Cauliflower cream cheesecake This is a savoury cheesecake that lets the delicate, sweet, slightly nutty flavour of cauliflower shine through. It is a centerpiece, not a side dish. Many cauliflower dishes incorporate strong flavours like anchovies and curry spices but for this I wanted to let the cauliflower shine. And it does. Ingredients 1 cauliflower,…
Tag: sustainable food
Purple cauliflower, tahini dressing
In this flavourful winter salad, I experimented with keeping the purple pigments intact. If you boil a purple cauliflower it will turn bright green. I read that cooking without water, instead tossing in olive oil and gently sautéing or roasting, will keep the purple pigments from leeching out. It kind of worked. The cauli wasn’t…
winter in my garden- red cabbage and purple cauliflowers
Today the winter sun is shining on the red cabbages. They are resplendent in their hues of red, blue, and purple. The sun, shining through the drab outer leaves, lights up an intricate network of red veins threading throughout. The colour of red cabbages varies according to the Ph level of the soil they are grown…
This is why I grow parsnips
Carrot and parsnip mash Called a ‘bowl of sunshine’ in Ireland, this is truly the only reason I grow parsnips. An inexplicable alchemy happens with the carrot and parsnip (and butter don’t forget…quite a lot of it) combo and it ends up tasting like neither, instead it just tastes like …well… a bowl of sunshine….
Winter wildgreens pasta
This is the kind of peasant food that reminds us we do not need to fill a trolley at the supermarket to eat something delicious, nourishing and sustaining. This is made from wild foraged greens, a couple of eggs and some flour, and it made us a huge lunch. I collected a variety of greens…
winter in the garden – fennel
Another ancient medicinal herb with magical properties, fennel is a native of the Mediterranean. Wild fennel was naturalised throughout Europe , spreading eastwards into monastic gardens where it was used in herbal preparations and liqueurs, one of these being an early version of absinthe which has aniseed flavours derived from both anise and fennel. Despite…
the winter garden: beetroot
Aphrodite ate beetroot to increase her allure. Frescoes of beets decorate the walls of the Lupanare brothel in Pompeii. Beetroot, an ancient aphrodisiac, has a long history that begins on the shores of north Africa and the Mediterranean in a wild seashore plant called sea beet. The ancient Greeks and Romans only ate the leaves,…
the winter garden: parsley
In folk-lore, parsley has a long history of magical properties. In medieval Europe, where it was believed only the wicked could grow it, parsley was associated with death and was used to decorate graves. Many types of bad luck are associated with transplanting it. In most of Europe it is believed it foretells a death…
food ripe from my garden 