Broad Beans

I was very excited to find broad beans in my bag this week. I love everything about them, the process of podding them, the fresh smell, the beautiful pale green colour and the delicate taste. I was busy on Friday night so I decided to make myself a quick broad bean risotto before rushing off to a meeting and then to the pub. It ended up taking a bit longer than I anticipated and I was a bit late for my meeting but "sorry I'm late, I was waiting for my broad bean risotto to cook" is a pretty good excuse in my book!

We had some frozen homemade chicken stock so I decided to use that which had the added advantage of making space in the freezer. We are pretty good at freezing left overs so as not to waste anything but at some point you have to use them. I made a risotto with arborio rice, just adding an onion, some black pepper and a slug of cider vinegar. The vinegar went in after adding the rice and before adding any other liquid and it added a lovely sharp taste to the risotto. I boiled a handful of frozen peas and a similar amount of podded broad beans. They were so small and fresh that I didn't need to take off the outer skins. They only needed 3 minutes cooking - in fact 2 would probably have been enough but the peas weren't ready. 

When they were cooked I mixed them into the risotto with some fresh herbs (chives, parsley and basil - just what I  happened to have available). Delicious!

Shopping miles

My veg bag is delivered to a local neighbourhood rep and we then have to go and pick it up from there. This reduces food transport miles and is part of Tolhurst Organics minimising their carbon footprint. Reducing overall food miles though relies on customers using sustainable transport to pick up their vegetables. We are all used to worrying about food miles but forget that the distance we travel from home to do our shopping can be a significant component of food miles. Ac cording to the cabinet office report, Food Matters, 13% of the carbon emissions caused by food transport are accounted for by consumer vehicles. 

So how do I pick up my veg bag? It used to be easy as it was on my cycle route home but since starting a new job I don't work Thursdays and  have to make a special effort to collect it.  It is 0.9 of a mile from my house to my local rep (I just checked on Google Maps!) so not too much of an effort. Usually I cycle, either with my bike trailer or just stuffing it all into a rucksack. If I'm feeling like I need the exercise I walk. For the last three weeks I've been covering for holidays so I've been working Thursdays and have picked up the bag in the work van. It does seem a little extravagant to arrive in a refrigerated transit van to pick up one bag of veg but it is on my way home - honest!

Beetroot Tzatziki

More lovely beetroot. This week I made some beetroot tzatziki. I got the recipe from a fantastic book I was given for my birthday. Its called Forgotten Skills of Cooking by Darina Allen. It tells you how to make your own butter, hang game and make your own chorizo. I haven't done any of these things I'm afraid! It also has some straight forward recipes like this tzatziki, although it was supposed to be something you did with your home-made yoghurt. 

It was very easy, just mix together all the ingredients and chill. I was a bit worried about grating cooked beetroot, I changed into some old clothes before I started, but wasn't too bad in the end. The end result was a beautiful bright pink colour.

110g beetroot, cooked and grated 

8 tablespoons natural yoghurt

2 tablespoons fresh mint, chopped

salt, pepper and pinch of caster sugar

Carrot muffins

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall had a selection of savoury muffin recipes in the Guardian a couple of weeks ago. They all looked delicious but as I had some carrots in the veg bag I thought I'd give the carrot and spinach ones a try. You can see the recipe here. I didn't get any Spinach in my veg bag but I managed to buy some local spinach from True Food Co-op.

They looked great but weren't 100% successful. My fault, no reflection on the recipe. I forgot the salt which I think they did lack although I wouldn't have used the 1 1/2 teaspoons the recipe said. I also didn't add the seeds as I didn't have any. The main problem I had was that I couldn't get them to cook properly. The recipe said stick a cocktail stick in them and if it comes out clean they are ready. Mine never got to the clean cocktail stick stage even when the tops were almost too hard to get the stick through. In the end I took them out of the oven and they did firm up when they cooled so maybe I was applying the criteria a bit too strictly. I also had a mini muffin pan but normal size muffin cases so I wondered if that might make a difference to the way they cooked. 

Having said all this they were tasty and I'll definitely try them again with the salt, seeds and smaller muffin cases (or a bigger pan!)