also just use the peppers raw as they'll cook up easily if stripped in thin slices in the oven once added to the topping.

4. Cut the block of puffed pastry in half, store unused half back in refrigerator for next time. Roll out pastry with a rolling pin (a glass bottle works too if you don't have a rolling pin) onto a flat surface dusted with flour, into a 26 cm square (10 inch Square) and then cut into quarters with a pizza cutter or knife. Roll/ pinch in the sides of each square with your fingers so that you make a crust, you can also hide any imperfections in your squares by evening the sides out. Put the quarters onto a cookie sheet leaving space between them and spoon out pesto sauce evenly onto each square.

5. In a bowl mash tomatoes together with a fork so that the insides squish out and the tomatoes fall apart. You may have to cut the tomatoes in half to help them mash up depending on how ripe your tomatoes are and how big you want the tomato pieces to be, I liked mine a bit smaller. Snap apart asparagus into bite size pieces, discard wooden bottom piece of each, add to tomatoes. Slice up roasted pepper into thin strips, add to tomatoes and asparagus. Cut zuchini in half and peel thin strips of zuchini into bowl with a peeler (you will only need half of the zuchini). Add a couple glugs of olive oil and a pinch of salt into bowl and mix altogether. Spoon out vegetable mixture evenly on top of puffed pastry squares.

6. Quarter the ball of mozzarella and break off small pieces and add to each square. Finish with sprinkling of parmesan cheese.

7. Put in oven and bake for 20 minutes or until the pastry is golden and the cheese is bubbling.

8. Top off with ripped fresh basil.

Serve with a green salad and voila dinner is ready. I think that there are so many variations that you can play around with using this recipe, like using an olive tapenade or sundried tomato paste instead of pesto, substitute other vegetables, goat cheese or feta instead of mozzarella, the possibilities are endless... Jamie you have done it again.