Chestnut puree was being sold for 30p a can at the local shop. How could I resist! As I was making sweet potato soup I thought hmmm… wouldn’t chestnut puree go really nicely in that!

Fry a couple of chopped onions and garlic cloves in butter/oil/low-fat frying method of your choice, till translucent.

Add about 4 sliced sweet potatoes and a tsp of cinnamon, and a pinch or two of nutmeg if you wish, fry for a while.

Add veg/chicken stock, about 150g chestnut puree (I used about a third of a regular sized can) and simmer, then blend.

Gathered my first nettles for soup this morning! Pick only the brighter green top and top leaves at this time of year (May).

about a colander full or more of nettles with stems (cleaned obviously!)

3 onions (or however many or few you want!)

3 garlic cloves (or whatever your taste is)

about 4 medium sized potatoes, sliced thinly

stock - chicken or veg

whatever you want to use to fry in, butter/oil/butter spray

Fry onion and garlic till onion translucent

Add potatoes and also fry till translucent or thereabouts

Add stock, then add nettles, simmer for 20 mins or so, I did 30.

Blend

And there you go! It’s delicious! I added milk for my 4 year old. He was there for the whole process and really impressed about eating nettles!

Lovely!!

Rough guide is 2-3 leeks and one onion per head of cauliflower.

Saute leeks and onion (in butter if you want) and then add veg (or chicken) stock and cauliflowers. Simmer. Blend.

That’s it! Simple and incredibly tasty. I added milk to G’s so it was more suitable for a 4 year old, would’ve added cream if I’d had some.

As Thursday is veg box day, last night night I decided to pop the leftovers in the slow cooker/crockpot to cook overnight so we could have soup for lunch.

So this consisted of:

Leeks

Broccoli

Cauliflower

Lettuce

Fresh parsley

and I popped chickpeas in for the protein

veg stock

It’s very green, but actually quite tasty! I think it would’ve benefited from a few potatoes, and goodness knows we have plenty lying around!

Bloke had to take it to work as a kind of stew because we don’t have anything that will hold soup!

I actually wondered if it could really be called pesto without the usual ingredients, I know they sell different types of pesto in the shops, but that could’ve just been marketing. So anyway, from Wikipedia, it says that in Italian pesto is the contracted past participle of pestâ which means “to pound, to crush”. What we traditionally know as pesto is actually pesto alla genovese.

Anyway, the swiss chard pesto was actually really nice. It was a little odd to have something looking like pesto that didn’t taste like it though! It was quite a delicate flavour really. The recipe I looked at added cream (and nutmeg), but I chose not to, given my gallbladder troubles! I also made it quite dry and added oil when I served it up for Bloke and Child.

So here’s another non-exact recipe!

Garlic - couple of cloves

4 bunches of swiss chard

handful of pine nuts

some grate parmesan

lemon juice

veg stock

Saute the garlic for a couple of minutes

Add roughly chopped chard, cover, cook until chard starting to wilt

Blitz pine nuts in chopper, add chard and garlic and blitz again

Add some lemon juice

Add veg stock (or oil if using it) to make pesto like consistency.

We all love hummus in this house, especially G (age 4). It’s very handy for slathering on bread or crackers, or for dipping, whether with chopped veg or crisps/potato chips.

I still haven’t perfected my hummus and actually the first time I made it I looked what was in some store bought hummus and gave it a go!

Basic Hummus - what you’ll need

Chick peas, tahini paste, garlic, cumin, lemon juice, olive oil

This is much easier done in one of those mini choppers, I have one of these:

 

I have mashed chick peas with a fork/potato masher, but this gives much better results and it’s faster.

So I put garlic to taste into it, 2 or 3 cloves for us as we love it, and almost fill it with chick peas, then chop.

Then in goes the tahini paste, I use about 3 tablespoons of light tahini paste, it would be less of dark, which is stronger, about 1/2 tsp of cumin and a few tablespoons of lemon juice. Now traditionally you’re supposed to pour in olive oil, about 1/4 of the way up the container. Basically, pop in enough so you get that slightly runny paste look of hummus. If you err on the cautious side you can just keep adding it till you’re comfortable with it.

However, I make it low-fat, so I just pop a bit of olive oil in before serving for those who want it. I actually use cooled boiled water to make the right consistency.

Now taste it, you want a bit of a tang from the lemon juice, so if you can’t taste it add a bit more. If it just doesn’t seem hummus-y then add some more tahini, bit more cumin if you want it a little spicier, some salt if you think it needs it. We don’t use much salt in some things.

And there we go!

Now you can do other things with it! If you see what they add to hummus in the shops then you can to!

So far I’ve just added pesto, which is very nice.

Otherwise, you could add a roasted red pepper, or, more likely in my case, I’ll experiment with unroasted pepper!

Next I’ll be trying black olives, we only have green this month!

Or you could add chilli powder.

Love hummus!

Swiss Chard, lettuce, parsley, cauliflower, cucumber, chestnut mushrooms, potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, carrots, broccoli, avocado, yellow pepper and Thai red shoots.

Thai red shoots? There was a note in the box which read:

On a recent visit, a Thai friend who lectures in Food Science at Bangkok University was shocked when I told her we would have to plough in an acre of late-planted red cabbage that decided not to bother with the cabbage bit, but just grow a fat flower shoot instead. Apparently, in Thailand this type of vegetable is available on all markets, similar to Chinese flowering cabbage or Kailan.

I always find it amazing what we throw away or don’t consider eating. I know I still probably throw away more parts of a plant than I should because I’ve been conditioned by what I see in shops and supermarkets, which these days are all clean and blemish free and stripped of extraneous but often edible bits.

I’ve been a bit slack, what with a cold, an essay, then G’s birthday, so we’ve still loads of potatoes and some other veg left over. Lots of leeks too so I see potato and leek soup on the horizon.

I finally looked up the green stuff and found out it was Swiss chard:

In doing so I also found a pesto recipe for it which I intend to try. If it’s any good I’ll share it!