WHAT TO DO WITH CELERIAC?!

Similar in taste and texture to parsnip but with a prominent flavour of celery, many

of us are unsure what to do with them which is a shame when they are so easy to grow.

Celeriac can be cooked and mashed with potato, diced and added to stews and soups,

chipped or roasted like a spud or grated in coleslaw.

Here however, I  have made a cheesy gratin with poppy seeds and roasted pumpkin that you can 

eat on its own or as a side dish. 

Ingredients

One Celeriac - peeled, quartered and thinly sliced

1 tsp chopped chili

1 tsp poppy seeds

1 tbsp cream cheese

250ml single cream

Roast pumpkin (optional)

Grated Cheddar for topping

Olive oil

Salt & Pepper

Warm the olive oil in a large frying pan, add the chili and let it sizzle for a few seconds.

Add the sliced celeriac and salt and pepper and fry for about 5 minutes turning regularly.

Add the poppy seeds and the cream cheese and continue to stir carefully until the

cheese has melted.

Stir in the single cream and bring to a gentle bubble before tipping into a gratin dish.

Place into a preheated oven (180 degrees) for about half an hour.

Five minutes before the end, grate on a generous helping of Cheddar cheese

and place back in the oven to melt.

(We also added some left over roast pumpkin which was a delicious addition but you can leave this out) 

Absolutely delicious

So next time you walk passed them in the supermarket, drop one into your trolley

and have a go at this!

SPICY SWEET POTATO AND BUTTERNUT SQUASH SOUP

Try this super quick, super tasty vegetable soup with a hunk of bread and butter.

A healthy, meat free lunch or tea with a spicy kick.

Ingredients

50g butter

1 medium onion, chopped

½-1 tsp green Thai curry paste (depending on how hot you like it!)
½-1 tsp red Thai curry paste

2 sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed

350g butternut squash, peeled and cubed

700ml of vegetable stock

160ml coconut milk or cream

Natural yogurt and chopped coriander to garnish

Melt the butter in a saucepan and gently fry off the chopped onion until softened.

Spoon in the Thai pastes and fry for another minute or so.

Add the cubed sweet potato and butternut squash and cook for a further 5 minutes on a medium heat to soften a little and take in the curry flavours.

Add the stock, bring to the boil and simmer for 25-30 minutes

to allow the vegetables to cook through.

Take off the heat and blend until lump free.

Add the coconut milk

Its now ready to serve

Spoon on some natural yogurt and sprinkle with chopped coriander, parsley or lovage

Serve with a hunk of bread or toast

Apologies for my lack of posts in the past fortnight, however, I have lots to add and will be posting up some great stuff very soon.

In the meantime, take a look at my beautiful brassica!  I can't take credit for it though,

 its from my dad's garden and he traded it with me for a half dozen eggs.

A fair exchange - what a beast.

VENISON LEFTOVERS

Many of you will have seen my previous post on venison, a roast haunch for Sunday lunch on the BBQ.  Well, as is usually the case with a roast dinner, there was plenty left over which we ate throughout the week - and it was just as good cold.

Apart from cutting a slither off every time I opened the fridge, we've had a lunch of

stuffed venison pitta breads and a meal of cold venison with char grilled Mediterranean veg.

Toast and split the pitta bread

 Stuff with the cold sliced venison, red pepper, spring onion, tomato and goats cheese

And drizzle over some sweet chilli sauce for an extra something

This one is locally handmade from Gulls Cottage, Dedham, bought from our local deli.

Warm and crunchy with a spicy hot kick!

Use any other cold meat or remove altogether for a vegetarian option

For the venison with charcoal grilled Mediterranean veg.....

Grill three peppers on all sides until the skin has charred and is bubbling away from the flesh. 

Put into a plastic bag for 5 minutes to allow to sweat.   

Remove from the bag, peel off the skin, de-seed and thinly slice. Put to the side.

Steam a handful of green beans and put to the side.

Slice one courgette and four mushrooms and toss in a desert spoon

of olive oil with six whole trimmed spring onions.

Char grill in a griddle pan, placing just a few slices in at a time and cooking on both sides.

No oil required.

Press them down as they cook to get an even colour.  

In a separate bowl add a desert spoon of chopped chives and one of chopped lovage.

(two chives if you don't have the lovage)

Add eight finely chopped black olives and a teaspoon of finely chopped capers

and then mix in one teaspoon of dijon mustard and a tablespoon of raspberry vinegar

or good red wine vinegar.

Throw in the char grilled vegetables, sliced peppers and green beans and toss together.

Serve with slices of cold venison and cous cous

 So, all in all its fed the family well for the last week and it didn't cost a bean!

A DAY OF MOWING AND HOEING, PLANTING AND SEWING

Another cracking day in the garden and how productive we've all been!

First job of the day was to fix the bean frame that was flattened by a tree that

 came down on the veg patch last winter

Will rides the sit on mower, for the first cut of the year - it only seems like yesterday since....

.....me and Will in 2000 - how things change.

  

Courgettes get a watering - hope we have some rain soon!

We have a few large pots and containers near the house that we plant extra produce in.

This large tin carrier has holes drilled in the bottom and is half filled with stones and rubble for drainage.

It works well for lettuce, radishes or spring onions.

A friend gave us a few strawberry plants last summer which we planted and were amazed how quickly we got fruit and how much.  The plants have multiplied and we've now transferred some to pots.

And please to see that our young gooseberry bush has survived the winter

A little sunshine and our herbs are coming to life, how Ive missed you! 

Seeds sewn today included carrots, turnips, cabbage, spring onion,

lettuce, chard and purple sprouting broccoli

Our landing window sill is perfect for growing plug plants through spring -

more successful than the propagator we used to have.

Here we have dwarf beans, climbing beans, courgettes, cabbages and carrots.
That's our fig plant in the middle that we started growing last year.
We brought it in for the winter and it will go back out just as soon as the last frost has been and gone.
Our patio area is south facing and gets the sun all day, so the fig tree should flourish.

MOTHER'S DAY LUNCH - SLOW ROAST HOGGET (AND WE DID!)

Mothering Sunday and we had invited mine and Marie's parents over for a family lunch.  I knew I was going to cook a Sunday roast but was deliberating on what joint of meat.  There was the usual suspects of course, pork, beef, chicken, lamb but I wanted to try something different. I remembered that many years back, I had seen the two fat ladies cooking mutton and singing its praises, so I went in search.  Since I was heading over to Ipswich for work anyway, I dropped into the butchers at the Suffolk Food Hall. Great place, have you been? Huge selection of produce and a cafe for lunch break.

They didn't have a Mutton joint big enough unfortunately but what they did have was a shoulder of hogget (lamb over one year old  and less than two) which I was more than happy to try.  

So first thing Sunday morning, I readied the meat for the oven with rosemary and garlic and cooked it for six hours at 130°C, regularly checking and renewing the herbs which together with the juices made a beautiful thick gravy.

Cooked and ready to carve, the hogget was incredibly moist and had so much flavour, more so than

young lamb and a better texture I thought.

A good choice as everyone around the table that day would agree.

Served with roast potato's, a selection of vegetables and celeriac dauphinoise which I have to say

could not have complimented the meat more.

To make the dauphinoise, or my version of it....

Slice one celeriac, a large onion and a small chilli and layer up in a casserole dish. Pour over 200ml of double cream and sprinkle chilli powder over the top.  Cook for 50 minutes at 180 degrees.

Hugh's pudding cake to finish - see the next post

(when I've written it!)

SUNDAY BEST

We all love Sundays  and no matter what the plans are, roast dinner is almost always on the menu. 

This good old English classic is the ultimate in our house and plates are piled high. 

 Everyone pitches in preparing veg, making Yorkshire's, sauces and stuffing's and tending the meat! 

This weekend it was an organic, free range loin of pork.

Moist and tasty with the perfect crackling top which can only be found in good quality meat.

Buy from your local butcher or farm shop as most supermarket meat is mass produced, dry, course and flavourless. Pay a little more and enjoy more knowing you supported free range farming and happier pigs.  

                    A lovely selection of local veg including leek gratin

My legendary yorkys - not an Aunt Bessys in sight, thankfully.

The Sunday roast in many houses, is the one meal of the week when everyone comes together and spends some well needed family time.  

Its also the one meal of the week that we are truly justified to way over indulge on and spend the rest of the day motionless on the sofa! Happy days :)