Seasonal Salads , Pearl Barley , Brown Rice and Bean

 

I wasn’t surprised by the news that many mayonnaise based supermarket salads contain more fat than a big Mac . They never look particularly appetising .Salads should be fresh flavours , seasonal vegetables , herbs,  grains , pulses. I always think there will be some left for lunch the next day but damn if the bowl isn’t always scrapped clean.
The following dishes all serve two very greedy people.

Barley and Courgette Salad

I recently saw pearly barley in salad referred to as wheatberries it doesn’t  have  a lot of inherent flavour but and lovely chewy textures it’s is definitely worth trying with dressings of lemon or balsamic vinegar. Served above with salmon but also would work well with grilled chicken or lamb.

150g of Pearl Barley simmered in boiling water for 1 hour
4 small courgettes steam and chopped into small 1/2 cm pieces
2 tbsp of freshley chopped parsley
2 tbsp of Preserved Lemon
1 tsp of Poppy Seeds
Juice and zest of half a lemon
Salt and Pepper

Brown Rice and Smoked Mackerel Salad

Brown rice is nutty and delicious better than more expensive wild rice . This is almost a kedgeree salad , with plenty of crunchy vegetables , and smoky fish.

150g of brown rice
3 fillets of Smoked Mackerel
1 red pepper
1salad onion finely chopped
1 heaped tbsp of capers
2 heaped tbsp of black olives
2 heaped tbsp of fresh parsley finely chopped
2 tbsp of olive oil
1tbsp of balsamic vinegar
Salt and Pepper

Tuna Bean Salad

This is a classic and shortly will get even better with french beans straight from the garden .

200g of dried beans ( kidney , chick pea , turtle beans) soaked overnight and simmered for 50 minutes
150g tin of tuna
1 tbsp of capers
2 tbsp of black olives
2 spring onions finely chopped
Dressing , 2 tbsp of balsamic vinegar , 1 tbsp of olive oil , 1 tsp wholegrain mustard Salt and Pepper

Lamb Shanks in White Wine and White Beans

A very relaxing day being a cat, I had a proper lie in and then padded around the house stretching and settling. Listening to the bees buzz and birds sing.   I found some lamb shanks in the freezer and was thinking it wasn’t a season for casserole, but I found a few recipes where they could be cooked in white wine. This long slow cook resulted in melt in the mouth meat and beans dissolving into a roasted vegetablesauce that cried out to be mopped with some crusty bread.

Lamb Shanks in White Wine and White Beans

2 Lamb Shanks
200g of dried mixed white beans , butter beans , flagolet &  haricot beans
100g of fresh tomatoes roughly chopped
300ml of white wine
1 large onion finely sliced
3 cloves of garlic finely chopped
Handful of fresh thyme and oregano
1 tbsp of olive oil

1. Soak the beans for at least 12 hours in water.
2. Season the lamb shanks with salt and pepper.
3. Heat the oven oil in a cast iron casserole dish.
4. Add the lamb shanks and brown on each side
5. Add the onions , garlic , beans, tomatoes , herbs and white wine
6. Bring to a simmer , cover and place in the oven at 160degC for at least 2 hours.

Fishcakes with Wood Sorrel Salad and Dressing

Common Wood-sorrel Oxalis acetosella is one of my favourite wild foods , food in woods it small white flowers with pink streaks. The leaves have a lemony acid taste , I found plenty of growing in the the woods on Saturday.

Once picked wood sorrel has lovely bright pink stems beautiful and
delicious in salad, once cooked the sorrel loses its punch so I think
it’s best in salads or dressings however tonight I tried sorrel cooked
in the fishcakes, raw in salad and as flavouring in the dressing.

I mixed plenty of sorrel leaves into the salad leaves ( grown in the garden) and the dressing and they really do pack a lemony acidic punch in both the salad and the dressing . Couldn’t taste then a great deal in the fishcakes which were delicious nontheless crunchy edges light fluffy potato and delicious salmon.

A perfect light dinner for a Sunday night

Salmon Fishcakes

300g of floury potatoes cut
200g of skinless salmon fillets
1 handful of wood sorrel
1 small bulb of wet garlic
1 tbsp of butter
Salt and pepper

To coat

100g of breadcrumbs
1 egg

1. Boil the potatoes in salted water until soft
2. Steam the salmon above the potatoes for the final 3 minutes
3. Mash the potatoes with plenty of salt and pepper
4. Mix in the salmon , wet garlic, sorrel
5. Shape the mixture into cakes with your hands about 1.5 cm thick 5cm across
6. Lay the cakes on a baking sheet and refridgerate for at least  20 minutes
7. After the cakes come out the fridge dip each first into beaten egg then roll into the breadcrumbs.
8. Returns to a baking sheet and either fry in sunflower oil or bake at 190degC for 30 minutes.

Sorrel Dressing

2 tbsp of white wine vinegar
1 clove of garlic
2 tbsp of olive oil
3 tbsp of chopped wild sorrel
1 tsp of wholegrain mustard

Mix together the dressing ingredients

Pasta with Roasted Summer Vegetables

Our vegebox has switched to summer after so many months of winter vegetables I gasped with joy at  courgettes,  sweet peppers and baby tomatoes. They had come over the Riverford farms in Spain  I thought these babies deserved me putting a little effort in and making pasta to reward their journey

I want to say this is the first time I have tried to make pasta but that would be a lie In fact I bought a pasta maker a year and a half ago , the one time I  tried to make pasta everything went a bit wrong so being defeatist I put it away and never tried again.

This time I was determined to get it right so I  used a scaled down Jamie Oliver pasta recipe . It actually worked really well , we left it to dry for at least an hour and cooked for a few minutes perfect al dente

While the pasta was drying I chopped and roasted the vegetables with plenty of fresh herbs from the garden and olive oil . Simple and easy .

Once the pasta was cooked and drain it was added to the pan with the vegetables. A taste of summer sadly missed and hopefully we will have our own homegrown courgettes and tomatoes soon.

Roasted Summer Vegetables

2 large courgettes diced
1 medium pepper diced
1 medium onion diced
2 handfuls of cherry plum tomatoes
3 cloves of garlic crushed
Zest and juice of half and lemon
Mixed handful of oregano , thyme and parsley
3 tbsp of olive oil
Salt and Pepper

1. Mix all the vegetables in a roasting dish with the oil , herbs , lemon and seasoning
2. Place in a 200degC oven for 20 minutes
3. Shaking regularly

Pasta with wild garlic , purple sprouting broccoli , chilli and anchovies

So foraging is not only trendy but is big business, The Guardian reports and you cannot turn the TV or open the newspaper without someone extolling the virtues of wild garlic or by their other name Ransoms. Wild Garlic has always been one of my favourite wild foods but moving
up to Derbyshire from the South West though I have lost all my old
foraging spots so it seems to have taken me way to long to find Wild
Garlic leaves this season which last from April til Early June .

 Finally I  found some good patches  growing on the grass verges around
Tissington easily recognisable by its broad leaves and there is no other way of saying it smell of garlic  

Once picked these peppery leaves will keep for a few days in the fridge or you can mixed the chopped leaves with butter which will keep in the freezer and stays a brilliant green perfect for fish or vegetables. You can simply sautee it the leaves and serve it as a side vegetable like spinach, added to soups they add a great garlic herb flavour , I have made a pesto before with walnuts and lemon

The dish above is great because it uses another one of my seasonal favourites purple sprouting brocolli which I have made before with an anchovy butter  . Ferous vegetables like broccoli and kale can carry a lot of strong flavours so this packed a punch with lemon chilli and anchovies the pungent  wild garlic was not lost. A speedy but flavoursome midweek dish also delicious cold.

Pasta with  wild garlic , purple sprouting broccoli ,  chilli and anchovies

200g of dried pasta
1 handful of fresh wild garlic leaves
2 handfuls of purple sprouting broccoli
2 tbsp anchovies roughly chopped
Juice and zest of half a lemon
1 tbsp of chilli flakes
2 tbsp of olive oil

1. Boil the pasta until al dente,
2. Meanwhile , mx together finely chopped garlic leaves , anchoives chilli flakes and oil
3. Steam the purple sprouting and while the pasta and brocolli are still warm mix over the garlic mix.
4. Serve in a large bowl

Click on the images below for previous posts.

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Lasagne

Why hasn’t lasagne made it onto my blog before , I think because it is often not very photogenic, and thats a terrible reason not to put something on , because I love lasagne.

Lasagne is a dish of my childhood , my mum reckons  there is not a child alive who doesn’t eat it so when school freinds came for dinner we always had a massive dish of lasagne .  Still whenever someone goes into hospital the first thing my mum does it make and deliver a lasagne to the abandoned family.

I can also chart my childhood cookery progress  through lasagne.  First I was allowed to grate the cheese , later make the whole bechamel sauce , later the meat sauce and  during my time as a vegetarian I learnt to make a tasty lentil filling .

For me making a lasagne is a joyously times consuming activity which shouldn’t be rushed .

The beschamel  sauce is satisfying to make from scratch, to make
its extra luxurious , stirring  it with a rosemary stalk imparts a
herby taste and I have also added white wine but the real secret has to
be to use a strong cheese , very mature cheddar or even stilton

Meat sauce these days  has expanded to include lentils and olives to give  texture. It also contains  both beer and wine . I find the beer acts as a good replacement for beef stock which I don’t really have since we don’t often have beef on the bone
.

I like the pasta to be cooked but still a little chewy crispy chewy edges . I have to stop myself eating it cold from the pan.

Lasagne Assembly

Feeds 6

10 sheets of dried lasagne
My lasagne dish which is 50cm long X30cm wide and 20cm tall

1. Layer of bolagnese sauce (recipe below ), followed by a layer of pasta followed by
2. sauce to 3/4 of the way up the dish finally pour over the beschamel sauce ( recipe below) . I have tried laying the beschamel  sauce alongside  with the meat sauce but its seems to just vanish into the pasta and I love a cheesy layer
3. Scatter grated cheese over the top and a few sprinkles of fresh rosemary and black pepper
4. Bake at 150degC for 40 minutes

Bolagnese Sauce

400g of minced beef
200g of red lentils
600g of chopped tinned plum tomatoes
1 large onion finely chopped
4 cloves of garlic minued
1litre  of water
200ml of red wine
200ml of dark ale
3 tbsp of roughly chopped stoned olives ( black and green)
3 tbsp of olive oil
3 tbsp of mixed herbs ( Dried Oregano , parsley and rosemary)
Salt and Pepper

1. Heat the olive oil in the pan.
2. Fry the onion and garlic til soft, then add the meat in batchs to brown
3. If you want to make this vegetarian replace the meat with 300g of green/continental lentils
4. Once browned add the tomatoes , lentils , wine , ale and half the water
5. Simmer for at least an hour on a low heat with the lid off , add more water if it begins to look too dry
6. Add the olives and mixed herbs
7. Add the other half of the water simmer for a further hour.

Beschamel (White) Sauce

Makes 1.5 pints of sauce

1.5 pints milk
2 heaped tbsps butter
2 heaped tbsp of plain flour
200g of cheddar cheese (- half stilton if available)

1. Melt the butter in a pan  add the  plain flour and cook for a few minutes on a low heat
2. Begin to add the milk a little at a time , stirring continuously until it has all been incorporated
3. The milk should thicken to form a glossy sauce.
4. Finally add the cheese saving a little for the top of the lasagne , stir well taste and if required season with a little salt and pepper

Wild Mushroom Ragu

A long weekend with nothing to do after a very busy couple of weeks means we definitely needed a little time to chill.

Squeezed in a long walk round an almost deserted Derbyshire nature reserve which was a haven for fungi including thousands of wild parasol mushrooms . I picked them carefully breaking from the base of the stem to ensure the mycelium stayed in place & more will come up in the future seasons, I filled up my backpack

These wild mushrooms have a dense texture and can survive a long cooking keeping a meaty chewy texture cooked up this mushroom ragu and saved the other half of the mushrooms to be dried

Wild Mushroom Ragu

15 parasol mushrooms – roughly chopped stems and caps
3 garlic cloves finely chopped
1 large onion finely chopped
1/2 bottle of red wine
1 tsp of sweet paprika
1 tbsp of mixed herbs ( oregano , thyme + marjoram)
Salt and Pepper

1. Sweat on the onions and garlic in a pan with a little olive oil until soft
2. Add the mushrooms , wine , paprika & herbs
3. Cover & simmer for 30 minutes , add a little water if required
4. Taste and season with salt and pepper
5. Mix with cooked pasta and serve

Orecchiette with wet garlic , broad beans ,rocket and feta salad

Maybe I should call this blog Girl Eating Garlic it certainly features quite heavily, pretty much every savory recipe and trust me I am working my way up to Garlic Ice Cream

The vegebox has a nice suprise this week Wet Garlic ,I confess I thought they were giant spring onions . It is the new season garlic fresh from the ground and still green less pungent and more easily digestable

Also from the vegebox some delicious broad beans which I adore . Popping them out the pods if fun the fleecy pod lining ,however I was surprised there is a new trend to peel the individual beans , removing the skin to reveal a brilliant green pod, I blame poncy chefs and Marks and Spencers salads.

So to peel or not to peel , well the great English cook Prue Leith once famously remarked “Life’s too short to stuff a mushroom” . Personally my lifes to short to peel a pile of broad beans ( for the record summer salad gurus Sam and Sam of Moro reckon if they are larger than you thumbnail i.e. late seeason. Actually I really like the texture of of a broad bean sliding out of its skin in my mouth.

This kind of pasta salad is a great way of using up wilted salad here rocket acts as a green herb rather than a salad leaf and quickyl cures in the salad .Such fresh and seasonal ingredients deserved a slosh of fancy olive oil

Orecchiette with wet garlic , broad beans rocket and feta salad

Per person
75g of dried pasta orecchiette is good becuase it forms little cups that the beans slip into
2 tbsp crumbled feta cheese
2 tbsp finely chopped wet garlic
Handful of rocket
Handful of fresh broad beans
Half a lemon for squeezing
Freshly ground black pepper

1. Boil the orichette and broad beans in salted water for 10 minutes
2. Drain while warm drizzle with olive oil , garlic and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice
3. Mix in the feta cheese rocket ( or other peppery leaf)
4. Grind over fresh black pepper

Red and Green Lentil Pasta Sauce

I have not been my usual prolific posting self recently getting my head around some exciting work projects involving some London commuting well as my regional work.

It all come at a bit of a rush and has been evenings meals based on cereal and milk . The result was a total body rebellion in the form of a viscious cold striking at the beggining of the Bank Holiday weekend . My promise to myself therefore to become more organised and make sure the freezer is stocked for late returns home .

This pasta sauce is one of those maximum taste recipes that freezes really well and has been part of my repertoire since my vegetarian student days . It combines both two types of lentils to give maximum texture contrasts , the green lentils keep a nutty bite while the red lentils pretty much dissolve giving a velvet thickness to the sauce. This sauce really exceeds its basic and cheap ingredients .

If you are eating immediately , mix the sauce with cooked pasta and
warm through it really benefits from being allowed to
thoroughly coat the pasta .

The sauce will keep well for a
couple of days in the fridge or can be frozen which I have to do
quickly as I am prone to eating it straight from the bowl

This makes 6 one -person portions

Red and Green Lentil Pasta Sauce

100g of green lentils , contienental or puy
100g of red lentils
4 cloves of garlic finely chopped
1 small onion finely chopped
400g ( 1 can ) of tinned tomatoes
1 pint of warm water
2 tbsp of dried mixed herbs
Salt and Pepper
1/2 cup of red wine

1. Fry the onion and garlic in a little oil in a lidded saucepan
2. Add the lentils , tomatoes , water herbs and wine
3. Bring to the boil and simmer for 40 minutes
4. Season to taste with salt and pepper

Roasted Gold Nugget Squash , Orzo , Rocket and Goats Cheese

Yesterday after a cloudy start , it was warm and lovely here in the South West , I walked home from work full of the joys of the proverbial Spring , but with the certain knowledge I need to up my game in the lunch stakes .

The reason ? Well for a long time I did not mention this blog to colleagues , however taking time off to go up to London word has got around and I have found my lunches are becoming subject to a certain level of scrutiny. Working from home for so long and with a fair bit of travelling for work , my few days in the office had become a bit dependant on baked potatoes and hummus from the cafe. I suppose everyone needs a little motivation once in while so determined to hold my head high in the lunch room today. with the weather warming up a colourful salad seemed suitable

There have been two squash sitting on my worktop for a few weeks now but I have not really been able to give them proper attention , although did manage to identify them as Gold Nugget

Was inspired to get back to the squash by the Great Big Veg Challenge , if you haven’t discovered this blog the premise one inspiring and creative mother is tackling her sons veg-phobia by working through the A-Z of vegetables , with fantastic recipes and stunning pictures … they are up to S for Squash

I love squash in salads stickiness soft sweetness and a colour that can’t be beaten . Looking a little non-descript from the outside this squash the flesh inside is a vibrant orange going even darker once roasted ,

Roasted Squash , Orzo , Rocket and Goats Cheese

Squash ( any orange-fleshed Butternut, Golden Nugget ,Pumpkin)
Orzo
Rocket or Spinach
Goats Cheese
Squeeze of Lemon Juice
Salt and Pepper

1. Thickly slice the squash removing the seeds.
2. Placed on a roasting tray ( you can drizzle over a little oil if you wish I don’t think it needs it)
3. Baked for 30 minutes at 200degC turning halfway through
4. Remove the skin , it is a little thick and chewy in salad , but delicious eaten dipped in a little dressing or butter
5. Mixing the roughly chopped squash with cooked orzo , goats cheese and rocket
6. Dress with a squeeze of lemon salt and pepper

Lunch is served , critics await and I have made enough for tasters.

if you liked this recipe you might like more of my recipes

Butternut Squash and Leek Quiche

Stuffed Roasted Butternut Squash

Butternut Squash White Beans and Black Kale Soup

Warm Lentil , Butternut Squash , Goats Cheese and Pancetta Salad

Rustic Wild Mushroom , Caramalised Onion Butternut Squash and Goats Cheese Tart

Salad of Butternut Squash , Green Beans Feta and Thyme

Squash Risotto