Elderflower cordial and asparagus

The sunshine has brought with it some long waited for warmth and allowed nature to catch up.
I noticed from last year's blog entry that exactly a year ago we were making elderflower cordial.
Looking around I found some lovely flowers which I turned into the first batch of cordial.

This annual activity I wanted to share with our visiting scholars as many would be able to find Elder in their own countries.

For those of the group who live near the Graduate centre, we went on a recce
 yesterday and found 5 very accessible elder trees.

The garlic in the back garden is ready to be harvested too, so that it can dry off and turned into a plat next week. We shall transplant the peppers (be sowed the seeds of peppers used earlier in the year) and inter plant them with the basil cuttings

We steamed Asparagus for lunch with poached eggs (added salt, pepper, chives and smoked zucchini)

as a sauce we used vegan garlicky mayonnaise.(with only milk and oi) or you can use the aqua faba mayonnaise recipe.

asparagus and poached eggs

strawberries almost ready

This post was originally made on 20 may 2018

Halloumi, broccoli couscous

This recipe was first cooked on 24/10/2018

As I have a lot of purple sprouting broccoli at this time of the year I thought to use it instead of the Broccoli that is normally ready in autumn.
So lovely to see Angeles, Lucy, Ana, June and Sue again in this picture. Especially as due to the Corona Virus I don't see anyone other that Mark ofcourse.

We went to the allotment where we harvested, a beautiful broccoli head, spinach beet and tomatoes and mint.



We will be preparing the mint in such a way that we strip  all but the top set of leaves. Those leaves were chopped for the couscous but the stems with the few leaves on top will be put in water to start rooting and become another plant for next year.

The Halloumi Couscous and Broccoli dish went down a treat.

With the broccoli stems, spinach beet and marrow chunks (left from a large Marrow that we started using at the beginning of the week)  we made a delicious soup topped with crumbled feta cheese and a delightful blue borage flower
                 

Ingredients

extra virgin olive oil

A small onion, roughly chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

4 cups broccoli stems, chopped

4 cups spinach beet or chard chopped

4 cups courgettes chopped

Gorgonzola dolce (optional)

1 litre vegetable stock

Borage flowers for garnish, if desired

Feta Cheese for garnish, if desired

Salt and pepper to taste

Method

1. Add oil to a large pot.
2. Add in onions and cook for 2 minutes.
3. Stir in garlic and cook for an additional minute.
4. Toss in broccoli and cook for 10 minutes over medium heat.
5. Stir in vegetable stock and bring to a boil. Simmer until broccoli , spinach and courgettes are tender.
6. Take off of the heat and stir in  Gorgonzola  (optional) salt and pepper.
7. Cool soup slightly and puree with hand blender.
8. Pour soup into bowls and serve immediately.
9. Garnish with crumbled feta cheese and a Borage flower or chives.

Tried and tested by June, Lucy, Ana, Angeles, Sue and  Karina 

First week of no from Spade to Plate

What a weird week it has been. Nature is in full swing. Birds are in and out the garden picking up materials for their nests. The temperature outside at times is above 12C which brought the (bumble) bees out to pollinate the nectarine and peach trees.
To be honest looking into the garden all seems exciting with a longing for the months ahead.

On the other hand, looking at the TV, papers and shops however, it is crazy. The Corona virus crisis has made us all take big steps to stop the spread of the virus.  For this reason I am not running the cooking sessions with my friends, I had an idea though to keep on giving inspiration on what to cook, by sharing the menu I am making for the family.

So today, I need to bake bread, I found this video on how to knead for those of  you who have not done this before.  The recipe I normally use is either Lazy Dough or my basic bread dough.
One needs eggs and yoghurt  the other just flour, water, salt and yeast.

During the year we made many versions of bread with the Lazy Dough, here are some pictures of us making this dough

Ai and Kim mixing the dough

dough doubled in size

Hiroe showing what the dough should look like

Joan shaping the dough into bagels

Li, Alice, Lucy and Erika showing off their flat bread made with  lazy dough

 .

Pumpkin Soup, falafels, sweet chilli jam and beetroot wraps

Melendra brought the pumpkin flesh from Halloween which we turned into 5-spice pumpkin Soup
We felt the soup came out a little watery, but after adding a whole can of coconut milk, it became a deliciously creamy soup.

We then made falafels followed by sweet chilli jam  we used 3 chillies in this recipe and even after taking out the seeds, it still had a kick. So depending on hot you want it to be, adjust the chillies to taste.

We served some beetroot wraps (vegan and gluten free) the stuffing we changed a little and added freshly pick spinach, kidney beans, sweetcorn, some of last week's smoked' salmon and a pumpkin puree.  Personally I thought it was rather dry and would have been great with some cream cheese to stick it all together.

We went to the allotment for some fresh air and a few handfuls of spinach

The group liked it though, so that is the most important issue.

Ingredients  for the falafel: 

1  can chickpeas  

2 tablespoon minced garlic   

1 medium finely chopped onion   

2 tablespoons fresh finely chopped parsley

1 teaspoon coriander 

¾ teaspoon cumin 

½ teaspoon salt

Pepper (to taste)

2 tablespoons flour

Oil for frying

Method

1. Combine chickpeas, garlic, onion, parsley, coriander, cumin, salt, and pepper (to taste) and  flour and combine in a blender. You want the result to be a thick paste.
2. Form the mixture into small balls, about the size of a ping-pong ball. Slightly flatten.
3. Fry in until golden brown (2 to 5 minutes).
4. Serve falafel with couscous, in a wrap  and is delicious with a sweet chilli sauce.

A recipe for glue to put on labels:

Thick Glue

Pour 5 cups of water into a saucepan. Bring the water to a full boil.

Place 1/4 cup of all-purpose flour and 1 cup of cold water in a bowl. Stir the ingredients until smooth.

Pour the flour mixture into the boiling water. Reduce the heat and gently boil the solution for 2 to 3 minutes until it thickens.

Remove the glue from the stovetop. Allow the glue to cool before you use it. Store the glue in a covered jar or bowl for 2 to 3 days.

Apples and Pears galore

As we picked loads of apples (from The Othersyde,) and pears (From corner chesterton Road) I have decided to turn them into juice before going on holiday.

Arisa pressing the apples

Sara, Sayaka, Hiroe, Arisa and Today prepping the apples

I am also looking after Maria and Pete's allotment, which has 8 very large broccoli heads in need of picking, for that reason, I have decided to use the Broccoli, Courgette and Spinach soup with gorgonzola from book 1

June is looking after the pears

and as a desert we used the pears instead of the Rhubarb when making the Rhubarb crumble from book 2. The almond and ginger topping went really well with the pears and no sound was heard when we were eating.  A keeper we have decided.

Dezyre making the crumble topping

Todai and Arisa went around the garden to pick the sweet mini mini tomatoes which we turned into salad.

Everyone was able to take back with them some pears and a bottle of apple juice.
Yet another lovely morning.

Courgettes are growing like mad!

Today we are ploughing through 5 huge courgettes as the sun and recent heavy rain made them grown so fast we could not keep up with them.

Although our group today was small as most of the from spade to Plate members have returned to their countries or have gone on holiday, we managed to use almost all of the courgettes.


So together with Lucy (and baby Thomas), June and Rozenn we turned them in a delicious creamy Plant based Courgette soup


We made some Courgetti Spaghetti 'nests' we put them in a muffin pan, added, some finely chopped onion, olives, fetta cheese, cheddar and a mix of egg and a little white wine. This went into the over for 20 minutes  to have as a little appetizer.





The rest if the courgettes were turned into a Lemon Courgette cake. We added poppy seeds to the recipes and a handful of blackberries from the garden.  It turned out lovely

Oats, Oats and more oats

Today we started with making Oat Milk as the the Creamy Vegan Broccoli Soup called for plant milk.
We went to the allotment to pick the purple sprouting broccoli.


We made some oat and yoghurt bread to go with the deliciously creamy soup.           

As a treat we made a banana blueberry vegan ice cream which went down very well with young and old.  We froze 3 bananas in chunks, as well as a couple of handfuls of blueberry, we blended them into a smooth ice cream. We kept some of the berries to defrost as a topping together with a little fresh mint.
        


What a lovely morning we had!