Beetroot and Bacon Risotto

31st of August and already it feels like Autumn! Need something warming and cheerful to buck me up and this fits the bill (especially as I have a lot of beetroot in the vegetable bed!) Serves 2-3.

Ingredients
1 tennis ball sized beetroot, grated
1 small onion finely chopped
220g rissoto rice
750ml stock
2 rashers of smoked bacon (chopped into lardons)
small handful of freshly grated parmasan cheese
large knob of butter

Fry the bacon lardons in a hot pan and when coloured add onion and butter and cook until the onion has softened. Add the rice and stir to coat in the butter. Add the grated beetroot and stir and fry for a few minutes before adding the stock bit by bit until the rice is cooked. Add the parmasan, butter and seasoning. Add a few parmasan shavings and a drizzle of olive oil to garnish (I used some mandarin infused oil which added a nice sweet/citrus edge to cut through the earthy beetroot).

Experiments with Courgettes

An unexpected evening with only me to cook for and after having several nights of chilli and curry I fancied something a bit simpler (and containing some vitamins!). Having popped out to the garden and collected an armful of courgettes, a basket of salad leaves and a handful of slender runner beans I decided to make some fritters.
Not made these before so it was a bit of an experiment and to be honest I'd only give them 6/10. More experimentation needed.

Ingredients (For 1)
1 medium courgette (grated)
1 medium egg
40g self raising flour
dash of milk
salt and pepper (be generous with both)
oil for shallow frying


Make a batter with the egg, flour, salt, pepper and milk. Add the courgette and mix. Heat the pan, add the oil and then when the oil is hot add blobs of batter/courgette mix (I made 3). Cook for 3-4 minutes on each side until golden brown and risen slightly. Serve with salad and tomato ketchup.

Next time I may add one or more of the following: some grated cheese, some herbs, some spring onions or serve them with a minty yoghurt dressing. Chips might be good too.

A Midweek Chicken Roast

Our garden is starting to produce plenty of goodies, in particular courgettes and this week I've had a couple of nice meals based around them (serves 2).

Ingredients
2 skinless chicken breasts (or 1 monkfish tail)
4 rashers of streaky bacon
2 red onions quartered
2 red or yellow pepper cut into large chunks
2 medium courgettes cut into large chunks (I used a yellow spherical one)
2-4 sage leaves
Olive oil

Cut a pocket in each chicken breast and insert the sage leaves. Wrap the streaky bacon around the breast and secure with a skewer or cocktail sticks. Heat the over to about 180 degrees and mix the vegetables with the olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast vegetable in the oven for 15 minutes then add the chicken breasts and turn the oven down to 160. Roast for 20-30 minutes until the chicken and vegetables are cooked through.

Serve with a simple green salad and/or crusty bread to mop up the juices.

The Awesome Courgette Monster

You turn your back on the garden for 5 minutes and suddenly everything starts to crop. I have already harvested half a dozen round yellow courgettes (each the size of a tennis ball) and the same of long green ones. Then I found hiding under the mixed salad leaves a whopper of a green courgette.

An Assortment of Courgettes

I'll probably make this into a vegetable curry at the weekend Most of the yellow ones have already been claimed by the wife to take into work for her boss or to give to our neighbours. I have been able to roast some with red onions, peppers and tomatoes and served them with herby couscous and fried hallumi cheese and they were very tasty. Good texture, quite firm and tasty. Broad beans, planted late, are just about ready. Interestingly they have not been attacked by blackfly instead slugs have been eating the leaves. The mixed salad leaves are doing well and the runner and french beans are flowering nicely. Jerusalem artichokes are taller than me and the sweetcorn is shooting up. Onions, beetroot and leeks are filling out nicely so I should be cropping all the way through to Christmas.

Aubergine Bake

We love aubergines we do. They take up the savoury flavour of anything they are coked with and in particular fit in well with aromatic North African spicing. So after a brisk bit of work in the garden I threw this together.
Serves 2-3

Ingredients
1 medium aubergine cut into 1/2 cm rounds
250g minced beef (or lamb)
1/2 a pepper (diced)
1/2 a courgette (diced)
1/2 a can of chopped tomatoes
1 large onion (finely chopped)
6 button mushrooms (diced)
1 bay leaf
1 cinnamon stick
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon corriander
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
olive oil
salt and pepper

For the topping:
1 egg
50ml milk
50ml yoghurt
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
handful of grated chedder

Fry the meat in a little oil until brown, add the onion, courgette, mushrooms and pepper and fry until softened. Add the spices and tomatoes and simmer gently for about 15 minutes.
Fry the aubergine slices in olive oil until softened and lightly browned.

In an oven proof dish layer the sauce and the aubergines. Beat the topping together and spoon over the top of the meat and aubergine layers. Bake in a moderate oven for 20-30 minutes until browned and bubbling. Serve with a green salad or peas and garden beans.

For a vegetarian option replace the mince with cooked lentils, beans or extra vegetables.

Chicken Stretching

Been a while since I blogged, work has been very busy, but it hasn't stopped me from cooking and thinking about food. Over recent years we have cut back on the meat we've eaten, instead buying less, better quality meat. Also I hate waste so when we have a roast chicken I like to make the most of it!
This weekend I roasted at free range corn fed chicken with some onion wedges, bay leaves, sage, thyme, onion, and new potatoes, adding a punnet of cherry tomatoes for the last half-hour.
Plenty of leftovers after this which went on to make the following meals:

• Monday work lunch of couscous, herbs, red onion, pepper, chicken and tomatoes
• Monday supper of a soup (made with chicken stock from the picked over carcass) of chicken, carrots, onion, canned tomatoes and sliced spring greens (with a portion for my lunch the next day).
• Tuesday supper of chicken curry (chicken, grated onion, carrot, spring greens, apple, dried fruit, cumin, coriander, fennugreek, turmeric, cardamom and creamed coconut), with a portion left over for my lunch the next day.

So from one chicken we got nine meal portions (and could probably have made 10-12 as they were generous portions) not including the little treats the cats persuaded me to dispense! 

What's Growing?

I've just about filled the two vegetable beds with the plants for this year. Some I've grown from seed, some are perennials and some I've bought from the local allotment association (HAAGA) and from Ryton Organic Gardens. This year I'll be growing in the vegetable beds:

• Rhubarb - found this in the garden when we moved in many years ago buried under all the rubbish left by the previous owners. Not so good this year as the weather has been very dry.
• Jerusalem Artichokes - planted a few tubers a couple of years ago and now have a small forest of plants. Great for soups or roasted with beef or chicken.
• Courgettes - Two different types this year; a yellow globe type and a more standard green one.
• French, Broad and Runner beans - Heritage seeds from Ryton, it will be interesting to see how they taste.
• Onions - grown from sets from HAAGA
• Leeks - Heritage plants from Ryton, these will see me into winter
• Salad Greens - a mixed set of leaves

Bean Poles in place - annoyed cat in foreground

In planters:

• Aubergines - small lilac globes some being grow in the greenhouse and some in the sunnier area by the greenhouse.
• Tomatoes - Several heritage types from Ryton including one called Giant Green Sausage growing on the patio in large, deep planters.
• Herbs - several types of mint, sage, hyssop, rosemary, bay and lime balm.

Trees:

• Two apples - an old Cox type (was in the garden when we arrived) and a Egmount Russet - my favourite apple.
• Victoria Plum - far too large for our garden because of the rootstock it is on but it produces buckets of juicy flavourful fruit every year. Plenty for me and plenty for the birds!

Jerusalem Artichokes at the front centre

Hopefully we will have the perfect mix of sunny warm days and warm wet nights this summer and a bumper crop of goodies!