GOOD LIFE Living Well: April 2013

Monday, April 29, 2013

Vegetable Tarts, Vegetable Shepherd's pie, Primavera, Turnip Greens with Red Chard, PHOTOS

Late flowering Star Lily

These 2 the Fresh Field Spinach and Green stuffed olive wholewheat sourdough breads

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lentil-tomato soup

Chunky Spanish (smoked paprika) Style tomato soup

The vegetarian Shepherd's Pie before and after topping with almond milk mashed potatoes

English Thyme flowers ( in my garden)


Star Lily flowering

own growing arugula

potato gnocchi

Primavera with own grown arugula


The Vegan above and Vegetarian with cheese below, Rustic roasted vegetable tarts with a wholewheat egg and dairy butter rich "brioche" type pastry.These tarts are popular as the pastry is very soft and tender, crisp on outside with tender buttery crumb...all topped with dried and fresh thyme

Turnip greens and red chard with white wine and onions..steaming

Sunday, April 28, 2013

Olive and Spinach breads out of oven..Info on previous blog today

packed with fresh field spinach and chopped stuffed olives

lentil soup with tomato-cumin, Spanish style chunky tomato soup, Green olive, Vegetable Shepherd's Pie with "Gourmet" Blind Scouse, and Spinach sourdough whole wheat breads..PHOTO'S & TIPS

Good morning everyone, worldwide.
It is a beautiful day in west Los Angeles, the birds are singing and trying to get their fledglings out of the nest, a lot of crows are being escorted out of the area by angry parents!

Yesterday I transplanted my heirloom broccoli plants for the summer months and this week I will be harvesting some of my own grown tender lettuces.

3 previous my market fresh vegetables air drying after being plunged washed

heirloom Broccoli grown from seeds from last years harvest

Today is prep day for tomorrows delivery and as most of you know it is also bread making day.
I have made up some whole wheat sourdough with field spinach and chopped stuffed green peppers, this is a soft and somewhat wet dough and will prove for about 4 hours at room temp. which will be approx 75f here today.
I also added caraway seeds to the mix to add some depth of flavor.
Everyone loves this bread and it is a good way to get people to eat more greens..I prefer to blanch the field spinach with stalks and use the small baby spinach raw.

The active 7yr old sourdough starter

The whole wheat sour dough bread

First batch has chopped olives kneaded in

Second batch has blanched chopped spinach kneaded in, then both batches are combined, allowed to rest before being shaped for the, greased and added raw sunflower seed on base, pans

The loaves ready for proving

I made a great lentil-tomato-cumin soup, and a hearty Spanish style chunky tomato and vegetable soup that will be served with corn tortilla chips (I find this adds more texture than just using bread)

The base for the Spanish style chunky vegetable soup

lentill with cumin and tomato soup

The Spanish style chunky tomato-vegetable..this has white wine also in base

Yesterday I made a gallon of my tomato sauce, finely diced and am using it for both soup bases.

One of tomorrow's entrees is a somewhat "traditional" vegetable Shepherd's Pie with carrots, potatoes,( I also added white sweet potatoes, again non-traditional) celery, parsnips, onions in a good vegetable stock.
When this is cooled I strain out the vegetables, add frozen peas, and bring the sauce to a boil and thicken with either corn starch or flour.
I use fresh sage and thyme as herbs of choice with sea salt, and Worcestershire sauce.
In Liverpool, when I was 18 I worked, a holiday job, on The S.S. Empress of England, (sailing the Atlantic all summer from England to Montreal, Quebec, Canada). One of the crew's favorite meals was Scouse or even Blind Scouse..this is the same base I used for the shepherd's pie, maybe without the parsnips and peas.
For regular scouse use ground meat and for Blind scouse use no meat.
Here in USA I am often amused when I see signs for Gourmet sausages..these were always the food of the working class, so now I am making "Gourmet scouse", for my vegetarian pies, lol
When I was in "Private Service" I used this recipe for making my Shepherd Pies with ground red meat and even ground chicken..it is wonderful.

The Blind Scouse base for the Shepherd's pie, simmering & cooling

Another entree is going to be my yeast based "rustic" roasted vegetable tart which are featured on this blog from last year..these are fantastic and good all year round. The pastry is a sort of whole wheat brioche.
The whole tart, becomes like a giant calzone with chunky vegetables ..I always par-cook the vegetables of the tarts so the flavors can develop.