Rainbow Farm Fresh Salad

Once again my photo skills aren't that on par. We are so lucky to have an organic farm delivering right to our doorstep. This week we got tomatoes, a beautiful head of lettuce, carrots, potatoes, onions and courgette (much more but nothing else in this salad). I just prepped the lettuce, chopped the cherry tomatoes, caramelised the onions, roasted the courgette, carrots and potatoes with sea salt and olive oil. I then cooked up some salmon in the balsamic left from the caramelised onions and some rosemary from our garden. Super simple and super flavourful and tasty! Just toss everything together with olive oil, sea salt and lemon juice and serve. We devoured the entire thing plus all the roasted potatoes!

Ingredients
1 head of lettuce
2 onions chopped
1/2 a round courgette
4 carrotts
6 potatoes
6 cherry tomatoes quartered
olive oil to taste
sea salt to taste
balsamic vinegar to taste
rosemary
2 salmon fillets cut into chunks

Fishcake Salad

I'm posting this because it looked and tasted so yummy! The fishcakes were from a friend and I just put them on top of a bed of spinach and made a nice garlic and chili aioli to go on top. The aioli is simply mayo, a little olive oil, a little lemon juice, chili flakes and some crushed garlic. It's all really to taste and I made mine heavy on the garlic. With the fishcakes however it was the perfect pairing and a really nice, easy meal. In the future I'm hoping to come up with my own fishcake recipe in order to replicate this!

Farm Fresh Pasta

I know this isn't the most glamorous shot but it's the best my phone could take of the farm fresh pasta.  All the vegetables used in this were from our local organic farm and were delivered to our door for a very reasonable price considering how much there was in the box. The thyme came from our herb garden so it still fit in with the farm to table theme. I used enough ingredients for two healthy servings plus a small portion of leftovers.

Ingredients
1 onion
3 cloves of garlic
thyme sprigs to taste
olive oil
1 round courgette
1 yellow pepper
2 carrots
5 tomatoes
1/3 block of hard goat cheese
1 cup of soy milk
gluten free pasta

I started out by dicing the onion and putting it into the wok with some olive oil, the minced garlic, the sprigs of thyme and some salt. I left those to cook on a medium heat until the onions were clear and the garlic was starting to brown. While that was going on I chopped up all the other veg and just put them in bowls off to the side. When that was done I got started on the cheese sauce which is super simple and tastes nice and light. It's just the cup of soy milk (give or take) plus goat cheese, but the trick I've learned is to grate what you think you'll need and add it in slowly and stir until the small handful you've put in has melted in nicely with the milk. As this is a slow process in between the cheese melting add in the carrots and the tomatoes first and leave them to cook. Carrots take absolutely forever to cook so make sure they get in early. The pepper and courgette cooks relatively faster and if you give the carrots about a 10 min head start then all the veg comes out nicely cooked but still with a bit of a crunch. Also by adding the tomatoes in early they cook down really nicely into the onions and oil to make a kind of chunky tomato sauce. After adding in the rest of the veg turn the cheese sauce down to a very low heat, enough to keep it warm but not high enough to burn it and don't forget to give it a stir every now and then. The pasta is the quick part and the last thing to get done. I just dump in boiling water from the electric kettle because it speeds things up and add some salt to the water and put in enough pasta for the number of people. If all goes according to plan by the time the pasta has finished the veg should be done as well and the cheese sauce is still nice and warm. Drain the pasta and add it into the wok with the veg and pour the cheese sauce on top and mix everything together. This is a very satisfying meal as it doesn't feel heavy but still tastes like comfort food should.

Baked Polenta

This is another simple meal that is again gluten and dairy free.
Ingredients:
1 head of broccoli
Olive Oil
Salt
200g Polenta
800ml Boiling water
1 tbsp vitalife butter
1 can chopped tomatoes
1 onion diced
3 cloves of garlic minced
2 chilies finely chopped

I started with the broccoli and decided to roast it so it would get nice and crispy before I mixed it in with the polenta. I set the oven to 150º C and chopped up the broccoli into bite sized pieces. Put into a roasting pan and drizzle olive oil on top and a little salt for some flavour. The broccoli has to roast for about 30 min or until starting to brown and crisp. Next I got started on the sauce as this needs to sit and simmer so that all the flavours really come together. Coat a pan with some olive oil and start with just the onion. Let it sit on a low heat until the onion starts to look transparent and then add in the garlic and chilies. This should sit until the garlic just starts to brown and when that happens add in the can of tomatoes and let it sit for about 20 minutes stirring occasionally. Finally I got started on the polenta. Just boil some water and mix in the 800ml with the polenta a little bit of slat and stir until all the water is absorbed and when it taste creamy and not grainy and crunchy, after about 2 minutes, throw in the butter. Everything should finish at about the same time and when the broccoli looks done pour the polenta over it and spread around the roasting pan evenly. The sauce will be poured on top, again spreading it around so it's even. Then, the whole pan will go back into the oven for another 45 min so the polenta has a chance to get nice and crispy. This should make about 6 servings if you cut it into 6 medium sized squares or four large ones.

Student Curry

The reason I call this student curry is that I cheated with the sauce…I used Patak’s Bhuna sauce. Usually I would make it but extreme hanger got the better of me and this made it quick. I also consumed six poppadom in my hangry state before I'd even begun cooking, leading Martta to believe that all I was eating for dinner was poppadom. Another reason it’s a good meal for students is while it simmers away you can do work…well that’s what I used the time for. The final reason is there’s only six ingredients if you truly count everything. This dish also remains gluten and dairy free, so for me it was a real win-win situation!

Ingredients

500 ml vegetable broth

Wild and Jasmine rice mix (ASDA’s own)

Cauliflower

2 Cod filets

1 Jar Patak’s Bhuna sauce

Salt to taste

I chopped the cauliflower up into bite sized pieces and then put it in the wok with the broth and some rice. I didn’t measure it out at all, just shook in what looked to match the amount of cauliflower I had. I let them simmer for about 20 minutes on medium heat and then added the Cod and sauce as by that time most of the broth had cooked into the food so when I added in the sauce it wasn’t watered down. I added a couple shakes of salt and stirred a couple times and again let it sit for about 10 minutes on a lower heat until all the flavours had cooked together and then I served it up with some poppadom. Super flavourful and tasty, really simple and easy as well!

Salmon Caesar with Polenta Chips

One of my first meals back at Uni and here in the new flat was a salmon caesar salad with polenta chips on top. Super easy to do and super tasty! Everything is homemade on the salad and it can all be modified to taste without really changing anything. For the salad I used a head of romaine lettuce just washed and spun. I made the dressing ahead of time and it can be kept in the fridge just fine without spoiling.

Caesar dressing
2 spoonsful of mayonnaise
3 spoonsful of olive oil
1 small spoonful of mustard
1 clove of garlic diced
shake of lemon juice to taste
salt and pepper to taste

Everything here is really to taste as if you like it with a little more kick add more mustard or really lemony, well just add more lemon juice. It may need some more olive oil if you like a thinner dressing, it really is quite dependent on personal taste.

Polenta chips
50g polenta meal
200ml boiling water
shake of salt
chopped fresh rosemary to taste

For the polenta all I did was mix the polenta, water and salt and then stir until all mixed and then I put it in the microwave for a minute. You can do it over the stove but that requires dirtying a pot and I'm a student so washing a pot wasn't on my agenda. I then took it out, stirred it and put it in for another minute to ensure that it would be really tough and would stick together when being fried. When it was tough enough and all stuck together I added in the rosemary and flattened the mixture onto a plate so it was about 1cm thick. I then put it in the fridge to kind of harden up for about 20 minutes. When I took it out I cut it into 1cmx2cm squares. Next was the kind of scary part. I popped some olive oil into our wok, but just enough to coat the bottom of the pan, and dropped in my little chips, letting them fry and flipping them every couple minutes until they were crispy and a deep yellow. Keep in mind the hot oil will be jumping from the pan and to be careful as it really burns when it hits you. I learned.

The salmon I cooked in the remainder of the oil from the chips and just sprinkled some pepper and lemon juice on top before dropping it into the pan and cooking until it was a nice pale pink all the way through.

Assembly was the simple bit. I tossed the lettuce in the bowl, put my chips and chunks of salmon on top and drizzled the dressing over. With a big glass of water I positively inhaled it and am eager to make it again! Especially the polenta chips!