Pea and fennel salad

We've had one of the coldest winters here in a while, but rainfall has been down on previous years. I don't remember seeing so many rainbows ever, so it means there was some drizzle about.

It seemed ironic that the first morning of Spring, there was frost on the ground. It was bloody freezing that morning.

I am so glad the warmer days are on their way, and more than happy to have the longer days of daylight savings return in a month.

I have been eating so much healthier of late. I've been reading lots about foods and how they heal, including herbs and spices. So I have made an effort to eat more fruit and veggies and I hardly eat anything from a packet, which is a good thing!

Fennel is a fabulous food to include in your next shopping trip. It is packed with vitamins and minerals and generally really good for your health. I found this salad really comforting for my tummy too.

I used half a fennel bulb in this recipe. It also goes well with radish or oranges in a salad too, if you want to swap out the peas.

It is nice cut up and baked with other veggies, or cut in chunks and placed under a roast lamb or beef with carrots and onion to lift the roast off the bottom of the pan, and add flavour.

I ate this with frittata for lunch, and it was exceptionally delicious with fish for dinner. A really simple salad with a fresh taste, to keep in your summer repertoire to impress your dinner guests. 

Pea and Fennel salad

1/4 cup mint leaves, torn
1 tablespoon chopped chives
1 cup frozen peas, thawed
1/2 a fennel bulb, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Pea shoots, optional (I just happened to have them growing in the garden, so nipped a few tops off)

To cut the fennel, chop of the stalks and fronds where they meet the bulb.

Cut in half, then cut the core out in a v shape, it should be easy to see where.

Thinly slice one half for the salad.

Mix oil and lemon juice together, then combine all ingredients in a bowl, and serve up :)


It is worth growing your own herbs in a few pots at the back door, so you can just pop out and pick them for salads just like this :)

An InLinkz Link-up

Potato, pea and mint salad

My mint, growing in a half barrel near the chook house, is flowering right now. I love the smell as I brush past to open the gate.

The purple potato plant is flowering now too. I have them growing in a pot by the veggie patch. Next time I'll put them in a bigger pot I think, it's as easy as tipping out the pot when they are ready and not digging to look for them. I've just topped up the pot with some composted sheep poo.

Potato, pea and mint salad

1 kilogram of pototoes, chopped into 2cm chunks, with the skin still on(you could use baby ones here.
3/4 cup frozen peas

Dressing
1/2 cup cottage cheese
1/2 cup greek yoghurt
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 good tablespoon finely chopped mint

Cook the potatoes in salted water, for about 10 minutes or until are just soft enough to get a knife through. Leave to cool.

Cook the peas(you could do this in a steamer while the potatoes boil).Let cool.

Mix the dressing ingredients together and stir through the cold potato and peas.

You could add other ingredients like radishes, carrot,celery or ham of you like, even swap out the spuds for pasta to make your own version.

Added to flaunt your flowers at Tootsie Time

Winter warmer soup #openslather

I have started making big pots of soup again, the days are getting very cold with icy winds straight from the southern ocean. Lunch for me has been good the past month. Yesterday I made a lentil and veggie soup, it was especially good with a ladle full over some baked fish, it was seriously good.

Gorgeous minestrone, made with an Italian dried soup mix.

 

When my sister and I first moved out of home, I wanted to make lasagne and my sister berated me because I didn't know how. "It's on the packet", she scowled at me, like I was some sort of idiot. Or she was just a bitch. My lips are sealed.....but all the same, and how was I supposed to know, the recipe was on the lasagne sheet packet, probably still is. This is the one I make now, I am a little older and wiser. I've even managed to make my own pasta. 

Soup making is not hard. I've been buying bags of dried split peas, lentils and soup mixes, there are recipes on the packet and they make great additions to winter soups. Tinned equivalents would work just as well. 

I usually make soup with whatever's available in the fridge, and it is a great thing to make when there are vegies perishing, begging to be used up. I even freeze stuff when it's getting almost past it to defrost later to use in soup and casseroles. A good start to any soup is onion, carrot and celery. They rest is whatever you have on hand

Note the ends of broccoli stalks. Flavour and veggie goodness. I freeze these too, for casseroles.
I even freeze the celery ends for soup or casserole. 

I fry the onion, garlic and bacon, then add chopped vegies and a
few bay leaves. They are my secret ingredient. Add half a cup of dried yellow split peas.
 Cover with stock or water. Slowly simmer away for an hour. Add brown rice and simmer
until rice is cooked.

I have been having my soup with a sprinkling of parmesan cheese and chilli oil. I love chilli oil in this sort of soup. You can make it easy with some fresh chilli or dried, and olive oil. Keep the jar in the pantry. The oil will go a loverly red colour and be packed with a flavour punch.

I used to garden for an old Italian couple, they used to make me lunch. Old Georgio made me fried eggs with chilli oil on top one day with crusty bread. I thought it was the best thing I had ever tasted. 

The garden has closed down and no one is living there now. I have big dreams about that place, if only the universe would see fit to letting me win the lotto.

What is your favourite winter warmer soup? Have you got something earmarked for that big lotto win?

Planting Peas

I found a half used packet of pea seeds in my 'seed junk draw', there's all sorts of things in there, but its where I keep the seed packets.

It was such a beautiful day, we had been for a walk and had lunch with friends in the main street. Isabel was still full of beans, so I took her out to plant them.

The veggie patch isn't very big and it has a few things growing, like broccoli, onions, silverbeet and lettuce. There are parsley and dill seedlings coming up everywhere, a thyme plant and some oregano. A couple of stray potato plants have come up, probably from peelings I had chucked on there. Everywhere else in between there are weeds!!!

I pulled the weeds out to clear a patch. Isabel didn't help, she wanted gloves and was too busy playing with my camera! But she did put the seeds into the dirt and helped cover them up. I'm not expecting much to come from them and if there are peas, most of them get eaten before they go inside for the pot anyway!