Pineapple carpaccio

It may be worth embarking on this diet just to eat this dessert. Understand that I don't really like pineapple, and you'll get just a glimmer of how fabulous it was.

You want to start with a nice ripe pineapple. The way to choose pineapple is to sniff the base. Once it starts smelling like pineapple, it is ripe, and the more pineappley, the riper.

Cut the top and base off, and then take off the peel as evenly as you can. Slice the pineapple as thinly as possible, about 1 to 2 millimetres. If you have a mandolin or electric slicer, that is ideal, otherwise just do your best with a really sharp knife and try not to cut your fingers off in the process.

Spread the slices out on a plate.

Now make the dressing. You need one part Kirsch to two parts fruit flavoured oil. I used Clementine. Lemon is more readily available and I think it will work. If you try it before I do, please post a comment and let me know.

Drizzle the dressing over the pineapple and leave it for at least half an hour to soak in. Just before serving, decorate with thick cream or yoghurt, and red berries.

Fennel cream soup

The weather is still glorious, so iced soup for lunch is an option.
This one is easy.

Take yesterday's leftover fennel salad and blend it with equal volumes of yesterday's poaching liquid. Stir in some whipping cream, chill well and serve in glasses for eye appeal.

If you want to make it from scratch, because you don't have any leftover fennel salad from yesterday, here's what to do. Allow about one smallish fennel bulb per person.
Take a slice off the base of the bulb, cut the bulbs in half and cut out the hard centre core. Leave the top green bits on. Poach the bulbs in water to cover, with about half a cup of white wine as well as a teaspoon or so of salt. It takes about 15-20 minutes for the bulbs to become tender. Let them cool a little so you don't burn yourself blending them.

Put the bulbs in a blender with an equal volume of the poaching water. This doesn't have to be exact. Add 1 teaspoon of white wine vinegar and 2 teaspoons of olive oil per bulb, and about a teaspoon of parmesan cheese. Blend until smooth, stir in some whipping cream, a tablespoon or two per bulb, and chill.

You could serve this hot as well, in which case you would stir in the cream just before serving.

Steak kebabs with fennel salad

It's been gloriously sunny for a week, and not much incentive to stay inside and cook. That's why I used steak for these kebabs, it cooks very quickly. Adding vegetables means you can serve more people with less steak, which is also a win.

I used mushrooms, courgettes and red pepper because that's what I had in the house. It looked pretty, anyway.

You need three kebab sticks per person, and you should soak these in a bit of oil and vinegar for about ten minutes. That helps prevent them from burning when you cook, but only if you cook quite soon after assembly.

While they soak, cut your steak into cubes of about an inch, and then cut the other vegetables to match. Put everything into a bowl and toss with some olive oil and spice mix. Use any spice mix you like, I used a sun-dried tomato mix.

Thread it onto the skewers, then cook in a grill pan till done, about 5 minutes for a mediumish steak. Turn the kebabs several times so they cook evenly.

The fennel salad needs more forethought, so you should actually do that first. Cut the tops off the fennel and set them aside. Cut a thin slice off the base as well. Those you can discard or throw into your stockpot. Cut the bulbs in half and remove the hard middle bit, then slice into manageable wedges.

Poach these wedges in water to cover, with salt and about half a cup of white wine added. They will be tender in 15 to 20 minutes. Lift them out of the water, drain them and arrange them on a plate. Make a vinaigrette with one part white wine vinegar to three parts oil and drizzle this over the fennel. Now chop up the green leaves from the tops and scatter that over the fennel with a tablespoon or two of parmesan.

Don't throw the poaching water away. It makes a nice soup base.

Veal with asparagus and red pepper dressing

The dressing for this dish was awesome and I can't remember exactly how I made it.
I will buy some more red peppers and try it again to get the quantities exact and put that in the comments.

The main part of the dish is very easy. Per person you need one veal schnitzel, 2 spears of asparagus (use white or green, whichever you prefer) and 2 spring onions.

Start by preparing the asparagus. Bend the spears lightly so they break naturally. The bottom half is the woody part and you can discard that or add it to a stockpot.
Trim the top parts neatly. If you're using white asparagus, peel the outer skin off with an apple peeler if you're not handy with a knife. Then steam them until just done, which is not more than 10 to 15 minutes at most. You want them still a bit crisp, not soggy.

While they steam, pound the schnitzels as flat as you can with a meat pounder or the back of a heavy knife. Trim the edges so you have a piece as rectangular as possible, then cut them in half. You want two short pieces, not two long pieces. Trim your spring onions to about the same size as the asparagus spears.

Season the schnitzels lightly with salt and pepper. Then place an asparagus spear and a spring onion across each half, and roll the schnitzel around them. Fasten with a toothpick or two.

Heat some cooking oil in a pan that's big enough to hold the little parcels. I use cooking grade/non-virgin olive oil or coconut oil usually. Put the parcels in toothpick side down to seal them, and pan-fry them for about 5 to 7 minutes, turning regularly so that they brown evenly.

You need a stick blender for the dressing, which is one part wine vinegar, three parts extra-virgin olive oil and and unknown quantity of deep red pepper.

Lamb with peanuts

After a breakfast of fruit and yoghurt, and emergency food when we got back from the concert (grilled vegetables with feta) we needed something a little hearty for supper.

It came in the form of a lamb stew with peanuts, which falls into the life is wonderful category. The recipe came from epicurious: as I didn't have any jabaneros I used my canned chilis in adobo sauce instead. And I didn't remove them.

Vegetable platter with goat cheese

For lunch we had leftovers from our evening meal in Antwerp: blanquette de veau, beef carbonnade and I cooked up some green beans to go with it. It was a heavy meal, and filling, and we could probably have skipped dinner quite happily.

We didn't. But we kept it light. A vegetable platter with tomato vinegar butter and baked goat cheese.

The goat's cheese is easy: buy the ready sliced rounds, put them on a baking tray and bake at 180C for about 10 minutes till they start browning. At the same time I put in a platter of cherry tomatoes drizzled with oil.

While they baked, I steamed some vegetables of choice: in this case, asparagus and courgettes.

While they steamed, I melted three tablespoons butter in a small pan, and when that was a nutty brown colour, stirred in a tablespoon of tomato vinegar. You could use a champagne or herb vinegar too, or even plain lemon juice. I also fried a couple of mushrooms.

All the vegetables went onto a plate with the cheese, and then I drizzled the butter over them. Delicious!

Shuwarma ex pita

Normally you would expect a shuwarma to be served in pita bread. In fact, one day I must try this cheat in a thick slice of split aubergine. Not today, though. Here, I simply grilled some slices of aubergine sliced lengthwise. These can soak up vast quantities of oil, so I use a mixture of oil and water very successfully.

On top of that you place your fried shuwarma strips, and decorate with chopped lettuce, onion, tomato, sour cream and grated cheese.

Or whatever you takes your fancy.