There’s nothing like a barbecue in summer. Now, you might think that vegetarians don’t have much use for a grill—you couldn’t be more wrong! Grilling is one of the best ways I know to celebrate summer vegetables. Add some corn on the cob or a fat slice of melon, and you’ve got a veritable feast.

One of the best things about grilling vegetables, is that they take very little preparation beforehand—big slabs of vegetable work best, so there’s no tedious chopping to do.

I’ll admit that grilling is Ian’s sphere, and what goes on after the vegetables are cut is his business. A few weeks ago, he wrote down the following recipe for the marinade he brushes on the vegetables before grilling:

Oil (~ 75% of volume)

Worcestershire sauce

Mustard (just a bit but essential)

Ketchup (not too much)

Vinegar (bit)

Cayenne

Soy sauce (fair whack)

crushed garlic

brown sugar (tiny bit to enhance flavour)

You can see by this recipe it’s an exact science…but never mind; whatever he does, works, and I’m happy to leave the grilling to him.

Bon appétit!

We all have our favourite tools—the ones that fit the hand perfectly, or make a job easy. I have quite a few favourite tools in the kitchen. One of them is “Brisingr”, a knife so impressive, the kids named it after the sword in the fantasy series by Christopher Paolini. Brisingr is a handy and effective knife for big round vegetables like cabbage and pumpkins (Indeed, I once cut up 3 commercial cases of pumpkins in one session for a school event. The knife needed sharpening afterwards, but it made the job quick and painless). It’s also a fantastic pizza knife. Best of all, it just looks good. Hanging on the wall, poised to cut, or lying next to an expertly sliced pizza, it calls out, “Back off, lesser knives! I’m here to get the job done”.

Do you have a favourite kitchen tool?

For Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d write about one of my favourite romantic foods—basil, also known as bacia-nicola or kiss me Nicholas in Italian. Like most herbs, basil’s lore is mixed, being associated with both love and hate, but for today, let’s focus on love. What I like about basil is not that it will make a woman love you, as sage is supposed to do (if you thread the leaves onto the woman’s hair and bury it under her doorstep), or that it is an aphrodisiac, as saffron is said to be. What I like is that it is said to “attract husbands to wives”. Isn’t that nice?

Now let it be said that there is no scientific evidence whatsoever that basil attracts husbands to their wives. The two main aromatic chemicals in basil are methyl chavicol, and eugenol. Methyl chavicol is produced commercially for use in perfumes, flavourings and herbal supplements, and apparently doesn’t attract anything. Eugenol is also used in perfumes and flavourings, and also as an antiseptic and anaesthetic, particularly in dentistry. The only things eugenol is known to attract are male orchid bees (who use the chemical to make pheromones), and female cucumber beetles.

Alas, there is no scientific evidence that feeding my husband pesto will attract him to me. But I can’t help believing there is just a little truth in basil lore. After all, they say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. If I feed my husband a delicious meal full of basil (and what meal full of basil wouldn’t be delicious?), it stands to reason he might be attracted to me.

So I’ll go all out with the basil today, because it can’t hurt, right?

It happens to the best of us. We get a cold, we feel lousy, we can’t taste much, and we can’t be bothered to eat. That’s how I’ve felt for the past week—sore throat, low grade fever, slightly upset stomach. The last thing I want to do is cook a meal. In my twenties, I’d have made myself a piece of toast and gone to bed early. It’s not that easy anymore. There’s a family that wants dinner, whether I do or not. There’s also a whole mess of vegetables out in the garden, clamouring to be eaten.

So I fall back on the standards—meals I can cook with little effort and without the need to taste test them before they reach the table. Oven-baked risotto is one of the best. This recipe is a variation on a recipe in Market Vegetarian by Ross Dobson.

Oven-baked zucchini and eggplant risotto

My beloved Le Creuset makes oven risotto a breeze.

3 cups water or vegetable stock

2 Tbsp olive oil

1 onion, chopped

1 garlic clove, chopped

1 ½ cups Arborio rice

handful fresh basil, chopped

2 medium zucchini, chopped

2 medium eggplants, chopped

2 tomatoes, chopped

3 Tbsp butter

½ cup grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F). Warm the stock over low heat in a small saucepan. Put the oil in a flameproof, lidded casserole dish and set over medium heat. Sauté the eggplant, onion and garlic gently for 2-3 minutes until the onion has softened and the eggplant is partly cooked. Add the rice and the cook for another minute before adding the zucchini. When the rice becomes opaque, add the tomatoes and basil. Pour the hot stock into the casserole and stir well. As soon as the liquid starts to simmer, cover with the lid and cook in the oven for 30 minutes.

Stir in the butter and Parmesan just before serving.