Lemon curd, lemon puffs and Cheese, 'bacon' and leek tarts

 I bought a box of puff pastry and looked for recipes to use the whole sheet up. No waste and only use the oven once.

First we made the 'mushroom bacon' to go onto the savoury tart. Cheese, Pesto and 'Bacon’ tart

I then made the puff pastry cases and filled them with the lemon curd that I had made yesterday as it was properly cooled and set.   lemon curd, Lemon Curd Tarts, 

The lemon curd was made at the end, so I can use it to go into yoghurt or go onto my toast.

 A surprise visit from Holland where Gwen and Emma took this picture of me explaining how to make my mother's favourite Lemon Curd

Ciabatta bread with a fig and Goat's cheese topping

 We made ciabatta bread which went down a storm. 

As the fig harvest is so good, we used the ciabatta as a base and the figs and goat's cheese with a balsamic vinegar and rocket topping. 

Instead of the balsamic vinegar we used the blackberry balsamic vinegar that was made a month or so ago.

As we had some waiting time, I showed how I normally make yoghurt. The yoghurt has just come out of the tea cozy and has set well. It will be in the fridge overnight. I will then put it through a muslin cloth to get a thicker greek style yoghurt and the whey will be just for scone making. As my old school friend Franka and her husband will be coming for tea and they love to try a real English scone (Alice's recipe)

Alice's scones

Ingredients

225g plain flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

1½ teaspoon salt

50g frozen butter 

1 small egg 

125ml plain yoghurt

150g crumbled feta cheese

2 spring onions, chopped, or herbs or chilli flakes (optional)

A little milk to glaze

Method 

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C
2. Sift flour, baking powder and salt through a fine sieve into a bowl.
3. With your fingers, rub in the grated frozen butter until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs.
4. Add the crumbled cheese and chopped spring onion.
5. Whisk the egg into the yoghurt with a fork. Make a well in the flour mixture, add the liquid and stir again with a fork, making a soft dough.
6. Gather the dough in well-floured hands and knead very lightly. On a floured surface, press out the dough with a rolling pin to not less than 1.25cm thick.
7. Using a 5cm glass or ring cutter, firmly cut out the scones. Gather up the scraps, kneading them together to more scones. 
8. Transfer the scones to a well greased baking sheet. With a pastry brush wipe the tops of the scones with milk mixture.
9. Cook in the oven for 10-12 minutes, or until well-risen and golden brown.
10. Makes 6-8 scones depending on the size of cutter.

We also made some yoghurt. I normally do this using milk delivered in  returnable glass bottles so that we reduce plastic containers

How I make yoghurt 

Ingredients

2 cups  whole milk

2 tablespoons plain greek yoghurt

Method

1. In a saucepan, over low heat bring the milk to a simmer. It will take around 15-20 minutes. The freshest milk will yield you better yogurt.
2. Once it starts to bubble turn off the heat and set aside. You notice a skin has formed on your milk, that is normal.
3. Let it cool down to 120 degree F. 
4. Once cooled whisk in the yogurt.
5. Pour into a sterilized jar and tightly close the lid.  • Line a deep bowl with a thick tea towel and place in the jar of yogurt. Wrap the jar up well in the towel and let it sit out in a warm part of your kitchen over night.  (you can also use a thermous flask
6. After this time, pop the jar in the fridge and let it get cold, roughly 2-3 hours. Once chilled your yogurt will be firm and thick in texture. (you could drain this through a muslin bag to get a greek style yoghurt, keep the whey for baking)
7. Before you add anything, keep a couple of spoonfuls aside for the next batch. At this point you can add sugar, sweetener, honey, fruit and vanilla.
8. Keep in the fridge for up to 3 weeks.

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.

Wild Garlic and potato soup with coriander soda bread

 Today we made wild garlic and potato soup with coriander soda bread

Thai week - Spring rolls, chocolate lava cakes, Thai Curry and lemon poppy cakes

 On Monday we made Thai spring rolls with a Peanut dipping sauce

As a dessert we made little chocolate lava cakes in a coffee cup. It was so good that on Monday I made them again when we had friends in the garden.  After so much chocolates I thought we'd try to change the recipe a bit and make lemon poppy steam cakes. We used home made lemon essence we made it last year and tasted beautifully lemony.

The Thai Curry we had with rice was quick and easy. Rather than using chicken breasts I used mushrooms which worked out very well.

Cannelloni with pear and blue cheese salad

The allotment has lots of spinach and broccoli at the moment, so wanted to make something 'new' with it.

When I found  Cannelloni stuffed spinach almonds  (recipe from Cordon vert by Colin Spencer’s) Page 43  I thought it would be a nice change.

I also had a pear left in the fridge, so a quick, tasty Pear blue cheese and walnut salad was made with the lambs lettuce that is growing really well this year.

Mushroom and spinach pasta

 As this week I am inviting students from  St Johns' college to join our zoom meeting, I wanted to try a quick and easy pasta dish with home made pasta without a machine. ( as not everyone has one)

We made this mushroom and spinach dish, it turned out well and had a big group join in.

Dear Karina

Hi, thanks for the session today.

I made a pasta for four people together and ate it as a lunch.

It was so delicious and everyone liked the fresh pasta more than the dried one!

Thank you very much.

Best wishes 

Hiroe

Sweet and Sour chinese vegetables and Chickpea flour tofu

 Today we made Sweet and Sour Chinese vegetables from the 2nd cook book

We also made the Chickpea flour tofu also called Burmese Tofu and had it on a bed of rice.

Not much in the allotment at the moment, but still some delicious meals

 This week I had to be creative as at this time of the year there is not much and with this week's heavy frost even less to harvest.

With this in mind, the Spinach Orzo turned out really well. This quick and delicious meal was a real winner.  We did make enough for 3 hungry mouths so after all was tidied up, I had a walk in the sunshine (very slippery under foot though) to give June a taster

As I had a can of tomato in my cupboard, we turned it into a creamy tomato soup that we had as an evening meal in the end.

Today's from Spade to Plate. One-Pan orzo with Spinach and Feta (and pinenuts as suggested by Julie) The end result....? A gorgeous lunch, made with input of 6 of us. The 2 ingredient tomato soup was quick and tasty.

Carmen Maria Renwick

suggestion to serve with a parmesan topping was genius. All in all, another lovely cooking session.

Christmas coffee morning - Book launch

Over the last few weeks,  have been finishing my 4th From Spade to Plate recipe book. Lovely to see these pictures from 2 years ago when we launched the first book .

Today was such an exciting day as it was the launch of the first From Spade to Plate cookbook.
It was lovely to see how much my friends enjoyed them, even though we have already spotted a few mistakes!  So the 2nd edition will be in the making.

I made some hot apple Christmas juice, with puff pastry mince pies, anise biscotti and an amazing strawberry Christmas star. To be honest I was surprised myself. Here is the link on how to make it.
The anise biscotti are included in the cookbook.

        

Brussels Sprout soup with a Camembert Snowflake

Having had some leftover Brussels sprouts, we turned them into a delicious Brussels Sprout Soup.

It was quick and easy to make, a great standbye recipe for the days after Christmas dinner.

As a sharing plate idea  I showed how to make the Camembert Snowflake.  For those of you who might like to make it but are not ready to eat it and you want to wait for a larger group of people to share it during the festive season. You can make the whole dish beforehand and freeze instead of putting it in the oven. Bring it out of the freezer a few hours before you want to put it in the oven, and you have yourself you Merry little Christmas.

Our first Zoom Meeting! Thai butternut Soup and Scones,

 Nervous but excited as today will be the first (hopefully of many) Zoom meetings with my friends.

As due to lockdown we cannot do From Spade to plate, I wonder if this may be a little alternative to see my friends and do some cooking at the same time.

First surprise:  We had  visitors from abroad, Seiko from Tokyo  and Karina from Bonn join us. Carmen, June, Julie and Consuelo joined in as well.

We made Thai butternut soup, with some cheese scones. The original recipe came from Alice, who used to do an English Tea and served fluffy home made scones with clotted cream and jam. I changed it to be savoury but still they come out fluffy and light. 

As today was not an oven day, I baked them in a pan on the stove.

Alice's Scones

Ingredients

225g plain flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

1½ teaspoon salt

50g frozen butter 

1 small egg 

125ml plain yoghurt

150g crumbled feta cheese

2 spring onions, chopped, or herbs or chilli flakes (optional)

A little milk to glaze

Method 

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C
2. Sift flour, baking powder and salt through a fine sieve into a bowl.
3. With your fingers, rub in the grated frozen butter until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs.
4. Add the crumbled cheese and chopped spring onion.
5. Whisk the egg into the yoghurt with a fork. Make a well in the flour mixture, add the liquid and stir again with a fork, making a soft dough.
6. Gather the dough in well-floured hands and knead very lightly. On a floured surface, press out the dough with a rolling pin to not less than 1.25cm thick.
7. Using a 5cm glass or ring cutter, firmly cut out the scones. Gather up the scraps, kneading them together to more scones. 
8. Transfer the scones to a well greased baking sheet. With a pastry brush wipe the tops of the scones with milk mixture.
9. Cook in the oven for 10-12 minutes, or until well-risen and golden brown.
10. Makes 6-8 scones depending on the size of cutter.

We also made some yoghurt. I normally do this using milk delivered in  returnable glass bottles so that we reduce plastic containers

How I make yoghurt 

Ingredients

2 cups  whole milk

2 tablespoons plain greek yoghurt

Method

1. In a saucepan, over low heat bring the milk to a simmer. It will take around 15-20 minutes. The freshest milk will yield you better yogurt.
2. Once it starts to bubble turn off the heat and set aside. You notice a skin has formed on your milk, that is normal.
3. Let it cool down to the blood temperature. You can test by place your finger in there and if you can’t feel the milk around your finger then it is at blood temperature.
4. Once cooled whisk in the yogurt.
5. Pour into a sterilized jar and tightly close the lid. • Line a deep bowl with a thick tea towel and place in the jar of yogurt. Wrap the jar up well in the towel and let it sit out in a warm part of your kitchen over night.
6. After this time, pop the jar in the fridge and let it get cold, roughly 2-3 hours. Once chilled your yogurt will be firm and thick in texture.
7. Before you add anything, keep a couple of spoonfuls aside for the next batch. At this point you can add sugar, sweetener, honey, fruit and vanilla.
8. Keep in the fridge for up to 3 weeks.

Sweet potato, pumpkin and kefir soup, with cabbage parcels

Last week, Julie gave me a bottle of Kefir to give to my friend. It turned out that she had left for holiday so what better to do then use it ourselves.
I found this spiced pumpkin-sweetp otato soup with Kefir it was a creamy velvety soup, which we had with a lazy dough bread roll.  We used the dough that we made on Monday, so Thank you to the monday group for making this lovely dough.


Then Carmen came with a page out of Velvet magazine op page 38 the Allotment diary .Stuffed Savoy Cabbage Leaves.


Ingredients
Large savoy cabbage
oil
3 carrots Shred
300g mushrooms - chop very finely
1 leek- chop very finely
1 tsp cumin seeds
2 cloves of crushed garlic
50g toasted hazelnuts
50g fetta cheese

Method
Carefully pull the 12 outermost leaves off the cabbage and set to one side. Remove the core from the remaining cabbage and finely shred (we have decided to also shred the first full dark green leaves as they were a little tough.

Heat 1tbsp oil in a pan over a medium heat  and add the shredded cabbage, carrots, mushrooms and leek. Sprinkle a good pinch of salt and pepper and cook for approx 5 minutes until starting to soften
   
Add the cumin seeds and garlic. Cook for a further 10 minutes stirring occasionally until the moisture of the mushrooms has cooked off and the veg is just starting to turn golden.

Put a large saucepan of water on the boil and pre-heat oven to 180 degrees. Take the cabbage leaves you removed earlier and shave some of the thick stem in the middle of each leave. Once the water is boiling, plunge the leaves in for 1-2minutes and then drain. (if your leaves are dark green, boil a little more as they could otherwise be tough)  




Chop you toasted nuts and crumble the feta- taste and add extra seasoning if necessary.




To assemble, lay your cabbage leaves out flat on a work surface and spoon the filling mixture evenly between the 12 leaves. Fold both sides in then fold over the bottom and top to make a little parcel. Place in an oven proof dish, fold side down. drizzle with oil and bake for 10 minutes. Serve warm for diner or cold for lunch the next day  (Velvet, recipe by Katie Moore of Allotment) January 2020
 
We went out into the allotment to pick Yacon, Oca,Carrots, Corn Salad, rocket, edible flowers like corn flowers, yellow and orange calendula, viola, rosemary flower and daisies for a lovely fresh salad
Stuffed Savoy Cabbage leaves