Bountiful broad beans

Next to the pea patch, we had a bed of broad beans.  Broad (or fava) beans are another childhood memory:  picking them during a sunny winter afternoon and then shelling them in front of the fire for supper.  We had another bumper crop this year, I am delighted to say, so some are safely stored in the deep freeze.

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Ever since I lived on my own and had a patch of ground, I have grown vegetables (or tried to).  The Husband happily tells friends that when he met me, and I had a tiny terrace cottage with an equally tiny back garden, he discovered a couple of enormous tomato plants among the ornamentals.  I have yet to loose an almost childlike excitement with which I greet the first picking or pulling of any vegetable that privileges our garden.  Then I set to thinking about what I’m going to do with it.  Usually, the first pickings are the sweetest and most tender so they get the least amount of “treatment”.  So it was with our first broad beans:  lightly boiled (not to death like my English mother would have cooked them) and as an accompaniment to supper.  However, that gets really boring …

So, in addition to that way, I also use them in salads:  blanch the beans and pop them out of their grey skins and toss the beautiful, bright green cotyledons into the salad.  This salad, in addition to the broad beans, and as the flavours seem to work well together included mint and chives, as well as pepino.  For a little extra colour, a scattering of calendula petals topped it off.

Salad with broad beans, pepino, chives and mint

I have mentioned my love affair with Katie Caldesi’s Italian Cookery Course, and in it, discovered a traditional Italian dip made with broad beans and mint.  I had never thought of including mint with broad beans.  Mint is for peas – or so I had been brought up to think (by that same English mother….)  Anyway, I looked at the recipe and gave it a bash:  essentially, it’s broad beans (popped out of their skins if they’re big – I didn’t with this batch as they were still tiny), mint, finely grated Parmesan cheese, garlic leaves (or a small clove if you don’t have the leaves), all of which are whizzed or pulsed together into a course mixture. Serve on crostini drizzled with olive oil.Broad bean dip

We enjoyed it so much that I now make it quite often and have also used the basic idea, mixed with parsely pesto, as an accompaniment for home made pasta.

Like this week, which has gone in a flash, all to soon, the bean plants are spent and the bed liberated exposing the artichokes we weren’t sure would survive the winter………  More of them, anon….

Getting brave with Brassicas

I have mentioned that I have a love-hate relationship with brassicas, but I think that, at last, I’m growing up.  I’ve had to because we grow them – a lot – and I’ve had to think of creative ways of dishing them up.  In the last three or so months, we’ve had more broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage than we’ve known what to do with.  So, I’ve learned to be a bit more adventurous….sometimes….

Cabbage

Red Cabbage - cutI avoid white cabbage – like the plague.  White cabbage, presented as a seasonal vegetable in any establishment, will guarantee my never returning.  Red cabbage is beautiful – inside and out, and in addition to doing it in a slaw (usually with a French dressing), I also cook it.  My mother used to make “Apple Cabbage” – a family favourite.  So do I, but with a twist.  She would sauté chopped onion, and then add the shredded cabbage and a chopped apple (no water other than that on the cabbage, if you’ve had to rinse it).  I do all of this and add a good glug of apple cider vinegar.  In addition to enhancing the flavours, the vinegar stops the red cabbage from going blue.  Instead, it remains a gorgeous purple.

Cabbage cooked this way is a wonderful accompaniment to a roast and/or any meal, particularly pork or beef; it’s a wonderful blast of colour in any meal.  Also, and useful to know when one is cooking for only two, like I often do, prepared this way, the cabbage freezes well, with no deterioration in the flavour, so one can cook an entire cabbage, portion it and store to use at another time.

For some of our friends, I’m delighted to say, this is a very popular part of my repertoire!

cauliflower2Cauliflower

Like cabbage, overcooked cauliflower is good for neither man nor beast and brings back not-so-great memories of institutional food.  It’s a smell that’s hard to get out of one’s head.  Anyway, having happily discovered roasted cauliflower, I was game to experiment, myself.

A few weeks ago, we had a surfeit of cauliflowers that were beginning to look like many-tentacled creatures from outer space rather than the beautiful white crowns that we are used to.  That meant that whole roasted cauliflower was out of the question.

Cauli_before_after_roast2014Not to be thwarted, I decided to break up the cauli into florets and to roast them with a bit of olive oil, garlic and chopped bacon.  Once roasted, I sprinkled this with grated Parmesan and, wow, was it delicious!

Broccolini_cheatCheat’s Broccolini

Like the cauliflower, the broccoli was also beginning to bolt, thanks to an unseasonal but welcome warm spell.  That meant broccoli soup and/or broccoli and blue were out of the question.  Blanched broccoli in a salad is delicious, so I came up with this very simple broccoli(ni) salad:

I tidied up, blanched and refreshed the stalks, and laid them out on a platter.  Over that I sprinkled a crushed clove of garlic, the  juice of a lemon, salt and pepper and, of course, olive oil.  Difficult, hey?

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A lovely bunch of….

….parsley!

I love parsley. I’m not happy until my garden grows herbs, especially parsley. And the challenge of parsley is that it’s a slow grower and it can be temperamental. My mum also always had parsley in her garden – some of my earliest culinary memories are of being sent to pick parsley – usually just as she was about to serve dinner. She, however, only grew the curly parsley and used it mostly as a garnish and for parsley sauce. I, on the other hand, prefer to grow the flat leaf, Italian parsley – it has a stronger flavour. Parsley is also a fabulous flavour enhancer, so if you are short of a particular herb, add parsley!

The Prima Donna

100_3129Given parsley’s prima donna status (in my experience, anyway), when it just grows, one just let’s it grow as it’s likely to thrive while one’s seedlings, carefully nurtured, and planted in the optimum position just do ok. So, we have self-sewn parsley all over the garden and when our red onion seedlings needed to be planted out, The Husband had to negotiate a parsley plant – in more ways than one!

Pesto al limone e prezzemolo 

It seemed such a waste to hoick out such a beautiful plant and not do anything with it (…the Scottish blood and all that jazz…), so I decided to make Pesto al limone e prezzemolo (aka parsley and lemon pesto). This is a divine, fresh and versatile pesto, and which has just deepened my love affair with parsley. I now try to have a permanent stock of this in the fridge. We use it as the foundation for basting sauces for fish (we braai* fish regularly);  when we roast a chicken (on the Weber, of course), I usually make a stuffing to go under the skin of the breast, and Pesto al limone e prezzemolo is now the base on which I build this stuffing. It’s also divine on warm bread…..

The recipe comes from Katie Caldesi’s The Italian Cookery Course which was a gift for my 50th birthday from good friend and graphic designer, Jaynie Lea.  This is also the book from which I have learned important tips that have improved my home-made pasta and inspired me to start making pizza dough and bread. But more of those, anon….476223_10151622920147848_328187723_o

To make this pesto, you need equal quantities of dry bread crumbs (stale ciabatta is best) and parsley, zest and juice of a lemon, a clove of garlic as well as olive oil. Whizz all of this together until you have a paste and then either use immediately or store. The olive oil and the vitamin C content of both the parsley and the lemon add to the shelf life, so this keeps well.

100_3130Tips:

  • If you are short of parsley leaves, do use the stalks (the whole parsley plant is parsley-flavoured), but before adding them to your food processor, chop them a bit otherwise you’ll be left with pesto with parsley stalks!
  • To make breadcrumbs, put slices of bread into a cool oven (about 40°C) for an hour or so, or until it’s dry, and then whizz in a food processor. If the crumbs are still “damp” put them on a baking tray and back into the oven for a little longer.
  • And pesto is a great way to use up herbs towards the end of summer to use through the winter – if you make sure that peso is always “sealed” with a good layer of olive oil, they keep much longer than one expects – just another Katie Caldesi tip!

And Jayne, thank you for the gift that keeps on giving – I still get a thrill when my produce looks like the picture in the book – and the passata, below, was my first attempt – last year!

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…and you see that “Fiona’s Favourites” was already “branding” my produce…

* this is the Afrikaans and South African word for “barbecue”

Autumn – preparing for spring (and winter!)

Although the grape harvest in our valley seems to be later this year, autumn seems to have arrived early.  Along with this, we have had a wonderful experience:  a pair of swallows building a nest in preparation for the spring.  100_2476Jack and Jill are Greater Striped Swallows, indigenous to Africa, and they summer south of Namibia, and winter in Northern Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo.  They will leave us in two to three weeks’ time.  Their nests are characterised by a tunnel which they will build when only when they return in the spring.100_2475

Clever little birds, planning for the future, I reflected as I made basil pesto on Sunday.

Basil pesto

You will need a very, very generous picking of sweet basil, leaves stripped from the stems and the damaged leaves discarded.

Rule of thumb:  about two-thirds more basil than nuts and Parmesan or Pecorino cheese, coarsely grated.

About the nuts:  traditional (and the best) pesto is made with pine nuts.  They are expensive so I substitute them with cashews which also have a high oil content.  To enhance the flavour, toast them in a dry pan, allowing them to cool before you crush and add them to the other ingredients.

One or two cloves of garlic.  Be careful with the garlic:  even if you like lots of garlic, remember that combining dairy with garlic makes the garlic flavour stronger.  I’ve learned this the hard way…..

Basil, garlic, grana pradano

Then, of course, the ubiquitous pinch of salt which is optional if you’re not using a pestle and mortar (which does make the best pesto…), and because the salt does help with the maceration of the leaves and the garlic. Enough olive oil to make a thick paste.   I usually add it as I go along.

Bung all the leaves into the food processor, with the garlic cloves and whiz for a few seconds – not too long;  then add olive oil and the other ingredients and whiz or pulse until you have a good, thick paste, adding more olive oil as you need.

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Bottle as you would other preserves, in sterilized jars and top with olive oil to keep it fresh.

Make a caprese salad, enjoy on pasta, sandwiches, as a dip with yoghurt for crudites or as an accompaniment to  whatever you please!

Tomatoes & pesto branded

A twisted Vicheysoisse, among other things…

For the last year or so, I have been making and selling seasonal soups at our local pop-up market.  A soup that I made on a whim, and which we enjoyed, didn’t take off, so I didn’t Spinach and leeksmake it again.  In my recollection, there had been no sales.  Then, imagine my surprise, two Saturdays’ ago, a regular, who has been stocking up on soup, said, “What about that one you made with spinach and sweet potato?”

So, at Jean’s request, I made it again – this time in the height of summer.  Consequently, we tried it chilled:  it was as delicious cold as it was hot.  So, this is my twisted Vicheysoisse:

Roast the sweet potatoes – with onion and garlic if you like – for about 45 minutes.  Add to a large soup pot and then add roughly shredded spinach (including all the stalks – why waste them when you’re going to puree the soup anyway?), followed by vegetable stock to cover the sweet potato.   Bring to the boil and simmer for about half an hour, until all the vegetables are soft.  Puree with a hand blender and season to taste.  Serve with a swirl of plain yoghurt and a grating of nutmeg.

And, of course, the soup-making was accompanied by more seasonal quiche fillings – this time, with the addition of beautiful peppers from the garden.  Two different fillings – first, leeks with red pepers and then roasted vegetables (butternut, sweet potato, garlic, baby tomatoes, onions and peppers).

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