Experimentation and adaptation

Today there was one recipe that I really wanted to do and that was Erika's demonstration of the agar agar that was given to me by a Japanese friend but I did not know what to do with it as the instructions were all in Japanese. In came our hero and Erika arrived with a pre soaked amount of agar agar and showed us how to make a delicious Fruit Jelly

Erika pre soaked the agar agar for 2 hours before she came to our kitchen.
She then drained it and chopped it fine.

Erika chopping the Agar Agar

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Ingredients 

400ml water

200ml milk

50g sugar

20g honey

4g agar

Fruit like satsumas, pineapples, kiwi

Method 

1. Bring water to a boil in a small pan, then turn down the heat to simmer. Add in the agar and stir well until it has dissolved.
2. Add milk, sugar and honey then stir every few seconds. Continue until the agar and sugar dissolved completely.
3. Pour it into 1 large or 2 small shallow dishes with fruits and let them cool down before placing them in the fridge to chill. (it will take 30-40 minutes to firm up).

Thank you Erika for showing us how to make it!

As autumn as well and truly arrived,  this morning I harvested all the late (July) sown carrots in my garden.
   
 They were small but enough to make a tasty Carrot and Ginger Soup (VG)with. Melendra chopped some almonds as a topping for the soup

For the recipe we needed butterbean but as there were none in the shop we used rinsed baked beans and the recipe turned out lovely and creamy.
We used some of the carrot tops to make a pesto with and stirred through the soup.  There was loads of it which I put in the freezer for future use.

The pesto called for parmesan cheese, as we were trying to make it as much plant based as possible, we made the parmesan cheese with cashew nuts, garlic powder salt and nutritional yeast.
The nuts we used were hazel nuts (picked from Michael's garden) (thanks Li  and Melendra
for shelling them all!)


We even had time to have a walk to the allotment, harvest the Spinach in the sunshine

and make the polpette for our main meal, Orzo and spinach Polpette, a tasty and colourful dish.

A quick trip to the garden brought us: Broccoli, Leek and carrots

    Heavy rain was forecasted this morning, so I decided to nip out to the allotment to harvest vegetables for today's From Spade to Plate cooking sessions.

With the broccoli florets we adapted the leek and walnut orzotto recipe we have made in the past and used broccoli instead.  

“Ingredients
Oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 leeks, trimmed and finely sliced
160g orzo
500ml vegetable stock 
200ml white wine or 200ml additional stock
Handful of finely chopped parsley
85g crumbled Gorgonzola Dolce
Juice ½ lemon (tip: freeze left-over lemon shell for lemon zest)
Handful walnut pieces

Method
Put the walnuts in a frying pan and dry roast until fragrant - keep a close eye on them as they burn easily; chop, then set aside
Fry onion with some salt and cook for 5-6 minutes; add the leeks and cook until softened, then add the orzo and stir until coated in oil; turn up the heat, pour in the 200ml wine or stock and boil until almost completely evaporated
Pour in the hot stock, 2 ladles at a time; once the liquid is almost gone, add more -  keep adding the stock this way until finished; if the orzo needs more liquid to cook, add a couple of ladles of boiling water
Once the orzo is cooked and the sauce is creamy, stir in most of the walnuts and parsley, and all the Gorgonzola and lemon juice. 
Taste, season, divide among plates and top with the remaining nuts and parsley
”Excerpt From: “Karina's Cookbook v1.” iBooks. 


With the left over vegetables (onion, bits of leek leaf, potato, carrots, broccoli stalks and leaves and a handful of peas) we made a delicious (End of the week soup)

Ingredients

1 small onion

2 tablespoons oil

The last of your vegetables in the fridge; carrot, broccoli stems, celery, cabbage finely chopped

Some frozen peas if you have some

Vegetable stock

Salt and pepper

Parsley or Chives leaves for garnish

Method

Chop onion and sauté until transparent.

Add remaining ingredients, cover with stock and simmer for 30 minutes

Adjust seasoning to taste

Add parsley or chive leaves for garnish

Every Friday I empty my fridge, clean it out and use everything so I always know that nothing in the fridge is more than 1 week old.  Having a soup recipe like this helps a lot, as it is a great way to get rid of some bits and pieces that otherwise might have gone to waste. 

Nice with some freshly baked bread

The Carrot leaves and some of the broccoli leaves we used to make a pesto, for the group to take home and use in pasta.  

Pesto
Ingredients
1 cup carrot top greens, tough stems removed
1 cup spinach
1 large clove garlic, roughly chopped
½ cup roasted unsalted cashews, almonds, walnuts (whatever you have on hand)
½ teaspoon sea salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper
½ cup rapeseed oil

Method
Prep the carrot tops greens: rinse to dislodge any dirt and discard tough stems
Place the carrot tops greens, baby spinach, chopped garlic, roasted cashews, salt and pepper in a food processor
Pulse several times, scraping the sides down with a rubber spatula
Slowly pour in the oil in a steady stream, pulsing until smooth”