Uist Wholefoods Co-operative

I made this using the recipe from Maw Broon’s Cookbook with very little of my own variations.

First, set the oven to hot (around gas 7, 220 C)

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Serve with plenty of fresh seasonal vegetables and potatoes.

We have had a few really summery days, so we have had some opportunities to try al fresco eating. We had planned a barbecue, but rain stopped play, and we ended grilling these. Better on the barbecue though. Don’t forget to marinade the ingredients the day before.

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Serve with nan bread or pitta bread, side salad, and greek-style plain yoghurt.

I have lots on lots of broad beans at the moment. We used some to make this salad, which was perfect with barbequed food: we had shish kebabs, nan bread, yoghurt and cucumber salad, humus, lots of things. I got the idea from a Jamie Oliver Recipe, but he had added some other ingredients at the end. I stopped short of the full thing, as the salad was delicious enough without the extras. I made it at the last minute, as it is good slightly warm.

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This works really well served with sour cream or greek-style yoghurt.

More experiments with lovage. I had seen it written that lovage went well with chicken, so I adapted this recipe from the Waitrose website.

Ingredients:

• One Organic free-range chicken, jointed (easy to do this yourself)
• 500ml good cider
• 2 tsps ground allspice (from the wholefood co-op)
• 40g organic butter
• 2 crisp desert apples, sliced into wedges
• 250g mushrooms, sliced
• 2 good sprigs of lovage; use the leaves very finely chopped. (from the garden)
• 4 tbsp double cream

Method:

• Put the cider in a large pan and simmer until reduced by half
• Put the chicken joints in a plastic bag with the allspice and a little salt and rub the spice into the chicken. The bag stops me making a big mess
• Melt half the butter in a deep-sided frying pan, and fry the mushrooms and apples until golden. Lift out with a slotted spoon and set aside.
• Melt the rest of the butter in the same pan and add the chicken pieces until lightly browned.
• Stir in the reduced cider, and bring to the boil, then turn down to simmer for 20 minutes to cook the chicken
• Add the mushrooms and apples along with the very finely chopped lovage and the cream. Season to taste and heat for a further five minutes.

We had this with mashed potatoes and peas. It was good, but the lovage did tend to turn into clots of leafy stuff. Maybe I didn’t chop it finely enough. If you like a thicker gravy, I would suggest mashing 20g of flour into 20g of butter and adding that instead of the cream.

For some reason, I got the surplus order of soya beans, which I have been thinking of researching for a while. I didn’t fancy making tofu or any of the other bean products, so I have been trying out some other options. Tonight I had Soya loaf, sort of like meat loaf. The remaining mixture I made into small burgers, which I preferred. I got the basic idea from ‘The Bean Book’ by Rose Elliot. I’ve had this book for 25 years and it is a bit stained, so I was impressed to see that it is back in print. Many of the recipes are useful, but I often change them a bit to spice them up, or use the ingredients to prepare something slightly different. In this case, I think the vegeburgers I made were better than the loaf that is suggested in the book.

Ingredients:

• 6 oz soy beans
• 1 onion, chopped finely
• 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
• 4 sticks of celery, finely chopped (I used 2 shoots of lovage)
• 2oz butter
• 1/2 can organic chopped tomatoes (wholefood co-op)
• 2 tbsp tomato puree (wholefood co-op)
• 4 oz wholewheat breadcrumbs (wholefood co-op)
• 4 tbsp chopped parsley
• 1 tsp thyme (dried from wholefood co-op)
• 1 large egg, beaten
• salt and pepper

Method

• Soak the soy beans overnight in plenty of water, and drain the following day. Cook for 4 hours in plenty of boiling water, until soft. Drain the beans and mash them roughly.
• In a large pan, fry the garlic, onions and celery in the butter over a low heat, for at least ten minutes.
• Add the tomato, tomato puree and the herbs and cook another five minutes more.
• Mash and mix the tomato mixture with the soy beans and the beaten egg: a food processor might help here
• Then add the breadcrumbs and seasoning to make a firm mixture. I did this bit by hand, and got a good texture. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
• For the loaf, grease a 1lb loaf tin with butter and coat with wholemeal flour. Spoon the mixture into the tin, smooth overand cover with greased tin foil.  Bake at 190C/375F Mark 5 for 1 hour. Serve hot or warm with a spicy tomato sauce and a side salad.
• For burgers, shape the mixture into burgers and fry or grill. Serve with a spicy tomato sauce, fried mushrooms and a green salad.

I have had a packet of soya beans on the shelf for a while, wondering what to do with them. This is one of the recipes that work well. Truth be told, soy beans are not easy: most of the delicious things I have had made from them have been based on tofu. I have a few more to try, however. I began with a recipe from Madhur Jaffrey’s ‘Eastern Vegetarian Cooking’, a book that I have had for more than twenty years. It is old and scorched, and full of recipes I like.Ingredients:

• Soy beans (from the wholefood co-op)
• Sesame oil (from the wholefood co-op)
• Soy sauce (from the wholefood co-op)
• Sesame seeds (from the wholefood co-op), toasted.
• Stock (from the wholefood co-op) (or water)

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• I started by sprouting the soy beans for several days, rinsing them at least twice a day in fresh water, and keeping them in a cool shaded area of the kitchen. Once the roots were about two inches long, and the beans were beginning to colour green, I put them in the fridge until I was ready.
• Next I simmered the sprouts in stock for about seven minutes, and drained them.
• When they were almost cool, I sprinkled the sprouts with sesame oil and a little soy sauce, and garnished with a teaspoonful of toasted sesame seeds.

Apparently you can add mung bean sprouts for the last couple of minutes of cooking. I served this slightly warm, and it was excellent.

Submitted by Fiona Ballantyne.

This recipe is adapted from a recipe in a book called ‘Scones, muffins and teacakes’ by Murdoch books and works very well.

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I use a teacup or small mug as a measure so its never the same size twice!

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All done.

Submitted by Fiona BallantyneThis is adapted from a recipe from a book called ‘Home baking’ by Carole Handslip, which was 99p well spent in a bargain book shop!Ingredients

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Nice plain but also very good with home made jam and desiccated coconut on the top.

Similar to the last recipe. Child no 2 said she liked it and then had more. This is a big result. We served this with asparagus as a starter, and then with roast potatoes and beans.

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A gluten and dairy free cake which is best served the day after making to allow the flavour to develop. This is another BBC recipe and is a firm favourite.

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