Yummynorwoodgarden - tasting notes!

By Christine:

Now that the veggies have started harvesting I have fervently embarked on the quality control part of the project. Melanie has gone to a lot of trouble preparing wonderful dishes from the fruits (and veggies) of her labours. Here are some of her tasty offerings - some of them I make too!

The plump yellow courgettes work best slightly grilled, then marinated in orange zest, oil and pepper. This was delicious, surprisingly, as courgette can be quite bland, a little hit and miss. And we did get rather a lot of the things with our veggie order this year. But these fabulous yellow courgettes are sweeter than the green ones and make any dish look quite dramatic. Perfect with pine nuts, citrus juices, even served with other roast vegetables and pasta especially tagliatelle and chicken. Yum!

I have been raving about the sugar snaps for a while now and taking them in my lunchbox, sometimes on their own, or with nuts, cheese or even slices of ham. They are really sweet and moist, absolutely perfect as a healthy snack. I much prefer them raw to cooked, but if we cook them we just lightly steam them. They will go with anything really, but perfect in salads. Maybe serve with some pancetta and new potatoes too.

The tatties have real flavour but Mel did complain that some of them were a bit on the bitter side. I didnt agree, they are perfect with a little butter and parsley, or tossed in some grainy mustard with black pepper. We have eaten them with meat, fish or in salads. Or bacon. Or one of my faves - on their own with butter and black pepper!!

The lettuce is really tasty and delicate, not too chewy, stringy or peppery - nothing worse than overpowering lettuce! They have worked perfectly with different salads of cheese, bacon, even Mel's speciality of poached egg and trout on a bed of lettuce is delicious with this garden lettuce.

Im keen to try the gooseberries next especially in a crumble. I must admit at first I didnt think they tasted of very much but now they are picked, a box of them are soaking up the sunshine to "bring them on". Hope that wont take too long, and we can put some recipes up here soon!

A way with courgettes

I read an article in the April edition of Kitchen Garden magazine on growing courgettes. I quite like courgettes, but Christine isn't so keen. She finds them slightly bitter in some dishes, so I'm always trying to find new recipes. There is a book out at the moment called What Will I Do With All Those Courgettes? (can't believe I just looked up a book on courgettes on Amazon - how sad is that?) that has about 125 recipes for them. Anyway, until I grow my Gold Rush courgettes in the garden this year, I am trying to find new ways with the heaps of them I get in my veg box every week. Kitchen Garden has a recipe from Nigel Slater that I'm going to try tonight. Basically, you just slice the courgettes lengthways and grill on each side so you have those lovely lines on each side. For the dressing, you grate the zest of a lemon and then mix it in with the lemon juice, olive oil and basil. Dip the grilled courgettes in the dressing and then set aside for ten mins so that the dressing soaks in. I'm going to have this with some grilled fish (coley I think) and maybe a bit of couscous, pepper and tomato.

Will report back on the results.

A food journal

This journal is borne out of a comment made by my partner. I often experiment with new meals, based purely on the ingredients I have in and a bit of inspiration from a recipe book. Often, the food I cook does not strictly follow a recipe (who has all those ingredients to hand anyway?) but is a adaptation from Nigel Slater or something I printed off the internet. My partner is always worried I will forget what I've made because I just made it up and haven't written it down. So, I've created this blog to house details of all the food I have made and want to remake. I probably won't include any of the disasters here; only the meals that worked out :-). Although I've been inspired by Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries, this isn't an attempt to recreate that here. For one, I am nowhere near as proficient as Mr. Slater. I just want a space to keep my recipes so that I don't forget them so I won't be posting a food diary of what I eat every single day. It also goes without saying that if I use someone else's recipe, I will credit them.

If you read my other blog, A Norwood Garden you will see that I am hoping to grow some of my own vegetables this year. If things work out, they will make an appearance in some of my dishes. Here are a few of my thoughts on food and my approach to cooking.

I'm not someone who has been cooking for years and years. I started to get into cooking a few years back. Before that, I ate lots of nicely prepared M&S and Tesco meals. I began to enjoy cooking more creatively when my mum gave me a few recipes to try. Nothing madly adventurous but good food that tasted good and I could make when we had a few friends round. I have probably made salmon and spinach lasagne for everyone I know and it is still a firm favourite in our house. Since then, I have become more adventurous and much more confident in my cooking. I still have so much to learn though. We started to get an organic veg box from Abel and Cole two years back and this helped me to branch out a bit. We were getting all sorts of veg and I had to become flexible and creative in my cooking in order to use it all up. I sought out new recipes and made up meals as I went along in a 'Ready, Steady, Cook' type manner and found that I really enjoyed it.

For me, cooking in the evening has become a great way of relaxing. I get home from work, pour myself a glass of wine and see what is in the fridge or cupboard. I open a book for some inspiration and then get to work. If I have time during the day, I might look up a few recipes on the web based on what ingredients I have at home.

My values regarding food have changed. I try not to eat too much processed food now. I like to know what is in my food and am wary of the contents of prepared foods. I would rather buy the raw ingredients and make my meals from scratch wherever possible. Sometimes this is hard as I work full time and have a three hours round commute each day, but I try as much as possible to avoid pre-prepared foods.

I am also learning lots about ethical issues surrounding food and have found lots of useful advice and debate on the River Cottage website. I am a huge fan of online forums. I have found them invaluable in engaging in issues around food, ethics and the community in which I live. I will probably mention them a lot in this blog.

One further note, some of recipes will not be very accurate. I am not going to write down exactly the amounts I use of ingredients. I often don't measure things out anyway. I will just be getting down in writing the basics of what I made the night before whilst I can still remember. This journal is primarily just to jog my memory when I want to recreate something I made weeks back. However, if it inspires anyone else that is huge bonus. All comments are most welcome.