Low fat cheesy broad beans and pasta

It's broad bean surplus time at the allotment, so I'm looking for different ideas of how to cook and eat them.

I don't think this is particularly original - there are lots of similar recipes that involve high fat cheese or double cream but we wanted a low fat version. I make this more often with just ham and mushroom, sometimes with courgettes added.

I cooked the beans first. Fried up some onions, peppers, mushrooms and one slice of ham (as I didn't want to open the next packet!) and threw the beans in with everything. It looks better with red peppers as they stand out more but today's options were green or this yellowy one.
I added about a teaspoon of cayenne pepper - which might have been a little too much. It would probably be fine to leave it out or grind some black pepper over after cooking.
Then I added about 2 tablespoons of very low fat cheese spread and heated it through to melt.

And *fanfare* dinner is served.

Trying out another way to eat the broccoli!

As I've said before, we have a surplus of purple sprouting broccoli this Spring and I'm tracking down more interesting ways to use it up. Recently I came up with a variant on pan-fried lemon pepper chicken, so I decided to try that again with another twist of using pork and different seasonings.
I marinated chopped up pork fillets in lemon and orange juice with a chopped up chunk of stem ginger and small chilli - the orange and ginger seemed appropriate flavours to add to pork. Pan-fried the meat with garlic and leeks, added the remaining marinade and a slice of quince paste. When it was cooked thoroughly, I threw in the blanched broccoli to soak up the flavours.
The sauce wasn't as brightly pink as in the chicken recipe - probably due to the quince paste - and it wasn't as spicy. Good, but not as good as the original chicken idea.

Fridge Clear-out Soup

Today I decided it was time to give the fridge a clearout - and found the last bit of the last homegrown pumpkin, leftover chicken stew from earlier this week and a half-used jar of roasted pepper spread.

I'd been going to make pumpkin chilli but had a rethink - and ended up with a sort of Moroccan soup.

Dice the pumpkin flesh and cook it in the chicken stew with some diced onion and a clove of garlic. When it's soft, squash with a potato masher.
Add a chopped up red pepper (mine had been lingering in the fridge while we were on holiday last week, so not looking too good), half a chopped chilli (aiming for a little heat not burning the inside of my mouth) and squashed up seeds from a cardamom pod. By this point, more water needed adding. Once the pepper started to soften I added a tin of chick peas and a heaped teaspoon of the roasted pepper spread, and just let it all heat through again.
It was delicious - spicy without burning my mouth. I'll have to make it again sometime.

Pan-fried purple broccoli and chicken with pink lemon sauce

We're suffering at the moment from a glut of purple sprouting broccoli. As quickly as I pick it, more grows. We've eaten lots boiled, just as it comes; tried it in stir-fry; added bits to tomatoey pasta sauces....



So last night I tried to hunt down a new recipe. I couldn't find quite what I was looking for but the various ideas I found led me to try adding it - with chilli, pepper and other bits and bobs - to a lemon chicken recipe.

Recipe:

marinade chicken breasts in the juice of 2 lemons and the grated rind of one.

Blanch the broccoli for 2 minutes - this loses some but not all of the purple

I fried a chopped-up leek (hastily pulled from the garden), half a yellow pepper and a chopped up chilli briefly. Then added the sliced up chicken. After browning it lightly, I tipped in the remainder of the marinade and then rinsed out the bowl with water to get all the lemon zest. Added a grind or two of black pepper.

When everything was cooked, I threw in the broccoli to wilt for a minute or two, then, the secret ingredient, 3 tablespoons of demerara sugar. When I've cooked chicken on its own this way the sugar has bubbled up to a sticky glaze. Maybe I'd added too much water this time, or the broccoli was too damp but the sauce was a little runny -

a marvellous colour though...

PINK!!

Green Tomato Cake

Having heard weathermen talking about the possibility of snow next month, I thought I'd start clearing some of the unripe tomatoes - and brought home 11lbs!
I started to use them by making chutney - there's a particular green tomato one that I like to have with cheese in a hot baguette - but wondered if there was any other way to eat them. I put out query on Twitter and a very helpful person sent me 3 suggestions - one of which was green tomato cake.
I'm never one to refuse a culinary challenge so decided to have a go - unfortunately the recipe had too much butter and far too much sugar, so I decided to combine it with Delia's bara brith recipe as follows :

In a bowl beat 1 egg with 4oz sugar, then mix in 8 fluid oz milk. Sieve 10oz SR flour and a teaspoon each of baking powder, ground nutmeg and ground cinnamon, into the mixture and mix well. Finely chop 12oz green tomato and add to mix.
Pour into a greased, lined 2lb loaf tin and bake at Gas No 4 for 50 - 60 mins

Then the important bit - tasting!
Surprisingly nice. It was lovely and moist from the tomatoes and tasted mainly of the spices.
I don't think anyone would identify the mystery ingredient as tomato - apart from one drawback. When cut into slices, you can see green chunks! Not the normal appearance of cake! Maybe we're too set in our ways about how cake should look but if I made up this recipe again, I'd bake it in small muffin or fairy cake cases.

leftovers soup

Using up bits and bobs of leftovers to make soup for lunch.

Starting with about a pint of water/stock from boiling gammon at the weekend,adding a small carrot not much bigger than a finger, a slice cut from a turnip, half a sweet potato left sitting in the fridge, a handful of yellow split peas and half a chopped up onion. Everything in a saucepan and simmered for about half an hour.
Today's magic ingredient though was 3 or 4 tablespoons of sauce left over from yesterdays fake boston beans - I could always add a little tomato puree, a pinch of mustard and a very small dribble of black treacle another time to see if it tasted the same, but today's was a wonderful accidental soup.

fake boston beans

SOMETHING NOT ENTIRELY DISSIMILAR TO BOSTON BEANS
to serve with cold gammon

first chop up a pepper, or half a red one and half of a green, put it in a saucepan, add a small chopped up onion, cover with water and start to simmer.
add - a tablespoon of black treacle, a teaspoon of mustard powder, half a teaspoon of chilli powder (could be more, or less, depends how spicy you like things)
simmer everything till the veg are soft
here's the 'fake' bit - add a tin of baked beans and warm through.

this serves 3 as a side dish or add a little more water and make soup for 2

THOUGHTS TO TRY

add mushrooms or courgettes
serve with pasta - only enough for 2
use as topping for baked potatoes

gooseberry chutney

3lb gooseberries - washed, chopped in half
1 1/2 pints vinegar
1tblspn each of black and white mustard seed
8oz onions, finely chopped
1 chilli,finely chopped
1 chunk stem ginger, finely chopped
1 teaspn salt
1lb demerara sugar
8oz granulated sugar


place 2lb gooseberries in a large preserving pan along with 1pint vinegar, mustard seed, onions,chilli,ginger and salt. Boil till the gooseberries have disintegrated - maybe an hour.
add remaining gooseberries, vinegar and the demerara sugar. boil till the fruit is soft - 20-30 mins.
add the granulated sugar and boil till the chutney thickens - 20 mins.
pot into clean,warmed jars.