Cooking
Rachel has always had an interest in cooking. Producing meals from scratch to utilise our home grown produce has become an integral part of our lives. Preserving and canning enables us to store many of our crops and reducing food waste is a key part of making sustainable changes to our lifestyle. The kitchen isn’t completely Rachel’s domain – Anthony can make a mean flapjack too!
Tomato, courgette & chilli flatbreads
Flatbreads made with self raising flour and cooked on a griddle or cast iron pan are super easy, quick & cost pennies. You can make this type of flatbread straight from self raising flour and water, but adding some veggies and spice can really turn these into something special!
Green bean & coconut pickle
I made this pickle using beans from last year’s crops that had been frozen. Within a couple of weeks I am expecting a mountain of beans to be ready at the allotment fresh! I would say this is a similar to a sweet piccalilly with the addition of a coconut flavour. Perfect with a BBQ or in a cheese butty!
Stop worrying and substitute ingredients!
If I could sum up my cooking style that would this would be it. If you don’t have a specific ingredient then find something similar and use that! This principle works very well if you ‘grow your own’, but also in general for producing tasty dishes.
Pomegranate – certainly not easy to grow in the UK, expensive and imported. However, redcurrants are very similar – tangy little red berries.
Many different Middle Eastern dishes use a type of grain (rice, cous cous, freekah, bulgar etc) with herbs, nuts and balance this with the tang of pomegranate. Here I have made something similar with fresh ingredients from the plot and cheap peanuts.Squash & Coconut Dhal
I have used red lentils to make this dhal, but you could easily use yellow split peas (chana dal). The squash could be replaced with carrots or swede. It’s quite a sweet dish!
Onion Bhajis
As we start moving towards early spring I am considering how I can use overwintered stored crops. As the temperatures start to rise in early Spring stored onions will sprout. To counter this I try to make sure that I have used up the stores and Onion bhajis are a great way to do this!
Brussel ‘pesto’
A healthier version of ‘pesto’. Yes, not a true pesto in any sense, but is the mixture of greens, cheese and nuts that is the golden combination without addition of lots of extra oil.
Brussels, peanuts, cheese, onion and and mushrooms blitzed in a processor- saute in a pan for a couple of minutes then stir through pasta.
The mushrooms are a good filler- for 4 portions I only used 75g cheddar and 50g peanuts.
I added some ham to this and used 75g spaghetti per portion so a decent bowl full for 448 calories.
Kapuska – braised cabbage – with beef
Kapuska is a Turkish dish that is braised cabbage, usually with tomatoes, roasted peppers, garlic and onions. I make many different versions of this dish depending on what I have at the time. You don’t need to include meat. Sometimes I just leave the meat out completely or add beans/chickpeas. Kapuska is great served with rice, potatoes, pickles, salad, cous cous or with bread – all probably not that traditional, but tasty!
Clementine & Ginger Jam. Water-bath processing preserves
How do I waterbath process preserves? Here I discuss how I used leftover Christmas clementines to make a tasty jam and processed the jars for storage.
Red Cabbage Salad
Here I use leftover chutneys to make a fruity dressing for a cabbage salad.
Potato Gnocchi
Gnocchi is a great way to use leftover mashed potato. It is simple and quick to make. We also make gnocchi with other veg including beetroot, tomato, squash/pumpkin or carrot. See here for a recipe using butternut squash.
