Rocket, roasted tomato, basil and feta salad

This salad is seriously amazing for two main reasons firstly its tastes great and secondly as it uses plenty of rocket (arugula for our American friends), the reason why I like this is because we have a forest of of rocket growing in the vegetable garden. I enjoy rocket salads as our homegrown wild rocket has a spicy Parmesan cheese edge to its flavour so its great in combination with other Mediterranean salad ingredients. This salad is a mish mash of Italian and Greek flavours and screams languid hot summer days to me.

I am sure I can almost here Spanish guitars and feel Balearic breezes through the trees.....

I am sure if you didn't fancy roasting the tomatoes that some good sun dried tomatoes would be nearly as good in this dish, plus you could swap out the feta for local goat cheese, serve with chilled white wine and good bread, simple grilled meats or fish and good friends.

What you need

• Rocket (Arugula) - a good handful for each person
• Basil- a few sprigs - leaves picked off
• Feta or goats cheese - 1 block serves about 4 - chopped or crumbled
• 6 - 10 baby plum or cherry tomatoes - halved
• Extra virgin olive oil ( extra virgin rapeseed would also be good)
• Sprig of fresh thyme - leaves picked off
• White wine vinegar / balsamic vinegar / red wine vinegar
• Pinch of sugar
• Salt and freshly ground pepper

What you do 

• Heat your oven to 220c
• Toss the tomatoes in a little of the olive oil and place in a small oven tray, sprinkle with the thyme and a little sugar and season with salt and pepper.
• Roast for about 30 minutes or so until the tomatoes are slightly charred and soft (like in the bottom image)
• Cool ( you can store in the fridge for a while if you like, no snaffling !)
• iMake a dressing of the pan juices, a good slug of olive oil and some vinegar (you are going for 6/1 oil to vinegar ratio), taste and adjust seasoning if needed.
• To assemble the salad, toss the rocket in the dressing , then top with the cheese and roasted tomatoes and drizzle with a little more of the dressing.
• Strew with basil leaves
• Serve immediately and devour greedily.

I'm linking up to Simple and in Season, created by Ren Behan and hosted this month by Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary.

                                            

I am also linking to Extra Veg created by Fuss Free Flavours and Utterly Scrummy and hosted this month over at Maison Cupcake.

Prawn, pea and rocket risotto

The rocket patch in the garden is now in full overtime mode, its beaten us into submission and just gone for broke, overflowing the paths and despite our best efforts giving batches away to all visitors to our household,  yet still more grows.

The flavour of our wild rocket is really spicy with notes of parmesan cheese so it needs careful combining with other ingredients, this recipe is nicely balanced with sweet peas and king prawns and green spicy hints from the rocket. Depending on your preference you can either cook it in the oven or by the traditional method on the hob.

What you need

• Olive oil
• 1 small white onion - finely chopped or you could use a shallot
• Garlic - couple of cloves, peeled and finely chopped
• Hot fish or vegetable stock
• Raw king prawns or frozen defrosted
• Good handful fresh rocket, 3/4 of it chopped finely, few leaves still whole for garnishing
• Ramekin of frozen petit pois or garden peas, defrosted
• Risotto rice - about 200g

This recipes makes enough for 2 greedy adults

What you do

• Firstly decide whether you are going to cook your risotto in the oven or on the hob, if you are plumping for oven baking then you will need a flameproof casserole dish, I use my trusty Le Crueset shallow casserole with lid otherwise you will need a large frying pan.
• Heat the oil in pan and add the onion and cook slowly without colouring until soft, now add the garlic and cook for a few minutes longer, now stir in the rice.
• Now if cooking in the oven add most of the stock on a high heat, cover with the lid and place in you oven heated to 180c, if cooking on the hob, gradually stir in most of the stock and simmer until absorbed. It normally takes about 15 minutes either way.
• Were back on the hob now, stir in the prawns and the remaining stock and cook stirring until all the stock is absorbed and the prawns are pink.
• Stir in the peas and chopped rocket, cook very gently just to warm the peas through, remove from the heat cover and let stand for a couple of minutes.
• Serve garnished with the whole rocket leaves and a drizzle of olive oil.

Rocket Pesto stuffed mushrooms

Another glut in the garden - this time we are inundated with wild rocket its popping up all over and although I love the peppery spicy leaves in salad, you can only eat so many. Previous forays into warm rocket cookery have had mixed results, its fine strewed on pasta, pizzas and the like but I am yet to be convinced with rocket soup. I have made homemade pesto a few times previously with basil and even nasturtium leaves but never rocket until now. 

The pesto is easy to make especially if you have a food processor / blender, just blitz clean rocket leaves, garlic, olive oil, parmesan cheese, pine nuts or breadcrumbs until you have a thick green paste, use this in this recipe or alternatively stirred through pasta or spread on hot from the oven fresh bread.

What you need 

• Qty of rocket pesto
• Fresh breadcrumbs
• 1 or 2 large field mushrooms - stalks removed
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Baby cherry tomatoes - sliced 
• Cheese (Lancashire, cheddar, local goats would all work) - grated or broken into little chunks
• Sea salt and pepper

What you do

• Place your mushrooms in an oven proof dish gill side up.
• Pre heat your oven to 180c.
• In the base of the mushrooms place the sliced cherry tomatoes, then spoon in the pesto and some breadcrumbs, top with cheese and a little more breadcrumbs.
• Season with salt and pepper and drizzle with a little olive oil
• Bake for 15 -20 minutes until the mushroom is tender and cooked, the cheese has melted and the breadcrumbs golden.
• Delicious served as a light lunch or supper dish or as a starter.

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

 

Prosciutto, rocket and chestnut mushroom salad

I love Italian food so here's a salad inspired by Italy, we make this mainly when the rocket from the garden is growing like mad, but it can be made anytime of year if you can get hold of some nice fresh peppery rocket.

Ingredients

• Fresh Rocket, a good handful per portion
• Chestnut mushrooms - finely sliced
• Parma Ham or air dried prosciutto
• Parmesan or Grando Padano - grated finely
• Good quality extra virgin olive oil
• Good quality matured balsamic vinegar

Method

• Serve on a plate with the rocket in the centre
• Parma ham around the plate, ripped in to large pieces
• Scatter the mushrooms randomly across the salad
• Grate the cheese across the whole dish
• Sprinkle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar

Delicious, served with goats cheese bruschetta or plain bruschetta, you'll have amazing depths of flavours.

Green Garden Soup

Well the weather is still not playing ball, its wet, its cool then its sunny, very confusing for the plants in the vegetable garden and very confusing for the cook too, what do you make when its supposed to be summer but some evenings you almost feel like putting the heating back on !

Soup is the answer in this household but not the rib sticking type of winter, something all together lighter using seasonal ingredients of course ideally from the garden and so this soup was born.

A quick rummage in the vegetable garden yielded rocket, peas, broad beans, baby courgettes and lovage, this was supplemented by store cupboard additions of potato, garlic and onion, the resulting soup was delicious, sweet and very moreish.

Ingredients

• Peas (you could use frozen)
• Broad beans
• Baby courgettes - chopped finely
• Rocket - handful no more
• Lovage leaves - couple
• White onion, finely chopped
• Potato- peeled and diced in to small pieces
• Vegetable stock
• Butter 

Method

• Melt butter in a large saucepan
• Add all your vegetable and sweat for a few minutes without browning
• Add vegetable stock until all your vegetables are covered
• Simmer until the vegetables are tender
• Allow to cool slighty, then blend to desired consistency, thinner with more stock or water if needed
• Taste to see if needs seasoning, bring back to gentle simmer, do not boil as it spoils the sweet flavour
• Serve accompanied by great bread

I am entering this post in simple and in season blog challenge on Fabulicious Food, this month guest hosted by homemadebyfleur 

This is also an entry for No croutons Required, July challenge for summer soups and salads, a vegetarian challange co hosted by Tinned Tomatoes and Lisa's Kitchen

Sweetfire beetroot, goat cheese and rocket salad

As one of the lucky bloggers taking part in the #thinkyouknowbeetroot campaign from lovebeetroot  here is the first recipe using one of the samples I have been sent to play with. Any regular readers of my blog will know that I enjoy finding novel ways of using ingredients. I was lucky to already to have a supply of fabulous local goats cheese from Capra Products, the last of homegrown wild rocket and a few tomatoes from the garden. Sweetfire beetroot is baby beetroots marinated in a chilli olive oil dressing, so the beetroot has a slight chilli piquancy, I mixed up a quick olive oil and balsamic vinegar dressing ( I use Gift of Oil black label) to pull the dish together.

Ingredients

• Salad Rocket
• Sweetfire Beetroot
• Goats cheese
• Tomatoes (optional)
• Balsamic vinegar
• Olive oil

Method

Place the beetroot on your serving plate, sprinkle with rocket, crumble the goats cheese and drizzle with your dressing. Delicious, simple lunch ideal served with crusty bread to mop up the lovely dressing.