Garlicky chicken, roast turnips and turnip greens… hooray for the garden!

Abbie was really keen to get out in the garden today after spotting all the strawberries on our plants. Whilst we were there, we thought we would see how our garlic was doing as well as I had heard about ‘green’ garlic, which just means that you pick it whilst the leaves are still green instead of wilted. You can see that our looking turned to pulling!

Ta da!

I separated the cloves from the stems. I put the stems into the cavity of the chicken (instead of herbs)before roasting. I boiled the cloves, with a head of cloves from a garlic I already had, for 5 mins and then put them in the roasting tray for the last 15 mins. Whilst the chicken was resting (I took out the ‘green’ garlic for us to eat), I made a gravy by adding a glass of wine to the roasting pan, squashing the soft cloves into the juices and the boiling to evaporate the alcohol. I then sieved this into a jug, squishing the wonderful garlicky flavours through the mesh! An amazing gravy – no thickening needed.

We also picked some of Abbie’s turnips. I separated the roots from the leaves, discarding the larger, partially eaten ones. The roots, I parboiled with our new potatoes and then roasted with oil and a splash of balsamic vinegar for 20 mins at 200C. The leaves were boiled in a little bit of water for 4-5 mins and then tossed in a little butter. Great use of the whole plant!

Roast chicken with garlicky gravy, roast potatoes and turnips, broad beans and turnip greens

King prawns with garlic and chilli – so good I made it twice!

Ready, steady, cook! The basic ingredients…

Tonight had to be a quick one….. I am exhausted…. Jon was out running a debate…. Abbie now in bed…..Tesco have delivered…. washing is in machine….. need wine asap!  I went for an old stand-by, ‘Chilli and garlic prawn’ beacuse it is delicious and primarily quick!  Jon came in about 45mins after I’d cooked and eaten mine and looked so forlorn that I made it again!  As Abbie would say… ‘Two thumbs up, times two!!’

Ingredients for one – splash of cold-pressed rapeseed oil (or olive oil), 1/2 red chilli, big squeeze of garlic puree, 8 huge, frozen raw king prawns, slosh of dry white wine, pinch of Maldon salt, sprinkle of finely chopped corriander (cilantro).

• Heat oil, add chopped chilli, garlic and stir, add frozen prawns (fine to cook from frozen as long as they are raw)
• Keep stirring until the prawns start to turn pink on both side and add a slug of white wine (I use dry vermouth if I am out of wine)
• Add a pinch of salt, stir and let it bubble down until the prawns are pink and cooked. Pour into a bowl and serve, sprinkling over the corriander (parsley would also do here)
• Accompany with a nice, crusty bit of bread, drizzled with a little oil, to soak up the juices

a little bit of prep - chop the chilli

add the wine and let it bubble down...

served with a piece of toasted sourdough (courtesy of my Mum)

#Healthmonth here we come! Wish me luck….. and join up too!

I got a tweet from my friend and twitter expert (would that be called a twexpert??), Andrzej, who invited me to join his team for Healthmonth – a social game which encourages you to be healthy – definitely AJs thang – 8 mile runs in the morning and so forth.  Health at the moment… not always mine and although I am currently in my skinny jeans (yay!), there are definitely areas that I could address!

You pick from diet, physical, mental and other targets and then commit to 3 ways to improve your health for a month – you then win points for your team based on how well/consistently you perform the tasks that you have set yourself.  Then you can have a reward if you reach your targets, but have to set yourself a punishment if you don’t! I have picked 1) drink more water 2) exercise twice a week for at least 30 mins and 3) wake up early – no snoozing the alarm!  The last one is going to be tough as I am on holiday for the whole of April, BUT not as tough as one of the targets for my HB Jon – he can only eat 3 portions of fried food a week. Let’s just say that yesterday he had a donut and there is a huge double decker in the fridge….  healthy! His reply to my question about the benefits of these for his health was ‘Healthmonth doesn’t start for 2 more days….’ not really sure this is the right attitude. 

In the spirit of Healthmonth, I made a quick, vitamin-filled pasta dish, with some fire to warm my tired body.

Spaghetti aglio olio con brocolli e pepperincino (doesn’t that make it sound fancy – am sure my Italian is not quite right!) – feeds one tired parent

75g spaghetti

Handful or more of brocolli florets – cut large florets into half

splash olive oil, squirt of garlic puree, pinch Maldon salt, sprinkle of dried chilli flakes and grating of pecorino

1) Cook spaghetti in large pan of salty water – add brocolli for final 5-6 mins cooking

2)Drain pasta and leave in colander for a moment…. put a splash of olive oil into the pan, back on a low heat, add garlic puree and pinch salt and stir until it sizzles.  Add back in the pasta and brocolli and stir to coat.

3) Pour it all into a wide bowl or plate and add chilli flakes to taste – grate over some pecorino.  Enjoy the warming sensation which runs to all the extremities while you bask in your healthiness!