A wonderful festive meal made in no time.

Last week Julie asked when we could make a festive meal. I was not planning to do this quite yet, but seeing the first red pepper and spinach in the allotment made me think of the vegetable loaf we made a few years ago and was put in my first cook book.

The carrots and the potatoes too came in handy as they were roasted whilst the puff pastry loaf was getting ready in the oven.

We made some vegannaise (using aquafaba) which was used in the loaf.

Later the chickpeas and broccoli from the allotment were turned into creamy broccoli and chickpea soup.

This time we had a full house with 8 adults and baby Tomo after the meal we walked to the allotment and harvested some raspberries and beetroot to take home.

Courgette curry

 courgette curry

To use up some excess courgettes this curry went down very well. Would be good with rice as well as naan bread.

Courgette Bread with tomato sauce

 Today we made courgette bread and tomato sauce.

Having been away for a few days, the courgettes became too big and the tomatoes needed processing for storage.  As I found this crock pot recipe for tomato sauce, I thought to try this one. There was a lot of juice, I made soup with it and used the thick tomatoes for paste.

We also roasted tomatoes to store in oil.

For a drink with our meal we made a refreshing cucumber and mint cordial

Mungbean curry and flat bread

Today was the first time that a larger group joined me in the kitchen to make mung bean curry with rice and flatbread (we used 200g SR flour, 5gr salt and 50g boiling water) if you don't have SR flour, use the link for a similar recipe.

Afterwards we walked to the allotment to enjoy yellow raspberries that are just starting to ripen, tomatoes and we picked runner and french beans to take home. We even had a groups photo before the drizzle appeared.

Fat Hen, steamed and in a quiche

 

Seiko, Asami and Hiroe joined me today while we prepared the fat hen/ white goose feet/  or lambs quarter.  We steamed it with onion, and garlic to go with the quiche in which we added some of the steamed fat hen. The end result: yummy

Afterwards we went to the allotment to find some growing Fat hen and picked some strawberries, yellow and read raspberries. On our way back to the bikes we bumped into Bob who gave Hiroe and Asami a little bunch of sweet peas.