Chilli Pasta, Fennel and Walnut Salad

This month Pasta Please is being hosted by Shaheen at Allotment to Kitchen and the theme is chilli! 

Pasta Please is a blog event whose home is with Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes, but it  is often out and about with guest hosts which gives it a new lease of life.

The Chilli theme gave me another opportunity to use my Galloway Chilli Original jam.  This is a very hot chilli jam so you only need a very little to boost up your dishes.

Chilli Pasta, Fennel and Walnut Salad 
Serves 4 for a light lunch

225g good quality pasta, cooked in boiling salted water, drained and cooled in cold water, then drained again.
1 large tomato chopped
2 spring onions, chopped
1/4 cucumber, diced
1/2 fennel bulb, chopped
50g walnut pieces

Dressing
1 tbsp mayonnaise
3 tbsp natural yogurt
1 tsp chilli jam (or to taste)
1 tsp honey
salt and freshly ground pepper

1. Mix the salad ingredients together in a bowl.
2. Mix the dressing ingredients together and season to taste.
3. Mix the dressing into the pasta and vegetables, cover the bowl and leave for flavours to mingle for about 20 minutes.

I served the salad on lettuce leaves but you can just eat it as it is or serve it with other salads.

Labels: chilli, chilli jam, Fennel, pasta, salad, tomatoes, walnuts

posted by Janice @ 19:37 3 Comments

Using Herbs: Rosemary Chicken and The Herb Savor Pod

I love herbs and, while it's fine in summer when I can pick them straight from the garden as I need them, out of season I find it difficult to keep herbs in the fridge.  After all, you don't always need the whole pack and they are not cheap. Coriander is probably the  herb I buy most and by the time you return to the pack, it has become a slimy mess  - sound familiar?

This recipe is from Make it Easy by Jane Lovett, Rosemary Chicken with french bean, fennel, sun-blush tomato and feta salad.  The chicken is marinated with rosemary so you get a light delicate flavour, the salad is served warm  and is delicious and filling combining some of my favourite flavours.  I added some fresh tomatoes as well as sunblush tomatoes.It would be great as a lunch dish on it's own and is suitable for vegetarians.

So back to the problem of keeping herbs and not wasting them. What we need is something that will help to keep the herbs fresh until they are needed.  I was delighted when Claire from The Handpicked Collection contacted me and gave me the opportunity to review the Herb Savor Pod


The Herb Savor Pod claims to extend the life of your herbs for up to three weeks, compared to 3-5 days in the fridge.  It can also be used for asparagus.   The pod is fairly simple to use, you take off the clear plastic section, place your herbs inside and fill up the base with water through the little green plug.

I cut some mint to see for myself how well it keeps the herbs.

Here is the mint inside the pod, you only put  a little water in the base of the pod and top this up if needed. It fits perfectly inside your fridge door and there is no leakage of herb smell.

I didn't have three weeks to wait, but after a week, I opened the pod and was hit with a waft of mint, the leaves were still fresh and crisp and seemed as fresh as when I put them in the pod.

I'm really pleased with the Herb Savor Pod, the only fault I have with it, is that the clear plastic was quite difficult to remove, you have to squeeze it in quite hard to release it, so if you have problems with arthritis or other hand weakness, it would not be suitable for you.  Otherwise, I think it's a great little gadget and look forward to using it with other herbs.  The Herb Savor Pod is £14.95, which may seem expensive, but if you think about how many herbs you waste, it is probably worth the money.

The Handpicked Collection has a lot of other lovely gifts for family, friends and for treating yourself,  I will be bookmarking the collection for gift ideas.

Disclaimer: The Handpicked Collection supplied me with the Herb Savor Pod, I was not required to write a positive review and any opinion expressed is my own..

Labels: Chicken, Fennel, feta cheese, french beans, Herb Savor Pod, herbs, Rosemary, sun blush tomatoes, The Handpicked Collection

posted by Janice @ 20:57 3 Comments

Summer Vegetable Soup with Granary Bread

Summer is not really a time I associate with soup, however, it has been rather chilly recently and as I was going away for a few days, I realised I needed to use up the vegetables that I had received in my Farmison Vegetable Box.  Soup is the perfect vehicle for any kind of vegetables and with some beans added it makes a the soup into a meal.


So here are the vegetables: celery; carrots, onion, quarter of a fennel bulb; 2 courgettes, 2 potatoes and about a third of a head of broccoli.  It doesn't matter what you have although onion and carrots are always a good base.  Oh and there was on runner bean that had escaped me when I cooked those the other day, so that went in too.

Summer Vegetable Soup

1 onion, peeled and chopped
4 stalks of celery, finely chopped
3 carrots, peeled and chopped
2 potatoes, diced
1/4 fennel bulb, chopped
bunch of thyme, rosemary and marjoram tied together
2 courgettes, diced
1/3 head of broccoli, chopped
4 tomatoes, seeds removed and chopped
100g canellini beans, soaked and cooked for 20 minutes until just tender
3 litres vegetable stock
salt and freshly ground black pepper

 1 tbsp olive oil

1.Heat the olive oil in a pan.   Add the onion and celery and cook for 2 mintues, add the carrots, fennel and potoatoes, cook for another minutes.  Add the stock and herbs, season well and cook until the carrot is soft (20-30 minutes)
2. Add the chopped courgettes, broccoli, tomatoes and canellini beans and cook for a further 10 minutes.
3. Remove the herb bundle, adjust seasoning and serve with a sprinkling of fresh chopped thyme and rosemary and some Granary Bread.

I'm entering this soup for Karen's  'Herbs on Saturday' blog challenge, it was a really good tasty soup and the flavour of the herbs came through stongly without overpowering the flavours of the different vegetables.

 

Granary Bread

500g Granary Bread Flour
1 1/2 tsp easy blend yeast
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
50g butter
275g lukewarm water

I put all of the ingredients into the bread maker on the dough setting, then shaped the dough onto a baking tray, left to rise again and baked for about 30 minutes at 200C.  If you don't have a bread maker, follow the recipe on the Granary Flour packet.

Labels: Broccoli, celery, courgette, Farmison, Fennel, Herbs on Saturday, onion, potatoes, Rosemary, Soup, thyme

posted by Janice @ 16:30 5 Comments

Blue and Green Soup with Gluten Free Cheese Scones

Because I have been eating the Bulgar Salad for lunch, I haven't had my usual sandwiches and therefore we have not used as much lettuce as before.  I was blissfully unaware of this when I ordered the shopping online and ordered up another pack of Romaine lettuces.  We also seemed to have a head of broccoli left over.  I know, I really should check the fridge before doing my shopping.

The No Waste Food Challenge run by Kate at Turquoise Lemons also asked us to use up left over Fennel.  Now,  I love fennel and rarely have any left over, but it was a good excuse to go and buy some so I have included at little of  it in this recipe.



 Put the oil in the pan at a medium heat, add the onion and saute for about 5 minutes until soft.  Add the chopped broccoli.


and stir to coat with the oil and onion.  Add the stock, I use Marigold Swiss Vegetable Bouillon but you can use any stock.

Season and cook until the vegetables are soft.  Take off the heat for about 10 minutes and then blitz with a stick blender or in a liquidiser.  Add the milk and the Blue Cheese to taste and blitz again.

I turned to my standard scone recipe from Mary Berry's Fast Cakes, it's never failed me yet, even when I change the ingredients as much as I have here!

Gluten Free Special Scones
225g White self-raising Gluten and Wheat Free flour
1 level tsp gluten free baking powder
50g Pure Sunflower dairy free margarine
1/2 tsp Coleman's mustard powder
50g grated cheese
1 egg
milk or natural yogurt

Heat the oven to 220C and lightly grease a baking sheet
Put the flour and baking powder in a bowl and add the margarine, rub it in with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.  Stir in the mustard powder and the grated cheese.

 Crack the egg into a jug, lightly beat it and then make up to 150ml with milk or yogurt. Stir the egg mixture into the flour and mix to a soft dough.


Turn onto a lightly floured table and pat out to about 1.25 (1/2 inch) thickness.
Cut into rounds, I made my big as we were having them as 'rolls' with our soup.  Place spaced out on the baking sheet and brush the tops with milk or yogurt and sprinkle with a little more cheese.

I'm showing you this so you can see how thick they are cut.

Bake in the oven for about 10-15 minutes (depending on how big you made them)  until they are pale golden brown.  Remove and leave to cool on a wire rack.




 Not only was the soup good, although dominated by the broccoli and blue cheese flavours, but the scones were excellent.  A little more chewy in texture than the wheat flour ones, but definitely good and a very acceptable substitute.  They could also be adapted to be dairy free by using substitutes for the milk/yogurt and cheese.

Labels: Bookmarked Recipes, Broccoli, cheese, dairy free, Fennel, gluten free, lettuce, No Waste Food Challenge, Scones, Soup, Tinned Tomatoes, Turquoise Lemons

posted by Janice @ 14:05 8 Comments

Smoked Salmon and Fennel Salad

The one part of Christmas Lunch which always taxes my brain is 'The Starter'.  This year I had the Smoked Salmon from the Forman and Field hamper that I won.  So looked for something interesting to do with it.  I came on this recipe on AllRecipes.co.uk which seemed to fit the bill. 

I addeed a few leaves of Rocket but otherwise it is as the recipe and the fennel was a delicious fresh and crunchy counterpoint to the rich smoky salmon.   I would certainly reccommend this either as a starter a salad or made into canapes.

Labels: Fennel, salad, smoked salmon

posted by Janice @ 14:44 1 Comments