Borshch

I thought I'd try to make an authentic Borshch with the beets and cabbage from the garden so I went looking for a recipe. I had in mind the sort of very clear consomme type chilled soup but eventually decided that a thick Ukrainian style soup full of vegetables was the way to go. Even so, I could find little in the recipes on the web that was consistent, so this is my version.

Sweat an onion and some garlic in a little oil until it is softened but not browned. Add beets, washed, peeled and shredded on the mandoline along with a couple of carrots similarly treated. Add about a litre of water, a bay leaf and some ground black pepper and bring to a gentle simmer.

Wash, peel and cube a couple of potatoes and add to the pot. When the potatoes are cooked - say 10 minutes - add a good quantity of finely shredded cabbage and give the soup another five minute simmer. Stir in half a tin of tomato purée (about 60g) then add some finely chopped dill weed and parsley.

Remove from the heat and adjust the seasoning with a teaspoonful of brown sugar, salt and wine vinegar to taste. The end result should be lightly sweet and sour with a refreshing flavour.

Serve with a little soya yoghurt and some rye bread.

Spud U Like

I've been taking a little break from posting while the Mr. is here but we've still been eating as you might have expected. Our potato harvest is nearly complete and we've been taste testing and experimenting with the cooking of the different varieties we've grown this year.

Pictured above, three types of heritage potatoes, Salad Blue, Shetland Black and Highland Burgundy Red parboiled and then refried for breakfast. They are certainly rather filling.

Last night we made a baked potato dish, perhaps entitled Scalloped Potatoes or Pommes Dauphinoise or maybe merely Casserole of Potatoes. Absolutely simple it was nice just as it came but would also make a good accompaniment to a more formal meal.

Slice your potatoes, the exact thickness is a matter of taste but we chose fairly thickly at about 1cm. Layer them with thinly sliced onions (or use a little grated garlic) in a well greased casserole dish or pan that can be covered. Make three or more layers and season well with pepper and a little salt. Melt some margarine in enough non-dairy milk to just come to the level of the potatoes in the pan and when it is hot pour over the potatoes. Cover tightly and bake in a hot oven, say 200C, for an hour, then remove the lid to allow the top to brown.

The colours don't add a lot to this and the overall presentation is rustic but the flavour was delicious and we shall definitely be making it again.

A Bowl of Soup for one

I'm so excited, Mr. Stripey Cat and one of the Kittens are on their way over to see me even as I write. I'm almost too excited to eat but wanted to show off the wonderful crops we've been getting from the vegetable patches and avoid having a lot of leftovers because my boys aren't going to want to eat scraps when they get here.

So I've tried to portion vegetables for just one bowl.



Needless to say I didn't really succeed, I have enough soup for 3 people at least from that lot. Starting at the left and going clockwise there are; Potatoes, shallots, pumpkin shoots, carrots, courgette, tomato, french beans (three types!), then continuing around next to the potatoes are ulluco greens, magentaspreen, runner beans, peas and broad beans. Not pictured, garlic, coriander, parsley, basil and a bay leaf. Apart from the olive oil (and how I wish I could grow olives here) and the salt and pepper, all grown on the farm.

Not so much of a recipe as an agglomeration. Sweat shallots and garlic in a little oil, add all the rest of the vegetables prepared in small pieces except the greens and tomato, cover with water or light vegetable stock (water is good). Pop in a bay leaf and let simmer for 10 minutes until everything is cooked. Add the greens, green herbs and tomato. Season to taste with salt and ground black pepper and simmer for a few minutes longer for the greens to wilt.

Serve with crusty bread.

Do it Yourself

So many puddings mean I've been getting through the yoghurt pretty fast. I was going to run out before I'd finished all my kissel and shopping day isn't until tomorrow, maybe Saturday if I can wait that long. There was only one solution, risk the last of my stash on growing some more.

I tried and tried to think of a way to make a bowl of yoghurt look appetising for a photo and failed so here is a pretty picture of clouds.



Making yoghurt at home is so easy I'm not really sure I need to document here but since I often forget just how simple it is perhaps it's worth writing it down as an encouragement to save money on my grocery bills.

For a litre of yoghurt take a litre of soya milk. The soya milk I buy is extremely basic, just non-GMO beans and water, no additives, flavourings, sugar or thickeners. I think that's best.

Put the milk into a big clean pan and bring to a simmer. Let it simmer away for five minutes, stirring from time to time to stop a skin forming. If it does it's fine to stir it back into the milk. The volume will reduce a little. Then turn off the heat and cover the pan while everything cools to blood heat.

I use a Thermos flask to make the yoghurt in. A wide mouthed flask is best but I don't have one like that in France and the ordinary sort works fine. Make sure it's squeaky clean and then sterilise by filling it up with boiling water, closing the lid and letting it sit for a while.

When the milk is cooled down to somewhere between 37C and 40C it's time for the next step. If you don't have a suitable cooking thermometer you can use your extremely clean little finger dipped in the milk. You should feel nothing at all, neither heat nor cold. If it feels at all hot then wait a while. As long as it's not chilly it should still work but may take a bit longer.

Empty the hot water out of the Thermos flask.

Take a little of your warm milk and mix it with your starter. This can be 100ml of a purchased live soya yoghurt or a portion of your previously home made batch. Then mix this all back into the full volume of soya milk, stir well and put into the warm flask.

Close up the flask and leave it for at least 12 hours while the culture turns the milk into yoghurt. If it seems a little thin when you open it, close it up again and leave a while longer. I left mine for 18 hours and it was set in the flask.

Turn the yoghurt out into a pot with a cover. Whisk it up if you want to make it smooth. Cover, allow to cool and then keep in the fridge and use as required. Keeps for about a week.

Too hot

Too hot for inspiration today; a cold noodle salad with Asian styled dressing - garlic, ginger, soy sauce - and crowned with baby beetroots.

Keeping it Red

Beetleaf Pullau

I wasn't entirely sure that I'd share this dish on the blog, it was an experiment that I didn't know would work but I would have eaten it anyway, I just wouldn't have talked about it. Anyway, it worked.

The next problem then was what to call it; is it a pullau or a biriani or an Indian inspired risotto? I've settled on pullau and I hope that's not too far wrong.

Melt some ghee or vegetable margarine in a saucepan. Fry some spices in it being careful not to burn them. I used a piece of cinnamon bark, a whole dried red chilli, some cumin seeds, some mustard seeds, ground black pepper and a teaspoon full of rather mild French curry powder, mostly turmeric. I forgot to add garlic or onion, and didn't have any hing either but one or other of these things would be a good addition. Add three small handfuls of basmati rice and stir it around in the warmed spices, then add water, about 500ml but it depends how much rice you have. Give everything a good stir and bring to a simmer.

Wash a huge handful of beet greens (the tops from beetroots) and pick them over carefully for dead and decaying leaves, then chop them quite finely and add to the pot. Stir everything up again and keep on a low heat until the rice has cooked, the greens are cooked and most of the moisture has disappeared. You will have a brilliant coloured one pot meal. Season to taste with salt and add some finely chopped green coriander leaf.

Serve with a chopped tomato and onion salad and a dollop of yoghurt.


Kissel

When I made this pudding last week I was so taken with it I had to make more. Luckily the blackberries are abundant at the moment. You could use almost any fruit for this but I think it's a good choice for blackberries because a lot of the pips are removed during cooking.

300g blackberries
400ml water
75g sugar
35-40g cornflour

Rinse the blackberries and put into a pan with the water. Bring gently to a simmer and cook for a few minutes to soften the fruit. Then put fruit and water through a fine mouli mill or sieve to extract all the fruit pulp and juice and leave the seeds behind.

Put the blackberry juice back into a clean pan and add sugar to taste. I think 75g is about right but I like puddings to be sweet. Let the sugar dissolve and the mixture come back to a boil. Mix the cornflour with a little cold water to make sure there are no lumps and then, stirring continuously, pour the cornflour mixture into the blackberries. Mix well, the kissel will thicken. Cook for a couple of minutes more stirring all the time.

Pour the fruit into individual serving dishes (I made eight tiny puddings for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the next two days!) or one larger dish. Allow to cool and then chill in the fridge.

Top with thick soya yoghurt, soft brown sugar sprinkled over to taste and decorate with a few more blackberries. It's delicious.

Habas Fritas

I had the deep fat fryer out today to make a whimsy for the other blog, brightly coloured crisps from the blue and red coloured heritage potato varieties we've grown this year. And since the oil was hot, there seemed no reason not to make another snack food more popular around the Mediterranean and Middle East than Europe; crispy seasoned broad beans. This is the way to use up those fully mature broad beans where even shelling and skinning appears inadequate as a preparation for enjoyable eating.

You can, if you're lucky, find these as a ready made bagged snack from Turkey or the Lebanon. They can be bought as a tapas dish sometimes in Spain. I noticed several suppliers offering them via mail order over the internet but nobody seems to have mentioned how easy they are to make at home.

Take the biggest oldest broad bean pods for this dish and pod them. Then spend a pleasant while in the shade carefully peeling each seed to reveal the chunky cotyledons inside. Pull the two halves apart and when you have sufficient for your needs spread them out in a single layer and allow them to dry in the sun for an hour or two.

I have made this starting with dried peeled split broad beans, soaked for six hours and then laid out to dry. It works but this is better, and unless you are very fortunate you won't be able to get dried peeled split broad beans any more easily than over-mature pods. Entirely dry beans won't peel. Save these for seed for next year's snack.

Heat a pan of oil to nearly very hot. Now, I can't emphasise too much how careful you need to be near hot oil. Don't leave the room, don't overfill the pan (about a third of the depth is plenty), have a fire blanket handy and know what to do.

The heat you need should be sufficient that when you add a small cube of bread to the oil it sizzles gently and comes to the surface. Any smoke or haze turn off the heat immediately and retire to a safe distance while it cools.

I hope I haven't frightened you but I still have the scars from a fire when I was very young and I think it's important people are warned to take care.

O.k. let's continue...

Add your very dry split beans to the pan and fry for a few minutes until they rise to the surface and start to colour a little. Drain, dry on some paper towels in a warm place for few minutes, salt (or season to taste with pepper, chilli flakes etc) and serve. Alternatively you can toss the dried bean halves in a little oil and seasonings and just bake them in the oven for 20 minutes or so. I'm sure that would work but I had a hot chip pan and I wanted to use it. It's too hot for the oven at the moment and I can't spare the gas.

Now, I was a wuss, the beans foamed and frothed a good deal more than I was expecting today so I turned off the heat, let them cook a while and them removed them to a tray in a hot oven for 10 minutes to finish cooking. I don't really think that was necessary but it's been a long hard week and my confidence is low.

If you need to store them allow to cool fully and then put away in an airtight container but this is very unlikely to ever happen.

Since I ate so much fried stuff today my supper was a very simple vegetable broth, not worth photographing so lets finish up with some of those home made crisps.

Edible Flowers

A fairly meagre meal today, just my usual simple stew but this time made with flowers. Artichoke flowers.

Although it's nice to boil the flower buds whole and tug away at the leaflets so that the tasty bases can be dipped in dressing and nibbled away the novelty can wear off. With a sharp knife and some patience it's possible to cut away all the ferociously spiky leaves and remove the terrifyingly asphyxiating choke to leave just the heart. Cooked with potatoes these make a delicious light stew.

With my stew I included some Highland Burgundy Red potatoes, onion, broad beans, some tarragon, the juice of a lemon, a splash of red wine, olive oil to soften the onions in and just enough water to cover. At the end of cooking I stirred in a teaspoonful of barley miso.

To serve I used a sprinkle of white pepper, a pinch of salt and few drops of wine vinegar. It doesn't look very beautiful but it tasted marvellous.

Working lunch

A real first for this blog - I had my other, rather dusty hat on, and was doing a day's work for a change, slaving over a web page.

So, no time to eat or cook really. We have here toast with pizza topping, left over pasta sauce mixed with some extra olives and garlic and topped with the last of the Cheezley brought back from the UK two weeks ago. You can see the rain on the plate too. I had to take the picture quickly and get back inside.

No time to fix that blogroll menu either, maybe I'll have a look at it now but I'm soooooo.... ti....red!

Blogroll Update

I thought I'd try the new Blogger thing everyone else has been using for weeks. Unfortunately it seems to be broken just now. I don't think it's me because I tested the function in my private playpen and it worked just fine. Anyway, when this finally sorts itself out I hope it will show the five most recently updated blogs from the 30 or so I've listed. This should mean everyone gets a chance to be near the top of the list and get visitors. Ain't technology great.

UPDATE: Who the hell knows what's going on with Blogger? It just told me I couldn't sign in because I'd disabled cookies and javascript. Which I haven't. Then, mysteriously I was signed in. It's acting like a virus, which is worrying. OTOH the way hackers seem to get into Wordpress is slowing up my intention to move everything over there. What's a poor blogger to do? Still, for the moment my reader seems to be playing so I'm going to try again to sort out the blog roll.

UPDATE 2: Oh no it isn't.

UPDATE 3: Which means that there are half dozen of you that I can't get to list at the moment so don't be sad if you're not listed. This is going to have to be revisited but I just don't have the mental energy for it right now.

UPDATE 4: See how much I love you, I've just cut and pasted 34 entries individually into the list since the reader link isn't working. Be warned they are not all vegan, I'm interested in cooking ideas, not ideologies so my reading is eclectic.