Wild garlic and nettle soup

It was a lovely sunny day today, and I was pottering around the garden, mostly admiring the plum blossom and hyacinths rather than doing anything useful like weeding or seeping the paths. I have also noticed the nettles in the corner of the garden.
Being fed up with sandwiches or leftovers for lunch, I decided to make a light spring greens soup.
I have picked a few green shoots of garlic from the strawberry patch and several leaves of wild garlic.

I have planted wild garlic three or four years ago, and despite people telling me I'd regret it, as it would spread like fire, it doesn't seem to thrive in my garden. It has slightly spread, but in such small amounts, that I would count it as too precious for everyday use. Any tips on making it actually spread? I'd rather have wild garlic than much hated ground elder.

To make a light spring greens soup, you will need

1 small to medium potato
1 small-ish carrot
1tbsp red lentils
1 stock cube (vegetable)
1 celery stick
a handful of fresh nettle tops, chopped
several leaves of fresh garlic greens and wild garlic
1tsp fresh parsley, chopped finely
sea salt

Peel the carrot and chop finely. Slice the celery stick. Peel and chop the potato.
Put all the vegetables and lentils in the pan, cover with hot water and bring to boil. Cook for 5 minutes, then lower the heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Add the nettle tops, fresh chopped garlic leaves and wild garlic in the last 5 minutes of cooking. Season well with sea salt.
Serve with a nice chunk of bread. It is also lovely with a tablespoon of Greek style yogurt stirred in it.
For a vegan version, skip the yogurt, though it is much-much nicer with the yogurt or soured cream. I haven't tried soy yogurt in soup, so cannot vouch for its taste.

And it was a delightful light spring-flavoured soup, so easy to make.

Blackberry and apple pie

It's the season to be blackberry-picking, yay! My favourite kind of foraging. We are so lucky to have fileds nearby which flood, and thankfully they are left as they are, without greedy builders ruining the quiet peaceful location. There are lots of brambles and wild roses, and even more of nettles. I have seen families with big baskets picking juicy blackberries. It is great fun. last week Eddie and I picked a small container of berries, just enough to eat and bake a blackberry and apple pie.

Blackberry and apple pie
Ingredients:
1 block of sweet pastry
80g butter
2 apples, peeled and sliced
300g blackberries
100g caster sugar
1/2tsp cinnamon
1/2tsp cloves
3tbsp cornflour

If you are a GBBO worshiper and find the idea of using ready-made pastry an abomination, look elsewhere. If you read my blog regularly, you know that I often use it, and don't feel ashamed to say it out loud.
So, take the block of ready-made sweet pastry and unroll it. Spread it over the pie dish and cut off the extra bits, and add some patches on the sides to make borders all round. Prick the pastry with a fork.
Prebake at 180c for 15 minutes.
In the meantime, peel and slice the apples and cook in a big pan with butter and spices. Add the berries and cook stirring for about 10 minutes. At which point the pie mix will be overflowing with juices. Add the cornflour and keep stirring for about 5 minutes. Set aside to cool.

Spoon the pie mix in the pre-cooked pastry shell. If you have some pastry left over, cut out strips and decorate the pie.
Cook for about 15-20 minutes at 180C.
Serve hot with the ice cream or cream. Enjoy!
I was very surprised to see my older son eating it in the kitchen, as in the past he didn't show any interest in fruity-berry pies.
It was very tasty.

I love blackberries, and am very happy to join in The Great British Blackberry Round-Up hosted by Janice from Farmersgirl Kitchen and Karen from Lavender and Lovage, two of my favourite foodie bloggers.

Open sandwiches for tea

Cucumber sandwiches

Warmer weather just invites us to have tea outdoors. We're lucky to have an enclosed garden. It is so quiet and peaceful in our garden, pretty amazing if you think that the front of the house is facing a busy road. The old trees and greenery make our garden a perfect spot for a leisurely tea. Tea and cakes go well, but so do sandwiches. When I was asked to create freestyle sandwiches with Lurpak, my first thought was those quaint classic cucumber sandwiches.
Of course, there are cucumber sandwiches and there are cucumber sandwiches. They could be soggy little horrors, which are sometimes served at parties. But if you prepare them the right way, they are truly one of the simplest yet elegant and tasty British classic dishes. A national institution. And they're perfect for an afternoon tea, delicate and delicious yet not too filling so you have some space left for dinner later. They might quaint and Victorian, but don't discard them as an old-fashioned trend.

Choose a good sliced bread. My guys prefer Warburtons sliced bread for sandwiches. Sasha with his autism won't eat any other bread, which makes it tricky when we have to travel. Imagine how odd it might look to the airport check-in people, if they decide to open my suitcase. Probably nobody else takes sliced bread to Italy. Italians make all sorts of wonderful tasty breads, but their sliced bread is really not good at all. But going back to our cucumber sandwiches.

First prepare the cucumber. Peel it or leave the skin on. I actually prefer the skin on, especially with young cucumbers. Slice the cucumber thinly. It's up to you, whether you prefer it sliced in circles or thin ribbons. Or even cut into flower shapes with a cookie cutter, I have seen these sandwiches on Pinterest, they look cute, but of course, you waste some of the food by cutting it into fancy shapes.

I used an OXO Good Grips simple mandoline slicer (which I reviewed back in February, see my blog post Valentine's day menu) to slice the cucumber into thin strips. Arrange the slices on a big plate and sprinkle with salt. Leave it for 15 minutes, then pat dry the ribbons with a paper kitchen towel on both sides. The mandoline makes a fiddly job of even slicing very easy and quick.
Take the bread slices and remove the crusts. Butter each slice well.
We have tried many brands of butter spreads, and it's Lurpak that we go back to again and again. I believe it's one of the tastiest butter spreads.
Arrange the cucumber ribbons over the buttered bread, then cut the sandwiches into neat triangles.
If you have access to fresh flowers like primroses and violets, you might like to prettify your sandwiches with a few flowers. I have plenty of them in the garden, all organic and untreated by any chemicals, so they are safe to eat.

For a more substantial sandwich spread, go Scandi and prepare a platter of sandwiches with a herring butter. You will need some pickled herring either from the deli or get a variety in a jar. I like Elsinore Herrings in sweet & spicy marinade (found in Waitrose, but might be available in the other supermarkets or delis).

Rye bread & herring butter sandwiches

You will need rye bread for this simple Scandi-Russian fusion sandwiches. Both Russian and Scandinavian cuisine favour salted & pickled herring, and of course, a good rye bread is a must.
Finely chop the pickled herring and mix with soft butter spread and chopped fresh dill. Spread the herring butter over the sliced rye bread and decorate with more dill or lemon slices.
Tuck in at once!

In both recipes I used Lurpak spreadable Lighter slightly salted. It is a blend of Lurpak butter and vegetable oil. It is easily spreadable even straight from the fridge; contains no palm oil, hydrogenated fats, artificial colourings or preservatives.

What are your favourite open sandwiches?

Disclosure: I received a £5 supermarket voucher to cover the cost of products. All opinions are mine.

Spring greens soup

Spring greens soup

I love it when the garden reawakens in spring and starts giving us gifts of fresh greens and pretty flowers. I try to weed the nettles from the garden, as they tend to take over, but there is a big patch behind the greenhouse where I keep my nettles contained, mostly for the butterflies and bees.
Last week's soup box had ingredients and a recipe for a French soup with chervil and mustard. I added to it the freshly picked garlic green leaves, thyme and nettle tips (tops? I can never remember what's the right word, but you know what I mean; you only need the very top few young leaves).

Spring greens soup
Ingredients:
1 medium carrot
2 celery sticks
2tbsp olive oil
green onions (I used one with a big sized bulb)
2 cloves of garlic
a small bag of salad potatoes
1tbsp Dijon mustard
2tbsp chervil, chopped
a handful of fresh nettle tops, chopped
several leaves of fresh garlic greens
1tsp fresh thyme

Peel the carrot and chop finely. Fry in the olive oil with the finely chopped celery and the white part of spring onions. Add the garlic and keep frying until the vegetables have softened. Slice the salad potatoes into discs (just wash them and keep the skin on). Fry for a couple of minutes, stirring, with the added Dijon mustard.
Put all the vegetables in the pan, cover with hot water and bring to boil. Cook for 5 minutes, then lower the heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Add the nettle tops, fresh chopped garlic leaves and green part of spring onions, thyme and chervil in the last 5 minutes of cooking.
Serve with a nice chunk of bread. It is also lovely with a tablespoon of Greek style yogurt stirred in it.

It's a delightful light spring soup, bursting with flavours. If you haven't eaten nettles, now is a good time to do some foraging, while the nettles are still young and not stringy. They are very healthy, a good source of iron, but also very tasty too.

Salad with spring greens

Having read the family saga written by Lauraine Snelling, which is set in North Dakota, I enjoyed all the mentions of food and recipes. There were a lot of Norwegian foods, and I do plan to cook a couple of dishes described in the books. But it's the mention of the first spring greens, especially the dandelion leaves, that made me go foraging in the garden.
I did get rid of a good amount of dandelions last year, so it wasn't that easy to find them, but I did locate a couple of newly sprouting dandelion clumps. I picked a small handful, just enough for me to make a salad for one. I knew that my guys would decline my offer, but I really-really fancied a salad with dandelion leaves. I also picked a few fresh garlic leaves and a few primrose flowers.
It's not much of a recipe. I have assembled a plate with well-washed dandelion greens, tomato, cucumber, sliced egg and chopped garlic leaves, and scattered a few primroses over it.
I kept the dressing very simple - just a mix of olive oil, honey and lemon juice.
It was lovely. I am definitely going to pick more dandelion leaves. You need to use only very young leaves, about 5-7cm in length. If the leaves are bigger, you might need to soak them in salty water before eating them, to remove the bitterness.

Adding my simple recipe to Simply Eggcellent linky run by Dom from Belleau Kitchen.

Late nasturtiums and persimmon salad

It's almost mid-November, but amazingly enough I still have some late blossoming nasturtiums and marigolds in my greenhouse. I have planted them among the tomatoes and cucumelons (now the last ones were a big mistake, never again) to keep the slugs away. I had a fabulous crop of tomatoes this year, and it seems to be the only veg which produces great results consistently from one year to another.
Nasturtiums always remind me of my childhood. One of my earliest memories is of our nursery yard with a cheerful carpet of nasturtiums.
They are very pretty to look at, and make a lovely addition to salads too - both flowers and leaves.

I don't have a proper recipe to share, as I didn't take any notes on the exact weight of ingredients, but roughly it was half a big juicy persimmon, sliced, a handful of baby tomatoes, a half of goat's cheese and roasted cubed squash and sweet potato, with a scattering of nasturtiums, drizzled with a dressing made of the olive oil, honey and cider vinegar.

Tomatoes are also the remnants of my crop, there are still a few tomatoes left on the vines in the greenhouse. Khaki or persimmons are from Spain (bought at the local fruit market).

This was a light and very satisfying lunch. I wanted to keep it as a palette of orange, with only the whiteness of the goat's cheese breaking the pattern.

Next year I will be planting the nasturtiums again, for a splash of colour in the garden and on the plate.

We're jamming

I love the process of jam-making. It is so gratifying to turn fruit and berries into something delicious you can enjoy throughout the year. I remember those faraway days of my childhood, when I watched my grannies and aunt slaving in the open air summer kitchens, making all kinds of preserves and canning on an almost industrial size. Well, they did have big gardens, and canning is one of the Russian hobbies and pastimes. My aunt's cellar was a true work of art, with shelves groaning under the numerous jars of jams, marmalade, pickles and other preserves.

These days, I try to make my preserves in small batches, as it is much easier to handle, and also there is a problem of storing. I don't have a cellar, and my kitchen looks like a grocery shop as it is.

After our last PIY session with my Mum and niece, I have cooked two kinds of jams. One was a mixed raspberry blackberry jam, another was a plum jam made with Lady Grey tea.

Blackberry and raspberry jam
Ingredients:
1.600kg mixed berries (I had roughly half-half, with slightly more raspberries)
1.600kg sugar
70ml water
2tbsp lemon juice
a blob of butter
I used a mix of granulated and preserving sugar. Typically I don't use the preserving sugar, but I have a few bags left which needed using.
We picked our own berries, so I didn't bother with washing it. Put all the berries in a heavy-based pan (if you have a special preserving pan, use it. I have a big pan which I use for everything, and it works well for jam-making). Squeeze lemon juice over the berries and add some water. Bring to boil.
Lower the heat and simmer the berries for 15 minutes. The berries will be soft and quite mushy.
Add the sugar, stir on low heat until all the sugar has dissolved.
Bring to boil and boil it rapidly for about 12-15 minutes, while it is babbling. Keep skimming the scum off the surface.
Turn off the heat, and add a blob of butter. Let it rest for 10 minutes before pouring with a ladle into sterilised jars.

This jam is lovely spread on toast, spooned into hot croissants or spooned over vanilla or clotted cream ice cream.

Lady Grey Plum Jam (enough for 8 assorted jam jars)
Ingredients:
1,600kg plums
1,600kg sugar
250ml Lady Grey tea
1tsp vanilla essence
1tbsp lemon juice
Brew a mug of Lady Grey tea.
Put the quartered plums into a big pan (stones removed obviously). Pour over the tea and lemon juice. Bring to boil, then lower the heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Add the vanilla essence.
Add the sugar, simmer until all the sugar is dissolved. Bring to boil, then boil rapidly for 15+ minutes. Keep skimming the scum from the surface, and watch the jam. Ideally the amount I cooked, should have been split into two pans, as at times it was dangerously high.
Turn off the heat, add a blob of butter. Let it rest for 10 minutes before ladling into sterilised jars.
This is a soft jam, not exactly runny, but not of the supermarket varieties which are so thick and jellified you can cut it with a knife. Again, great in croissants.

My tips for jam-making:
1. Ignore the stupid unsolicited EC directives about using just the new jars for canning. If your jars and lids are undamaged, wash them in soapy water and then sterilise well in boiling water for 10 minutes (I put mine 4 at a time in a deep old frying pan which I use just for this purpose, with hot water half way up, bring the water to boil, then simmer for 10 minutes. Dry them well and use). I never had a problem with my jams. I just cannot bring myself to buying new jars, when I have so many empties in the kitchen. We eat lots of honey and other preserves, and their jars are perfect for all my own jams and chutneys.
2. Make sure the lids are firmly screwed to the pots. I also cut out a circle of parchment paper to put inside the lid before screwing it on the pot.
3. Once you mastered some basic rules of jamming, don't be afraid to experiment, by adding spices and herbs to your preserves.
4. Be generous with your produce, and don't hoard 30+ jars of apple chutney, you will never be able to eat them all, and they make nice gifts too. I love receiving homemade jams and jellies as gifts.

What jams and jellies have you made recently?

Blackberry-picking with kids

It's raining, it's pouring, all the evening... And what a glorious morning we had, it was sunny but not too hot, just a perfect day to go blackberry-picking. If we walk the longer way into town, via the flood fields, it is a pure haven of lush grass and bushes. It is also a wonderful area for foraging, with a lot of blackberries, hawthorn berries, wild apples and sloes. I will be picking the apples and sloes for jams later in the year.

But now it's the blackberry season, when the berries are at their sweetest. There were four of us: my Mum, niece Sasha, younger son Eddie and I.

We quickly filled several punnets, enough to make a crumble for today's dinner, and put some in the freezer.

Some of our picked berries

Eddie tried his best to fill his punnet, as he wanted to be the first one to finish his task, and be the winner.

As we were walking and picking the blackberries, we found a lot of sloes, which will be great later in the year. I am not a gin drinker, so won't be making any sloe gin, but will try to make some pickled sloes or sloe jelly.

We also discovered a mystery berry, which looked similar to the blackberry, but it was trailing low on the ground, and tasted like a mix between the blackberry and raspberry. As my clever friends on Facebook pointed out, it happened to be a berry called dewberry. I confess I never noticed it before locally.

Dewberry

Apple and blackberry crumble
Ingredients:
2 big apples
500g blackberries
75g demerara sugar
1tsp cinnamon
for the crumble:
75g demerara sugar
60g softened butter+ more for the tray
60g plain flour
60g oats

Prepare the crumble by rubbing together the sugar, softened butter, flour and oats. Don't overwork the crumble, as it might get too heavy.
You can make more of a crumble topping, I prefer it as a lighter layer rather than a thick lid of crumbs.
Slice the apples and arrange them on the buttered deep tray or dish. Place the berries. Top up with the sugar and cinnamon, then add a crumble topping. Bake in the oven preheated to 180C for 40-45 minutes, until the crumbs are golden brown and the fruit is bubbling.
Serve hot with the ice cream.

Pork with pears, wild plums and lavender

We have a little wild plum tree in the garden, and this year it has a decent amount of very tart fruit. These plums are small in size, and there is not enough for making jam. Once roasted, they are transformed into mini sweet and sour treasures. I had some lean pork steaks in the fridge, and fancied something a little different. Having a walk in the garden, I came back in the kitchen with a handful of wild plums and some lavender sprigs, plus I bought some hard blush pears which I wanted to use with pork. I do love the fruit and meat combinations, and this dish was delicious served with gigli pasta.

Pork with pears, wild plums and lavender (serves 6)
Ingredients:
6 pork loin steaks
2tbsp olive oil
2 pears, quartered
about 10 wild plums
12 grapes
zest of 1 lemon
lavender flowers
sea salt with thyme
1/2+ cup of vegetable stock or wine
to serve with the gigli pasta

Place the pork loin steaks on the oiled grill pan and cook for about 5 minutes on each side. Season with sea salt. Remove the steaks from the pan and put them in a deep ceramic tray or roasting dish, add the juices collected in the grill pan. Slightly grill the quartered pear slices, and later arrange them around the pork. Add the wild plums and zest of one lemon. Scatter the grapes and lavender flowers (depending on how aromatic you want it, one or two sprigs). Pour the stock over the pork, and place the tray in the oven preheated to 180C. Cook for about 45 minutes. You might need to add a bit more stock to prevent the pork from drying (I used lean steaks with hardy any fat).

Cook the gigli pasta in the salted boiling water until al dente, mix with roasted cubed squash and a bit of grated cheddar cheese.

Lavender added a wonderful aroma to the dish. The smells wafting from the kitchen were just beautiful.
If you don't fancy any lavender, then thyme might be a good substitute. Wild plums could be swapped for "normal" plums. Roasted grapes are also very tasty with meat, if you haven't tried it yet, you're in for a treat.

Adding my recipe to splendid Karen's from Lavender and Lovage linky Cooking with Herbs, as the theme for August is Summer Herbs and Flowers.

Also adding my recipe to Shop Local linky on lovely Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary blog, since the pork was purchased at the local butcher's, and the plums and lavender were picked in our own garden, couldn't be more local than that.

Rose petal & orange shortbread

England's in for a fight today, and I was wondering what should I cook for today's World Cup culinary challenge. My first thought was to make a batch of Welsh cakes with Cheddar and chives, then I suddenly realised the name kind of says it all: they are not English, and I don't want a wrath of my blog readers descending on me for mixing up the two entities. What then: Eton Mess or Chelsea buns? Shepherd's pie or bangers & mash? Jam roly-poly or a Victoria sandwich? What about some lovely shortbread? Now that for me is quintessentially English and quaint. Very ladylike. Unlike football.
My garden is beautiful right now, with the old fashioned roses cascading down on branches. So be it, I'll add some rose petals to the dough, and maybe the orange zest. While oranges are not native to England, they have been imported here for ages, think of the orange girls in Drury Lane or going even further in history, candied oranges at the court of Henry VIII.

Rose petal & orange shortbread
Ingredients:
1 orange, zest only
50g caster sugar
150g plain flour
100g butter, softened
2tsp finely chopped rose petals, dried

In a mixing bowl mix the orange zest with caster sugar and finely chopped rose petals (snip with scissors), add the flour and butter and start mixing, using your hands. It will first look like crumble, but keep working the dough until it binds together.
Press the dough into the base of a tart tin. Actually I couldn't find where I put my tart tin, so I just used a Pyrex dish lid, slightly sprayed with the oil spray. Using the back of a spoon, smooth the top.
Bake in the oven at 180C for 20 minutes until golden.
Take the tin out, and carefully cut into triangles, while still warm.

Let it cool in the tin, then take out of the tin.

It is lovely with fresh strawberries on top, or just sprinkled with a bit of icing sugar.

Chris from Cooking Around the World has challenged the foodies to take part in a culinary-football-themed game this month. Read all about the rules of the game in his linky Bloggers Around the World.

• Adding my recipe to Teatime Treats, hosted this month by Karen at Lavender and Lovage and co-hosted by Janie at The Hedgecombers.