Discovering a delicious new food is such a joy.  And as someone who wasn’t a particularly adventurous eater in childhood, it’s an experience I’ve had fairly regularly in my adult years.  When I was young I hated most vegetables and didn’t really branch out at all.  Even when I became vegetarian, I mostly just switched my real meat for ready-made imitation meat products, rather than experimenting with lentils, vegetables and grains.  It wasn’t really until my late teens that I started trying (and enjoying) vegetables beyond the realm of carrots and peas, or cheeses besides cheddar.

The first time I had halloumi cheese, it was threaded onto skewers with vegetables, then grilled, and it was unlike any other cheese I’d had before – so meaty and satisfying.  Since then it’s become a firm favourite of mine, and I’m always on the lookout for any recipe where I can include it.  Here is a good one from Nigella. Once all the veg is chopped, it’s just a case of bunging everything in the oven.  Simple, tasty, and topped with cheese:  what a worknight supper is all about.

Double Potato & Halloumi Bake

Serves 2-3, from Feast by Nigella Lawson

Ingredients:

1 large sweet potato, peeled and chopped into 4cm cubes

1 large Desiree potato, peeled and chopped into 2cm cubes

1 red onion, halved and chopped into 4-6 segments each

1 yellow pepper, deseeded and chopped

1 red pepper, deseeded and chopped

3-4 cloves of garlic, unpeeled but separated

1.5 tbsp olive oil

100g halloumi, very thinly sliced

Method:

1.  Preheat the oven to 200C.  Put all the vegetables and garlic into a large ovenproof dish.  Add the olive oil and coat well.  Season with black pepper (but no salt – the cheese will add the saltiness).

2.  Cook for 45 minutes until tinged brown.  Preheat the grill to high.

3.  Place the cheese slices on top – next time I’ll actually chop the slices into quarters to spread the cheesy goodness around the dish a bit more evenly.  Return to the oven and grill for 5-10 minutes until the cheese has melted and turned slightly brown.  Serve immediately – as a main it just served the two of us, but we can be rather greedy.