My various-root borek

I LOVE Turkish, Greek and middle eastern food. I have a friend who's half Greek and one who's Turkish so I get to learn brilliant things about this wonderful cuisine, as well as being fed olives for breakfast and things like that.

I first made these borek stlye parcels a few Christmas Eves ago for a drinks gathering and they went down a storm, especially with my mum's Thai friend who is a fantastic cook. The great thing about them is that you can make them with pretty much anything you've got - they'd work with pretty much any root veg I think, roasted with cumin, cinammon or a bit of chilli, you can add honey, cheese, herbs, any nuts or seeds you like, perhaps some green veg (spinach would be good). They also freeze really well - I usually make a big batch then freeze and just cook up what I need.

They're really nice served as part of a mezze style spread. I made some tzatziki (grated cucumber, add 1/2-1 clove of garlic, greek yogurt - the 0% stuff is fine - then herbs - dried at this time of year is fine, I used dill and mint), a strange sprouted seed salad which turned our suprisingly well (sprouted seeds, chopped artichokes and sundried tomatoes from jars, cucumber and feta), some houmous and pita. The only thing missing was the Turkish bread, which I absolutely adore. I used to buy this all the time when I was living in London, but sadly haven't managed to find it anywhere up here yet!

Squash stuffed with pearl barley, mushrooms and feta

As I'm sure many other veggies have come across, there's an awful lot of rubbish veggie options consisting of some sort of stuffed vegetable, usually involving peppers and cous cous. However, I really love stuffed squash (and peppers actually - just not if they taste of nothing at all), and you can pretty much add anything you like.

I hadn't tried stuffing squash with pearl barley before, but I think it works really well, especially with the mushrooms. I like to toast the seeds because I think it helps to release their flavour into the mixture, and also prevents them from becoming soggy and retains their nice crunchiness.

How many it will feed depends on the size of your squash - mine already had the top missing as it was used for something earlier in the week, but usually half a squash is fine for one person. This feeds one.

Half a butternut squash, seeds scooped out
40g pearl barley, simmered for about 40 mins and drained
1 small onion, chopped
4-5 chestnut mushrooms, chopped into small pieces
Thyme
A few chilli flakes (if you like - I added a few just for a bit of warmth)
Maybe a tablespoon each of sunflower and pumpkin seeds
Feta cheese, to taste

Pop the squash on a baking tray (you could cut off a tiny bit of the bottom to level out so it stands up ok) with a little olive oil and put it in the oven at about 170-180 while you make the filling.

Sweat the onion for about 5 mins then add the mushrooms. Keep cooking until they're slightly brown, maybe 5-10 mins. Move them to the side of the pan and add the seeds and let them pop for a couple of mins. Then turn off the heat and add some thyme (I used dried which works fine - about a teaspoon?), chilli flakes if using and season well. Then let it cool for a couple of mins and add the drained pearl barley and crumble in some feta. Mix well.

All you need to do now is get your squash out of the oven and stuff it with the mixture, then put it back in the oven for about 20 mins - depending on the fierceness of your oven you might need a bit of foil to cover - just keep an eye on it. The squash should take about 50 mins-an hour to cook in total, but this depends on the size so best thing to do is just test it with a sharp knife to see if it's nice and soft.