Beetroot and foodie week

I've had a busy food related week. Sunday I was a judge for one of the Reading, Steady, Cook competition rounds. This was great fun but very hard to choose between duck and sweet potato curry and steamed halibut with caramelised goat cheese. (The curry won.) Look out for the semi-finals and final of the competition at the Eat Reading Live festival 4th and 5th June.

Watching the contestants do their stuff.

On Monday I went on a trip with the Reading Food Growing Group to Lower Shaw farm in Swindon.  They have a productive organic garden and keep chickens, pigs and sheep. They run residential and day courses and it is a real oasis on the edge of Swindon. I'm thinking of booking into their cookery weekend in November - a whole weekend cooking and talking about food, bliss!

On Tuesday Ben Zagorski, a finalist in last year's Reading, Steady, Cook competition and a judge in this year's was the guest on my Local Lunch show. I treated him to the first beetroot of the season from the veg bag. I boiled the beetroot for about 20 minutes, sliced them and made a dressing of olive oil, red wine vinegar and honey. I only used about 1/2 teaspoon of honey and added it a bit at a time and kept tasting to make sure it wasn't too sweet. I then added some  Pecorino di Fossa, an Italian sheep milk that is matured in sealed caves. I bought it from The Delistation, one of the stalls at Ms Marmitelove'rs underground market. They suggested you eat the cheese dipped in honey so I thought it should work with the honey dressing.    

Spinach and bacon salad

We had a surfeit of bacon this weekend. I'd brought my usual pack of Laverstoke Park smoked back home  from work but then Friday night went to MsMarmitelover's Underground Market. I came home with all sorts of goodies including smoked goat's cheese, strawberry and rose petal jam and Treflach Farm bacon. The guy on the stall was wafting a plate of bacon under people's noses as they squeezed past (it was very busy), a low down but very successful sales technique.

The Treflach Farm bacon went in bacon sandwiches on Saturday morning but the Laverstoke bacon had  been frozen and defrosted so really needed using. This week's veg bag had some lovely fresh spinach that we thought would be good raw so decided to combine it with the bacon for Sunday lunch.

All it needed in addition to the grilled bacon was croûtons. These are very easy to make - cube the bread toss in some olive oil, dried herbs and grated Parmesan put in a baking tray and grill for a couple of minutes, stirring occasionally. Don't get distracted though! We dressed the spinach with some truffle flavoured oil that we were given for Christmas but any oil or dressing would be fine. Finally we mixed the bacon and croûtons into the spinach (stalks and all) and enjoyed.

Beautiful chard and the perfect guest

Isn't this chard beautiful? It makes me smile when I open the bag and find some - those colours. This bunch was destined to be part of our Sunday roast along with shoulder of lamb from Waltham Place and roast potatoes.

My perfect guest is my brother-in-law Jon who usually comes round for Sunday dinner and often takes over some of the cooking. This week he offered to prepare the chard. He started by making a roux sauce with flour, butter and a cupful of vegetable stock instead of milk.

 He then chopped the chard - including the stalks - and cooked them gently in the sauce.