0 Surprise turnip soup

A couple of weeks ago I instagrammed a piccie of a surprise turnip I had found growing in the garden, amongst our pak choi plants and I asked for suggestions for utilising our surprise addition to the larder. With ideas ranging from turnip cake (!), turnip gratin (much better) I decided to take up the suggestion of Irwin Kraus from Massachusetts of a turnip soup.

Based on a recipe from About.com this soup provided a quick and easy supper dish which used up our surprise turnip. The recipe is easy and quick to come together just watch the amount of pepper you add as the turnip has a little heat already.

What you need

• 1 surprise turnip (or 4 small white turnips) - peeled and chopped into cubes
• 1 large white potato - peeled and chopped into cubes
• Butter or vegetable oil - about a tbsp
• 1 large onion - peeled and chopped
• 1 clove of garlic - peeled and crushed
• About 1/2 cup of white wine
• Vegetable stock - about 500ml may be more
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Chopped chives for decoration

What you do

• Heat the oil / butter in a large sauce pan and add the onion, garlic and turnips, cook gently for 2 -3 minutes until the onion starts to soften a little and go see through.
• Add the wine to the pan and simmer for a few minutes until a little reduced
• Next add the potato and vegetable stock to the pan
• Bring to the boil and simmer until the vegetables are softened
• Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly, add more stock or water if required.
• Puree with a stick blender to the desired consistency.
• Taste and  season with salt and pepper
• Bring back to a simmer and serve sprinkled with chopped chives

The bread pictured is gluten free and is from a fantastic bakery in Scotland - Wheat Free Bakery Direct, there bakes are amazing.

I'm linking up this to this months Credit Crunch Munch hosted this month by Maison cupcake, created by Fuss Free Flavours and Fab Food 4All.

                                           

Also to No Waste Food Challenge hosted this month by Anne's Kitchen and created by Tangoraindrop.

                                                         
And also to Simple and In Season this month hosted by My custard Pie and created by Ren Behan.

                                                          

Detail: Surprise turnip soup

0 Chive flower vinegar

At this time of year the garden is bountiful, full of promise and flowering its heart out. I have always had a passion for herbs considering them some of the most useful plants in the garden, as they combine culinary and medicinal uses with great texture and form and in the case of chives stunning flowers too.

Chives, spikey pinky purple flowers erupt from the top of the plant, they are attractive to insects and attractive to me. The flowerheads are a great addition to a salad, but to capture their lovely sweet spicy oniony essence for a little longer you need to make chive flower vinegar. This lovely light vinegar is ideal in salad dressings, with fish or just to ring the changes and its such a gorgeous colour.

All you need to do is collect enough chive flowers to lightly pack your chosen jar and then select your vinegar, white wine or champagne vinegar works well as it allows the lovely flower colour to be extracted to create a pinky hue to the condiment. You leave the flowers steeping until the vinegar is your desired hue and has the required level of chive flavour. You could also make this with wild garlic or garlic chives but the resultant vinegar wouldn't be such a beautiful colour.

I am also adding this to the lovely Lavender and Lovage's Cooking with Herbs challenge 

                                          

Detail: Chive flower vinegar

0 First Garden salad, hot smoked salmon and jersey royals and rabbit proof fence

Over the last few days we have been busy in the vegetable garden, sowing, planting and fencing (to keep pesky Peter Rabbit away from the vegetables, just hope it works), I noticed that finally we have enough rocket, sorrel , flat leaf parsley, early lettuce and salad burnet to have a green salad from the garden for lunch.

Supplemented by some left over jersey royal potatoes (which incidentally you can serve hot or cold, I like both ways ) and some hot smoked salmon (the best comes from DelishFish their honey roast is awesome), I quickly whipped up a light complementary dressing using about a tablespoon on EVOO ( extra virgin olive oil), a little lemon juice, a 1/2 tsp dijon mustard, a few drops of honey and some fresh or dried dill. Whisk it all up and taste for seasoning and balance. Oh and I snipped over some chives too.

There you have a great easy lunch, very healthy and tasty too ! 


                                               

This post fits perfectly with the brief for Herbs on Saturday a great blog campaign run by the lovely Karen at Lavender and Lovage and this month hosted by Anneli at Delicieux

 

Detail: First Garden salad, hot smoked salmon and jersey royals and rabbit proof fence