Recipes // Cooking The Season

Image from eatwell101

The best meals, in my opinion, always comes from the freshest foods! Strawberries and cream ... better in Summer. Roasted carrots and parsnips ... better in Winter! Some of the fruits and vegetables currently in season are;

Apples // Aubergine // Avocados // Basil // Berries // Carrots // Cherries // Corriander // Courgette // Cucumber // Fig // Garlic // Green Beans // Mangoes // Nectarines // Peaches // // Peppers // Tomatoes // Watermelon

The easiest way to eat this season would be to eat a delicious fruit salad! (Obviously topped with lashings of cream!). For those wanting something a little bit more adventurous, then below I have rounded up a few of my favourite summery recipes ...

Roasted Summer Vegetables

Ingredients:

- 2 Courgettes

- 2 Large Tomatoes

- 1 Aubergine

- 1 Garlic Bulbed, Halved

- 1 Red Onion

- 1 Red Pepper

- 1 tin chopped Tomatoes

- 200g New Potatoes

- Handful chopped Parsley, Chopped

Serves 2

Method:

Preheat the oven to 200°C (180°C fan), chop up all veg into large pieces and toss in an oven dish with a glug of olive oil. Roast for 45 minutes.

After 45 minutes remove the garlic and squeeze the juice over the veg. Mix through the parsley and serve

Serving suggestion - Serve with slightly toasted Ciabatta bread!

Avocado Pesto Spaghetti

Ingredients:

- 200g Spaghetti

- 1 Avocado

- Large handful of Basil

- Small handful of Walnuts

- 2 cloves of Garlic

- Glug of olive oil

- Pinch of salt

- Twist of pepper

- Juice of 1 lemon

Serves 4

Method:

Put everything in a food processor (apart from the Spaghetti), cook the Spaghetti as required. Drain the Spaghetti, and warm through the Pesto and Spaghetti in the pan. And serve!

Serving suggestion - Serve with some cherry tomatoes and some roasted asparagus. Mmmmmmmm

 Watermelon Mimosa

Ingredients:

- Half a Watermelon

- 1 Bottle Prosecco

- Juice of 1 lime

- Handful mint leaves

- Ice. cubes

Serves 4

Method:

Blend the watermelon, lime juice and mint in a blender. Fill 4 glasses with ice, pour in the watermelon mixtures and top with Prosecco. And top with some springs of mint! Fancy!

If you hadn't already guessed then I'm a very, whack it all in kind of cook. A bit old school Jamie Oliver-esque. Pinch of this, and a glug of that ... I hope you enjoy!

What are your favourite Summer recipes?

Recipe // Cooking the Season

This super helpful chart is from eatseasonably.co.uk

The easiest way to get the most out of your food and cooking is to use fruits and vegetables that are in season; this ensures that your dishes are extremely flavourful. The fruits and vegetables that are currently in season are ...

Bananas // Blood Oranges // Brussel Sprouts // Cabbage // Carrots // Cauliflower // Celery // Clementines // Kale // Kiwi // Leeks // Parsnips // Passionfruit // Pomegranate // Potatoes // Rhubarb // Savoy Cabbage // Turnips

For a quick, easy and tasty side dish, toss some Brussels, Carrots, Cauliflower, Parsnips, Potatoes and Turnips into a pan with some oil, garlic and rosemary. Throw them in the oven at 200C (Fan - 180C) for around 45 minutes. Easy! And will be super tasty!

Below I have rounded up a few of my favourite recipes using some more of these yummy foods ...

Seeing as Leeks and Potatoes are currently in season, of course I had to include my favourite Leek and Potato Soup:

Ingredients:

- 3 Sliced Leeks

- 4-5 Medium Potatoes

- 2tbs Butter

- 500ml Vegetable Stock

- 1.5tsp salt

- 1tsp dried marjoram

- 1tsp dried thyme

- Handful of fresh parsley

Serves 4

Method:

Add the butter and the leeks to a saucepan over a medium heat and cook for 10minutes.

Add all other ingredients except for the fresh parsley, bring to a simmer and cook for 20minutes.

Pure the soup, add in the fresh parsley, salt and pepper. Then serve.

Serving suggestion: Serve with roasted veg (Recipe above) and some chunky buttered bread.

And as a lovely desert why not make a Pear and Rhubarb Crumble with a Blood Orange and Pomegranate Cocktail ...

Blood Orange and Pomegranate Cocktail:

Ingredients:

- 60ml pomegranate juice

- 60ml blood orange juice (freshly squeezed)

- 4tsp sugar

- 500ml Prosecco

- Blood orange slices (to garnish)

Serves 4

Method:

Chill your chosen glasses in the freezer for 10minutes.

Add 1tsp surge per glass, 15ml of pomegranate juice and 15ml of the fresh blood orange juice, stir until dissolved.

Top with the Prosecco, garnish with the blood orange slices and serve!

Pear and Rhubarb Crumble:

Ingredients:

- 3 Ripe Pears

- 600g Rhubarb

- 100g caster sugar

- Zest and juice of an orange

Topping Ingredients:

- 200g flour

- 200g butter

- 150g light brown sugar

- 75g muesli

Serves 4

Method:

Heat oven to 200C (Fan 180C)

Mix all topping ingredients together with your fingertips until in a pastry type texture. Then set aside in the fridge to chill.

Chop the rhubarb and pears into small chunks, removing the pear skin. Put these into your oven dish, mixing with the sugar, orange juice and zest. Add on the topping and bake in the oven for 35-45minutes.

Serving suggestion: Serve with a nice dollop of cream and ice cream! Mmmmmmmmmm.

I hope you enjoy these recipes!

What are your favourite wintery, seasonal recipes?

Recipe // Pumpkin

Image from here

It's nearly Halloween guys!! Which can only mean one thing ... Pumpkin Carving Party! Ever since I moved to London, I have Carved a Pumpkin with my lovely other half, and last year we had our friends over to join us! We ate Halloweeny food, got the knives out and carved these bad boys! ...

We had so much fun carving them, although I was left with a lot of Pumpkin insides that I did not know what to do with ... But this time I will be prepared and here are some ideas and recipes for your Pumpkin leftovers!

Firstly we have the seeds:

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds are so yummy, and so easy to make (Once you have separated them from the rest of the Pumpkin!)

Step 1: Clean the Pumpkin seeds, and leave them to dry for a few hours in a tea towel, or kitchen roll

Step 2: Place them on a foiled baking tray with a couple of glugs of your favourite type of oil (I use coconut) and add your seasonings ...

A few ideas are;

Brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg for sweet seeds

Sat, chilli, cayenne and cumin for little mexican seeds

Or plain Salt and Pepper for simple seeds

Step 3: Bake them in the oven at 190-200 degrees celsius, for 30-45minutes and VOILA!

Then we move on to the Pumpkin Insides;

Pumpkin Puree

You can substitute canned Pumpkin with real Pumpkin puree, in most recipes, see below. Jack 'O' Lanterns or Carving Pumpkins do not have the same flavour as smaller pie Pumpkins, but you can get a similar flavour ...

Ingredients:

- Pumpkin Flesh

- Pumpkin Spice Mix (1\4 Cup Cinnamon, 4 teaspoons Nutmeg, 4 teaspoons Ginger & 1 tablespoon allspice)

Method:

To make Pumpkin puree from the real Pumpkins, roast the insides of the Pumpkin, not the guts, or the seeds. Just the fleshy bits until they become tender. When they are tender you need to get rid of some the excess moisture. This can be squeezed out in a colander or to get more flavour in to the puree then roast it in a pan, or a slow cooker with some Pumpkin Spice Mix to taste, on a low heat, until the moisture evaporates, and caramelised or browned.

Pumpkin Soup

Ingredients:
- 2 Onions
- 1kg Chopped Pumpkin
- 750ml Stock (Vegetable is best)
- Pot of Single Cream

Method:
Finely chop the onions and fry in a pan for 5minutes, then add in the pumpkin. Cook for a further 10-15 minutes or until it turns golden.
Add in the vegetable stock and season, bring to the boil, then simmer for 30-45 minutes.
Pour in the cream, bring to the boil again, simmer for 10 minutes then blend.
Serve with a swirl of cream, some roasted pumpkin seeds and some fresh bread!
Mmmmmmmmmmm

And for desert ...

Pumpkin Cupcakes

Ingredients:
- 200g Plain Flour
- 1tsp Baking Powder
- 1/4 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 2 tsp Pumpkin Spice Mix (From above)
- 125g Caster Sugar
- 100g Light Brown Sugar
- 120ml Vegetable Oil
- 2 large eggs
- 180g Pumpkin Puree

Method:
Preheat the oven to 175 degrees celsius
Mix together the flour, baking powder, bicarb, salt and Pumpkin Spice together in one bowl
In another mix together the caster sugar, and brown sugar with the oil.
Mix in the eggs one at a time, then add in the pumpkin and vanilla.
Once fully mixed, add in the flour mixture slowly until well blended.
Place into 12 cupcake cases, filing each 2/3 of the way up
Bake for 25 minutes and leave to cool.

Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients:
- 225g cream cheese at room temperature
- 110g unsalted butter at room temperature
- 350g icing sugar
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Method:
Whip together the cream cheese and the butter until smooth and fluffy, then add in the vanilla extract and icing sugar and whip until light and fluffy. Leave in the fridge for around half n hour, then put icing into a piping bag and pipe on to completely cooled cupcakes.

Right well I better go an research what I will be carving this year!!

What are your Halloween traditions?