Roasted artichokes, potatoes with lemon and coriander

As you know I dug a load of jerusalem artichokes from my plot this weekend, about 2kg. Now we have to eat them. I for one am not looking forward to the after effects. You know why? Flatulence!

Anyway, onto cooking - I remember watching Neneh and Andi Dish up were they made a Nigel Slater recipe that included lemons with jerusalem artichokes. I could not find the recipe. So I decided to experiment with the same combination, but with a few added extra ingredients. The result was actually quite good. I call it Roasted artichokes, potatoes with lemons and coriander.
Serves 2 - 4
Ingredients
2 tablespoons of olive oil
250g desiree or other roasting type of potato, peeled and cut into wedges
250g Jerusalem artichokes, peeled and sliced length way in half
6 cloves of garlic, kept in its skin
Salt and pepper to taste
1 unwaxed lemon, sliced into rounds
40g black olives, pitted and cut in half
4 tablespoons of coriander, roughly chopped

Method
Preheat oven to gas mark 6

Put the potatoes in a large roasting oven dish with the olive oil and bake for 20 minutes.

Then add artichokes, lemon, garlic, salt and pepper and mix well. Return to the oven for 20 minutes. Be careful not to overcook the artichokes as they will disintegrate.

After 20 minutes, add the black olive halves, mix and bake for a further 10 minutes.

Remove from the oven and stir in chopped coriander. Serve.

I don't know what would have been a good accompaniment with the dish, as we ate them as is. Not bad at all.

Snowballs, snow flakes and a surprise

The snowfall although beautiful to watch when your in the warmth of your home, or if your a child, but it is not so fairytale like when you have to drive or walk to and from work in it. Chilly.

Anyway, I am so pleased that I went over the allotment yesterday and got some good work done. Here are a couple of photos from the plot yesterday and a surprise for you. Keep reading.
My daffodil seedlings coming up. Oh I wish I had planted some at home.

Last of the dwarf curly kale -now all gone.

Great colour! Winter roast vegetables: parsnips, swede, carrots, potatoes, leeks and garlic. This was simple and really good.

I have so much winter harvest at home: parsnip, beetroot, jerusalem artichokes, kale and leeks that I seriously have to think how to cook them creatively, especially the million of sprouts. Otherwise they will just go limp and long for the compost bin, and I cannot have that. What kind of grower would I be?

Okay the surprise - yesterday I forgot to upload this film D made of my allotment plot, so here it is. It took ages, ages, ages to download (over an hour!). So please sit back and enjoy!

It has changed a bit since filming, the netting is all gone and those plots have been dug over by yours truly.

Not pork pies, but veggie pies

What a long day its been.
All morning at the allotment - no one there but me and D. Quietly we worked away.

I harvested the last of the curly kale and all of the sprouts - many of which had blown.

I harvested the last few parsnips and beetroot. The celeriac did not do too well. After harvesting and clearing the plants, many of which went into compost bin. I began digging.

Busy digging the root plot, digging the kale plot, digging the sprout plot.

More digging...Until it was time to go home.

I love sprouts - No I don't.

What am I going to do with so many sprouts?

Most of the afternoon, I cooked away.

I decided on making these veggie pies, that I've dubbed as not 'pork' but 'snork pies', maybe even 'vork pies'. Whatever you choose to call them, its something that takes time to do, so make sure you have the phone off the hook when you begin the pastry process, you don't want someone disturbing you while your moulding the pastry with your fingers into the muffin tins, a process that is quite fiddly and took me a while to perfect.

I often make a batch of these pies with variation on the vegetables and freeze them for the coming working week meals. 

The recipe was inspired by the Vegetarian Society's spinach, corn and nut raised pie from The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook.

This is the vegetable fat I use for the pie crust.

You will also need two muffin tins or use two 7 inch cake tins. If cooking in 7 inch cake tin, it will take about 40 to 50 minutes to cook. Or you can half the recipe to make 8 individual pies or on 7 inch pie.

Not Pork Pies

Makes 16

Ingredients

For the filling
1 onion, finely sliced
375g Brussels sprouts, sliced into 3 to 4 pieces.

125g carrots, grated

2 tablespoons of sunflower oil
150g Brazil nuts, ground

100g wholemeal breadcrumbs

1 tablespoon tamari or soy sauce

280ml vegetable stock made with 1 teaspoon with bouillon powder

salt and pepper to taste

Hot Water Pastry

650g plain flour

2 teaspoon baking powder

200g vegetable fat - I use Trex

350ml water

1 whisked egg to brush over pastry or use olive oil to keep it vegan

Method

Fry onion in the oil until soft and golden, add the sliced sprouts and cook until cooked through, but with a little bite. Add grated carrots and thoroughly mix. Leave to cool.

Mix together all the remaining dry ingredients for the pie filling, add the tamari or soy sauce and sufficient stock to combine with the sprouts and carrots till it is moistened through.

Salt and pepper to taste

For the hot water pastry, mix together the dry ingredients.

Melt the fat in the water and heat until about to boil.
Add the liquid to the flour and stir with a wooden spoon until a dough is formed.

Now you have to work very quickly with your hands, as the dough will get cold and be tough to work with.

With your fingers mould a ball of pastry into the shape of the individual muffin holes leaving a bit of the pasty overlapping over, but not too much.

Then fill with the cooled filling, press in well.

Roll out the remaining dough, and using a cookie cutter about the size of the muffin hole, cut out required number of lids.

Place over the pastry filling tops, push over the overlapped pastry and gently fork so seal the casing.

Brush with egg wash or oil and make a small steam hole in each pie.

Bake in preheated oven Gas mark 7 for 20 to 25 minutes till golden.

Allow to cool before freezing.

To cook from frozen, cover in foil and bake in oven for 25 minutes gas mark 5.

These pies are very rich and flavoursome. They are good served with roast potatoes.

I will cut one open next week, so you can see what they look like on the inside. Promise.