sweet potato and cauliflower curry

The veg box brought us a pair of sweet potatoes, and we had a cauliflower left over.

Not wanting to cook too much in the heat, I peeled the sweet potatoes and cut them into 2cm-ish chunks.  They were simmered for about 18 minutes, and I put the cauliflower florets in the steamer basket for the last 7 minutes.

I chopped an onion and a red pepper, and minced ginger and garlic, and fried that lot off in some olive oil, while Pete ground some spices with a Morrocan twist (including pomegranate seeds), and I put them in the frying pan with the onion mixture for a couple of minutes.

Tipped everything into the slow cooker, and added the rest of the broad bean stock. Cooked on low for about 8 hours, and ate with rice, but cous cous would have worked too.

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leek and feta risotto

I looked at all the pods from the broad beans, and thought “I should be able to make some stock with those”, so I threw them in the slow cooker with some water for a few hours.

There were two rather tired leeks in the fridge, so they were sliced and sautéd in olive oil and butter, then I added 5 oz of arborio rice and stirred it round.  I added some finely chopped lemon balm from the garden too.

Then in went 1 pint of the pod stock (which was not great, but OK), bit by bit, stirring as I went to allow the rice to absorb it..  Some sea salt and black pepper, and half a block of feta at the end, chopped into small chunks, which made it nice and creamy.

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chinese style green beans

Still more green beans to eat …

Topped and tailed them, chopped into 2cm chunks (this is starting to sound like a repeat :).  Simmered for 6/7 minutes.   Drained and rinsed in cold water.

Chopped an onion and some garlic, oh and some fresh ginger.  Heated groundnut oil in the wok, added about a dessertspoon of mustard seeds and waited for them to pop.  Then hurled in onion, garlic and ginger and cooked until soft, splattering self in hot oil in the process.

Added the beans and some five spice powder,  stirred about for a couple of minutes, added a good splash of tamari, cooked for about 2 minutes.

I used too much oil, but it worked really well.  We had it with basmati rice, which had the juice of half a lemon added to it, which is really nice.

And now the green beans are all gone - hurrah!  But another veg box arrives tomorrow …

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lentil dosas

I’ve been wanting to make these ever since I spotted them in one of my bread books, but I’ve never been organised enough to do it - they’re remarkably simple, but you need to start them 32 hours in advance, according to the book.

Take 3/4 cup of long grain rice (I used Basmati, as we had no long grain), 1/4 cup of red lentils, and combine in a bowl with 1 cup of warm water.

Cover with clingfilm, and leave for 8 hours.

Then, blitz the contents of the bowl in a food processor, and return to the (rinsed out) bowl, recover with the clingfilm, and leave for 24 hours.

Then stir in some salt, ground black pepper and 1/2 tsp (ish) of turmeric.  The recipe said to add fresh coriander; we didn’t have any, but I did lob in some grated fresh ginger.  It claimed it would make 6 x 6″ dosas, but I made them a bit smaller for ease of scoffing - just heat up a heavy based frying pan, add some oil, and cook them like drop scones or whatever.

They were utterly delicious - we ate them with some leftover black-eyed peas in tomatoes that I cooked up at the weekend to accompany our (home made) chicken dansak.  We shall be having them again!

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green beans and pasta

I reviewed the contents of the veg drawer last night - to my shame, there were two small turnips going mouldy, so they had to go.  A wide assortment of carrots was hurled into the slow cooker for carrot and coriander soup for lunch today.  And there were a lot of green beans.

We like green beans, but we tend to do the same sort of stuff with them every time, and I wanted to try something different, so this is what I did.  It was lovely - perfect summer food.

Topped and tailed the beans, and then cut them into chunks of about 2cm.  Set them to simmer for about  seven minutes, I guess.

Put on some pasta quills to boil.

Got Pete to grate a lot of parmesan, rummaged for the tired half lemon in the fridge, and went and cut some fennel fronds from the garden, which I chopped up small.

Combined beans, pasta, parmesan, black pepper, lemon juice, fennel and some cream, and scoffed from bowls.

Followed it with local strawberries and a home made brownie.  Lovely.

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chickpeas and chard

There was a bunch of swiss chard lurking in the fridge; and we were slightly over-tomato’d.  So I soaked some chickpeas overnight on Friday, and bunged them in the slow cooker with some boiling water at early o’clock on Saturday, so that we could construct something for supper.

Sliced the chard into 1 cm strips, and blanched it for 2-3 minutes.  Skinned and chopped three fat tomatoes (actually, I got Pete to do that, as raw tomato makes me heave).

Fried about 1 dessertspoon of caraway seeds and an onion in some olive oil, then added tomatoes, ground coriander, some tamarind paste (watered down), some water and cooked that down for about 20 minutes, then added chickpeas and chard.  Chopped fresh coriander went in at the end, along with the juice of half a lemon.

We ate it with rice, and it was lovely.  A tub went in the freezer, and the last couple of spoonsful served as a base for a chickpea salad to go with yesterday’s barbie.

As usual, of course, there are Still More Chickpeas.  Some are being dealt with for tonight’s supper (details to follow), and the rest will go for hummous, I think.

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green beans and tomato

We’re a bit over veg’d this week, as we bought mushrooms and asparagus as well as the box, and so we’re starting to panic a bit over what’s left this week, given another box arrives tomorrow.  Think I’ll have to cancel next week’s …

Tonight, we looked at the large number of runner beans, and I used half of them thus:

Topped and tailed the beans, cut them into chunks of about - oh - 3cm, I guess, and simmered them for about six minutes.  While that was going on, Pete chopped an onion and some garlic, and I sautéd them in some olive oil till soft, then added a carton of passata (sieved tomatoes, for those who haven’t tried it).

Put some fusilli on to boil.

We had half a bunch of parsley in the fridge, left from making a beef stroganoff on Saturday (bad, bad …) - I wouldn’t normally buy parsley at this time of year, but mine has been slow to take off in the herb garden this year.   So Pete chopped up the remains and we added it to the tomatoey mix close to the end; added some fresh ground pepper too.

We topped it with grated parmesan, and it was really nice - very simple summer food. It would work with all sorts of veg, I reckon.

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local food for local people

Last Friday, Pete and I skived off for the day in order to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary, and went down to deepest, darkest Somerset. En route to Porlock, we screeched to halt at a sign advertising “locally picked asparagus”, and bore home a bunch that was reassuringly expensive.

On Saturday, the local farm shop had Axbridge strawberries too.

So we roasted the asparagus in the oven with olive oil and sesame seeds, and ate it with angel hair pasta and feta. The pasta stuck together a bit - I should have added some oil when it was cooked - but it was sublime. And the strawberries were consumed with brownies and double cream.

Nom nom.

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asparagus egg-fried rice

We had friends over for Eurovision on Saturday - we cooked up an Indian feast: beef in coconut and black masala, split moong dhal, cucumber/carrot/red onion raita.  There was a stack of rice left over, and a bunch of asparagus to eat.

Trimmed the woody bits off the asparagus, cut the stalks into thirds, and blanched for five minutes or so.

Chopped garlic, spring onions, fresh ginger and a red chilli, and stir fried for a minute or so.  Added the asparagus and some soy sauce, and fried for a few more minutes.  Added the cooked rice and stirred it about, then added an egg beaten with a dollop of sesame oil, and stirred *that* around using a chopstick (to distribute the egg).

Absolutely gorgeous - really fresh and light.

Choice of rhubarb crumble and/or chocolate/walnut/coffee cake to follow.  Groan.

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keralan vegetable massala

As mentioned, we needed to make inroads into the veg glut. This is an adaptation of a recipe from Anjum Anand, and we replaced the chicken with some veg. It worked remarkably well, and would serve four greedy people, or six more restrained souls.

1 bag spinach
some groundnut oil (I never use as much as they say)
3 black cardamon pods
2 bay leaves
5cm piece of cinnamon stick
2 green chillies, pricked with the tip of a knife
1 large onion, peeled and chopped
1 large aubergine, chopped
1 large sweet potato, peeled and diced
fresh grated ginger (lots is an appropriate amount)
fresh garlic (ditto)
1 can tomatoes
2 tsp ground coriander
1.5 tsp garam masala
4 tbsp natural yogurt
salt to taste

Make a purée of the ginger, garlic and tomatoes (blender or food processor required). Heat the oil in a deep, heavy-based pan (I used a Le Creuset casserole), and add the cardamon, bay leaves and cinnamon, and fry for a few seconds, then add the onion and chillies and fry until the onions are brown.

Add the tomato/ginger/garlic purée, and the aubergine and sweet potato, and cook for about 30 minutes.  Add some salt to taste (I used about 1/2 tsp).  While this is going on, clean the blender / food processor, and pureé the spinach (you might need to add a bit of water to make it mulch).

Add the yogurt to the pot and keep stirring to reduce the sauce for about 15 minutes, then add the spinach and carry on with this for another 10 minutes or so.

Eat with basmati rice or flat bread.

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