Yellow Courgettes

I have two pots of yellow courgettes in the garden sending out endless flowers and courgettes. I'm hoping that this unexpectedly fine weather hasn't given me unreal expectations of how easy they are to grow; i'm planning on growing them every summer from now on. The first crop became a courgette, flower and goats cheese pizza using a Delia recipe for a single pizza dough and some soft goats cheese leftover in the fridge. It made for a light, fresh and simple summer pizza and was especially pleasing as it was the first handmade pizza dough I have made.

Tonight's crop will make a courgette, flower and lovage pasta with a little garlic and creme fraiche stirred in.

Tarragon Mustard

I once had a jar of vivid green french tarragon mustard. It was a large jar and it lasted me ages. So long that by the time I went back to the deli to buy another one, they had stopped stocking it. If I had known that they would stop stocking it I would have bought another couple for the cupboard. And if I had known that no one else stocked it I would have bought a boxful for myself and another for all of my friends. So for years (and I mean years) I have always wandered around new delis with a faint hope that I will come across another jar that is as vividly green and intensely tarragon. It hasn't happened so far. There have been other tarragon mustards but they have been mustards with a few old stringy tarragon leaves straggled through the mustard. Neither fresh, nor vivid nor intense. I planted tarragon in my herb box last year and it was looking decidedly average at the start of summer. Luckily I left it in peace and the warm, sunny weather of June has been just the thing to make the plant sprout in all directions with lovely fresh green shoots. And then I had a brainwave - Tarragon Mustard? I'll make my own! And that is what I did.

Now don't get me wrong, I didn't make the mustard. There was no grinding mustard seeds into a paste and then doing whatever else needs to be done to make mustard. I simply took two ingredients - tarragon and dijon mustard - and mixed them to make my very own vivid green and intensely Tarragon Mustard. And it is every bit as good as I remembered as a simple accompaniment to some roast free range chicken. Next up I will use it when I make a new batch of summery salsa verde (with capers, garlic, chives, parsley, olive oil and red wine vinegar) and we will have that to accompany just about anything.

Tomato, lentil and chorizo soup

I had home made lentil soup in mind for lunch today. The recipe is in my head but the ingredients can vary a bit depending on what is in the veggie drawer. There is usually onion or leek or both. Bacon or ham. Green pepper or celery. Carrots. Parsley. If it's not just an everyday soup occasion there might be some coconut, tamarind, indian spices. Today's surprise ingredient was the chorizo lurking in the freezer. Not such a leap from bacon really. Once I was decided on that I went with a mediterranean theme. Red pepper as well as green. Cumin and smoked sweet paprika. Some big on the vine tomatoes. Chives in addition to the parsley. The result? Kitchen cupboard everyday scottish soup transported to somewhere between Morocco and Spain. The recipe went something like this: 4oz red lentils, rinsed 2 small onions, chopped 2 cloves garlic, smashed 2 green chillies, chopped 1 red pepper, chopped 1 green pepper, chopped 100g approx chopped chorizo 4 medium/large tomatoes, chopped 1.5 litres vegetable stock 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin 1/2 teaspoon paprika (sweet smoked) Chives, chopped Flat leaf parsley chopped Pan fry onions, garlic and chilli in olive oil till softened and starting to colour. Add peppers and chorizo and fry for a few minutes, till the oil begins to run from the chorizo. Then add the spices and stir for 2 minutes more. Add the lentils, tomatoes and stock. Stir and simmer for 15 minutes till the lentils are cooked. Add herbs a few minutes before the end.

Keen-wah

Quinoa. Kwin-oh-ah? Kwin-wah? Keen-wah? There was some dissent in our household as to how to pronounce this 'pseudo-cereal'. Since I was actually correct for once on a point of pronunciation (that is entirely unrelated to scottish contrariness) I get to blog about it and say I told you so! Keen-wah it is. I was inspired by a Queen Bee post about quinoa, that I have subsequently failed to find, in addition to a re-discovered appreciation of Couscous. These days anything that cooks by a method involving 'pour in some hot water and ignore for five minutes' is getting some regard. We changed a River Cottage recipe somewhat to make a tasty side dish, to go with our Cumberland Pork Sausages and Chestnut Mushrooms roasted with Rosemary and Olive Oil. It went something like this: Roast some whole almonds and roughly chop. Fry 3 garlic cloves and 2 onions, both finely sliced with 1 chopped chilli and some grated ginger. Add cooked quinoa (we used cheat M&S red and white quinoa - I didn't realise when i picked it up it was either microwave for one minute or BOIL IN THE BAG! That's something i've not had since square pieces of fish in sauce in childhood) along with juice and zest of 1 lemon, a bag of baby spinach, ground pepper and the roughly chopped almonds. Stir through, season and add a splash of soy sauce if required. Serve. Clean plate.

Autumn is here

Autumn must be here - we had crumble for tea. Plum and cinnamon crumble with vanilla ice cream on the side. The plums weren't as tasty as they looked, but the crumble topping was fine. It consisted of 1 cup flour, 1/2 cup butter, 1/2 cup dark brown sugar and 1/4 cup oats pulsed in the food processor with a flick of cinnamon. Baked for only 20 minutes and served with the rhubarb liquer that pregnant me had squirrelled away last christmas. All good.

Beetroot Dip

The other frequent addition to our veggie box these days is beetroot. It can be a bit hard to know what to do with a lone beetroot before it goes soft, other than baking it in tin foil with some olive oil and salt before peeling, slicing and serving. Nothing wrong with that! There is always the pickling option - but it really doesn't do justice to sweet fresh beetroot flavour. Or the old favourite of beetroot in blackcurrant jelly - which I've been meaning to have a go at for a while now (cook beetroot, cut in to cubes and pour blackcurrant jelly over. It's as simple as that - although I am sure there would be a gourmet version if you felt so inclined.) Come to think of it there was a very fine beef borscht soup that was so thick it ended up served as a stew with some home made gnocchi and sour cream. So in actual fact it turns out there is plenty to be done with a lone beetroot! For a summer-y change though I decided on some beetroot dip - which is huge in Australia and not something you ever see in the shops here. I'm quite sure I could have found a better recipe and I'll maybe research it a bit better for next time, but it turned out alright nonetheless, with a plate of cream crackers to dip in to it.

The recipe went like this: 2 large beetroots 2 cups greek style yoghurt 1 tsp coriander 1 tsp cumin splash of balsamic shredded mint leaves salt and pepper Roast the beetroot in olive oil, salt and tin foil till tender. Peel and roughly chop and throw in the processor with the other ingredients. Serve! The recipe didn't actually call for any balsamic - but a wee bit of sweetness was needed. And the fresh mint was there and seemed a good option to. Next time I think I'd like something with a bit of dill or maybe some feta. All suggestions welcome!

Rhubarb Fool

The novelty of rhubarb is beginning to wear off, as it is now a regular in the veggie box. Which isn't to say that it isn't still being enjoyed! This week we had three sticks of rhubarb and I had a shot at a rhubarb fool - from a recipe adapted from Australian Gourmet Traveller - Thank you Moni and Greta! So, I sliced the rhubarb thin and it went in to a pot with 1/2 cup of caster sugar and the zest and juice of 1/2 lemon. Then stirred over a moderate heat for 5 - 10 minutes and once the rhubarb was tender it was quickly cooled down by stirring over a cold pan of water (I presume to help keep the colour/ flavour/ texture). Once cool I stirred it through a half and half mixture of whipped double cream and half fat greek style yoghurt (about a cup of each i think) and served glass dishes topped with the crystallised ginger, finely chopped, that I came across lurking in the cupboard.

I was really impressed by how rhubarb-ey it tasted and maybe means that from now on I'll be using lemon zest/ juice in place of orange in rhubarb recipes to bring out the flavour.

In this week's veggie box...

... we also had a lovely purple lettuce, a packet of chunky dry cure organic bacon from Ayrshire (already spoken for) and three lovely little Jerusalem Artichoke. What shall we do with them?

Hello Spring

It's just such glorious weather here - all set to turn cold and wintry again - but for the last week it has been gorgeous sunshine. And life has been as exciting as doing lots of washing for baby to be and getting it dry outside in the fresh air on the new washing line. Such simple pleasures.

The daffodils are out in force, there are bright red tulips in the house and the food on the table is also turning with the seasons. Goodbye porridge and jam! Hello fresh fruit, bircher muesli and crackers with feta.

I was sure I had seen a fine crop of rhubarb at the grocers recently (where?) and it put me in mind of a rhubarb and orange cake for friends coming for dinner. According to Tescos, however, rhubarb was not yet in season (and if it isn't in Tesco in Inverness then it might as well not be in season) and so there was a last minute change in plan to plums, which were looking just as pink and tasty as any fresh rhubarb.




Plum and Orange Cake

Ingredients
400g plums, stoned and quartered
50 gram golden caster sugar
zest 1/2 small orange

150gram golden caster sugar
140gram butter, softenend
2 beaten eggs
1/2 tsp baking powder
85gram SR Flour
100gram ground almond
Juice 1/2 small orange

Topping
15g butter, melted
25g light muscovado sugar
finely grated zest 1/2 small orange
50g slivered almonds

Method

Stone and quarter plums, stir in 50g golden caster sugar and zest of 1/2 orange and leave to soak for an hour.
Preheat oven to 190 degrees C/ Gas 5/ Fan oven 170.
Butter and line 23cm/ 9 inch cake tin.
Cream butter with 6 oz golden caster sugar.
Add eggs, baking powder, SRFlour and ground almond and gently mix.
Stir in juice of 1/2 orange (step I omitted which led to me pouring the juice over the cake mix before it went in to the
oven - seemed to work ok!) and gently stir.
Pour in to cake tin and level.
Drain the plums and spoon over the cake mixture.
Bake for 25 minutes.

Meantime make the topping:
Combine butter, light muscovado sugar, zest of 1/2 orange and slivered almonds.

After 25 minutes remove cake from oven and scatter over the topping mixture.
Reduce temperature to 180 degrees C/ Gas 4/ Fan oven 160 and return to oven for a further 15- 20 minutes or until firm.
(Mine took at least an additional 10 minutes after that).
Cool in the tin and then transfer to a rack.
Dust with icing sugar.

Here is a truly terrible photo of my finished cake that we had simply sliced and served cold with creme fraiche. It was full of
plums and very juicy!



Now imagine my delight when our veggie box arrived this week and inside a bunch of lovely fresh organic rhubarb!



I've often wondered about how to perfect a rhubarb tart and have had a few goes at it (Do you soak the rhubarb first? Or partially roast it? I'm certainly not for stewing the fruit first - it loses it's colour and texture) and maybe this weekend I'll have another go. Although the Bourke Street Bakery recipe book (Thank you Queen Bee!) has a recipe for Rhubarb Danish that also looks interesting. It calls for making a batch of croissant pastry which might be an effort too far, but I could cheat with the ready made croissant pastry we have in the fridge. Although it has been promised for bacon croissants for brunch and someone might not be happy...

Sukiyaki

We started the year with a few nights in Glasgow saying hello to all the friends and family, and finally made it to the big asian supermarket in north glasgow. We have come back and filled the kitchen with all sorts of tasty things - dumplings (prawn and pork, spicy kimchi, some random looking mini stuffed crabs in shells - i'll not be trying them), more gyoza, malaysian assam fish paste, japanese noodles, chilli sesame oil, various spices and broths to name a few. There will be many a happy night of cooking and eating - and the kitchen door currently sports a list of all the options - just to keep us interested.

Last night we tried out the sukiyaki sauce. It is a sweet japanese sauce (like a thin sweet soy) used to make japanese beef hot pot. Traditionally thin strips of beef are cooked in a hot pot, then sukiyaki sauce is added, then a variety of vegetables and finally some noodles. The cooking happens at the table and you eat the beef and begetables while they cook and at the end you have a rich saucy dish for sharing. We don't have such a thing as a hot pot so we improvised a bit with a wok - which meant missing out a bit on the process, but needs must!



The ingredients for our very make do and mend version of sukiyaki were:
Sirloin steak, sliced thin and seasoned
Sukiyaki sauce
1 small leek, sliced
1/2 chinese cabbage, sliced thin
1 pack shitake mushrooms
250g tofu cubed
1 pack straight to wok udon
1 pack spinach
Spring onion chopped for garnish

So I quickly pan fried the beef in the hot wok and when browned added a good splash of the sukiyaki sauce and then took the beef from the pan and set aside. Then the leek went in to soften in the pan followed by the chinese cabbage, the shitake and about another 100mls of sauce. They simmered for a few minutes to lightly cook the vegetables before adding the udon, tofu and spinach for a minute or so and finally the beef went back in to the pan. Everything heated through and was served with a sprinkling of chopped spring onion. I was surprised how tasty the dish was and how different a flavour it had to a regular stir fry. I think the shitake mushrooms and the tofu both work to give a more authentic flavour.

The original calls for angel hair pasta or equivalent and not all the recipes included udon. I think the dish would often be served with rice - but to keep things simple I added only udon and missed out the rice. The original dish would also come with a dish of raw egg for dipping - but I decided that wasn't worth the risk in my condition!

Dunsyre Blue Cheese Biscuits

There is a really great dairy in the village that has a really great cheese shop. Surprisingly so for our village. We only 'discovered' it a couple of weeks ago, even though it has been there all this time, and we have been back two more times since. I can't tell you all the cheeses we tried yesterday - but I can say they were really good. There was dunsyre blue, criffel, their own cheddar and something called something like, oh, i can't remember.

As blue cheese is currently off the menu for me and since I'm missing it - i decided to make some blue cheese biscuits.

They went like this:
Crumble 175gm of a crumbly blue cheese and mix with 150g softened butter and 1 egg yolk. Stir in 125 g plain flour and either 50g blue cornmeal (that's what Nigella said) or (if you've not such a thing to hand or to buy anywhere nearby) 50g semolina. I did all of that in the food processor. Then knead the mix lightly to a soft dough and rest in the fridge for half an hour. Roll out to 5mm thickness (i think it could have been more) and bake on a lined baking tray at 200 degrees for 10 or so minutes.

They looked like this:


And they tasted like a really fancy cheddar biscuit with a slightly doughy centre and a flaky, biscuity shell. Really good.

(Connage Cheese Dairy http://www.connage.co.uk/ )

Winter Minestrone

A friday off and lots of time outside at the beach with visiting little people put me in mind of a tasty wintry soup with some of our veggie box veggies.

So i heated a good glug of olive oil (Australian no less) and added 4 small leeks, 4 biggish carrots and one third of a decent sized suede, all chopped small. The recipe called for celery but i decided to miss it out and put the suede in in place for a bit of sweetness. After they had softened (about 15 minutes) I turned up the heat and added 200g of bacon lardons. Not just any old bacon - Oak Smoked Bacon Lardons! With them went 3 cloves of garlic and some chopped mixed herbs from the garden - a little bit of sage, a few sprigs of marjoram and a clump of curly parsley. They cooked for another 10 minutes or so before I added 1 tin of chopped tomatoes, a litre of hot chicken stock, most of a carton of borlotti beans and the left over rind from a chunky piece of parmesan. The remainder of the beans were whizzed up with some of the soup liquid and then added back to the soup. Last in to the soup went one chopped spring cabbage and after that was tender the soup was ready to serve with a sprinkling of grated parmesan and some buttered brown bread. The sweetness of the slowly softened veggies, the salty smoky flavour of the bacon and the creaminess from the parmesan rind and the whizzed up beans all worked a treat.

Some people expressed doubts as to my ability to carry off today's winter minestrone. Needless to say they were soon eating seconds!

Indian Summer

The oddity of warm weather at the end of September - warmer days than we have had for most of summer - had us hoping of painting the back gate, trimming the lavender plants for winter and washing the car. A nice day pottering in the garden, but it wasn't to be! The view across the water to the Black Isle has disappeared and the white sky meets the sea as the drizzle comes down. The outdoor plans have turned indoors and whilst I await the delivery of some chicken stock for a pot of Ishbel's chicken and rice soup (complete with organic carrots and leeks from this weeks veggies) I have put on a banana loaf to bake for afternoon tea. Carb loading for tomorrow's gentle 5K turn around Inverness, which is looking more gentle walk and picnic than competitive run.

View from the garden gate across to Chanonry Point Lighthouse:



Don't they say that baking is a science? The quantities, the mixture, the temperatures not to be played with or else the experiment fails? Well after a spell in South Africa last year where the recipes were often adapted to what was fresh from the garden or available to hand (the nearest decent shop being 40 minutes away) I am of the opinion that there is also a large element of art or magic to baking. Yoghurt for cream, brown flour for white, cape gooseberries a last minute addition to a batch of muffins all worked out a treat and well worth repeating.



It remains to be seen then how the banana loaf will turn out given just how many changes I made to the recipe! In an effort to make a healthier, homelier version I substituted soaking the raisins in hot rum for soaking them in hot tea; I replaced the white flour with a golden wholemeal; brown sugar for white; whilst mashing the bananas I softened them with a couple of tablespoons of yoghurt; the walnuts I omitted and instead of vanilla essence I added a couple of pinches of ground cinnamon. Mayhem!



It may not be for me to say whether or not the cake is a success, but it certainly smells a treat right now.

When is a turnip not a turnip?

Why, when it is a scottish swede. A bigger, milder, sweeter purple and orange root vegetable popular in scotland and often served on the side of some haggis. They may call it neeps (tur-neeps) but it is in fact a swede. Apart from a side to haggis, it is kind of hard to know what to do with a regular delivery of swede. There is some cooking in a pot right now with chopped carrots, leek, green pepper and red lentils - to make a simple pot of scottish soup. The turnipy flavour can be a bit much for a soup - but nice from time to time. There is also an interesting recipe for a slow cooked swede and beef stew - which looks very wholesome and wintry - i'm sure it'll be made in due course.



For dinner yesterday in the absence of beef and using mostly the ingredients that were already in the cupboard, the man made a Swede, Bacon and Rosemary Risotto. The recipe was adapted from a vegetarian recipe website with the addition of the organic bacon that comes with the veggie box and some rosemary. The latter with half a mind on the Jamie Oliver tagliatelle with parsnip and bacon. The flavours were great together and even better for leftover lunch at work today - that little bit stickier from a night in the fridge and 5 minutes in the evil microwave.

More vegetable box cooking tales to follow...

How to ruin some perfectly lovely beetroot...

...by turning it in to the home made version of your most basic supermarket vinegary pickled beetroot (and way to get yourself in to big trouble with your better half at the same time). Simply take the lovely fresh organic sweet lovely beetroot that arrives in your weekly veggie box, roast them whole in tin foil for two to three hours in the oven, peel, slice and bottle with a red wine vinegar, shallot, peppercorn reduction and serve anytime after 24 hours. Expect extreme disappointment when the only thing you can taste is vinegar. It reminds me of a character in a long forgotten book who spent hours slaving over the stove to turn out something you could't tell apart from Heinz tomato soup or Fray Bentos Steak and Kidney Pie (from a tin). I have learnt my lesson and next time we will stop at the peel stage and simply eat.

Autumn 2011.

After a cold summer I am perversely hanging out for winter. The wood is piled by the house, the kindling is loaded in the shed, the stove is clean and we have an organic veggie box delivery coming every other week. I am looking forward to thick jumpers, woolly scarves and winter boots; cooking in our kitchen with views of cold, stormy seas and being cosy by a hot fire with my crochet. So that it was a balmy twenty degrees yesterday - and something like 17 degrees today - is not part of the plan! The arrival of a hurricane tomorrow - heralded by fast falling pressure on the barometer (not a great photo - but you get the drift) - should help. We can baton down the hatches and get out the soup pot.



This morning I made Delia's Cream of Celery Soup with some necessary changes, given what was in the larder. A head of celery, a medium potato, a leek and an onion all chopped and fried for fifteen minutes in a pot with the lid on. Then two teaspoonfuls of cumin seeds (it should have been celery seeds, or maybe even fennel - but we had neither) and a pint of chicken stock and it simmers for 20 minutes. Blizz then stir in 150mls milk and 150mls cream. Bring back to a simmer and serve with the reserved celery leaves - or in our case some parsley from the garden. Likely the first of many winter soups, although it's such a subtle creamy soup it might have been just as good chilled.

Sheena's What's Top in Inverness / The Highlands

Since we have moved to Inverness we have been eating out just as regularly as ever we did in Melbourne. All sorts of meals at just about any time of day. Admittedly the range of cuisines is a rather different compared with what is available in Australia - there is no Japanese restaurant in Inverness at all - but that isn't to say that we haven't had some good food here. Indeed, after some deliberation and plenty research there are even a few places that are becoming our favourites in amongst all the various choices. So I am going to unashamedly steal the idea from the likes of Mr Preston and that man who writes reviews in the Glasgow Herald and have a hit list for what's worth eating - and doing - nearby.

The categories thus far are:

#1 Cafe In Inverness
Best Harbour Cafe in Nairn
Most charming Italian Restaurant (and also most romantic setting)
The most rated 'I've never had a bad meal there" restaurant in Inverness
Best Health Food Store that I can think of in Scotland
Best (?only) Asian Foodstore in Inverness
Best Bookstore Cafe in Inverness

I'm sure there was more on the list when I thought about this before - but now that we are permanent fixtures here in the Highland Capital, there will be plenty more time for further research and deliberation. And if we get bored we can always work our way through the what's not hot lot.

Gourmet Traveller Annual Cookbook

It really is time to eat clean, exercise and drink water, but I'm not quite done with banging on about what we ate over christmas. Craig brought me the GTAC 2010, courtesy of the lovely Johanna. Thank you, thank you, thank you. It has been our christmas time go to recipe book and we have been working our way fairly quickly through it. So far we've done a gin cured trout (served with a scattering of herbs and a pile of biscuits), home made gnocci with brussel sprouts and pancetta (how festive)(and such creamy gnocci! not my work at all) and the baked mascarpone marsala cheesecakes with an espresso syrup. I've my eye on a pancetta, kale and clam soup next, although we might substitute mussels for local availability. That'd be the second of two mussels dishes after we made the pugliese version of paella for our boxing day meal.



That all sounds very fancy, but really it is simply layers of sliced potato, halved cherry tomatoes, grated parmesan, fresh cooked and shelled mussels and risotto rice. Once you've reached the top of the dish you add some of the mussel cooking liquor and hot chicken stock till the dish cant take any more, scatter a handful of reserved shell on mussels and whack it in the oven to bake till it is piping. We improvised and sprinkled it with a healthy amount of smoked paprika too, and when it was done finished it off with some chopped flat leaf parsley.

101 things to do with Smoked Haddock. #2: Kedgeree

The Scottish cooking continues and this time it was a very tasty new year bowl of kedgeree.



For two, here's what you do...

Put two smoked haddock fillets in a pan of cold water, bring to the boil, turn down the heat, cover and simmer gently for 6 minutes. Put fish in a covered dish in a medium oven to keep warm and set the cooking liquid aside for later use. Melt a good dollop of butter in the same pan and fry a chopped onion till soft and golden. Add 1/2 teaspoon of hot curry powder and stir through. Add 150 grams long grain rice and 250mls of the reserved liquid. Stir, bring to boil, cover with a well fitting lid and cook on low heat for 12 minutes (or until rice tender). When it's done stir through the flaked fish, 2 chopped boiled eggs, flat leaf parsley, juice of half lemon and two tablespoons of butter. Cover and return to low heat for a couple of minutes. Serve with a sprinkling of garam masala, tomato salad and some lime pickle.

It's light, lively, smokey and scored a well deserved 8.5 out of 10 on the Ising scale.

Scottish Dinner Number 1

I've come over all Scottish when it comes to cooking dinners. Some fine hearty tasty dinners are required to heat us from the inside when it is minus twelve out. I cheated the first night and we had M&S pre-made cauliflower cheese to go with the aged rib eye steaks. Very very tasty indeed. We more than compensated for being lazy on the cauli by setting out to make home made hollandaise one evening at 8:30pm after a day of unpacking boxes.



I think this was originally a Douglas creation - made for me many years ago just outside of Inverness - so very appropriate to have it again. Oven baked smoked haddock (in tin foil with a bit of butter and lemon) over spinach with olive oil roasted potatoes and hollandaise sauce. Fine fixings for a winters evening.