Salads for this week

Have been picking a selection of differing leaves from the garden daily for the last few weeks. Rocket, chard and lettuce being the main ones

M: Gammon, celery and green pepper
T: Beef and beetroot in horseradish and yogurt dressing
W: Broad bean and butterbean
Th: Egg and anchovy (using up anchovies from warm pea, tomato and potato salad)

Lentil soup

I cook gammon joints in my trusty pressure cooker. The cooking liquid I then turn into lentil and gammon soup:

500g red lentils - rinse in seive until the water runs clear
2 onions chopped
5 carrots chopped
3 pints of cooking liquid topped up with water or stock and water

Bring slowly to the boil then simmer for 20-25 minutes until the carrots are cooked.
Liquidise when cool enough to do so.

If sufficient gammon left over from joint (and I try and make sure there is), shred and add to the soup.

Redcurrants

Picking redcuarrants this weekend. I love them fresh dipped in white sugar. Rest of family not so sure. So a collection of ideas for trial over the next week:

Warm redcurrant dressing (this recipe is with goats cheese salad)
With duck breast
Redcurrant compote with baked cambemert

Later update: I made something that took elements from all of the above recipe links:
200g redcurrants
dash of olive oil
2tbsp balsamic vinegar
1tbsp dark brown soft sugar

Put all into saucepan and cook gently for a couple of minutes.

Not perfected as yet, but a very good first pass if I do say so myself. I added half of the above quantity (cooked) to deglaze pan used for cooking lamb chops. Yum. Used the rest to serve with cold gammon and new potatoes. Double yum.

Warm potato, pea and tomato salad

A friend gave me this recipe some years back, but I can't find her version. I made the following from memory; it turned out just fine:

15-20 cherry tomatoes halved
8 oz frozen peas (fresh will of course be fine, just cook for less time)
half a tin of anchovies (about 3) roughly chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
6-8 new potatoes scraped, halved and boiled.
Bunch of mint chopped (have a feeling original recipe used basil)
1 tbsp balsamic vingegar
Black pepper (NO salt - the anchovies provide this)

Heat olive oil and lightly fry anchovies with peas until anchovies have 'melted' (about 15 mins)
Mix in with potatoes, tomatoes, mint, vinegar and season with pepper.
Serve!

A platter of this salad (the above does for two if served this way) topped with barbequed chicken and lamb goes down well and is also simple as nothing else is required to accompany it.

Otherwise the above quantities will easily serve 4 with other salads etc.

Rhubarb Icecream

My rhubarb in the garden is having another good year (maybe due to the wet summer last year?). Combined with an abundant supply of eggs I have been experimenting with a number of ice cream recipes.

Here's the favourite to date:
http://www.chefdecuisine.com/dessert/icecream/RHUBARB_ICE_CREAM.asp
Although used a bit more rhubarb and made the custard by whisking the egg yolks with the sugar, bringing the milk to the boil, adding to egg/sugar mixture and then back into the pan (it gets to coating consistency quicker this way and no need to strain.

No Pastry quiche aka Frittata with a twist

As we're getting at least 3 eggs a day from the new hens I have spent some time working out how to try and keep at least only slightly behind the supply without resorting to cakes.

This recipe is perfect for lunch either at home or in the office as it is lovely eaten at room temperature with a green salad.

Having been making this every other week for the last couple of months, refining as I go along, am now ready to record/share!

Heat oven to 180C

8 eggs whisked until lightly frothy
100ml milk
- Add milk to eggs with seasoning depending on filling (eg less salt when using home cooked gammon)
- put other filling ingredients (see below) into dish aiming to fill two thirds of the dish loosely.
- Pour over milk and egg mixture
- cook in preheated oven for about 25 minutes or when egg mixture is set

Size of dish: the above is for 12" quiche dish. For 9" quiche dish use 6 eggs with 75ml milk. 10 eggs etc if large lasagne dish. The egg mixture should not quite cover the other ingredients. If unsure on how many eggs needed it is easy to quickly whisk up more eggs to get to the right level in the dish. Adjust time of cooking accordingly.

So far I have included new potatoes in all fillings, well they are in season, about 250g scrubbed, sliced into about 1cm pieces then cooked.

Unless otherwise indicated, another common ingredient is at least one onion chopped and fried in oil until soft.

Successful fillings to date

New potatoes, sliced chorizo, halved cherry tomatoes, fresh marjoram, cubed feta (no onion)
New potatoes, asparagus spears (cooked), grated cheddar
New potatoes, cubed home cooked gammon/bacon joint, extra fried onion, parsley, grated cheddar [Frittata Lorraine?!]
New potatoes, broccoli and blue cheese (stilton or danish blue and quite a bit of it to get the bite of the 'blue' coming through)

As the vegetable patch starts to produce then bulk of potatoes is likely to be replaced by courgette etc