Tabbouleh with herbs from the garden and strawberry puffs – Everyone’s kitchen

The sun is out and we even have strawberries! What’s not to like?

Chefs from everyone’s kitchen have been busy harvesting looooooots of herbs to make to summery dish. herbs, fresh vegetables, oil, lots of love and that your ready for a lovely meal.

Menu of the day

Tabbouleh with herbs from the garden
Strawberry puffs

Harvest of the day

Chives flowers, mint, parsley, coriander, lemon, rhubarb, strawberry

Tabbouleh
Serves a lot!

Ingredient
500g or bulgur or couscous
150g fresh parsley
150g fresh mint
50g coriander
Olive oil or sunflower oil
Lemon juice to serve
Salt and pepper
500kg tomato chopped
2 cucumbers chopped
Pepper and salt to taste
Other: sundried tomato, artichoke , olives, celery, sweet corn
Chives flowers to serve

Method
Cook the couscous or bulgur
With the stem, blend the herbs and add the oil progressively until obtaining a paste.
Incorporate the paste to the bulgur/couscous and add the chopped veg.
Add salt and pepper to taste.

Rhubarb puffs

Ingredients
Strawberries and blueberries pack
3 tbsp sugar
½ a 500g block puff pastry
Maybe syrup to serve

Method
Heat oven to 200C/fan 180C/gas 6. In a bowl, toss the chopped strawberries and the sugar. Line a baking sheet with a piece of baking parchment. Roll out the pastry on a floured surface to approx 20 x 30cm, then cut into quarters and place on the sheet. Divide the strawberries and blueberries between the pastry quarters, leaving a 1cm rim. Bake for 20-25 mins, then serve warm.

Omelette on the barbeque and green smoothies! – Everyone’s kitchen

We had an omelette station going on today! Many green leaves, a few eggs, a touch of bravery to flip the omelette and we got an amazing lunch in the sun.

On the menu this week

Green omelette with side salad

Green smoothies

Harvest of the day

  • Herbs: parsley, thyme
  • Green: chard, spinach
  • Wild garlic flowers
  • Salad mix: Rocket, mizuna, lettuce, chives 

Green omelette/frittata (serves 2)

  • 4 eggs
  • Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
  • Chopped spinach, chard, kale or beet greens (to taste)
  • 2 garlic clove, minced or pureed
  • Parmesan 
  • 2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 onion
  • Herbs: Parsley, Thyme

Method

Beat the eggs with salt and peppe to taste. 

Cook your greens with garlic, onions and herbs. the Beat in the greens, garlic and the herbs.Heat the olive oil over medium-high.

Swirl the pan to distribute the eggs and filling evenly over the surface. Shake the pan gently, tilting it slightly with one hand while lifting up the edges of the frittata with the spatula in your other hand, to let the eggs run underneath during the first few minutes of cooking. Once a few layers of egg have cooked during the first couple of minutes of cooking, turn the heat down to low, cover and cook 7 to 10 minutes, until the frittata is puffed and just about set. 

From time to time remove the lid and loosen the bottom of the omelet with a wooden or heat-proof rubber spatula, tilting the pan, so that the bottom doesn’t burn. It will however turn golden.

Great parmesan on top and enjoy!

1,2,3 … Flip!

Green Smoothies

Ingredients

  • 2 cup fresh spinach or other greens
  • 2 cup water or milk
  • 1 cup frozen pineapple
  • 1 cup frozen mango
  • 2 banana

Method

Put spinach into a blender with water. Blend together until all chunks are gone. (Should resemble green water when blended well).

Toss pineapple, mango and banana to blender.

Blend it all together until smooth and creamy.

Pour into a glass and serve immediately.

Big thank you to everyone and to Marnie and Brogan for being the photographers 🙂

Swiss chard stir fry and fruity flapjack – Everyone’s kitchen

After last week’s blast, we had a cooking session in sun!

Harvest of the day
Looooooots of greens: broccoli leaves, chard, kale, mustard leaves
Wild garlic (and flowers)
Thyme
Chives (and flowers)

On the menu today

Sauteed swiss chard

Fruity flapjack


Swiss chard stir fry

Ingredients
Lots of Swiss chard, or rainbow chard, broccoli leaves
3 red peppers, chopped
1 jar of olives
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
6 cloves garlic, finely chopped or wild garlic
6 tomatoes
3 large onion, diced
Thyme
Freshly ground pepper to taste
Salt to taste
Rice to serve

Instruction
Clean and chop your green leaves (leaves and stalk)
In a large pot, on medium heat, add the onions, garlic and thyme. Cook until the onions are soft. Add your chopped tomatoes, peppers, olives and cook for 5 minutes. Add your green leaves with a bit of water and let it wilt.
Serve with rice!

Fruity flapjack 6-10 squares
Ingredients
40g butter
150g maple or agave syrup/honey
1 ripe banana mashed
125 g rolled oats
90 g chopped dried fruits
40 g mixed seeds (poppy seeds, pumpkin seeds, flax seeds, …)

Method
Heat oven to 180C
Tip the oats, the dried fruit and the seeds into a large bowl.
Heat the butter, honey or maple syrup in a small pan until melted.
Add the mixture and the mashed banana to the bowl and mix it all together.
Add baking parchment or kitchen foil to a tray and spread your mixture (between 1cm and 2 cm high, level the surface)
Bake for 10 minutes
Remove from the oven and pre-cut the squares. Careful, it is hot!
Bake for an extra 10 minutes.
Leave to cool.
Place in the fridge for a few hours.
They will keep for up to 3 days.

Big thank you to Marnie, Alex, Amy, Brogan and Martina for joining !

Sweet potato gnocchi with tomato sauce, and beetroot brownie! – Everyone’s kitchen

What a day! Despite the rain and the wind, the chef from Everyone’s kitchen came along to the cooking group to harvest, make and share a lovely lunch.

On the menu this week:

Sweet potato gnocchi with tomato and broccoli sauce

Beetroot brownie with a red berry (from the garden!) coulis

We harvested:

  • Lettuce, rocket, mizuna, chives, parsley for the side salad
  • Sage, rosemary, broccoli leaves, wild garlic, beetroot leaves for the sauce
  • Thyme for the gnocchi
  • Berries from last year

Sweet potato gnocchi
Ingredients
6 medium sweet potatoes
800g of flour + 70g
4 teaspoon of salt
Optional: pepper, cumin, thyme

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C. Poke a few holes in the sweet potatoes with a fork, and then bake them for 40-50 minutes or until tender. You’ll know they’re done when a fork can be pressed into the centre rather easily. Set aside to let it cool enough for you to handle them easily.
Combine the salt and the flour. Flour a work surface and pour your flour mixture onto the surface. Make a well in the middle of the flour.
Once the sweet potatoes are cool enough to handle, remove the skin, and mash them.

Flour your hands and begin working the sweet potato into the flour. Continue to work the mixture until it’s fully combined. You don’t want the dough to be sticky so keep adding flour until you get a nice dry dough. This could take a decent bit of extra flour if your potatoes were on the larger side.
Once fully combined, roll the dough into a ball and cut it into eight even pieces. Roll each piece into a long log that’s about 1/2 an inch thick. Cut pieces of gnocchi into 1 inch pieces. Gently toss each piece into flour to ensure that it’s dry and not sticky at any edges. Continue until you’ve cut out pieces from all of the dough.

Optional: using a gnocchi board or fork, press grooves into each piece of gnocchi.

To cook the gnocchi:
Heat a pot of salted water to a boil. Add in the gnocchi and let cook for a couple minutes. Once the gnocchi floats to the surface of the water, let it boil for 30 more seconds and then remove it from the water using a slotted spoon.

For the sauce we mixed: broccoli leaves, chopped tomatoes, wild garlic, beetroot leaves, black olives, garlic powder with a bit of salt and pepper and oil. Quick and delicious!

Beetroot brownie with red berry sauce
Brownie Dry ingredients
210g plain flour, (or sub spelt or wholemeal flour)
160g sugar, to taste
25g cocoa or raw cacao powder
12g seeds (pumpkin, sunflower, chia, …)
¼ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp baking soda

Brownie Wet ingredients
200g beetroot puree
165g melted chocolate
65g vegetable oil
3 tbsp milk

Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line a 20cm square baking pan with baking paper.
Add all the dry ingredients to a medium-size bowl and mix until there are no lumps. Add all the wet ingredients to the bowl and mix until combined. Pour the batter into your baking pan and smooth the top.
Bake the brownies in the oven for 20-25 minutes (shorter if you like them fudgy, longer if you like them more crispy). The brownies are ready when the surface is dry. They will set more over time. Allow the brownies to cool in the baking pan.

Make a quick red berry sauce with 3 units of berries for 1 unit of sugar.

We used tayberries, strawberries and redcurrant!
Place berries into a saucepan with sugar. Set over a medium heat, crushing with the back of a fork until the sugar has dissolved and the berries have become saucy. Taste and add a little more sugar if the berries are particularly sharp.

Photo credit: Ula!

First harvest box of the season!

At the Maxwell community garden we grow food for anyone who would like to try it, our HARVEST BOXES will be every two weeks this year as the schools and groups are back so we have less growing space. But we’ll still be surprising you with boxes of colour and joy, all grown by organic methods by our community. Our boxes are more about quality than quantity as we want as many people as possible to enjoy a box once in a while.

The first harvest boxes of 2021 includes 21 different edibles: rhubarb, sprouting purple broccoli, kale, leek, miner’s lettuce, rocket, mizuna, beetroot leaves, spinach leaves, wild garlic, radicchio (a type of endives), lettuce, chives, catmint, spicy oregano, curled parsley, brassica flowers, cowslips, forget-me-nots and dandelion flowers, wild garlic and chive flowers and tulip petals.

Our lovely garden volunteers help us harvest and prepare the boxes very often, sometimes we get little helper like Sophia with her Nanny Farzana too!

Some of the gorgeous recipes we are suggesting – we are sending you the link to these – (these don’t include any expensive ingredients you couldn’t replace for something more affordable) are:

RECIPE SUGGESTIONS:

  1. Tulip canapes with cream cheese (I adapted this recipe adding chopped wild garlic, chives and brassica flowers and then sprinkling forget-me-nots, garlic and chive flowers and buds on top)

Tasty Tulip Ideas (urvashiroe.com)

  • Lettuce and leek soup (add curly parsley garnish)

Lettuce Soup Recipe – A delicious way to eat your greens! (housewifehowtos.com)

  • Mackerel filled radicchio leaves with chives

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-mackerel-loaded-leaves

  • Purple broccoli sprout and kale gratin (add spicy oregano)

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/purple-sprouting-broccoli-kale-gratin

  • Miner’s lettuce, (add also mizuna, beetroot, spinach leaves salad with roasted nuts)

https://ripleyorganicfarm.com/recipes/Claytonia

  • Dandelion cupcakes (decorate with little cowslip flowers)

Dandelion Cupcakes (thenerdyfarmwife.com)

  • Rhubarb puffs with oat topping

Nettle and wild garlic soup, and Rhubarb puffs with oaty toppings! – Everyone’s kitchen – Grow Dundee

  • Catmint tea

https://champagne-tastes.com/catnip-tea/

IMPORTANT: If you have any health issues, or you are cooking for pregnant women or for very young children you need to be careful when introducing any new foods such as flowers to your diet

Please note that only the petals should be eaten for larger flowers like tulip, small ones like forget-me-nots can be eaten whole (not the stems though!) For chive, brassica and wild garlic flowers you can also eat the stem!

Leeks and greens Lasagna and red berry smoothie! – Everyone’s kitchen

So many green vegetables harvested today for today’s lunch! We also enjoyed some Chocolate mint tea from the garden and a lovely pickled beetroot juice made by Ula (who is also our photographer)!

Leeks and greens lasagna served with side salad

Red berry smoothie (harvested last year!)

Harvest of the day
Kale, chard, spinach, leeks, beetroot leaves, mustard leaves, wild garlic
Rocket, lettuce, mizuna, claytonia
Parsley, rosemary, chive, chocolate mint


Leek and green lasagna with side salad x4

Ingredients
400g mixed green leaves , such as kale, chard and spinach, roughly chopped
2 leeks
Olive oil
1 garlic clove, crushed
6-8 lasagne sheets
Cheese (cheddar, plant-based version, parmesan) coarsely grated
Herbs: Rosemary, parsley, chives
Salt and pepper

Bechamel
3 tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp all purpose flour
380 ml soya milk
Optional: Mustard

Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C
In a pan on low heat, cook your garlic for a few minutes and add your greens. Cook, stirring until the greens have wilted.

For your bechamel
Add the oil to a pot on the stove and heat it at medium to high heat. As the oil heats, add the flour and stir or whisk vigorously.
Add the soy milk all at once and continue to stir and whisk (you can alternate between a wooden spoon and a whisk) and allow the sauce to gradually thicken.
You will usually get to the right thickness after it has reached boiling point and boiled for a few minutes.
When you’ve reached the desired thickness (keep in mind that the sauce will continue to thicken as it cools), remove from the heat and add any spices you choose, such as some salt and black pepper, rosemary. Add some mustard if desired!

In a baking dish, alternate vegetables, bechamel, lasagne sheets. Finish with a layer of bechamel and cover with cheese.
Place in the oven for 40 min.
Serve with a side salad

Red berry smoothies

Ingredients
4 medium bananas
2 (480ml) cup unsweetened almond milk
600g of berries

Method

Add bananas into a blender or food processor. Blend until the bananas become crumbly. Add milk. Blend until smooth and creamy, scraping down the sides of the blender as needed.
Add berries. Blend until smooth, again scraping down the sides of the blender as needed.
Pour into cups and enjoy!

Nettle and wild garlic soup, and Rhubarb puffs with oaty toppings! – Everyone’s kitchen

After a few weeks of cooking from home, we were finally able to meet safely in the garden, harvest many greens and rhubarb, and enjoy a warm, homemade and yummy lunch by the barbeque! What’s not to like?

On the Menu today:

Nettle soup with wild garlic

Rhubarb puffs with oaty toppings

We have harvested

  • Common nettles
  • Wild garlic
  • Celery
  • Herbs (Chives, parsley, …)
  • Lemon
  • Rhubarb
  • Mixed salad leaves to take home!

Did you know ? Make Rhubarb Leaf Insecticide 

Cut the stems off the leaves to use in cooking or other activities, and keep the leaves for your insecticide.

Once you’ve your rhubarb leaves, you’ll need to boil them in water. Try to keep a 1:3 ratio between the leaves and water.

For instance, if you’ve got a cup of rhubarb leaves, use three cups of water. Boil the leaves in a pot for about half an hour, and allow to cool.

Next, using a strainer, remove all the leaves from the pot. Add a little liquid dish detergent, and then pour the solution into a spray bottle. That’s all there is to it!

Once you’ve made the natural insecticide plant spray, begin spraying the various plants in your yard or garden. You might want to do this spraying in mid-morning or mid-afternoon so that it doesn’t evaporate too quickly. Over time, you should start to see that insects find your plants less attractive

Nettle soup with wild garlic

Ingredients

  • 100g nettle leaves (or more, it’s always good!)
  • 1.5 tbsp olive oil
  • 2 onions, chopped
  • One hand full of wild garlic
  • 2 potatoes diced
  • 2 vegetable stock
  • 1l water
  • 1.5 tbsp lemon juice

Instructions

  • Whilst wearing gloves, prepare your nettles – remove any thick stalks and wash the leaves well
  • In a medium saucepan heat the olive oil, then add the chopped onion
  • Fry for a few minutes until translucent
  • Then add the diced potato, water and vegetable stock, wild garlic and nettle leaves and stir
  • Cover the pan with a lid, and let it simmer until the potatoes are tender
  • Finally, add the lemon juice and blend the soup until smooth using an immersion blender
  • Salt and pepper to taste and serve with some bread and crème fraiche

Rhubarb puffs with oaty streusel topping

Ingredients x12 pastries

  • 5 sticks rhubarb , cut into small pieces
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 3 tbsp plain flour, plus extra for dusting
  • 5 tbsp soft brown sugar
  • 2 puff pastry
  • 2 tbsp unsalted butter
  • 50g rolled oats

Method

Heat oven to 200C/fan 180C/gas 6. In a bowl, toss the rhubarb with cinnamon, 1 tbsp flour and 2 tbsp sugar. Line a baking sheet with a piece of baking parchment. Roll out the pastry on a floured surface to approx 20 x 30cm, then cut into 6 squares and place on the sheet.

Rub together the remaining flour, sugar, butter and oats to make a rough crumble mixture.

Divide the rhubarb between the pastry quarters, leaving a 1cm rim. Sprinkle the oat mixture over, then fold and pinch each corner to keep the filling in. Bake for 20-25 mins, then serve warm.

Make a recycled self-watering pot

We are delighted that this experiment worked so well. We made some SELF WATERING POTS which are great to start off some seeds on your window sills.

Here is how to make them:

Materials:

*Empty used plastic bottle

*Short piece of string

*Craft knife or scissors

*Something to make hole in bottle lid (I used a drill)

*Soil and seeds ( tomatoes or chilli peppers for example)

Steps:

1. Cut bottle in half and make small hole on lid.

2. Thread the string through the hole and make a knot in the inside so it doesn’t slide out. Make sure you leave at least an inch on each side so string will be in contact with water AND soil. I doubled up the string just to see if that works best but can be a single piece of string.

3. Place the upper part (filled with soil) with the lid on, upside down on top of lower part (half way full of water).

4. Sow your seeds and water.

After this you just need to make sure there is always water in touch with the string, so check every few days. We didn’t do this but filled up with quite a lot of water, enough in fact to keep these seedlings happy for two months…broad beans are very forgiving!

Red lentil soup and baked apples- Everyone’s kitchen from home

#Recipe below

Soon we will be able to meet again, and have our cooking group running in the garden using the barbeque!

But for now, everyone’s kitchen from has been making a delicious red lentil soup using celery and herbs from the garden, and baked apples.

Red lentil and carrot soup

Ingredients x2
1 onion, finely sliced
2 tsp olive oil
3 garlic cloves, sliced
2 carrots, scrubbed and diced
Celery
85g red lentils
1 vegetable stock cube, crumbled
parsley, chopped (about 2 tbsp) plus a few extra leaves

Method
Put the kettle on to boil while you finely slice the onion. Heat the oil in a medium pan, add the onion and fry for 2 mins while you slice the garlic and dice the carrots. Add them to the pan, with the celery, and cook briefly over the heat.

Pour in 1 litre of the boiling water from the kettle, stir in the lentils and stock cube, then cover the pan and cook over a medium heat for 15 mins until the lentils are tender. Take off the heat and stir in the parsley. Ladle into bowls, and scatter with extra parsley leaves, if you like.

Baked apple

Ingredients x4
4 apples
½ cup sugar ( brown if you have, or some golden syrup instead)
4 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
Optional: Oat or sultanas

Method
Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C.

Scoop out the core from top of the apple, leaving a well. Do not cut all the way through. Stuff each apple with 2 tablespoons brown sugar and 1 tablespoon butter (add oat and raisins if you want). Place in a shallow baking dish and sprinkle with cinnamon

Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes, until sugar begins to caramelize and apples are tender.
Cooking time will depend on the apple’s size. Check regularly with a knife.

Thank you to Ian, Fiona G, Fiona M, Ula and Frances!!

red-lentil-and-baked-potatoesDownload