Baked Stone Fruits

With the oven still hot from cooking, this is the perfect opportunity to roast seasonal stone fruit such as peaches, nectarines, apricots or plums for a simple no fuss dessert.

  • Cut your fruit in half, remove the stones and place in a baking dish.
  • Sprinkle with a little caster or brown sugar.
  • Bake for 20 – 25 minutes in the hot oven.
  • The fruit should be lovely and soft and just holding its shape.
  • Allow to cool slightly before serving with ice cream or cream.

Suggestion:

You can let some of the fruit cool right down and then spread like a jam or preserve over your fresh baked bread.

Catalan Vegetable Salad

Heat the oven to 250° C / 500° F and maintain the temperature.

Puncture the eggplant (aubergine) in a few spots, using a toothpick or bamboo skewer. Rub the eggplants with olive oil and place on a sheet pan. Place peppers and onions cut side down, on another sheet pan. Roast all vegetables for 10 minutes. Turn vegetables over and roast for another 10 minutes, or until eggplants are tender. Remove vegetables from oven and cover with foil.

Allow the vegetables to steam until cool enough to handle. Peel and seed the peppers, but do not rinse. Cut six of the pepper halves lengthwise then in half again (giving you 12 large quarters) and place in a mixing bowl. Remove 24 of the largest leaves of onion, discard and dry onion leaves. Add to the bowl of pepper pieces. Coarsely chop remaining onion and place in baking dish.

Cut the remaining pepper halves into 1⁄4 – 1⁄2 inch pieces and place in the baking dish with the onions. Split the eggplants lengthwise and scrape the flesh from the skins. Discard the skins. Coarsely chop the flesh and add it to the baking dish. Whisk the 7 tablespoon olive oil, salt, black pepper, lemon juice, garlic to make a dressing. Add all but 2 tablespoons of the dressing plus 1 tablespoon of the parsley to the baking dish, tossing well to combine with the chopped vegetables. Place the baking dish in the oven for 15 minutes. Remove, and let the vegetable mixture come to room temperature.

To serve, mound the vegetable mixture in the centre of a serving plate. Toss the large pepper and onion pieces in the mixing bowl with the remaining 2 tablespoons of dressing.

Scatter with remaining 2 tablespoons of chopped parsley and serve.

Baked Apples & Pears

  • With your Fornetto Oven, or kamado, still hot after preparing lunch, this is the perfect opportunity to start a simple dessert by baking some apples and pears in foil.
  • Use ripe and sweet apples or pears but do not peel the fruit.
  • Cut the fruit in half and place on a large sheet of tin foil. Sprinkle with finely chopped pistachios (other nuts can be used if preferred), brown sugar and cinnamon or nutmeg and wrap the fruit securely in the foil to create a parcel.
  • Bake in the hot Fornetto oven for twenty-thirty minutes. Fruit is cooked when it is soft and just collapsing on itself.
  • Serve hot straight from the oven with vegan or dairy-based ice cream or cream. Delicious!

Suggestion:

For a more decadent treat – why not try whole bananas stuffed with pieces of chocolate inside – the kids will love it.

This flexible recipe can be made in a conventional oven or your Fornetto oven. You can also place the foil parcel in a kamado or on top of a grill. The higher the temperature the less time you will need!

Homemade Sauerkraut

In a very large bowl, and working in 4 layers, combine the shredded cabbage with the grated carrot and mix with a 1/4 of the salt.

  • Continue on in layers in this manner until the last layer is salt. Allow it to sit for about an hour and then combine it all together, mixing well.
  • Making sure that your hands are very clean pack it into a large jar and compress the mixture well with your fist. The cabbage and carrot will release a good amount of liquid. This can also be done using the back of a wooden spoon.
  • Once the entire mixture is in the jar, pack it one last time to ensure that everything is under the liquid.
  • Using a clean plastic bag, such as a zipper seal type bag, insert your hand into the bag and line the top of the jar while squeezing out the air between the bag and the liquid. Fill the bag with water. This will create an airtight seal between the kraut and the ambient air. If you are using a wide-mouth jar or a crock pot, pack the cabbage down well and sit a large plate on top to hold the cabbage down and allow the liquid to surface. Weigh the plate down using something heavy like a rock or brick.
  • Place the jar in a large dish to catch the drips as it ferments. Monitor for 1 week and press down every two days to allow the gas to be released. Remove any scum as/if it forms.
  • Depending on the ambient temperature, full fermentation can take anywhere from 10 days to 2 weeks. The higher the ambient temperature, the quicker the process.
  • Sauerkraut can be stored in the fridge for several months.
  • Now create a sauerkraut-based dish to cook in your Fornetto using smoked meats.
  • Watch the video below for full a visual guide to preparing it yourself.

Note: Never seal the jar during the fermentation process as this will cause a build-up of gas and you’ll end up with Sauerkraut all over your ceiling when you open it!