the cheeky harvest

Moving in Autumn, and inheriting a vegetable garden that has things ripe for the picking, feels a bit like cheating. As my brothers will confirm, then I’m not one of these principled people who is averse to cheating, so I’m happily harvesting whatever I find and feeling pretty lucky. I blanched the beans incase they were tough (no one like a tough old bean) the cooked with garlic, chili , basil and feta.

Inheriting a couple of sheep, on the other hand, doesn’t feel like such a lottery win. It’s not that I dislike them, I just feel a bit inadequate around them. Which on paper sounds more strange than it did as a thought in my head. I feel like I should be doing more for them – looking after them somehow now they are part of my flock, and yet they don’t seem to want anything so we’re pretty much just ignoring each other. I’m a little worried about them tonight though – it’s pretty wet out there. Do sheep like the rain or are they huddled together in the old tin shelter?

lemon roast salmon with chilli and cucumber salsa verde, giant sweet potato chips and broccoli

I’m going through a bit of a salsa verde craze at the moment. Of course it helps that we have more flat leaf parsley than I could dream of uses for. I’d never made it until I read a recipe in a sweet little book called ‘Recipes and Lessons from a Delicious Cooking Revolution’ by Alice Waters – it’s one of the Penguin paperback ‘Great Food’ series that makes a nice contrast to big glossy photo recipe books (which, of course, I also love) because it’s tiny and light and cheap and feels like an novella in the hand. Her recipe, which I’d guess is pretty standard, uses olive oil, grated garlic clove, lemon zest, chopped capers and chopped flat leaf parsley. I also added a tiny super-hot red chilli and some cucumber. One of the disadvantages of cooking a family meal is that you can’t just throw in hot chillies with wild abandon but I guessed (correctly) my guys wouldn’t be getting stuck into the salsa verde part of the meal any time soon.

Had with salmon roasted with lemon halves (squeezed over then roasted in the tray). Giant sweet potato chips baked with olive oil, garlic gloves and some wedges of beetroot that needed using up. Steamed broccoli and sweetcorn.

bacon, zucchini, carrot, chili, corn and red lentil Sunday broth

We’re in the habit of going to city market on a Sunday morning, so it’s a good time to sling any veg that’s still lurking about from the previous week into broth to slow cook while we’re out. Today’s fridge scavenge yielded some bacon a heap of zucchini and carrot and some extremely hot chillies that we’ve been cautiously working our way through all week.

Cooked onion, garlic and chili in coconut oil, added a few rashers of chopped bacon, relatively finely chopped zucchini and carrot – covered in a couple of pints of veg stock and put in a cup of dried red lentils. A spoon of tumeric gives it a lovely yellow colour and is generally pretty magic stuff. Covered and cooked on a very low heat for a couple of hours. Added some corn and flat leaf parsley just before eating it.

chili, ginger and cinnamon spiced apple

Another of Jake’s creations – inspired by a dessert eaten in India recently and with a flash little apple carving on the side  – because once you start thinking about making the food look lovely then you start doing all kinds of crazy stuff!

Melt a little butter in a pan with some soft brown sugar – add some chunks of apple and cook till starting to soften, then add some fresh chili, a cinnamon stick, black pepper and fresh ginger – a splash of water and cook for a while until apple is soft but still with a bit of bite. For the apple flower you need to do a day course at a cooking school in Vietnam so that bit’s optional – it does look very pretty though. Good with ice-cream or yogurt.

chicken, chili, corn chowder with bacon, red lentils, leeks and celery

Chopping vegetables in the relative calm of the early afternoon when at least some of the kids are out of the house has benefits that go beyond the obvious. The most important from a nutrition perspective is that garlic activates if it’s given time to sit at room temperature after it’s chopped. I don’t know about the science but if you’re interested in you can google it. I heard it from the naturopath I work with (Nourish-ed). Also , on a more frivolous note, if you preparing some of the food in a calm environment rather than the chaos that is often as known as ‘witching hour’ the pre-dinner hour in a house full of small children then you can just enjoy it a little more and that kind of makes it all a bit more of a positive vibe. If you’re a frustrated artist you can even put your veg into colour contrasting bowls and take a moment just to marvel at how beautiful they look.

For the soup I used a base of garlic, chili, celery, leeks and bacon, then added leftover roast chicken from last night, chicken stock, chopped potatoes , cup of red lentils and quite a bit more water because I cooked it long and slow and lentils kind of dissolve but absorb a lot of water. Add the corn closer to the end of cooking and also some sour cream and parsley if you like that kind of stuff.

(Inspired by Nigel Slater’s Chicken and Smoked Sausage Chowder in Real Food)

celery, carrot, ginger, coconut and chili soup with fresh mint

One of the downers of living with a gluten free (almost) hubby is that the old weekend lunch staple of bread n cheese n chutney just isn’t that great anyone – because gluten free toast is just about passable for breakfast with jam but it really can’t replace freshly baked crusty bread … so it makes the weekend lunch a bit harder – unless there are leftovers , which today there weren’t. So not feeling very energetic I looked at the fresh packs of soup but just couldn’t bring myself to pay $6 for a tiny pack knowing I could make a nicer batch, way more so they’d be lunches in the week and way cheaper.

Chopped onion and garlic and grated fresh ginger (couple of spoons), softened in coconut oil, chopped in a couple of sticks of celery and about 500g of organic carrots with skins on. Covered with boiling water and salt / pepper and cooked for half an hour – then added a tin of coconut cream and blended – served the kids then added some fresh mint leaves and a small spoon of chili powder.

Hot roast chicken and coleslaw

Made a great rub for chicken today – a spoon of coconut oil mixed with chili, ginger, tumeric and cumin (about 1/4 teaspoon of each) rubbed the paste all over the chicken and then stuck some fresh ginger and celery inside it. Roasted it  up for just over an hour. Coleslaw was red cabbage, carrots, apple and celery with the dressing made from a spoon of mayo, spoon of yogurt and lemon juice. Chicken was so good we picked it dry eating all the skin. Need a bigger bird next time so there are leftovers for lunch.

Chili, parsnip and apple soup

It’s new year’s eve 2011. I made chili , parsnip and apple soup. The Flaming Lips ‘Waiting for Superman’ came on the ipod. There were other songs too but that was the only one that registered. The rain is lashing down, has been for 2 days now. It’s the kind of Wellington weather where you fear the wind will blow you off the edge of the world unless you anchor down with food.

1 onion, 1 fat red chili, 3 cloves garlic, 4 fat parsnip, 1 swede, 2 apples, salt, pepper, tumeric, veg stock, sour cream.

Cook the onion, garlic, chili (seeds and all) in coconut oil. Add the parsnips, swede, apple (skin on) and cover in vege stock. Season with salt, pepper and tumeric. Let it simmer for an hour or so and then chuck in a couple of spoons of sour cream and blitz with the hand blender.