Spring can be an inspiring and energising time of the year. The days get longer again, the flowers are blooming, the birds are singing and nesting, and there's a whole new level of inspiration brimming in the kitchen. Do you feel it? So let's Spring to it, it's In My Kitchen time.
One of the culinary highlights for me during the month, was this Easy Chicken Cassoulet that I cooked. I first saw this recipe on Angie's Recipes, an interactive food blog that I enjoy and follow. The lovely Angie lives in Europe, and not only does she present delicious food on her blog and instagram account, but she is an incredible food photographer. When I was in Montpellier a few years ago now, I went to a very typically French restaurant in old town Montpellier, with Matthew and Hugo, son and grandson, and whilst we were eating some delicious French meals, I saw a Cassoulet delivered to a nearby table in a large earthenware pot, for the one diner at the table. I couldn't have eaten that much food, but the Mademoiselle did, and it was full of beans and meat and was very thick. This Chicken Cassoulet recipe is my easy version of the restaurant cassoulet and of Angies, and was absolutely delicious. Mr. HRK and I feasted on it for 3 dinners in a row, and then when there was still just some delicious gravy left, I added some vegetables and rice to it and we ate that with toast. None of it was wasted, and this will be on rotation in our kitchen, even throughout Summer. I'll be posting the recipe on Happy Retirees Kitchen soon, my friends, just so that I can find my version easily and for your interest. Thanks Angie for the inspiration and for your recipe.
I grew up eating tasty and nutritious Chicken casseroles on an almost weekly basis which my Mum was very good at cooking in the oven, and I thought of her when I was making this one, there are actually some interesting similarities. She never added tinned Beans to hers though, always potatoes.
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| Silverbeet from our garden |
I love trying to grow fresh vegetables during our Winter. It's so satisfying, and challenging. Summer is a difficult time for vegetable growing here because of the heat and humidity in the tropics and is mostly limited to chillies, eggplant and spring onions as the season wears on, and herbs such as basil, sage, rosemary, thyme, the curry tree, oregano, tarragon and parsley (not too bad really). I love to source the vegetable seedlings during Winter, and then Mr. HRK becomes really excited when they start to grow and happily erects trellises, feeds them worm juice from our worm farm and general keeps an eye on them for grubs etc.
I am constantly amazed at how well the silverbeet grows in my garden and this year I think the bok choy became the sacrificial vegetable crop for the grubs, and they left the silverbeet alone. Hallelujah! The bok choy was a disaster. They were planted in the same garden. I love to cook the silverbeet in the microwave in a large pot, or steam it in a saucepan. I wash the leaves, chop them and now I only remove the base of the white stems as the white veins through the leaf become very tender. Then I add chopped butter, grate some fresh aromatic nutmeg, cover them, and cook them for about 4 minutes, and voilà it is delicious. Even my French daughter in law loves it cooked this way. However, I need to use about 6 large silverbeet leaves to feed the two of us as a side vegetable.
What I love about silverbeet, is that it is also an efficient crop to grow. The leaves can be removed from the plant, they just snap off, and the plant grows new leaves very quickly. Home grown lettuces can be harvested by the leaf as well. We also have lettuces growing, but they will go to seed when the heat sets in.
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| Silverbeet ready for eating |
Vegetable gardening at home is very rewarding and healthy, but also has it's challenges. This year I planted two tomato bushes, one called Mortgage Lifter (I know), and Black Russian. They went ballistic, not surprising given the names, Mr. HRK strung up wire to contain them, they produced tomatoes and this is the first one we harvested, which looks impressive, but sadly was full of grubs. Then the possums arrived and chomped away. So we have some possum repellant chicken wire around them now, and that is working, sorry possums, so hopefully the moths and the grubs will migrate elsewhere as well. I'm away at the moment, so I'm hoping that when I return home, there will be a ripe crop of red, healthy tomatoes for harvesting.
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| Black Russian tomatoes Speaking of tomatoes, last month I made a large batch of slow cooker Marinara sauce or pasta sauce, when tomatoes were the cheapest they've been all year. This batch is now in the freezer. Hopefully all of the tomato farms in the food bowl of Bowen, only about 90 minutes drive North of where we live, will have their beautiful tomatoes available for sale soon at the Farmers markets. Chopped Spring onions from our garden, so easy to grow.  |
The month ended on a high note, when five visitors from Cockermouth, in the North of England, visited us for lunch. We had a teacher exchange with Dave and Fran 20 years ago. Mr. HRK taught at Cockermouth Highschool in the Lakes District for a year, and David taught at Pioneer Highschool and we swapped houses, cars, friends etc. It was wonderful experience. So over lunch we reacquainted, not that we met each other during the exchange being on opposite sides of the globe, however we did visit them again in Cockermouth a few years later. So Fran and their son Matthew are vegetarian, and their beautiful two daughters Emily and Hazel love food, I could just tell you know. Our friends Paul and Jenny joined us as well as Paul was the Principal at Pioneer High during the exchange.
So I baked my Rustic Spinach, Feta and Haloumi Pie which went down a treat for the vegetarians at the table, made a Wombok salad, there was also a Cypriot Grain salad, Nagi's Prawn salad, and P&J also brought Nagi's Slow Cooker Pork Dish which was delicious and some tasty Corn muffins. I need to make both of those.
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| Rustic Spinach, Feta and Haloumi Pie |
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| A selection of nibbles, Pickled zucchini, Sweet Chilli Jam, Hummus, and Olives |
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| Nagi's slow cooker pork cooked by Paul and Jenny |
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| Corn muffins |
For dessert, I made the very popular Carrot and Pineapple Cake, featured in my last post, and the Cumquat Marmalade, Ginger and Oat Slice which is a riff on the iconic Anzac biscuit, which they have never tasted and weren't really aware of. I used Paul's Grapefruit, Orange and Tangerine (GOT) Marmalade as the sweet layer in the slice instead of Cumquat Marmalade, it's definitely for eating on toast as my jars diminish, such a precious commodity. I was inspired by Sammie, writer of the Annoyed Thyroid food blog to make this slice, and we love it. I've sent our dear visitors copies of all the recipes as requested.
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| GOT Marmalade Ginger, and Oat Slice |
Once again it's time to be sending this post to Sherry of Sherry's Pickings for the monthly In My Kitchen event. If you would like to join in, send your post to Sherry by the 13th of the month. Or just head over to her blog to visit more kitchens. Thanks for hosting this event once again Sherry, it's a lovely initiative and unites all of the keen bloggers and cooks around the world.
When I first looked at your title of this blogpost, I thought it was on an old post - Spring? No we are going into fall- then I remembered you are in Australia.!! I too enjoy Angie's blog and her artistic presentations and beautiful food that she makes. Your garden sounds wonderful and so nice to use the greens of the beetroot as well. Chicken was a weekly staple in our home too growing up. My mother made it every Friday night. Everything looks delicious especially that Rustic Spinach, Feta and Haloumi Pie- yum!
ReplyDeletewow I am so happy that you have tried it and I hope your family and you enjoyed it as much as I did, Pauline and thank you for your kind words! That slow cooker pork looks very tasty too.
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