Roasted turnips with turnip greens

Another delivery from Alvin, another vegetable I rarely buy. This time a bunch of cute little white turnips, doing their best to disguise themselves as ping pong balls to escape being cooked. I didn't have much idea what to do with them, so decided to roast the turnips and saute the greens, with plenty of garlic and rosemary, then see how it all went together.

1 bunch of small white turnips, greens and roots separated
5 cloves garlic
olive oil
water
salt and pepper
small bunch of rosemary
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

Heat oven to 350F. Wash the roots, top and tail them, chop into wedges (or leave whole, depending on the size), and arrange in a baking dish.  Add 3 whole garlic cloves (unpeeled) and 4 sprigs of rosemary. Pour over about 1 tbsp olive oil and 1 tbsp water, season and put in the oven for 30-40 minutes until the turnips are soft and savoury.

Meanwhile, wash and roughly chop the greens, and peel and chop the remaining garlic. Heat 1/2 tbsp olive oil in a frying pan and saute the garlic until just starting to brown. Add the greens, cover, and saute until wilted. Season.

When the turnip roots are done, remove them from the oven and add the balsamic vinegar to the pan, tossing to deglaze. Remove the skins from the garlic and any twiggy bits of the rosemary. Allow to cool, then toss together with the greens, checking for seasoning and oil / vinegar.


The greens were surprisingly good: very tender and tasty, slightly peppery. The turnip roots I may have overcooked a little, as I mixed them with some beetroot that might have needed a bit longer. Came out tasting fine, just a bit squishy. I tasted some turnip root raw and it was very good - kohlrabi-like crunch and juiciness and colour - would perhaps have made a good salad, lightly pickled / with coriander and chilli.

Chanterelles and hedgehog mushrooms

We went to the woods at the weekend, and found so so many mushrooms. Starting with some slimy boletes as soon as we left the car park, and moving on to add chanterelle after chanterelle as soon as we left the path, followed by what we think were two varieties of hedgehog mushroom (wish I had a better picture of these).

By the time we got back to the car we had a weighty bag of hedgehogs, plus two bulging bags of delicate chanterelles. D had collected and eaten both from the same spot before, so we had little doubt about their identification and awesomeness. This haul outstrips any other mushroom hunting trip I ever made, many times over.

We mainly consulted this book, which is wonderful. The author is incredibly knowledgeable and it's bursting with personality and tips about every aspect of mushroom hunting, preparation, growing and eating. All the recommended mushroom varieties are given scores at the back for how good they are when prepared to eat in different ways. Hedgehogs scored highly for tempura, so we decided to burden K with the responsibility of her heritage and put her in charge of hedgehog tempura, while D+S concentrated on cleaning mushrooms with a paintbrush and I sauteed some chanterelles (they scored high in the saute category). We also set up the dehydrator to dry out some of both kinds of mushrooms for future use.


Sauteed chanterelles

1 tbsp olive oil
4 large handfuls fresh chanterelles, larger ones torn in two
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1/2 tbsp thyme leaves
1 tbsp finely chopped curly parsley
knob of butter
slug of (German) white wine
salt+pepper

Heat the oil in a large frying pan and add the garlic. Cook until starting to brown then add in the cleaned chanterelles. Saute over a medium heat until they release their liquid, then continue to saute until they absorb it again. Add the herbs and cook for a few more minutes. Finally, add the butter and white wine and cook until melted / evaporated, and taste for seasoning.

We ate them with gnocchi, they were yummy - quite delicate and fragrant (almost fruity?).  These chanterelles are beautiful mushrooms, and really held their shape and texture despite looking so frail.

For second batch (yes, we had that many), I sauteed an onion and a couple of cloves of garlic in olive oil until well softened and golden brown, then added a mixture of hedgehogs and chanterelles, cooked until the liquid reabsorbed, then added some chopped chives and seasoning, and a knob of butter to deglaze the pan. And ate it with spaetzle (which go wonderfully well with sauteed mushrooms).  I think I liked this latter version better.


Powdered dried chanterelles / hedgehog mushrooms

The book recommended powdering both kinds of mushroom when dry as they apparently do not reconstitute well (I'd imagine they just go a bit floppy and slimy).

Fill the dehydrator with cleaned mushrooms and set to 110-125C. Leave overnight or for approx 4 hours, until the mushrooms are completely dried. The chanterelles dried out quite easily and evenly as they are quite thin and delicate all over; the hedgehogs are thicker and did not dry quite as quickly / evenly. For powdering, I think it is important that the mushrooms are very thoroughly dried. When completely dry, transfer the mushrooms to a clean spice/coffee grinder and whizz to a powder. Try not to inhale it when you take the lid off. The full dehydrator (5 trays) of chanterelles made 250ml of powder.

The smell of the powder is incredible - intense essence of mushroom - and both chanterelle and hedgehog powder smelled quite similar.  But I haven't figured out the best way to store or cook with it yet... Edit: see here for recipes so far.


Note: I think the chanterelles were mostly Craterellus tubaeformis, the winter chanterelle (fits with being late in the season), although I think we also found some Cantharellus ignicolor (flame-coloured chanterelle; think the ones in the photo above are these) and Cantharellus cinnabarinus (bright red ones). The hedgehog mushrooms were Hydnum repandum and/or Hydnum umbilicatum.

Fennel, apple and walnut salad

Another autumn salad, using more of the apples we picked the other day, plus some fennel from A's CSA and walnuts, a lovely trinity of ingredients.

1 bulb fennel, tough parts removed, good parts finely sliced
1 medium apple, washed, cored and thinly sliced
~6 walnuts, crumbled
1/2 spring onion, finely chopped
~1 tbsp fronds from the fennel, finely chopped
~1 tbsp curly parsley, finely chopped
1-2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp cider vinegar
salt+pepper

Put all the ingredients in a bowl and toss together. Taste and check for seasoning and acidity.


Very fresh, clean tastes - great to eat with something greasy. Noticeably this kept surprisingly well - the apples stayed white and crispy. The only thing I might leave out would be the fennel fronds, other than them it would still be perfect after several days in the fridge.

Butternut squash and chickpea salad with tahini sauce

Having accumulated 4 squashes (3 butternut and 1 acorn) I guess I was kind of on the lookout for new things to do with squash. I stumbled across this recipe, and it seemed to be combining a bunch of things I like / I know go well with squash, so I thought I'd give it a shot. As I assembled the ingredients and started to make it, I realised it is actually quite familiar - it's similar to the roasted squash and chickpeas I've made and liked before, with a tahini sauce that is another variation on a favourite quick sauce. Still, it's a new construction and with those credentials I'm bound to like it...

For salad:
1 medium butternut squash (about 2 to 2 ½ lb), peeled, seeded, and cut into 1 ½-inch pieces
1 medium garlic clove, finely chopped
½ tsp ground allspice (or sumac)
2 tbsp olive oil
salt
equivalent of 1 tin cooked, defrosted chickpeas
¼ of a medium red onion, finely chopped
¼ cup coarsely chopped fresh coriander

For sauce:
1 medium garlic clove, finely minced with a pinch of salt
3 ½ tbsp lemon juice (approx. juice of 1 lemon)
3 tbsp tahini
2 tbsp water
2 tbsp olive oil

Heat the oven to 425F. In a large bowl, combine the butternut squash, garlic, allspice, olive oil, and a good pinch or two of salt. Toss until the squash pieces are evenly coated. Turn them out onto a baking sheet, and bake for 25 to 45 minutes, or until soft. Remove from the oven and cool.

Meanwhile, make the tahini sauce. In a small bowl, mix together the garlic and lemon juice. Add the tahini, and mix to blend. Add the water and olive oil, mix well, and taste for seasoning.

To assemble the salad, combine the squash, chickpeas, onion, and coriander in a mixing bowl. Either toss with tahini sauce, or serve with tahini sauce on the side.


Perhaps a little more onion than I would have liked, but pretty colours and tasty.  Nothing very new but nonetheless nice, autumn-turning-colder comfort food.

Apples are everywhere: apple and ginger jam

This weekend was fall fun from beginning to end: we looked at fireworks (Bonfire Night is coming up); went for a short hike up Mt Kearsarge on a beautifully crisp, clear day scattered with red and yellow leaves; went apple picking and bought lots of squashes at Carter Hill Orchard; ate apple pie...  And we had a Harvest Festival at the garden, during which we cranked out a lot of fresh apple juice using a wonderful vintage press and ate amazing soup containing foraged maitake mushrooms and acorns. I took a few of the extra, slightly bruised apples to make some apple jam.

I used this recipe before, when I had a constant (in Autumn) supply of cooking apples from the trees around the allotments in Norwich - our plot was right at the bottom of the space, and as I walked along the track to it I always found windfalls scattered on the road and figured they were fair game - they were only going to last until the next car came along if I didn't pick them up. The jam is surprisingly good: apples are too mild in taste (and lacking in texture) for a jam by themselves, but the addition of lemon and ginger makes a wonderful, golden, spicy jam in a relatively short time.

(makes ~6 regular sized jars)

3 lb apples
600ml water
2 lemons
2 one inch pieces of fresh root ginger
1 heaped tsp ground ginger
3 lb sugar

Peel, core and chop the apples. Put the apple pieces into a large pan with the water. Put the peel and cores into a muslin bag and tie up tightly, then add the bag to the pan. Grate the lemon zest and squeeze the lemons, then add the zest and juice to the pan. Peel the fresh ginger and grate one piece into the pan. Chop the other piece of fresh ginger into two and put in the pan. Add the ground ginger. Simmer until the apples are softened. Fish out the bag and squeeze as much juice out of it as you can. Add the sugar and boil hard until setting point is reached. Allow to cool for 10 minutes, then fish out the two large chunks of ginger and spoon the jam into sterilised jars.

(see Methods page for notes on set point, jar sterilisation and jar filling)


The original recipe calls for crystallised ginger, of which I had none so decided to try using fresh ginger instead. It came out pretty good: you don't get the chunks of gingeriness you would with the crystallised ginger but the jam is still nice and gingery - each mouthful is different, depending whether you get a bit of lemon zest or more ginger or just apple. The set is firm but perfect and it is a great spreading jam as the apples are pretty much completely smoothed out.

I actually had twice this quantity of apples, but decided they would be too much jam so stewed the rest to make an apple puree / apple sauce. The apples were all eating apples - I have never yet found real cookers here - so all I did was peel, core and chop, then heat in a covered saucepan until they collapsed, without adding anything, and the sauce/puree came out amazingly sweet.

Raisin-oat-sunflower biscuits (gluten-free)

I haven't done any gluten-free baking for a while, but the oats we buy regularly from Trader Joe's are gluten free. On the back of the package is a recipe for gluten-free oat cookies that has been tempting me for a while. The opportunity presented itself with the harvest festival at the garden this afternoon (featuring my two regular GF test eaters). So here goes...

(I made half the quantity given below and it gave 15 large cookies)

1/4 cup fake butter (or 4 tbsp oil)
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp ground linseed mixed with 5 1/2 tbsp boiling water
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 cup sunflower seed butter (or peanut butter)
3 cups GF oats
6 oz raisins (or mixed dried fruit)
1/2 cup sunflower seeds

Heat oven to 350F. Cream sugars and butter/oil in a large bowl. Add linseed mixture, vanilla, bicarb and cinnamon and mix well. Add sunflower seed butter and mix. Stir in oats, raisins and sunflower seeds. Place teaspoons of the batter on a lightly greased baking sheet about 2 inches apart (they will spread a little as they bake). Bake 10-12 minutes until light brown around the edges. Let sit for 5-10 minutes to cool a bit so they firm up a little and are easier to handle, then transfer the still-warm biscuits (careful, they are quite soft and bendy at this stage) to a cooling rack. They will become firm and crunchy as they cool.


I liked these a lot. Sweet and crunchy and tasty and you would never guess they were gluten free. They don't even have any flour in them at all! Also, a good way to eat up the sunflower seed butter, which I thought I would love straight up but weirdly like much less than peanut butter - it works perfectly in these. Big thumbs up from both A and H, and from lots of other non-gluten-free diet people too... and they were all eaten, which is always a good sign.

Note: I don't really like using marg if I can help it, and it seemed a bit superfluous in this recipe, so the second time I made these I used 4 tbsp of safflower oil and it worked just fine. Actually the batter was a lot less sticky than the first time I made them, although whether that was something to do with ambient temperature or a different sunflower butter brand or what I don't know. Anyway, they came out great again: definitely a hit. I am still wondering if you could skip out the oil/marg altogether and just use a little more nut/seed butter: will perhaps try this next time.

Pumpkin chocolate cake-cookies

I've been getting through about three squashes a week recently, pumpkin/squash are great stuff. I'd rarely baked with pumpkin before I moved here, but I am fully converted now.

These are partly for the harvest festival we are having at the garden today, and partly for our friend G, whose birthday is on Thursday and we spent the day with yesterday, and who fortuitously loves pumpkin anything (and also dislikes chocolate, I remembered too late - but it was OK, turns out he likes chocolate chips).

I wanted to make pumpkin cookies, and considered a bunch of recipes before settling on this one. I think my original vision was something a bit more cookie-ish - these are quite cake-y - but they taste great so it's OK.

(makes about two dozen large cookies)

2 cups plain flour
1 1/3 cups oats
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground allspice
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 2/3 cups sugar (mixture of brown sugar and granulated)
2/3 cup veg oil
2 tbsp carob molasses
1 cup cooked pureed pumpkin (about 1 smallish acorn squash)
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 tbsp ground linseed
1/2 cup plain chocolate chunks

Heat oven to 350F. Lightly grease 2 baking sheets.

Mix together flour, oats, bicarbonate of soda, salt and spices.

In a separate bowl, mix together sugars, oil, molasses, pumpkin, vanilla and linseed. Add dry ingredients to wet in 3 batches, folding to combine. Fold in the chocolate chunks.

Drop by tablespoons onto greased baking sheets. They don’t spread very much so they can be placed only an inch apart. Flatten the tops of the cookies with a fork or with your fingers. Bake for 16 minutes at 350F.

Remove from oven and move to a wire rack to cool. These taste best when they’ve had some time to cool and set. They taste even better the next day.


Definitely a hit with everyone who ate them, although I think the GF ones I made at the same time went down better!