Portugal Smallholding » Produce, Food & Recipes

Courgette Saturday

Sophie — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 15:00:25 +0000

Potato slices

wwoofer — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 13:08:58 +0000

A typical Austrian dish is very easily made: Potato slices. Especially when you have from last dinner some cooked potatoes left.

Here the recipie (for 5 people):
500g potatoes
1 egg
170g flour
30g butter
oliveoil to fry the slices

How you do it:
Cook the potatoes, peel and mash them. Let the mash cool down, put the melted butter, the egg and the flour in. Knead it to a smooth pastry.
Form small balls and flatten them to small slices (you may need some more flour to not stick the slices to the ground).
Heat a pan up, put in pleanty of oliveoil and put the slices in. Fry them on both sides until they look lovely brown.

Potato slices are traditional served with jam. They taste also good with cheese and salat.
Enjoy your meal! Or as it is said in Austria “Guten Appetit!”

Inga Marén

Cream Tea Gone Wrong

Sophie — Wed, 12 May 2010 21:56:31 +0000

Not all our cookery turns out to plan. Glut of strawberries = strawberry jam, an afternoon activity for Poppy = baking scones, and Kirsten offered to buy some cream while she was out. Yum! Cream tea to look forward to!
The jam didn’t set, something wierd happened to the scones (Matt swears it was because we’d run out of milk so he used water instead), and the cream simply refused to whip. Kirsten’s face says it all:

Carob Crunch

Sophie — Wed, 12 May 2010 20:47:26 +0000

This is adapted from the Cranks Recipe Book, a really quick and easy treat! Somewhere between biscuit and cake (as recipe = thinner and more biscuity, double quantities = thicker and more cakey). It’s especially good if you add a tablespoon of thick jam (we always have some that’s set too much) or fruit preserved in syrup (jam that doesn’t set enough!) slightly chewy fruit is good, cherry is my favourite.

100g butter
100g flour
2 teaspoons carob powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
65g sugar
50g dessicated coconut

Sieve (or whisk, saves time!) together the flour, carob powder, and baking powder.
Melt butter over a low heat.
Add all other ingredients and stir well.
Gently press into an 18cm (7″) sandwich tin.
Bake at 190c (375f / gas 5) for 25 mins (it will seem uncooked in the middle, but it will set as it cools).
Allow to cool, cut and serve.

Broad Bean Pate

Sophie — Wed, 12 May 2010 20:31:45 +0000

We’ve got a glut of broad beans at the moment, and I’m not all that keen on them, but this is delicious!

225g broad beans
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 small onion
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 talbespoons tomato paste
pinch stock powder
paprika

Cook the beans in boiling water until tender.
Saute the onions and garlic in the olive oil.
Add tomato paste and stock powder and stir for a few minutes over low heat.
Mix in the beans and puree in a blender.
Cool and sprinkle with paprika before serving.

Strawberry Season has started

Kirsten — Tue, 04 May 2010 08:37:05 +0000

We are very happy

Strawberry's in the garden

Blue Salad -Borage Flowers

Kirsten — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 08:35:48 +0000

Last night we had borage flowers in our salad which is a first for me.

Borage can be used as a fresh vegetable or a dried herb. The flower has a sweet honey-like taste and is one of a few blue-coloured edible things. (Although maybe you shouldn’t eat tons of them as they contain a tiny amount of a chemical that could harm your liver) Eating the plant apparently tastes like cucumber but I have yet to try it.

It has many medicinal uses including for the regulation of metabolism and the hormonal system including for PMS and menopause side effects. It’s also used to help colds and respiratory infections and for it’s general anti-inflammatory properties (please note I have no specific skills for using this herb it is just general information!)

According to the internet…use of borage is common in Germany and in Italian Liguria, borage is commonly used as filling of the traditional pasta ravioli and pansoti. The leaves and flowers were originally used in Pimms before it was replaced by mint. And it is used to flavour pickled gherkins in Poland.

Borage is used in companion planting and if planted near tomato plants is said to improve their growth and make them taste better. It is also thought to protect spinach and brassica and strawberries.

Borage Plant in the garden

If I’ve missed anything about this plant let me know!

Asparagus and poached eggs for breakfast

Kirsten — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 11:53:16 +0000

This morning we had produce from our chickens and vegetable garden for breakfast.

Asparagus growing with chicken house in background

…served in various ways.

Sophie eating her eggs and asparagus

Matt's presentation of the same dish

My friend Zoe got me in to this combination but I have never had it so fresh before!

Meringues

Sophie — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 10:27:37 +0000

Ifits Pie

Sophie — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 14:31:41 +0000

The name’s inspired by Andy’s brother Oggy because, as he says “I’m having ifits for dinner tonight” (if it’s in the fridge I’ll eat it) and the actual pie inspired by a German friend’s mother who made something similar the other day which was delicious (though hers, no doubt, was not made out of leftovers, and had a bread base rather than a pastry case).

Wholemeal pastry case filled with a mixture of:

mashed potato and green beans left over from last night’s dinner
a lump of old cheese (mouldy bits removed!)
six eggs (need using because the chickens have started laying lots)
a couple of leeks from the garden (again – need using cos there are lots)
a bit of milk, salt, and pepper

I threw it in the stove for about an hour and we had it for lunch with ketchup. Yummy!