Shakshouka

Here's one for the vegetarians. This is my own take on the dish called Shakshouka or Shakshuka in which eggs are cooked in tomato sauce. Mine has a bit more to it than just tomato sauce...

I started with tomato sauce though, using home-grown tomatoes:

But I added to it the flesh of half a Butternut squash, roasted until golden. and a couple of small chillis.

So the resulting sauce was not only sweet, tangy, and spicy, but it also had a thicker texture than tomato sauce normally has.

With plenty of time available, I made the sauce well ahead of time, and also pre-cooked the vegetables I was going to use - Runner Beans and small new potatoes (from the garden, of course). This meant that there was little cooking left to do at dinner time. I made sure that the veg were only just cooked - "al dente" perhaps - so that they would not disintegrate later on when being warmed for serving.

At the appropriate moment (about 20 minutes before serving-time), I warmed up the sauce in a large shallow pan, adding the pre-cooked veg shortly after.

 When the sauce and veg were sufficiently warm, I added four eggs - tipped into hollows made in the hot mixture.

Then on with the pan lid, and cook gently until the eggs are done to your liking (5 - 8 minutes). Jane likes her eggs Well Done, whereas I like mine a bit "dippy", so she got the ones that went in first, and I got the last two.

Meanwhile, I prepared another vegetable; a "Caramba" cabbage from the garden. I boiled it very briefly, then drained it thoroughly before adding a large knob of butter and about half a teaspoon of Caraway seeds.

My photo of the final dish makes it look a bit of a mess. Well, Yes, to be honest, it was a bit of a mess (to look at). Without spending ages on it, thereby letting it get cold, even a professional Food Stylist would have had problems making this one look sexy! I take photos of the food we eat; I do not make food just to be photographed.

And let me tell you: it tasted GOOD.

This is our dessert: Strawberries (bought ones, unfortunately) with my Blueberry compote, topped with some vanilla ice cream. Now that was utterly scrumptious too.

Notice how the Blueberries lost their blue colour when heated. They look more like tiny red grapes now.