Rahkomenakakku

A versatile Finnish cake with apples or other fruit.

This versatile recipe for an Finnish apple cake was published in 1978 by the Leeds branch of the National Childbirth Trust in a little booklet called Growing Up With Good Food. The booklet was a collection of recipes from Leeds mothers, edited by Catherine Lewis. We still occasionally use our old copy, now dog-eared and food-stained.

Rahkomenakakku has been a long time favourite in our family.

Sorrel-Onion Tart

Utterly delicious – worth keeping a small bed of sorrel somewhere.

I think Sally got this recipe from The Greens Cook Book. It is utterly delicious.

We keep a small bed of sorrel protected from the birds on our plot which keeps us going most of the spring and summer.

  • Tart dough for a 9 inch tart
  • 4 tablespoons butter
  • 1 large red onion, thinly sliced
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 4 to 8 0z sorrel leaves
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 cup double cream
  • 2 oz Gruyere cheese, grated

Prepare the tart dough and partially pre-bake.

Melt the butter in a pan, add the onion and salt. Cover the pan and stew for about 10 minutes until the onion is soft, stirring occasionally. Meanwhile cut the stems off the sorrel leaves and roughly slice the leaves. Add them to the cooked onion and cook until the sorrel has turned a grey-green colour (about 3-4 minutes). Whisk the eggs with the cream and then stir in the onion, sorrel and half the cheese. Taste for salt and season with pepper.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Spread the rest of the cheese on the bottom of the flan case, then spread the filling on top. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes until set and well coloured. Serve hot.

Makes one 9 inch tart

Sally Foster

Spinach with Garlic & Ginger

An Indian recipe for spinach, this works with cabbage or kale, too.

I learned this wonderful way of cooking spinach so long ago I almost forgot where it came from. I think it was a Sikh friend who showed it to me, but it doesn’t just go with Indian cooking – and it works with other greens besides spinach. I like it with cabbage, and even kale sometimes. This should be enough for two people who really like their greens.

  • 200 g or 300 g spinach
  • knob of ghee or else cooking oil and a knob of butter
  • about 2cm of fresh ginger root, grated
  • clove of garlic, pressed or chopped fine.

Wash the spinach well and drain. Heat the ghee (or oil and butter) with the garlic and ginger in a pan until it starts to sizzle. Then throw in the spinach, still wet, and cover the pan. Cook gently, stirring occasionally, until the spinach is soft and smells delicious. With other greens you may need to add just a bit of water to stop it burning.

Joe Foster

Chocolate rhubarb sponge pudding

“This recipe is so good, I have to share it.”

I know you will think I am obsessed with rhubarb (I am!), but this recipe is so good, I have to share it. It’s really easy and so nice…

A good way to make use of your rhubarb (don’t forget you can donate some rhubarb to the Hedge Veg box for our neighbours if you have some spare, too). 

Serves 6 to 8

  • 600g rhubarb, trimmed
  • 125 g golden caster sugar
  • SPONGE
  • 200g golden caster sugar
  • 225g softened butter
  • 200g SR flour
  • 25g cocoa
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 4 medium eggs
  • 100ml milk
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 50g dark chocolate, cut into chips
  1. Oven 200oC/ 180oC fan/ gas 6
  2. Cut rhubarb into 2cm chunks and mix with 125g sugar in an ovenproof dish (large).
  3. For the sponge, reserve 2 level tbsps sugar, then place all other ingredients EXCEPT choc chips, in food Processor and cream together. Add the chocolate chips afterwards and stir together.
  4. Smooth the sponge mixture over the rhubarb, scatter the reserved sugar over the top.
  5. Bake for 50 mins or until skewer comes out clean.
  6. Eat hot, or even better, warm. Recipe recommends custard, I had some cream.

Angie Willshaw

Serves 6-8

Rhubarb

There is more to it than pie and crumble.

Starting in April, or earlier, we pick lots of rhubarb until June on our plots. Here are some recipes and recommendations from members for surprising ways of using it.

Sweet cicely is an attractive perennial herb with an aniseed scent, easy to grow. It combines especially well with rhubarb:

Baby Globe Artichokes

Pick them young, before the choke develops and try this.

Globe artichokes are coming on nicely at the moment (mid May).  Instead of waiting for them to get enormous, this is how I’ve been cooking them:

Pick them young and tender.

Cut of the top third, and take of several layers of ‘leaves’.

Cut them in two. There is no choke at this stage.

Boil in wine/water+lemon juice or vinegar for about 10 minutes. Dress them with vinegar or whatever.

Eat!

From Rosie Hall

Jerusalem Artichoke Soup

JAs are delicious roasted, and as soup.

Jerusalem Artichokes are related to sunflowers so will grow tall and eventually have small yellow flowers.  The sprouts are brittle so take care not to break the growing tip when planting them. Its best to harvest them all in the autumn or over winter, and then replant each year – otherwise they get very congested. 


They are delicious roasted, and I like them as soup. Here is a simple recipe:

  • Peel the artichokes using a vegetable peeler or a teaspoon,  this is not absolutely necessary but makes a better coloured soup.
  • Fry gently with a couple of cloves of garlic in some oil or butter. Don’t let it burn. 
  • After a few minutes,  add enough water to cover and cook with a lid on for about 20 minutes until the artichokes are soft. 
  • Add a handful of parsley and liquidise to a smooth texture. I usually add milk to this,  I’m going to try oat milk next time.  

JAs contain inulin, a starch which encourages healthy gut bacteria but they can make you pretty windy, you have been warned!! 

From Rosie Hall

Kale Sprouts

Spring is the time for kale sprouts – the best part of the plant.

Through March and April, kale which has survived the winter starts to put out flowering shoots, a bit like sprouting broccoli. Kale sprouts are delicious – the best part of the plant. They are much better than the tough older leaves that are served in trendy cafes along with quinoa and chia as “superfoods”. 

I gather the sprouts when they are still growing fast, and tender enough to break off the stem easily. I wash them in a bit of fresh water, then drop them, still damp,  into a pan with a bit of olive oil. Kale tastes best to me if I start it on a fairly high heat, tossing them in the oil. After a minute or two I turn the heat down and add  just enough water to steam them without burning, but not so much that they become soggy. (Well, I do get this wrong sometimes, but then they are just ‘pan browned’ – definitely not ‘burned’.) When they are tender and they smell done serve them up.

Cook lots, or you will wish you had.

I cook broccoli the same way. Sometimes I add a clove of chopped garlic to the oil, especially with supermarket broccoli, which isn’t as tasty on its own.

Joe Foster

Garlic Scapes

Around mid-June our hardneck garlic sends up scapes – curly stems you can eat.

Around the middle of June our hardneck garlic sends up scapes as the bulbs ripen below the soil. Scapes are like flower stems, and they are delicious, only available for a short time each year.  They are at their best when they are still curled around. They get tougher later, when they straighten out.
 
There are lots of recipes for garlic scapes on the internet – garlic scape pesto, pickles, stir fry, and lots more. My own favourite way of using them is to saute them for a couple of minutes in hot olive oil and then serve them up fresh with a sprinkle of coarse sea salt. Pick them up and eat them with your fingers!
 
Delicious!
 
Joe Foster
 

Garlic Scapes

 

 

Mexican Refried Beans

Frijoles refritos are easy to make, and Borlotti beans work really well.

Refried beans (frijoles refritos) go with lots of Mexican or Tex/Mex dishes, like quesadillas, huevos rancheros, burritos, or as a dip for tortilla chips. They turn out to be easy to make, and the Borlotti beans that many of us grow work especially well.

One cup of dried beans makes two or three cups of frijoles refritos, depending on how soft you want it.

  • one cup of dried beans
  • about 60ml (quarter cup) of oil or lard
  • one onion, finely chopped
  • two or three cloves of finely minced garlic
  • salt

Soak and cook the beans as usual. Drain them, but save the cooking water separately.

In a heavy frying pan, sauté the onions in the oil until they start to brown. Add the garlic, and sauté a bit longer.

Add a big spoonful of the beans, and mash them in well with the onions. Fry them for a while, then add some more beans and mash them in with the rest. Continue until all the beans are fried. This process causes a reaction between the starches and proteins in the beans (a Maillard reaction, if you want to know) which brings out the special flavour.

Now add a bit of the cooking water at a time, mashing it in as you  go, until you get the right consistency.  Make it a bit sloppier, actually, because they set firmer once they cool.  I like to make the dip version quite soft.

Salt the mixture to taste. Beans stand quite a bit of salt sometimes. Keep tasting as you go.

Joe Foster