All posts tagged: seasonal recipes

Warm Sicilian Cauliflower Salad

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Sicilian Cauliflower Salad Happy New Year! With a new baby in the household, we didn’t stay up for the bells last night. However we were beautifully rewarded with plenty of energy this morning, as we awoke to perfect blue skies and winter sunshine. I don’t feel like I sinned very much over the festive period, hardly a drop to drink, and only a few Christmas treats passed my lips. I just don’t have the time to pig out with a new baby! I didn’t even manage to do any holiday baking, like I usually do – such as this yummy Christmas Spiced Beer Cake. But I did succeed in hosting Christmas dinner for 9 (crazy crazy with a new baba!)…but my new 8 ring cooker came in very handy! Bring on industrial sized cooking equipment, yeah! But, never the less, I thought I’d share a delicious and healthy vegan recipe for Sicilian Cauliflower Salad, which is easy to make, after you’ve just had enough of cooking… Salads aren’t just for summer, you can get very creative experimenting with …

Warm Salad of Kale, Sweet Potato and Quinoa

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  Warm Salad of Kale, Sweet Potato and Quinoa   Each month I write for Kitchen Garden Magazine (check it out here) where I create recipes that follow the gardening seasons. It’s a process I really enjoy, as I eat and cook with the changing seasons in mind every day. It comes naturally to me, maybe because I grow a large quantity of our food myself, and I am therefore in tune with what vegetables are in season. When I started this blog, I divided the blog categories up into seasons, making it easy for readers to, at a glance, find recipes that feature vegetables readily available here and now. And that still stands. This recipe I am sharing with you today has the slow changing season from summer to autumn written all over it.  A warm salad of Kale, Sweet Potato and Quinoa with Toasted Hazelnuts and an Orange Balsamic Dressing. If you are interested in learning more about eating seasonally and locally, then stay tuned, as I am preparing an Eat Seasonally Guide which will be posted …

Twice Cooked Butternut Squash Pasta

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I woke up to the sound of lovely bird song this morning, the sun was shining, and on closer inspection, the daffodil heads had come up from between their green shoots. How exciting, spring will come again! And after a long walk with the dog, I fancied a pasta dish I made for Kitchen Garden Magazine back in November. For this deliciously heart-warming dish, use either pumpkin or butternut squash. They both work well, but sometimes pumpkin can be hard to find out with Halloween, unless you have a farm shop near by. What makes this dish a little different is the pan-frying of the pasta. This merges and melts all the flavours into a mouthwatering lunch or dinner. ___________________________________________________________ Ingredients Serves 4 1 medium butternut squash 1 large onion, peeled and diced 3 cloves garlic, minced a dash of olive oil 1 small handful fresh sage leaves 500g pasta 50g pumpkin seeds good quality hard cheese , grated for the top salt and pepper to taste ______________________________________________________   Pre heat the oven to 200C/fan …

Kale Gnocchi in Herb and Anchovy Sauce

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“What is a weather bomb!?” I asked a few weeks ago, after hearing the term on the news. Well we sure did find out! We have had weather bomb after weather bomb for the past three weeks. A high altitude black doughnut shape emerges on the horizon, slowly eating the daylight as it moves across the landscape..Then bang, throws all kinds of weather at you – snow, sleet, hail, rain..and a few 100 mph winds too. I had a terrifying experience creeping out into my garden two days ago, to see 2 large panes of glass from my greenhouse had taken flight and landed 10 meters away! They had smashed into hundreds of shards that had penetrated deep into the frozen grass! So, its time to just stay indoors and eat good food, and drink cheap wine until the weather bombs return to just being ‘bad weather’. And what better to that with, that a hearty portion of winter kale from the garden and morish gnocchi. This is one of my favourite food right now, …

Fig and Honey Yoghurt with Poppy Seeds and a Taste of Portugal

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  I am back from a most wonderful time in Portugal. The weather was magnificent, gifting us with pleasant warm breezes and cloud free skys. It wasn’t easy adjusting back to the autumn weather up here in the more northern latitudes of Scotland, but I can comfort myself with the knowledge, that under this thick fisherman’s sweater, I do indeed have a tan! The best thing about taking a trip away, for me, is forgetting all the everyday tasks of home life and work, and allowing yourself to fall into a new more relaxed routine. Our routine whilst away, was to be woken up at dawn by the local cockerel, make our sleepy way to the balcony and watch the sunrise over freshly made coffee. When I’m on holiday, breakfasts are my favorite meal, they are a chance to sample the county’s freshest produce, usually in a way which requires little preparation or cooking, and usually in its most simple of forms. I spent lost of time traipsing through local vegetable markets, and filling my …

Wild Garlicky Mushroom Toast & Wild Mushroom Foraging

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With autumn comes a whole range of new foraging opportunities, including bramble picking, rose hip picking and mushroom foraging. I have in fact never foraged for mushrooms before, largely due to my fear of picking something poisonous as I think a lot of mushrooms look like all the other mushrooms! But ever since I met my good friend Helle, who’s husband happens to be a Mycologist, that’s a fungi specialist to you and me, I have been interested in trying my hand at scouting out those little fungi’s. Helles husband, Nevil Kilkenny is at the centre for Scottish fungi research and runs mushroom forays at Shepherds Cottage each year teaching people how and where to forage, and most importantly- how to do so safely. Please do not use my limited knowledge as a guide to identify mushrooms, rather get a good book and go on a course if you are keen on experiencing how fun finding mushrooms really is. On our little outing we managed to find, Hedgehog Mushrooms, Chanterelles, and Purple Deceivers, all of …