Salaric Cooking

Wild Leaf Salad

Ingredients:

• Ransom leaves (wild garlic)
• Young fresh spinach
• Hawthorn leaves or leaf buds (though only in spring)
• Dandelion leaves (small new leaves are best)
• Mint leaves
• Chives
• Radishes (optional)
• Pine nuts

Dressing -– balsamic vinegar and hazelnut oil to taste

Make sure that the ransom (wild garlic) makes up just over two thirds of the salad greens, mint, one sixth, and the rest a mix of the remaining leaves. Radishes are a lovely addition, though are not a wild leaf!

When picking the spinache make sure that you only pick the new/young leaves, same with the dandeilions.

Once the leaves are picked, wash them then tear them wroughly and place in a bowl together; chives can be cut up, as can the radishes.

Add pine nuts and dressing, then toss salad to get even coverage and serve.

We have served this up to people and they love it though no-one has yet guessed what’s in it, even with hints!!!

The ransoms does give it a garlick flavour so if you don’t like garlic this isn’t the salad for you, though it is a subtle flavour and not over powering. The mint makes a fresh contrast and the hawthorn a nutty one. This salad will also be full of nutrients.

Radishes

This was written in response to a question asked by my friend Becca who’s recipies themselves will hopefully soon be appearing on here!

Becca Radishes are mainly a salad thing.

Al eats them by themselves, but they can have a strong, peppery taste so I would advise that you get some nice greens for a salad, like rocket, lettuice, maybe some cuccumber and peppers to eat with them.

You should wash them then ‘top and tail’ them -– this means you cut off the spindle hair-like root bit and the bit where the leaves attach. Then you can leave them whole or slice, or if you are feeling really adventurous then you can cut a zing zag around the ‘equator’ of the radish, creating to ‘flowers’ from the radish -– my dad used to do this for my lunch all the time -– placed on a slice of cucumber it becomes a water lilly!

Dads other ‘peiece-de-la-resistaonce’ is where you slice half way into the radish and then ‘wrap’ the knife around it in a spiral as you go. Then place the radish, which should still appear whole, into a glass of water where a) it will end up with a milder taste, and b) the radish will open up into a lovely spiral.

Do not top and tail until just before eating as they can shrivel, not being shop- bought ones injected with water! (I had given her radishes from our garden to take home with her after she had visited!)

I hope that was helpful.

I think the Japanese may do lots of other things with radishes but then they have lots of types of radish!

How far will one dish stretch?

I decided to make a huge ratatouille, so in went the six tins of chopped tomatoes, four cloves of garlic, four large oinions, four courgettes, an aubergine, two peppers and half a bottle of tomatoe suauce. Slow cookers are so handy. 🙂

Then I thought, well, I can use this as a base for other dishes instead of freezing it and lo!

First of all we were going to have tacos, so in went in some of the ratatouille into a frying pan, followed by some canneallini beans and a tin of re-fried beans. Add some fajita seasoning and away we go!!! This was tasty and was great cold the next day as an accompaniment to salad.

Secondly, I served it actually as ratatouilleee with some rice.

Thirdly, I used it as a base for pasta bake. – Now I was also planning on turning it into a soup, but we’ve had lots of guests including Al’s cousin Phillippa and her boyfriend, and my mum and dad, – so I sort of ran out!

Dandelion Tea

Dandelions contain the same diaretic as gout medicine and so for my diabetic mother who has gout I dried some dandelions and made her drink the tea! We checked with doctors first and this is what I would recommend anyone else doing.

The tea appears to be working; mum even took Jean for a couple of walks up and down the drive, which with gout should have been too painful. Then she decided she wouldn’t drink anymore becuause it made her need the loo (something dad suffered too but Al and me didn’t?). As a result of not drinking the tea, the next day her gout flared up and she was in lots of pain. 🙁

I found that the best tasting brew was created by chopping the dried roots up but leaving the leaves whole. The leaves were dried too. I put the equivalent of a 5cm- long by 5mm (sorry about the units) diameter root into a tea pot, per person. This is 2/3rds of the mix, the remaining third being the leaves.

It needs quiet a lot of brewing/steeping, so a tea cosy is useful (I have a Rrastarfarian- looking one that Al’s aunt gave us -– I love it!). Honey is also good as a sweetener in it. I only served small coffee cups of the stuff.

I now have a waiting list for the stuff!

I suppose I’d best dig up a lot more dandeilions!

Asparagus Soup

Barbara (Al’s aunt) gave us some of her aspaeragus which grows in abundance in the garden. – It was about enough to serve steamed as a starter for one and a half people so I decided to soup it!

I boiled it up then poured it and and the boiling water into the blender, adding a veggy stock cube and a paint of milk (goat’s milk becuause that’s what I had in the fridge at the time). I then cheated and use dried chopped garlic -– about a tea spoon full and crushed fennel seeeds, again about 1 teaspoon full too flavour it with. It was, however, a thin, insubstantial soup, so out came the corn flour, and the soup rapidly thickened.

It was lovely and filling, and as always, I had accidentally made enough for four people -– oh well, Jean loves it too, which is good, as she’s getting it again tomorrow!

Roasting Soup – from my personal blog.

Ok, I bought lots of veg for a nice roast but with Jean’s impromptu hospital trip etc … it didn’t really happen. So I had stuff left over – so I souped it! It was tasty too; Al really liked it. 🙂

*1/3 celeriack *1/3 swede *2 medium potatoes *1/2 butternut squash *3 salsify *1 courguette *2 large cloves of garlick *Black pepper *1 tbl spoon fennel seeds *pumpkin seed oil

I had par boiled a lot of it all ready, to roast and put in with the left over roast veg (these had been roasted in sunflower oil with rosemarry and pepper). I had also kept the water as a veg stock, which I then boiled everything up in that hadn’t yet been par boiled. These were the potatoes (for some reason there are never any roasted potatoes left after the meals reguardless of how many I cook?), butternut and courgette.

Then we blend the whole lot! Bzzzzzzzzzz!

Into the suaucepan about a quarter of it went, along with the garlic crushed, and fennel seeds, – also crushed. I also drizzled about 1/2 a tbl spoon of pumpkin seed oil into it and ground in some pepper in (using our phallic pepper grinder from an Italian restruarent!). Add the fennel seeds and away we go!

Oh and don’t forget to add a pint of milk -– I use a 50:50 mix of semi skimmed goat’s and skimmed cow’s milk but that’s becausecos of special dietary requirrements and should be fine what ever you use. It would probably be tasty just with a pint of veg stock instead!

Gently heat until the odd bubble starts to appear, try not to let boil! This allows the garlick and fennel to permeate the soup properly. 🙂

I had it on the heat for about 1/2 hr.

Be warned, me and Al and I have had this two days in a row and I have frozen enough (without garlick, fennel and milk) to feed 6 people a thick soup and 10 people a thickish soup!

Jean (who was just weaning at the time being our baby) also loves this but she had it mixed with mash potato. 🙂

Opps!

Ok, on the cooking front I have learnedt two valuable lesasons this week: 1) When making a sponge don’t use the electric whisk as the cake collapses, and 2) Ddon’t try and soup Protein Chunk Gunk unless you like mineistronei- type soups, and even then beware!

p.s. Al ate the soup!

p.p.s. Protein Chunk Gunk is the turn I put to a stuff containing soya chunks that have been dried and reconstituted by being soaked for half a day.

I went A whoring

Ok, well actually I went hawing but I couldn’t resist the pun!

I went for a walk with the idea of picking elder berries but found there to be very few elders, all of which where behind barbed wire, even if they where heavily laden. :/ There were, however, loads and loads of blackthorns heavey with sloes, and which after picking five I realised they were not quiete ripe!

I then looked around and realised that the hawthorns where groaning under the weight of their little red berries -– well they are one of the most prevalent hegdgerow plants -– and I started picking the little beauts! Got nearly a whole basket too. 🙂

Some haw trees haws were not quiet ripe so there will be plenty for me to pick all the way through the autumn I feel. T- there are so many of the berries that I didn’t even have to think about how much to leave for the animals! I gave up on trees when I got bored rather than when I couldn’t reach any more berries. 🙂

What am I going to do with them all I hear you cry!

Well I am going to dry as many as I can for use in a berry tea -– a tea that is supposed to be good for those with high blood pressure and/or heart problems. – I’m going to get mum and dad to check with their doctors if it’s ok for them and add it to the dandeilion tea I force- feed mum.

There has been much merriyment here whilst Al me and Al I have been ‘doing’ the haws i.e. pulling the staolrks off of them -– but, well, this is us and our wrarpped and twisted minds, so innuendo here we come!!! I also said quiet innocently that I couldn’t do all these haws tonight! 🙂

Al is currently hawing away!

Of course any left over haws will be frozen for incorporation into hedgerow jam and/or haw jelly. Mmmm, I’m sure that you can make a coffee substituete too but now can’t find the recipe. :/

This is from our blog

Cheese sarni ideas!

• Cheddaer and sliced apples
• Cheddaer and spiced pear jelly
• Cheddaer and cranberry jelly
• Cheddaer and piccallilliy
• Cheddaer and apple sauce
• Cheddaer and stilton
• Cheddaer, lettuice, and salad cream
• Replace the cheddaer with red leicesteure, cream cheese or cottage cheese.
• Wensleydale and cranberry cheese with apple sauce in crusty rolls
• Mexician cheese with lemon corriander and humous

Olive Pannini Yummyness

Get/make a paninnis with black olives imnbedded in it – again this recipe calls for a flate bed toaster!

• Walnuts -– broken up, preferablly fresh
• Brie or stilton depending on taste
• Avoacardos – if you’re Alaric -– sliceds

Make the damn paninni and put in toaster! Eat! Well after you’ve taken it out of the toaster of course!

From Snell-Pym