tomato, garlic and pepper coulis

The first year of a proper vegetable plot - even if it hasn't had the care and attention I would have liked to give it - nevertheless gives you ingredients to use to create sauces and resources for the freezer.

This was dead easy: from the garden I picked cherry tomoatoes, garlic, chili peppers (just 1 or 2) and yellow peppers.

I bunged them in a roasting dish, adding oil and rock salt. Roasted them for 40 mins and then I passed them through the juicer (a mouli would do as well). And that's it - a pepper coulis for the winter months to use either with fish, or as a soup, or a pasta sauce.

horseradish sauce

mix fresh peeled and grated, or preserved from a jar, horseradish with creme fraiche, white wine vinegar, and salt and black pepper.

serve with trout (yes, it's great), beef, roasted beetroot or carrot.

salsa verde

an essential for serving with fish, also good with boiled meats and vegetables. Lots of variations - this one is from Jamie Oliver's The Naked Chef

Here in Le Colombier most of the herbs are growing just outside the kitchen door And I make my own vinegar.

Make this sauce fresh as it doesn't really keep. Useful to put it into one of those little plastic pots with a nozzle so you can do pretty patterns on the plate.

serves 8

2 cloves garlic, peeled
small handful capers
small handful small pickled gherkins/cornichons
6 anchovy fillets
2 large handfuls flat leaved parsely
bunch fresh basil
bunch fresh mint
tbsp dijon mustard
3 tbsps red wine vinegar
8 tbsps olive oil
salt and black pepper

finely chop all the ingredients; add mustard and red wine vinegar. stir in olive oil, season (or else put it all into a blender and blitz.