Farmersgirl Kitchen

Thursday, 26 July 2012

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

Sunday, 22 July 2012

Beetroot with Chorizo, Feta and Mint

This recipe has been inspired by a recipe from BBC Good Food July 2012. However, I made some changes in the method to suit my own purposes!

Beetroot with chorizo, feta and mint (serves 2)

1 pack cooked beetroot

½ regular cooking chorizo, cubed

1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

100g feta, crumbled

Handful of mint, roughly chopped

Drizzle olive oil

Salad leaves

1. Lay the salad leaves on the place

2. Slice the beetroot and lay out on the leaves

3. Add the chorizo to a hot frying pan, be careful it doesn’t burn

4. When cooked add the balsamic vinegar and cook for 1 minute

5. Tip the chorizo and vinegar onto the beetroot

6. Crumble the feta over the salad and sprinkle with chopped mint

7. Drizzle a little olive oil over the salad and serve immediately

I enjoyed this salad, with it's combination of sweet, sour, salty, earthy flavours and even more because we managed to eat it outside! Back to rain and wind today, but for one brief day, we had a little bit of summer.

I'm entering this into Herbs on Saturday run by Karen at Lavender and Lovage and, this month, hosted by Vanesther at Bangers and Mash

Labels: balsamic vinegar, beetroot, chorizo, feta cheese, Herbs on Saturday, mint, salad

Tuesday, 10 July 2012

Roasted Courgette, Tomato, Feta and Basil Tart

There was a bit of joking on Twitter the other night about how we should make one recipe that covered all the blog challenges, then we could have the rest of the month off! I haven't managed to cover quite all the blog challenges with this post but it ticked off quite a few.

My courgette/zucchini plant has sucked up all the rain and produced some huge fruits, so although I had planned to make the Pea, bean and bacon tart from the July issue of BBC Good Food, I decided to adapt it to use the courgettes, hmmm maybe I could use some tomatoes too, oh and that half block of Feta cheese, so no need for the bacon and I'll make my own pasty instead of using frozen shortcrust like in the recipe...not much of the recipe left to be honest!

Roasted Courgette Tomato, Feta and Basil Tart

1 quantity of butter shortcrust pastry blind baked in a flan case (click through to the link for full recipe)

For the roasted vegetables
2 large or three medium courgettes/zucchini
8 small tomatoes, halved
3 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp salt

Heat the oven to 200C, slice or dice the courgettes into even sized chunks, halve the tomatoes. Place the vegetables in a roasting dish and coat with the oil. Sprinkle with salt and roast in the oven for 20-30 minutes until starting to blacken round the edges. Remove from oven and drain the juices into a bowl.

For the filling
100g Feta cheese, cubed
300ml double cream
4 large eggs
juices from the roasted vegetables
6-8 basil leaves
freshly ground pepper

Place the roasted vegetables into the baked tart case, top with the cubed feta and torn basil leaves. Season with freshly ground pepper.
Beat the cream and eggs together and stir in the saved juices from the roasted vegetables. Pour over the vegetables and cheese and bake at 160C for 35 minutes until set and golden.

Roasting the veg means that the pastry doesn't go soggy and it makes a nice firm filling, very tasty indeed.

I'm entering this tart for One Ingredient, the July ingredient is 'The Tomato' and it is being hosted this month by Jacqueline at How to Cook Good Food who shares this challenge with Working London Mummy

And..Veggie/Fruit a Month which is featuring the Zucchini for July and is being hosted this month by Cook's Joy

It is also Simple and in Season another challenge run by Jacqueline at How to Cook Good Food in patnership with Ren at Fabulicious Food

Okay, so far three challenges busted with one dish, now to the salad I served with the tart

Giant Couscous, Butternut and Walnut Salad

I've been reading about Giant Couscous, so when I saw a bag at the farm shop last week, I popped it in my basket. Also in GoodFood July issue was this recipe which was perfect to try out the giant couscous. This time I stuck to the recipe!

I hope the recipe will go onto the website soon and I can link back, but it is basically roasted dice of butternut squash which have been sprinkled with chilli powder (I roasted them in a separate dish but at the same time as the courgettes and tomatoes). You cook the couscous for five minutes, then mix through the roasted squash and the oil it has been roasted in and add walnut pieces, the seeds and juice of half a pomegranate and juice of half a lemon with a handful of chopped mint.

What a lovely salad it was, the squash pieces were quite hot as I probably used more chilli than I should and used chilli flakes rather than powder! However, as the couscous is bland if you ate it altogether, the heat was about right. I loved the fresh juiciness of the pomegranate seeds, the green bite of the mint and earthy crunch of the walnuts. I would definitely make this again.

And this recipe is for Bookmarked Recipes one of the challenges run by Jac at Tinned Tomatoes from an idea by Ruth from Ruth's Kitchen Experiments founder of the challenge.

Labels: basil, Bookmarked Recipes, butternut squash, courgettes, feta cheese, flan, Giant couscous, One Ingredient, pomegranate, quiche, roasted vegetables, salad, Simple and in Season, tart, tomatoes, vegetarian

Saturday, 1 October 2011

Butternut Squash, Feta Cheese and Roasted Pepper Quiche

Last Sunday my friend came over for lunch. I thought that some kind of quiche or flan with salad would be ideal. I had already bought the butternut squash, so went off in search of a recipe that would incorporate this.

In the end my recipe is a kind of combination of a couple of different recipes. Some of the butternut squash flans were made by pureeing or squishing the squash! A bit like pumpkin pie, no texture, yuk!

My shortcrust pastry comes, as usual, from the Avoca Cookbook I have blogged it before HERE

I blind baked the pastry case and then made the filling as follows:

1 butternut squash, peeled and cubed

1 onion sliced

dessert spoon of brown sugar

olive oil

jar of roasted peppers, drained

pack of feta cheese

3 eggs

2 egg yolks

250ml single cream

salt & freshly ground black pepper

Heat the oven to 200C, put the butternut squash and two tablespoons of olive oil in a roasting tray and roast until soft and golden brown.

Gently fry the onion in a little olive oil until soft, add the brown sugar and let it caramelise.

Take the blind baked pastry case, put the caramelised onions in the base, add the roasted butternut squash, chopped feta cheese and roasted peppers.

Beat the eggs, egg yolks, cream and seasoning together. Pour into the pastry case.

Turn down the heat in the oven to 180C and bake for about 40 minutes or until the egg is set.

Serve warm or cold with salad.

It was very nice, lots of texture and flavour, the saltiness of the feta went very well with the sweet squash and peppers. The only thing that bugged me was that the filling leaked out of the bottom of the tin, something that hasn't happened to me for years! Fortunately, I managed to get it out of the tin without too much trouble.

I am also entering this in the October 'No Croutons Required' challenge over at Tinned Tomatoes, the theme is 'squash' and I'm hoping that this counts as 'salad'.

Labels: Avoca, butternut squash, eggs, feta cheese, No Croutons Required, quiche, roasted red peppers

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