I want to let you into a little secret that makes a massive difference to my life. Batch cooking,
a big old pan of food, could be a bolognese, a soup, a stew. In this case I'm going to
show you how to make a beautiful veggie casserole right, with roasted squash, chickpeas, mushrooms,
tomatoes, but from that you can do so many different dishes. Got a butternut squash there.
Very carefully put the tip in the center and then go carefully all the way down, and then rotate it,
carefully all the way down, and then take these seeds out. So what I want to do is amplify flavour
of veggies all the way through this recipe so you don't just get kind of boiled veg, you get
delicious food. So by roasting the squash we're going to literally double or triple the flavour.
I'm only gonna put a little bit of olive oil on this squash. And salt. And that's it.
Now the oven is at 180 degrees Celsius which is 350 Fahrenheit, straight onto the bars,
skin side down, and that will start concentrating the flavour there. So I've got 400 grams
of your everyday cheap mushrooms. I'm just going to literally break up these mushrooms and go in
dry to the pan, no oil at the moment. It's going to dehydrate the mushrooms and concentrate their
flavour. Let's give this a little stir. You can see the moisture coming out of the mushrooms. So
let that crack on for 10 minutes. Okay let's talk about more veggies, four onions peeled, and four
peppers. And with the peppers thumb goes in right, then you can split open the pepper like that,
take the seeds out, and then I'm going to tear it up chunky. Big chunks like two-inch chunks.
As I stir it it's almost squeaking because it's scalding it, it's charring it, so it's giving it a
toasty smoky flavour. So roughly chop the onions and in they go. Salt and pepper, and we'll let
that carry on and scald and steam and intensify for another 10 minutes, and then I'm going to get
some chickpeas, some tomatoes, and some tapenade. It's chopped up olives. What I love about this
is it's a flavour bomb waiting to happen, so that's a nice little hack and an ingredient that I
love to have at home, always. And 2 garlic cloves will be enough. Peel this garlic and finely slice.
So we go in with 2 tablespoons of olive oil and 2 garlic. Then we can go in with the tapenade,
2 tablespoons straight in there, deep flavours, seasoning again. I'm going to go in also with 2
tablespoons of red wine vinegar, and what that will give you is this beautiful kind of sweet
and sour veggie base, deep in flavour. And when that's cooked away then, and only then, we can add
the wet stuff. The tinned tomatoes, whole plums, you'll get a sweeter flavour. 2 tins, clean hands.
Scrunch it, this is what the nonnas do in Italy, the grandmothers.
And then once you've done that, fill these tins up with water.
That'll clean the tin out and also gives you the perfect amount
of moisture to really make this into a lovely casserole-y stew.
And then the chickpeas. Now you can go for cheap tinned chickpeas and they're nice. But the
extraordinary chickpeas are the jarred ones. Right they're more expensive but they're twice the size,
they're twice as delicious, and they're creamy and amazing. So look out for these in delis
you can get them online you can get them in certain supermarkets. So whether using jars or
tins of chickpeas, go in with them juice and all right, all the juice that juice is very useful.
Beautiful. Bring that to the boil. Let me just wash me hands.
So look as that comes to the boil you'll see that begin to thicken. So give it a
nice stir. Tiny little bit of seasoning not too much because it's going to reduce down.
Hopefully what you've got from this method is that i'm commanding flavour out of veggies at
every stage, and I'll finish it in the oven. Let's check in on the squash. Look we've already got a
nice bit of colour there. You might want to use a pair of tongs. I'm going to place that squash
on the stew like that, just push it down, and then place this back in the oven.
So we'll carry on cooking that at 180 degrees Celsius which is 350 Fahrenheit for like an
hour and a half until everything is just gorgeous and cooked through,
and then you can stir that squash in big hunks through it. That amazing casserole took less
than half an hour to put together, to get to that stage, and then you let the oven do all the work.
So it smells amazing it's had an hour and a half.
Look at it blipping away, I love it when it does that. Proper hearty food.
Get yourself a spoon. Now the reason that I've roasted the squash on top is so you
get maximum roast which is maximum flavour. Also the skin on butternut squash is utterly
delicious, like candy. Get a spoon in and just break it up into little hunks of squash.
Give it a nice little mix up, then have a little taste.
Mmm.
You can adjust with a little salt and pepper,
and something I like to do is just a little thimble of vinegar just to bring the flavour
out make it a little bit kind of lighter, more tangy. That is a great dish in its own right.
Massive flavour. So there you go - one pan squash and chickpea casserole, what are you waiting for?
You need to get some of that in your life. What I tend to do is freeze most of it, but from this
dish there's so many things you can do. You can rustle up loads of different dishes with flavours
from all around the world. Go Italian and simply have it with toast, delicious pesto and buffalo
mozzarella. Or serve it Spanish style with chorizo and potatoes. And I love to spice up my chickpea
and squash casserole with curry paste, to turn into a gorgeous veggie curry. Look at this. Ooh
my favorite curry. Do you prefer vegetarian to meat? 100 percent. Pets sort your dad out, go on.
This is the best thing ever dad.