I have subscribed to a veg box scheme for the past couple of months. I have to say that I have always got top quality products for a fair price. The basket is also great for pushing me out of my comfort zone and making me cook dishes I would not have cooked otherwise. I think things have changed in France now but there was some "vegetable" snobbery going around when I was growing up. Even now, I am sure you can still hear people say "Parsnips are for rabbits", "Corn is for chickens" or "Oats are for horses"... I don't even need to tell you what the French would say about eating sprouting alfalfa!
Anyway, I have learnt to cook swede over the winter. But for the veg basket, I would not have bought swede to be honest. The thing about swede is that the taste is not strong enough and the consistency nice enough so you can eat it by itself, so I usually cook it along with something else. The problem is then that swedes do not usually come in small sizes so then you are stuck with eating swede for the rest of the week. So, thanks to my cast-iron casserole dish, I have become quite good at mixing ingredients and getting pretty good results! I usually end up bringing some of the food I have made into work in my lunch box. I also freeze some for emergencies. And I have discovered that it's a great way to disguising vegetables so that even the most reluctant eaters do get their veg in!
So, here is the menu for my easy three course meal that will feed four and will take 30-40 minutes to make:
Apple, cheddar and mixed leaves salad
Roast chicken with a swede, mushroom, broccoli and spinach casserole
Mini strawberry Eton mess
Ingredients:
The salad:
1 apple, sliced
3 slices of mature cheddar 1/4 inch thick cut into cubes
mixed leaves
1tbsp of cider vinegar
1 1/2 tbsp of rapeseed oil
1 tsp wholegrain mustard
Salt and pepper
The Chicken + Veg casserole:
1 chicken cut into 4 pieces (ask the butcher to do that for you + ask him to give you the leftover bones from the cut, you will need them for the veg casserole)
1/2 a swede cut into small cubes (1 cm)
1 onion, sliced
4 smoked streaky rashers cut into thin strips
250 ml of cooking white wine (anything dry)
125 ml of single cream
A few sprigs of thyme
1 medium head of broccoli
200 gr of spinach
Salt, pepper
A few tbsp of olive oil
For the strawberry mess:
A small punnet of strawberries: all cut into thin strips but for 4 of them. You will need them for decoration
Some meringues
125 ml of single cream
Vanilla extract
(2 tbsp of sugar if you want)
1. First, preheat your oven at 200°C.
2. Take the chicken pieces, rub them with some olive oil, season them. Put them in the oven, bake for 1hr ish, turn them over after 30 minutes of baking.
3. While the chicken is cooking, take a cast-iron pot, put 1tbsp of oil in it. Brown the onion, rashers bits, bones left over from the chicken and the swede bits over medium to high heat.
4. Once browned, after about 8 minutes, pour over the wine, cream, season a little (not too much there are rashers in there already), and add the thyme. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat, cover and simmer for 45 minutes. Turn it off after that and leave the lid on.
5. Prepare the dessert:
whip the cream with the vanilla extract, add sugar if you want. Crush the meringues (Here I used the meringues I made while baking the vanilla bavarois, see the previous post on that topic for a recipe for meringues), add slices of strawberries, add a heaped tablespoon of cream and decorate with a strawberry.
6. Prepare the starter:
Make the dressing first. Add the salt, pepper, the vinegar, the sliced apples. Stir. Then add the oil, the mustard, mix again. Then add the diced cheese and the leaves. Do not stir the leaves until you are about to eat as the salad will wilt otherwise.
7. Have a glass of wine and chill.
8. When the chicken is cooked, add the spinach and the broccoli to the casserole, stir.
9. Have your starter, the green veggies will be cooked by the time you are finished with the salad.
10. Have another glass of wine and chill!
Sláinte!
Ah, thanks poulette! My favourite part of the recipe is the "Have a glass of wine and chill!"
ReplyDeleteBTW, have you tried the muffins yet?
For a novice (ahem!) cook like myself this has taken away the "oh no, I could never make roast chicken" factor! Hopefully I won't burn the house down while doing it!
ReplyDelete