Corner Shop Spanakopita, one of my December Cottage Cooking Club choices from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage VEG cookbook.
If you’re of my mindset, you may wish to take a deep-breath, settle yourself and enjoy a time-out. For five or ten minutes, at least. Even the best holidays ever can tax the jolliest among us. That’s why my last blog post of the year is a recipe-of-relief. Ready for a break from richness, sugar and sweets, calorie-laden fare and stuffing yourself? Add this easily-made entrée to your menu plan for this coming week.
Happy New Year from Me to You.
Corner Shop Spanakopita is a recipe from Englishman’s Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s’ River Cottage VEG cookbook. Every month the Cottage Cooking Club, an international circle of Hugh-groupies, choose ten recipes to share with our readers. While I cooked several vegetable dishes this month, I am posting only one because I really, really (the word fervently works here) want you to try this.
Spanakopita is a classic Greek speciality and featured in my favorite chapter of River Cottage VEG entitled Comfort Food & Feasts. It’s spinach & feta pie. Hugh was challenged by friends to simplify this recipe, using only ingredients available from the average convenience store without losing any of its taste or flavor.
To loosely paraphrase fellow Brit, Eliza Doolittle,“I think he’s got it”. Corner Shop Spanakopita has a clean, pure taste. Peculiar adjectives for an entrée, huh, but that’s what comes to mind. Served with a crispy green salad or fruit bowl, this is a perfect respite from holiday overkill.
Because this recipe is already posted on the Internet, I can provide it to you.
Corner Shop Spanakopita
River Cottage VEG cookbook by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
Serves 4
INGREDIENTS
1 (2-pound) bag frozen whole-leaf spinach
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon cumin, fennel, or caraway seeds (whichever is handy)
1 large onion, halved and thinly sliced
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme or a few sprigs of fresh thyme, leaves only, chopped
A squeeze of lemon juice
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
3 1/2 ounces soft goat cheese or feta, broken into small chunks
1/4 cup pine nuts, toasted (or coarsely chopped cashews)
13 ounces all-butter, ready-made puff pastry (ideally ready-rolled)
METHODS
1. Preheat the oven to 400 F.
2. Put the frozen spinach into a saucepan with a splash of water. Cover and heat gently stirring from time to time, until completely defrosted. Tip into a colander or sieve to drain off all water, pressing with a wooden spoon to help it along.
3. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Add the spice seeds and let them cook for a minute or two, shaking the pan frequently, then add the onion and sauté for 5 to 10 minutes, or until soft and golden. Add the thyme. Remove from the heat.
4. When the spinach has cooled a little, squeeze as much liquid out of it as you can with your hands, then chop it coarsely. Combine it with the onion, along with a squeeze of lemon juice and plenty of salt and pepper. Set aside 2 to 3 tablespoons from the beaten eggs for the glazing and stir the remainder into the spinach and onion mixture.
5. Spoon half the spinach mixture into an 8 by 10-inch or a 9 by 9-inch ovenproof dish. Scatter over the cheese and toasted pine nuts, then top with the remaining spinach. Brush a little of the reserved beaten egg around the rim of the dish.
6. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the pastry to a thickness of about 1/4 inch if it’s not already rolled. Lay the pastry over the dish and trim off the excess overhanging the rim. Press down the edge of the pastry so that it sticks to the rim of the dish. Brush the pie with the reserved beaten egg and bake it for about 25 minutes until the pastry is puffed and golden brown.
Serve immediately.
Happy Holidays from Glory Hole in Aspen, near the base of Ajax Mountain. Hoping you get all your ducks in a row to welcome in the New Year.
The Cottage Cooking Club is a virtual international group cooking its way through Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s excellent River Cottage VEG cookbook. Please join us in our adventure if you wish. To see what delicious fare my colleagues created this month, go here.
Baby Beet Tarte Tatin from River Cottage Veg, authored by Hugh Fearnley-Whitingstall, an October Cottage Cooking Club recipe choice.
By no stretch of the imagination would you call me a Vegetarian. My granddaughter, yes. Close friends, you bet. But, me, absolutely not. That’s why it’s surprising that lately Deborah Madison, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Yotam Ottolenghi and I have become best buddies. I’m in awe of these three cookbook authors whose recently published cookbooks make vegetables sexy.
River Cottage Veg, 200 inspired vegetable recipes, by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
For the past 6 months, since joining Cottage Cooking Club, I’ve been exploring Whittingstall’s River Cottage Veg, 200 inspired vegetable recipes. This month I baked his scrumptious Pumpkin & Raisin Tea Loaf (no butter, no oil) and Baby Beet Tarte Tatin. Both recipes were unique, compelling, flavorful and dinner guest-worthy. Visit my October 7th Post, devoted to his Tea Loafhere. Find the recipe here.
Pumpkin & Raisin Tea Loaf
Tarte Tatin is a classic, of course, if you use apples. With beets? Not so classic. “But,” as HF-W writes, “the principle of caramelizing some delicious round sweet things, topping them with puff pastry, then flipping upside down, works equally well in the savory interpretation.”
Baby Beet Tarte Tatin
I simplified the preparation by purchasing vacuum-packed, ready-to-eat baby beets. My puff pastry of choice is DuFour Pastry Kitchens, available in grocery stores. Basically, halve the beets, caramelizing them and then fitting snugly into an 8-inch ovenproof container. Having already cut out a puff pastry disk to fit the dish, place it over the beets, patting firmly and tucking its edges down the pan’s side. After 20 minutes in the oven, the pastry should be a puffy, golden brown. Cool for 15 minutes before inverting it carefully onto the serving plate. Top with the vinaigrette (recipe included) or crumbled feta cheese. Serve immediately.
Spicy Chickpea & Bulgar Soup from Plenty More, a cookbook authored by Yotam Ottolenghi
Baby Beet Tarte Tatin is an excellent appetizer, first course, entrée side or, as I found, delicious lunch. I enjoyed this with a bowl of Ottolenghi’s Spicy Chickpea & Bulgar Soup, a recipe from Plenty More, his latest cookbook published this month. What I love about Ottolenghi is his no-holds-barred attitude regarding ingredients. There’s a whole vegetable world out there with its accompanying flavorings and spices that I’ve never met.
Plenty More, Yotam Ottolenghi’s latest cookbook
For this soup I did have the spices on hand, cumin, coriander and caraway seeds. Garlic, onions, carrots and celery added flavor and crunch. Bulgar wheat was a first time-ingredient for me but Bob’s Red Mill brand carries all kinds of Natural Foods, Mixes and Flours in our grocery stores. Harissa Paste, I knew about but had never used. My advice? Perhaps, less heat? Use 1 TBSP instead of 2 TBSP. For stock, vegetable, chicken or water work equally well. Instead of the Creamed Feta Paste garnish, I cut calories and just sprinkled feta chunks on the top. This soup is goodness.
Spicy Chickpea & Bulgar Soup topped with Feta Chunks
Deborah Madison waded deeply into the veggie business in 1997 with the publication of Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, a James Beard Foundation Book Award winner, and, now, a classic. But it’s her recently published Vegetable Literacy, a celebration of the plant kingdom’s diversity, which has been captivating. Nostalgic moment, my mother often cooked with rutabagas. When the Indian Summer fades and our snow falls turn serious, I’m all over her Rutabaga and Apple Bisque and Winter Stew of Braised Rutabagas with Carrots, Potatoes and Parsley Sauce.
Quite often, when I finish a three or four-hour hike, my reward is to stop by the Woody Creek Tavern, an old Hunter Thompson hangout, and have a burger, fries and beer. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. However, a journey down the veggie highway created by these three masterful chefs is well worth my time and effort also. Having it all is a good thing.
The Cottage Cooking Club is a virtual international group cooking its way through Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s excellent River Cottage VEG cookbook. Please join us in our adventure if you wish. To see what delicious fare my colleagues created this month, go here.
Here’s another delicious recipe from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage Veg cookbook. I now have embraced this book of 200 inventive vegetable recipes as my own best idea. Truthfully, Andrea Mohr, a foodie in Bonn, Germany who blogs as The Kitchen Lioness, inspired me and others to join The Cottage Cooking Club and cook through this book together. In the spirit of full disclosure, my colleagues and I asked nicely, then pleaded and finally begged Andrea to mastermind and administer this group. She caved. (We love her.)
Among our October recipe choices is his Pumpkin & Raisin Tea Loaf which he describes as ‘rich and sweet, but also quite light because it doesn’t contain any butter or oil.’ Call me a skeptic but I’m an always-add-more-butter girl so this was a must-bake recipe. This was also an excellent opportunity to walk you, dear readers, through my blogging process.
Have you ever wondered, “How does Mary make this happen every week?” Why, thank you for asking. Whether a success or failure, let’s make this bread together. Here we go…..
Its thick batter is ready for the oven.
For me, there are six steps in the food blogging process:
1. Choose (or, create) a recipe. Source and gather the ingredients.
2. Make it.
3. Photograph it.
4. Serve it. Share it. Eat it.
5. Compose Post.
6. Go live on Lights on Bright No Brakes.
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Choose, Source and Gather
After choosing a recipe (Pumpkin & Raisin Tea Loaf), I first gather ingredients already on hand and list those that are not. Luckily I already had eggs, lemons, ground almond meal, sea salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Before buying those additional (and, sometimes pricey) remaining items, I consider substituting ingredients and making do with what I have in my pantry/fridge. Instead of 1 cup of Muscovado sugar, an unrefined brown sugar with a strong molasses content and flavor, Google claims I can use plain brown sugar. To convert Hungarian High Altitude Flour which I use for baking, into self-rising flour, I know to add 1 1/2 ts of baking powder and 1/2 ts of salt per cup. (I live in Colorado at 8000’ altitude.) Since I was out of raisins, I substituted dried cherries. This recipe calls for finely grated raw pumpkin or squash flesh. The only item I needed to buy was a can of Libby’s pure Pumpkin Purée. Cost – 10 cents!
Make It
After the ingredients are “in house”, I carefully re-read through the entire recipe 2 or 3 times. For this tea loaf, I pulled out my electric mixer, two bowls, preheated the oven and greased the proper-sized loaf pan. There was nothing very complicated to pulling this recipe together. Since I was folding stiffly beaten egg whites into a thick batter, I needed to lighten the batter, a technique often required in baking.
After an hour in a 375 degree oven, this bread needs to cool down.
Smile for the Camera
Throughout the baking process, I look for photo ops. Not claiming to be Ansel Adams nor a threat to Annie Liebovitz, I still like to include 5 or 6 photos in each Post. Hopefully my camera skills have improved during the past three years but I’m still clearly an amateur.
Serve It. Share It. Eat It.
This has been challenging since I cook for One. Food is expensive. With hunger being a worldwide issue, who can tolerate waste? My freezer capability is limited. Luckily, except when traveling, I seldom eat in restaurants. Over time I’ve learned to successfully halve and third recipes, tinkering with ratios and proportions. When possible, my Posts are planned around social/food events. Happily, the employees here at The Gant, where I live, are skilled (and, grateful) taste-testers. I shared this Pumpkin & Raisin Tea Loaf with the off-season crew (They liked.) No food goes uneaten.
Before slicing and, only if you wish, sprinkle with powdered sugar. It’s actually rich and sweet enough without the ps.
Compose Post.
Since I’ve spent more time in the newsroom than the kitchen, writing the Post is my favorite part of this adventure. Just love to write. Besides blogging about my chosen recipe, I also weave an anecdote through the piece, highlighting an event, experience, story or thought. To my mind and because I am not a food star like most of my colleagues, entertaining my readers through words is important. It takes 6 to 8 hours to write each Post. (Yeah, it does.)
Go Live on Lights on Bright No Brakes.
#%&@%#
The Good News: Maintaining a food blog requires technical skills, social media expertise and staying current.
The Bad News: Maintaining a food blog requires technical skills, social media expertise and staying current.
Every time I put up a new Post, it’s a challenge. My tech expert, Zoe Zuker, who redesigned my site, has tried to make every posting step a simple task. However, her simple is not my simple. She was born knowing these things. I was not. Patience is a virtue and she has big-time patience. When Go Daddy shut down my site two weeks ago – they still have not explained themselves – it was Zoe who spent 7 hours correcting that debacle. Every time I successfully link a new Post to my social media homes – Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram, it’s a miracle moment.
You’ve just caught a glimpse of my food blogging life. Knowing you dear readers as I do, I suspect your reaction to this Post is WHY? Why do I do this? I will answer that question on my French Fridays with Dorie Post this week. Incidentally, the Pumpkin & Raisin Tea Loaf was tagged delicious by my tasting crew. Interested in low-fat but tasty? Find the recipe here.
Fish-Free Salad Niçoise, a recipe in River Cottage Veg, written by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
This week we celebrated the autumnal equinox in the northern hemisphere. Folks, it’s fall. I’ve never picked a favorite season. Love them all…….Retreat (winter), Rebirth (spring), Relax (summer) and Regroup (fall). Autumn, to me, is about lists, to-dos, projects, planning and catch-ups. Simply put, it’s getting your ducks-in-a-row.
Today I’m posting three ya-gotta-try recipes from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage Veg cookbook. I’m a bit tardy because my Cottage Cooking Club colleagues chose these recipes for August and September. Missed the August deadline but in under the wire for September. Here’s a bonanza, a trifecta of delicious menu suggestions. Since these recipes are already published on the Internet, I can share them with you.
Duck eggs are larger than those laid by chickens. Their shells are various pastel colors.
I’m a fan. Just love Salad Niçoise. That’s why this salad, Fish-Free Salad Niçoise, works. No matter what’s on the menu, you can still enjoy its flavor but without the tuna and anchovies. What might be blasphemy to the French is still darn spectacular and was the perfect foil to roasted shrimp. Last week I traded Sunday supper for technical assistance from my computer guru, Zoe Zuker. One might say, shrimp, this salad, crusty herb-buttered bread and a bottle of Peachy Canyon’s Zinfandel solved all my technical glitches.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I will now admit to using duck eggs in this salad. Since discovering the gorgeous eggs at our farmers market this summer, I’ve become a fan. No, no, no, these beauties are not from your run-of-the-mill Mallards but rather from domesticated Pekin and Welsh Harlequin Ducks. I didn’t know if Zoe would be squeamish about this so I didn’t dish about the ducks. Since my computer is now humming along, I am baring my soul.
Hard-boiled Duck Eggs
Fish-Free Salad Niçoise
Serves 4
Ingredients:
1 pound new potatoes
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
7 ounces green beans, cut into roughly 1-inch lengths
4 large eggs, at room temperature
2 or 3 Little Gem or similar lettuces
A handful of small Niçoise olives (Cailletier)
About 12 large basil leaves, torn (or use small ones whole)
Dressing:
1/2 small garlic clove, crushed with a little coarse sea salt
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
A pinch of sugar Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1. You can cook small new potatoes whole, but cut larger ones in half or smaller so the pieces are all roughly the same size. Put the potatoes in a saucepan, cover with cold water, add salt, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 8 to 12 minutes until tender, adding the beans for the last 4 minutes of cooking. Drain, tip into a bowl, and leave to cool.
2. To cook the eggs, bring a saucepan of water to a boil. Add the eggs, return to a simmer, then cook for 7 minutes. Remove the eggs from the pan, lightly crack the shells, and run the eggs under cold water for a minute or two to stop the cooking. Leave to cool, then peel and quarter the eggs.
3.To make the dressing, put the garlic, oil, vinegar, mustard, and sugar into a screw-top jar, season with salt and pepper, and shake until emulsified.
4. Halve, quarter, or thickly slice the cooked potatoes. Put them back with the beans, add some of the dressing, and toss together gently.
5. Separate the lettuce leaves and gently toss in a bowl with a little of the dressing. Arrange the lettuce, potatoes, and beans on a serving platter and distribute the olives and eggs over the salad. Scatter with the torn basil, trickle over the remaining dressing, and grind over some pepper. Serve.
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Pasta with Fennel, Arugula and Lemon
If you delight in the faint flavoring of licorice, you’ll love Hugh’s unique Pasta with Fennel, Arugula and Lemon. Quickly thrown together, it’s easily made and even more easily enjoyed.
This ribboned pasta was glorious. Buy the best-quality pasta you can find.
Mix together the sliced fennel and sliced garlic and sauté for ten minutes.
Pasta with Fennel, Arugula and Lemon
Serves 2
Ingredients:
1 large fennel bulb
1 tablespoon canola or olive oil
1 garlic clove, slivered
5 ounces pappardelle, or other pasta
2 or 3 good handfuls of arugula
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon
3 tablespoons crème fraîche
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Parmesan, hard goat cheese, or other well-flavored hard cheese.
1. Put a large saucepan of well-salted water on to boil so that you’re ready to cook the pasta while the sauce is coming together.
2. Trim the fennel, removing the tougher outer layer or two, then slice thinly. Heat the oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add the garlic and fennel and sauté gently for about 10 minutes, until the fennel is tender.When the fennel is almost cooked, add the pasta to the pan of boiling water and cook until al dente.
Add the arugula to the fennel and stir until wilted, then add the lemon zest and crème fraîche. Stir well until the crème fraîche coats all the vegetables, then add salt and pepper to taste.
3. Drain the pasta well, toss with the fennel mixture, and serve right away, with grated cheese.
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White Beans with Artichokes
What is best about my last recipe, White Beans with Artichokes, is that I always have these ingredients on hand. This could be lunch, a side for dinner, a filling and nutritious snack or a tasty addition to a buffet table or potluck gathering. Link to the recipe here.
Mise En Place – Here’s what you need for this recipe.
Heating the garlic, artichokes and, eventually, the beans.
The Country Cottage Club is am international group which is cooking it’s way through Hugh Fearnlet-Whittingstall’s River Cottage Veg cookbook. To see more of Hugh’s recipes, link to his Pinterest page here. If you are interested in joining our adventure, go here.
In the spirit of full disclosure, this month’s Cottage Cooking Club post will make you weep. In fact, it’s a two-weeper. Since I’m not the sort to hold back, suffer in silence, I feel inclined to share the pain.
PANZANELLA, recipe by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, River Cottage Veg
Cottage Cooking Club is a group devoted to eating our vegetables. With able assistance from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage Veg cookbook, we are discovering unique and more creative ways to put nutrition on our tables. Every month our leader, Andrea, an award-winning blogger atThe Kitchen Lioness, sends ten recipes for our consideration. We then make our choices.
Knowing July would be a busy month, I picked two classics: Panzanella (recipe here) and Eggplant Parmigiana (recipe here). Panzanella, a Tuscan bread salad, is considered an Italian national treasure. The late, Italian cooking legend Marcella Hazan described it best. “Throughout Central Italy, from Florence to Rome, the most satisfying of salads is based on that old standby of the ingenious poor, bread and water. Given the right bread – a gutsy, country bread such as that of Tuscany or Abruzzi -,” Hazan continued, “ there is no change that one can bring to the traditional version that can improve it.”
Unfortunately, like most classic dishes, every cook has a tweak or two. Link to the Pinterest site, type in Panzanella and, mamma mia, you’ll find 60 different bread salads. Gingerbread? Brussels Sprouts? Amaranth? Seriously? While Whittingstall’s version doesn’t venture too far off the rails, I was intrigued by his tomatoey dressing followed by his technique to moisten the bread. No water for this guy.
My friend, Donna Grauer, asked me to Theatre Aspen’s Little Women production (husband, Bernie, was a no-go for LW). Wouldn’t a light supper, a little wine, be a gracious before-the-theatre touch? The Grauers are card-carrying Italianophiles so Donna, unlike me, knew her Panzanellas. We found this bread salad flavorful and refreshingly light. If needing to satisfy bigger appetites, we agreed that protein, an entrée, is needed.
This is what a Before-the-Theatre soirée looks like in the mountains.
We all are familiar with Louisa Mae Alcott’s Little Women. Right? The theatre production, a musical, Jo, Beth, Meg and Amy, was wonderful. At Intermission, Donna handed me a wad of Kleenex, “Here, you’ll need this,” she said.
And, we did. I’ve read this novel many times. It’s a story. I know Beth dies. I’ve known that for more than 55 years. And, yet, when Beth died in the play, we could hear the sniffles, see the tears, throughout the theatre. My first weep.
EGGPLANT PARMIGIANA, coming out of the oven
If you return to Pinterest and do a Eggplant Parmigiana-search, you will again find 60 different recipes but very few variables. Eggplants. Tomatoes. Cheese. Quell è tutto. The techniques are similar. No one crawls too far out on that limb. Whittingstall’s recipe is easily put together and very, very good … I think.
This is where the second weep begins. I made this dish late Wednesday afternoon in anticipation of my daughter’s visit. It’s a 14-hour drive from California and Melissa would arrive Thursday evening, weary and hungry. My welcome-to-Aspen dinner would be the requested greens salad, Filet Mignon, (cooked John Lester-style) and fresh green beans. The Eggplant Parmigiana would be a Mom-addition to dazzle and impress.
That’s three small bites for me………
This is what went down. I pulled the EP out of the oven, took two or three bites, pleased with the result. After taking photos, I set the dish on the counter to cool and cleaned up the kitchen. The evening passed quickly with last-minute chores. Then, to bed. The next morning I discovered the EP sitting on the counter, cooling! Since I had already once poisoned my son-in-law with an unrefrigerated leftover corn dog, I decided against going 2-for-2. I’m still hearing “Do you remember when Gramma poisoned Dad?” at family gatherings. With a very heavy heart, I tossed it. Second weep.
Melissa and I walked through the breathtakingly beautiful John Denver Sanctuary. She will only know about the Eggplant Parmigiana if she reads this post. I do have my pride.
You can find this post’s recipes here and here. I suspect my colleagues chose to make other great recipes this month. Visit them at our CCC site.
One-half pound of halved cherry tomatoes are headed for roasting.
It’s month two of our online cooking group, Cottage Cooking Club. Created by my friend, Andrea, The Kitchen Lioness, we are slicing, dicing and chopping our way through Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s “River Cottage Veg“ cookbook. I’m slinking quietly onto this page today because I’m late and missed last month’s posting deadline. Can we all just pretend it’s still June? Please?
Stuff on Toast
Lateness. Being tardy. Running in, harried and breathless, is something I’ve always tried to avoid. It seems to me that being constantly late – in thought, word and deed – translates into thinking your time is more valuable than those who are left waiting. I’ve apologized to our leader, who is attempting to manage our unruly gang of bloggers. Luckily for me, Andrea, who is German, is distracted these days by her nation’s soccer team face-offs. (Her team is hanging tough. Today Germany meets Brazil in the semifinals.)
In June I made two “keepers” from this very user-friendly book: Honey-roasted Cherry Tomatoes and Frittata with Summer Veg and Goat Cheese.
Let’s first talk tomatoes. I cut 1/2 pound of the little darlin’s in half and laid them, face down, on a lightly oiled roasting pan. Then I crushed two garlic cloves, added a pinch of salt, and stirred this mixture into a bowl with one tablespoon of Manuka honey and three tablespoons of Pasolivo Olive Oil. After seasoning with freshly-ground pepper and Pensey’s Sunny Paris seasoning, I spooned the sticky goo over the tomatoes. Roast this in a 375-degree oven for thirty minutes or until the tomatoes are shriveled, juicy and bubbly.
Frittata with Summer Veg and Goat Cheese
Truth in Cooking: After rereading the recipe and before placing the pan into my oven, I realized the tiny tomatoes should be placed cut side up rather than face down. Logical, right? So, one by one, I flipped those babies, putting them to right. To be truthful, the picture of the face down tomatoes was so beautiful, I had to post it. Readers, look at it but don’t do it tomato-face down.
My Calphalon Fritatta pans
Serve these Honey-roasted Cherry Tomatoes over pasta, risotto or scrambled eggs. Like Tomatoes Provençal, they are a delicious side dish for meat, fish, or a compliment to other roasted or grilled vegetables. My favorite lunch idea is the bruschetta, served with whatever else is on hand.
A frittata mixture of new potatoes, asparagus, peas, broccoli and green onions.
For Christmas, one year, my neighbors, Dominick and Ray, gave me a frittata pan. From that day forward, I became a frittata freak. A June recipe choice – Frittata with Summer Veg and Goat Cheese – caught my eye. Bring it on…asparagus, broccoli, peas, green onions and potatoes. After bringing the potatoes to a boil, throw in the rest of the green veggies and simmer for 3-4 minutes. Sweat the green onions in olive oil until soft, about five minutes, and add to the drained veg mixture. Using fresh eggs, seasoned with salt and pepper, gently make the frittata, your way, adding goat cheese for the last 5 minutes. I topped my frittata slices with my homemade guacamole.
Guacamole was a delicious topping for the sliced frittata servings.
For copyright reasons and because we encourage you to purchase River Cottage Veg, we do not publish the recipes. However, if you’d like to try my three recipes and need more instructions/ingredient specifications, just email me. The Kitchen Lioness, our amazing Andrea, made seven of our June recipe choices. To see her fabulous Post on June’s choices, go here. To see what my colleagues cooked in June, go here.
