More beetroot...this time a salad

An easy weeknight dinner this one, which I knocked up using some of the same dressing from the pink fritters that I made the other night. It's substantial and comforting - sweet and a little spicy.

To serve three or four, peel and chop up some beetroot into half moons, and peel some baby shallots (or use onions but cut smaller). Toss with cumin seeds, olive oil, salt and pepper and roast until done in a fairly hot oven - about 25-30 mins.

While that's going on, making the dressing. See the pink fritters recipe for how. Open a couple of cans of chickpeas, drain and tip into a bowl with a handful of sultanas, a handful of toasted pumpkin seeds, some chopped parsley and the dressing.

Plate up with some nice salad leaves, adding the onions and beetroot. Top with some natural yogurt that's been slighty salted and had some more chopped parsley stirred through.

Purple fritters with spicy salad

With my beetroot this week, I was going to make some roasted root salad, with spices, fruit and nuts. But instead I got happy with my grater and made up these pinky purple fritters, which were super yum and great with just a simple salad with a citrussy-spicy dressing. Recommended for meat eaters! As an extra treat, we griddled the extra halloumi from the pack and alternated grilled halloumi and fritters in a tasty pile of loveliness. This makes enough for two.

Fritters:
4-5 beets (little ones), peeled and grated
1 small onion, chopped little
1/4 of a pack of halloumi, grated
a teaspoon or so of cumin seeds, toasted in a dry pan
a handful of finely chopped parsley (or coriander would be great)
One egg, beaten
A tablespoon of chickpea (gram) flour
Salt and pepper to season

Salad:
Some nice seasonal leaves
A handful of whatever seeds or nut you have (pumpkin, sunflower, walnuts, cashews, sesame), toasted in a dry pan
A handful of dried fruits - I used cranberries

Dressing:
Juice from a couple of clementines (or one larger orange)
Juice of one lemon
Sugar and honey, to taste
Teaspoon or so of white wine vinegar
Harissa paste, to taste (I used about a teaspoon)
Oil - whatever you fancy. I used walnut oil for extra rich nuttiness

First, make the dressing. Put the citrus juices in a pan and add the sugar and honey, then heat for a while until it starts to bubble and reduce a little to form more of a syruppy consistency. Then remove from the heat and stir in the other ingredients and season, tasting and adding extra if necessary. Set aside.

Then mix together the dry fritter ingredients in a bowl, and gradually add the egg, just enough so it binds together. Heat a large frying pan so it's really hot then add oil. Dollop in spoonfuls of the mixture to sizzle away, gently pressing them down so they form flat fritters. They'll need maybe 2-3 minutes on each side, that's all.

While they're cooking, dress and arrange the leaves on your plates, sprinkling over the nuts, seeds and fruit is using. Then stack up the fritters on top (with the sliced and griddled remaining halloumi, if using), and tuck in!

Birthday pancakes (with cherry and nectarine compote, greek yogurt and honey)

I challenge you to find a nicer way to start a summer birthday than lighter than air pancakes with a sweet, fruit topping. (Alright meat-eaters – bacon sarnies excepted!)

These pancakes are super easy to make, the lightest I’ve ever tasted and are really healthy, what with being partially wholemeal, full of goodness from the seeds and have hardly any fat.

Serves 4-6

For the pancakes:

4 eggs, separated

155g flour – use a mixture of wholemeal and plain if you prefer, or all wholemeal

1 ½ tsp baking powder

a handful or two of seeds – I used sunflower but poppy are also good

190ml milk

pinch of salt

Mix together the dry ingredients with the egg yolks and milk to form a thick batter. Whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks and fold in to the batter. Now it’s ready, heat a good non-stick pan then add spoonfuls of batter. Turn them when you see little bubbles. They only need a couple of minutes on each side to be a nice golden brown.

You can keep them warm in a low oven while you cook the rest.

For the compote:

A punnet of cherries, stoned and chopped in half

A couple of nectarines or peaches, stoned and chopped into smallish pieces

To make the compote, put the fruit in a saucepan and heat for a few minutes until it’s all jammy and gooey.

Serve with greek yogurt and honey.

Real Italian tasting courgette pasta (with flowers)

A couple of years ago, my sister did a stint in Italy teaching English. She stayed with a host family, and ate some absolutely bloody fantastic food by all accounts. In particular, she described courgette pasta with flowers and some kind of cheese which apparently was delightful. So ever since I've started to grow my own, I've wanted to replicate the mystery dish...and the other night, I cracked it.

Courgettes sliced wafer thin and cooked with a tiny bit of garlic for barely a minute, their flowers stuffed with homemade herb and lemon ricotta - it's an impressive dish and something I think you could serve up proudly at a dinner party. It's actually incredibly easy to make once you've finished with all the faffing. And yum yum yummy.

PS I urge you to try the homemade ricotta if you haven't before - so easy!

A comforting spring vegetable broth

This is a great way of eating spring veggies at their very best; cooking for the minimum time possible to retain their sweetness and gentle crunch. Tiny mint and basil leaves along with chopped fennel tops enhance the flavour, although dill could work equally well, (but mine hasn't grown yet). The white wine brings a lovely freshness. You could use chicken stock as well if you're not veggie.


I think a lot of people wouldn't try cooking lettuce, but actually it's a fantastic way to use little gem or other romaine lettuces, which can sometimes be a bit bitter, because the compact heart means it'll keep its shape well. Everything needs to be sliced up super small and cooked for very little time, as it'll carry on in the bowl when you're eating it.It'd also work with any other spring veg you've got - perhaps beans, baby carrots or asparagus. It's a nice way of cooking spring veg as a side dish too (although a shame to waste the tasty broth) - perhaps serve with fish if you're that way inclined?

This would work really well as a starter as it's wonderfully light, but works equally well as a tasty lunch with some day old bread to mop up the juice.

Asparagus, pea and crunchy seed salad with a minty dressing

This is so easy to make, super quick, fresh and delicious. It's a mountain of green; the flavours go together really well, and I think show off the asparagus to its very best. Now technically, you should use fresh peas, but it's still a bit early for those, so I used frozen (slap me on the wrist but it was still tasty!). I'm not sure whether the seasons for asparagus and peas cross over at all as the former is only around for such a short time, but perhaps you can get fresh peas at this time of year somewhere!?

I think the chilli is really great with this, but then again I tend to put chilli in most things. Chilli rapeseed oil was especially good for a bit of bite. Do take that extra 2 minutes it takes to roast and salt the pumpkin seeds - it makes all the difference!

Wet garlic, herb and lemon omelette

I was given a very large tray of the freshest, organicest, free-rangest eggs you can imagine at the weekend, from hens that roam around an overgrown field all day, much to their delight. They make the yellowest eggs I've ever seen, so naturally, I wanted to do them justice. This did just that - simple enough to enhance the eggs yet with enough flavour to excite the palate.

I have two omelette tips (and you've probably heard them before) - firstly, get yourself a great pan. It makes all the difference. A smaller pan is easier and makes a thicker omelette, which means you get more foldy juiciness and less pancake-yness. The second is add a bit of water to the egg once you've beaten it to make it light as a feather - never fails.

Wet garlic works really well in this and it was in my box this week, but if you can't get it, normal dried (bulb) garlic is fine - it's just got a fresher flavour.

Egg and chips anyone?

Here's a new take on egg and chips using the delightful Jersey Royals that are around at the moment. Crispy and nutty, with lovely runny poached eggs - great for brunch.

This could also be good with a few sundried tomatoes (not too many though as they're quite strong), some rosemary on the spuds or perhaps a bit of garlic.

My first grow your own experience...

Well I've been pretty absent here lately, but I have a good reason. I've started growing my own - now I've got a garden, I've got space for lots of pots of lovely edible things. I started off with just a few tomato seeds, but I've been excited by the fact that I'm not killing everything off within days and my collection of happy plants now streches to courgettes, baby leaves, little gems, peppers, bright lights chard, radishes, french beans and strawberries. It's hard work - but I can't wait to taste the fruits and veggies of my home grown labour.

I don't want this to turn into a growing your own blog, because it's about using what you get in your veg box every week, and I'm just going to be supplementing my weekly box with home grown delights (just expect many courgette recipes when they start to crop - fingers crossed!). And besides, there are plenty of grow your own blogs out there (Real Men Sow being a fantastic example). But - that doesn't stop me from being totally delighted with our first ever home grown salad the other evening.

It was nothing more than baby leaves, picked two minutes earlier (a mixture of rocket, mizuna, mustard oriental red, lambs lettuce and land cress), and a simple dressing of dijon mustard, lemon juice, a little black pepper and olive oil, a few pumpkin seeds and some parmesan. And it was delicious, especially knowing that I'd grown those lovely little leaves from tiny seeds.

Butternut and butterbean dip

Ok, so I've been doing a lot of recipes with butternut squash lately (see here) but this should be the last one for quite a while, as I've just about finished off the massive glut we had for a few weeks.

Just a simple spiced dip for lunch, a kind of squash and bean houmous (more houmous here if you don't fancy squash), it was really great with some celery and toast. It's not a recipe but more of a houmous variation. It tasted great so I figured I'd post it.