Greenvale potatoes: sometimes the simplest ideas are the best

 Potatoes aren't something I feel drawn to specifically blog about very often, yet they're so versatile and more now than ever I cook with them a lot. Whether finely sliced and cooked in my Minced beef hash, or chopped and chipped with chicken kievs, or as my favourite - baked and mixed up with boursin and leeks with leftover Sunday roast - we use them a lot. It's no surprise that they're cheap, I'll use them to bulk out casseroles and make meals go further.

A couple of weeks ago the nice people at Greenvale asked me to trial a bag of their potatoes. Oddly I've been thinking of repurposing an old pillow case into a potato bag as where I store them, if they're left in the plastic from the original packaging they seem to sprout super quickly.  Funnily enough said plans to repurpose a pillowcase went out the window as I thought "Oooh potatoes in a paper bag." Simple and so much easier.

 I'm now on my third bag of Greenvale potatoes - they work really well as a multi-use potato, with nice fluffy middles, but outsides that pleasingly crisp up in the face of some hot oil and a hot oven.

My two current favourite potato centric recipes are below -

Garlicy, cheesy, baked potatoes (quantities per person)

1 baked potato
2 Tbsps garlic and herb boursin
1 leek
Knob butter
Spoonful milk
Black pepper
Cheddar

Finely chop some leeks and cook down slowly in pan with a lid in a little butter and some water. Stir occaisionally so that they don't stick, but otherwise I just let them do their thing until they're really soft.
Meanwhile prick and bake your potatoes in a medium oven - about 150 degrees C for an hour to an hour and a half depending on how big the potatoes are
Take the potatoes out of the oven, and using a teatowel to protect your hands cut each in half lengthways
Scoop out the middle into a bowl and mix up with the boursin, cooked leeks, a spoonful of milk and the black pepper
Refill the potato skins and sit the potatoes on a baking tray (I line it with tin foil)
Scatter grated cheddar on top and return to the oven for 20 minutes or so

Serve with leftover roast meat, sausages, BBQ - or y'know just as they are. 

 Home made healthy(ish) chips - serves 2

1 medium potato per person, chopped into chip shapes
1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees C and put a baking sheet in to heat up too
Chop your potatoes up into traditional chip shapes and put all the potatoes into a sandwich bag or similar
Measure in 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil and using your hands on the outside of the bag, shake, shimmy and massage the oil so that all the potatoes are covered
Tip the chips onto the hot baking sheet (they should sizzle as you add them)
Cook for half an hour, or until the outsides are browned and crispy and the insides are lovely
Serve with ketchup

Meal Planning Monday: Leftovers galore

As anyone who follows me on twitter will know, Mark and I harvested (is that the word?) his homegrown potatoes today, and as a treat I roasted some tonight with a chicken, and basically the works, butternut squash, steamed spinach and brocolli, and stuffing. It was yum. However, I'm working away from Wednesday so we have basically half a chicken (and then some) to use up before then. Cue immediate flailing panic!

Here's the potatoes - the margarine tub is what we thought we would fill - the hastily located washing up bowl is what we did fill!

So this week's meal plan, will take us up to Wednesday and then pick up again on Saturday morning.

Monday: Leftover roast chicken, in sandwiches with leftover sweet potato and ginger soup. (I made this on Saturday, it is also known as Lifechanging Soup (TM) in this house - it's a Skye Gyngell recipe that I adore)

Tuesday: Was going to be butternut squash and chorizo chilli with cornbread, but I think more leftover chicken with buttered and minted potatoes and veggies. I also need to make the stock from the chicken carcass after Guides.

Wednesday: I may take chicken salad with me to save me from hotel food.

Friday: I'm meeting a friend to go out, but as I'll be coming straight into London and out with her I'm not sure what I'll get to eat.

Saturday: There's every possibility that I'm going to be flat out exhausted on Saturday - yesterday I looked and felt dreadful, and the housework alone wiped me out, so we're going to see - if I'm shattered, I'll probably do the chilli and we'll watch trashy tv/ DVDs but if not we're going to the theatre. Ghost and Rock of Ages are on my shortlist. Mark is going to kill me if we end up with tickets to see Ghost.

Sunday: I honestly don't know. Leftover chilli maybe?

Lunches for me will be chicken salad, and lots of fruit.
Breakfasts - well I'm still trying to finish up the neverending box of the world's dullest museli, but should I ever finish that then it's back to fruit with Total Greek yoghurt and a little bit of raw honey. Which is officially my favourite breakfast. Ever.

Which takes us into next week - thankfully a week at home.

Spring and Summer every other day

Now as much as I love my Brownies and Guides, I haven't had a holiday without them in two years. Until last week. Mark and I went to lovely Lanzarote for a week of Spring and Summer weather, good food, wine, and a lot of rest (that was mainly on my part though owing to the legacy on my health of 5 months of sinusitis and a wrecked ankle).

Lanzarote is one of the Canary Islands and contrary to it's reputation as Lanzagrotty, if you make the effort to go that little bit off the beaten track, you will find amazingly fresh tapas, seafood and the ubiquitous patatas arrugadas. New potatoes cooked in salt water until the water boils away and their skins wrinkle. These are served with a sprinkling of local sea salt, and mojo, which comes in a few varieties but most commonly rojo and verde. Red and Green. Red is a piquant, chilli based sauce, a little like a very fine salsa, and the green is a parsley or coriander based salsa verde. What marks these out from the common salsas is the consistency. Smooth, and so flavourful they are an amazing addition to fresh fish or as I say the new potatoes.

Once this year's new potatoes come in, I'm going to have a go at both mojos, having purloined a recipe for them as I think they'll be a lovely accompaniment to BBQs and the fresh fish, and chicken that I tend to go for in the warmer months. Expect an update soon.

Like the other Canary Islands Lanzarote is volcanic and Islario de Hilota whilst dormant still produces heat to warm even the chilliest of feet (those would be mine) and also, impressively to cook your lunch. Much like barbecuing the restaurant uses the natural heat from the volcano to cook your steak, fish or chicken perfectly. Unlike barbecuing you don't get the smoky flavour, but an identifiable something in the way your food tastes. For me, part of the excitement was in watching my fish be cooked, and then scooting into the restaurant to order it.

As is always the case for this blogger, I didn't take pictures of our meals, in the same way as I don't watch tv whilst I eat I just think it's rude to Mark, and in some way dismissive of our time together. However, for your viewing pleasure - a picture of this blogger flathunting in a volcanic landscape!

Photo Credits: Mark Reader

Spannakopittas and Aubergine & red pepper houmous

The weather has turned today, and of course my nearly dry washing got soaked in the first downpour. However, before today we have been basking in a beautifully sunny couple of weeks. Not being a fan of the BBQ, as that was always my Dad's domain, I decided a Greek feast was in order. My friend Jess (of Dreaming Wide Awake) was coming over for dinner, so it needed to be vegetarian. Jess, being exceptionally knowledgable about wine, took this information very seriously and turned up with an amazing bottle of wine (Fetzer Valley Oaks Syrah Rose) which went very nicely with the feast I spent the afternoon knocking up.

First thing I did was make Spinach and Feta parcels; these were the product of a pastry challenge at Rhubarb Crumble & Custard - I should explain, we have a weekly ingredient challenge, where a person chooses something and everyone has to try and make something featuring that, and then photograph it and post both the photo and the recipe. It's fun, and a really good way to get you to try ingredients that might not otherwise make your shopping list.

I had looked at lots of recipes for Spinach and Feta parcels (which Google helpfully told me are also known as Spannakopittas) and cobbled together the following recipe from them. They were amazing, really light, and even when I thought they weren't going to come together as they went in the oven, they came out looking crisp and pretty and importantly held in their contents.

Luckily, living in a fairly Greek pocket of London meant that I could pick up fresh filo in the fresh aisles of the supermarket, but most larges stores keep it frozen. I've certainly frozen what was left for another batch.

So recipe... Spinach & Feta Parcels



1 bunch spring onions, finely chopped
1 kg leaf spinach (picked and washed)
Fresh nutmeg
Pepper
500g feta
1 pack of fresh filo pastry cut into 15cm squares

Chop up a bunch of spring onions finely and cook until soft in about 4 tableespoons of olive oil
Add 1 kg of leaf spinach to the pan and wilt down, grate about a quarter of a nutmeg on, add pepper, but not salt as the feta is salty enough already
Take off heat and allow to cool,
Add 2 beaten eggs and 500g of feta that you've chopped up.
Cut filo into 15cm squares, and butter each of 4 peices with a pastry brush as you lay them over each other to make a star shape.
Add a dessert spoonful of filling in the middle and scrunch up (this is infact a technical term that all the best chefs use) the filo,
Brush with more butter and bake in the oven (200 degrees C) for 20 minutes.
This made 12 parcels, but you could easily make mini ones

I lazily purchased taramasalata, but made my own houmous, I'm sure I've posted the recipe here before but here goes anyway

Houmous



1 aubergine, cut in half and flesh scored into cubes. Cook in a hot oven until the middle is squishy
1 jar of sundried tomatoes in oil
2 cloves garlic
2 tins of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
Juice of 1 lemon
5 tablespoons Olive oil

I make this in a food processor, so once the aubergine is cooked it's literally a case of letting it cool and then blitzing everything until it reaches a consistency you're happy with.

Greek Potato Salad



I was taught how to make this by the friend of a friend who is Greek herself, I much prefer it to the mayonaisse laden English version. I haven't put quantities in the recipe as it depends how many you're cooking for, and it needs to be made to your taste. This needs to be made and dressed whilst the potatoes are still warm as that way they absorb the dressing and the flavour.

Salad onions, chopped finely
Large bunch flat leaf parsley chopped finely
New potatoes
Salt
Pepper
Garlic
Olive Oil
Lemon juice

Chop the salad onions and parsley finely and set aside
Wash the potatoes (don't rub the skins off) and cook in boiling salted water until just soft
When the potatoes are cooked and still hot, peel the skins off and discard
Dress the potatoes whilst still warm in the Olive oil and Lemon juice (I use about half the volume of lemon juice to olive oil)
Add salt, pepper, crushed garlic, parsley and salad onions and toss all the ingredients together
Leave to cool and serve at room temperature

I had fully intended to make my own pitta bread to Jules from Domestic Goddess in Training's recipe, but was slightly disorganised so used some that I had picked up in case of emergency. Definitely next time though.

For pudding we had Greek yoghurt with chopped strawberries, peaches and raspberries with honey. Well I say we had it, actually I forgot about it, and left it in the fridge so had it for breakfast on Monday. And very nice it was too. Sorry Jess.

Daddy or chips? Daddy or chips?

Was a marketing slogan used not so long ago by a chip manufacturer (do you know the whole concept of someone manufacturing chips puts me off them) ... as a child I can understand how the choice would be tricky. I vividly remember being thrilled when Mummy would say that we were allowed 'Chish and Fips' as it was (slightly embarrassingly) known in our house - even better were the days when my aunty was there when we were allowed chip sandwiches! It wasn't a regular occurance - as I now realise neither was stuffed marrow, which I remember with a revulsion hitherto only allocated to abuergine! - but then money wasn't something that we had a great deal of. Ask me sometime about 1001 ways with mince and potatoes... and how much veg you can get for a pound from Romford market.

Back on topic though... chips. Even today they aren't something I eat particularly regularly, I do have a fondness for chip shop chips (well I'm a grown up now, lisping mispronounciations are no longer attractive nor endearing) but in order to remain in my jeans I tend to avoid them in favour of slightly healthier carbs. Not always though, there are times when only fish and chips will do... and being an adult - I no longer need my Aunty's presence to to allow chip sarnies! However a couple of weeks back I found a recipe on the BBC Good Food website (surprisingly enough a Gordon Ramsey one, which is odd in itself as I really don't tend to like his particular style of cooking) for chunky chips with caramelised onion and garlic. Being not particularly heavy on the oil, or deep fried I thought I would give them a try.

Now this evening I'm supposed to be having a cheesy lentil casserole that I made yesterday, but as I'm off on a conference for a couple of days so intend to have that as my last healthy meal before I head off on the train tomorrow. Daunted by a fridge that contains some grated cheese, pesto and purple sprouting broccoli, I decided on the aaaah soddit frame of mind and made the above chips. They are definately tasty, and don't feel too oily or heavy at all. I'm not sure that the onion and garlic particularly add anything to the recipe. I think they would be fantastic with some home made aoili actually, and a steak. Now I guess I just need someone who fancies me cooking them steak frites.... Anyone? No, ah well...

Oh and in other news... I have last week's chocolate cookies in an ice cream sandwich for Pushing Daisies later...