A veg fest

The disappearing veg act.

On Sunday, I popped into our local Waitrose to pick up something for dinner. It had been a very wet and cooler day, poor hubby had been out at an event all day and was going to be very soggy when he got home, so we thought it would be great to do a "warming pot of goodness" for dinner.
As usual, we start with the meat when we go shopping, then return to the veg section. Imagine my amazement, when there was no green veg available, no broccoli, cabbages, flat or runner beans, the section was completely empty. For a balanced diet, it's essential to have your "greens", all of the iron, vitamin C and other nutrients. You can't eat a rainbow without green in there somewhere. Apparently, on checking with friends, they have also been experiencing this in other supermarkets too. As the temperatures are back to normal, we aren't barbecuing every night, I decided that the only way to get my veggie fix resolved, was to get my Riverford box order in asap.

If you haven't ever ordered an organic box, I know it can seem a bit daunting, with lots of questions that you need to find the answers to:-

• Do you want a regular order?
• Can you choose what is in your box?
• How expensive is it going to be?
• Do you have to have a box every week?
• Where is it delivered and do you need to be home?

 I have tried a few different schemes, our first box was a weekly box, all the boxes for the area were delivered to one location about 5 miles away, we had to go and pick it up every Friday evening. It was very cost effective and a complete surprise every time you collected it, you didn't know what would be in it, but a great option, until that option stopped and I had to hunt for an alternative.
I did try an Abel and Coe box, but that needs a regular order and was more expensive.

I then tried Riverford and have been shopping with them for about 10 years. We don't have a regular delivery setup, instead, I check on their website when ordering and it gives you a full list of all the options, therefore I can select the box depending on the contents I need. Sometimes I get a bumper veg box, other times, a small box or combination veg and fruit box, but you are in control.
The first thing you notice is how fresh everything is, covered in the natural protection it grew in (yes I mean soil), but that means the veg keeps longer. You get a printed sheet with Guys latest newsletter, details of the contents of the box, tips on how to look after unusual veg and also some recipes. If you need more guidance, there's always the Riverford website, and their recipe database is phenonmenal.
Guy is reducing the amount of plastic used and looking at using greener packaging that is returnable or recyclable. 

The box contents will depend on your farm catchment, if you enter your postcode, you will then see what your contents will be and when your delivery day is. My delivery day is now a Tuesday, and therefore I need to order by 11pm on Sunday evening. That means I can plan the meals for the week.
My delivery today is as follows (remember the contents may be different in your area).

100% UK organic veg box

• Salad potatoes UK
• Carrots UK
• Golden bunched beetroot UK
• French beans UK
• Courgettes UK
• Calabrese broccoli UK
• Mixed salad leaves UK
• Cherry tomatoes UK

All for £13.95 which is much cheaper than buying the same Organic produce through any supermarket.

The great news is the bunched beetroot comes with the leaves, so I've followed the instructions and cut them off the beetroot, washed the leaves thoroughly and split into 2 bags, 1 to go with dinner tonight, the other to keep for another meal.

Tonight, I decided to make life easy, roasting the root veg while the chicken in mustard was also roasting, merely leaving the beetroot leaves needing cooking in a pan 5 minutes before serving. 

Roasted root veg

Potatoes
Carrots
Golden beetroot
Red onion (not from box)
Garlic cloves (not from box)
Fresh sprigs of rosemary (from garden)
couple of bay leaves (from garden)
Olive oil

Cut into similar sized pieces, pop on a baking tray, drizzle with olive oil and toss well. Put the sprigs of herbs amongst the veg and roast in a hot oven for 60 minutes.

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Turkey Pitta kebabs with Tashi sauce (Cypriot style)

When it's so hot, you don't fancy cooking over a hot stove, perhaps the BBQ is calling you. This is a quick and very easy dinner to make. Perhaps you are having a BBQ and would like something different to serve that's simple to prepare ahead and guests can serve themselves.

Basically, you need pitta bread or flatbread, meat or sausages to chuck on the BBQ (or halloumi for vegetarians), the salad and some Tashi sauce.

As we now focus on turkey and chicken in our family, I've adapted the original recipe to use turkey steaks. You can use any meat suitable to be barbecued, even sausages work well and are great for the kids.

Whilst my husband was in Cyprus, they used white cabbage in their salads instead of lettuce and we love the difference. He has created his own sesame sauce (fondly known as Tashi sauce in our family), it is slightly different to the normal Tahini Salata as it contains Greek yoghurt, but is really scrummy).

Depending on your appetite, you will need for each person:-

• large appetite = 2 pittas, 
• small appetite = 1 pitta each.

Start by making the Tashi sauce, this will then have time for the flavours to develop. It can be made ahead and kept in the fridge.

Start to marinate the meat.

Then create the salad and pop it in a sealable tub in the fridge.

Pitta bread (gluten-free is great) or Flatbread

Turkey kebab (makes 4 pittas)

Turkey steaks (1 for each pitta)

2 tbsp olive oil

Juice half a lemon

1 tsp dried oregano

Pop all ingredients into a resealable bag and mix around, pop in the fridge until ready to cook.

Tashi sauce

1 garlic clove - crushed

2 tbsp tahini (sesame paste)

Juice of 1 lemon

4 tbsp greek yoghurt

a pinch Maldon salt

Place the garlic and sesame paste in a bowl and mix, add the lemon juice and continue mixing. There is a strange chemical reaction and the sesame paste gets very thick, keep stirring until thoroughly mixed, add the greek yoghurt and salt, stir until combined. Check seasoning. Cover and pop in the fridge.

Greek Kebab Salad

1/4 small white cabbage, finely sliced

2 large tomatoes, cut into small chunks.

1/2 cucumber, remove the seeds (see tip) and then chopped into small chunks

2 tablespoons chopped flat leaf parsley

1/2 red onion, finely sliced

A drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

Mix all the ingredients together, cover and pop in the fridge.

Assembling the kebabs

When you are ready to start cooking, just pop the meat on the BBQ or in a non-stick frying pan. Warm up the pittas (check instructions on the packet).

I normally slice the meat into strips once cooked, pile this onto a serving plate, then everyone can help themselves.

Hold the hot pitta in a clean tea towel and using a small sharp knife, slit down one long edge. Open out the pitta to make sure it can be filled.

Take one pitta, open the pocket and add the turkey steak (one steak's worth of slices). Spoon over a couple of tablespoons of the Tashi sauce, then fill the rest of the pitta with a large handful of the salad.

Serve and enjoy.

Tip - if you need to deseed a cucumber (it's the seeds that can cause indigestion), simply slice the cucumber in half, then using a teaspoon, scrape out the seeds. I loosen the edge of the trench first, then scoop out the middle. This also gets rid of a lot of the water too.

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Chicken with Capers (thank you Hairy Bikers)

It's too hot to use the oven, but I wanted to cook something other than salad this evening.
Hubby had been shopping, and it was a "Ready, Steady, Cook" kind of evening, only a few ingredients available, so I needed to use what was in the fridge and larder.

Starting point.... Tonight's dinner had to be based around chicken legs. Time to do some research.

Now, I'm a bit of a cookery book addict, every birthday and Christmas I get given cookery books by Hubby with a declaration written in the front. I've lost count of how many books that I've got, but it's probably into the 200's now. For my birthday this year, I was given "The Hairy Bikers' Mediterranean Adventure", it was sat on the arm of the sofa this evening, so I decided to have a look under "chicken" and see if anything jumped off the page.
I loved the look of the "Chicken with Capers" recipe, very simple and I had all the ingredients including half a jar of tiny capers, fresh parsley in the garden and basil on the windowsill, as well as a lemon, onion, garlic cloves and white wine. The recipe is Sicilian and I served it with new potatoes and sauteed courgettes.

It was so worth it, very moreish, lots of flavour and definitely one to add to our repertoire. I always annotate my cookery books when I make a dish, giving information about success, changes possible or any tips for next time (or not if it was a disaster or wasn't liked). I realised that these books tell a story, they can be used again and again, seems pointless keeping separate notes about the recipes.

I thoroughly recommend their book. If you click on the picture, it will take you to Amazon for you to investigate at your leisure.

Happy cooking, especially as I've got a lovely cold glass of wine to drink whilst writing this blog post.

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Chicken lasagne

If you are gluten free and don't eat red meat, it's difficult to find a lasagne that you can eat. We also eat lots of veg, so I decided it was time to get a decent lasagne dish, some gluten free lasagne sheets and bone and skinless chicken thighs. I made a large lasagne as the spare portions can either be frozen or taken to work for lunch.
This uses my "all-in-one" sauce method, so you will need a balloon whisk for this.
Ingredients (serves 6)
For the bolognese
1 onion, finely chopped
1 stick celery, finely chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 pack chicken thighs, skinless and boneless - minced in a food processor
1 carrot, finely chopped
1/4 nutmeg, freshly grated
1/4 pint milk
2 tablespoons tomato puree
1 beef stock pot (trust me, it improves the flavour)
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1/2 tin water
Salt and pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
2 large chestnut mushrooms, halved and finely sliced.
For the white sauce
1 oz lacto free butter
1 oz plain gluten free flour
1 pint lacto free milk
Salt and pepper
Additional ingredients
12 sheets gluten free lasagne
1 tsp salt
1 large courgette, finely sliced lengthways
1/2 bag baby spinach leaves  (washed)
1 oz freshly grated parmesan

Method 
Bolognese
In a large pan, sauté the onion and celery in the olive oil over a gentle heat until the onion is translucent. Increase the heat and add the minced chicken, fry until all chicken has gone white, stir regularly. Add the carrots, nutmeg, milk and salt and pepper, cook for 1 minute,  then add the tomato puree, continue cooking until the liquid has evaporated.  Add the stockpot, oregano, tomatoes and the water, stir well, bring to a boil and then simmer for 30 minutes. Add the mushrooms and cook for a further 5 minutes.
Sauce
Take one medium pan and put all the sauce ingredients in the pan together. Put the pan over a gently heat and then keep stirring using a balloon whisk until the sauce is smooth and has thickened. Season to taste.
Pasta (only if using gluten free lasagne sheets).
Fill a large pan with water, bring to the boil and add the salt. Pop in the lasagne sheets and cook until al-dente. (I've tried using the sheets without pre-cooking and it doesn't work for the gluten free as well). If using normal quick cook lasagne sheets, you can omit this stage.
Build the lasagne
Take a lasagne dish and rub a little olive oil over the surface to prevent sticking.
Take a couple of large spoonfuls of the mince and spread them over the bottom of the dish, then drizzle over some of the white sauce, then a layer of lasagne sheets, next a layer of mince, then a handful of spinach, followed by a layer of courgette, plus another drizzle of white sauce.
Keep building the layers. You want to end with some mince and white sauce over the final layer of pasta. If you think you are running out of the white sauce, you can always add some more milk and thin it down towards the end.
Sprinkle over the parmesan cheese and then pop into a moderately hot oven Gas 5 (Electric 190C) for 40 minutes. It should be bubbly and golden on the top.
Serve with salad.

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Sunset juice

To increase vitality, reduce stress and build the immune system, we are increasing the amount of fresh organic vegetables and fruit in our diet. Last year I bought a brilliant juicer that removes all of the juice and the residue is really dry, it was a Sage juicer.

Our Riverford order this week was a Juicing Box and also a Large Veg Box for the 3 of us, we probably won't get through all of the veg, but it stores really well, so I'll top up next week. Our order arrives on a Thursday.

Juicing box

Box contents
Carrots UK
Beetroot UK
Curly kale UK
Fennel IT
Cucumber ES
Ginger PE
Turmeric PE
Apples UK
Pears UK
Blood oranges IT
Grapefruit IT

So out came the juicer and I decided a Vitamin A & C boost would help fight off the bugs and a cold that seems to be brewing.

I tried to think what I could call this juice and decided on Sunset Juice as the colour was amazing.

Ingredients

1 apple (pull stalk out)
1 large carrot
1 orange (I cut the peel and pith off)
1 thumb sized chunk of fresh ginger

Method

Scrub all the veg (no need to peel if organic).
I started with the carrot, then the apple, then orange followed by the ginger.

The resulting juice is amazing and so refreshing.

The benefit of this juicer is it takes the whole fruit, you don't need to chop it into smaller chunks. You can't beat fresh juice, maximum nutrients with such amazing flavour.

Large veg box (original)

Box contents
Potatoes UK
Onions UK
Carrots UK
Celeriac NL
Cauliflower UK
Swiss chard IT
Oca FR
Chestnut mushrooms UK
Red pepper ES
Vine tomatoes ES
I also added some avocado's, red onions and shallots to my order.


So far we've eaten a rainbow on Thursday, 6 veg with our evening meal, in a roasting tray I popped chunks of parsnip, carrots, red onions, beetroot and potatoes all tossed in 1 tbsp or olive oil, then some swiss chard braised in a pan. We roasted up some skinless chicken thighs in a roasting bag, this traps in the moisture and creates succulent chicken.
We are making our Turkey chilli tonight and will use some red onions, tomatoes, avocado to make salsa and guacamole as accompaniments.

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Chicken Stew with dumplings

It was a little cold this morning, waking to 2 degrees C, with a slight touch of frost. After a busy staff development day today, we all needed something comforting to eat. The temperature was already dropping when we left college, I wanted to cook something really simple for dinner that was full of nutrients, but would give us a foodie hug.
I still had carrots and leeks left from the organic box, so wanted to use those up, there were 6 chicken thigh fillets in the fridge, so decided to make a very easy chicken stew.

Chicken Stew

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, sliced
1 1/2 leeks, sliced
4 carrots, sliced
2 cloves garlic, smashed
1 sweet potato, cut into chunks
2 1/2 pints water
1 chicken stock pot
6 chicken thighs
1 handful of paella rice
couple sprigs of fresh thyme
freshly ground black pepper
salt
1 cup frozen peas
cornflour and water

Method

Add the oil, onion, leeks and carrots to the pan, gently sweat the vegetables until the onion and leeks begin to soften, add the garlic and sweet potato and continue to sweat for another minute.
Add the water and stock pot to the pan, pop in the chicken and rice, throw in the thyme with some pepper and a touch of salt (add more later after cooking if needed).
Cover and cook gently for 1 hour.
Add the frozen peas bring the stew back up to the boil and add the dumplings, cover and gently simmer for 10 minutes.
Season to taste.

Depending on how you like your stew, if you like it thin, then serve as it is.

If you prefer a thicker stew, serve the dumplings, then thicken the remaining stew. Mix a couple of teaspoonfuls of cornflour with a little water, add gradually to stew and cook until thick. Add as much cornflour as necessary to get the thickness you prefer. Serve.

I wanted to find a gluten free recipe for dumplings, didn't have any suet, so went for a hunt online and discovered the following recipe. I added some mixed herbs to the flour and they were scrummy. I wet my hands before taking spoonfuls and use the damp hands to make the dumplings into soft balls.

Dumplings

150g Rice flour or any gf flour
2 tea spoons of baking powder
2 large eggs
a little water
optional a few dried herbs.

Mix to a dough and put spoonfulls into boiling stew and simmer for around 10 mins.

These are suitable for vegetarians and are lactose free and easy peasy

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Mushroom risotto

Served with the pancetta wrapped chicken

A mushroom risotto is really easy and makes a great accompaniment to a main meal.

I love to use a few porcini mushrooms in mine, it brings out the flavour of the chestnut mushrooms. If you want to make this vegetarian, then use a vegetarian stock.

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil

25 g of butter

1 onion, chopped

250g chestnut mushrooms

1 handful of dried porcini mushrooms

250g  Arborio risotto rice

1 pint chicken stock (I use a chicken stock pot)

Method

Dried porcini mushrooms

Pour 1/4 pint hot water over the porcini mushrooms in a jug, leave whilst you start cooking the risotto.

Stock simmering in pan

In a small pan, add the water and stock pot and bring to the boil. Turn heat down until barely simmering. It's important to keep the stock very hot when adding to the pan. This is the secret of a good risotto.

Gently heat the olive oil and half of the butter in a saucepan, (the olive oil stops the butter from burning). Add the onion and gently fry until softened.

The onions and chopped mushrooms gently cooking

Chop 1/3rd of the mushrooms into 1cm cubes, add to the onion and continue to cook until soft. Turn the heat to low.

Add the risotto rice to the pan and keep stirring for about 1 minute until the rice is well mixed in, it should start to squeak a little. The Italians say it "screams like Aida".

Add a couple of ladleful's of the stock and keep stirring, always add stock 2 ladleful's at a time and wait until the pan screams.

Remove the porcini from the soaking water (don't throw it away). Chop the porcini and add to the risotto.

Use the stock when you next need to add more, don't use the bottom of the water as their may be grit in the soaking water.

Chop the rest of the mushrooms in half and then finely slice them. After half the stock has been used, add the mushrooms to the pan.

Keep adding the stock and stirring regularly. Check the rice is cooked, it should be creamy and just al dente. You may need to add a splash more boiling water.

When it's cooked, remove from heat and stir in the rest of the butter.

Serve.

I served this with the chicken stuffed with chorizo and wrapped in pancetta.

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Chicken stuffed with chorizo and wrapped in pancetta

 We've made this with chicken breasts too, but actually find the chicken thighs very easy and we think they actually taste much better.
If you want a really easy dinner that involves very little preparation but tastes amazing, then this is a really easy meal.
We've discovered that Waitrose sell amazing skinless and boned chicken thighs in large packs at very reasonable prices. They also sell packs of ready chopped chorizo crumb these come in pairs. So this dish is extremely simple to create.

Ingredients

1 pack of pancetta
6 chicken thighs
1 section of chopped chorizo

Method

Preheat oven to Gas 5.

Take a small roasting tray (I use a non-stick liner), but you may need to grease it if you don't.
Lay out the pancetta in 2's or 3's so the slices just overlap - (you need to count the slices and divide by 6). I don't leave any left and split the pancetta evenly.
Take one piece of chicken and lay along the first set of pancetta, starting at one end. Split the chorizo into six parts and pile one part onto the middle of a chicken thigh. Fold the chicken over to cover the chorizo, take the pancetta and start to roll it around the chicken, keep rolling as tightly as you can until the chicken is completely covered. Pop onto roasting tray. Repeat for each chicken breast. Roast in the oven for 45 minutes.
Leave to stand for 5 minutes.
Serve by slicing into 1cm slices.
I served with a mushroom risotto.

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Pancetta stuffed mushrooms

Ingredients

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 pack of pancetta
2 large chestnut mushrooms (flat cap)
1 red onion chopped
1/4 green pepper finely sliced
1 tomato, chopped
1oz cheddar cheese grated

Method

Fry the onion and pancetta until onion is soft, add the chopped stalks from the mushroom, chopped tomato and the green pepper.

Pop the mushrooms cup up in a shallow oven proof dish, divide the onion and pancetta mix between the mushrooms, top with the grated cheese. Bake in a hot oven Gas 6 for 20-30 minutes, until the cheese is golden brown.

Serve with a salad and crusty bread.

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Yoghurt Chicken

Ingredients

2 chicken breasts, cut into strips

1 (4 oz.) container plain yoghurt

1/2 lime juice

1 clove garlic crushed

1 tsp. oregano

Dash of salt & pepper

Parmesan cheese

Marinate chicken in mixture of yogurt, lemon juice and seasonings. Marinating even a few minutes is fine. Place chicken in shallow greased 13 x 9 inch pan so chicken is touching, but not overlapping. Sprinkle the chicken with Parmesan cheese. Bake at Gas 6 for 25-30 minutes. After about 20 minutes of baking, drain any excess drippings and check the thickest piece, cut through the middle and see if any pink juices run, return to oven for addition 5 minutes.

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