Yesterday night I opened the fridge and all I saw were some sad vegetables that screamed, “Cook me or kill me!”
I cooked them…

1 red pepper
1 leek
1 fennel
1 courgette
1 little pumpkin
2 potatoes

1 teaspoon of red curry paste
Salt

Tarragon to decorate

Clean and cut in chunks all the vegetables. Throw them in a saucepan, add 2 litre of water, curry paste and salt. Bring to the boil and cook it for 30 minutes, or until all the vegetables are cooked trough.
Blend everything. Serve hot with some Tarragon leaves.

Maybe…
As you may have understood reading my blog, I’m not a big fan of strict rules in the kitchen: I like “tradition”, but I dislike close-minded vision where only “tradition” can exist. We are lucky enough to live in a big wide world made of so many different minds that the term “tradition” can mean many many things!
So pizza.
My favourite pizza of all is a simple margherita: tomatoes, mozzarella and basil. I personally cannot stand the French version of pizza, as they use Gruyere, but it’s a matter of taste. I’ve never tried the American version, but, for what I can see on TV and in movies, I don’t think I would like it either, but even this is matter of taste, nothing else… And for French and Americans their way to make pizza is absolutely “traditional”.
So, for a speedy version, maybe even shabby chic (in a good way!), of the traditional whole earth pizza, why not try this? Maybe even in individual serving…

Pizza Tatin

Puff pastry
Tomatoes
Mozzarella
Salt and pepper

Roll out the puff pastry, cut a circle bigger than the mould you are going to use.
In a cake mould lay the sliced tomatoes, season them, lay over them the sliced mozzarella, season, then cover with puff pastry, folding the edges between the filling and the mould.
Cook in a preheated oven for 20-25 minutes. Serve upside down.

As you can imagine, this Tatin has a major problem: the mozzarella tend to stick in the bottom of the cake mould. As I did it only once I cannot give you a foolproof option, but I think that if you put in the cake mould some greaseproof paper maybe you can avoid this inconvenient.
Or, you can do the pizza in the “normal” way, puff pastry under, tomatoes and mozzarella… But how sad is that??????????????????????
(You can see it on the picture below…)

Another verrines directly inspired by this book. It’s like a verrine in kit: I did absolutely nothing if not cutting the feta cheese and assemble everything!

For 4 glasses

200 g of feta cheese
20 sundered Pachino’s cherry tomatoes in extra virgin olive oil (or 8 sun dried normal tomatoes in oil)
salad
Extra virgin olive oil
Dry oregano

Cut the feta cheese in cubes. Assemble the glasses beginning with the salad then feta, then the tomatoes. Drizzle with oil and season with oregano.
Serve.

Something more simple??????

Note: Pachino’s Tomatoes are little cherry tomatoes that grow in the field around the Sicilian town of Pachino, in the far south of the island. They are sweet and tasty, very rare and expensive… We bought a kilo of dried Pachino’s Tomatoes last summer, at the Siracusa market: they are worth every cents we paid them!!!