Super Green Flatbreads

@boroughchef has a great recipe for Wild Garlic Flatbreads.  As ever, I've played around with ingredients based on what I have on hand.  The flat breads above were made with wholemeal self raising flour, as it needed using up. I've made them with plain flour and bread flour.  These were made with wild garlic, but I've also used chard, spinach, kale, and watercress.

Makes 4 

120g flour (self raising, plain, bread)
50g wild garlic, spinach, chard, watercress, or kale

80g plain yoghurt, labneh, cottage cheese, ricotta, feta, soured cream, kefir, or creme fraiche

1 tbsp olive oil

Pinch of salt

Liquidise your greens of choice with your dairy of choice plus the olive oil.

Mix the liquidised greens, flour, and salt into a dough.  Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface for 2-3 minutes until smooth and not sticky.  Add more flour a little at a time if it is very sticky/tacky.  

Divide the dough equally into 4, shape into balls and roll out into a circle as best you can.  My tip is to roll them out then leave for about 30 minutes for the dough to relax, then roll them out a little further, otherwise I find the dough too elastic and it shrinks back to an impractical taco size.

Took cook the wraps, heat a frying pan over a medium high heat.  Carefully drape in one rolled out flatbread and cook for 1 minute until the underside is just starting to brown.  Flip over with tongs or a fish slice and cook the other side for another minute.  Watch your flatbreads carefully.  Thicker flatbreads will take longer to cook, but thinner ones will dry out quicker and crack when they cool and you try to wrap them around any filling.  Wrap the cooked flatbreads in a clean tea towel to keep them warm and moist until you are ready to fill them.

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Sloe or Damson Port

This recipe was on an allotment Facebook group I was on a few years ago.  I saved it as a screenshot, but am now saving to my blog for easier reference.

The recipe presumes you have made Sloe Gin.  More recently I have been making Damson Brandy, and this port works just as well if not better with brandied damsons.

500g drained sloes, after straining your sloe gin.

750ml cheap red wine

100g sugar

200ml brandy

Add (return) the sloes to a large preserving jar, together with the red wine and the sugar, seal and shake.

Shake (or stir - one of my cheap preserving jars leaks if upended) the jar every day for 3 weeks to dissolve the sugar.

After 3 weeks add the brandy and shake/stir again, then leave in a dark place for 3 months.

Drain, decant into bottles, and finally discard the sloes.

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Sloe Gin

 Just putting it here for reference another year

750ml cheap gin

500g frozen sloes

250g sugar

Stir every week till Christmas.

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Fresh Fig Chutney

I was gifted about 3kg of ripe figs yesterday morning.  I have frozen 2 x 1kg and experimented making Fig Chutney with the remaining kilo.  It should go well with cheese.

Makes 4x 340g jars

1kg ripe figs, chopped
500ml red wine vinegar or pickling vinegar

500g sugar

1 garlic clove, peeled & crushed

Juice & zest of 1/2 a lemon

1 tsp cumin seeds (optional)

1 tsp smoked paprika (optional)

1 tsp salt

Simmer all the ingredients, apart from the sugar, in a preserving pan for 20 minutes to soften the figs.

Add the sugar after 20 minutes and simmer for about 40 minutes until the chutney is syrupy rather than runny.

Pot into sterilised jars.  The advice with chutney is let it mature for 3 months before using, but the dregs of this tasted fine when bottling!

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Blackberry Ice Cream

A friend on Instagram gave me her recipe for Blackcurrant Ice Cream a few years ago, and included a version with blackberries.  Last night I made my first Blackberry Ice Cream with the big fat cultivated blackberries from my allotment, but it would be just as good if not better with wild blackberries.

400g blackberries
100-200g sugar
300ml double cream

Mix the sugar and fruit together in a saucepan and heat gently, stirring from time to time, until the sugary fruit juices begin to bubble.  I used 200g sugar last night, which is very much to my kids sweet tooth but less so to mine.  I would probably use less next time.  Turn off the heat and leave to cool.

Pass the cooled stewed fruit though a sieve and stir in the double cream.  Leave to chill in the fridge.  Once cold put in an ice cream maker.  If you haven't got an ice cream maker, put in an old ice cream tub and freeze for 4-6 hours, stirring every hour. to stop it freezing as a solid block!

Works well with all soft fruit; strawberries, raspberries, blackcurrants, gooseberries...

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Vegan Vegetable Laksa

Watercress Laksa

Having made and frozen some vegan Thai Yellow Curry Paste recently, I've been having a lot of vegetable laksa over the last few weeks.  It's a quick, filling lunch with optional superfood ingredients.

1/2 tbsp yellow curry paste
500ml boiling water
1 organic vegetable stock cube, crumbled
1 large handful of greens (today's was made with watercress, but I've made it with shredded cauliflower leaves, kale, spinach, cabbage etc)
1/4 onion, finely sliced
1 nest of rice noodles (optional)

If making with noodles cook the noodles in the water and stock cube according to the packet's instructions, adding the curry paste, and vegetables at the end to wilt.   Place onion into a large soup bowl and pour over the hot stock and vegetables.

If not having noodles you may wish to wilt tougher greens like cabbage in the boiling stock on the hob.

More delicate greens like watercress and spinach can be put straight into a soup bowl with the all the other ingredients and simply wilted with the boiling water and stirred gently to combine the curry paste and crumbled stock cube.

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Wild Garlic Pesto

Wild garlic leaves start to appear in March, so I am late to the party to make my first wild garlic dish of the year.

Serves 4
1 handful of wild garlic leaves, the younger the better
50g mature cheddar
50g walnuts
50ml or more light olive oil

Put everything in a mini food processor and whizz together to a smoothish paste, add a little more olive oil if needed to make a loose paste.

We only ever serve pesto over pasta, but there must be other uses but the kids won't let us.

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My Dad's Pickled Onion Recipe

My father died in May this year.

Leafing through my printed out seasonal recipes I came across a splattered print out of this recipe.  I will never delete this email, or any others he sent me.

------

To:         Leesa
From:    Dad
Date:     26 October 2010, 02.58
Subject: Pickled Onions

It's about quarter past two, can't sleep, so I thought I'd have an Ovaltine and give you my recipe--

Peel the onions, I prefer to use smallish ones about 1" (2.5cm) in diameter or small shallots.  Don't get bigger ones and cut them.  Place in a metal or enamel bowl and sprinkle with sea salt. (If you use ceramic bowl, the strong salt plays havoc with the glaze). Cover, shake when you pass by to ensure the thick brine always spreads over the onions and leave for 24 hours.

Drain onions and place in jars without washing. To ascertain the amount of malt vinegar you'll need, fill up the jars and pour off into a pan and bring up to the boil. Turn off.

Make up a package of pickling spice for each jar. You'll need 4" squares of some gauze-like thinnish permeable cloth (as I told Chris, my secret is to use unwashed Y-fronts....) and I suggest the easiest and best way is to get proprietary pickling spice, I always crush it. Otherwise you'll need to crush coriander, black pepper corns, mustard seed, small dry hot chillis, ginger, allspice. Put about a dessertspoonful of spice in each cloth square and tie up into packages. Add to the warm vinegar,simmer very gently for about 10 mins. Put a package of spice in each jar of onions and pour over the spiced vinegar.

Screw on the caps, but put a layer of cling film to protect the lids from the vinegar.

Leave for at least 3 months and that's it.

Ah well, I've finished my Ovaltine - let's see if can get some sleep....zzzzz  nite nite!!

Luv to you all and some (but not a lot) of sympathy for him..........

Dad XXXXX

------

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Quince Jelly

My elderly aunt got carried away when I visited her last Friday, and picked me loads of quinces from their garden.  I've never seen, left alone cooked a quince before and I'm not sure they were quite ripe, as most quince recipes talk about the flesh turning pink when cooked.  And mine didn't.  Instead I have a beautiful honey/amber jelly with a very citrusy tang.  I now need to work out what to use it with.

1kg quince
1l water
1kg sugar approx
Juice of 1 lemon (if using ripe quince)

When making a jelly, I work on the principle of simmering 500g of fruit with the same amount of water ie 500ml.  So, with the quince, I quartered them and added the fruits, seeds, core, peel and everything to the pan and simmered with a lid on for half an hour until the fruit was soft and pulpy.

Strain the fruit pulp through a jelly bag overnight.  Weigh the drained fruit pulp the next day and add the same volume of water to the pan and simmer again for 20 minutes before straining again for a couple of hours.

When all the fruit juice has drained through, measure the liquid into a pan with a measuring jug and add 500g of sugar for every 500ml of liquid and the lemon juice if using ripe fruit.  Bring to the boil and then leave on a rolling boil for 10 minutes taking care it doesn't boil over.

After 10 minutes check for a set on a chilled plate.  When a spoonful of cold jelly wrinkles when you push your finger through it, it is done.  Take the jelly of the heat.  Jelly does seem to create a scum very easily so pour gently through a sieve  into sterilised jars and seal.

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Sloe Gin Jelly

Searching for damsons in my mother's garden I came across a large crop of ripe sloes, so many in fact that I had enough for Sloe Gin (500g of sloes are currently waiting in the freezer for me to buy some cheap gin), and for me to experiment making Sloe Gin Jelly.

My recipe below has 1 shot of gin in.  I'm not sure I can taste it.  But it is a wonderfully tart jelly that would go well in a gravy, with red meat, game, strong cheddar, as much as on toast.  Apparently I have a long wait until my new damson tree fruits, but sloes turn out to be a good alternative.

500g sloes
500ml water
1kg bramley apples
500g sugar
1 shot gin (optional)

Simmer the sloes in the water, covered for about 20 minutes until the fruit is all pulpy.  Roughly chop the apples and add to the sloes, skin, cores and all.  Simmer for another 20 minutes until the apple has disintegrated.

Strain the fruit pulp through a jelly bag overnight.

Measure the collected fruit juice (mine came to 500g/500ml) and add the same weight in sugar to a clean pan.  Bring to the boil and boil rapidly for 10 minutes before checking to see if the jam is set.  Seal in sterilised jars.

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Elderflower Cordial

I found this recipe on the internet many years ago and printed it out.  It is a self styled 'best recipe ever' and I have to say that I agree and post it here so I can keep on refering back to it many years after I've lost the print out.

35 medium sized elderflower heads
2 oranges
2 lemons
2 litres water
1.5 kg sugar
50g citric acid
1 campden tablet (optional)

Heat the water and dissolve all the sugar in it.  Leave to cool.

Roughly slice the oranges and lemons and add to a container (saucepan, wine making bucket) large enough to take the sugar solution, fruit, and elderflowers.  Stir in the citric acid.  Cover with a cloth and leave to infuse for 2-3 days.

Strain through a muslin or clean drying up cloth (I save the orange & lemon slices to make St Clements Marmalade) leave for another 2 days.

Siphon the cordial, leaving behind the sediment/dregs, into another container adding 1 crushed Campden tablet per gallon of cordial if using.

Shake well, and then leave for 3-4 hours to settle.  Siphon into sterilised bottles, leaving behind any more dregs.
   

How to sterilise bottles
* Microwave – 2-3 minutes should kill anything.
* Oven -  put glass bottles into your cold oven. Run it up to about 140C, keep it there for 10-15 minutes and then leave it to cool.
* You can also use Milton or even just very hot water.

How long you can store your cordial:
* With no acids or tablets – 3-4 weeks in the fridge. Freeze in plastic bottles for longer storage.
* With the citric or tartaric acid it will keep for 3-4 months in the fridge.
* With the Camden tablets, elderflower cordial keeps almost indefinitely (years) in a cool, dark place.

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Nettle Soup

Running, well walking, today I could not help noticing the lush green verges.  And so I decided to make Nettle Soup, not only for me, but for Alresford Country Market too.  It will be an interesting experiment as I think not many people will buy it, imagining that a stinging nettle could not be made into anything palatable.  But it can.  Once the nettles are wilted in boiling water the stinging hairs are history, and all you are left with is a mild spinach-like fibre rich green.

Pick only the top 2 or 4 leaves with a gardening or kitchen glove on.  Pinch the top two leaves between your fingers and pull.  If the whole stalk comes out of the ground just stand on the root and pinch off the tender top growth.

Makes 2 litres (Serves 6)
1 mixing bowl/half a carrier bag of nettle tops
1 large potato
1 large onion
1 large garlic clove
1 tbsp olive oil
2 vegetable or chicken stock cube
1 litre boiled water

Soak the nettle tops in a bowl of water whilst you peel and roughly chop the garlic and onion, and roughly chop the potato.

Gently soften the onion and garlic in a saucepan with the olive oil for a few minutes then add the potato.  Rinse the nettles and wash again, just like spinach, and remove with a slotted spoon into the saucepan.  Add the stock cube and water, bring to the boil, then simmer with a lid on for 20 minutes.

Blitz with a sticker blender and serve.

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St Clements Marmalade with Elderflower

I'm not sure as I peer through the rain covered window whether any elderflowers are left out there, but if there are and you are making Elderflower Cordial I highly recommend making marmalade with the orange and lemon soaked with the elderflowers overnight.

Makes about 3x 450g jars
2 oranges
2 lemons
Sugar
Water

Remove the sliced oranges and lemons from the discarded elderflowers.  Don't worry if any odd elderflowers are attached to the slices, that is part of this marmalade's charm.  Finely shred the slices including the rind, ensuring you remove all the pips as this can make the marmalade unpleasantly bitter.

Once shredded, weigh the chopped mass.  Write this weight down then and add the same weight of water to a heavy bottomed pan and bring to the boil.  Simmer very gently with the lid off until the rind is soft enough to squash between your fingers.  My marmalade recipe says 2 hours but it is for Seville marmalade the rinds of which are apparently tougher than most citrus fruit.  I think it took about 30-60 minutes to be soft enough.

When you think the rind is soft enough add double the weight of the shredded fruit in sugar.  Stir to dissolve and bring to a rolling boil and keep it boiling for 10 minutes.  Test for set on a saucer that has been placed in the freezer.  The marmalade is set when about a teaspoon of marmalade wrinkles when cooled as you push the edge of it towards the middle.  Turn off the heat once the marmalade has reached setting point and leave for about 10 minutes before pouring into sterlised jars (see below).  The reason for leaving it to cool a little is to stop start the jam setting and stop all the rind floating to top.

How to sterilise jars:-  Soak the labels off in warm soapy water and clean thoroughly inside and out.  Drain then place into cold oven.  Heat the oven and jars to 150C.  The jars are sterilised once the oven reaches temperature.  I sterilise lids (both old and new) by simmering them in boiling water whilst the jars are sterilising in the oven.

Rose Hip & Apple Jelly

I tried making rose hip syrup a few years ago and found it pretty 'woody' tasting, but an enticing photo on a Facebook post from BBC Good Food for Rose Hip & Apple Jelly together with a bumper rose hip harvest had me trying this. 

Unlike last time, the smell of the rose hips stewing on their own was fruity and appetising.  The taste too of the final product makes me realise I probably was dosed on rose hip syrup as a child in the 1970s.

500g rose hips
500g apples (crab, eating, cooking)
1 small lemon
About 500g sugar
Small knob of butter

Wash then simmer your rosehips in 1 pint of water for 40 minutes with the lid on until soft.  Leave to cool and then mash as best you can or chop in a food processor.

Roughly chop the apples.  There is no need to peel or core as you will be straining the cooked fruit through a jelly bag.  I simply added mine to the food processor with the rosehips.

Add 1 more pint of water to the pan together with the chopped rosehips and apple and bring to the boil with wide strips of lemon peel.  Simmer for about 15 minutes until the apple is soft.

Strain through a jelly bag overnight.  The strained liquid will look worryingly cloudy, and more like cream of prawn soup.  Don't worry! This clears once the sugar is added. 

Measure out the strained juice, adding 400g of sugar to every 500ml of liquid.  Bring to the boil gently to dissolve the sugar then turn up the heat and boil rapidly for 10 minutes.  Check to see if the jam has reached setting point by placing a teaspoonworth on a saucer that's been in the freezer.  If still runny after cooling for a minute or so, boil the jelly for another 10 minutes then check again.  I took mine off the heat too soon because I was in a hurry and ended up with a quite lovely rosehip syrup like maple syrup! So based on this experience, it could take 20 minutes plus to reach setting point!

Take off the heat and stir in a small knob of butter to clarify the jelly.  Pour into sterilised jars and seal with lids that have been boiled to sterilise.

If you do end up with a syrup like I did, just use it with pancakes, porridge, ice cream etc.

Chinese Plum Sauce - Mark 2

Had my second attempt at making Chinese Plum Sauce after a 4 year gap.  It's taken that long between decent wild plum harvests!

The first time I made up a recipe, but this time I thought I'd trust the web.  I turned up a recipe by Thane Prince, but unfortunately I didn't bother to get rice wine vinegar and used pickling vinegar instead.  The sauce is only 20 minutes old, but I do have to say it tastes more like a chutney as it has considerably more vinegar than my original recipe.  Hopefully it will all mellow out as I store it away for a couple of months.

1kg plums, any colour
500ml rice wine vinegar
300g white onions
4 large cloves of garlic
5cm ginger
125ml soy sauce
500g sugar
3 star anise
1/2tsp hot chilli flakes

Stone and halve the plums.  Add all the other ingredients (onions & garlic peeled and roughly chopped, ginger roughly chopped) to a large heavy based saucepan.  Simmer for 20 minutes until the onions are soft.  Remove the star anise and blend with a stick blender.  Return the heat and simmer until it is a loose ketchup consistency.  Pour into hot sterilised jars and seal with sterilised lids immediately.

As with most chutneys, leave for at least 2 months before using, so that the vinegar mellows.  Unopened this will keep for a few years.

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Richly Spiced Plum Chutney

I opted for a chutney with the second half of my donated plums, having made a Spiced Plum Jam the BBC Good Food's recipe took my fancy.  And for once, I pretty much followed it to the letter apart from not having any mustard seeds.

Richly spiced plum chutney

Ingredients
1kg plums, halved, stoned and finely chopped

3 onions, finely chopped
100g dried cranberries or raisins, roughly chopped with an oiled knife
1 tbsp finely grated ginger
1 tbsp black mustard seed
1 tbsp ground cumin

1 tbsp paprika
1 tsp chilli flakes

400ml red wine vinegar
500g light muscovado sugar

Method
 1. Put all the ingredients, except the sugar, into a large pan and stir well. Bring slowly to the boil, then reduce the heat, cover and simmer for 10 mins, until the plums are tender.

2. Stir in the sugar plus 2 tsp salt and keep stirring until it has dissolved. Boil the chutney for 20-30 mins, uncovered, stirring occasionally to prevent it catching on the bottom, until it is thick and pulpy.

3. Pot into sterilised jars (see Know-how, below), seal, label and store for at least 2 weeks before eating. Will keep for up to 6 months in a cool dark place.

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Blackberry Brandy is Go!

Finished off the last of last year's Damson Brandy last night to clear out the kilner jar to start this year's Blackberry Brandy.

The process, roughly based on the recipe for Sloe Gin in my mum's Food for Free book by Richard Mabey, is 1 cheap 75cl bottle of brandy, 500g of berries, 250g of sugar.  Leave to stew for a month or so then get sampling.

Last year's brandy soaked damsons will be pitted, pureed, and frozen in ice cube trays to be added to vanilla ice cream as the mood takes me.

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Spiced Plum Jam

Joining a Facebook conversation about the amount of fruit falling unused on the pavements around our town, I ended up with 5lbs of free plums on my doorstep last week. I made Spiced Plum Chutney with half, and was so taken with the flavour I decided to make a sweet spiced jam with the other half.
tesco.com has a very simple recipe and the jam has a lovely autumny/wintery spice taste to it.

900g stoned and chopped plums
900g granulated sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger 
1 tsp butter (to clarify)

Place a saucer in the freezer.

Put the stoned and chopped plums in a wide stainless steel pan or preserving pan with 150ml water.  Bring to the boil and simmer for 20-30 minutes until the fruit is soft.  As I had frozen my plums, they were soft enough to skip this step.

Wash and sterilise your jars and lids as soon as the jam goes on.  I reuse the ‘pop up’ style lids as these help seal the jam and allow you to keep it in a dark place for 1+ years. Wash jars and lids in hot soapy water, rinse well and drain.  Place the jars in a cold oven, let it heat up to 140C and then leave for 10 minutes at this heat or until your ready to pot up.  Place the lids in a pan with boiling water and boil for 10 minutes to sterilise.

Add the sugar and stir over a low heat until all the sugar has dissolved.  Stir in the cinnamon and ginger and bring to a rolling boil.  Boil rapidly for 10 minutes without stirring.  With a spoon, pour a little onto the chilled saucer.  After a few seconds push the jam with your finger.  If it wrinkles, it is ready.  If not, return to the boil for another 5 minutes and test again, stirring from time to time.  It took about 20 minutes when I made this jam this afternoon, and I did have to stir it to stop it catching on the bottom of the pan especially towards the end of cooking.

When ready remove from the heat.  Stir in the butter which should make any scum ‘vanish’.  Take your jars out of the oven and fill right to the brim.  Seal immediately with your sterilised lids and leave to cool.

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Homemade Creme de Cassis or Blackcurrant Liqueur

Should start off by saying that this is still Work in Progress as I only started my first ever attempt at making Creme de Cassis at the weekend, and it's going to be another few months before I can try it.

I am following this recipe from The Telegraph, but I scaled it down for the 35cl bottle of vodka, and amount of blackcurrants, I had.

When ready, pour a dash into white wine to make Kir, or into Champage/Prosecco to make Kir Royale.

******

2.5 lb/1.1kg blackcurrants
20 very small blackcurrant leaves
1.75 pints/1 litre spirits (eg, gin, vodka or eau de vie)
1.5 lb/675g granulated sugar
5fl oz/140ml water

Wash the blackcurrants, discarding the stalks. Allow them to dry throughly, then put them into a large glass jar and add the blackcurrant leaves. Pour over the spirit, which should cover the fruit completely. Leave to steep for 4-5 months or longer.

Strain the contents of the jar (keeping the alcohol) and remove the leaves. Whizz the blackcurrants in a food processor and strain through muslin. Mix the strained fruit with the purple alcohol.

Dissolve the sugar in the water over a low heat, then simmer gently for 5 minutes to make a thick syrup. Cool. Pour slowly into the blackcurrant mixture, stirring continuously. Taste and stop adding syrup when the liqueur seems sweet enough. Pour into bottles and seal.

It will improve with age.

Cream of Mushroom Soup with Sherry

The soup making side of me is thrilled that today is cold, windy, and rainy as finally my soup selling season has returned.  To celebrate, I have turned on the heating and defrosted a pot of mushroom soup that didn't sell at Alresford Country Market a few weeks ago.  Warm inside and out, with a Indian Butter Chicken blipping away in the slow cooker, I am planning my autumnal offering for this week's market.

This particular soup was made with reduced mushrooms from my local greengrocer.  Whenever I saw a reduced bag I would buy them, take them home and fry them and then freeze them when cool so that I built up 600g over a few weeks.

Cream of Mushroom Soup

Serves 6
 

600g mushrooms
2 cloves of garlic
1 onion
1 tbsp olive oil
A few sprigs of thyme
Chicken or vegetable stock cube
1 shot glass sherry (optional)
1l boiled water
100ml double cream
Salt & Pepper to taste

Peel and roughly chop the onion and garlic and fry in a big saucepan with the olive oil for a few minutes.  Add the mushrooms which have been brushed with kitchen paper to remove any soil and roughly chopped.  Fry over a gently heat until the moisture has come out of the mushrooms and then boiled away. 

When the pan starts to dry out for the second time add the sherry if using, then the hot water, the thyme leaves stripped from their stalks and the crumbled stock cube.  Bring the boil and then simmer with a lid on for 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes blitz in a liquidiser or with a stick blender, adding the cream and season to taste.  The colour may not look very appetising, but I can assure you it tastes delicious and hearty especially with the sherry!