Celeriac salad

You had a hectic time at the nursery Christmas party this afternoon (complete with a visit from Santa). So tea was nice calming food - a roast chicken, some potato wedges brushed with olive oil and baked in the oven, a spinachy salad, and the experimental celeriac salad.

I adapted this from a Jamie Oliver recipe - he includes vinegar and olive oil as well.

You'll need:

a celeriac
a heaped teaspoon of capers, finely chopped
a couple of large gherkins, chopped
two anchovies, finely chopped
a teaspoon dijon mustard
a couple of tablespoons of Greek yoghurt
a large teaspoon of mayonnaise
black pepper

First of all, peel your celeriac. Ours came out of the vegetable box, so it was fairly muddy, and sprayed soil all over the kitchen as I was trying to peel it. Oops.

Once all the skin has gone, keep peeling - you want lots of longish ribbons of celeriac. Ignore the fluffy bit in the middle - it can go on the compost heap.

Plonk the celeriac in a bowl, and add the gherkins, anchovies and capers. Mix. Swearing when you drop the capers on the floor is optional.

Mix together the yoghurt, mustard and mayonnaise in a small bowl, season with lots of black pepper, and then sling over the celeriac. Give it all a good stir, until everything is coated.

tuna, tomato and caper pasta

This is probably the thing we eat most often when we come in tired from a long day - it only takes 20 minutes to make, and everything can come out of the storecupboard (bar the onion).
We'd been in town this afternoon (finding you some 'climbing shoes', otherwise known as black plimmies) so there wasn't much time to make some tea.

You need:

1 tin of tuna (doesn't have to be anything fancy - in fact in brine is better than in oil)
1 onion, finely chopped
a clove of garlic
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
a tablespoon of capers
a splash of balsamic vinegar
a squeeze of tomato puree
a couple of bay leaves and a fair sprinkle of thyme
lots of black pepper
pasta of your choice

Fry the onion and garlic in some olive oil until they are translucent. Add the tomato puree, and cook for a minute or so. Chuck in the tin of tomatoes, and add a splash of balsamic vinegar and the herbs. Bring to the boil, and then simmer vigorously for 10 minutes or so, before adding the tuna (flaked), and a tablespoon of capers. Simmer gently for however long you can, depending on how hungry you are.

It worked well with pasta twists today - the sauce gets caught in the twists quite nicely.