Warming Autumn Menu

Vegetable soup with Parmesan shavings

Serves 4, Cooks in less than 45 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2cm slice of pancetta or 3 rashers bacon, trimmed & diced finely (optional)
• 2 onions, diced finely
• 2 carrots, peeled & diced finely
• 2 stalks celery, trimmed & diced finely
• 1 large turnip, peeled & diced finely
• 3 courgettes, trimmed & diced finely
• 6 roma tomatoes, diced finely & peeled if desired
• 2 litres chicken or vegetable stock
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1/3 cup small soup pasta e.g. stelette, risoni, etc.
• 1/2 cup baby peas (frozen is fine)
• 1 tin chickpeas or cannelloni beans, drained and rinsed
• 2 large leaves swiss chard (also known as silverbeet or mangold), large white stalks removed and chopped)
• 1 teaspoon each of very finely chopped rosemary, thyme, basil, Italian parsley and sage
• 5cm slice Parmesan

Heat the oil in a large pot and saute the pancetta for 3 minutes. Add onion and continuing cooking it until it is transparent. Now add carrots, celery, turnip, courgettes and tomatoes and stir over the heat for 2 minutes. Add the stock and seasoning and bring to the boil, and then reduce the heat to a simmer and cook, covered, for 15 minutes. Now increase the heat to a boil, remove the lid from the pot and add the pasta. Continue cooking, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes. Add the peas and chickpeas and cook for a further 3 minutes. Add the swiss chard and herbs and stir through before removing from the heat. Finally, ladle the soup into large bowls and shave the Parmesan into fine slivers over each bowl. Serve the soup with crusty bread.

Vegetable pasta bake

Serves 4, Cooks in less than 30 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 red capsicum (chilli pepper), with 4 sides removed
• 1 aubergine, sliced
• 1 sweet potato, sliced
• 200g can artichokes, drained
• 1/2 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped finely
• 1 leek, sliced
• 1 can chopped tomatoes
• 1 can soy beans, drained and rinsed
• 1/2 cup tomato puree
• 1/2 tablespoon fresh basil, chopped
• 100g penne pasta, cooked and drained
• 50g feta cheese, crumbled
• 50g ricotta cheese

Place the capsicum pieces, aubergine and sweet potato under the grill. Cook for between three and five minutes on each side or until soft. Remove the vegetables from grill, chop them up and place in a bowl with the artichokes. Stir everything together. Now heat the oil in a medium saucepan. Add the garlic and leek and saute for between two and three minutes. Add the tomatoes, puree, soybeans and basil. Stir to combine and then mix through the pasta. Now place half of the pasta mixture in a large casserole dish. Top this with grilled vegetables then the remaining pasta mix. Finally, sprinkle this with the feta and ricotta and bake in a hot oven, at 200C, for 15 minutes.

Apple and Blackberry Bake

Makes 6

Ingridients:

• 25g butter or margarine, softened
• 2 1/2 cups fresh white breadcrumbs
• Brown sugar to taste, (optional)
• Grated rind of 1 lemon
• 1 tablespoon golden or maple syrup
• 425g can pie apple (or you can use 2 cups freshly stewed seasonal apples)
• 300g frozen blackberries (or freshly picked blackberries)

Preheat the oven to 200C (or a fan oven to 180C) and grease a medium-sized ovenproof dish. Rub the butter or margarine into the breadcrumbs and stir in the sugar, lemon rind and syrup. Now combine the apple and blackberries in the ovenproof dish and top with breadcrumb mixture. Finally, bake this for between 25 and 30 minutes, or until golden brown and bubbling. Serve the bake with yoghurt, cream, ice cream or custard.