Jamie’s Chunky Squash and Chickpea Soup

Our January adventure in soup continues with this spicy soup from Jamie Oliver. Ingredients 1 butternut squash, peeled and diced, reserving the seeds 1 tablespoon cumin seeds 1 dried red chilli, crumbled olive oil 2 sticks celery, trimmed and finely chopped 3 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped a few sprigs of fresh flat-leaf parsley,…

Carrot and Butter Bean Soup

A really tasty and comforting soup, thats easy to make. Blender is necessary. I adapted this soup from a recipe at Ocado. Ingredients 4 large carrots, peeled and cut 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil 1 large garlic clove, peeled and grated 1 large red onion, peeled and chopped 1 large leek, trimmed and sliced 2…

Frances’ Parsnip Soup

Ingredients 3 Large or 5 small parsnips, 2 cm rounds 1 onion sliced thinly oil 2 bay leaves 3 carrots chopped into 2 cm rounds a stock cube / vegetable bouillon for 1ltr of stock 1tsp ground cumin 1tsp ground coriander Method Chop the veg Heat the oil in a large saucepan Add the onion and…

Ottolenghi’s Chickpea Saute… with Fat Hen

Following on from Ottolenghi’s Chickpea Saute in his book, Plenty. We replaced the chard with fat hen, and only used 1 carrot and a large turnip in place of the other 3 carrots. It proved to be delicious, and fat hen brings a richness which works well with chickpeas, while the turnip gives an earthy…

Blackberry and Apple Jelly

I saw blackberries on the allotment and thought what a pain, what do i do with these. I’d stupidly forgotten the wonderful marriage of blackberries and apples. This recipe is from River Cottage Preserves book, it works perfectly, creating a mellow fruity jelly,  so perfect on toast. Ingredients: 1kg of apples (windfalls or any apples are…

Fat Hen

I’ve been farming fat hen (Chenopodium album) for a few weeks and thought I should actually try eating the plant. Whilst having a brew in the allotment hut, i reached out for River Cottage’s Hedgerow book. It said to lightly sauté fat hen with butter and thats exactly what we did. Fat Hen really does taste…

Samphire

Samphire is a really wonderful treat. We cooked around 250g in boiling water for 4 minutes, drained then added a splash of olive oil, butter and lemon juice. No need for salt as this is quite a salty plant. More recipes can be found in The Guardian.