Leaf to Root eating

When I was little, my dad told me that every grain of rice I left on my plate would be a spot on my face when I was older. As a result, I have developed an obsessive aversion to throwing away food.
Very little went to waste in our household, any leftovers would be used for dinner the next day, and our fridge was always full of little dishes covered in cling film...and if you take a peek in my fridge today, it's still the same.

I'm now not embarrassed to admit this because this week experts have been saying that our wastage is now pushing up food prices in the developing world. So now I'm not just a tightarse just a concerned citizen of the earth.

Concerned Citizen Chew's tips to do your bit:

- Use your freezer. If you don't think you're going to get around to eating that bag of carrots, steam or boil them and freeze them for another day. Same goes with fruit - berries can be frozen straight and cooked or used in a smoothie for another day. Other fruit can pipped or cored then stewed to be eaten with ice cream or used in a crumble. Or if you are super organinsed, buy up big and spend a couple of hours cooking up a big batch of soup, curry or pasta sauce to be frozen.

- Make stock. Tired looking veg and scraps can be thrown into a pot and boiled up for a lovely stock which can make a risotto sing. Don't forget to throw in the rind from Parmesan cheese into the stock pot too.

- Plan your shopping. Have a quick think about how much cooking you will be doing at home for the week. Not much point in buying a weeks worth of veg if you'll only be home one or two nights to actually cook it

- One bad apple can spoil the barrel. Remove bad bits of fruit or veg and the rest of the bag/bunch will last a bit longer

- Change the water your tofu sits in and it will last much longer


BEETROOT PEARL BARLEY RISOTTO
This risotto takes twice as long as normal risotto, so it's one you might want to attempt when you aren't in a starving rush. It is definitely worth the wait though, the earthy beetroot pairs very nicely with the graininess and bouncey texture of the barley - and the colour is quite spectacular. If barley isn't your thing you can use good old Aborio rice and shorten the cooking time to 20 minutes. Serves 4.

What you need
2 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
350g pearl barley
1.5 litres vegetable stock, hot
1 bunch of baby beets with stalks or if you can't get this you could use fresh beets with a few handfuls chard or spinach to replace the beetroot leaves
optional garnish: a chunk of goats cheese or fetta

The do
Wash the beetroot thoroughly. Grate the beetroot and chop up the leaves into 4 cm pieces.
Heat the olive oil in a medium pan over a medium-low heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook gently, stirring occasionally, for a few minutes, until softened. Add the pearl barley and grated beetroot and cook for 1 minute.
Add a quarter of the stock to the pan and simmer, stirring every now and then, until all the stock has been absorbed. Barley doesn't need as much TLC as aborio rice so you can do other things and come back to it every now and then. Add another quarter of the stock and continue in this way until all the stock is absorbed – it should take about 40 minutes for the barley to be tender but still al dente. Add the stalky bits and cook for about 5 minutes, then stir in the leaf. Cook for a few minutes until wilted and dark green. If you have it, serve with a sharp crumbly goats cheese or feta sprinkled on top.



Tune
Greetings From Michigan: The Great Lakes State Sufjan Stevens

block rockin rhu-beets

I've said it before and I'll say it again: beets are beautiful. Earthy, sweet and bright as a blast of sunshine on a crisp and frosty winter afternoon. They are also ideal after a Sunday spent wandering through Highgate cemetery (home to reposing souls as diverse as Karl Marx and Titanic riders).

This recipe is a peculiar one. My interest was piqued when I read about rhubarb and potato soup a while back. When my research uncovered a Nordic dessert, I decided to take it into a different direction and go for something savoury instead, bringing beets into the mix. The result was delicious, fresh and tangy: potato held the rhubarb's creaminess while the beets tempered their tart ways and added some resistance to the mush. Lest it was a one-off fluke, I made it a second time. Once again, I enjoyed a gorgeous combination of mellow beets pushing against the barb's tongue lashing.



What you need
A bunch of small beets for 1/2 a bunch of rhubarb (twice as many beets for your barb is a good ratio)
1 med-large potato
Handful of fresh parsley
Handful of fresh sage (not essential)
Veggie stock
Splash white wine
Olive oil

Making it
Wash, peel and chop your beets and potato. Mix them through a couple of tablespoons of heated olive oil with your rhubarb (washed and chopped). Add some fresh chopped parsley and sage if you have them handy. Let it all heat through on medium for about ten minutes, stirring regularly. Add the wine and cook for another few minutes. Fill the pot with veggie stock and bring to the boil. Lower the heat and simmer for a good 20-30 minutes, until the rhubarb and the potato have disintegrated into mushy pieces.

Take your red hot soup off the stove and let it all calm down for a good five minutes. Blend in batches if need be (this is the last thing you want to send spinning round your kitchen walls). Divide between bowls. If you want to add a little creme fraiche, go right ahead. One thing I would advise is to accompany this soup with your favourite toast: its intensity warrants a small serving rather than a whopping plate. If you want to reduce the intensity, bring a little more potato into the mix.

grab sunday by the sweet and curlies

I love these Sundays: lazy, vague, dreamy, mine to spend poking and scuffing around a cold and woolly city. And with the dark drawing in so early, time to see out the weekend with a slow, long meal.

It makes sense that, as winter really kicks, all the seasonal vegetables go underground and look like shit. I picked up a knobbly load of them at the Islington Farmer's Market yesterday - Jerusalem artichokes, celeriac, giant parsnip - and put them to good use in a variation of Chew's Artichoke Bake. As good as I remember it the first time around, this really is a proper, rich and silky mid-winter Sunday dinner (I included parsnip, leek and celeriac between artichoke and potato layers - with parmesan and fresh peas on top for added crunch).

While waiting for the root bake, I made the following sweet and nutty plate of yummy goodness to sit alongside it.

Sweet Curly Kale and Beets

1 small onion, grated
2 bunches of kale (wash the leaves, rip them off their spines and chop them well)
1 beetroot - peeled and cut into sticks
1 small handful of toasted pine nuts and slivered almonds
1 teaspoon of honey
1 splash of orange blossom water (if you have it)
4-6 dates, chopped
salt, oil and butter



Melt a chunk of butter in a few good glugs of oil. On low heat, soften the grated onion. When it is getting sticky (6-8 minutes), add the chopped dates. Let it all caramelise slowly, stirring regularly. Add the chopped kale with a pinch of salt then cover and cook on a low heat (add a little water if it dries out too much). When the kale has softened and wilted, add the beetroot sticks and toasted nuts. Cook for five minutes then add your teaspoon of honey and dash of orange blossom water. Cook for another five minutes and let it all cool down for a bit before you fill up on some sweet joy.

A sweet root

Aside from slurping on a bit of borscht here and there, I'd have to admit that I know very little about eastern European cuisine - and even less about eastern European desserts.
So it's just as well I was assigned dessert course for our lastest eastern European themed dinner party, huh?
Sweet stuff ain't my forte. I'm a savoury lady through and through, although I do enjoy the odd slice of office birthday cake from time to time. My baked goods rarely make the cut because of my tendency to go freestyle with the ingredients.
This time, I tried really really hard to stick the recipe. It isn't eastern European, but it has beetroot in it, so I figure that counts for something.


'EASTERN EUROPEAN' CHOCOLATE + BEETROOT MINI CAKES
(with cherry and beetroot coulis)

What you need
75g Green and Black's Cocoa Powder
180g SR flour
250g caster sugar
250g cooked fresh beetroots
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
200ml corn or sunflower oil

(Makes 12 muffins)
Preheat oven to 180C
Grease a muffin tray
In a saucepan, cover beetroots with water and boil until soft
Sift cocoa, flour and baking power into a large bowl
Stir in sugar and set aside
Puree beetroot adding one egg at a time. Add vanilla and oil and and whiz until smooth.
Make a well in the dry ingredients and stir in the beetroot mixture.



Divide evenly into muffin tray and bake for 50-60 mins or until a skewer comes out clean.
When done, allow to cool down in the tray and then turn out onto a wire rack.

The coulis
1 can pitted cherries
1 small fresh beetroot
1/2 can water and cherry juice (from can)
squeeze of lemon juice
2 tablespoons sugar

Put ingredients in saucepan simmer until beetroot is cooked. Push through a fine sieve.

Serve cakes with some cream or ice-cream or soy ice cream (I used Swedish Glace) and drizzle with coulis.

Cyprus.

Six months of inane bureaucracy ended last week with a trip to Cyprus to get my visa processed, and for those of you who don't know - I'M LEGAL NOW!

So onto food. Cypriots love their meat - so much so, that they think a vegetarian is someone who eats fish. I decided to remain optimistic and was rewarded with some amazing dishes. I'm going to try and replicate these over the coming weeks and will post them if they are successful.



Mushroom and Halloumi Pita with Salad
The halloumi in Cyprus is excellent. It was so good that I ate my own body weight's worth of the stuff. Grill it or fry it in a pan - it was soft, not too salty and even a little minty.
This is so easy and would be great for a BBQ, just make a big bowl of salad, throw everything else on the grill and let everyone help themselves.

Chop up some flat leaf parsley, mint, cucumber and good tomatoes - drizzle with olive oil and lemon juice to taste.
Slice halloumi.
Pan fry, grill or BBQ halloumi and mushrooms until brown (take care not to overcook the halloumi)
Toast some pita bread and fill it with the above.
* (Cooked or canned beetroot instead of the mushrooms works well too!)

Ah Ma's Pink Potato Salad

The lead up to Chinese New Year has got me thinking food, food, FOOD.
And I guess family fits in there somewhere too. This is a dish my grandma used to make, it's an old family recipe - does that give it more credibility? I guess it does.

Cubed potatoes - boiled (desiree or a waxy variety will have a nicer texture and not turn to mush)

1 can of baby beets cut to same size as potatoes

Cucumber (again, cut to same size)

Mayonnaise or Soy mayo (lots)

Chopped spring onions

Egg (optional)

Mix together carefully. And that's it!

beet me, beet me

Adam and I were in Berlin for New Year and one of the yummiest parts was the fact that, wherever we went, we could grab an instant hit of nourishing love for around 2 euros a bowl. But try and tempt Londoners with beetroot soup and you can't give it away. I know. I've attempted to share my lunch at work. People look at me like I'm offering them the carcass of their pet cat in a bowl of warm piss.
But back to Berlin. We stayed with our mate Hugo and he kept a massive pot of beetroot soup refrigerating on the balcony alongside a couple of slabs of beer. Whenever we needed a bowl of sweet beet warmth he'd drag the pot inside and throw it on the stove. It's the simplicity of it that I love, that and the bloody redness. And it costs bugger all to make.



I make it the way Hugo did, with mountains of freshly ground pepper, then leave it sitting on the stove for a few days and just keep reheating it till it's done.

What you need for about 4 bowls:
A medium to large onion
Thyme sprigs
Bay Leaves (What do they do exactly? And is it possible for them to stop working if you've had them too long? I have often wondered this upon reaching for a bag that has been in my cupboard for months... and months)
Salt’n’pepper
Veggie stock
One large (or half a dozen small) beetroots
Same for potatoes
A few carrots
Undrinkeable red wine (no point wasting booze you can use)



Making it:
Peel the beetroots and admire your bloody looking hands.
Chop all the veggies into mouth-manageable sizes.
Using your soup pan, soften the chopped onion in olive oil on a low heat (Don’t be tight with the oil.)
Chuck in a bay leaf or two and let them work their inexplicable magic.
Pour in some red wine if you fancy, and reduce it. It adds a little something but is not essential.
Throw in the veggies and stir fry them for a good five minutes.
Add shitloads of pepper, a little salt and some sprigs of thyme.
Pour in your stock.
Bring it to the boil then simmer it as long as you like (an hour at the very least.)

After about the third reheat there’s virtually no colour left in the beetroots. But I love the way they keep their firmness while the carrots and potatoes go soft. If I run out of liquid, I just add more water, a bit of wine and maybe a little vegemite.

I just ate a bowl while I was writing this and I am full of beety warmth. Plus I was listening to a sunny Lionel Hampton song that I'm sharing below because it was such a lovely accompaniement to the sweet, red beets. Beats for beets. Ha ha.

Lionel Hampton - On the Sunny Side of the Street mp3 download