Seasonal Recipe For February – Leek, Parsnip & Potato Bake

I opened my backdoor this morning to find great piles of parsnips and leeks deposited on the step – which is always a sign that someone has been down to the allotment and harvested the latest that the season has to offer! 

Keen to devour the harvest fresh from the plot I set about making this very easy vegetable bake for the family.  Vegetables in season are cheaper to buy, taste so much better and have travelled far fewer miles to reach your local supermarket. 

Better still if you grow your own you can enjoy the food delights of every season, with the fabulous satisfaction of having nurtured them from seed.  So for gardening inspiration visit www.recycleworks.co.uk.

Ingredients 

• 500g potatoes thinly sliced
• 500g parsnips thinly sliced
• 1 kg carrots thinly sliced
• 1kg leeks thinly sliced
• 700 ml cream
• 4 tbsp mustard
• 4 tbsp mixed herbs
• Grated parmesan cheese and breadcrumbs
• Salt and pepper to taste

Method

Wash all the vegetables, peel & slice thinly

Boil the potatoes, parsnips and carrots for 3 minutes

Saute the leeks for a few minutes in a small amount of butter

Mix the cream, mustard and herbs together 

Put the lightly cooked vegetables to a baking dish

Pour over the cream and mix well with the vegetables

Top with breadcrumbs and grated parmesan cheese

Bake for 45 min to an hour until gently browned on the top.  Yum!

For everything you need to grow your own!

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Dream Of Onion Soup

I was reading in the press recently that during this much talked about credit crunch, the popularity of take away food is soaring.  Apparently as a nation we have forgotten how to cook, and as less people can afford to eat out, we are resorting to fast food instead.

Over the next few weeks we thought we would try to offer up some alternatives in the form of good value, delicious family recipes. 

These will take no more than a few minutes to prepare and all  have been tried and tested on my own family. 

Our first offering is a cream of onion soup.   Dora and Jemima tried it at the weekend, described it as deeeeeeeeeelicious and both asked for more, so I thought that was a pretty good recommendation.   I have also cooked this as a starter at a dinner party, so it’s pretty versatile.  All the ingredients cost less than £3 and the quantities here serve around 4 people.

Ingredients

700g onions
1 medium potato
2 leeks
1 clove garlic
A little butter
900 ml vegetable stock
Some cream

What to do

1. Peel and chop all the vegetables
2. Fry them in a pan with a little butter until they begin to soften
3. Add the stock and simmer for 25 minutes or until the potato mashes easily with a fork
4. Blend the soup
5. If it is a little thick just add a bit more stock or a dash of milk (if you want it really creamy)
6. Stir in a little cream before serving

My girls suggest serving it with some cheese on toast, as this goes well with the flavour of the onions and is so much yummier than normal bread.

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