Nasturtium Pesto

If you have been reading my blogs through the summer, you will know I am a big fan of eating nasturtiums.

They are really a wonderful thing to have growing in your kitchen garden and so versatile as flowers, leaves and seeds all have an intense peppery flavour.  In the summer months I was eating salads with nasturtium leaves and inspired to pickle the seeds Pickled Nasturtium Seeds - a supply of which I still have in my cupboard for adding to my winter salads and adding to sauces.

They grow so easily in the UK, so why strive to find enough basil leaves to make pesto when its easier to get your hands of 50g of nasturtium leaves?

In the recipe below, I've tried to use ingredients that are  available in the UK and as many of them from my garden to keep those food miles down.  Who needs pine nuts that are usually produced in China when a kitchen garden sunflower can provide us with enough seeds for a few jars?

It really compliments fish but is great on toast, with pasta, even flavouring potatoes and I'm sure with some imagination there are many more uses.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients

50g Nasturtium Leaves
4 Garlic Gloves
Teaspoon Nasturtium Seeds or Pickled Nasturtium Seeds
50g Sunflower seeds (preferably home grown)
75g Hard local goat's cheese
50 ml Lemon/Lime juice
150 ml Rapeseed Oil
Salt to taste

Method

This is the easiest method I have ever described and there are two schools of thought for producing pesto.
1.  Chuck everything into a blender until everything's well mixed and looks like pesto
2.  With a good sized pestle and mortar pummel all your ingredients together.   

Which method do you prefer?

When the mixture has been placed into jars, I like to keep one in the fridge for regular use and the other jars in the freezer until I need them.

I used to buy artisan pesto from my local farmer's market, but now I know how easy it is to make my own there's no turning back to bought pesto again!

Apples with Garam Masala

Chopped apples with Garam Masala, chopped onions and chopped black pudding (from local butcher)

A few days ago I was making a curry and one of the spices the recipe asked for was Garam Masala.  Before using all the new herbs and spices, I smelt each jar just to see if I had any more ideas for the new spices in my cupboard.  One of which being ground Garam Masala and as soon as I took a whiff of this one I thought this might be good with apples.

My mum gave me a bag of apples from her orchard so I've been trying to think up new ideas with the apples so last night as I was lightly frying some apples in a savoury dish I tossed in a teaspoon of Garam Masala.

I have to tell you apples and Garam Masala make amazing bed fellows - it was delicious!

It makes for a wonderfully smell in the kitchen too - great for winter evenings.

Happy experimenting :)

Mashed Potatoes & Peppers

Tonight as I was making some mashed potatoes with some fried onions and bacon bits, I thought I'd add some sweet peppers I've got growing on some plants in my flat.  I lightly fried the peppers, onions and bacon bits and as I was mashing up the potatoes at the end thought I'd add a generous portion of chilli flakes.  As this was a real winner in my home I thought I'd share it with you.

Ingredients:

Potatoes (for mashing)
Margarine/Butter (for the potato mash)
2 chopped onions
5 chopped garlic
2 sweet chillies
3 slices of bacon
Chilli flakes (I leave the quantity up to you)

Method:

1.  Peel, chop and boil the potatoes until soft.
2.  Chop the onions, garlic and sweet peppers.
3.  Fry the onions, garlic and sweet peppers on a low heat.  When they are done remove them from the heat.
4.  Cut the bacon into small pieces and fry.
5.  Drain and mash the potatoes with a good dollop of margarine or butter.
6.  Add the bacon, onions, garlic and sweet peppers to the mix and mix well in.
7.  Sprinkle some chilli flakes into the mix.  Mix in and taste.  Add more chilli flakes if you need more heat.
8.  Enjoy!!  Great for a cool autumn evening.

Beetroot Brownies

I recently received a bag of beetroot from a community garden so have been trying to find something to make that uses beetroot. 

I could roast them with garlic which is delicious, but I'd made that before and wanted to try something new and a friend suggested beetroot brownies. 

The first time I tried these they were with dark cooking chocolate but this time I decided to go all out and make it with Green & Black's dark chocolate with cherries which has 70% cocoa.  It was definitely worth it if a little expensive!! 


These made really sumptuous, moist, crumbly, delicious brownies and here's the recipe:







Ingredients

200g Dark Chocolate (70% cocoa)
250g Margarine / butter
250g Sugar
3 medium free range eggs
75g self raising flour
250g beetroot (boiled until you can slide a fork into them easily)


Method

1   Melt the margarine/butter and chocolate.
2   Beat the eggs with the sugar while the chocolate and margarine/butter are melting and then once they are fully melted combine with the beaten eggs and sugar.
3   Start to preheat your oven at 180 degrees C
4   Mix in the flour with a large spoon
5   Chop the beetroot until its in very small pieces then add these to the mix.  Once all nicely combined your mixture is ready.
6   Grease your baking tin and pour in the mixture
7   Put your brownies in the oven for 20 - 25 minutes and enjoy the smell in your kitchen while they bake
8   Enjoy!!

Slow Roasted Tomatoes

This is my all time favourite way to preserve tomatoes.  I do it every year without fail.  I love the way the slow roasting intensifies the sweet flavour of the fresh out of the garden tomatoes and then you've trapped that sweetness in a jar ready to brighten up the speediest of meals through the winter months.  They are always such a treat.

Before I started to eat seasonally I adored the flavour of sun dried and sun blushed tomatoes.  We don't have enough sun to do it here so this is the closest we can get to doing this locally and seasonally.  It works best with the freshest tomatoes and straight out of the garden is best.  It is also the most wonderful way to extend the tomato eating season well into winter when the main things growing outside are brassicas.  Actually slow roasted tomatoes compliment food like cabbage, kohl rabi, turnip greens absolutely perfectly.

Ingredients

12 tomatoes / 500g will fill a standard jam jar
Balsamic Vinegar
White Wine Vinegar
Rapeseed Oil

Method

1.  Cut your tomatoes in half (about 12 tomatoes or 500g will be sufficient for a typical jam jar)  
2.  Lay them on the grill tray cut side up and put the oven on the lowest temp the oven has (my oven's lowest temp is 80 degrees C).
3.  Then leave them in the oven checking progress about once an hour.  They take about 6 - 8 hours to fully dry.  When they are ready they are still a little plump and firm to the touch  (not completely dried out and hard or soft and squashy)
4.  Allow the tomatoes to cool
5.  Then put them in a dish with a little vinegar (about 50% white vinegar / 50% balsamic).  This should be enough vinegar to just cover the tomatoes
6.  After about 15 mintues they are ready to be packed into their jar.  Pour in the tomatoes with the vinegar and pour enough oil to completely cover the tomatoes.
7.  Seal the jars - I do this by placing the jars in a bath of simmering water for 20 minutes.  There are other methods and a good preserving cook book will offer a variety of methods.
8.  Label your jars.  Store in your food cupboard for up to 4 months and once you open a jar, store in the fridge and consume within a month.

Roasted Tomato Ketchup

As I've had so many green tomatoes to use lately, I made this ketchup with a mixture of green, red and yellow tomatoes.  It really is delicious, I don't think I'm ever going to buy ketchup again and I will certainly make it every autumn forever more.  I now cannot eat sausages without it and if I can keep some for the barbecue season next year I will be in heaven.  Maybe an autumn barbecue will be in order.


Ingredients:

1kg tomatoes (Halved)
200g shallots (peeled and chopped)
4 garlic cloves (peeled and chopped)
Some rosemary
Teaspoon salt
Teaspoon ground black pepper
Teaspoon sugar
50ml rapeseed oil
100ml balsamic vinegar
50ml lemon juice
100g Teaspoon of mustard seeds

Method:

1.  Put the halved tomatoes cut side up into a large oven proof dish and sprinkle the chopped shallots, garlic cloves, rosemary, teaspoon salt, teaspoon ground black pepper, tea spoon sugar and the oil over the tomatoes.
2.  Roast for an hour at 180 degrees centigrade.
3.  After an hour take them out of the oven and push the tomatoes through a sieve.
4.  Put the tomato puree into a large pan and add the vinegar, lemon juice and the mustard seeds
5.  Simmer until the ketchup is at your preferred consistancy (I simmer for about 30 minutes)

Green Tomato Chutney

I've been inundated with green tomatoes lately, with people begging me to take them from recent tomato blight attacks.

So what better time to dig out the cook books and cook up some tomato preserves.

Wanting to do something with the generously given free food I had to do something with them quick before they spoiled, so tomato chutney it is.


 Ingredients:

3kg green tomatoes (peeled and chopped in small pieces)
500g apples (peeled and chopped in small pieces)
500g onions (peeled and chopped in small pieces)
500g sugar
600ml white wine vinegar
2 teaspoons chilli powder
Pinch of salt
2 teaspoons black peppercorns
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
2 teaspoons ground bay leaf

Method:

1.  Chop the tomatoes, apples and onions.  The smaller the pieces the better.  When you've finished chopping add all the ingredients to a large pan.  (Use a wooden spoon for stirring)
2.  Bring to the boil, stirring gently and then simmer the mixture.
3.  Simmer for 3 - 4 hours, checking on it occasionally to make sure it is not sticking to the base of the pan.
4.  The chutney is ready when it looks rich and thick but you can still see the shape of the vegetable/fruit pieces.  The true test is when you can drag the wooden spoon across the base and you can see the bottom of the pan momentarily.

Baked Chard Orbs

I was given 800g of rainbow chard.  A kind gift for some volunteer work at a city centre community garden, but what to do with it?

I was just about to go to visit my family in a couple of days so felt I had to do something with the free chard or they may be wasted, but what to cook?

I recently came upon a courgette polpette recipe and thought I would tweak it slightly and use the chard in a similar way. 

This dish just uses the stalks.

1.  Dice the stalks and chop some onions or shallots.  Lightly fry for 10 minutes.

2.  Chop a couple of chillies and several garlic cloves (for the flavouring)

3.  Crack open a couple of eggs and whisk

4.  Put the chopped chillies, garlic cloves and eggs in a mixing bowl.

5.  Add 100g bread crumbs and 100g goats cheese to the mixing bowl.

6.  The stalks and chopped onions should be ready to add to the mixture now.

7.  Get a tin tray ready and grease it.  Then turn on the oven to preheat at 200 degrees centigrade.

8.  Next make sure the mixture in the bowl is well mixed and evenly distributed.  Then make the orb shapes out of the mixture with your hands.

9.  Place the orbs on the tin tray and then place in the oven for about 10 - 20 minutes.  (Check them after 10 minutes). Remove them from the oven when they are golden brown.


Ingredients I used for this recipe

500g chard stalks (or a good crop of chard stalks, I'm sure 200g would work perfectly well)
5 shallots
Garlic bulb
100g bread crumbs (best from home made fresh bread)
100g crumbly goats cheese
2 eggs

Have you got any great ideas for excess chard?

Scone Recipe

Got lots of new summer preserves? Well there's nothing better for them to go with than some gorgeous straight out of the oven fresh scones.

I've been baking scones since I was about 7 years old.  My mother must have taught me as I loved eating mum's straight out of the oven, butter melting, jam warming scones.  It was something we cooked when the oven was hot.

We had an old Rayburn which was coal powered so we would have to heat up the oven to over 400 degrees fahrenheit.  As soon as the dial reached 400 degrees, we'd whip out the big bowl and start making our mixture.

By the age of 10 I was displaying my scones at our local village fair.  I didn't win a prize for my scones, but when we came to collect them, they'd gone!  Mum told me, that it must be because they were just too tasty that they'd disappeared!!

So here's how I make my scones...


1. Pour 300g self raising flour into your mixing bowl.

(For my friends in Hong Kong self raising flour may be difficult to find.  Baking powder and white flour will do the same job...300g white flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder)

2. Pour in 100g sugar into the bowl

3.  And add 75g margarine (I use margarine because my boyfriend's lactose intolerant but use butter if you prefer) 

4. Mix all the ingredients together with your finger tips and keep mixing until the mixture resembles fine bread crumbs

5. Pour 120 ml full fat milk (raw milk from you local dairy or farmers market is best or lacto free milk for lactose intolerant sufferers).  Break an egg into the jug too and whisk together.

6.  If you would like raisins in your scones, mix them into the breadcrumb like mixture now.

7.  Make a well in the middle of the mixture in the bowl with a wooden spoon and pour about half the liquid mixture in the middle.  Work the mixture together with your wooden spoon.  When done, repeat the process for the rest of the liquid mixture.  Again work it through with the wooden spoon and when its worked through its time to get your hands in a knead the mixture together with your hands.  If the dough feels a little wet add a little flour, or if too dry add a little more milk.  If you are happy, it's time to get your dough on the table and switch on the oven at a temp of 200 degrees centigrade.

8.  Get a metal tray out of the cupboard and flour the tray.  Flatten the scone dough (I do this with the palms of my hands but you can use a rolling pin if you like).  With a pastry cutter cut your scones out of the dough and place on the tray.  Next you are ready to put the scones in the oven.  They should be ready within 10 - 20 minutes (depending how fierce your oven is).  Keep an eye on them and as soon as they are golden brown, get them out of the oven and allow to cool.

Or if you are brave or prepared to risk burnt fingers, pick a hot scones, break it open and melt some butter and jam and let them melt in your mouth.  Yum!

Ingredients List:

300g Self raising organic flour
100g Sugar
75g   Butter or margarine
1       Medium free range egg
120ml Full fat milk
100g Sultanas

Pickled Nasturtium Seeds

Nasturtiums have really brightened up my summer salads this year with their peppery leaves.  I think I'm hooked!

If you haven't tried these flavourful leaves I highly recommend you try them.  Nasturtiums are in the same family as water cress.

And in my garden and my community gardens right now, the nasturtiums are growing thick and strong in great clumps with their cheerful yellow and red flowers in all their different varieties.  

This summer I found out you could eat the seeds too!   The seeds pack a really good punch too and can be used in the place of capers to spice up salads.  You can even pickle them to ensure that this summer season delight can brighten up autumn, winter and spring meals too.

The first step is to put the seeds into a jar with a tablespoon of salt and fill the jar with water. Leave for 24 hours.

After 24 hours, rinse the seeds in water
                                                                                                                                    

Dry the seeds on kitchen towel and pat dry.







Next step is to prepare the vinegar and flavourings.

Chop your favourite chilli.  Ideally the chilli should be fresh from your garden, greenhouse or windowsill.

And add them to a saucepan.

Then add 12 peppercorns (or a small handful).

And a tablespoon of salt.

Finally add 400 ml of white wine vinegar and simmer for 10 minutes.

While the vinegar is simmering, start to put the nasturtium seeds in a sterilised jar.  Put a single layer of seeds down.

Then a layer of finely chopped onion.  Then continue with an alternating layer of each seeds, onions, seeds, onions etc. 

When you have finished filling the jar, the vinegar mixture should have simmered long enough.  Allow to cool, then pour the mixture into the jar.













After a week you will be able to add your pickled nasturtium seeds to salads, pasta, meat dishes - anything which you would like to add a peppery flavour.

Ingredients

Nasturtium seeds       About 100g (or a good handful)
Salt                            Tablespoon
White Wine Vinegar  400ml
Peppercorns              12 (or a small handful)
Chilli                           1
Onion                         1

Ornamental Edible Garden

Courgette Hummus

My boyfriend's due home in a few days.  I've been willing my whole garden to grow lots of food for him with plant food in the form of worm tea, wishful thinking and lots of watering. The tomatoes are refusing to ripen but I do have a lot of squash growing out there.

On the courgette plant (as I was only successful at getting one seed to germinate) I pollinated one courgette and was letting it grow big as I wanted to save some seeds.  This plant is such a good cropper I do want to save some seed from it.  Unfortunately, it looks like the whole plant is putting all its energies into this one courgette and stalling on ripening more.  I decided it was time to remove this courgette to give the other fruit a chance.  It was approximately 25cm long.  I should have plenty of time to let courgettes grow later in the season when I grow tired of the glut.  Right now I need good crops available to cook for Matt in about 3 days time!

So what to do with a 300g courgette?  I hit my favourite seasonal cookbook "Grown in Britain Cook Book" which lists its recipes by crop group.  I stumbled on a recipe for pumpkin hummus and this gave me the inspiration for courgette hummus.

I'd never made hummus before.  I love eating hummus but as chickpeas are imported to the UK I have avoided making it in the past.  But I thought, just this once I would make some at home and bought a bag of dried chickpeas on my last trip to the shops.  So I had already rehydrated the chickpeas when I was trying to think what to do with the big courgette - now I could give it a local twist.

I started by chopping 3 garlic cloves in the food mixer.

Then chopped courgette went into the mixer.

I had no idea how much water courgettes contain!  Still it made wonderful courgette puree!

Courgette puree and chopped garlic

 Next, I put 200g chickpeas in the food mixer

Pureed chickpeas

 Next step, I combined the garlic, courgette and chickpeas together.

Mixing the courgette, chickpeas and garlic

And finally the best bit.. it was time for the seasoning: Tahini, lemon juice and paprika to taste.  Followed by a few good blobs of olive oil.

And here's what the finished result looked like...

Courgette Hummus

Not bad for my first go!

Great with some soldiers of home baked bread or even slice up spare raw squash - perfect for a bit of  crunch.

Ingredients:
200g chickpeas
300g courgette (or a medium sized squash - I wouldn't worry about the weight being too exact)
3 cloves of garlic
Table spoon Tahini (adjust quantity to personal taste)
2 Table spoons Lemon juice (adjust quantity to personal taste)
3 Table spoons Olive Oil/Rapeseed Oil
A few pinches of Paprika (adjust quantity to personal taste)

A good summer roast

With all the squash 

Crookneck Summer Squash - Seeds from Real Seeds

and courgettes ripening in our gardens, its time to get the squash recipes out...

Striata di Napoli - Seeds from Real Seeds

One of the first things I did when I had my very first courgettes grew in my garden was to lightly fry them with tomatoes and garlic.  I thought this tasted absolutely amazing.  It was the first time I was eating food I'd grown myself.  It was like nectar from the gods!!

Since then, I've discovered roasting vegetables is a wonderful thing to do with vegetables as it brings out the sugars in them.

Zapallito de Toscana - Seeds from Heritage Seed Library

One of my favourite veggie roasts is to roast squash with a good slice of mild goats cheese and a sprinkle of chilli powder on top if you like it a bit spicy.  Also, I like to roast them in the midst of lots of chopped onion and garlic.  Onion has a wonderfully sweet flavour when roasted which compliments squash perfectly.  If you are a carnivore, pork and apple sausages from your local butchers or farmers market will compliment the roasted squash and onions perfectly.  You could even experiment with a little roasted apple in there too...depends how sweet you like your savoury.  Crank the oven up to 40 degrees and in 30-45 minutes (when it all looks nicely browned to your liking) enjoy the fruits of your labours of growing your own! 

 

Chard and Calendula Salad

 

It must be the sunny weather inspiring me to make sunny looking salads.  Here's the second salad of the day to accompany my evening meal:  

Baby rainbow chard leaves and calendula petals (also known as pot marigold or english marigold)

All the ingredients fresh from the garden and packed full of vitamins and minerals.

Something else to distract impatience while waiting for those tomatoes to ripen!

Squash Flower Salad

Its squash or cucurbit season in my garden. Well it really started at the beginning of July but its cranking up to full swing now which is amazing.  Every day something to eat from the garden - and now we have some sunshine maybe the tomatoes will finally turn yellow or red (depending on the varieties).

In the midst of my tomato impatience, I have my lovely squash plants to keep me company and to keep me fed.  Patty pans, large squash, gem squash and courgette.  The patty pans and courgettes give the best flowers and I like to add these to my salads, but today as I have a bit of a glut of flowers I decided to make a flower salad.

It is the most basic of salads as garden fresh salad doesn't need much preparation... but I divided the squash petals removing the sex part of the flower (which will go to my wormery) and placed them in a bowl, I added a handful of nasturtium leaves for some peppery flavour and some borage flowers. 

Borage is said to having a destressing effect so I like to add it to my salads, not that I am stressed with all the gardening but it might be thanks to the borage flowers!

Stuffed Pepper

I had a lonely pepper in my fridge yesterday and not many more veg in the fridge except for some fresh garlic (by fresh I mean never been dried) and some goats cheese.  Wanted to do this pepper some justice, I thought I would try a stuffed pepper.  I've never tried stuffing peppers before but it turned out amazingly well so I thought I would share this one:

Ingredients:

Sweet pepper of your choice (there are loads of varieties, but choose one that has a shape that is easy to stuff)
40g goats cheese (or as much as to fill the cavity of the pepper)
garlic cloves
Ground black pepper to garnish (or you could try ground chilli if you prefer)
 
1.  Cut your pepper in half and fill with the goats cheese (or soft cheese of your choice)
2.  Squash in as many cloves as you would like, or your pepper accommodates
3.  Grind some black pepper over the top
4.  Roast in the oven for about 20-30 mins on about 140 C (but keep checking it to make sure its melting nicely and not too quickly and adjust the temperature accordingly)

The smell of these when they were ready was simply divine and eating them even better still.  The only downside?  I ate them too quickly!!

A-Pizza Style Pie

Last weekend when I was rolling out my usual pizza dough, I thought I would try lining a dish with pizza dough (in a similar style to pastry) and putting the pizza topping inside with cheese on top.  It tasted amazing and was a little less messy to eat than my usual Saturday night pizza, so I thought I would share it with you.

Ingredients:

Saved home made bread dough - 350g  (Bread Recipe)
Tin chopped tomato
Wet garlic - 12 cloves
Pesto - table spoon full
Sweet Pepper
Ground chilli pepper - 2 good pinches
Chopped spring onion
Cumin flavoured buffalo cheese - 50g (or your favourite crumbly goats cheese)
Cheddar cheese (for grating over the top)

1.  Roll out the pizza dough until it is large enough to line your oven dish.  Leave the dough to prove in the dish while you make the filling.

2.  Pour a tin of chopped tomato into a saucepan and start to heat on a low heat.  Add a table spoon of your favourite pesto.  Add the cloves of garlic.  Chop the sweet pepper and add to the sauce too.  Add a few pinches of ground chilli pepper (preferably from home grown chillis if available).  Turn up the heat a little so that the sauce simmers and thickens.  When it has thickened to your satisfaction, it is ready to put into your dish of pizza dough.

3.  Add cubes or crumbles of the cheese of your choice on to the tomato sauce filling and the chopped spring onions.  Grate some cheddar cheese (or other favourite hard cheese).

4.  Place in the oven preheated at 200 degrees centigrade.

5.  When the cheese topping looks nicely browned, its ready to eat.  (I find it takes about 10-15 minutes, but I keep checking every 5 minutes to see if its ready just so I catch it when its cooked exactly to my liking)

Enjoy!!

Funnily enough, as soon as I got it out of the oven, my neighbours knocked on the door.  They obviously smelt my pizza pie!!  And this is what happened ...

I wouldn't let them finish it all though as wanted some left overs for myself!

Potato Salad

I've just harvested about 900g of salad potatoes from my garden.  All perfectly formed and fresh.  My favourite thing to make with salad potatoes is a potato salad.  Here's my recipe.

Ingredients:

For the mayonnaise:
2 egg yolks
Rapeseed oil (about 200ml)
Tea spoon of mustard
Table Spoon Lemon Juice
Salt & Pepper

500g Potatoes




1.  Par boil your potatoes.
2.  While the potatoes are lightly boiling, make your mayonnaise.  Start with mixing the 2 egg yolks with the mustard.  I like to mix in a pyrex measuring jug but a small bowl will do just as well.
3.  Next you will start to mix in the oil.  Add a drop of oil and mix it in.
4.  When its fully mixed in add another drop of oil.
5.  Keep adding just a drop of oil and mixing in until it starts to look like the mixture is starting to thicken up.
6.  Check if the par boiled potatoes are soft enough to eat for the salad.  If they are, drain them and then continue making the mayonnaise.
6.  When the mixture is thickening up you can start to add larger amounts of oil (about a tablespoon at a time but no need to measure it).  Mix in each addition of oil before adding more.
7.  When you have made the amount of mayonnaise you need, place it in the fridge for half an hour.  This will help it thicken up even further.
8.  After half an hour fetch the mayonnaise out of the fridge and taste the mixture.  Add lemon juice to taste and the salt and the pepper to taste.
9.  Now your mayonnaise will be ready to add to your potatoes and you have a lovely potato salad.

Matt and I like to eat it on sultry summer evenings alongside barbecued steak and to eat it in the garden with a nice chilled glass of cider.

A Basic Bread Recipe

My friend Astor in Hong Kong asked me for a simple bread recipe so I thought I would share the method I use.

Ingredients:

Bread Flour 1000g   (you can mix flours. I like 50% white bread flour, 25% brown, 25% grannery)
Water 600ml
Dried Yeast 10g        (or as per instructions on the packet)
Salt 20g                     (I like a bit more but that's my personal taste)
Oil  20ml                   (suggestions: olive oil, rapeseed oil, vegetable oil)

1.  First prepare the yeast.  Follow the instructions on your yeast packet (some yeasts are instant).  I use dried active yeast which is dissolved into 150ml water at blood temperature as the yeast will activate at this temperature.  Be careful not to use water too hot as this can harm the effectiveness of the yeast.  A way of obtaining this temperature is 50ml boiling water to 100ml cold water.  Leave the yeast to start foaming for about 10-15 minutes.  When it has a head on it like beer, it is ready to use.

2.  While the yeast is activating, measure your flour, salt and oil and put it into a mixing bowl.  For the water measure out 450ml as the rest of the water will be provided by the yeast/water mix that is still activating.  Make a well in the flour and add the 450ml of water.  Mix together with a big wooden spoon.

3.  The yeast should be ready now.  If it hasn't activated, dip your finger in the water and if it feels luke warm add a touch more hot water until it feels like a nice warm temperature on your skin.  This should be about right for the yeast to activate.

4.  Add the yeast mixture to the bowl and mix this through with the wooden spoon.  When it all looks like its combined together nicely (take any rings off!) and start kneading with your hands.  If the dough feels a little dry add a touch more water, if it feels too wet add a little flour.

5.  Now knead or stretch the dough on a work surface or table for about 15 minutes.  You want to have one end held by the heal of your hand and really stretch the dough across the table with your other hand.  Make sure each bit and part of the dough all gets a good stretching.  The more stretching now, the more the loaf will rise in the oven.

6.  Form the dough into a ball, place in the bowl to let the dough rise.  This is called proving as you are trying to prove that the yeast will rise when it is placed in the oven.  Either coat the dough with the same oil you used in the bread ingredients or lightly coat with some flour.  Cover with a tea towel or cling film and leave for about an hour.  (You can leave it for longer if you wish - sometimes I leave for about 2-3 hours)

7.  After at least an hour check the dough.  It should have roughly doubled its size now.  Get the dough out of the bowl and back on the table.  Squash all the air out of the dough and shape into the loaves you will bake.  Place them on a tin tray dusted with flour and leave in a warm place to rise once more.  Leave for about an hour.

8.  15 minutes before you are ready to bake your bread, get the oven ready.  Crank it up to the highest temperature available.  Mine goes up to 220 degrees centigrade.  Place a bowl of boiling water at the bottom of the oven.  This will provide steam in the oven.

9.  When your loaves are nicely risen and ready to go in the oven, slash the tops of the loaves with a serrated knife (about 2 inch deep depth).  This will expose some of the dough (and yeast) that has not been exposed and will help the loaf rise even more when baking in the oven.

• Small rolls 10 - 20 minutes baking, 
• 3 loaves     30 - 40 minutes baking
• 2 loaves     40 - 50 minutes baking

10.  Now place the loaves in the oven.

11.  After 10 minutes, check the colour of the loaves and adjust the temperature accordingly:

• Crust is pale - adjust to 200 degrees centigrade
• Crust is browning nicely - adjust to 180 degrees centigrade
• Crust is browning quickly - adjust to 170 degrees centigrade

12.  Continue to bake for the remainder of the cooking time.

I find each batch you bake you get better and better so don't feel too disappointed with the very first batch baked.  I've been baking for about 6 months now and never, ever buy bread.  All the bread I eat has been made at home.  This might sound time consuming, but I bake a batch of bread every fortnight and freeze any extra loaves.  I also freeze some dough for pizza and have not bought pizza for a very long time as it just doesn't compare!  Each batch I bake is just that little bit different.  I find it a really organic process and it is even more fun if you bake with a friend as you can sip tea and chat while waiting for the loaves to prove.  A great way to catch up!

Welcome Home Garden Salad

I've just come home from a lovely holiday with my boyfriend Matt and returned to a garden that looks like its been on steroids for the week I've been away!

Walking round I could see lots of things ready to eat, so I thought a welcome home salad would be in order.


Here's what I made my salad with:

Radishes
Kai Lan
Giant Red Mustard Leaf
Pea shoots
Squash flowers