A speedy seafood stew

I really like things with fish and fresh seafood, but due to the dearth of fishmongers in the area my choice of ingredients is often limited to what is in the supermarket. Those plastic trays of prawns and mixed seafood aren't always the most inspiring thing, but I have realised that they can work very well in dishes like this. It's a vaguely Mediterranean concoction of fennel, olives, garlic and tomatoes, that is very tasty and quick enough to prepare for a post-work dinner.

Recipe (enough for 2 greedy people, with leftovers for the next day)

1 large bulb of fennel, finely sliced
1 small white onion, finely sliced
3 fat cloves of garlic, crushed
1 large sprig of thyme
1 tin chopped tomatoes (400g)
4 medium fresh tomatoes, roughly chopped or 1 heaped tsp tomato puree
Some water
About 15 small-ish green olives
1 tray mixed seafood, including squid and mussels (around 290g)
1 tray cooked king prawns (around 200g)
1/2 tsp chilli flakes
3 or 4 tblsp olive oil, or enough to generous coat the bottom of your cooking pan
Salt and pepper for seasoning

Heat the olive oil in reasonably large pan, and when it's warm put in the onion and fennel. Cook for around 5minutes over a medium-low heat until they've started to soften but not coloured. Then add the garlic, thyme and chilli flakes and cook for a few more minutes. Next, add the fresh tomato (or puree), the tin of tomatoes, and about half a tin's worth of water so that you have a loose tomato sauce. Simmer this on a low heat for about 10mins. At the end of this, the fennel should be tender. Next add the olives, and after another 5mins of simmering put in the cooked seafood. Add enough salt and pepper to season, and let the seafood heat through for a few minutes. Serve while piping hot with some bread.

Borek and a meze selection

I like things made with filo pastry, but I've never I actually made anything with it myself. So now I'm in my thirtieth decade I thought I'd better correct this. I wanted something for a light summer lunch, so a meze selection including borek seemed like a good option. Borek are essentially little parcels of pastry with various fillings, which are found all around the Mediterranean and Middle East. The borek I've come across are always filled with a feta-style cheese, but Wikipedia tells me that they can have a range of different fillings. I decided to stick with feta, and used a recipe based on this one. I adapted it a bit, so my version's below. And I (obviously) did not consider making this super-thin pastry myself, but bought some ready-made filo.

Recipe (enough for around 12 pieces):
Ready-made filo pastry (I used 4 sheets in total, but this will depend on the dimensions of your pastry)
1 large egg, beaten
200g feta cheese
1 tblsp chopped dill
A good grinding of black pepper
Around 70g butter, melted
Around 2 tblsp sesame seeds

Firstly make up the filling by mashing the cheese with the egg, adding the dill and seasoning with pepper when they are well combined. It doesn't need to be smooth mix, so don't worry about any large crumbs of cheese.
Next get your filo pastry, and lay one sheet out. Brush this with melted butter, lay a second pastry sheet on top, and then brush this with butter too. I had a large rectangle of pastry so cut this in half across the widest part, and then each half into three, to create six smaller rectangles. I then placed a couple of teaspoons of the cheese mix along the longest edge, tucked in the sides, and rolled them up into cigar shapes (nb I had some rather fat cigars). These were then brushed with more melted butter and sprinkled with some sesame seeds. Depending on the dimensions of your filo you may need to alter how you cut it, but aim to make rectangles. Repeat this process with another batch of filo pastry, to make twelve borek in total. You need to work quickly with filo pastry as it becomes very delicate the drier it is. I found that putting my pastry in the fridge between batches seemed to help, and laying a damp tea towel over it is also supposed to be effective too.
Once the borek are made bake at gas mark 4 for around 25minutes until they are lightly browned.

The borek can be served hot, or at room temperature. I prefer them hot, so as I was making mine in advance I just popped them under the grill for a bit before I wanted to eat them (this also coloured them a little more). Though these are very simple in terms of ingredients, the combination of light, crisp pastry with soft, salty, slighty herby cheese is fantastic.

To go with my borek I made some cacik (a bit like raita but with garlic and mint), and Nigella Lawson's peanut butter hummus. This was a really good recipe which I more or less followed, apart from roasting my cumin and leaving out the yoghurt. To complete the meze selection I included some taramasalata from Waitrose. This is the nicest taramasalata I've had, but I think in this context it wasn't really needed, and the fishy flavour jarred a bit with the other dishes (I think some pitta bread was needed for it to work). But overall this meze lunch was perfect for a warm summer's day- filling but not too heavy, and with lots of flavour. Actually the borek were so nice I'd happily make them in the depths of winter too.