An early summer salad with pink radishes, rocket, avocado, feta and toasted sunflower seeds

Radishes are in from Denis Healy this week and they are so nice to look at that it seems a shame to eat them. But don’t let that stop you for too long they are best super fresh. Crunchy, peppery and above all PINK, they make any salad look good. Famously they only have 1 calorie per piece so make the ultimate guilt free snack (summer is on the way you know and there will hopefully be some bearing of flesh).

The French eat them dipped in salty butter with crusty bread as a pre-dinner appetizer and on a lazy summer’s evening what could be nicer? But let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet. The only trips to the garden I’ve been making recently have been mad dashes to get clothes off the line.

I really love  radishes with avocado where their peppery bite gets to play off the creamy perfection that is a  ripe avocado. This week’s recipe is very simple – finely sliced radishes and chopped avocado to start then with rocket from Denis,  toasted sunflower seeds and some crumbled feta. The perfect summer lunch or what? Even if you do have to eat it in the kitchen……..

An early summer salad with pink radishes, rocket, feta, avocado and toasted sunflower seeds

You’ll need:

A bunch of radishes washed and finely sliced

2 big handfuls of rocket (or any other salad leaves you fancy)

1 large ripe avocado

A handful sunflower seeds toasted

100gr feta cheese

For the dressing

The juice of 1 lemon

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

A large pinch Maldon salt crushed

First of all, make your dressing by mixing the lemon juice, olive oil and salt together then set aside. Wash the rocket getting rid of any really stalky bits. Chop up the avocado. To finish you can then toss everything together and dress or, as I did, dress the rocket then lay the feta, sunflower seeds, radishes and avocado on top. That way it looks prettier and you can kind of pick and mix as you eat. As you can see from the photo I also added a final grating of lemon zest for colour. Enjoy.

Cima di Rapa

Cima di rapa fresh from Denis Healy's farm

We don’t see these greens very often. Cima di rapa or turnip tops (much less glamorous but that’s actually what they are) have a very, very short season. Blink and they’ve gone to seed. I’ve been in almost daily contact with Duncan Healy about getting a supply this week and while it looked a bit touch and go on Tuesday the Healys managed to harvest enough for us. Thank you, thank you!!!

It’s just so nice to have something different. This time of year is called the hungry gap. Most of the winter stuff is finished and the summer varieties are starting to come through but just not as fast as we’d like!!!! Damned organics – why can’t they grow faster???

I’d had a single chorizo sausage in my fridge leftover from a barbeque at the weekend and I’m glad I resisted the temptation to snaffle it as a midnight snack during the week. I fried it up then tossed it with cima di rape, added a smattering of pine nuts and served it dressed in sherry vinegar. Bree Vandecamp would have made a reduction with the vinegar and you can too if you want to go fancy.I was just too hungry and really there’s no need. The spicy oil that oozes from the chorizo when you cook it  provides the dressing along with the vinegar which gives a lovely sharp relief. And it was all done in about 10 minutes……….

A warm salad of Cima di rapa with chorizo and pine nuts   (for 1 as lunch or 2 as a starter)

If you're in Spain get some of this

 

You’ll need:

1 bunch of cima di rape

100gr chorizo

Olive Oil

2 tablespoons pinenuts

Sherry vinegar

Finely slice the chorizo and throw onto a warm pan and saute slowly for about 5 or 6 minutes. To prepare the cima di rapa,  remove the tougher stalks and chop the rest of them into pieces about 1 inch long. The leaves you can leave a lot longer, just tear them in two. When the chorizo has released its oil and is starting to darken, add the pinenuts. Toss for a minute then add the greens. Keep tossing until they begin to wilt then remove from the pan. Drizzle with sherry vinegar and serve.

Red Peppers, Round Courgettes, Charlotte Potatoes and Figs

This week we have a Red Pepper in all our bags. Always very popular, Peppers are just so versatile. Raw they can be chopped into any salad or sambo and they are a great dipper for lunchtime humus. They have lots of natural sugars which really come to the fore when they are cooked slowly.Treat them like Onions and you won’t regret it – lots of time over a low heat will give you Peppers that melt in the mouth and are amazing  in all kinds of salads and of course pasta. Try dicing one up and frying it slowly with an Onion in plenty of Olive Oil until it becomes completely soft and almost mushy. Throw in a few cloves of Garlic towards the end (earlier and it’ll burn) then serve with pasta and plenty of grated Parmesan or Pecorino Cheese. A little Chilli will always taste good in this kind of dish as will some Black Olives and finely chopped Parsley.

If you don’t want to fry, roasting your Pepper will give you the same kind of texture and a little more flavour to boot. Simply stick it in the oven (Gas mark 6) for about 25 minutes or until the skin has completely wrinkled. After it comes out of the oven the trick is to put it in a plastic bag where the steam produced will help lift the skin off the flesh. Allow the Pepper to cool down in the bag then take it out, carefully cut it in half and remove the seeds inside, peel off the skin then either slice or dice it up. The environment will not thank you for turning on the oven to roast one Pepper so I usually roast mine on the cooker top over a gas flame. To do this, simply sit the Pepper on top of the burner and allow the skin to completely char on one side before moving it around to char the other side. When the whole thing is completely black (about 15-20 minutes) remove it and do the plastic bag thing as I’ve described. Getting the skin off will be messier but the payback is that the flesh takes on a gorgeous smokey flavour.

Peppers cooked this way are good enough to eat on their own with a dressing of Oil and Vinegar (a little crushed garlic will give it bite if you fancy something like that) but it is really  superb with Cous Cous and this recipe keeps really well so if you’ve any leftovers it’s perfect for lunch the next day…

Cous cous and roasted red pepper salad

Toasted Cous Cous salad with Roasted Red Peppers, Feta, Toasted Pine nuts and Rocket

You’ll need:

1 Cup Cous Cous

1 Roasted Red Pepper (see above)

150gr Feta

2 Handfuls Rocket or 1 of Flatleaf Parsley or basil  if you prefer

3 Tablespoons Pine Nuts

Olive Oil

Balsamic Vinegar

Prepare the Cous Cous by toasting it on a dry frying pan over a medium heat. When  it starts to turn golden brown turn down the heat and add a cup and a bit of hot water. Stir furiously until the Cous Cous grains have absorbed all the water and doubled in size, add a generous glug of Olive Oil then turn off the heat. While the Cous Cous cools down, toast the Pine Nuts on a dry pan until golden,  dice the Red Pepper then mix both through the Cous Cous along with the Rocket or Parsley. Crumble the Feta and throw it in then dress the lot with Balsamic, Olive Oil, Salt and Pepper to taste.

This week you have  a Round Courgette in your bag. The idea was to give you 2 equal-sized specimens which you could stuff (I know, a bit seventies but  in a good way!!) and wow your friends and family with. But alas, with organics things don’t always pan out as planned (dammit!). Left to their own devices, vegetables  grow at different rates to (wildly) different sizes so most of you have one Courgette that should be big enough to share for a lunch if you put it with salad and bread. Shirley Conran famously said that life was too short to stuff a mushroom and I’m sure she would have felt the same about a Courgette. If you agree, chop it up and treat it as you would any other courgette (that’ll teach it not to grow to our exact requirements!). Last night I kept it pretty simple and used this week’s Cous Cous salad minus the Rocket as a stuffing. To liven things up I added a little Cumin Seed but that was it and there was enough salad left over for lunch today.

Stuffed Courgette with Cous Cous, Roasted Red Pepper, Pine nuts and Feta.

You’ll need:

Some of the Cous Cous salad from above without the Rocket as it doesn’t cook well but with some chopped flatleaf Parsley if you have it. The quantity will depend on how big you Courgette is – sorry!!

A round Courgette

1 Teaspoon Cumin Seeds

Prepare the Cous Cous filling as described above leaving out the Rocket and adding some chopped Parsley if you have it. Cut the top off the Courgette to make a “lid”  (about an inch from the top should do it). To hollow out the Courgette  cut round the inside about 1/2 inch from the skin then scoop out the flesh with a spoon. Chop this up then cook over a medium heat in Olive Oil along with the Cumin Seeds until the Courgette has reduced to about a quarter of what it was. Add enough Cous Cous mix to fill the Courgette, stick the lid on and bake for about 40 minutes. Serve hot or warm with a salad.

Our mediterranean and fruit selections have Figs this week which, as you probably know, are a real end of summer treat. Eat them straight up or get all fancy and make the classic Parma Ham, Goat’s (or fresh) cheese salad on a bed of this week’s Rocket. Drizzle the lot with honey and a little Olive Oil. If you’re making the roast Courgette recipe stick the Figs in the oven for 2 0r 3 minutes to really bring up their flavour before you put the salad together. Yum!!!

Finally, this week’s spuds are the Charlotte variety brought to us by Denis and Duncan Healy. I opted for them because they were just so fresh this week having only been dug out of the ground on Wednesday. We’ll go back to the Sharpe’s Express variety we’ve been enjoying over the past while (thanks for all the lovely comments about them by the way) next week.

Enjoy the recipes,

Have a great weekend,

Sarah