Home cooking

This evening I sat around waiting for the nice restaurant staff to take my order. Nothing happened. The flatmate told me to get cooking and in this way I realised I was no longer on holiday.

Being a charitable type I decided to treat her to a holiday salad special with a dessert. As we are still determined to be healthy and there were lots of lovely things in the fridge, I got out the griddle pan and olive oil, herbed salt and turned on the extractor fan. This was going to get hot.

I sliced courgettes, aubergine and cut yellow/red peppers, brushed them with oil and singed them thoroughly in the pan. I placed the now striped veggies in a hot oven to continue softening. Once I was ready, I took them out, added chopped spring onions and tossed everything in oil and white wine vinegar and sprinkled the lovely herbed salt I'd brought home from Ston's salt beds. I assembled the salad of tomatoes and sliced gem lettuce, warm griddled veggies and crumbled over feta, adding olives to mine for luck. Seriously yummy.

The dessert had been a long time in the planning. When I tasted the prošek (proshek) at the vineyard, I imagined a honey and wine marinade with baked peaches/nectarines and this stayed with me. So when I found some fragrant, quite ripe nectarines today I knew exactly what I wanted to do with them.

I quartered and slung them on the hot griddle pan. Whilst they were burning, er... I gently warmed Montenegran honey with a good splash of the prošek. Once this had melted, I poured it over the soft nectarines which I'd transferred to an oven proof dish. I popped them in the warm oven whilst we were eating the salad. They were juicy, slightly tart, sticky and utterly delicious. Would have been perfect with a cool creamy creme fraiche.

But we were being saintly. And we sat and ate outside and watched the sky turn pink. Just like being on holiday and the flatmate even loaded the dishwasher.

If you want to have a go at the dessert, use a medium sherry or Marsala to replace the Croatian wine.