Prawn salad with sweet beetroot

Let's just say my guys are not keen on beetroot. A real shame, as in a true Russian fashion, I love it. The beet soup borscht was (and is) my Mum's speciality, and when I grew up, I have eaten it regularly. Plus the Russians have a variety of salads which include a delicious beetroot as one of their ingredients. When I moved to the UK, I discovered that the Brits have a love-hate relationship with this root vegetable. They also pickle it to death until it tastes of nothing but vinegar. It's not easy to find a decent beet pickle.That's why I was a bit uneasy when the latest Degustabox arrived with a jar of pickled beets.

Bourne & Wallis British Sweet Sliced Beetroot is cooked and packed in Cambridgeshire. This was a brand I wasn't familiar with before. That's what I like about Degustabox, you receive foods and drinks you wouldn't usually buy or even know of.

Bourne & Wallis produces "a range of contemporary tasting pickles rooted in the Victorian pursuit of preserving, using only naturally grown vegetables, herbs, spices and fine traditional vinegars"

Their sweet sliced beetroot is lovely. You get a combination of flavours - sweet and sour. You can actually taste the sweet vegetable itself, which is great. 

I'm going to look out to try any other products from the range, as I love a good pickle.

I have been munching this pickle straight from the jar, but also used it in a simple salad.

It's not exactly a recipe, more of a suggestion. I am not doing a Nigella and claiming that I've created a recipe, when I only just assembled a few ingredients together as a quick meal. 

I used 1 pack of Whitby Seafoods Prawns in Garlic & Ginger, one big tomato per person, an avocado, a handful of caperberries and a  few tablespoons on pickled beetroot, all drizzled with the olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

I cooked the breaded prawns in the oven for 10 minutes, and assembled the salad while the prawns were still piping hot. A quick and easy meal. And very tasty too.

Beetroot and apple soup with soured cream

When my boys are at school, I hardly ever bother cooking anything for my lunch. A sandwich, a simple salad or any reheated leftovers suit me. But yesterday I was rummaging through the fridge and discovered that I still had some beets in the fridge which I got at the market a couple of weeks ago.
Browsing the latest Sainsbury's magazine, I spotted Beetroot and apple soup with soured cream. Well, I am a Russian girl at heart, even if I have lived in the UK for almost 20 years. I enjoy recipes with beetroot, and this recipe sounded like a lighter version of borscht. Of course, the authentic borscht is never blitzed, but the beet and soured cream combination are very much Eastern European.

I have adapted the recipe, and made it more flavourful, as it was a bit bland.

Beetroot and apple soup with soured cream
Ingredients:
3 medium beets, peeled and chopped
2tbsp olive oil
1 red onion, finely chopped
1 clove of garlic
1 big apple (I used a Gala apple), peeled, cored and sliced
about 500+ ml vegetable stock
100ml apple juice
1tbsp tomato paste
1tsp paprika
soured cream
fresh fennel and wild garlic leaves (optional) or spring onions
Peel the beets and chop into cubes. Heat the olive oil and add the cubed beets. Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. You can skip this step, but it gives the depth of flavour. When beetroot is cooked in soup from raw, it has a rather earthy flavour, frying makes it sweeter and more concentrated in flavour.
Chop the onion and garlic, add to the beets, and cook for another 5+ minutes. Add the cubed apple, and cook for another 5 minutes until the apple is slightly softened.
Put all the ingredients in a medium pan, pour the stock and apple juice over. Add the paprika and tomato paste. Cook on low simmering for about 25 minutes. Season to taste. Using a hand blender, blitz the soup.
Serve hot or cold with some soured cream and fresh herbs, like fennel, wild garlic or spring onions.

Yesterday I had it hot, today for lunch I had a chilled version. Both are light and lovely. It is also quite sweet, so I really fancied adding some chopped pickles. I must try it again with pickles.

Sillsallad (Swedish herring salad for #ReadCookEat)

I buy zillions of books, but I also enjoy freebies. I have already mentioned Free eBooks Daily on my blog. I follow them on Twitter (@FreeEbooksDaily and check them out if not daily, then every few days to see what new books have been added). I mostly download historical fiction and cook books, and thanks to Free eBooks Daily I have discovered several authors, whom I never came across before. It's a bit like pot luck, some books are not exactly masterpieces of literature, but there are some true gems (like Moonfixer by CC Tillery) which kept me awake for a few very late nights, as I couldn't put my ipad down. I have first come across Linda K Hubalek when her book Planting Dreams was offered as a free download back in summer. I loved it, and bought two sequels. Then another book by Linda K Hubalek appeared on the site - Prairie Bloomin' (The Prairie Blossoms for an Immigrant's Daughter). Since it was book 2 in the series, I bought the first one as well.
Butter in the Well (A Scandinavian Woman's Tale of Life on the Prairie) is a historical diary set in 1868-1888) This fascinating account is a fictional diary, based on the life of Maja Kajsa Swenson Runeberg, the author's ancestor. She and her husband left Sweden to become the homesteaders in Saline County, Kansas, in 1868.

This is not an idealistic Little House-style portrayal of the pioneer life. The reality was harsh, the nature uncompromising. Life was a constant battle with the elements, as they lived first in the sodhouse, surrounded by rattlesnakes. They literally lived in the middle of nowhere, and depended on each other. No doctor in case of emergency for miles, noone to ask for help when you needed it. So much hardship, so many tragedies, when children's mortality rate was extremely high. It puts everything into perspective, when you read the diary entries about poverty, hunger and death.
You will learn a lot about the life of pioneer women in the prairie, there is an abundance of details on many aspects of the farmers' life, from house-building to harvesting and making preserves.
The book is written in a journal form, a bit repetitive at times, and in a perhaps over-simplified manner, though this might have been a literary device to imitate the diary written by a person without literary accomplishments. The story is sketchy at times,  a mere record of events of what was going on around in the neighbourhood. There were moments when I felt a bit lost, with too many names that meant something for the narrator but were totally meaningless to me as a reader. Personal photos and maps added depth to the narrative, and made it more captivating.
The ebook itself could have benefited from a better editing and proof-reading, there were too many typos which I found distracting.
The author has a great understanding of an epoch she has recreated and possesses a deep knowledge of the pioneer life in the prairie.
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As someone with interest in food history, I enjoyed reading references to different foods and dishes Kajsa made. These were mostly Swedish recipes, but prepared with the ingredients found in Kansas.
Several Christmas meals were mentioned in great detail.

"This year we celebrated Christmas with all the trimmings and traditions of our family. I'll admit we used a primitive substitute for most of our Christmas dishes, but Moder makes the best ostkaka and frukt soppa no matter where she lives. Adelaide gave us some white sugar to make some kringler, the pastry Carl likes. Since we butchered a hog this fall, we had potatiskorv and a smoked ham also. I pickled catfish we caught in the river this fall and mixed it with potatoes and beets for Fader's favourite dish of sillsallad. It doesn't quite taste the same since it is supposed to be made with herring, but he was happy..." (entry for 25 December 1869)

So many new dishes for me to try: ostkaka (a custard dessert or cheesecake), kringler (pastry with icing sugar and nuts), potatiskorv (sausage made with ground meat, onions, potatoes and spices), pepparkakor (molasses and ginger cookies) and other foods mentioned in the book sounded perfect for our #ReadCookEat challenge. In the end I have chosen a pickled herring salad, Sillsallad.

Sillsallad is a Swedish herring salad with soured cream.
I have looked up the recipes online, as I am not very familiar with the Swedish cuisine. I based my recipe on Sillsallad recipe found on Food.com. I have adapted it, having reduced amounts of some ingredients and also did some minor changes with the ingredients themselves.

Sillsallad
Ingredients:
270g rollmops (herring with onion)
3 medium potatoes
250g baby beetroot, pickled in vinegar
3 cornichons, pickled with dill flowers
1 apple
2tbsp cyder vinegar
2tbs caster sugar
2tbsp onion and gherkin marinade from rollmops
1/2tbsp English mustard
for the sauce:
a tub of soured cream, mixed with fresh dill
hard-boiled egg for decoration

The recipe I mentioned above uses bigger quantities of herring and pickled beets. I couldn't find any dried dill, so I used fresh one instead. Of course, the homesteaders would have used a dried dill in the middle of winter.
For this recipe I bought 2 tubs of Young's rollmops.
Boil the potatoes in skins, once cooked, let them cool, before removing the skin and chopping into small pieces.
Slice the herring in two lengthwise, then in half again, and chop into small pieces. Chop the beets, apple and cornichons. Mix all the ingredients in a big mixing bowl.
Prepare the dressing by mixing caster sugar in vinegar with the marinade from rollmops, as well as mustard. Pour over the salad, mix well. Refrigerate for a couple of hours before serving.
Serve with the soured cream mixed with dill on the side.
You may garnish the salad with sliced hard-boiled eggs.

If you enjoy pickles, you will love this salad. If you're not a fan of pickles, then it's not a recipe for you. It is basically pickles upon pickles in a soured cream sauce. Like most Russians, I looove pickles, and am very happy with the dish. On the other hand, I wouldn't offer it to my husband, as he would never eat pickled herring or beetroot (and it's his loss, how can you not like pickles?!).

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I apologize I am so late with #ReadCookEat linky this month, my life has been very hectic, and I am always on the run. Believe me, I haven't lost enthusiasm, in fact I have bookmarked so many recipes already in the books I have read in summer and in September. There will be more recipes coming.

Have you read a book recently which inspired you to run to the kitchen and cook to your heart's content?

Chris from Cooking Round the World and I are inviting you to recreate a meal, inspired by books and join in our #ReadCookEat challenge.

The idea is to choose a book, either a world classic or modern fiction, or even memoirs and pick up a dish mentioned or described in that book and then recreate it in a recipe. Please say a few lines about your chosen book, and maybe even do a quote from the book.

If you decide to take part, please add the badge to your post and link up back to Chris and me, and either use a link-up tool or add the url of your post as a comment. Alternatively, email either of us with the link to your post (my email is sasha1703 at yahoo dot com).
The challenge will end on 30October 2014.
I promise to Pin all blogs posts taking part in this challenge, as well as RT and Google+

New V8 V-Fusion

We all know about 5-a-day and that we all should have five portions of fruit and vegetables a day (though the recent research moves the goalpost to seven). Yet apparently 70% of UK adults eat less than five portions (according to The National Diet and Nutrition Survey published last week). It is possible that people are confused about portions, but also many brands don't make it easy to understand just what exactly one serving is supposed to be. Just the other day I was reading in The Guardian that at M&S three tomatoes are equal to one portion of veg, while Asda says it's seven tomatoes, and Waitrose wants you to eat 10. Are you confused? New V8 V-Fusion, on the other hand, clearly states that one serving of 250ml is an equivalent of one whole serving of fruit and one whole serving of vegetables, which takes us to 2 of our 5-a-day. Not bad at all.

"New V8 V-Fusion is a great tasting way to get two of your five-a-day. Most people know that vegetables are an integral part of a healthy diet, yet 7 out of 10 adults still fail to consume the recommended daily serving.

Proving that ‘being good’ doesn’t have to taste bad, V8 V-Fusion is made from 100% fruit and vegetable juice. Just one tasty, 250 ml serving gives you one whole serving of fruit and one whole serving of vegetables; that’s 2 of your 5-a-day. Blended to perfection with no artificial flavours, colours, preservatives or additives, V8 V-Fusion prides itself on its scrumptious taste and inspired fruit and vegetable flavour combinations. It also provides an excellent source of Vitamin C."

We have recently tried V8 V-Fusion Raspberry & Beetroot juice. It is a sweet refreshing drink which my boys enjoyed.

Beetroot is a much maligned and understated vegetable in this country. Most of it is sold as pickled and tasting of nothing but vinegar. Yet it is such a versatile and tasty vegetable, and it's full of vitamins and minerals and also packed full of antioxidants.
It is a great ingredient in juice. On its own, it might be an acquired, rather earthy taste. But mixed with apples, carrots or/and berries, it adds a glorious colour and wonderful taste.

V8 V-Fusion Passion Fruit, Mango & Carrot and V8 V-Fusion Raspberry & Beetroot 750ml cartons can be found in the ambient aisles at Tesco and Waitrose, rrp £1.89.


Disclosure: I received a carton of V-Fusion for the purposes of testing and reviewing. All opinions are mine.

Beetroot fritters with tzatziki

Last Friday I went to Oxford to visit my elderly friend Anne. She is an avid reader of The Times, a newspaper which I am not in the habit of buying. Knowing that I love reading about recipes, she offered me The Times Recipe Issue, how could I resist? On the way back from Oxford, I was reading the magazine on the bus, when I came across a lovely recipe for Beetroot and Carrot fritters with dill and yogurt sauce (sorry, can't do the link as you need to be a subscriber to read it online). I knew at once I would like to try it. I have adapted the recipe, changed some quantities and ingredients. I didn't have any dill, but still had some fresh mint in a pot, which I wanted to use.

Beetroot fritters with tzatziki
Ingredients:

2 medium beets (about 230g weight, without skins)
1 medium carrot
2 medium eggs
1tsp Schwartz Perfect Shake/Spanish
1 small onion(about 70g)
vegetable oil for frying
200ml Greek style yogurt
1/2 cucumber, peeled and grated
a few sprigs of mint, finely chopped

Start by grating carrot and beets and finely chopping the onion. Or use the food processor for a faster job. Using hands, squeeze the grated veg. Mix it well with two beatn eggs in a medium bowl. Add the spices and a pinch of salt (or skip the salt altogether).
Heat 4 tbsp of vegetable oil in the frying pan. Make fritters by shaping the veg mix into ovals with your hands. Fry three or four fritters at a time. Add more oil for the next batches. Cook for 3 minutes on each side, then take them out and place on a tray covered with the foil to finish cooking in the oven preheated to 180C. Cook for about 15-20 minutes.

Serve them hot with tzatziki.
For tzatziki, grated the cucumber and squeeze the liquid out, you don't want your dip to be soggy. Mix with the Greek style yogurt and chopped mint.

I have a new kitchen gadget from Russell Hobbs, Illumina Food Processor. The Illumina range is the latest addition to their kitchen gadgets. All the Illumina Colour Control technology has unique colour features. Each gadget from the range has a set of 4 different speeds, and the light ring changes its colour when you choose a different setting for slicing/shredding/grating, dough/cream, blending or chopping/processing. I haven't yet tried all the settings.
This stylish gadget looks quite futuristic. It has a 2.3 litre processing bowl with safety locking lid, which is just the right size, plus a 1.5litre blending jug for making all the healthy smoothies. The titanium coated stainless steel blades are easy to clean (they are also very sharp, so handle with care, I managed to cut my hand while putting the blades away back in the box, so don't do like I did).

It took me literally seconds to grate the vegetables and chop the onion with the food processor.

In this recipe I used Schwartz Perfect Shake/Spanish which is a new addition to Schwartz range of spices and herbs. It is a seasoning blend with smoked paprika, red and green bell peppers, onion granules, garlic granules, dried tomato, rosemary, bay leaves and more. I have tried it with roast butternut squash as well. It adds a lovely kick without being over-spicy.
Of course, if you don't have it, just substitute with your favourite blend of spices.

Adding my recipe to Cooking with Herbs linky on Lavender and Lovage blog, with April's herb being mint.

Burns night dinner (minus the pipers)

If you think Burns Night is only celebrated in English-speaking countries, you will be wrong. Robert Burns' poetry is well known and much loved in Russia. There are numerous Robert Burns' societies, and many Russians are happy to host a Burns supper. Saying that, I doubt many of them serve a genuine haggis.
I have never tried this famous dish before, that is until the last night. Blame it on my blogging inspirational foodie friends, Karen from Lavender and Lovage and Cheryl from Madhouse Family Reviews.
I have been admiring numerous recipes and photos of the traditional Scottish food on their blogs, and finally took the plunge and bought a haggis. Traditionally the menu includes "haggis wi' bashit neeps an' champit tatties". My husband is not a big fan of any mash, and I just knew he would avoid eating swedes in whatever disguise they were presented.

I bought the Macsween's haggis, as from all reports this was the real thing to try. According to their site, "A Macseeen haggis contains lamb and beef that is cooked before being combined with a unique mix of oatmeal, onions, pepper and spices. This is then packed into a traditional or clear casing, after which the whole thing is cooked once again, before being vacuum packed"

I cooked the haggis, following the instructions on the packet. Ta da! I brought in a big plate with haggis and veggies. Lacking a piper, it was still a Scottish-themed dinner, or at least it appeared so to us, Russian-Italian family.

In texture and consistency the haggis reminds me of the Russian dish called kendyukh, which is basically a stomach filled with buckwheat groats, spices, onions and offal. My Mum told me that when she was a kid, her grandma used to cook it for hours, and that the aroma was fabulous. I don't think I have ever tried it either.
I loved the sight of roasted "tartan" vegetables on Karen's blog, and totally nicked her idea. To see her recipe, just follow the link. I didn't have any Scottish heather honey, and though I grow thyme in the garden, it was raining so hard that I didn't dare to venture out to pick some for my veggies. Instead of the smoked sea salt, I used the sea salt with dried rose petals (well, I thought, that wild roses do grow in those parts of the world, so it will be Scottish enough).

For my veggie dish I cubed 3 potatoes, 2 carrots and 2 parnsips, tossed them in the olive oil and seasoned with sea salt with wild rose petals, and a bit of black pepper. I roasted the cubed beetroot separately in a small dish, so as not to turn the other veggies pink, and mixed all the veg together once they were well cooked.

This is a great side dish, and I will be definitely doing it again.

What did we think of the haggis? It is an acquired taste. Quite spicy, I thought. It also reminded me of the Ferrarese speciality, salama for Christmas, which is also a big ball of spicy meat (though the recipe for salama is different). My husband and I agreed that it was nice. I am actually quite curious now to try the vegetarian variety.

And to round off the Burns night we had some Cranachan, made with defrosted raspberries, crunchy oats, cream and quark,whisky and honey as well as the delectable Raspberry and Redcurrant syrup from Selsley Foods.

I had to buy a bottle of whisky for the recipe. I know almost nothing about whisky, and got the smaller bottle of The Famous Grouse. It will last me a year or so, if I use a couple of tablespoons at a time in cooking. It will probably be lovely in roast fruit dishes like figs or quinces.

For more haggis inspiration, read the posts by my friends
Veggie Haggis with baked onions & tomatoes

Haggis and cheese pastry parcels
and
Hot baked tatties

The next day we had the leftover haggis in roast sweet pepper shells, mixed with grated carrot and topped with quark.

Did you celebrate the Burns Night? 

Mama's borscht

Every time my Mum stays with us (it happens once a year, when Mum makes her long journey from Russia by coach, she cannot fly for the health reasons and travels by train to Moscow which takes 22 hours and then several days by coach from Moscow), I ask her to cook a big pot of borscht for me.

This is not the first time I write about this Russian soup (scroll down for the vegetarian versions).
However, I thought I might bring to your attention an authentic version of borscht (I was terrified to see in the last but one issue of MFR a recipe for the so called Russian borscht, where the soup has been blended in the food processor and it was also cooked with the Cajun seasoning. I screamed in horror: This is just a beetroot soup, not a borscht! Call it anything else but... How would you Brits feel if someone abroad blitzed, let's say, fish and chips, and called it a British dish?! And Cajun? why, tell me why?)

Borscht
Ingredients:
3 chicken thighs
3-4 medium potatoes
3-4 medium carrots
2 beets
5 tomatoes
1 sweet pepper
beet leaves from 4 beets
1/2 onion
1tsp cider vinegar
1/2tsp sugar
1tbsp tomato paste
1 garlic clove
fresh flat parsley (to serve with)
salt, pepper

My good old Mum cooking borscht

Make the chicken stock with the chicken thighs and plenty of water.
Chop all the vegetables. First add the chopped beets to the frying pan with 1tbsp of sunflower oil (you can use the olive oil as well, or the rapeseed oil, but the sunflower oil brings the air of authenticity to the dish). Cook, stirring, on low for about 10-15 minutes, kind of sweating the veg, which brings the sweetness out, and the beets acquire a deeper flavour. If you are short of time, skip the frying bit and chuck all the sliced/chopped veg together, but you won't get the same depth of flavour. Remove the cooked beets and add them to the chicken stock.

Repeat the process with the chopped carrots. Slightly fry them with the finely sliced onion and garlic. Add the tomatoes to the pan with the tomato paste and a spoonful of vinegar (it helps to keep the beautiful deep colour). You might also add a bit of sugar to fight the acidity of the tomatoes and vinegar.
All the veg in the pan should be immersed in water. If there's not enough chicken stock, add more hot water. Cook for half an hour.
Add the chopped potatoes and chopped beet leaves, cook for another 10-15 minutes.

Serve hot with the soured cream or Greek style yogurt. Sprinkle some flat leaf parsley.
From my childhood memories: when we visited my grandma and aunt who lived in the South of Russia (Rostov-Don area), they used to serve the borscht with the chunks of bread that have been smeared with the salty galic (they would dip the garlic in rough salt and rub the bread with it, so that the bread would have a garlicky sticky surface). Yum, and triple yum.

For the vegetarian versions of borscht please read
Spring borscht with beet leaves and nettle
and
Vegetarian borscht with mushrooms


P.S. I'm not going to enter into the argument about the origins and semantics of borscht. There are claims in both Russia and the Ukraine as to which country could be called the mother of borscht. The origins of many dishes are very blurred. Both countries have been parts of one big state for many centuries, and only the die-hard nationalists can be stubborn enough to re-write the history and insist that only their version of the events is the true one.

Abel and Cole fruit & veg box

It's been about a year and a half since we started to receive a vegetable box from Abel and Cole. For the first year I was buying the gourmet veg box, which I recently changed for a small fruit and veg box, as they had most glorious blood oranges (all gone now, sadly, will have to wait for the next season).
And though I know what will arrive in the next box (well, most of the products, as I ticked off some things on the list which I don't fancy, and you never know what will be sent as a substitute), I am always excited to get a new box. Eddie and I open it together.
Our recent box included:
a box of tomatoes
a bag of potatoes
a bunch of beetroot with leaves
2 courgettes
onions
mango
oranges
pears

Tomatoes are Eddie's favourites, he is happy to eat a whole box given a chance. They are sweet and juicy, and disappeared almost at once.
Mango was quite hard, so I left it to ripen with the other fruit in the fruit bowl, and later made a mango smoothie (no pictures): whizz 1 cubed mango, a small tub of Greek style yogurt and semi-skimmed milk for the most refreshing drink.
Beetroot came with the very fresh greenery, and I cooked a lovely spring borscht with the beet leaves, beet and nettle. For a recipe, please visit my post Spring borscht with beet leaves and nettle. The other day our friend Jay had popped in for a morning cup of coffee, and I mentioned the borscht and said "I love beetroot". He laughed and said: "Of course, you do. You're Russian"

Potatoes went in the chicken soup that I cook for my older son (it's the only soup he agrees to eat, so I cook it most days for him), and as the side dish for the roast chicken with stuffing (one of the onions used).

Slightly parboil the potatoes cut into chunks in the salted water, then place them in a roasting tin or dish, drizzle with the olive oil, add the garlic cloves, sprinkle with nutmeg and roast in the oven at 180C until golden brown.

I also had some leeks left over from the previous week's box and decided to cook a side dish of courgettes, leeks and pear.
2 courgettes
2 leeks
1 pear
2 tbsp green jalapeno sauce
olive oil
salt, pepper
Slice the courgettes, pear and leeks and fry in the pan with the olive oil. Season well. Add the green jalapeno sauce. Stir regularly, add a bit of water and cover the frying pan with the lid to speed up the cooking.
Serve as a side dish to any roast meat or the toad in the hole.

The oranges, zested and juiced, became an orange polenta cake. I bake this cake every week, as it's my guys' favourite, only minus the blood oranges now, which were used for decoration in the original post.
We ate the rest of the fruit, and I still have one or two onions left, which I plan to use this week.

I did a series of posts of recipes for the produce of Abel and Cole.
To see them all please follow the tag Abel and Cole on my sidebar or this link.

Whether you receive a veg box from Abel and Cole, Riverford or any other local brand, you might like to join in the #TheVegChallenge onKirschplunder's blog (link removed as old).

Spring borscht with beet leaves and nettle

I was pondering whether to make this spring soup with just the beet leaves or fresh nettle tips from the garden, had some suggestions from foodie bloggers on Twitter and then decided to combine two ingredients as an experiment. I love freebies, and nettles come into that category. This plant is a totally free foodstuff which is easy to cook and which has more minerals and vitamins than spinach and broccoli.

Spring borscht with beet leaves and nettle 
Ingredients
2 beetroots, thinly sliced
leaves from 3 beets
a bunch of nettle tips (can't say a handful, ouch)
1 cube of vegetable stock
1 tbsp of Heinz tomato ketchup with balsamic vinegar (as my usual tomato paste has finished)
1 big tomato
1 small onion, finely chopped
3 cloves of black garlic (optional)
1 small carrot, sliced
1 medium potato, chopped
1tsp olive oil
1/2 tsp of sugar
spring onions, chopped
salt

Start by peeling the beets and slicing thinly. Fry them on low in the olive oil with the chopped onion until the onion is translucent. Put the beets and onion in a medium sized pan, cover with water and cook for about 30 minutes (at this stage the beet still has a bite to it, if you prefer it softer, then cook for longer).
My beetroots were delivered with the other veggies by Abel & Cole, and the green leaves were so fresh and nice looking, they are a lovely addition to any soup.
Add the chopped tomato, carrot, black garlic, 1 tbsp of tomato paste or Heinz ketchup with balsamic vinegar, a pinch of sugar, crumble a cube of vegetable stock. Finely chop the beet leaves, add to the soup. In goes the chopped potato, season the soup and cook for about 10 minutes, until the potato is done.
If you are using the nettle tips, be careful handling them, I was wearing the kitchen gloves when picking them   in the garden. You want only the tips, the first 4-6 leaves of each spear.
Use the scissors to cut the nettles in small bits. The nettles should be added a few minutes after the potatoes. Add the chopped spring onions just before you turn the cooker off.

It is a lovely spring soup, full of flavour and colour. Don't forget to add a generous dollop of the soured cream or plain Greek style yogurt.

If you are not a big fan of beets (and why not?), you can cook a nice green nettle soup with courgettes, leeks  and white rice.
The nettle tips are also fabulous in a green risotto.

If you liked this recipe using the nettle, you might want to see some of the other recipes with this ingredient. Now it's a perfect time to forage for the nettles in the garden, when they are still young and not stringy.

Soup with nettle and ground elder

I'm adding my recipe to fabulous foodie Karen from Lovage and Lavender blog's linky Herbs on Saturday.

Chobani yogurts

Are you feeling peckish? Would you like to have a lovely snack that would taste great and have 0% fat? There's a new range of yogurts on the market - Chobani - which has taken America by storm.

"Chobani was founded on the belief that people have great taste; they just need great options. That’s why we started Chobani back in 2005 — to make high-quality, great tasting yoghurt available to the masses. In just five short years, yoghurt lovers across the pond made Chobani the number one selling yoghurt in America!"

Available in six fat free flavours - Strawberry, Peach, Black Cherry, Blood Orange, Pomegranate and Plain. You can find it in selected Tesco stores.

It is so easy to kick-start a healthy eating plan with Chobani fat free yogurts. Their thick texture makes the range of Chobani yogurts to be a truly versatile ingredient for cooking lots of different dishes.
Here are a few ideas:
- swirl a tablespoon of plain yogurt in the thick creamy soup: pumpkin, carrot and orange, tomato, beetroot - the choice is endless.
- for a low fat potato salad version substitute your usual mayo or creme fraiche with the Chobani plain yogurt
- Love blini? top up with a teaspoon of yogurt and go on, add a sliver of smoked salmon
- fed up with the usual cereal or granola with milk at breakfast time? Create a delicious granola berry fool: take a glass, add a couple of tablespoons of granola, then a layer of the fruit compote and top up with the Chobani yogurt (how about the blood orange or black cherry flavour).

When the portable cool box arrived to our house with the fresh selection of Chobani yogurts, my little man Eddie was dancing around and insisted on eating one of them there and then. He went for the strawberry flavour. I had a spoonful as well, and was impressed with the quality of the yogurt, very creamy. Eddie kept saying "cream with strawberries", and he was right, it does taste just like the cream with strawberries, absolutely delightful.

I love using yogurts in cooking, and the two tubs of plain yogurt came very handy.
My first dish was a very simple beetroot salad: bake the beets in the oven until cooked through, let them cool, grate, mix with the chopped walnuts and dried prunes and add the plain yogurt. If you prefer, add a crushed clove of garlic for a more adult taste. As Eddie is not fond of garlic, I kept this salad garlic-free.

Another lovely salad made with the plain yogurt - Kohlrabi, apples and dates salad - was so tasty that I can easily eat it every day. And again the Chobani yogurt works beautifully with this combination of flavours, enhancing the sweetness of the apples and dates and the juiciness of the kohlrabi.

For Valentine's day I wanted to bake a yogurt cake with a difference. As this is the season for the blood oranges, I opted for using the blood orange yogurt from Chobani with the real blood oranges while baking this cake. It was very moist and moreish.

For a healthy treat serve the roasted fruit like peaches with a generous dollop of Chobani peach yogurt. You can find this recipe on my previous blog post here.

Whether you decide to eat the Chobani yogurt straight from the pot or use in cooking, you will enjoy the combination of the thick creamy yogurt with the real fruit pieces. All Chobani products contain five live and active cultures and real fruit.
Chobani is also certified kosher and gluten free and is over 95% lactose free.

And what's more, Chobani is committed to supporting the community. It gives 10% of its annual profits to charities worldwide through the Shepherd's Gift Foundation.

P.S. We were sent a coolbox of yogurt for the purposes of reviewing, all the opinions are mine.