Recipe: Summer vegetable stew

Autumn is quietly beginning to knock. The wasps have grown fat and exhausted trying to harvest the fruit of my dad’s plum tree, but they’ve barely made a dent.

Dad is eager to offload the plums on random passersby, as he reckons it’s a matter of weeks, if not days, before this year’s unusually generous crop shrivels. Next stop: blackberries.

He’s still searching for the perfect plum jam recipe, and I’m expecting that the next time I call for dinner there’ll be dishes featuring plums for starters, mains, and dessert. If any readers can share recipes featuring plums, they’d be gratefully received.

Still making the most of summer’s dying days, this is a very simple vegetarian recipe that any old eejit could throw together, slightly adapted from Denis Cotter’s very excellent Paradiso Seasons. It’s full of fresh vegetables, but it’s still much cheaper than a load of meat, particularly if you get the veggies in Aldi/ Lidl/ greengrocers. Yes, oil is the base of this dish, but it’s doesn’t taste particularly oily or heavy.

Summer Vegetable Stew

Ingredients

• Around 6 red and/ or yellow peppers, chopped into thick diagonal slices
• Around 20 waxy, baby new potatoes
• 1 large red onion, chopped into thin slices
• 1 red chilli, chopped into thin slices
• 10 garlic cloves, sliced thickly
• 4 ripe tomatoes, thickly chopped
• A generous squeeze of tomato puree
• Two handfuls of sugar snap peas
• Around 12 black or Kalamata olives
• A big bunch of basil leaves
• About 90mls olive oil
• A little basil oil or a squeeze of basil puree

Method

• Start cooking the onions in the oil.
• Add the peppers, garlic, and chilli, and toss well.
• Add the olives.
• Bring to a high heat, reduce to a simmer, and cook for about 25 minutes.
• Meanwhile, cut the potatoes in half or, if they’re bigger, 15-20mm slices. Steam or boil until tender.
• Add to the stew for the last few minutes and mix well.
• Throw in the sugar snaps a minute or so before serving, just to warm them through – they should still be crunchy.
• Add the basil leaves, season, and serve with a warm crusty bread, such as ciabatta.

I served the bread with an impromptu black olive tapanede, mixing around 10 stoned olives with a grating of parmesan, a glug of olive oil, about 5-7 pistachio nuts, and a small handful of basil, and smearing it over warm ciabatta. Denis Cotter suggests a goats cheese and pesto topping.