Sweet Potato and Three Bean Stew

30 08 2010

This year I decided to break with the norm on our allotments and not grow runner beans. Instead I’ve been growing borlottis, and two types of french – one purple and one green. This recipe uses all three though you could substitute runners or any tinned varieties.

A cross between a soup and a stew this is one of those few dishes I make that doesn’t have garlic or cheese (or both) in them. I ate this two days running. Day one as a stew with saffron infused basmati rice and day two as a soup with olive focaccia. My advice is to make too much as it tastes better if left in the fridge for a day.

3-4 tablespoons good olive oil
1 onion – finely chopped
2 sticks celery – finely chopped
½ yellow pepper – diced
½ red pepper – diced
1 sweet potato – peeled and diced
1 chilli – finely chopped – de-seeded if you don’t want it too hot
beans – I used about 40 french beans and the beans from about 20 borlottis
4-5 tomatoes – chopped
a tablespoon each of thyme, oregano and basil
vegetable stock
teaspoon salt

Heat the oil in a large casserole dish then fry the onion and celery until soft. Add the sweet potato, peppers, chili and herbs and continue to fry, stirring occasionally until the peppers soften. Add the tomatoes and beans, stir for a few minutes until the tomatoes start to break up then add enough stock to just come up to the same height as the vegetables. Put the lid on and transfer to the oven at 180C. Leave in the oven for about an hour. Remove and add salt as required.


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Categories : General, soup

Celeriac Soup with Red Pepper Salsa

10 01 2010

As the cold weather continues, the population continues to panic buy at the shops. Having found the local supermarket shelves empty of fresh vegetables I rummages around the bottom of the fridge and found an old celeriac. Must have been in there about 3-4 weeks I guess, but was still quite firm so thought I would turn it into soup. There isn’t much else you can do with celeriac other than soup or perhaps remoulade.

Having made the soup, it looked a little pale, especially as all my soup bowls are white, so I jazzed it up with a hot and spicy red pepper salsa.

For the soup
Knob butter
1 onion – chopped
1 clove garlic – chopped
2 sticks celery – chopped
1 celeriac – peeled and diced
1 medium potato – peeled and diced
Vegetable stock
Splash of single cream
Salt

For the salsa
2 roasted red peppers – from a jar
2 cloves garlic – from the same jar
2 small dried red chilis – or you could use chopped fresh chili
pinch of salt
black pepper
olive oil

Melt a large knob of butter in a large pan then fry the onion, garlic and celery gently until it starts to soften. Add the celeriac and potato, cover with stock, bring to boil then simmer until all the vegetables are soft. Blitz in a blender or puree with a stick blender then return to pan. Add a generous splash of sibgle cream and season to taste. Heat gently.

To make the salsa, simple put everything in a blender and whiz until smooth – adding olive oil as you go to ensure it isn’t to lumpy.

Serve the soup with a blob of salsa in the middle.


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Bean & Tomato Soup

18 11 2009

I recently visited the Blue Tomato Cafe in Rock and ate the most delicious (and stupidly expensive) tomato and butter bean soup. Here is my attempt at recreating it.

couple of tablespoons olive oil
1 onion – chopped
1 clove garlic – chopped
2 sticks celery – finely chopped
1 red pepper – diced
1 x 800g tin tomatoes – blended until smoooth
1 teaspoon paprika
1 whole red of green chili – sliced
vegetable stock
salt
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 x 400g tin butter beans – drained and discard loose skins
1 x 400g tin red kidney beans – drained

Heat oil, fry onion, garlic, celery and oregano until starting to soften. Add the pepper and chili, stir and fry for about 5 minutes. Now add the blended tomatoes. Add a teaspoon of Marigold bouillon then fill the tomato tin with water and add the water to the soup.

Add the beans, bring everyting to a gentle simmer and simmer with a lid on for around 20-30 minutes. Season with salt and serve piping hot.


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Mr Slater’s Soup

14 11 2009

Whilst I am a big fan of Nigel’s food, I don’t own any of his books. A friend at work made this and thoughtfully shared the recipe with me. This has to be one of my all time favourite soups. Roasted red pepper, tomato and chili soup. Perfect for a wet, windy British autumn.

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Put your oven onto 220C. Take a large roasting pan and place 3 red peppers (halved and deseeded), 5 whole tomatoes and 6 unpeeled cloves of garlic on it. Drizzle with oil, add a little salt and pepper, then roast for about 30 minutes. Nw take 3 red chilis, half them lengthwise and deseed them. Add to the roasting vegetables and close the oven door for a further 20 minutes.

When everything is charred and wrinkly, remove from the oven and place in a pan with 900ml of vegetable stock. Bring to boil then simmer for about 15 minutes. Let it cool a little then whiz it all up in a blender or with a stick blender.

Take a handful of mint leaves. Chop finely and mix with some olive oil.

To serve, put the soup in a bowl, top with some of the minty oil and some crumbled feta cheese.

Reminder to self: Buy some new soup bowls


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Spiced Cauliflower Soup

9 11 2009

Not quite a soup, not quite a curry, but delicious all the same

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Couple of tablespoons sunflower oil
1 large onion – chopped
1 clove garlic – chopped
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon turmeric
600 ml vegetable stock
1 x 400ml can coconut milk
1 cauliflower – cut into florets
handful fresh coriander – roughly chopped
½ teaspoon salt
optional hard boiled eggs – halved or quartered

Heat the oil in a pan, then fry off the garlic and onion until soft. Add the spices and fry for a few seconds then add the stock and coconut milk. Tip in the cauliflower and bring to boil. Simmer until cauliflower just soft then add salt, coriander and eggs.

Serve with hot buttered nan bread


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Abel & Cole Cheeses

7 11 2009

Those nice people at Abel & Cole sent me a box of organic cheese to try out….for free. How very kind of them. In the somewhat grubby but obviously re-used polystyrene box I got some Perl Las blue cheese, Websters Somerset Brie and a very tasty cheddar (at least that is what it says on the pack).

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So what to do with all this cheese?

First up, the Perl Las

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Celery, Cashew and Blue Cheese Soup

Knob of butter
1 onion – chopped
3 cloves garlic – chopped
1 head of celery, leaves and all – chopped
50g unsalted cashew nuts
A few more cashews for garnish
1 glass of white wine
About a litre of vegetable stock
80g blue cheese
Salt and pepper

Melt the butter in a large pan, then fry the onion, garlic and celery with the lid on until starting to soften, but not browned. Remove the lid and add the wine. Let the alcohol evaporate and the wine reduce, then add the stock – just enough to cover the vegetables. Bring to the boil then add the cashews and simmer until the celery is soft.

Blend with a stick blender or in a food processor then strain through a seive to remove the stringy celery bits.

Roughly chop up the cheese and add to the strained soup then whiz again to blend the cheese in. Return to the heat and keep warm.

Break up the remaining cashews and toast in a dry frying pan. Ladle the hot soup ito bowls and sprinkle some of the toasted cashews on top. No photo of this as I couldn’t make it look appetising against the white soup bowls I own.

The Perl Las is quite strong and does have a slightly bitter aftertaste, but the sweetness of the cashews tames this.

Next, the Tasty Cheddar

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Cheese Souffle

150ml milk
25g butter
25g plain flour
75g cheddar cheese – grated
Pinch chili powder
¼ teaspoon dry English mustard powder
A little grated nutmeg
3 eggs – separated
Salt, pepper

Place the milk, butter and flour in a pan. Heat and stir vigorously until blended then add the chili powder, mustard and nutmeg. Remove from the heat and add the grated cheese. Stir well then leave to cool a little.

While colling, whisk the egg whites until they form stiff peaks.

Add the egg yolks to the milk, butter and flour mixture then, using a metal spooon, fold in the egg whites.

Put the mixture into a greased souffle dish or six greased ramekins and place on a baking tray. Bake at 180C for about half an hour until set but still soft.

They call it tasty cheddar and that’s exactly what it is.

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I ate the brie with french bread and beetroot relish. Delicious.

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Burger Disaster

2 11 2009

OK so I had everything now to make the Strand Cafe Burgers. I wizzed the carrots, celery and onions, then found lots and lots of stringy bits of celery in the mix. Way too much to pick them all out. So onto the compost heap it went. Will start again at the weekend. I think fine chopping rather than wizzing perhaps is in order – at least for the celery and onion.

So in keeping with my current soup diet (I haa eeaen 5 soups in 3 days) I made a Thai Pumpkin Green Curry Soup which was actually quite nice. Rather than using lemograss, coriander, holy basil, chilis, and all that other stuff I just don’t keep in the kitchen, I cheated and used one of the few vegetarian green curry pastes available.

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This serves about 6 people
Heat some sunflower oil in a large pan.
Peel and de-seed half a medium pumpkin and chop roughly.
Add to hot oil and fry off for a few minutes.
Now add about 100g of curry paste – more if you want it hotter.
Pour over a standard 400g tin of coconut milk then top it off with water and a teapoon of stock powder.
Bring to boil then simmer until the pumpkin is soft.
Wizz it all with a stick blender of in the food processor. Add more water if the soup is too thick.
Serve with sliced chili, or coriander leaves or maybe sliced spring onions.

Apologies for the poor photo – little bit of spilt soup on the side of the bowl. It would never pass the Masterchef test.

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Beetroot Soup

22 08 2009

I’ve got hundreds of beetroot growing. Here is one of my favourite recipes – along with a new photo.

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Pea, Mint and Lettuce Soup

28 06 2009

I must say I could eat this soup forever. Just delicious. Light and fresh. The dried chili makes the back of your mouth tingle ever so slightly at the end of every mouthful. I served this with a home made rye and mixed seed loaf. This would no doubt be even better when the peas from the allotment are ready. Just a few more days and several bucket loads of water needed.

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This will make enough to serve 6-8 people

big knob of butter
2 shallots (or one small onion) – roughly chopped
1 dried chili
2 little gem lettuces – roughly chopped. Alternatively you could use any other lettuce – about half a head
400g petit pois
5-6 large springs of mint – stalks removed
1½ litres vegetable stock
150ml single cream

Melt the butter, then fry the shallots and chili until the shallots are softened. Now add the lettuce and stir until wilted. Put the rest of the ingredients except the cream in, bring to the boil, then simmer for about 5 minutes.

Remove the chili then whiz the soup up with a hand blender or in a food processor then strain through a sieve to remove the pea skins and any other lumpy bits.

Return the a low heat and add the cream. Mix well and serve when hot. I think this would also work well served cold.


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Courgette Soup

17 05 2009

I found this on a random Google search one day when looking for something to do with all my courgettes from the allotment. It sounds like it’s going to be a bit watery and bland, but the end result – with the addition of cream cheese – is far from it.

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1 tablespoon olive oil
Large knob of butter
1 onion – peeled and roughly chopped
1 leek – finely sliced
2 cloves garlic – roughly chopped
3 medium potatoes – peeled and diced
3 medium courgettes – diced
Vegetable stock
3-4 tablespoons Cream cheese (Philadelphia or Mascarpone) or natural Greek yogurt
Salt
Black pepper
snipped chives to garnish

Heat the oil and butter in a large saucepan. When the butter has melted add the onion, leek and garlic. Fry gently for about 5-7 minutes till softened then add the potato and cook for 10 minutes over a low heat. Add courgettes and enough stock to just cover the vegetables. The courgettes will release more water as they cook. Bring everything to the boil then simmer for a further 20 minutes or so until the potatoes are nice and soft.

Place the contents in a food processor or blender. Add the cream cheese or Greek yogurt and whiz until all the lumps have gone.

Transfer back to a saucepan, add salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste. Heat and serve topped with warm bread and a few snipped chives.


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