Plans for this week's zoom meeting

 Although I am leaving it a bit late, I hope people have time to get their ingredients before tomorrow and Wednesday. The weather has been so nice off late that I have spent most of my time in the allotment.

I have started sowing peas, onions, leeks, celery, celeriac and yesterday some mini munch cucumbers.

This week I am planning a meal I have not tried before Lemon Roast vegetbles with yogurt tahini and pomegranate and as a desert a lemon mousse (from Book 2)

On Wednesday we will make Bami Goreng.

Sag Aloo with rice

So lovely looking back at what we did last year around this time.  on the 6th May 2019,June,
 Megan, Olivia, Violet, Liz, Rozenn and I had a lovely time. I thought I make this meal again, and savour not only the food but also the memories.

The perpetual spinach is about to go in flower so we harvested what there was to turn into Sag Aloo with chickpeas. Meghan brought Olivia and Violet who were great helpers.  We also picked some m lemon balm  to put in the dessert but the violets, calendula and borage were to  decorate our lemon mousse.
   

finely chopping the lemon balm

Back at home, the chopping started.

Flowers picked by Violet

 

As a dessert we used the chickpea water to turn into lemon mousse.




The Sag Aloo turned out really well.  We had it with rice and flat bread.

A very productive morning

Carrot Soup, Scones,, risotto and chick pea browny waffles

Carrot Soup was lovely, we added 1 chopped red pepper and 1 celery stalk to the mix, after blending it, we topped it with chopped almonds and parsley

Our main meal as Leek, Pea and pesto risotto, although it called for 200 gr kale, which we did  pick in the allotment, by the time we were back, Carmen and Julie who stayed to stir the pot, felt there was already so much in the risotto it would have been over kill. So we left it out.
When we plated it up we stirred some gorgonzola and parmesan through it and topped it with pea shoots.

The chickpea brownie waffle went down very well too.
we used the chickpea brownie recipe from the 3rd cookery book but rather than pouring the batter in a baking tin and put in the oven for 30 minutes. We put a dollop in the middle of the waffle iron to make them into little waffles,  we then topped them up with lemon mousse.

For this we had 400g cream cheese, 1 cup icing sugar, juice of 1 lemon (we used 3 small limes) pinch of salt and 1 cup of the whipped aquafaba. We mixed everything except the whipped aquafaba, then folded it in.  Part of the mousse we put in small dishes (to give away to some of the residents of Victoria Homes) the left over was put in the fridge for 1 hour and used to top the chocolate brownie waffles.

A bit of impromtu cooking

Today I went to the allotment to pick vegetables for the morning session. Due to the amount of rain lately I have found that some of the carrots had split. So change of recipe and Carrot and Ginger soup 
it will be.  As the soup contained butter beans, we did not want to throw away the bean liquid (Aqua Faba) so decided to make a lemon mousse with it.  So that was the dessert sorted.
  

Last week I made a lovely recipe Chive waffles with maple and Soy mushrooms. As it was only for the two of us, I put the other 8 waffles in the freezer for another time.



Well, the other time was now. The waffles this time were awful, taste was good but they just got stuck in the waffle iron, so we cheated  and warmed up the previously made waffles in the toaster and followed the rest of the recipe. The mushroom in maple and soy sauce were delicious, I think that they would also be lovely on a bed of mash potatoes, rice, polenta etc.

We made some rocket, pear and parmesan salad to go with it. Karina mentioned that in the past she used to crumble goats cheese instead of parmesan. Something to try in the future.
  Although Hao came a few weeks ago, he picked the rocket then too and I found a picture of him, preparing it.


The table was laid for 9 people today,  a filing lunch with some delicious Elderberry and ginger cordial.

Wonder woman, June, managed to open the corddial bottle where others failed!!

Broccoli Kedgeree and lemon mousse

Hooray, the first purple sprouting broccoli is ready!  After a long wait (as they were sown last year in April) we were able to have the first meal with broccoli of the season.

Last year Simone brought us a recipe to make a kedgeree with, it went down really well so we have made it again.
     


We went to the allotment and pick handfulls of lovely flowers and leaves for our salad.



We had some aquafaba left from the chickpea curry we made a few days ago. I had read that it would be much easier to whip up if it had been boiled and reduced to half. So I did and it was true, the cooled down jelly like result, turned into fluffy 'egg'whites so when mixed with sugar and lemon it turned into a delicious lemon mousse. Topped with a little violet and lemon zest a delight.

Creamy Nettle and Chickweed Soup

      

1 chopped onion

3 chopped celery sticks

3 garlic cloves

Salt and pepper

5 medium potatoes, peeled and quartered

5 cups of vegetable stock

5 cups of fresh washed and chopped chickweed

1 cup of fresh young nettles.

A little cream or milk optional
    

                                 

Saute the onion and celery in butter in a large soup pot over medium heat until tender. Add garlic and season with salt and pepper. Add the potatoes. Stir. Add the stock, lower heat and simmer gently until the potatoes are very tender. Add the fresh nettles and stir until gently wilted but still bright green. Add the chickweed and  blend with a hand blender until very smooth, whisk in the cream. Serve with some edible flowers and fresh chives.

                 

We went out to pick the various flowers and leaves that were available in March.  Although the rosemary, daisies, violets and speedwell flowers looked very pretty agains the greens of the lambs lettuce, sunflower and pea shoots, the orange of the last few carrots made it look very bright and beautiful as well as giving our salad a lovely taste. We added some walnuts and blue cheese.

As a desert we made a lemon mousse, using the little violets we picked as decoration.

From Spade to Plate: a Flowery affair

Pasta with purple sprouting broccoli 
The pasta we made from scratch:
2 cups of plain flour,
 2 egg yolks,
some salt and a table spoon of oil. water to mix.

We made some Vegan Parmesan to go the past.

In the allotment we picked the purple sprouting broccoli, probably the last of it before it gets stringy.

From Spade to Plate 

We used  some aqua faba (chickpea water) to make some lemon cheese mousse

The food was lovely, but the two comments today were truly touching: "Coming here is better than therapy" and " Coming to these sessions is giving me passion for life"