Green Gruff Goodness

 An old work colleague used to say that if someone looked tired they probably needed some broccoli to perk them up. What I think she was getting at was that this foodstuff contains lots of iron to help one feel better if feeling a little fatigued. 

After Storm Eunice had vanished and I had completed my mandatory daily exercise programme, prescribed by the cricket club, I slipped on my copy of Fleetwood Mac's 1972 lost classic "Bare Trees". The cover of this album features, you've guessed it, some leafless trees that poke faintly out of the mist in a scene replicated regularly in the English Countryside at this time of year. The music within is however different gravy, being a mixture of driving and swinging rock, stoner sounds and sunny west coast pop. If you want to venture beyond the obvious of "Rumours" in exploring the Mac's Discography you could do much worse than start with "Bare Trees". 

Following a day of storms and walks in the ice, I needed something to warm me up that contained iron and a spot of carb loading. With a potato, Brocolli and Cheese Soup I found just what I was looking for. The ingredients for this one were as follows:

One head of Broccoli cut thinly.

Two large Baking Potatoes that were cubed and with the roots removed but the skin left on. 

A teaspoon of White Pepper.

Half a pint of Chicken Stock

Some mustard and pepper Cheddar acquired from the ever wonderful Stretton Hall Farm Shop. Check out their page at: Stretton Hall Farm Shop | Facebook 

The method is quite simple and goes like this:

1. Sweat the Broccoli, Potatoes and White Pepper in Sunflower Oil in a deep pan or Le Cresceut on a medium heat for around ten minutes.

2. Add the Chicken Stock and simmer for a further twenty minutes on a medium heat.

3. Blend and then return to the pan or Le Cresceut, warm through and add the cheese so that it melts into the soup before serving. 

The goodness contained in the fresh vegetables coupled with the richness and tang of the mustard cheese gives this soup a starring role in the revitalising dishes of the winter months.

A Taste of Honey

In January a spontaneous sleepover, with Dogg in tow, lashings of Campari and a cathartic 10 mile walk that, I now realise, lit flickering embers to make a new light shine brightly and reveal a path towards something exciting and new.

Energised, I returned home in the mist and fading light which induced me to stick on the bleak, yet somehow triumphant final flounce by the Walker Brothers; 1978's "Nite Flights". They knew it would be their last record and so came up with something radical, dark, dystopian, industrial and life affirming. The record's feel could have been a metaphor for my mental state after a month of challenges I was starting to emerge into something potentially brighter.

I decided to cook something that combined sweetness with Salmon as follows:

Two Fillets of Fresh Salmon

Two Homegrown Corn on the Cob 

100 Grams of Noodles

For the Sauce:

Three finely sliced cloves of Garlic.

100 grams of Unsalted Butter.

Three tablespoons of Honey

Three tablespoons of Peanut Oil

The method to make this Sweet Salmon dish goes like this.

1. Steam Salmon, and Corn on the Cob for twenty minutes.

2. Boil noodles for twenty minutes.

3. Melt Butter in a sauce pan and add Garlic, cook for around five minutes.

4. Add Honey and Peanut Oil, stir together.

5. Remove the Salmon from the steamer, then glaze and serve with Sweetcorn and Noodles.

Despite being in the freezer for around three months, the homegrown Corn on the Cob was sweet and fresh in a way its supermarket counterpart isn't. The flavoursome Salmon was also quite rich and made much tastier by the winning combination of Honey and Peanut Oil. 

Ugly Kid Tofu

It was a Saturday of Storms, being chased by 6 Doggs through remote woodland, cathartic sunshine and real hope. It was also a day of some new creativity that was inspired by a pre-holiday season trip to a local Thai Restaurant where I had battered Tofu with a special Soy Sauce. 

Despite not possessing a deep fat fryer I decided to have a go at making my own battered Tofu. 

On the player was Jellyfish's 1990 debut album "Bellybutton" an album that takes pure pop, bouncy lyrics and stadium size hooks to the next level. The band have sold few records during or after their lifetime but for those of us who know them, they are not only one of the greatest bands of the nineties; but one of the all time great bands. 

So the recipe for this one and it's as follows:

One block of Tofu of the standard size sold in supermarkets. 

Gluten Free Rice Flour and Plain Flour that gives a total of 100 grams.

1 Duck Egg, beaten. 

2 Cups of Semi-Skimmed Milk 

Half a cup of Peanut Oil

Half a cup of Oyster Sauce.

The way to make this dish is to first place the flour in a bowl and form a hole in the middle of it. Then gradually add the Duck Egg, Milk, Peanut Oil and Oyster Sauce gradually stirring it into the the Flour as you do so. 

The Tofu needs preparing by putting it between two paper towels and two heavy objects to squeeze excess water out of it. Once it's dried, cut it into cubes and mix thoroughly with the batter mixture to give it the best chance of being fully coated. 

After that I heated some sunflower oil in a frying pan and fried the batter coated Tofu for around five or six minutes turning regularly before serving it with some noodles, fried ginger, sweetcorn, homegrown chilli and a bowl of Oyster Sauce for dipping. 

While not as crisp and golden as battered Tofu found at restaurants, this battered Tofu had a texture and a flavour that lifted it above the blandness usually associated with Tofu. 

Hake yourself at home

It's just before the holiday season. I'm in need of some inspiration, a lot more iron from some green veg and a bit of brain food from some white fish. There's fog everywhere and it envelopes everything. This, coupled with the rise in Covid Cases; that has caused paranoia and stress among my nearest and dearest going beyond that normally expected in the run up to the holiday season.

The edge is taken off this feeling of a siege mentality by a listen of Oasis' confident, slightly leaden but fun 2000 effort "Standing on the Shoulders of Giants". A quick blast of opening track "f%*kin' in the bushes" is just about enough to put some zest into life. It makes do and sometimes resting up and making do is the best thing to do in the run to the Holiday season. 

To make this flavoursome and green fish dish I took the following ingredients:

One White Onion, peeled, diced, topped and tailed.

Five Small Garlic Cloves, crushed. 

Two tablespoons of Smoked Paprika.

One tablespoon of White Pepper. 

A small head of Homegrown Broccoli. 

Three Homegrown Cabbage Leaves shredded.

One Homegrown Swiss Chard Leaf shredded. 

A tin of Haricot Beans.

A Hake Fillet, fresh from the supermarket fishmongers. 

The method went like this:

1. Sweat the White Onion, Garlic Cloves, Smoked Paprika and White Pepper in a Le Cresceut in Olive Oil for around five minutes stirring regularly. 

2. Add the Broccoli , Cabbage and Swiss Chard and fry for around fifteen minutes, stirring regularly. 

3. Add the Haricot Beans and keep the mixture warm on the hob. 

4. Fry the Hake separately on a medium heat five minutes each side. Serve with the bean mixture.

The dish conjured up a freshness like a clean warm, rock pool at the beach in the summertime while the bean mixture held a genuine smokiness and lots of protein. 

Soups you, Sir

 As we walked through one of the two main roads bisecting the valley, we realised that here at the bottom of the valley it had its own weather system. It was a little being at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, you're in your own world away from the surrounding towns and villages at the top of and over the hill where temperatures showed there were vestiges of summer hanging on. 

We walked in the direction of the curry house as a woman in an aged leather jacket and too tight jeans proceeded to stumble backwards showing a full moon to all the townsfolk as she collapsed with her dignity bleeding onto the pavement. 

In the curry house we met the rest of the team. Among them were two members of an amiable family containing three talented cricketers and all are friendly people who tell me they love the soup recipes I put on this blog. That means today's post is dedicated to them and it features a Swiss Chard Soup. 

The lead singer of the Smiths, whose album Meat is Murder, was on the player as I prepped the soup would approve of this dish as it is a vegetarian soup. The Smiths did not bother too much with Politics on their records but the title track, complete with surprisingly tuneful abattoir noises, has an impact in a way that was ahead of its time when the album was released in 1985.

So the ingredients of this soup, they are:

Five large Swiss Chard Leaves and their stems, that I plucked from my garden, and sliced and diced. 

One White Onion, peeled, topped and tailed and then diced. 

Two cloves of Garlic mashed up. 

A teaspoon of Nutmeg.

A teaspoon of British Coriander Leaf.

A teaspoon of Black Pepper. 

The juice of a Lemon.

Fifty grams of Fresh Parsley from my garden. 

Fifty grams of Fresh Mind from my garden. 

Half a pint of Vegetable Stock. 

Fifty grams of Chive and Onion Cheddar. 

The method for making this soup is simple. First fry the Onion and Garlic in a Le Cresceut or deep non stick saucepan with some Sunflower Oil for about ten minutes. Then add all the other ingredients except the stock and the cheese and stir together while warming through until the Swiss Chard has shrunk to about half its size.

After that add the Vegetable Stock and simmer for around twenty minutes. 

When that's done blend and return to the Le Cresceut. Add the Chive and Onion and warm through before serving. 

This soup has a strange dark rusted colour to it that is much like the leaves on the trees at this time of year. The Mint gives it a freshness that offsets the earthy taste of the Chard. It's a soup that's flavoursome and offers lots of health benefits. 

Steaks Alive!

It was another of those blissful Autumn Sunday mornings where the sun flies high and the blue sky appears bright but somehow cold to the touch. We had spent the morning foraging for edible mushrooms and trekking into the rural suburbs of a village that influenced my formative years. It had been a weekend for us to reset ourselves and dress sharply like a wannabe power couple to go and see the new Bond Movie, a movie that left us with dropped jaws and wonderfully wrought spontaneous memories. 

The Sunday trek left us in need of sustenance for Sunday Dinner and we found it in the shape of a steak dinner that used many ingredients that were grown or purchased within no more than a mile of my house. 

On the player was a side project by Genesis member Mike Rutherford in the form of his band of tools called Mike & The Mechanics. Their eponymous debut album was the record of choice. There's a fair bit of undemanding coffee table pop to take in, that serves as good driving music, and the searing dystopian epic "Silent Running" containing lyrics that -although written in 1985- could well have predicted the Covid Pandemic. 

So to the ingredients of this steak dinner:

Two Medallions of Fillet Steak supplied by Stretton Hall Farm Shop | Facebook

Two Free Range Eggs. 

Six Pods of home grown Mange Tout.

Twelve home grown Runner Beans. 

Five leaves of homegrown Iron Man Winter Cabbage shredded thinly

Twenty-Five grams of Unsalted Butter.

A tablespoon of Gluten Free Self Raising Flour. 

Fresh Chopped Parsley from my garden. 

Point one litres of Skimmed Milk 

Grated Arran Cheddar Cheese. 

The way to make this Sunday Dinner is simple and it creates a filling and protein laced meal:

1. Steam the Mange Tout and Runner Beans for twenty five minutes.

2. Fry the cabbage in Sunflower Oil on a medium heat for around fifteen minutes. 

3. Make the sauce by melting the Butter in a small saucepan and then mixing it thoroughly with the Flour. Add the Parsley and Milk and stir together on a medium-high heat until it is thick Add the Arran Cheddar and stir until the Cheddar is thoroughly melted in. 

4. After you've taken the above steps leave the ingredients in their pans, but covered to keep warm prior to serving. 

5. Fry the Fillet Steaks on a medium heat for three minutes on each side for a rare flavour. 

6. Remove the steaks and then add the eggs to the pan before frying them for around three minutes. 

7. Serve. 

There's something about the taste of fresh green vegetables that gives them a sweetness that you just don't get with their supermarket equivalent. Meanwhile the mixture of a fried Egg on top of the tender steak too is delicious and sauce provided a richness that was not overpowering. 

Rowan, can I?

It's probably the last week in November, two close friends safely were married two weeks earlier. I'm home alone so I root around in the freezer to discover the Rowan Berries that we foraged in summer time. Maybe making these into something edible might just go to show the importance of this thing that we do.

I never realised you could use Rowan Berries for food, but careful reading of a borrowed foraging book proves that you can and so we had foraged a fair amount in late summer.

I've got hold of about 150 grams of Rowan Berries, leaving plenty on the trees for the birds to chomp on, and boiled them up in some water- just enough to cover the berries, with the juice of a lemon and three tablespoons of Brown Sugar. All these ingredients were then, once the berries had absorbed all the water, mashed up into a paste, mixed with around ten Rosemary Leaves and put in an airtight jar. 

When everything had cooled down enough inside the jar, I put the jar of jelly in the fridge and left it there until the first weekend in January after New Year's Day. 

Saturday 8 January 2022, early lunch taken. The rain had washed out the morning walk, the phone had rung a bit but one important message was still finding its way through cyberspace. It was time to take a pause, reflect, plan, and have cheese and biscuits to which this Jelly was the perfect accompaniment. 

I opened the jar and tilted it slightly. The jelly moved slightly and in a way that confirmed it had reached that perfect medium between liquidity and solidness just as all good jelly should. 

The music on the player to which I would enjoy this sophisticated meal to was Joan Armatrading's first album, 1972's "Whatever's for Us". The sentiment in the title was appropriate to the moment. The record stands as one of the finest debuts of the whole singer-songwriter movement and is up there with James Taylor's first album in that respect. It's produced by Gus Dudgeon and some of his touches with the piano, string and vocal arrangements hint at early period Elton, but the overall sound Armatrading creates is unique and wonderful on the record's 14 superior songs. Each is just the right length and none outstay their welcome.

The Rowan Jelly was served with some Cheese and Almond Biscuits and a couple of slices of Double Gloucester with chives. The Jelly's taste was a little like a richer yet slighter bitter version of Cranberry Sauce. It certainly needed the Brown Sugar to counterbalance the Rowan Berries' and Lemon Juice's very sharp flavour. The Rosemary meanwhile added a lovely sweet and sour tang to it all. 

To be sure the Jelly is set, you're best leaving a gap between making it and storing it of around six weeks prior to using it. Once you've first used it, then it should be good to use for a month before it's fully consumed. 

Dark yet glowing, the Jelly is very flavoursome if served with Cheese and Biscuits