Eating from the garden/allotment - recipes thread?

[Sadik]

Does anyone else try to eat mainly veg from their garden/allotment? Would you fancy a recipe/ideas swapping thread? I'm trying to vary our everyday meals (New Years resolution!), and I'd love to hear what others are cooking with nothing but squash leeks and chard the vast array of January produce :)

[DoreenLethal]

To be honest, I don't have recipes. I have things like 'curry/pasta/chilli' and bung in whatever I have to hand. This is how I know that pasta sauce with grated carrot tastes fab.

Squash - roast, roast and put into soups, cube in pasta sauces and curries
Leeks - leek and cheese bake, chop and add to omelette, add to any soup or stew.

Chard - wash and shred and add to any soup, stew, pasta sauce at the between cooking onion and adding stock stage.

[Sadik]

I guess I tend to do those sorts of things, but I've got in a bit of a rut of 'curry with whatever veg' / 'stirfry with whatever veg' and 'pasta sauce with whatever veg' (grated squash is also good in pasta sauce as a variation of cubes thereof )

[bookbook]

Well, I will join this- always looking....
I'm not doing too bad for variety so far - the weather has been so mild
Tonight we had borlotti bean casserole with kale ( could use savoy)
Risotto made with squash/pumpkin is lovely - I have a good recipe for that as well.
Do you want people to post recipes?

[Sadik]

That would be fab, bookbook, but really whatever, I was just thinking of a place to swap ideas.

Today's new thing (for me) was beetroot cut small and dressed with horseradish sauce - we had it as a relish in wraps with chilli beans (bottled tomatoes & pickled peppers from the summer). Good, though I think it would have looked nicer with red beetroot, I've only got white ones atm.

[shovetheholly]

Lovely thread idea - I've been wanting this for ages as book writes great recipes that get buried in the threads!!

[bookbook]

Here is the squash recipe, in its original form.
(I often use already roasted squash , as I tend to cook it as a side dish )

Pumpkin Risotto
Serves 4
600g (1 lb 5 oz) pumpkin flesh, chopped into very small chunks
2 tbsp olive oil
90g (3 1/4 oz) butter
4 sprigs of fresh rosemary, 2 finely chopped, 2 whole
1 garlic clove
1 small onion, finely chopped
300g (10 1/2 oz) carnaroli rice
1 litre (1 3/4 pints) chicken stock, hot
50g (1 3/4 oz) Parmesan cheese, freshly grated
Salt and pepper to taste

In a pan, heat the oil and a third of the butter, then add the whole sprigs of rosemary, the garlic clove and pumpkin. The pumpkin will automatically exude some liquid and so no water needs to be added. Cook for about 20 minutes or until the pumpkin softens and dissolves. Remove the rosemary sprigs and garlic clove.

In another large pan, heat half the remaining butter and fry the onion gently until soft, then add the rice and fry equally gently, stirring continuously, for a few minutes. Add a little of the hot chicken stock and then the pumpkin mixture. Add more stock gradually until it is all used up and has been absorbed by the rice, stirring from time to time to avoid it sticking to the pan. Take off the heat and beat in the remaining butter and the Parmesan, and sprinkle with chopped rosemary.

[shovetheholly]

Ooooh, I LOVE squash risotto! It is one of my favourite meals in the whole world!

I put sage in mine, chopped really fine, and walnuts on the top. Sometimes, if I'm feeling fanceeeeeh I get about six whole sage leaves per person and I gently fry them in hot olive oil. They go like herby crisps and you get a bit of crunch with the delicious rice softness. Then I can make pretty patterns with them and the walnuts round the edge of the dish.

Also, I have found that if you roast then mash half the squash, the risotto goes orange and then you can put the rest of the squash on top in delicious chunks. (Yes I am also besotted by cereal that turns the milk different colours. I'm actually only about five years old inside).

[shovetheholly]

Here's my recipe. It is basically something I stole off epicurious but with one addition of my own!!

(Health warning: this is not an everyday soup and it is not good for your health! This is the kind of thing you serve in tiny dishes with tiny spoons to posh guests for whom you cannot make regulation beans on toast).

This recipe uses an amazing cheat ingredient I have found, which is Colgin liquid smoke. I now use this in a whole load of dishes, from chilli right through to the aforementioned regulation beans on toast

Shove's cheatin' smokin' garlic soup

26 garlic cloves (unpeeled)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
375g sliced onions
1 1/2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme

18 garlic cloves, peeled (yes, these are a separate lot from the first 26)
700 ml Marigold bouillon (less if you want a really thick soup)
125ml cream
Parmesan cheese (about 2 ounces)
4 lemon wedges
Amazing cheat ingredient: 2 tablespoons of Colgin liquid smoke (you can buy it from the website Souschef)

Preheat oven to 180 C. Place 26 garlic cloves in small glass baking dish. Add 2 tablespoons olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper; toss to coat. Cover with foil and bake until garlic is golden brown and tender, about 45 minutes. Cool. Squeeze garlic between fingertips to release cloves. Transfer cloves to small bowl.

Melt butter in heavy large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onions and thyme and cook until onions are translucent, about 6 minutes. Add roasted garlic and 18 raw garlic cloves and cook 3 minutes. Add stock; cover and simmer until garlic is very tender, about 20 minutes.

Purée soup in blender until really smooth. Return soup to saucepan; add cream and bring to simmer. Season with salt and pepper. Add about a tablespoon or two (more to taste) of liquid smoke right at the end.

Grate some cheese over in the bowl and squeeze some lemon over it.

[bookbook]

This is a bit of a mundane teatime dish, but tasty

Leeks ,Eggs and Cheese

1 or 2 leeks per person, gently sweated until soft in butter, then put in a suitable size dish to cover the bottom
1 hard boiled egg per person , cut in half and laid yolk down on leeks
Cover with cheese sauce and pop under grill until bubbling.
Goes well with a jacket potato

[Sadik]

That sounds really nice, bookbook. I like scrambled leeks and tofu (and I don't usually like tofu!) - sweat a nice pile of finely chopped leeks in a mix of butter & olive oil or just olive oil, then crumble in firm tofu, and fry quite hard, putting in a good splash of soy sauce. Eat on buttered toast for a quick supper if you can't be bothered to cook properly.

I love fried sage, Shove, sadly I've picked my bush almost bare :(