Delicious Kake Food

Flageolet bean salad. Cook lots and lots of chopped garlic very slowly in plenty of olive oil along with chopped capers and sliced red peppers, until the garlic flavour has mellowed and the peppers are softened to your liking. There should be enough oil to make a dressing in the next step. Mix all this with some (canned, rinsed, drained) flageolet beans, some (canned) artichoke hearts cut into 4 or 6 pieces each, a splash of red wine vinegar, and salt to taste. Leave it for a bit to let the flavours meld.

Vermicelli rice. Made with olive oil instead of butter.

Gnocchi with artichokes and olives. Cook gnocchi, drain, put on plate. Top with finely chopped artichoke hearts (from a can, rinsed and drained), a small handful of grated hard cheese (Parmesan is good, though not vegetarian), a dollop of black olive paste (or some finely-chopped black olives), a drizzle of olive oil, and plenty of freshly-ground black pepper.

Buffet lunch for various friends.

Roasted carrot pate.

Cucumber, edamame, and kelp salad. Scoop out and discard the seeds from a cucumber; cut the rest of it into chunks. Cook some edamame, take them out of the pods if they didn’t already come that way (I used frozen depodded ones). Mix with a packet of spicy kelp. Season with a little white vinegar, sesame oil, and sugar.

Chickpea, artichoke, and pepper salad. Mix cooked chickpeas with quartered artichoke hearts and chopped peppers; dress with olive oil vinaigrette.

Sweet and sour peppers. Slice peppers, fry in olive oil until very soft. Add balsamic vinegar, palm sugar, and a slosh of vegetable stock concentrate; cook down until the liquid becomes a thick glaze.

Vermicelli rice. Made with olive oil instead of butter.

Everything I cooked was vegan, though I did serve some non-vegan things (cheese, taramasalata, chicken wings) on the side. I also served various breads; black Lithuanian bread with cumin, Caribbean mongoose bread, Turkish bread (all these were bought within 5 minutes’ walk of my house).

Gnocchi with broccoli pesto. Cook broccoli florets in boiling water until soft; chop very finely and reserve. Blanch chopped red pepper in the same water for a minute or two; remove and reserve. Cook gnocchi in the same water until done; drain. Mix chopped broccoli, blanched pepper, drained gnocchi, quartered canned artichoke hearts, a couple of spoonfuls of ready-made pesto, a glug of olive oil, a little finely-grated hard cheese, and freshly-ground black pepper to taste.

I used parmesan, which is not vegetarian, but you could use any hard cheese. You could also use dairy-free pesto (which I in fact did) and omit the cheese to make it vegan.

Broccoli and artichoke pasta. Mix together: artichoke hearts from a can, drained, rinsed, and halved; broccoli florets, boiled until done to liking; pasta quills, boiled until done to liking; a good slosh of olive oil; a couple of spoonfuls of tomato pasta sauce from a jar; plenty of black pepper. Reheat if necessary.

I used gluten-free pasta, and it worked fine. I also put some grated parmesan on mine. The pasta sauce was non-vegetarian (it had anchovies in) but a vegetarian or vegan sauce would have worked fine. The idea with the tomato sauce is just to add a little extra flavour, not to make it very tomatoey.

This is very quick and easy if you have the ingredients on hand.

Spaghetti with salmon and artichoke hearts. Start some spaghetti cooking. Fry a salmon fillet on both sides until just cooked but not overcooked. Use two forks to pull it into large flakes. Add quartered artichoke hearts and some kind of herb paste (I used chimichurri from the freezer; pesto would work too) along with a spoonful of double cream and a spoonful of cooking water from the pasta. Mix well, mix with spaghetti, grind over some black pepper, serve.

Gnocchi with artichoke hearts and broccoli. More assembly than cooking, really. Boil a pan of water, add some small broccoli florets, boil for about 3 minutes, add some gnocchi (from a packet), boil 2 more minutes, drain. Add some quartered artichoke hearts (from a can) and a few dollops of tomato sauce (from a jar), mix well. Grind some black pepper, grate some hard cheese, serve.