ODE TO MAYBLOOM!

It's coming to the end of the Organic Vegetable Box Scheme season, and I've decided to celebrate the return of my computer (and thus photos on the blog!!) with a review of some of the fantastic boxes Niamh has delivered from Maybloom Farm this summer.

Every week there is something new and exciting, along with the old reliables - we couldn't survive without a good big bag of potatoes!!!

I used that cabbage in a yummy coleslaw - cabbage, carrots, a tiny bit of onion all shredded,  I then moistened the vegetables with a french dressing and then added some home made mayonnaise and greek yogurt.  This combination makes a nice tasty light salad (I hate claggy coleslaw!)

    

Some fantastic pea pods in the corner - earlier in the summer I just hid in a corner and ate them all by myself!!!!!!

Later in the summer I shelled them and steamed with some tender stem broccoli, and served with some lemon zest and butter.

I have to say that these were the nicest strawberries I have ever had - they tasted intensely strawberryish (!) real reliving your childhood taste memories stuff!

Another delicious week - those french beans were fantastic sauteed with a little panchetta and garlic.

I cannot tell you how delicious Niamh's fresh garlic is -  and the fact that it is so incredibly good for you makes me feel less guilty about the amount of Caesar salad dressing I ate!!!!

I had read that really, really fresh corn was miles better than the stuff you buy - we were sitting down munching this corn with salt and butter 90 minutes after it was picked!!!!!!  Superb!

This little large beauty was the first white aubergine (eggplant) I had ever tasted, really delicious smooth and full of flavour.  I made a deconstructed ratatouille with it (primarily because different members of the family don't different components of the ratatouille, and therefore deconstructed we could all choose the bits we liked!)  I roasted the aubergine with thyme and olive oil.  The onions  with a tiny amount of rosemary.  The tomatoes with basil  and the mushrooms with some pesto, and finally the peppers with plenty of pepper - a real success.  Talk about your 5 a day on a plate!! 

The picture doesn't do the dish justice - but I had to make sure that the different components didn't touch!!!

The onion didn't even make it onto the plate for fear that the juices might contaminate the mushrooms!!!!!!

SQUASH SOUP

Sorry about the lack of photos, but we're working on it (well actually someone who knows what they are doing is working on it!!!) and will soon (?!?) be rid of the laptop and back to normal services!!!

I made a really special soup for lunch today - and decided that soup is a good thing to blog about when you are photoless, as soup isn't that inspiring to look at (well that's my theory and I'm sticking to it!).

This weeks vegetable box was really inspiring and autumnal, a cute little sweet dumpling squash which I just halved, seeded  then baked with some salt, pepper and a tiny knob of butter - fantastic.

There was also a lovely (and large) butternut squash in the basket, and I thought it would be nice to add some other autumn flavours to make a warming and hopefully cheering (in this awful weather) soup.  I have a huge bag of cooking apples which M. my lovely sister in law gave me,  I figured that the squash and apples would be a good combination - this is what I came up with:

Butternut Squash and Apple Soup

1             medium squash (or half a large one)
2             medium onions
3             medium cooking apples (or granny smiths if not available)
1 tsp       ground cumin
1 tsp       ground coriander
1 tsp       turmeric
               olive oil
               chicken/vegetable stock



Peel the squash with a potato peeler.
Remove the seeds and cut into chunks.
Peel the onions and cut into chunks,
Peel and core the apples and (see a pattern!) cut into chunks.
Place the vegetables on a baking tray, sprinkle with the spices, salt and pepper.
Add enough olive oil to allow them to roast and pop into the oven at 180 C for about 30 minutes.
When they have begun to caramelise remove the vegetables from the oven and place in a pot.
Pour some boiling water/stock into the baking tray (to get the last of the caramelised juices)
Pour this stock and whatever extra is needed to just cover the squash, onion and apple in the pot.
Simmer for 15 minutes and then blitz with a hand held blitzer or whatever implement you use to make your soup smooth and delicious.
Taste and add more salt and pepper if needed, sometimes a teaspoon of honey added at this stage can balance the flavours perfectly.

The soup was all I had hoped for warming and welcoming - the perfect lunch to eat inside while watching the weather do it's worst!!!

*Photo added later

BEST VEG EVER!!!!

Niamh has delivered a fantastic range of organic veggies to me all through the summer, every week there has been a new discovery....  What a variety of tomatoes there are and how different they can taste.  What a pleasure it is to cook with kale.  But the discovery that has delighted me most is without doubt .... the greens from beetroot.  Up until the box scheme, I had bought my beetroot at the supermarket, where it comes leafless (probably because the leaves wilt very quickly and it wouldn't have a very long shelf life) - but these leaves are DELICIOUS.

My favourite way to prepare them is to saute them.  I heat olive oil and a small knob of butter in my wok, add some fresh garlic and fry for a few moments then I add the stalks and saute them for about three minutes and then add the leaves and just toss them in the pan until they have wilted.  Vegetable perfection!!!!

I have also added the younger, more tender leaves to salad which was gorgeous, but really you should get your hands on some and just give them a toss in your pan and enjoy!!

BROWNIES 12 & 13

Ina Garten thinks I should be arrested!!  Well if she knew me she would think I should be arrested, well if she knew I made these Brownies she would think I should be arrested!!  All a very convoluted way to say that Ina thinks that anyone who makes Brownies without butter should be arrested, and I am here to confess, hands out, ready for the cuffs and to hear my rights.  IF I can just have another one with a nice mug of coffee, I'll go quietly!!

After the horribleness that were Brownies 4 I was slow to try Harry Eastwood's beetroot brownies from Red Velvet Chocolate Heartache, but I was wrong they are delicious, truly delicious - moist, densely chocolaty, perfect texture, taste, the works.  I know the fact that I used the organic beetroot from my weekly delivery helped, I know the fact that I baked them myself (instead of using the horrible vacuum packed precooked ones I used last time) helped, but I have to say that these were so good that I imagine they would overcome even the factory cooked beetroot.

I changed the method quite a bit as I had baked the beetroot before I read the recipe, so I will give you my method as that is what worked for me!!

Super Yummy (and not too bad for you) Brownies

400g        cooked peeled beetroot

100g        hazelnuts

3              eggs

220g        light muscovade sugar

1/4 tsp    salt

150g       dark chocolate (I used l00g Lindt 70% and 50g Lindt 85%)

2 tbsp     white rice flour

70g         cocoa powder (I used Green and Black)

2 tsp       baking powder

1 tsp       vanilla extract

30g         chopped hazelnuts for the top

Preheat oven to 160 C

Line a brownie tin with baking paper

Blitz 100g hazelnuts in the food processor into a fine powder.

Whisk the sugar and eggs until light and frothy (approx. 5 minutes)

Remove the nuts from the processor and then blitz the beetroot until smooth.

(my processor didn't get it smooth enough, so I then added it to the egg mixture and blitzed it with a stick blender)

Melt the chocolate in a bowl over simmering water.

Meanwhile add the powdered hazelnuts, rice flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, vanilla extract and salt to the egg, sugar and beetroot mixture, stir through carefully.

Add the melted chocolate and combine.

Pour the mixture into the brownie tin and sprinkle with the 30g of chopped hazelnuts.

Bake for 35 minutes, until cracked on top but still moist in the middle.

When baked remove to a wire rack for 20 minutes in the tin.  Then cut into individual portions and allow to cool completely.

I have also experimented with the Blondies from this book, when I baked them I wondered how they would taste as brownies proper so I replaced two heaped tablespoons of rice flour for the same amount of cocoa, and they were very good, the blueberries didn't sit quite so well with the dark chocolate, so I tried them without

using chocolate chunks in place of the fruit and they were excellent - the perfect option when you can't get your hands on some beetroot.

Now for the rating - in an ideal world I would side with Ina and always have butter in my brownies, but for the real world the beetroot brownies would have to wing their way to the top of the list - for a delicious luxurious treat, with quarter the guilt factor!! 

FOREVER SUMMER REVISITED

I have rediscovered "Forever Summer" by Nigella Lawson recently, it was one of those books that I bought, tried one or two recipes and then forgot about - this was a mistake as it is jam packed with wonderful recipes that work beautifully and more importantly are easily changed to suit your taste and what you have in the pantry.

I tried the pineapple salsa with some organic ham and a tomato salsa, it was just perfect and was the ideal dinner on a very warm day (warmth - seems like a distant memory now!).The pineapple combined perfectly with the coriander and mint to lift the ham to sublime!

When I spotted some yellow courgettes in my  vegetable basket, I knew that this was the first recipe they were destined for!

It is a light tasty soup, again perfect summer fodder.  It is based on a Middle Eastern dish, where they believe that "eating yellow foods will result in laughter and happiness" - how could you resist trying that!!

I blitzed a couple of portions (faddy eaters!!) and for some strange reason it tasted much more substantial and warming - go figure!!

This is a version of Nigella's recipe for Sea Bass with Saffron, Sherry and Pine Nuts,  this time I used Plaice in place of the Sea Bass and it was excellent, the light delicate sauce  compliments the fresh flavours of the fish.  Neither the saffron nor sherry dominate, they just compliment.  I have cooked this with Sea Bass before and couldn't recommend one fish above the other - both were just right.  The dish would have looked better if I had used the white half of the plaice, but I think there is more flesh on the dark side.

This is the Old Fashioned Tomato Salad, and although it tastes lovely, it wouldn't be great on the "taste/labour ratio" scale.  There was quite a bit of faffing about making the Salad Cream, and I would prefer a nice garlic mayonnaise.

I loved this Short Pasta with Asparagus, Lemon Garlic and Parsley, but then I love anything with asparagus.  It is a super simple dish where you gently fry some garlic in olive oil add steamed asparagus and lemon juice to taste.  Combine with your pasta of choice and sprinkle over some parsley, yumm!

Finally, The Rainbow Room's Carrot and Peanut Salad was totally addictive.  Amo and I ate the whole bowl in the belief that "it's a salad therefore it's low fat and healthy", obviously this thinking was aided by the glass of wine (or two) we enjoyed with the salad!!!!  Well I suppose it was better than eating a bag of peanuts (not lower fat though :-{{ )  Here's the recipe

Carrot and Peanut Salad

4 medium carrots, peeled

75g    salted peanuts

2 tbsp red wine vinegar

2 tbsp groundnut oil

few drops sesame oil

Grate the carrots coarsely.

Combine with the peanuts, vinegar and oils.

Devour as you choose!

SALSA VERDE

My organic vegetable box seems to get better and better every week.  Last week Niamh delivered a fantastic box of loveliness - those strawberries tasted like about ten strawberries concentrated in each one - the sort of strawberries that I imagined farmers wives giving to Enid Blyton's Famous Five for their picnics (along with lashings and lashings of ginger beer!!).

Those are the peas that didn't see the cooking pot despite my having planned to use them in the pea and rice soup I posted on Monday (they were delicious!)*.  In the right hand corner there is a pot of Lemon Balm, which I used in a salsa verde type sauce for some fish.

Lemon Balm Salsa Verde

3 tbsp      lemon balm - chopped
2 tbsp      coriander - chopped
2 tbsp      parsley - chopped
2              anchovies - chopped
2              garlic cloves - grated
2 tbsp       capers - drained
zest and juice from one lime
extra virgin olive oil.


Make a paste from the anchovies, by mashing them with the side of a knife on a chopping board.  Add this paste to the chopped herbs, lime zest and juice.  If your capers are large - chop them up, otherwise just add to the sauce. Add good extra virgin olive oil to taste.  Season with pepper and serve with your fish of choice.

The lemon balm added an extra something to the sauce, it was wonderfully tangy and fresh, a lovely combination with  hake fillets. 

* Pea pods can be used to make a really tasty vegetable stock AND you have the satisfaction of feeling like a Suzie Homemaker (waste not want not!)

THE PERFECT BREAKFAST?

Could this be the perfect breakfast? Organic raspberries (from the box scheme), Glenisk organic Greek Yogurt, (I am so delighted I discovered this product) super healthy raspberry muffins, good coffee and a great book, eaten outside on a warm, sunny morning.

Regular readers will be aware of my ongoing mission to add more fruit and vegetables to the diet of son #2 (the veg phobic one!!), and to this end I recently bought a new cookbook (like I needed an excuse!!) Harry Eastwood's "Red Velvet Chocolate Heartache", in which she replaces the fat in recipes with vegetables (!).  I reckoned that if they tasted good, we would all be winners, and I also hoped that there would be plenty of recipes to use up the courgette glut (there are always loads of courgettes in the weekly box, and I'm the only one here who likes them!).

I have to say that this books reads very well (not the silly introductions to the recipes - the recipes themselves) and I was really looking forward to getting my teeth into it (sorry about the pun ;-{),  there are 20 recipes using courgette (roll on the glut!!).  As I am having a bit of a raspberry muffin thing at the moment, I honed in on the "Lemon, sunflower seed and blueberry muffin" recipe and then proceeded to change it!!  I replaced the lemon zest with orange (I already had two naked lemons in the fridge - didn't need any more!!) and the blueberries with raspberries (they are what I like, and I have plenty in the freezer).  I also added some lime extract (to explain the little green flecks in the muffins - clever or what!!!)

The muffins are delicious (although haven't been tried by the intended target yet!) there is no hint of the vegetables within,  the sunflower seeds make a nice change to nuts, but could easily be replaced with whatever nut you fancy.  The orange zest and raspberry are a great combination, and the texture is just about right, slightly drier than a fat filled muffin, but only very slightly, and that's a price I'm willing to pay.

Orange, Sunflower Seed and Raspberry Muffins

160g            caster sugar
3                  medium eggs
250g            finely grated courgette
zest from 1 orange
180g           white rice flour*
160g           ground almonds
2 tsp           baking powder
1/4 tsp        bread (bicarbonate of) soda
1/4 tsp       salt
60g            sunflower seeds
150g          raspberries

Line a 12 hole muffin tray with cases
Preheat oven to 180 C.

Beat the eggs and sugar until light, pale and creamy (will take about 3 mins with electric whisk)
Add the grated courgette and orange zest.
Now with a spatula add the flour, ground almonds, baking powder and bread soda and working as quickly as you can combine gently (keep in the air that you have beaten into the egg mixture).
Add the sunflower seeds and raspberries as quickly (and gently) as you can.
Divide the mixture between the muffin cases (Harry says that you get 8 muffins from this mixture, I got 12 (happy days!)
Place the muffin tray in the center of the oven - here she emphasises that it is really important not to faff about at this stage as you don't want the oven temp to decrease - you need a hot oven to "encourage them upwards as soon as they enter the heat"
Bake for approx. 30 - 35 minutes.
Remove from oven when a skewer comes out clean.
Cool on a wire rack.

*I only had 120g of rice flour so added 60g of ordinary flour.

                                            This week's basket of wonderfulness!!!

ODE TO SUMMER

I love this time of year, my organic vegetable box scheme has resumed for the summer .... I really look forward to each Saturday when Niamh arrives with a basket of goodies, it's like a mini birthday each week!!  (easily satisfied or what?!).  This is my first basket of the year - those potatoes were out of this world, the salad was delicious and beautiful, but the tarragon was another story (not the tarragon, but the abject failure of a Bearnaise sauce I tried to make with it :-{{)  I did take a photo but I'm ashamed to put it up near the beauty of the vegetables!! (It is shown below where it belongs !!)

 




Another highlight of this time of year is samphire, I nearly jumped up and down with delight last week when our (excellent) local fish shop - Connolly's, had it in stock (they are used to me by this stage!).  When they started to stock samphire some years ago, I received a gift of a large bag full, for being the first customer to recognise it and give recipe suggestions. (Proud Day!!).

Yesterday we had prawns wrapped in lemon sole with samphire, mushrooms and roast potatoes for dinner,  I could recommend it as a dinner for any occasion - and am planning to serve it next time we have friends over for dinner.  I think this way of preparing the dish is an improvement on the way I cooked it last week.

 

It is much easier to eat prawns when someone else has done the hard work (somehow when we go to restaurants and someone orders prawns - I'm the one who ends up shelling them!!).  I think that by wrapping the prawns in the sole you get a portion of both in each mouthful, which is a really good thing.  Although it has to be said that shelling and veining (?) prawns is not a fun job!

                     The reason why there was no Hollandaise sauce served with dinner - my confidence took a tumble when I tried to make the Bearnaise!!!

 

Lemon Sole Stuffed With Prawns

1     medium lemon sole per person (skinned)

2     large fresh (uncooked) prawns per person                              

lemon zest                                                                      

lemon juice

extra virgin olive oil

salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 180 C

Prepare the prawns being sure to remove the dark thread down the back.

Lay the prawns on the narrow end of the sole.

Scatter lemon zest over the fish (I use the microplane grater) and season.

Squeeze lemon juice over and then drizzle with some olive oil.

Roll up, and roast for about 20 minutes.

I just stir fried/steamed the samphire in lemon juice (white wine is good too).

You can of course use any fish you like.