Roasted Broccoli for Random Recipes #22
It's
Random Recipe time again and this month Dom at
Belleau Kitchen has challenged us as follows:
"refer to your birthday date as the number you
should use to randomly pick your book... for example, my birthday is the
24th September and so I have randomly chosen the 24th book on my
bookshelf counting from right to left... it doesn't really get more
tenuous or random than this does it but it's nice to have a little
theming every month don't you think?"
I'm not giving anything away about my birthday, you'll just have to believe me when I tell you that I followed the instructions and, while Dom picked out Nigella, I got Delia! Isn't it interesting that these two iconic women cooks are known by their first names. You would never just refer to Nigel (Slater) or Hugh (Fearnley-Whittingstall), maybe Jamie comes close but he is still Jamie
Oliver, anyway I digress, on with the challenge.
It was the Winter Collection which came up as my
Random Recipe book, which was helpful, it being winter! I opened the book randomly as instructed and had a choice of
Sauteed Carmelised Fennel or
Oven Roasted Cauliflower an Broccoli with Garlic and Coriander, I didn't have any Fennel or Cauliflower, but I did have a head of Broccoli.
The delightful Delia, has kindly posted the recipe on her website, so you can click through the link if you would like to make
Oven Roasted Cauliflower and Broccoli with Garlic and Coriander
I can't say I was terribly impressed by this recipe. The coriander and garlic flavour was really good, but the broccoli was still a bit too hard, if I'd left it in the oven any longer it would have burnt. I think if I made it again I would blanch the broccoli for a few minutes before roasting.
I served the broccoli with a homemade turkey and ham pie.
Labels: Broccoli, coriander, Delia, Delia Smith, garlic, ham, Random Recipes, Turkey, turkey and ham pie, Winter Collection
Summer Vegetable Soup with Granary Bread
Summer is not really a time I associate with soup, however, it has been rather chilly recently and as I was going away for a few days, I realised I needed to use up the vegetables that I had received in my
Farmison Vegetable Box. Soup is the perfect vehicle for any kind of vegetables and with some beans added it makes a the soup into a meal.
So here are the vegetables: celery; carrots, onion, quarter of a fennel bulb; 2 courgettes, 2 potatoes and about a third of a head of broccoli. It doesn't matter what you have although onion and carrots are always a good base. Oh and there was on runner bean that had escaped me when I cooked those the other day, so that went in too.
Summer Vegetable Soup
1 onion, peeled and chopped
4 stalks of celery, finely chopped
3 carrots, peeled and chopped
2 potatoes, diced
1/4 fennel bulb, chopped
bunch of thyme, rosemary and marjoram tied together
2 courgettes, diced
1/3 head of broccoli, chopped
4 tomatoes, seeds removed and chopped
100g canellini beans, soaked and cooked for 20 minutes until just tender
3 litres vegetable stock
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 tbsp olive oil
1.Heat the olive oil in a pan. Add the onion and celery and cook for 2 mintues, add the carrots, fennel and potoatoes, cook for another minutes. Add the stock and herbs, season well and cook until the carrot is soft (20-30 minutes)
2. Add the chopped courgettes, broccoli, tomatoes and canellini beans and cook for a further 10 minutes.
3. Remove the herb bundle, adjust seasoning and serve with a sprinkling of fresh chopped thyme and rosemary and some Granary Bread.
I'm entering this soup for Karen's
'Herbs on Saturday' blog challenge, it was a really good tasty soup and the flavour of the herbs came through stongly without overpowering the flavours of the different vegetables.
Granary Bread
500g Granary Bread Flour
1 1/2 tsp easy blend yeast
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
50g butter
275g lukewarm water
I put all of the ingredients into the bread maker on the dough setting, then shaped the dough onto a baking tray, left to rise again and baked for about 30 minutes at 200C. If you don't have a bread maker, follow the recipe on the Granary Flour packet.
Labels: Broccoli, celery, courgette, Farmison, Fennel, Herbs on Saturday, onion, potatoes, Rosemary, Soup, thyme
Blue and Green Soup with Gluten Free Cheese Scones
That got you thinking didn't it? Blue and Green? Well there is a little bit of Danish Blue in the predominantly Green vegetable soup. However, this is really just another version of what Fiona at
London Unattached described so well as
'Stone' Soup. You can read all about it on her blog
HERE.
Because I have been eating the Bulgar Salad for lunch, I haven't had my usual sandwiches and therefore we have not used as much lettuce as before. I was blissfully unaware of this when I ordered the shopping online and ordered up another pack of Romaine lettuces. We also seemed to have a head of broccoli left over. I know, I really should check the fridge before doing my shopping.
The No Waste Food Challenge run by Kate at Turquoise Lemons also asked us to use up left over Fennel. Now, I love fennel and rarely have any left over, but it was a good excuse to go and buy some so I have included at little of it in this recipe.
Blue and Green Soup
1 head broccoli chopped
2 Romaine lettuces, chopped
The stalky ends of a bulb of fennel chopped
1 large onion chopped
1 tsp vegetable oil
1 litre of vegetable stock
200ml milk
30g of Danish Blue cheese crumbled
Put the oil in the pan at a medium heat, add the onion and saute for about 5 minutes until soft. Add the chopped broccoli.
The fennel,
and the chopped lettuce
and stir to coat with the oil and onion. Add the stock, I use Marigold Swiss Vegetable Bouillon but you can use any stock.
Season and cook until the vegetables are soft. Take off the heat for about 10 minutes and then blitz with a stick blender or in a liquidiser. Add the milk and the Blue Cheese to taste and blitz again.
While the soup was cooking, I thought I'd make something nice to have with them. I had bought some gluten free ingredients for the guest who was expected last weekend but was unable to come. So I thought I would 'use them up' making some scones.
I turned to my standard scone recipe from Mary Berry's Fast Cakes, it's never failed me yet, even when I change the ingredients as much as I have here!
Gluten Free Special Scones
225g White self-raising Gluten and Wheat Free flour
1 level tsp gluten free baking powder
50g Pure Sunflower dairy free margarine
1/2 tsp Coleman's mustard powder
50g grated cheese
1 egg
milk or natural yogurt
Heat the oven to 220C and lightly grease a baking sheet
Put the flour and baking powder in a bowl and add the margarine, rub it in with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the mustard powder and the grated cheese.
Crack the egg into a jug, lightly beat it and then make up to 150ml with milk or yogurt. Stir the egg mixture into the flour and mix to a soft dough.
Turn onto a lightly floured table and pat out to about 1.25 (1/2 inch) thickness.
Cut into rounds, I made my big as we were having them as 'rolls' with our soup. Place spaced out on the baking sheet and brush the tops with milk or yogurt and sprinkle with a little more cheese.
 |
| I'm showing you this so you can see how thick they are cut. |
Bake in the oven for about 10-15 minutes (depending on how big you made them) until they are pale golden brown. Remove and leave to cool on a wire rack.
Not only was the soup good, although dominated by the broccoli and blue cheese flavours, but the scones were excellent. A little more chewy in texture than the wheat flour ones, but definitely good and a very acceptable substitute. They could also be adapted to be dairy free by using substitutes for the milk/yogurt and cheese.
Labels: Bookmarked Recipes, Broccoli, cheese, dairy free, Fennel, gluten free, lettuce, No Waste Food Challenge, Scones, Soup, Tinned Tomatoes, Turquoise Lemons
