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!

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!

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.

Spiced cauliflower salad

To use up the rest of my vegbox cauliflower, I used this recipe as a starting point (thank you BBC!). As I said before, I think cauliflower is yummy with plenty of spice, so I added a few things and some extra nuts and it turned out great. Roasting cauliflower isn’t something that most people would think to try, but it really does enhance the flavours. Here’s my version.

Broccoli salad with added fire

The broccoli around at the moment is fantastic and great when you need an injection of health in your life, having eaten way too much cake. We had two huge heads this week so I set about making a broccoli extravaganza this evening - first a big batch of chopped with 2 peas soup and secondly this healthy salad with crunchy florets, silky roast squash, nutty puy lentils and pumpkin seeds and a fiery harissa dressing. Would be great with some feta also, and you can make it as fiery or not as you like! Perhaps you could also try adding in some raisins if you like them. It was great with the addition of the romano peppers sliced thinly - you could of course use a chilli pepper for even more heat.

I love using puy lentils in salads - they're really substantial and filling but also super tasty. I like to make a version of this in the summer with cherry tomatoes that have been roasted for 5-10 mins in lots of olive oil, salt, pepper and oregano just until they're squishing, blanched french beans and sundried tomatoes.

You could serve this on its own, or for a more substantial lunch serve with bread and some yogurt to cool off and perhaps sprinkle with feta.

Grilled portobello mushroom, watercress and sprouted seed salad and garlicky croutons

This week I have been rubbish at updating, and cooking. For saturday lunch this was lovely. I'm a big fan of mushrooms, especially portobello, and I think they go really well with goats cheese. I would have liked to add some toasted walnuts to this too, but the cupboard was bare!

A large mushroom, one per person
French goats cheese, the kind you can slice in a circle
Watercress
Sprouted seeds
Stale bread (I used seeded wholemeal)
a clove of garlic
Some thyme
Olive oil and balsamic vinegar
Salt and pepper

It's really easy to make this - just grill the bottom of the mushroom first, then add some thyme, salt and pepper to the top and the circle of goats cheese. Grill under a relatively high heat until the cheese is bubbling and golden brown.

The croutons I made by just frying up a little bit of garlic in olive oil, then adding the bread which i'd torn into quite chunky pieces. Cook on a lower heat until crisp.

Then just toss the watercress in a little oil and vinegar, add the seeds and sprinkle with the croutons, and serve the mushroom in the middle.