After the lettuce has bolted

One advantage of living in a place that is rarely hot and dry for any length of time is that green leafy crops stand well in the ground. I am still finishing off the first sowing of lettuces made back in early April. Conventional gardening wisdom is to sow a few seeds every couple of weeks, but I find that three (or at most four) outdoor sowings of saladings is usually sufficient for the whole season. And that applied even when there were two of us here to eat them.

But even under my cool, damp conditions they do eventually bolt. My chickens don't appear very interested in them, and I am a little reluctant to give the pigs too much lettuce. I am sure they would happily demolish the lot, but I am not sure the effect it would have on their, admittedly none-too-delicate, digestions while they are still quite young. It is certainly a waste to throw it straight onto the compost heap. So what to do?

Lettuce is not an obvious ingredient for hot dishes, with one or two notable exceptions. I sometimes use a few chopped leaves if I am short of green stuff for noodle soup, and braised peas and lettuce is a lovely way to make use of peas that escaped being picked while young and tender and have turned a little mealy.

Sadly there is no excess of peas, either fresh or mealy, in my garden this year. I have made several sowings - both directly into the ground and in lengths of guttering indoors - using older and freshly-bought seed. In return I have had about half a dozen pea plants. A complete disaster that I am at a loss to explain.

There were some shop-bought peas in the freezer, however, which gave me the idea of making a soupy version of the braised lettuce. I simply softened a couple of chopped shallots in a little butter (and I think it does have to be butter here, rather than oil), and threw in a couple of handfuls of frozen peas, the washed and shredded lettuce and a nice sprig of mint. I then waited for the mountain of lettuce to subside a little before pouring in some vegetable stock (in this case the liquid saved from cooking chick peas, which makes a very serviceable and savoury stock). This was simply simmered for ten minutes or so, seasoned and then attacked with the hand blender until smooth.

I was very pleased with the result. The slight bitterness from the lettuce contrasts beautifully with the sweetness of the peas, while the hint of mint gives the whole soup a satisfying depth of flavour. I did think of adding a little cream, but in the end didn't think it needed it.

All in all a happy end for something that originally looked destined for the compost heap!

The remains of the day

My ongoing quest to eat the freezer contents continues.

Lamb isn't a problem as such. I think I could eat it every day without ever becoming bored. Sadly both my doctor and my waistline would prefer it that I don't.

A leg roast once in a while is a Sunday treat, though, particularly after I have earned it by working outside in the garden all day. Cooked hard and fast, the joints from my little Hebridean sheep are as good as they come and are ready in about an hour. That's just long enough to walk Moose and get back in time to put the potatoes on.

Brown and deeply savoury on the outside, pink and succulent inside, and with enough fat (but not too much) to stop them drying out in the hot oven, I really don't think they can be beaten. For this little beauty I had a few left-over anchovies, so I studded the meat with them and some slices of garlic for added umami, but they weren't essential. On the other hand, a good ten-minute rest was.

Meal 1 was straightforward. Roast lamb, mash made with some of the last spuds from store, lots of spring cabbage and gravy made from the meat juices and a dollop of rosemary jelly. No problem. The hard part is to stop going back to the joint for just one more little slice!

Then, if it's Monday, it must be hash. Lots of onions, cubed potatoes and meat, all slowly pan-fried with the remaining gravy. Patience is a virtue here. It takes time to achieve the right amount of crispy edge, and of course a big handful of chopped parsley is needed just before that moment is reached. You could add a fried egg if feeling very greedy, but that would be painting the lily.

And so to the very last remains. The bone and the last few scraps of meat clinging to it.
Soup, of course, but where in the world shall we go?

One of the advantages of a longer than normal winter is that it gives plenty of opportunity to try out a few things in the kitchen. As citrus fruits were plentiful and cheap at the same time, and as R wasn't here to nag me to make Seville orange marmalade, I spent a couple of pleasant afternoons making lime pickle and preserved lemons.

With this in mind, it was destination North Africa!

After I had removed any decent-looking scraps of meat from the bone, it went into the stock pot with the usual aromatics. I wasn't looking for a thick, unctuous sort of stock; just some lightly-flavoured liquid for my soup.

To make the soup, I sweated the usual suspects (onion, carrot, a little garlic and a stick of celery) until softened, then added a good teaspoon each of cinnamon, ginger and cumin. Boy, does that make the room smell nice! These were followed some precooked chickpeas from the freezer, the end of a yellow pepper, a squeeze of sundried tomato paste and the chopped preserved lemon rind.

Simmer gently on the stove until all the vegetables are soft, then throw in the meat scraps to heat through and serve.
Light, warming and absolutely delicious!

Beets

For such an unprepossessing, mild-mannered vegetable, beetroot certainly polarises opinion - or at least it does in my family. On the one hand we have my younger sister who believes it is the work of the devil; my whole family is still traumatised by the time that she demonstrated in full Technicolor why it is a bad idea to force children to eat something they have really taken against! In contrast the rest of us adore it any way you care to serve it.

R was never great with traditional pickled beets, though, as he wasn't a great fan of anything vinegary.

I can't remember exactly who introduced me to the idea of roast beets. It may have been the late, great Christopher Lloyd in his lovely book The Gardener Cook. Whoever it was, they were absolutely right. Roasting the beets gives them a sweetness and depth of flavour that just doesn't happen with the plain boiled variety.

R's favourite way to serve them was as an accompaniment to mackerel, either smoked or fresh. Mixed with sharp green apple, spring onions and a good dollop of freshly-grated horseradish, and then stirred into a mix of greek yoghurt and mayonnaise, this sharp, crunchy salad was perfect to cut through the richness of the fish.

I keep coming back to soup, however.

My freezer still holds plenty of chicken stock and the tomato or tomato/courgette sauce that I froze over the Summer. The recipe is simplicity itself: mix peeled and roast beets, chicken stock and tomato sauce in roughly equal quantities. Heat through, then whizz up with a hand blender and season to taste.
Serve with the usual crusty bread and a sprinkling of cubes of feta cheese.

This may possibly be my very favourite soup of all. Why not give it a try. You won't regret it, even if you think you don't like beets.

New season, new soup

Originally posted 16.04.09

At last the garden is starting to yield some produce other than parsnips and Jerusalem artichokes.

The new season kale and PSB are exciting enough, but the first picking of mustard greens from the greenhouse means one thing, and one thing alone.

Noodle soup.
Noodles and R went together like, like.... Well, they just went together.

When we lived in the city, we always headed to Chinatown for noodle soup after a post-work beer or six. After we moved away from 'civilisation' it was often his first choice for a birthday treat, and was what I cooked for him when he was feeling down.

Good stock, noodles, of course, spring onions, garlic, ginger and star anise. Plus the all-important greens and topped with the protein of choice. Crispy pork belly is good, so are chicken, prawns or beef in their own way. But for preference it was always duck. However, as it took us a couple of years to start rearing our own ducks when we moved here, we had a long wait before it returned to the menu.

But so worth the wait.

I don't recall ever cooking it for anyone else, though. It was one of our guilty pleasures together. Soup, spoon, chopsticks, dish of pickled vegetable. Then silence punctuated only by happy slurping.

It is a dish that is so bound up with R that I haven't been able to eat it since he died. But the new mustard greens needed to be celebrated, so I took a deep breath and broke my duck, as it were.

It was as good as I remembered.
Quack quack!

(This is one of my girlies. She will never be soup.)

Also-ran soup

Originally posted 18.02.09

Not exactly prize-winning specimens, but 2008 was such an awful year for growing that I am grateful to be able to scrounge anything home-grown at the moment. All of the bigger onions have long since been eaten, but these tiddlers have the benefit of seeming to store better and being much less prone to neck rot. As for the parsnips, what can I say? They need sunshine to grow, and there was precious little of that last year.

Peel, chop and into the pan along with some chopped garlic, chilli and ginger. Throw in some spices - mustard seeds, cardamom, fenugreek and turmeric - and a bay leaf, sweat gently for a few minutes then add water and simmer until the veggies are soft. A little chicken stock wouldn't go amiss, but it really isn't essential as there is so much flavour from the vegetables and spices. A brief application of the hand blender, adding a little more water if it is too thick, check the seasoning and that's it. Serve sprinkled with chopped coriander and a slice or two of homemade oaty bread.

A frugal widow's lunch if ever I saw one!