The great big enormous ... PARSNIP!

This could be a post about the hunger gap - that time of the year where we've all but run out of stored food and nothing's growing (I'm talking veg here, not baked beans) yet, or about using up leftovers. It could also be a Samantha Barnes Google Recipe Challenge, and all because of a parsnip.

Despite the hunger gap, the atrociously cold weather and all that, we still have parsnips in the garden. Whether they are actually growing any more is debateable, but when they come out this size, does it really matter?

Anyway, size isn't everything, it's what you do with it. Thanks to the fact that we had people for dinner on Saturday night, I had a fridge full of leftovers looking at me when I opened it up  this evening, Left over bad stuff, like cheese and cream. I may be on a mission to reduce the circumference of my thighs and ensure that the only muffin tops around here are of the double chocolate variety, but I absolutely cannot see food going to waste, so the challenge was on. What to do with the enormous parsnip - and the leftovers?

Pink's not a fan, so parsnips usually get turned into some sort of soup for the Husband and I, or roasted as a side dish, ideal for her to pick out and be sniffy about (she'd refuse the soup point blank). This evening, though, she was out at a friend's so Blue and I got stuck in to some proper parsnip action.

A quick Google based on what I had in the fridge turned up 2 possibles - both gratins - one from Abel & Cole and one from a website called Epicurious - so we combined the two, in doing so using up the left over cream and Cashel Blue cheese from Saturday night, and raiding the garden for the only other things that are growing with any enthusiasm at the moment - sage and rosemary. 

I'm pleased to report that Blue got properly stuck in to the whole thing. Much as he'd hate to admit it, he's a bit lost when his little sister isn't around for hi-jinking or fighting, depending on the mood they are both in (actually, if we're being strictly honest, usually it depends on the mood Pink is in) and so it was good to get him involved while she was off giggling with her friend.

Mezzaluna baby!

 

The result was a delicious creamy (of course) warming dish, full of flavour - great food for a chilly winter Spring evening.

Parsnip & Bacon Gratin with leeks, hazelnuts & blue cheese

Serves 3-4 depending on appetite

60g hazelnuts
700g (peeled weight) parsnips, thinly sliced lengthways
200g (ditto) carrots, also thinly sliced
1 large leek, thinly sliced and washed
200g pancetta/bacon cut into pieces
250ml or so double cream & creme fraiche, thinned with a little milk if necessary
1 good tsp dijon mustard
2-3 sprigs of rosemary, needles only & a handful of sage leaves, finely chopped
80g or so* blue cheese (we had Cashel blue in the fridge), grated
salt & pepper

Pre-heat your oven to 200C

Put the parsnips and carrot into a large pan of salted water. Bring to the boil and cook for 3-4 minutes, then drain and leave to steam dry-ish.

While the veg is cooking, lightly toast the hazelnuts in a small frying pan, then when cool enough to handle roughly chip them and set aside.

Fry the bacon/pancetta till mostly cooked; drain off most of the fat (if a lot has been produced) then add the leek and cook for a few more minutes till the leek is softened.

Whisk together the cream, creme fraiche, mustard and milk if you need it, and then add in the herbs and salt and pepper.

To assemble, first put a layer of parsnip and carrot into your gratin dish, drizzle over about a third of the cream mixture and sprinkle with half the hazelnuts. Spread the leeks and bacon over this, then layer on the rest of the parsnips. Pour over the rest of the cream then sprnkle over the rest of the hazelnuts and the grated cheese.

Bake for 30 minutes of so till the parsnips are cooked, the sauce is bubbling and there's a delicious crunchy topping on your gratin.

If I'd had any salad in the fridge, I think it would have been good with it - something like watercress - but as it was we didn't, so we just ate it as it was. Delicious**.

I'm linking up to this month's Herbs on Saturday hosted by London Busy Body this month for Karen at Lavender & Lovage

 I'm also linking up the March Simple and in Season hosted by Louisa at Chez Foti

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* The chunk started off at 80g but Blue is very fond of blue cheese and I didn't keep an eye on how much was being grated and how much was being gobbled...

** I was quite surprised by how much Blue enjoyed this, regardless of the amount of effort he put into making it - those who read this regularly will know that I'm usually gnashing my teeth about how he doesn't like anything 'crunchy' like this gratin topping or the top of a cottage pie, and my efforts to get him to eat less sophisticated things with a cheese sauce - macaroni/cauliflower cheese have met so far with dismal failure. May be his tastes are changing - or may be it was the cream and blue cheese combo. Watch this space.

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Chorizo & Lentil Supper - thank you Google!

Ok, so Monday became, unintentionally, a Sam Barnes Google Recipe challenge night.

In the true spirit in which the challenge was conceived (in the pub, wine consumed), I had completely failed to take account of the fact that the Husband and I would need to eat on Monday evening.

I fed the ravenous hordes (all 4 of them) sweet chilli dogs, potato wedges, baked beans, as planned, and carrot hummus, which was not – before cubs, which  all went down very well – so well in fact that there was nothing left for me and the Husband – although that’s not surprising given I only cooked 8 sausages. Actually, I tell a lie, there was quite a lot of hummus left, but then I did use all the carrots. However, I wasn’t looking forward to presenting the Husband with a bowl of carrot hummus, so fridge diving produced: 1 pack of cooking chorizo (it was a 2 for 1 offer last week), the rather curly end of a celery, 3 spring onions and a red onion. Whilst dithering about for carbohydrate inspiration, I came across the end of a bag of red lentils.

I googled chorizo and lentils first, and eventually came up with this little gem: Chorizo and Lentil tapas . I didn’t have the red pepper, but I thought the celery would do instead. I had different quantities of lentils and (shock horror) NO WINE IN THE HOUSE (well it was Monday – on principle, we always finish up the bottles on Sunday night...). I didn’t have any fresh (or dried thyme) but a few of the other recipes I’d rejected had suggested fennel as a good accompaniment to chorizo. I rummaged inthe cupboard and came up with some fennel seed. Result (especially if you could see the state of my spices cupboard...).

caution - falling debris - only open slowly and whilst wearing a hard hat

So here is my version, to serve 2 with leftovers:

Chorizo and Lentil Supper

Ingredients: 200g cooking chorizo, thinly sliced, 1 chopped red onion, 4 wilting stalks of celery (including leaves if you feel so inclined), 1 clove of garlic, finely chopped, 3 spring onions, finely sliced, 150 g red lentils, 500 ml veg stock, a good teaspoon’s worth of fennel seeds, quickly bashed in a a pestle and mortar, salt and pepper

Method: heat a little oil in a frying pan on quite a low heat then add the onions and cook for 10 minutes or so until soft. Add in the celery, garlic, spring onions , bashed fennel seeds and lentils and stir for a couple of minutes then add the stock. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer gently for 20 -25 mins or so until the lentils are cooked. You may need to add a little more water/stock from time to time so keep an eye on the pan. When the lentils are pretty much cooked, add the chorizo and cook for another 10 mins, stirring to spread the juices released by the chorizo through the lentils. Taste and add salt and pepper if necessary.

Serve – I had some lettuce which I quartered lengthways and I found some mini pittas in the bottom of the freezer so I popped some of them under the grill to defrost and warm up.

It was disproportionately tasty - really, really good. Another success in the Sam Barnes Google Recipe Challenge!

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The Samantha Barnes Google recipe Challenge #2: Creamy lemon spaghetti with courgette and pancetta

It’s the end of the month and we’ll be on freezer forage tomorrow but frankly, after wasting an hour this morning after I locked myself out of the house and had to climb up over the roof and break in through Pink’s bedroom in time to get ready for my boss to pick me up at 10 for a meeting in Oxford, all thoughts of what we might eat this evening were banished from my head.

Just the right night for the second Samantha Barnes Google Recipe Challenge night, then.

So I’ve been through the fridge and this evening, we have: 1 lemon, already zested and looking a little tired, a courgette, some fairly old parmesan , the end of a pot of sour cream and – ta dah! a pack of pancetta (bonus!).

Not necessarily the right evening for hot food, but we won’t be eating till later anyway because the Husband is off cycling, and the most likely looking candidate on Google, using “pancetta courgette lemon juice recipe” as the search term is Lemon pasta with squash and pancetta . I can’t follow the recipe exactly, because I have no lemon zest, and will be using sour cream instead of mascarpone - so Sam will have to judge whether this is allowed - but this recipe fits most accurately what I asked for. It came up on page 2 of the results – a little irksome given that half the recipes on page 1 included chicken or tomatoes or something I definitely hadn’t suggested. Take heart, fellow recipe-Googlers with dodgy fridge contents – the recipes you need are there!

So here it is: The Samantha Barnes Google Recipe Challenge presents:

Creamy lemon spaghetti with courgette and pancetta

 
Ingredients: (to serve 2): 100ml sour cream, juice of half a lemon, salt & pepper, 1 teaspoon of olive oil, 6 slices of pancetta, 1 courgette, thinly sliced, 200g spaghetti, linguine etc, parmesan to serve.

Method: mix together the sour cream, lemon juice and a grind of black pepper and a pinch of salt then set aside; chop up the pancetta quite small, heat the oil in a frying pan and fry the pancetta till crispy:

This is why I could never truly become a vegetarian...

Remove from the pancetta from the pan set aside (on kitchen roll to drain off some of the fat if you are that way inclined – I tried my shorts on recently – I am now that way inclined). Pour most of the residual fat out of the pan, leaving about a teaspoon left (taking care not to pour hot fat all over your hand or your bare feet and the floor...only joking – I didn’t – well, not this time...), and add the courgette slices to the pan and cook for a couple of minutes till just tender, then add the lemon/sour cream mixture and set aside.

Cook the pasta according to cooking instructions – you could do this at the same time as making the sauce, but I am waiting for the Husband to get back so I am taking the 2 stage approach in the original recipe – then drain, reserving a little of the pasta water. Toss the lemon/sour cream/courgette mixture through the pasta, top with the pancetta and serve with grated parmesan.

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The Inaugural post of the Sam Barnes Google Recipe Challenge - Purple Sprouting Broccoli

The Husband and I went out for a quiet drink and a curry on Friday night. It’s hopeless trying to go out for a quiet drink where we live because there’s always someone else in the pub trying to have a quiet (or not so quiet) drink. We bumped into some friends, including Sam, who, I’m sure she won’t mind me saying, is utterly fabulous. She’s a great artist, she did the drawings on my blog, and her stuff is really worth checking out.  Alcohol had been consumed, and amidst the general chatter she announced: “I think you should do a Google thing. You know, see what you’ve got left in the fridge, type it in to Google and see what it comes up with. It’d be great. The weirder the better!”

“Fantastic! Yes! Chilli pickled rhubarb with polenta!” The Husband and I nearly didn’t make it to the curry house...

Anyway, never let it be said that I shy away from a challenge and use the excuse that I was drunk. Let me present:

The Sam Barnes Google Recipe Challenge: Purple Sprouting Broccoli

Tonight was a good night to do this, as the kids were fed elsewhere and instead of planning a sumptuous grown up feast for 2, it was looking otherwise like beans on toast. On inspection, the fridge contained an over-optimistic amount of purple sprouting broccoli, starting to look more than a little sad. In the interests of using the challenge to use up more of the left over bits and pieces, further delving produced some new potatoes, half a red onion and half a jar of anchovies in olive oil. I googled ‘purple sprouting broccoli’ and came up with this recipe from the Daily Telegraph. Almost a perfect fit. The fridge did not magically produce quails eggs, but the chickens have been co-operating, despite me clipping their wings yesterday, so we had:

New potato, red onion and p.s.b. salad with anchovy cream and poached eggs – serves 2 as a main course

½ red onion, finely sliced, 300g new potatoes, 250g purple sprouting broccoli, any woody bits trimmed, Juice of ½ lemon

55g anchovies in olive oil, 1 clove of garlic, 55g pine nuts, olive oil, Juice of ½ lemon

Make the cream: put the anchovies and oil, the garlic and pine nuts into the small bowl of a food processor and whizz together. Add the lemon juice and pour in a couple of glugs of olive oil in a steady stream while whizzing, till you get a smooth-ish, thick-ish puree. Taste and add more lemon if necessary.

Make the salad: heat a glug of olive oil in a pan and gently cook the onions until they are soft. Boil the potatoes until cooked and steam the broccoli till tender. You should be able to steam the broccoli over the potatoes for the last 4-5 mins of the potato cooking time. Put the onions, potatoes and broccoli in a bowl, and toss with a tablespoon of lemon juice, and salt and pepper and set aside while you poach the eggs. Do you need me to tell you how to poach eggs? I’ll leave that to Delia.

Pile the salad onto 2 plates, drizzle with some of the anchovy cream (although don’t overdo it – serve the rest of the sauce on the side in a jug – anything left would taste gorgeous stirred into pasta – which is what I’m planning to do for lunch tomorrow!) and place a poached egg on top of each pile of salad.

Consume.

It was delicious.

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