This week in my kitchen :: Summer Fruit Crumble

It would be telling tales if I said that my cooking choices haven't been influenced by festival food.

There couldn't have been a more extreme selection of places to eat and drink there. From a 1920's themed Champagne Orangery tent with a white picket fenced garden full of beautiful people (just like a scene from The Great Gatsby), exclusive long table banquets hosted by famous chefs, or Petersham Nurseries' Michelin starred restaurant in a tent. To street food. Like worthy Wholefood Heaven's, Buddha Bowls  and The Chai Shop Organic, the tiny tea tent that's solar powered with water heated on a biomass fuelled heat exchanger, humble Good & Proper, tea and crumpets or the crumble shack. Something for everyones' taste from meat eating hedonists to vegan, wholefood, soul-food even foraged, or simple little old me... 

But you probably know by now that it was the wholesome down to earth food that I loved. The Wholefood Heaven's Buddha Bowl was the best thing I've eaten all year. Not sure if it was all that fresh air or that Hannah had invited me to go along with her (how awesome is that...mum's still cool enough to be seen at a festival with, never mind dancing to Bjork with) or maybe it was the music and the ginger beer but it tasted so good. 

Their Buddha bowl (that's won awards) is a noodle box filled with a vegan Massaman curry with new potatoes, pineapple and soya chunks, carrot and homemade kimchi pickle, flash steamed kale, organic brown rice and omega seeds. 

Apparently the Massaman curry is Thai but with Persian origins. I will try and make it when I get all the ingredients but I made up a concoction that was as close as I could with what I had to hand when I got home and added prawns and salmon; and what I thought was brown rice in the cupboard but was actually brown rice noodles...So not quite there, but scrumptious too. 

But I am on a crumble mission. We didn't manage to get to the crumble shack but once home I began making them with a vengeance. And I was hungry, so it was a quick root in the fruit bowl and cupboards that produced:

My Summer fruit crumble

Ingredients for four people:

• half a dozen small shrivelled apricots 
• a baking apple or any seasonal fresh fruit
• porridge oats
• coconut oil
• maple syrup
• light soft brown sugar 
• vanilla extract
• a little ground cinnamon

Method:

1. Pre-heat your oven to about 200-220c/400-425f/gas mark 6-7
2. Wash, cut in half and de-stone the apricots and place them in an oven proof dish. If using a baking apple peel,core and cut into eights or sixteenths depending on the size of the apple and add them too.
3. Sprinkle with a little soft brown sugar and ground cinnamon.
4. I have no quantities for this but have made it twice and it just works. Take a big spoonful of coconut oil and add to a saucepan. Heat until it melted, pour in a big drizzle of maple syrup and a few drops of vanilla extract.
5. Add  couple of handfuls of porridge oats and stir well. 
6. Put this topping on top of the fruit.
7. Bake for about half an hour or so until the fruit is tender and the crumble golden brown and a little crunchy.

This is delicious I could eat the whole thing just to myself (and almost did). The topping is crunchy and chewy not like some crumbles that can taste a bit like sawdust. The coconut oil gives a subtle coconut hint, the maple syrup and soft brown sugar...just a sprinkling but added an earthy fudgy toffee depth and the fruit...mmm...something else. I have tried this with nectarines too...heavenly...and if the oats aren't produced near any products with gluten, this recipe is gluten free and vegan...

Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's orange and dried fruit salad is amazing too. It's called Carroty Dried Fruit Salad and you can find it on page 330 of River cottage Light and Easy: Recipes for Every Day. It's a lovely alternative to usual salads with dried fruit that plumps up and softens in the juice of fresh lemon and orange.

Oh and the crumpets...next on the list...I will try and make them...

But what about you...where do you find your food inspiration?

debx 

One Day A Week Vegan - Take Two

We all loved Wednesday's supper thanks to a newfound recipe. I'm currently obsessively reading Sophie Dahl's latest cookery book From Season to Season: a year in recipes. I was hooked from opening the Cook's note page and seeing a list of "usefuls to have in your larder,"  that sounded like my kind of ingredients. It began with Belazu Balsamic Vinegar (which I have to say I've never used or even heard of before) through Miso paste, Tahini, pomegranate molasses and pumpkin seed oil...to chick peas, lemons, cardamom, Arborio rice, spelt flour, honey... all of which I love and use...and tons of other things including:

"Some good-quality dark chocolate"

"Some cheap chocolate for eating on the spur of the moment when miserable"

and 

"Fresh coffee"

...my kind of woman...

Supper

For supper I made Chickpea/garbanzo bean mushroom burgers with tahini sauce that you can find on page 48 or link to similar ones here.

The ingredients include chick peas, onion, mushrooms, garlic,  a couple of tablespoons of spelt flour, ground cumin and coriander, olive oil,sea salt and pepper.

After cooking the onions in olive oil you pulse (or mash with fork or potato masher) all the ingredients together and combined to make little burgers.  Fried in olive oil they have lovely crunchy outside and are very light and so tasty. If you like felafel I'm sure you'll be a fan of these too.  

NB I didn't just cook the onions for a few minutes but left them longer to caramelise...I'm not a big fan of undercooked ones and wanted to maximise the lovely flavour of sweetly caramelised onions.

I used dried chick peas, leaving them to steep in water over night and then drain before cooking for at least an hour. You could use canned ones if you are in a hurry but you'll find that one can of chick peas costs as much as a packet of dried ones. Apparently once cooked you can freeze them so it might be worthwhile making up batches. 

I served ours with tahini dressing made by combining a little with olive oil and fresh lemon juice. It would go really well with humus too if that's not too much of a chickpea overload... I also like them with my favourite balsamic vinegar/olive oil/honey/grainy Dijon mustard dressing.

Accompaniment was  Seasonal Vegetable Stir-fry using the following ingredients for three people:

• Three or four leaves of spring greens with the stalk removed.
• Two small sweet peppers
• Three spring onions
• Fresh flat leafed parsley
• A couple of cloves of garlic
• One large portobello mushroom or a handful of chestnut ones
• A head of broccoli cut into floret, reserving the stalk for soup
• Oil to stir-fry I used olive oil
• Tahini or soy sauce
• Fresh lemon or lime
• Toasted sesame oil if you have any and sesame seeds to dress

Method:

1. Wash, deseed and thinly slice all the ingredients, removing the outer skin of the spring onions.
2. Heat up the oil in a wok or frying pan and add the onions stir-fry gradually adding the other ingredients apart from the parsley,making sure the garlic doesn't burn. 
3. Add the soy sauce and fresh lemon juice.
4. Stir-fry for a few minutes until the vegetables wilt a little but still have a nice crunchy bite. Check the seasoning and adjust if necessary adding more soy sauce or lemon juice.
5. Serve dressed with a little sesame oil and seeds.

The burgers would also be lovely served in a good bun with caramelised onion or chilli marmalade or with rice or quinoa...mmm...my mouths watering...

Pudding was a simple Fresh Berries with a Crunchy Honey Topping desert

Ingredients:

• A punnet of fresh blackberries
• Fresh cherries
• One orange or clementine
• Oats I get these ones in a 5kg pack, they last for ages
• Runny honey or agave syrup 
• Some nuts...I used pistachio and almond slivers but hazelnuts would be lovely too.

Method:

1. Stone and cut in half the cherries and divide into serving dishes
2. Add the berries
3. Top with a few oats and a sprinkling of nuts or seeds
4. Drizzle with honey and a good squeeze of orange juice...

...mmm...it 's amazing that this simple assemblage of a few ingredients is one of the best deserts I've ever had.  It works well with whatever is in season but exeptionally so with soft fruits like the juicy blackberries.  I can't wait for the mulberries to come on the tree...

As I've challenged myself to be an at-least 

One Day a Week Vegan and not one meal a week vegan I must tell you about the other meals.

Lunch

Harissa Soup with Spelt pasta

Ingredients for three to four people:

• One leek
• A couple of tomatoes if in season or one can of chopped tomatoes
• Two carrots
• Four or five medium sized new potatoes
• A couple of leaves of spring greens or spinach..or something foraged like nettle or sticky willy!
• A handful or garden peas or frozen when out of season. I also added a few chick peas to complete the North African feel of this soup
• Tomato puree
• A little turmeric
• A couple of cloves of garlic
• Harissa paste or spices including ground coriander and cumin seed and some form of chili
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Spelt or any other kind of eggless pasta

Method:

1. Wash all the vegetables well.  
2. Top and tail the leek and then cut in half length wise and then quarter length wise and cut up into small pieces. Pour some olive oil into a heavy saucepan and sauté the leeks.
3. Remove the stalk from the middle of the spring greens and cut into small strips.  I find kitchen scissors very useful for this.
4. Peel the carrots, top and tail and cut into thin circles.
5. Peel and slice the potatoes.
6. Chop the tomatoes finely and crush or chop the garlic.
7. Add the garlic to the leeks and cook.
8. Add the turmeric and cook for a few minutes before adding the Harissa paste followed by all the other vegetables.
9. Stir well and allow all the vegetables to sautee for a couple of minutes before adding the chopped tomatoes, tomato puree, cooked chick peas, fresh or garden peas and hot water and seasoning.
10. Bring to the boil and then reduce the heat to a simmer. Continue to cook until the vegetables are tender adding the pasta in the last few minutes.

The potatoes and pasta make this a really substantial soup.

Finally most important meal of the day Breakfast - this was a bit of a meal on the run but one of my favourites. Good crunchy peanut butter with local honey which tastes all fudgie and delicious on spelt bread not long out of the oven...

So that was our day...and I'm pretty sure we had plenty of second class protein...what with all those chick peas and nuts and iron in the dark green leaves. 

...I'm already planning my next vegan day...

I'll be linking over here on tuesday....

edit: NB Big apology...I should have substituted the honey with maple syrup or another vegan alternative on my vegan day...
sorry!
debx

Carnage and Simple Supper...Leek and Broccoli Pasta.

We watched Carnage at our local independent cinema Wednesday evening. Interesting witty Polanski film with good performances. Then enjoyed a simple pasta supper.

Leek and Broccoli pasta.

Ingredients:

• Enough pasta for two people.  I used gluten free spaghetti
• One leek
• One head of broccoli
• A couple of cloves of garlic
• A little fresh ginger
• Olive oil
• Tomato puree
• Sea salt and fresh black pepper

Method:

1. Prepare the leek. Top and tail then slice or shred and wash thoroughly.
2. Saute in olive oil until soft. Season. Add the ginger, either chopped finely or grated and the garlic and cook for a couple of minutes.
3. Add a little water and tomato puree and continue to cook.
4. Meanwhile cook the spaghetti in plenty of hot seasoned water. Remembering to bring it up to the boil before adding the pasta. It's the bubbles which help to keep the strands separate.
5. Prepare the broccoli cutting into small florets. Use the stalk too cutting into smaller pieces. 
6. Add the broccoli to the cooking spaghetti  in the last five minutes or so...depending how well you like it cooked. I prefer it to be a little crunchy and have kept it's lovely green colour.
7. Drain the pasta and broccoli and add to the saucepan with the leeks.
8. Then plate up. You can serve with a grating of Parmesan if you like...but flavour-wise it really doesn't need anything.  

A great quick supper...

Janella Purcell's Lebanese Spinach Soup

I caught an episode of Good Cook, Bad Cook the other day and watched Janella Purcell make this deliciously simple Lebanese Spinach, Lentil and Lemon Soup.

I didn't have all the ingredients that she used but I simply:

• Sautéed onions and garlic in olive oil
• Added a cup of green lentils, lots of baby spinach and the juice a lemon
• Topped up with water and sea salt and cooked it until the lentils and spinach were tender.  
• Then blended.   

It isn't very much to look at but believe me is packed full of flavour.  It reminded me of a Persian soup called Ash-e Reshte that has a similar deep spinach flavour. Janella made a traditional Lebanese topping called taklia which comprises garlic and herbs fried and then ground and sprinkled over the top.  It's similar to the traditional Persian topping of crisply fried golden onions and mint that top the Ashe-e Reshte.

Flapjack Crumble with the last of the gooseberries

Battling biting little thorns, I collected the last of the gooseberries hiding under bushy green leaves.They are little devils to collect.  There weren't quite enough to make a dessert but along with windfall mulberries and small yellow cherry plums made a delicious base for my favourite flapjack crumble.

I've just  rooted out the original recipe to check that I'm writing down the correct ingredients.  I discovered that it's actually called Flapjack Plum Pudding and not crumble!  Whatever you call it, it's delicious and so easy to make that since making the first one  five or six years ago I've never made a conventional crumble again.This is a great gluten free recipe.
  

Flapjack Plum Pudding

Ingredients:
•               750g stoned ripe plum

•               75g(3oz)  butter

•               75g organic jumbo oats (I prefer this made with finer oat)

•               75g light Muscovado sugar

Method:

1.             Halve and stone the ripe plums and spread them in the bottom of a buttered ovenproof dish.

2.           Melt the butter in a saucepan and mix with the oats and sugar.

3.           Sprinkle over the plums and bake in a preheated oven, 180c/gas mark 4 for 35 - 40 minutes, until the fruit is tender.

4.           Serve with warm custard or pouring cream.

Simple...

In my slightly altered version, I cook the fruit for a little while in a saucepan.  Depending on the ripeness and type of fruit I add a little brown sugar or honey to taste. Then cook the fruit for a  while until it begins to fall, but not break up.  I then transfer it to an oven proof dish and  top with the flapjack mixture, which I usually put a little vanilla extract in.  This  method cuts down on the baking time by about ten or fifteen minutes.

I make this a lot after  Christmas  when the green grocers shelves are full of cranberries, often reduced radically.  The combination of windfall apples and sour cranberries is amazing...

It's sad we're coming to the end of our little berry crop but it looks like we're going to have a lot of apples this autumn and I think I spotted what looks like a damson tree in the woods peeping over the top of our fence...and it's full of fruit...I think I'll go and investigate...

Rigetta Klint's Beetroot Pesto

I've been wanting to make Rigetta Klint's beetroot pesto since first seeing her recipe on Design Sponge. Doesn't she have the most wonderful name? and isn't the colour amazing?

It is so simple to make and if like me you are a beetroot lover, it's a perfect standby to have in the fridge. You just need an hour in which you can be doing other things, to either boil or roast the beetroot, and then it's just a quick whizz up of a few additional ingredients and you have the base of lots of quick supper or lunch dishes.

Like Rigetta I tried it first with pasta. I used wheat and gluten free pasta which at ten minutes takes a little longer to cook than the usual durum wheat ones.

I now have a handy little pot ready in the fridge and apparently it's freezable too. I'm planning to try it in risotto next....

..I'll let you know if it works...oh and then over roasted vegetables...mmm...

Orange and Almond Buns

All the Christmas cake and biscuit stock has been consumed at last and I can start baking again.

A quick fruit bowl, store cupboard search revealed oranges and ground almonds....a great combination....an even quicker google search introduced me to a lovely blog beehive95, and a slightly different version of the Nigella clementine cake recipe that I think most of us have made at some time.

Beehive95's recipe uses a slightly higher ground almond to egg ratio, and oranges rather than clementines.

I'd just bought these cup cake or muffin cases....I'm not sure exactly what the difference is...so I was dying to use them. I only had enough ground almonds to make exactly half the amount so I thought it would be perfect to try...and just call them buns to solve the dilemma!

To make beehive95's Orange & Almond cake you will need:

• Two large organic unwaxed oranges
• 300g of ground almonds
• 250g of caster or granulated sugar
• 6 eggs
• 1 heaped teaspoon of baking powder

This is a very easy cake to make but takes quite a while to bake and you need a long time to cook the oranges, so it's the kind of thing to make in the evening when you're pottering about. It's great because almonds are really good for you and it's both fat and wheat free.

To make the cake or buns simply:

• Place the orange/s in a pan, cover with water bring to the boil, reduce the heat and then cook until tender when pierced with a knife. Apparently this can take up to two hours. Mine took a lot less, I suppose this will depend on the size and thickness of the skin.
• Cut in half and leave to cool.

• Remove the pips and blend the orange halves, skin, pith and all.

• Whip up the eggs and sugar using an ordinary hand held balloon whisk.

• Fold in the ground almonds and baking powder. Put into a 25cm loose bottom baking pan lined with parchment and bake at 150c for 45 minutes to one hour.
• Leave to cool in the tin before cutting.

I used exactly half the ingredients which made exactly nine small cakes. They took about half an hour to cook which surprised me. I checked them after the first ten or fifteen minutes but they needed longer.

I forgot to put the baking powder in....I was glad actually because they worked fine without. These are the most deliciously moist little buns....mmm......lovely.....

They are scrumptious just as they are but make a great desert served with custard and with a fruit coulis. I reserved some of the sauce I made whilst poaching pears in a Cinnamon, Cardamon and Rosemary Sauce with a red grape juice base. It working amazingly well and this will be on my repertoire from now on.

This post is linked to The Kitchen Maid's bloghop Sweet Sweet Friday that you can see here.

Do you have an end of week sweet treat? Add it here to spread the sweetness of Fridays....