Tomato tart

Hopefully you're all wallowing in delicious home-grown tomatoes and are in need of a quick and easy recipe to put them centre stage. Or if, like me, that hasn't exactly gone to plan then I would recommend buying some ripe tomaotoes just so you can enjoy one of the tastiest tomato dishes I ever tried.

I followed the recipe to the tee using pre-rolled puff pastry to save time and effort. Do make sure you use good quality goats cheese to complement your lovely tomatoes and don't worry if you don't have a food processor, mushing the paste ingredients together worked for me.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/aug/14/tomato-galette-recipe-vegetarian-ottolenghi

Rhubarb Relish

Around this time I year I start to get bored of eating stewed rhubarb which is a shame because the plants are still producing loads of juicy stems. This year's solution is Rhubarb Relish from the River Cottage Handbook No2:


Ingredients:
500g granulated sugar
100ml cider vinegar
1kg rhubarb (untrimmed weight)
125g raisins
50g fresh root ginger
2 cinnamon sticks
6 cloves

First bruise the ginger with a blunt object, I used a rolling pin, and tie into a spice bag with the cloves and the snapped cinnamon sticks.

Put the sugar, vinegar, 100ml water and the spice bag into a preserving pan. Heat gently to dissolve the sugar and then remove from the heat and allow to infuse for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, trim the rhubarb and chop into 2-2.5cm chunks.

Add the rhubarb and raisins to the sugar syrup and cook gently for 15-20 minutes until the mixture is thick, but the rhubarb still discernible as soft chunks. Remove from the heat and pour into sterilised jars and seal with vinegar proof lids. Use within 12 months.

This was my first recipe from the River Cottage Handbook and I was very impressed, it has been complementing my mackerel pate all week. Somehow I don't think I'll have any trouble using it within 12 months.

Cooking horizons are broadening

I tend to get stuck in a meal rut where week after week I’ll cook the same recipes, obviously I’ll vary the day a little but still it gets a bit predictable after a while, so I have decided to make Saturday night my experimental meal night. Maybe I won’t always manage it, sometimes only pizza will do but I’m hoping it will encourage me delve into my many recipe books and actually try to cook something new.

Last Saturday I kicked off with a fantastic recipe from Sarah Raven’s Garden Cookbook for Spinach ??? which is a basically an easy and slightly cheaty (in my opinion) way to make spinach ravioli. Spinach was featuring on my mind because despite the odds my spinach patch survived the winter and has begun to re-grow; suddenly have an abundance of baby spinach leaves. Sarah Raven’s book is perfect for these situations because the recipes are divided by ingredient; gluts are instantly turned into opportunities!

Spinach Malfatta

for 4:
500g spinach
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1 egg white
50g Parmesan cheese, finely grated
100g breadcrumbs
plenty of fresh grated nutmeg, to taste
1 tablespoon spring herbs (parsley, chives or fennel)
Salt and black pepper
1 tablespoon flour
Tomato sauce to serve

Remove the stems from the spinach and finely chop the leaves. Cook in a little salted water until tender and then drain and squeeze out the water. Combine the spinach with the garlic, egg white, Parmesan, breadcrumbs, nutmeg, herbs, salt and pepper.

Shape the mixture into small balls about the size of walnuts. To cook, lay them in a steamer lined with lightly oiled greaseproof paper, you can do 2 layers at once if you need to. Steam for about 10 minutes.

I served them with the last batch of tomato sauce from the freezer.

A year of Celeriac

Celeriac is likely to be the slowest growing vegetable you will ever attempt to grow, sow seeds in early March, and then wait until December (if you're lucky) to start harvesting them. Finish harvesting before the end of March and you can begin all over again.

All this means that Celeriac will be present on your growing schedule for 12 months but it really is worth it. Shop bought Celeriac will cost you at least £1 and is miles away from the tender home grown roots. Easier to grow than Celery but with a similar albeit milder taste Celeriac, or Celery Root as it is often known is the swollen root and contains most of the plants nutrients making it super good for you.

This week I enjoyed watching my seedlings stretch for the sun, maybe I could do a better job with the tray turning...
And enjoyed eating several of last years successes in a very tasty Celeriac and Bacon layer:

Serves 2 hungry people
Ingredients:
3 medium celeriac
1 onion
4 rashers of un-smoked bacon
Brown sugar
Ground Cinnamon
1/3 pint Veg stock
Grated cheese
Butter

Heat the oven to 200 oc
Peel the celeriac and chop in half. Boil for 5-10 minutes until soft
Meanwhile chop the onion and fry until soft
Add the chopped bacon and 1 tsp ground cinnamon. Fry until the bacon is cooked.
Add 1 tsp of brown sugar to caramelise the onions. Then turn the heat off
Remove the celeriac and chop into 1 cm thick slices
Butter an oven proof dish that is about 15 cm wide and at least 10 cm deep
Layer the celeriac over the bottom of the dish, add half the bacon and onion mixture
Repeat with another layer of celeriac and the remainder of the bacon and onions
Finish with a layer of celeriac
Pour over the stock and finish with the grated cheese
Cover with foil and bake for 1 hour
Remove the foil and bake for a further 15 minutes or until the cheese is bubbling.

Serve with veg.

Parsnips!

All the recent sun has caused my remaining parsnips to start to re-sprout so I decided that today was the day to dig them all up and finally clear the carrot and parsnip bed ready for the year. Half an hour later and I had unearthed a wopping 26 parsnips!

I had no idea there were so many remaining, almost half of them were well over a foot long so I was suddenly in possession of a serious amount of parsnip. The variety that I grew was 'Gladiator' and considering that all I did was drop the seeds into the soil, thin after a few months and then wait it is quite brilliant to have such a good harvest, parsnips are certainly top of the growing list for this year.

40 minutes of washing and drying later and I was ready to start the cooking, 3 of the particularly large ones went into a fantastic spicy parsnip soup, 5 more are destined for roasting and all the others have been par-boiled, cooled and then frozen for later.

The soup was quite amazingly good, thick, creamy and just the right amount of spice, of course I couldn't say all this without sharing the recipe so here it is:

Spicy Parsnip soup

Serves 3-4

Ingredients:
50g unsalted butter
600g parsnips (or turnips, swede, potatoes, or a mixture of all), washed, peeled and cubed
1.5 litres of vegetable stock
1 large onion, peeled and sliced finely
3 tablespoons runny honey
2 teaspoons garam masala
Optional - 150 ml live bio-yoghurt

Melt the butter in a large saucepan over a low heat, then add the onion and heat gently for 5 minutes.

Add the vegetables and stir to coat with the butter, then remove from the heat and drizzle in the honey, stir well to coat evenly.

Pour in the stock and bring to the boil

Simmer until the vegetables are tender, should be about 20 minutes, then cool slightly before liquidizing in the food processor or blender.

Return to the heat and stir through the garam masala and the yoghurt, if using.

This weekend if has been wet and windy, not exactly the weather to make you want to go to the plot, so I have stayed closer to home and cooked up some fantastic Leek, Carrot and Ginger Soup:

Serves 4
Ingredients:
1 red onion, skinned and chopped
2 large leeks, chopped
1 kg carrots , peeled (unless organic) and chopped
3 cloves of garlic, skinned and chopped
1 inch of ginger, peeled and grated
3 tablespoons of olive oil
1.2 litres of vegetable stock

Method:
Heat the olive oil in a large pan until hot, then add the onion, garlic, leek and onion and sweat gently for 10 minutes. Add the carrots and mix together then pour in the stock. Bring to the boil and then simmer until the carrots are tender, about 20 minutes. Smooth in a blender and enjoy.