Wholesome Good - Autumn Gratin

I recently received a veg box with chard in it.  Chard is interesting because it's so colorful, but other than the color, it's a kind of bitter, dark, leafy green that just doesn't do it for me. 
I mean, it's fine in moderation but I had a big ol' bag of it and didn't know what to do. 

So, I turned to trusty Google and once again Alice Waters was my guide.
You can find the original recipe on seriouseats.com.  I tweaked my version a bit due to a) having a lot of kale still in the garden b) being lazy and c) feeling the need to add cheese and garlic to everything I do. 

Here's what I did:

Get a bunch of chard.  The original recipe called for "three bunches" but unless you're buying in a grocery store and all grocery stores use the same measurements for sale, there's no way to accurately judge what is meant by "three bunches" so I just used what I had and tweaked proportions where necessary.
A bunch of kale - however much you want, or just leave it out.
Breadcrumbs - maybe about a cup.  I ran out to just used what I had.
Butter - the original recipe calls for 5tbsp but do what you want with it.  Use olive oil if you want for cooking the veggies, but I'd recommend sticking with butter to go with the breadcrumbs.
1 onion
2 cloves garlic 
1/3 C pine nuts (toasted)*
4 tsp flour
1 C milk
salt, pepper, parmesan and nutmeg to taste

Start by tossing your breadcrumbs in melted butter and set aside for later.  I didn't toast because I was putting it in the oven and figured that step would be redundant. 
Wash your chard and remove the stems - keep half or so of them and chop them finely.  Wash and de-stem your kale. 
Cook your onion and garlic in butter or olive oil until soft (5-7 minutes)- while this is cooking, toast up your pine nuts.  I usually do this in a frying pan.  Keep the nuts moving so they don't burn and toast until fragrant.  Set them aside when done.

Add your kale, chard and chard stalks in with the onion and garlic and cook for about 3-5 minutes until they're wilted to your liking.

You will see that I didn't pre-cook the greens.  I didn't think it was necessary to cook them three times (boil, fry, bake) but go for it if you really want to. 
Add the flour and cook for 30 seconds or so, and then add the milk and stir until everything is mixed.  Now add in your nutmeg, salt, parmesan and pepper to taste.  I like the addition of parmesan to give this a bit of cheesy-ness, but feel free to leave it out or put in cheddar or whatever you like.
When the seasonings are all to your liking, stir in your pine nuts.

Pop the mixture into a small casserole dish and top with your buttery bread crumbs.  Bake at 180C/350F for about 20 minutes, until the breadcrumbs are golden and it looks super tasty.

I would say this works equally well as a main or a side, but it's up to you. 

* I totally didn't add the pine nuts when I made this, but I served it with a salad that included pine nuts and we both agreed that the flavours went really well together.  Plus it was a good bit of nutty crunch for an interesting texture. 

Wholesome Food - pizza sauce

Remember how I keep going on about tomatoes?  Well, I'm still going on.

In October I stripped all of the reasonably sized green tomatoes from the vines and put them all in a tray in my kitchen window, hoping that at least some would ripen before they started to go off.  I had NO IDEA how long tomatoes keep.  It's now the end of November and I'm pretty sure they're *all* going to ripen and we've been able to continue working our way through our own fresh home grown tomatoes the whole time.

We're kind of old people.  Every Friday we have a pizza night.  Up until a few months ago we would buy frozen pizza and put extra goodies on it.  One night I made pizza from scratch, and we've never looked back.

On our pizza from scratch, I put home made pizza sauce.  As I've waxed poetic in the past, tomato sauce made from roasted home-grown tomatoes is like nothing else.  Seriously.

So, here's how I do it...

Ingredients:

Tomatoes - preferably larger ones
Salt
Olive oil (optional)
Garlic(optional)
Basil (optional)
Anything else you think would be nice like chili, onion, other herbs (optional)

You see it is obviously a complicated recipe.

Wash your tomatoes and remove the stems.
Drizzle with a little olive oil if you want to, pop on a baking sheet and bake at about 180c for about 20 minutes or until the tomato skins have split and started to brown, and some of the liquid has evaporated.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool enough to touch. 
Remove the skins and put the tomatoes into a pot.  Use a potato masher or other to mash them up a bit.  Cook off the liquid until it's the desired consistency.  While it's cooking add your garlic, or onion or chili or whatever else.  If you're using fresh basil I'd recommend putting it in at the end to maintain the fresh flavour.  Salt to taste. 

Et voila, simple, fresh and tasty pizza sauce. 

Wholesome Food - Lemon and Blueberry Loaf Cake

 I'm totally a chocolate girl.  I'm that person who is totally miffed when going out to eat and there isn't a chocolate option on the menu.  

So, nothing against chocolate, but sometimes there's nothing quite like a citrus cake. 

Adopted from a recipe I found on Tasty Kitchen, here's my lemon blueberry loaf/bread/cake recipe:

For the cake

113g (1/2C) room temperature butter

3tsp lemon juice (the real kind, not that fake squeezy kind)

The zest of 1.5 lemons

150g (3/4C) sugar

1 large egg

1tsp vanilla

256g (2C) flour

2tsp baking powder

1tsp sea salt

118ml(1/2C) buttermilk - I make mine by adding in 1/2 Tbsp to my measuring up and then topping up the milk to the full 1/2C or 118ml.  Allow it to sit for a couple of minutes, and you'll haver a good buttermilk substitute without having to buy a whole container of it.

Fresh blueberries - I eye it but usually add more than one punnet (150g).  The original recipe calls for 2 cups.

For the glaze

Lemon juice

Lemon zest

Powdered sugar 

Preheat oven to 180C/350F.  Butter either two small loaf tins, or one square or rectangle (9x9in or 7x11in) cake tin.  Or be crazy and make it round.  It all tastes the same anyway. 

Measure your sugar into a bowl and zest your lemons into it.  Rub the two together with your (clean!) fingers, mixing all of those tasty lemon oils into the sugar.

Cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy, mix in egg and vanilla.

In a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking powder and salt.  

Add the dry mixture into the creamed butter mixture, alternating with the buttermilk, until just combined.  Fold in the blueberries carefully, to keep as many whole as possible.

Spoon your batter into your tin(s) and bake for 30-40 minutes, depending on how you've decided to divide the batter.  It took 30 minutes for my two loaves to cook.  

Once the cake has cooled (though you can do this while still a bit warm), mix up your glaze by adding lemon juice and zest to powdered sugar to form a thin, but not watery, mixture that can be either poured/drizzled over the cake, or brushed. 

Mmmmmm... cake. 

Wholesome Food - Autumn Black Bean and Squash Tacos, with kale and feta and other tasty business

We were recently in the States for my brother's wedding, in DC.   We decided to make a bit of a holiday out of the trip so after the wedding we went north to Boston to visit my friend Katy.  Katy, being world-wise, took one look at us on arrival and asked if we wanted to stay in for a home cooked meal on our first night with her.  

YES PLEASE, we responded.

She then asked if we would be ok with something vegetarian, suggesting black bean and squash enchiladas.  

OMG, we responded.

Katy and her husband Kevin contribute to a CSA (Community Support Agriculture) which means they pay a lump sum in January towards supplies for a local farm, and spend most of the rest of the year picking up weekly (or fortnightly?) boxes of tasty produce.  Very similar to our veg boxes here, except that we pay for each box individually.

Katy and Kevin have become very creative in how they use their glut of produce, treating us to fabulous pickled carrots and showing us a drawer full of jarred tomatoes for future sauces, and inventing brilliant recipes like black bean and squash enchiladas.  

They also mentioned a favourite recipe involving kale and goats cheese tacos.  So, with a glut of kale in the garden, and some gorgeous kabocha squash in the store, I got to thinking.

Up until my eye-opening experience with Katy, I have to admit that my squash adventures were limited to the butternut variety.  Butternut squash is great, but kabocha appealed to me due the description of a less sweet, nutty, almost chestnut flavoured skin.  It seemed ideal as a main component to this dish.  

However, I also knew that roast squash and fried onions are two sweet ingredients, so I thought that feta and sour cream would provide a good bit or salt and sour to balance the sweet.

I purchased whole wheat tortillas because I really wanted corn but couldn't find any - they were a bit on the large side so made these more burrito-ey than taco-ey, but actually the whole wheat was another great flavour addition.

The recipe, serves 2-3 with no sides:

1 kabocha or squash of your choice.  You can eat the skin, so be sure to wash well.  Alternatively, remove the skin before roasting.

1 large red onion   

2-3 leaves of curly, or other thin-leafed kale

1 small tin of black beans

Whole wheat tortillas

Feta, avocado, and sour cream/creme fraiche to taste

Start by quartering your squash and removing the seeds.  If you don't want to eat the skin and it's a thin-skinned variety, remove the skin using a veggie peeler, before cutting.  If you use a thick-skinned variety you can just leave it on during roasting and scoop out the insides when it's done.

Drizzle olive oil over your slices and roast at 180c for about 20-30 minutes, flipping to ensure maximum caramelizaion half way through.    

While the squash is roasting, assemble your other ingredients.  

Fry off the onion -I prefer thinly sliced into crescents - for a few minutes, then add your (drained and washed) black beans and torn up kale.  Remember to separate out the tough stalk of the kale before adding it in.  

When your squash is ready, take it out of the oven and allow to cool enough so it's comfortable to handle, then dice up and add to the onion/bean/kale mixture.  At this point you will want to start heating your tortillas as well - either in the microwave, on the stove top, or however you like to do it.

Add your squash/black bean/kale/onion mixture to your warm tortilla and top with avocado, feta and sour cream/creme fraiche.  I decided not to add salsa but that would probably be a nice addition.  You can certainly play around with the ingredients.  

I thought the dish was brilliant, though also found that the creme fraiche addition was absolutely necessary as it would have been rather dry without.  Rab liked it but this is definitely an "Emily meal" more than a "Rab meal" 

  

Organic Veg Boxes

The blog has not been as neglected as it seems - I've been filing recipes away in my head but the kitchen was such a dark and horrible place while it was under construction, my head is firmly where most things stayed.  

A few weeks ago we found the light - in that the windows finally went in.  It's astoundingly fantastic and I'll have to try to get a super cool picture of the house at night, with the glass box illuminated.  

We had a woodburner installed at the start of this week and the guy who did it assumed that we were designers because he thought our house "wasn't an ordinary punter's house" - I felt very proud.  

Now that the cooking is back in full force, I am getting pictures in on my proper camera.  Adventures in food to start back up again soon.

In the mean time, I wanted to share my newest excitement: 

We got an organic veg box (in-season veggies delivered to your door by a local producer) for the first time the other day and so far I’m loving it because it’s giving me veggies I’ve never used before – specifically in this case, chard, eggplant and fennel.

I’m going to put the eggplant in a moussaka but for the chard and fennel I took to the internet to find something.  Very interestingly, both times have come up with Alice Waters recipes, which is what I’ve followed. 

The fennel was caramelised and topped a salad.

The chard was combined with kale in a gratin - Alice's recipe with my tweaks to follow soon.

Growing Tomatoes - store bought grow bags or greener self-filled reusable ones?

Look at those tomatoes.  They're all different colours, shapes, sizes and flavours and THAT is why I grow heritage.

In previous years I got my tomato plants from my father in law, but this year I decided to grow my own from seed and compare two different growing methods - using a pre-filled grow bag, and using a self-filled reusable grow bag.  You will see the pre-filled ones in the front in the picture below, and the reusable ones behind them.

I put our own compost in the reusable bags, along with various fertilizers.  The theory was that I would grow the same plants in the back (reusable) and front (pre-filled) and compare their progress.  On the other side of the greenhouse I planted (in reusable bags) my father in law's choice of tomatoes.

From the start, the plants in the reusable bags took off.  The soil was deeper so they got better root growth and didn't dry out as quickly.  Over time, though, the pre-filled plants caught up. 

In terms of yield, this is where my experiment fell down.  I couldn't be bothered to weigh out the yields of each method, though I think from eyeing it the pre-filled bags produced more tomatoes.  This could also quite possibly have been down to the fact that they got more TLC due to being easier to access than the reusable row in the back.

*note to self, don't plant two rows of tomato plants

What is MOST interesting is that my father in law's plants didn't produce nearly as much as my heritage plants.  If you go back to the picture at the top of this image you will see quite a few Black Russians (the ones with a bit of green on them), a couple of Brandywine, and some Tigerella.  There may be a few of the FIL's hybrid tomatoes there, but not many.

So, while the jury's still out on which grow bag method to use, I know I'll definitely be sticking to heritage tomatoes in the future. 

DIY wedding reception on the cheap - part 2

In between cleaning and decorating the house, I got on making the food.  We were 22 people in total and I reckon we could hace accomodated 30 with the amount of food we had.  

Food
My girlfriends provided the salads and desserts, and I spent my time baking breads and meats.

I made:
Paul Hollywood's garlic baguette ( so doesn't look like a baguette, but tastes great)
Jamie Oliver's rolled bread (though it was just the inspiration, in one I put salami, basil, cheese, olives and peppers, and in the other I left otu the salami and swapped tomatoes for peppers).  If you only want one bread, or enough food for about 5 decent sized portions, half the recipe.  The first time I made this I used the suggested olive oil and ended up with a greasy mess.  Now, I skip that part.
Smitten Kitchen's brisket - which I cooked for 10 hours in my warming oven, and seved with the reduced sauce.
Finally, I cooked up some pork loin with a marinade recipe that my mom gave me and which people go mental for.  They say it's the best pork they've ever had. 

Pork Loin Marinade

1/4 C soy

2 T red wine ( I used Pinot Noir because it's what I had in the house and it was too thin.  You want a merlot or some other kind of deep flavoured wine)

1 T Br Sugar

1 T honey

1/2 t cinnamon

1 garlic

1 green onion sliced

mix all together - pour over pork loin - turning pork occasionally let sit in sauce for at least 2 - 3 hrs 

This recipe is seriously amazing.  I have no idea where it's from, but it's like omg never need another pork marinade ever again kind of amazing.  

Beer

We served homebrew exclusively.  I made 4 brews and we had a friend who made a keg.  Homebrew is a revelation.  It's easy and CHEAP and amazing.  And no, it's not super strong.  Why do people just assume it's super strong?  Most of my brews are betwen 3.5 and 4.5%.  I like to drink my beer, not get wasted from it, thanks.  

I *love* the new Festival range of homebrews, available from several different retailers but I buy from BrewUK because they have sales quite a lot which makes them often the cheapest. 

Trust me, this beer is amazing. 

DIY wedding reception on the cheap - part 1

We got married in April of 2012.  We were meant to have our reception in California in December, but then my visa didn't come through in time and we were stuck in the UK over Christmas.  Then we were going to celebrate in the States in September, and my brother went and got himself engaged.  So, we sacked the US celebration idea and focused on the UK.

We decided to plan the reception to coincide with the work on our house being more or less done.  Well, even building in lag time the work was NOT more or less done, but we went ahead anyway because I knew it was now or never.

We lost a lot of money on the failed US reception and honeymoon plan of 2012 so this party was on a pretty tight budget.  We originally talked about marquees, portable toilets and the works but scaled it right back and, honestly, had a better time for it.

Decorations
I had some decorations that I bought for the US reception that I was able to use for this.  My favourite purchase was fabric flowers from Jane Joss on Etsy - they're not your grannie's fake flowers, they're creative and colourful and look fantastic, and of course the best part is that they can be kept forever.  I got a friend to bring me some of his empty swing top beer bottles, put a bit of sand in the bottle to bring the level up a bit, and voila!  I scattered my funky vases and flowers around the house.
(note how construction-tastic our house is)

Felt balls and felt ball garlands are all the rage these days (on Pinterest and Etsy, anyway) and I thought it looked like a fun project, so got myself an assortment of felt balls on Ebay, some twine, a big needleand a friend and had at it.  Our husbands referred to our crafting as "kids' corner" but we had a blast and created some really pretty super easy to make felt garlands.  As with so many of my pictures these days, ignore the construction going on in the background...

Food and drink coming soon in part 2...

Tomato glut

Between our (much belated) wedding reception this past weekend, and the work on the house, my tomatoes have been pretty neglected.  It has been dry here which means I've not had my usual bucket of rain water to use, and the garage is a disaster zone of building materials meaning the hose is ridiculously difficult to get to (the tap was repositioned into the garage by my husband who said it would be better for washing the car.  Has he washed the car at our house? Not once).

Well, it seems that the neglect has paid off, because yesterday I noticed I had quite a few tomatoes ripe for picking and man did I ever.  How gorgeous do they look?

The sunshine was fantastic as well.  We took a big walk and then sat in the back garden soaking up the rays.  Delicious. 

Wholesome Food - Bean and Chorizo Stew

Several years ago, I ate in a restaurant on a date, and my date ordered a stew that contained beans and chorizo (the stew was amazing, the date was ... well I can't remember and that can't be a good sign).  It's a standard combination, but for whatever reason, no matter how many recipes I tried, nothing really got it right for me... until one day a friend of mine posted this  recipe on Facebook.  It has beans and chorizo, so I used it as the foundation for my stew.

Serves 4 (unless you're feeding my husband)

200-300 grams of chorizo - not the fresh stuff, the normal stuff that you can eat straight from the package (my Tesco sells them in 225 gram packages so that's what I use)
1 large onion
2-3 tins of chopped tomatoes (depending on how meaty you want the stew to be)
1 tin butter beans (or beans of your choosing, but butters are so fabulous in stews)
1 tin berlotti beans (or beans of your choosing)
1-2 bell peppers
Kale (because I like to put it in anything, but this is optional)
Greens (fresh salad greens -not lettuce- like spinach or mustard are great)
As many cloves of garlic as you like - I usually use about 4

Chop the chorizo.  I cut mine small because I tend to go heavier on the veggie ingredients so like to have lots of little pieces of chorizo throughout.  Fry it (I do this without oil because I think it has enough oil in it, you judge what you like) in a stew pot/large heavy pan for a few minutes, to release the oil.  In the meantime, dice the onion and smash/dice the garlic.  Once the chorizo has greased the pan, add in your onion and cook until translucent.

Once the chorizo and onion are all all mellowed together, add in your tins of tomato and your garlic.  At this point I put on the lid and let everything cook together for at least 20 minutes, until the flavours have mellowed out.

Once you're happy it's cooked long enough, drain and wash the beans and add them in.  Simmer, uncovered, until the beans absorb the flavours and the stew thickens up.  This will take about 20-30 minuets.

Finally, when everything is the desired consistency, chop up the bell peppers and add them in, cooking for just a few minutes.  I add these at the end so they heat through but don't go soft.  If you prefer them cooked, then add earlier.  At this point, turn off the heat and add in the kale (stems removed, ripped into bit-sized pieces) and at the last minute, the salad greens.  Gently fold in the salad greens, and serve immediately.  Add more greens to the top of each dish if you like.

Serve with chunky toasty bread rubbed in garlic.  Yum. 

Wholesome Food - Pan-Roasted Cauliflower with Pasta in a Tomato Sauce

August/September time is when the tomatoes start ripening in my area.  In previous years the weather has been pretty terrible and I haven't ever really had enough ripen at once to do anything really proper with them... other than just eat them as is, of course. 

This year has been an amazing summer.  Hands down the best one since I've been in Scotland, which is 7 (!!) years.  The tomatoes, and the garden in general, have responded happily.

So, this leaves me needing to use up tomatoes at every possible occasion (poor me, right?), and the result has been pretty cool.  I'm either making up dishes or turning to the delights of Google to give me inspiration.  We have eaten very well these past few weeks, and last night was no exception.

In this weekend's shop, I grabbed a cauliflower.  My husband asked why and I told him I'd figure it out later.  I'm so glad I did. 

Yesterday I googled "tomato and cauliflower" and found a few really amazing sounding recipe ideas.  I decided on the Kitchn's Pan-Roasted Cauliflower & Pasta with Tomato-Cream Sauce, with a few modifications.

Serves 4

1 head cauliflower 
Pasta - I used about 4 handfuls of whole wheat fusili
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
Fresh tomatoes - 6 large or more if they're small - or if you can't be bothered, just make it two tins of chopped tomatoes
4 pieces of smoked back bacon - this is UK bacon and it's bigger than bacon in the US.  If you're using streaky/US bacon, I'd probably use 6 pieces.
1 medium/large onion - I used yellow
3 cloves garlic, minced
Red pepper flakes
Salt
Cheese
Fresh basil, to serve

My primary modification to the Kitchn's recipe was the fact that I used fresh, home-grown tomatoes in place of one of the tins of tomatoes. 

I grabbed my ripest tomatoes, tossed them in olive oil, and stuck them on a baking sheet in the (fan assisted) oven at about 150C until the skins split and started to go brown, about 30 minutes.
Once they cooled a bit, I removed the skins and piled them into my mini-blender, before blitzing them smooth.  If you decide to just use two tins of chopped tomatoes, I would still blitz one of them.  It makes the sauce a bit creamier.

Here's another modification - I used bacon instead of pancetta.  I just wanted to use what I had in the house and I pretty much always have bacon in the house.  Pancetta, not so much.

While the tomatoes are roasting, crisp up the bacon in the pan where you're going to assemble everything (this is important).  I needed to add in a little olive oil to get it started, and set it aside once it was ready.

While the bacon's crisping, chop up your cauliflower into smallish bite-sized pieces. 

Here's where it gets amazing/bad - once the bacon is done, whack up the heat on your pan and toss in the cauliflower (be careful of sparking oil when you do this).  You're going to cook your cauliflower in the bacon fat.  Ooh yeah.  Now I should remind you that I'm in the UK so there isn't a HUGE amount of bacon grease in the pan.  It's just a bit more oil then I would use if I was only using olive oil.  Just include however much grease you want to, and if you want to be super healthy, roast the cauliflower in the oven instead.

Leave the cauliflower undisturbed for about a minute, until the bottoms start to brown up.  Stir, and leave again.  Keep doing this for about 5 minutes - I like my veggies pretty firm, so if you prefer yours soft, then cook for about 8-10 minutes.  

The smell of roasting cauliflower is amazing - almost nutty.  Don't write off cauliflower until you've had it roasted, it is NOTHING like steamed.  Seriously.

bacon-cauliflower goodness

Once the cauliflower's done, set it aside to chill out for a minute.

Finally, dice up your onion and put it in the same pan everything's cooked in, with a glug of olive oil if the pan's dry.  Cook until translucent, then add in your pureed roast tomatoes, your tin of tomatoes, your garlic and chilli flakes.  Let these all bubble away and reduce a bit together for a couple of minutes, before you finally get your pasta cooking.   

Shortly before the pasta's ready, tear up your bacon into the sauce, and add in the cauliflower.  Salt if necessary.  Finally add in your cooked pasta and stir to combine. 

Serve topped with cheese and basil.

TASTY. 

Wholesome Food - Quinoa and Chickpea Salad

Recently I was on the lookout for a good, hearty salad.  A salad that included carrots.

I grow carrots, specifically I've chosen to grow (along with the orange ones) purple carrots.  Did you know that carrots were not traditionally orange?  They were bred that way by the Dutch.  Purple carrots have more antioxidants than the orange ones, and generally look cooler anyway.

The carrots above were still pretty young when I took this picture, but you get the idea (see the two less-cool looking orange ones hiding in there too).  They're purple on the outside, and orange on the inside, and a friend of mine commented randomly one day that they must look really cook when you shave them - orange and purple stripey.

That comment became the basis for this "recipe" if you can call a salad a recipe.

I like to use:

Carrots
Kale (curly and as fresh as possible)
Quinoa
Chickpeas
Avocado
Cherry tomatoes
Cucumber
Bacon
Sharp cheddar
Balsamic vinegar

The first few times I made this I used fresh peas as well, but those are past their season now and I really just threw them in to use up the last few pods.

I'm pretty bad with giving people amounts to use, but here's a rough guide that you can fiddle with as you please:

For 4-6 side salads, or one main with 3 lunches

1 tin of Chickpeas -  drained and washed
1/2 -1 cup (uncooked) quinoa -  I like to cook it in chicken broth
4 strips of smoked bacon - cooked crispy and crumbled into the salad
1-2 large leaves of kale - remove the stems and tear the leaves into small to medium sized pieces
3-4 carrots, with their tops (depending on size and just how much carrot you want to use) - wash them well and then use a vegetable peeler to peel strips off the carrot into the salad.  The carrot tops are useful when doing this because it gives you something to hold onto, but it's not imperative.

Toss these all together, add in avocado, tomatoes and cucumber until it looks good to you.  At this point I add in a small amount of finely grated sharp cheddar.  It gives it a good zing which compliments the sweetness of the carrots.  Glug in balsamic to suit.  No oil is needed, and while you could use other vinegar, I think balsamic really suits the flavours.

This salad is crazy good.  I made it for a friend who is obsessed with salads and makes them constantly, and she told me it was the best salad she had ever had.  No joke.  It's earthy, and sweet, and a little salty, and tangy, and super healthy and filling.  Crazy yum.  

The first time I made this I thought it was gorgeous - greens, reds, purples, white/yellow - a true rainbow on a plate.  I took a picture and, frankly, the picture looks awful.  I tried playing with Picassa to make it look cool and arty but there's no saving it.  I'll upload one when I can get a good shot. 

Healthy eating on the cheap - this week's revelation

I hate wasting food.  I hate buying something and then either not using all of it before it goes off or, more commonly in my household, the fridge freezes it (we really need to get a refrigerator that doesn't freeze produce and yet somehow manage to leave the drinks warm).

In order to combat that, we used to make a list of meals for the week and do a big "weekly shop" at our nearest big grocery store.  Then we discovered the the Lidl nearest to our house is actually really quite good.  The problem with Lidl is that you can't walk in with a list and expect to be able to buy everything on it, they just don't have that kind of selection and a lot of the freshest food changes often. 

This week we did a version of the weekly shop in Lidl.  I still had a list of a few essentials that we were out of, but didn't have a weekly meal plan so concocted food plans as we walked through the aisles. 

I always thought that you could limit waste live more economically if you plan meals.  The problem with planning meals is that you have to think days in advance of what you might want to eat and, if you're me, you often end up making the same types of foods week on week.  These foods are good but it's nice to mix it up a bit.  

Amazingly this week's shop in Lidl, topped up with a few mid-week items from Tesco, came to about £35.  This covered the two of us for lunches and dinners and (due to us often buying lunches at work) ended up being nearly half of what we would normally spend on food in a week. 

Now, we did eat a lot of produce from the garden, but veggies tend to be the cheapest part of a weekly shop anyway so even if we had purchased everything I can't see it being that much more expensive.

This week saw me creating two new dishes that were super easy and healthy, which I'll post on here. 

Thumbs up to the Lidl shop.