Salad Days - a warm spring salad

Today's lunch. Well, with the sun finally putting his hat on I thought it was time to crack out the salad. Not in their true sense, but a variation thereof. So here we have a warm salad. After all, there's still a nip in the air, and whilst this sates my need for something healthy (I use the term loosely) it does still have strong flavours and a sense - from the oil in the dressing of being luxurious. 

This was one of those recipes that came to me whilst looking in the fridge, and just putting things together in my head. In terms of a recipe it's more of a loose approximation of what needed using up and would go relatively well together. Despite having a surfeit of parsnips and carrots, they didn't make their way in as I didn't fell they fitted with the other veg. 

Warm Spring Salad

1 bulb fennel sliced so it's still relatively chunky

2 courgettes, cubed

1 yellow pepper, cubed

1 orange pepper, cubed (by the way, Sainsbury's Basics peppers are brilliant, and much much cheaper than their regular ones)
1 leek sliced finely

1/2 a chorizo sausage, skinned and cubed

1 bulb garlic, smashed

Drizzle of olive oil

Dried thyme, sprinkled (probably about a teaspoon)

2 bay leaves

2 glasses white wine/ veg stock

Salt and Pepper

Balsamic vinegar

Rocket or watercress to serve

Aubergine, celery, cherry tomatoes would all be good additions, it's just I didn't have them.

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees

Chop your vegetables so that they're roughly the same size and put them in a roasting tin. Try to keep them in one layer so that they cook relatively evenly

Add the chorizo, garlic cloves, herbs and salt and pepper

Drizzle with some olive oil and pour the white wine/ veg stock (about half a pint/ 2 wine glasses of either) over the veg

Cook in the preheated oven for about half an hour. Or until the veg is soft and starting to caramelise on the edges

Take out of the oven and leave to cool for about 10 minutes (so it's nice and warm but neither hot nor cold)

Serve in a bowl with lots of rocket or watercress (the pepperiness cuts through the dressing)

Pour off a little of the oil and cooked down wine into a jam jar, add some balsamic vinegar (sherry or white wine vinegar would be fine I imagine) put the lid on and give a good shake. Pour this over your warm salad and either toss through or if you're lazy like me, do some work while it sits on the side. 

Serve with some crusty bread, it's an idea working from home lunch in that it feels a bit more decadent than sandwiches or soup, but as it's basically a fridge bottom recipe is cheap and uses up veg that might be slightly past it's best. 

Alteration:

I would use the veg base for this as the basis of a sausage bake and serve with baked potatoes for an evening meal. It would be lovely, and you could spoon off some of the oils, and make a kind of gravy with any burnt bits of veg on the bottom of the pan. Lovely. 

Satsuma and cardamom drizzle cake - shouldn't a fruit that's so good inside have a matching exterior?

A couple of weeks back my regular fruit bag from Riverford Organics arrived, apples, a mango and a lot of green skinned satsumas - green miyagawa satsumas. And a note, explaining that these satsumas would stay green, so not to wait for them to ripen as they were ripe already. Now, never one to discriminate against someone(thing) for having a touch of 'verdigris' I was happily snacking on them at work. Slightly tart, but these are early satusumas as they're a fruit I normally associate with winter. And then I had a 'vision, almost like a prophecy'... Satsuma drizzle cake. I know, it sounds truly crazy, but bear with me

I duly kept 5 of these aside to, when blessed with time, turn into a satsuma drizzle cake. Having been overwhelmed by the success of the lime drizzle, I thought I'd follow Vanessa's recipe more closely and deal with one of my issues. Cardamom. I love the scent. But, it smells like perfume to me, not like a spice and I actively avoid it because much as I don't want to wear perfume that makes me smell of biscuits, neither do I want to eat food that smells of Chanel.

But, much like the pastry and the repeated attempts at aubergine (still not winning) I felt like I needed to address this. So...all right, why not... into my mixture went 5 green cardamom pods, lightly crushed, the outers discarded and the seeds pounded to a powder in my pestle and mortar. I actually really like it. There is the faint sugesstion of perfume in the cake, but the robust tartness of the satsumas works with it really pleasingly to take that edge away.

The recipe is exactly as the Lime Drizzle cake, but with the zest and juice of 5 satsumas (they were tiny) and the cardamom folded in with the flour. I used a square cake tin this time to see if a slightly flatter cake would alter the absorbtion of the drizzle. Still yummy, but I really must buy a skewer at some point soon.

And this time, as there's only me at home... pictures!

*This post is brought to you courtesy of myself, The Wizard and I from Wicked. If you had to be told, really? REALLY? 

Meal Planning Monday: A week at home!

I feel like I should preface this post with saying just how much I'm loving my new job. It's taking me to different parts of the country, meeting new people and trying new things. In this economic climate I recognise just how lucky I am as for so long I've been so miserable and stayed in a job that continued that. What it hasn't done thus far is let me have time to cook. This weekend however, I've blitzed the house, and whilst I have an empty fridge, the clean, ironed washing, and clean, tidy rooms will allow me the time over the next few nights to make some jam and jelly, turn museli into cookies for the office, and try some new recipes. Exciting stuff!

Breakfasts: fruit, yoghurt and a sprinkling of Grape nuts.

For lunches this week I'm going to make a rice salad with tofu, soy sauce and veggies.

Monday: Leftover cous cous salad (blogpost should be up on Wednesday) mixed in with prawns, pea shoots and feta

Tuesday: Beetroot, goats cheese and feta salad with roast chicken (peices if I get to the butcher)

Wednesday: Leftover roast chicken/ Sausages, sweetcorn and baked potatoes and salad

Thursday: I'm out Thursday night, but depending on when I get home and if I've eaten will either have an omlette or toast and marmite

Friday: We're off to Mark's parents for the weekend

I'm waiting on delivery of some Gourmet Raw brownies that I ordered last week. I know it's probably not the best introduction, but I've really got into Nakd bars of late and have been reading up on raw food. I eat a lot of fruit as you can probably tell and for snacking they're tasty, convenient and don't have that horribly processed aftertaste I find in a lot of cereal bars. I'm hoping the Gourmet raw brownies are similar, only slightly more decadent. Review to follow when they arrive. Not that I'm impatient or anything *taps foot*

Riverford veg box: Week four

I do like the veg box arriving, if it weren't for the email each week announcing my debit card being charged I'd persist with the view that it feels like a present arriving.

This week was a bit odd, truth be told. I felt so let down by last week's fruit bag that I really wasn't sure what to expect and was worrying about the content quite considerably. However, I needn't have worried as the produce that arrived was of a lovely quality. There's two things this week that I'm not sure what to do with. I wonder if you can guess what they are?

Blackcurrants
Melon
Salad bag
Cherry tomatoes
Courgettes
Head of broccoli
Bunched beetroot
Broad beans
Apples

I just had to go and check I hadn't forgotten some fruit, but nop that's everything. An easy to use week - Mark loves brocolli, as do I. And courgetti spaghetti is a firm favourite on our menu plan. Melon is lovely to use as a simple, fresh breakfast, and cherry tomatoes when not used up in lunches tend to be my 'hovering around the fridge' snack of choice.

A nice week, nothing explosively surprising, but all good quality and not overripe which is a key thing for me.

Next week a break - but week five will be back soon.

Riverford veg box: Week three

Last week I spoke to Riverford about the veg boxes I've been receiving. Even with the vast quantities of veg I eat I just wasn't getting through the whole box, and whilst it is value for money I had another issue with overripe fruit last week (the first week I had the same issue with pears, last week with nectarines - no compensation has been offered for these items, something interestingly Abel and Cole always did when I called to complain yet again). The discussion I had with the lady on the phone resulted in me opting to try alternating a fruit bag with my regular box on the week's between. Hopefully this would overcome my issue with not having enough room in the fridge for the veggies, and I wouldn't be stuck with no fruit in between times.

At the moment I've been supplementing the fruit and veg with potatoes for Mark, and bananas for both of us, as well as anything that partifularly grabs me owing to a special offer when I do the weekly shop. Part of me resents this, the other part accepts it as par for the course with a fruit and veg box - not being able to choose your contents means you are sometimes pleasantly surprised but may need to supplement with the things you need, be they for packed lunches or standard recipes.

Truth be told, at first glance I'm not that impressed with the fruit bag, 3 relatively dull types of fruit: grapes, satsumas and apples. The grapes, like all of the soft fruit I've been sent, need to be eaten today and are a small bunch - 300g. .  The apples and satsumas will hopefully last longer, and quanitity wise I would say that is perfect, 6 apples and 8 satsumas (I typically take an apple and two satsumas to work each day). I used Mysupermarket.c.uk to compare prices from my local supermarkets (and by local I mean the ones I can walk or take the bus to):

Tesco: £1.34
Ocado: £1.79
Sainsbury's &; Asda: £1.49

Bearing in mind that the fruit bag cost £6.45 - if we put Riverford's grapes on a par with Ocado's then we're looking at a cost of £4.66 for the apples and satsumas. This got me to thinking - what would be their cost at the local supermarkets too.

	Apples	Clementines	Total
Ocado	£      2.83	£        2.49	£    5.32
Tesco	£      2.25	£        1.50	£    3.75
Sainsburys	£      1.50	£        2.09	£    3.59
Asda	£      1.80	£        1.77	£    3.57
	Grapes
Tesco	£      1.34		£    5.09
Ocado	£      1.79		£    7.11
Sainsburys	£      1.49		£    5.08
Asda	£      1.49		£    5.06

I was surprised at just how much more Riverford are charging - and I've deliberately not compared them with Basics or Economy range fruit and veg as I didn't feel that would be a fair comparison. Interestingly with the exception of Waitrose (where I would automatically buy their Essentials range anyway) Riverford fruit is around £1.50 more expensive for the 3 types of fruit. Now obviously I am getting it delivered, which accounts for some of the cost, but I think for me the quality of the fruit is such that I can't justify this difference. I need fruit to last a week, to be fairly transport friendly - as well as fitting in to my budget. I think for me, this is just too much which is a shame. So, despite the convenience being a huge bonus for me, the fruit is going to have to go.

Next week, I'll do a similar compare and contrast with the veg, but truthfully I'm much happier with the veg box, so I'm hoping to be able to justify retaining that.

Riverford veg box: Week two

Well, last week's veg (with the exception of the pears) have lasted really well. I'm using up the greens tonight, the tomatoes and cucumber are going strong in packed lunch salads, and the mushrooms are waiting to be used up. What for I'm not entirely sure, I had some kind of inspiration about polenta cakes or something yesterday but can't remember where that was. I blame the meds as I'm trying to head off another migraine, and it's leaving me a bit groggy.

Excitingly I had no idea what to do with the gooseberries, so decided to live life on the edge and try making some jam - whilst entirely unsupervised. It was a success, set beautifully, tastes gorgeous and is a glorious colour. Photos to follow with excitable post. I did tweet throughout the process, and if you fancy being party to the occaisional overexcited rambling, click the follow me on twitter button to your left.

The aubergine was another matter entirely. They are still the work of the devil, pretty much ruining my gorgeous pasta bake surprise last week. The surprise is a middle layer of mozzarella. Pantry tip by the way - if you're cooking with mozzarella, then buy the cheaper options as in blind taste tests consumers can't tell the difference between the fancy and bargain when it's cooked. For tomato salads and the like, get as good as you can afford.

So this week, we have no aubergine - Hurrah! but we do have broad beans, which I know for many people are comparable to my loathing of aubergine. I'm actually quite excited, and utterly undecided about what I'm going to do with them as yet. Suggestions would be very welcome.

Bunched carrots - will probably be scrubbed and eaten raw with moroccan houmous. I love this, and actually the only thing I will voluntarily eat aubergine in is my houmous recipe.
Courgettes - so courgetti spaghetti will feature on next week's meal plan
Onions - I have to do something with onions, I feel like they're breeding in the veg drawer
Nectarines
Apples
Tomatoes
Peppers
Melon, I'll blatantly eat this for breakfast and will do nothing of any interest with it.

So another lovely box, save for one damaged nectarine and despite spending much of Tuesday in a darkened room being poorly I managed to have a lovely chat with my veg man. Apologies for no pictures of my produce, I can't make the camera turn on or find the charger.

So, lets see what next week shall bring - well I know actually - as I've still got so much veg to use up, I'm just getting a fruit bag. Fingers crossed for lots of fruity goodness. Or something.

Riverford veg box: Week one

Being fairly au fait with the veg box process, I have to say that Riverford have surprised me - surpassing my expectations on a number of fronts. After placing my order I had a call from their Customer Service team, checking where I'd be on delivery day. On the day the delivery driver gave me a ring as I wasn't it, and told me were he had left the box. All good so far.

Bearing in mind I hadn't wanted to go back to a national veg box scheme I was really impressed. Having seen the Riverford stand at the Hertfordshire county show and spoken to their rep I was keen to give them a go - I really liked their use of semi local farming - it's not local by any manner or means, but isn't all imported either. I had really wanted to use my local food co-op. When I looked on Big barn - you can use the widget in the sidebar - I found there was one in Tottenham. However, further excited investigation found that it had actually become inactive due to a lack of volunteers. This was such a shame, and I would say if you're reading and live in the local area, please consider volunteering. http://growinginharingey.wikispaces.com/Tottenham+Food+Coop

However, for the time being, Riverford it is. Slightly more expensive than I would like, but I think I eat a lot more veg than your average person.

Coming home to a box is always a delight, and this was no exception. The reusable box was chock full of fruit and veg - some that are nice basics and will get used up just as a matter of course, and others that need a bit more inspiration.

My box contained:

Apples
Pears
Gooseberries
Onions
Mushrooms
Broccoli
Greens
Tomatoes
Cucumber

Oh... and an aubergine

Only one of the pears was damaged, and the pears are already very ripe so they need to be eaten up smartish. I'm not sure what to do with the gooseberries yet - although I'm wondering about branching out without Mark's mum and trying jam. The rest are all veg that I will use up as the week progresses and fit nicely into my meal plan. Apart from the aubergine that is. As regular readers will know, alongside macaroni cheese, aubergine is pretty much the only vegetable I give an enourmously wide berth to. Miles sized berth. Moussaka is my idea of hell. There's just something about the texture and taste that I can't get my head around. Still, there's no escaping it now, and it's been added to my fridge bottom pasta bake in the hope that I won't/ can't taste it. Please God.

I'll update again with how the veg box experiment is going - there's obviously for me a cost implication involved and if I can't get enough meals out of it to make it good value (I am a firm believer in basics veg) then sadly I'll be back to Sainsos - but fingers crossed.

Meal planning Monday: Awaiting inspiration

Well, heaven knows how it's got to be that time again, and I haven't been to Sainsburys since before my last post. There is method in my madness however, my first Riverford delivery is coming tomorrow, and as I'm by myself this week I'll be mainly veggie I expect so I am awaiting inspiration from said veg box for what I'll be cooking. It's thrown me out of routine slightly, so tonight will be freezer surprise, and then hopefully tomorrow onwards should be easier.

Last week was fairly successful in the pantry, I ended up making a chicken and vegetable soup instead of the planned pie, as I just wasn't in the mood for a pie (read not in the mood as throwing up lots). The leftovers of that are now in the freezer, and I had 3 languishing courgettes in the veg tray, so courgetti spaghetti was made instead of the salmon.

The weekend was really good actually, I made the Barefoot Contessa's chicken salad, a variation on the famous Good Housekeeping sticky sausages and Nigella's banana bread for a picnic on Saturday, and had leftovers last night and today. I haven't blogged the salad yet, but will definitely be making it again so expect to see it up here soon.

This week, is term time again, so Tuesday and Thursday I'll be out, which always poses a problem for me. I love my volunteering but it really is too late for me to eat when I get back home. Some weeks I manage to eat a meal at lunchtime, and others I just end up skipping - which is not great for my health and wellbeing. Solutions to this problem gratefully received. I've planned for these nights, but it's always a bit hit and miss.

I've got a loaf of bread proving at the moment, for something I'm planning on starting on the blog. Watch this space - and while you're reading have you entered the giveaway for £50 voucher for Kitchen Stools Direct? If not, why not and please do!

So, this week...

Monday: Freezer surprise - Mexican chicken (a fancy name for enchilada filling) with soured cream, salad and a tortilla.

Tuesday: Pasta bake (I've got the fridge bottom pasta sauce out to defrost) and some lovely mozzarella to put with.

Wednesday: Leftover pasta bake

Thursday: Salmon and greens (No, really!)

Friday: Steak and wedges

Saturday: I've got some mince in the freezer so Mark has a choice of one of my 1001 ways with mince, I'm hoping he chooses chilli because I want to use up the polenta to make cornbread.

For more inspiration, pop over to At Home with Mrs M for all the links to the other meal planners.

Take me to the world: Jess blogs me!

Not a recipe in this post, but some news and updates on life in my teeny flat of wondrousness. I've finally managed to book a veg box delivery, for next week from Riverford Organics I wanted to know where my veg and fruit were coming from and also felt slightly distanced by the big business feel of the veg box scheme I had been using, combined with getting damaged produce every week. Riverford seems a little more expensive at first glance, but I'll blog next week and let you know what I got and if it inspires me to do or try anything new.

In other news, Jess of Dreaming Wide Awake decided to try out my posh pasta sauce - the one with all the wine. And very kindly she blogged it. I had thought about asking her to do it as a guest post, but she beat me to it, her linky is here I will master every pasta till it's right.

Jess is my go to person in times of need for wine advice, working as she does for Olly Smith. The wine he recommended for the pasta sauce was a Tesco one, Tesco Finest Nero D'Avola so if you're thinking of trying out the deep winey (it's a word) deliciousness of that pasta sauce then now is a good time to do so with  an expert recommended wine.

As I'm still without a starter, I'm bread baking with yeast at the moment, and am hoping to get a loaf on for a nice slow rise tonight so M has some fresh for his sandwiches tomorrow. I think I'll also defrost some of that fridge bottom pasta sauce I turned into pizza topping a couple of weeks back, let it down with some vegetable stock and blitz it so I have soup for lunch.

And finally a bit of a teaser for you... this week will feature my first every giveaway! Make sure you're a follower for a heads up!