The Carrot and Cumin soup that stole your heart
MDuring Love Food Hate Waste Project 2016 (roadshows and workshops included) there was one soup that definitely stole everyone’s heart both in terms of taste and simplicity of preparation.
An easy recipe to help you use that bag of carrots you bought when you really only needed a couple. Nutritious, warming and satisfying it is versatile in its use of pulses, I actually make it with yellow split peas more often than with red lentils, but if you are in a rush lentils are a better option. If you do not have ras-el-hanout spice mixture you can increase the cumin dose, add some paprika, ground coriander, a pinch of chilli powder and a squeese of lemon. Fresh coriander or spinach complements the recipe very well. The use of almond milk is in my opinion what really makes this soup (use sweetened). And if you serve with toasted almonds it and coriander pesto you have a luxury version to indulge in.
Enjoy!
Ingredients
Makes 2.5lt soup or 6 portions for main
- 700g carrots
- 350g red lentils or split yellow peas
- 2.5 litres stock
- 250ml almond milk
- 2 tsp cumin seeds
- 1 pinch chilli flakes
- 1.5 tsp Ras El Hanout spice mix
- Salt
- Olive oil
- Fresh coriander or spinach (Optional)
Preparation
45minutes
- Wash carrots well with a vegetable brush and chop finely.
- Coat the bottom of a pot with enough olive oil.
- When hot add the cumin seeds and chilli flakes and fry for a few
- Add the carrots, with a couple of pinches of salt and stir fry for
- Add the lentils and Ras El Hanout and stir well until well coated
- Add the stock, bring to the boil and simmer for 20-30 minutes.
- Remove from the heat, add the almond milk and blend to a creamy
- Add the chopped spinach and/or coriander for a soup that will make you as strong as Popeye!
Lia’s Tips: Mix parsnips or potatoes with carrots to use up leftover vegetable. This soup is great with split yellow peas. Served with pesto and nuts it is a very filling meal. Serve with savoury muffins or toasted stale bread or croutons.
Chicken Giouvetsi with Preserved Lemons and Orzo Pasta (Channel 4- The Food Chain)
One late autumn Friday afternoon, as I was writing recipes inspired by Welsh ingredients and my Greek home, I received a call from a lovely man called Jonathan, asking very specifically about my preserved lemons recipe. ‘Would you be willing to be filmed preparing preserved for our TV programme?’ he asked, ‘And what about sharing a recipe that uses preserved lemons?’ My answer of course was YES! And tonight, on 21 March 2016, you can see me do that at 8.30pm on Channel 4 when the first episode of The Food Chain kicks off starting with the ingredients of Apple & Salt, grown and produced in the UK and travelling to your plate through our stories and recipes.
It would suffice to say that coming from Greece I use only sea salt for cooking! So it has been a great relief that there are still some great businesses in the UK that produce fantastic sea salt for us. Using sea salt definitely adds to the flavour of food and I believe that its health benefits are much greater for all of us. So now you know what ingredient I will be using!
For those keen cooks who would like to try the recipe on the Food Chain Programme, you can find my preserved lemons recipe here, and below is an adapted version of my Παππού/Pappou’s (Grandad in Greek) Giouvetsi recipe which uses preserved lemon and my beloved spice of cinnamon.
Enjoy! And Καλή Όρεξη/Kalee Oreksi!
Follow us on Twitter: @liaskitchen, Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/liaskitchen, Look at our photos on Instragram: @lias_kitchen
Ingredients (feeds 4-6)
- 1kg chicken thighs and drumsticks (skin on)
- 2 onions, finely chopped
- ½ preserved lemon, flesh removed and finely chopped
- 1 tsp sweet paprika
- 1-2 tsp sea salt
- 1-2 cinnamon sticks
- 500g orzo pasta/κριθαράκι
- 5 whole allspice or pimento berries
- 6 garlic cloves
- 2 tbsp. tomato paste
- 1 heaped tsp oregano
- ½ tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp sugar
- Up to 1lt stock
- Additional sea salt to taste
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Fresh, chopped parsley (optional)
Preparation (1.5hrs in total)
- Place the chicken, preserved lemons, paprika and half of the garlic crushed in a bowl with a couple of glugs of olive oil and 2 tsp of salt.
- Mix well, cover and leave aside to marinade for at least half an hour (or overnight in the fridge if you prepare the day before for extra flavour).
- In a casserole dish or oven tray with a lid, which is suitable for oven use, preheat olive oil on the hob, enough to coat its surface.
- Brown the chicken pieces well on all sides taking care not to burn.
- Before the process finishes add the finely chopped onions, the cinnamon stick and the pimento/all spice berries and sauté with the chicken for flavour and until just soft.
- Add the tomato paste stirring well to dissolve, additional garlic, dried oregano, pepper, sugar and finally at least 750ml of the boiling stock.
- Cover with the lid and place swiftly in the oven cooking on high heat for ten minutes.
- Cook for an additional thirty minutes on medium heat.
- Then remove from the oven to add the orzo pasta, stirring in carefully so as not to ‘break’ the chicken flesh.
- Return to the oven and cook on medium heat for another 20 minutes checking whether you need to add an additional 250ml of stock for the past to cook (particularly if the pasta has ‘drunk’ most of the water and is still quite tough)
- Let the dish sit for 15-20 minutes and serve with fresh parsley if you prefer that.
Festive Sprout Stir Fry
![Sprouts[a]](https://liaskitchen.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/sproutsa.jpg?w=705)
This is a recipe that even the biggest sprout sceptic will enjoy – I have tested this with my partner whose face contorts with disgust every time I even mention sprouts. Slicing the sprouts finely definitely helps. For the host of a Christmas dinner this is a great side for any roast and rather helpfully the recipe can be cooked mostly on the hob, freeing up the necessary space in your oven.
As all recipes this month are inspired by Riverside Market Garden’s vegetable box all you need to do is place your order today (Wednesday 16 December) and you will have all the vegetable ingredients you need to execute this and the rest of the recipes.
The combination of ginger (in the stir fry), nutmeg and a hint of clove (in the roast nuts) is inspired by the French Quatre Epices (four spices) mixture but I have substituted the white pepper with crushed red peppercorns for a festive look. And I have added an optional pinch of crushed buckthorn seeds (hippophae) for a zingy lift. I have also shared my recipe for roasted spiced walnuts which I learned from Anna Hansen’s, The Modern Pantry cook book. In the past year I have used this method to roast nuts with any imaginable spice to suit my recipes – it is a real delight!
Ingredients (4-6 people)
- Salt to season as required
- ½ tsp buckthorn seeds (optional)
- 1 tsp red peppercorns
- Olive oil
- 3-4 Tbsp soya sauce
- 1 tsp paprika
- 50g fresh ginger, grated
- 2 medium onions, finely sliced
- 500g Brussel sprout, finely sliced
- 100g walnuts
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp icing sugar
- 1 tsp nutmeg
- Pinch of clove
- 1 Tbsp water
Preparation (30 minutes)
- In a baking tray mix the walnuts, salt, icing sugar, nutmeg, clove and water until the nuts are well coated.
- Place in a low to medium oven (160 centrigrade) for 20 minutes or until dried and golden.
- Finely slice and grate the onion, sprouts and ginger.
- Coat the base of a wide frying pan with enough olive oil and heat.
- Stir fry the onion and ginger with the paprika and a pinch of salt for 5 minutes and until translucent.
- Add the finely sliced sprouts and stir fry with the soya sauce for 15 minutes or until the sprouts are soft.
- Season with additional salt or soya sauce if required – the sprouts can definitely take it so don’t be shy.
- Crush the red peppercorns (and buckthorn seeds) in a pestle and mortar and sprinkle on the stir fry
- when the walnuts are ready sprinkle on the stir-fry.
Back to the roots #3 – Festive recipes: Parsnip or celeriac oven chips with beetroot dip
![RoastVeg[studiolit]_5web - Copy](https://liaskitchen.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/roastvegstudiolit_5web-copy.jpg?w=705)
Ingredients (snack quantity or enough for two)
- 350g parsnip, celeriac or turnip or a mix
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ tsp sweet or smoked paprika
- ¼ tsp dried thyme
- 2 Tbsp olive oil
Preparation (40min)
- Wash the vegetable well with a brush or peel and wash.
- Chop in long chip sticks and in a baking tray toss in the thyme, paprika, salt and olive oil.
- Roast for 30 minutes in a medium oven (180 centigrade) or until cooked enough to pierce with a fork but not falling apart.
- For Lia’s Kitchen beetroot dip please see www.liaskitchen.com.
Back to the roots #2 – Festive recipes: Parsnip and/or Jerusalem artichoke maple roasties
Continuing with the festive theme, here is another roast vegetable recipe which can accompany any chosen Christmas dinner meats or veggie roast. I think it will particularly delicious with goose.Once again this is a stress-free recipe which does not require extensive preparation. It is versatile enough for you to use with many of the white root vegetables that you can find in your Riverside Market Garden festive vegetable box. Personally I have great difficulty stopping myself from devouring these before I place them on the dinner table. Let’s hope I manage it this time for the family’s sake!
Don’t forget to order your festive Riverside Market Garden vegetable box by Wednesday 16 December here: https://store.buckybox.com/riverside-market-garden
Ingredients (feed 4-6 as part of a roast dinner)
- 6 Jerusalem artichokes (around 250g)
- 1 large parsnip (around 200g)
- 2 Tbsp maple syrup
- 2-3 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
- ½ tsp dried thyme
- 1 bay leaf
- ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
- 1 tsp ground salt to season
- 2-3 Tbsp olive oil to dress
Preparation
- Wash the artichoke and parsnip well with a brush or peel. I prefer both vegetable with the skin on if you cut off any ‘hairy’ bits and chop the top and tail off.
- Roughly chop and mix well with all ingredients in a baking tray.
- Roast for 40 minutes in a medium oven (180 centigrade) or until cooked enough to pierce with a fork but not falling apart.
- Particularly delicious with roast goose, duck or a hearty nut roast.
Back to the roots #3 – December festive recipes: Parsnip or celeriac oven chips with beetroot dip
Back to the roots #1– Festive recipes: The Mixed Root Roast with Dukkah
![RoastVeg[studiolit]_2web](https://liaskitchen.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/roastvegstudiolit_2web1.jpg?w=705)
Ingredients (feed 4-6 as part of a Christmas or other roast dinner)
- 600g mixed root vegetable, coarsely chopped (use equal amounts of e.g. parsnip, carrot and Jerusalem artichokes or celeriac and or 200g of each)
- 3 leeks, coarsely chopped
- ½ tsp dried thyme
- ½ tsp ajwain/carom seeds or dried oregano (optional)
- 2 Tbsp. sesame seeds
- 1 tsp salt
- Olive oil
- 2 Tbsp Dukkah mixture (optional- see recipe here https://liaskitchen.com/2015/12/12/the-wonderful-dukkah-condiment/)
Preparation
- Peel or wash the root vegetable well with a brush and coarsely chop it together with leek.
- If using celeriac and Jerusalem artichokes place these in a bowl of acidulated water to avoid them turning brown, i.e. water with some lemon juice or vinegar.
- In a baking tray pour enough olive oil to line its wide base.
- Stir fry the vegetable and leek for 5 minutes after adding the salt and thyme.
- Add the sesame, adjwein or oregano (optional) and stir to make sure all veg is coated well in the oil.
- Roast for 40 minutes in a medium oven (180 centigrade) until the veg is cooked enough to pierce with a fork but does not fall apart.
- Sprinkle with the Dukkah mixture generously once you have removed from the oven. If you do not want to add the Dukkah season to taste adding a couple of pinches of salt.
Waste Not Cakes! Carrot & Banana sweetness and pumpkin & mushroom savoury delight
This year our dream team consisting of Green City Events, Cynefin Cardiff and Lia’s Kitchen will be organising more food waste reduction events in Cardiff’s Roath/Penylan, Splott and Adamsdown areas. Our first Love Food Hate Waste Roadshow on 21 November 2015 kicked off a series of roadshows and workshops to follow in 2016. We cannot explain how much we believe in what we do so we hope that our enthusiasm and dedication is contagious. Now is a great time to think about reducing your food waste and to join the fight to help do something about this ever increasing problem.
At our November 2015 roadshow we provided advice and tips on how to use our imagination to cook with what we have at home. Our savoury and sweet cake samples inspired many of you to be creative in the kitchen. So here are the recipes below. Remember don’t be afraid to replace an ingredient you are missing with another. The cake recipes were inspired by ingredients most us of are likely to waste and seasonal, affordable ingredients such as squash.
The sweet cake recipe is based on a similar recipe shared with me by a dear friend Wendy Twell about ten years ago. Whilst the savoury cake is inspired by pumpkin and winter squash which is abundant at the moment – it is designed to help people not waste some of the larger pumpkins/squash they get hold off. For more inspiration on pumpkin see here.
Follow @greencityevens, @liaskitchen, @cynefincardiff for information on upcoming events.
Thanks to www.dangreenphotography.com and Luke From Cynefin for the snaps today.
Sweet Carrot & Banana Cake
Ingredients (8-10 portions)
- 1 carrot coarsely grated
- 2 ripe bananas mashed with a fork
- 100ml/g of fat (vegetable oil or melted butter)
- 250g self-raising flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 150 sugar (caster or light brown sugar or a mix)
- 2 eggs
- 50g chopped nuts of your choice or roughly chopped chocolate
- 1 tsp mixed spices of your choices (we recommend mixing half tsp ground cardamom, half tsp ground cinnamon powder, ¼ tsp ground nutmeg)
Preparation (1.5 hours)
- Grease and line a 20cm long bread tin or a 20cm round baking tray with flour.
- Mix the flour with the baking powder and the spices of your choice.
- Mash the bananas with a fork and grate the carrot in the same bowl.
- Add the banana and carrot and mix with the flour.
- Make a well in the middle and add the fat of your choice and eggs.
- Beat well until blended.
- Bake in a medium oven (170 centigrade) for 45-1hr or until a skewer pierced into the centre comes out clean.
Lia’s tips:
- If you have one banana only add another carrot. If the mixture is tight add 1-2 tablespoons of milk to make it looser so that the cake is not dry.
- Cool down the butter a little before you add to your mixture. Mix in before adding your eggs.
- The cake keeps well in the fridge for about a week.
- Have too much leftover cake? Why not eat some of it for breakfast with Greek yoghurt and honey. Or soak the drier slices win some coffee and marsala or other sweet wine, topping it with sweetened yoghurt and fruit for an alternative trifle desert which will impress all your guests.
Savoury pumpkin and mushroom cake
Ingredients (8-10 portions)
- 1 small-medium squash/pumpkin or up to 500g peeled squash/pumpkin
- 1 onion
- 300g mushrooms
- 1 small bunch of sage (30g)
- 300g cornmeal or polenta
- 200g plain flour
- 4 tsp baking powder
- 100g butter melted
- 50-100g cheddar cubed or grated
- 300ml milk
- 2 eggs lightly beaten
- 30g sugar
- Salt
- Olive oil for frying
- Butter for frying
Preparation (1.5hr)
- Grease and line a square baking tray (25cm x 35cm) or a deep round baking tray (20-25cm diameter).
- Cut and peel the pumpkin or squash removing sweet. Then grate coarsely or pulse in a food processor for 2 minutes.
- Finely slice the onion, mix with the pumpkin, add two pinches of salt and stir fry in a little bit of olive oil for 10 minutes.
- Slice the mushrooms, add a pinch of salt and fry in a little butter until soft.
- Fry the whole sage leaves and their chopped stalk in a little butter until crispy.
- Mix the flours together with the baking powder.
- Add the sugar, fried veg, the butter, the cheese , the milk and the two beaten eggs and mix into a soft batter that is neither too tight not too runny.
- Season with more salt if needed and add the fried sage.
- Bake for 45min-1hr in a medium over (175 centigrade) or until a skewer pierced in the middle comes out clean.
Lia’s tips:
- Raw pumpkin does not in my opinion freeze that well uncooked. Stir frying pumpkin or squash is a great way to preserve it. If you have too much cook it, cool it, freeze it and use in cakes, pies and stir fries later on in the year.
- This recipe is adaptable to various and seasonal ingredients. You can use carrot and greens such as kale and spinach. Or add more mushrooms and less pumpkin. Ingredients such as carrot, pumpkin, courgette, aubergine are good for this cake because the keep this cake moist and soft.
- Same with the cheese- why not use a mix of cheeses, or blue cheese or whatever you might have in your fridge.
- You can replace the milk with yoghurt and a little bit of water.
- If you don’t have sage tarragon is a great alternative and so is rosemary. And of course you can use dried herbs instead of fresh. 1-2 tsp should be enough for this recipe.
- Polenta or fine cornmeal is a great ingredient to store in your pantry. Many shops on or around City road in Cardiff sell big bags for very little money. It will come handy for many savoury or sweet cakes which you can use your leftovers. Introduce cornmeal to your life – it is a great ingredient to cook with! s
- This cake keeps well in the fridge for about a week. It freezes well too.
- For the summer version of this cake see here.
Pumpkin stir fry and savoury pie – November Riverside Market Garden Box Recipes
It is finally pumpkin and winter quash season! The sweetness of this fantastic vegetable is ideal for moreish, savoury dishes and their salty flavours, which is exactly what I have developed for you this month. The recipes at the end of this blog are inspired by the seasonal ingredients of the November’s Riverside Market Garden vegetable box, such as leeks, fresh onions, sweet and chili peppers, and squash. But also the flavours of sage, mushrooms – currently still popping up in the Welsh forests – and chestnuts, the season of which is beginning. I really hope you enjoy the recipes, one of which is a quicker stir fry, for days when time is precious, whilst the other allows all you skilful foodies to explore making shortcrust pastry with pumpkin flesh instead of butter!
The trickiest part of cooking pumpkin or winter squash is peeling its tougher skin. Other than this the versatile vegetable cooks easily and quickly. Its flesh roasts in about half an hour (you can leave the skin on), it stir fries in around twenty minutes when diced and much quicker than that when grated. And finally it boils in about fifteen minutes.
The most obvious dish for pumpkin or squash, apart from pie, is soup. The easiest one you can make (and my favourite) does not even really need a recipe. Just roast a medium pumpkin, sliced with the skin, in a bit of olive oil, salt, thyme and 3-4 unpeeled cloves of garlic for half an hour in the oven. When baked place the flesh of the garlic and pumpkin in a pot, add at least 700ml of hot stock (say for 500g squash) and blend with a hand mixed or mash. Your soup is ready and you don’t even need to boil it!
Another idea if you don’t have much time is to scrub the skin of the pumpkin clean, cut it in half, scoop the seeds and stringy bits out with a spoon, drizzle it with olive oil and bake for forty minutes. When baked you can scoop out the flesh, mash it with a generous amount of grated cheese and herbs, and if you like some cooked lentils. Refill the pumpkin or squash halves and grill for another 10 minutes until golden!
I literally could go on forever about the numerous savoury bakes and sweet pies you can make with pumpkin but why not start by trying the two recipes below first. And if you need more inspiration come back to me. We are definitely not done with the squash season just yet.
Sunny autumn Cretan stir fry
Ingredients (4-6 portions)
- 500g diced pumpkin or squash (up to)
- 4 spring onions or 3 leeks or 1 dry onion
- 2 peppers (red or green)
- Half a garlic bulb
- ½ chilli pepper finely chopped
- 1 tbsp sundried tomato paste (optional)
- 200g pre-cooked chestnuts
- 100g pitted black olives
- 2 bay leaves (optional)
- 1 tsp dried thyme
- 100g couscous
- 1 cup white wine or vegetable stock
- One small bunch of parsley (30 gr)
- Olive oil
- Salt and pepper
Preparation (45 minutes)
- Peel and dice the pumpkin or squash in small cubes (2cm).
- Chop the spring onion (or leek/onion) and peppers.
- Stir fry in 3 tablespoons of olive oil, the bay leaves and thyme with a pinch of salt for 3 minutes.
- Stir in the sundried tomato paste, pumpkin, chestnuts, olives, garlic with the skin on, a pinch of salt and some more olive oil.
- Stir fry, cover and cook for up to 30 minutes until the pumpkin is (no need to add water).
- Once the pumpkin is soft, add the wine or stock and bring to the boil.
- Remove from heat, add the couscous, cover and set aside for 5 minutes.
- Season to taste, sprinkle with chopped parsley and drizzle with some extra virgin olive oil.
Lia’s Tips:
- If you don’t have access to chestnuts why not use 200g of mushrooms instead, dice and stir fry at the same time as the squash.
- You can use plain tomato paste if you don’t have access to sundried tomato paste.
- If the pumpkin is particularly tough you could add a couple of tablespoons of water to help it cook quicker
Savoury pumpkin and mushroom pie
Ingredients (4-6 portions)
For the dough
- 200g pumpkin (diced)
- 300g plain flour
- 1 eggs +1 egg yolk beaten
For the filling
- 200g pumpkin (diced)
- 50g dried mushrooms
- 4 spring onions or 3 leeks or 1 dry onion
- 2 bay leaves (optional)
- 1 small bunch sage (leaves only)
- 50g of butter
- 1 tsp dried thyme
- 30g grated parmesan
- 100g grated cheddar
- 100ml double cream or Greek yoghurt
- 1 egg beaten
- Melted butter for the pastry
- 1 tsp of the beaten egg for the glazing
- Salt and pepper to season
- Some olive oil to cook the pumpkin
Preparation (1.5hrs)
- Peel and dice the pumpkin or squash (all 400g for both the dough and the filling) in 2cm cubes.
- Bake or stir fry for 30 minutes or until soft after dressing in olive oil and adding a pinch of salt.
- Soak the dried mushrooms in hot water for 30 minutes to reconstitute. Alternatively use 300g fresh mushrooms stir fried in butter with a pinch of salt.
- Slice the spring onions and fry in half the butter (25g) with the bay leaves and thyme.
- Add the mushrooms, a pinch of salt and pepper, and stir fry until coated in the buttery glaze.
- Melt the rest of the butter in a separate frying pan and fry the sage leaves until crispy (set aside).
- Separate the pumpkin in half, add 200g to the mushroom filling and mash the rest.
- Add the cream, egg and parmesan to the cooled mushroom filling, remove the bay leaves and season to taste.
- Mix the mashed pumpkin, the beaten egg and yolk, a pinch of salt and the flour. Knead for five minutes into a shortcrust dough.
- Separate the dough into two equal balls.
- Roll out two dough sheets (3cm) on a lightly floured surface in the shape of your baking tray (20cm round).
- Line the baking tray with some melted butter and the one dough sheet.
- Sprinkle with the grated cheddar and the fried sage leaves.
- Add the filling and spread evenly.
- Add the second dough sheet, pressing the corners with your finger tips to bind the two dough sheets together and to create a nice finish for the rim of the pie.
- Brush with some melted butter and a teaspoon of beaten egg you have kept aside.
- Bake for 30 – 40 minutes until the top is golden.
Lia’s Tips:
- If you don’t have some of the ingredients feel free to improvise. For example, use yoghurt if you don’t have cream, an extra pinch of salt if you don’t have parmesan which you can replace with other cheese.
- If the dough is too crumbly to roll you can press it down flat with your fingers. And you can crumble the top sheet for a savoury crumble dish. If you do this add some crushed nuts or seeds.
- This pie is delicious with gluten free flour too.
Lia's Kitchen 
Love your leftovers, reduce waste!
Posted on Updated on
Read about us on BBC Wales front page on 28 December 2015!
This Christmas weekend we have had fantastic time in our kitchen using our limited leftovers from Christmas dinner. They went such a long way making us two delicious pie dinners (one with turkey and one with ham), bubble & squeak with our roasted veg, whilst we had planned to use our organic cabbage in a pickled raw salad with seeds because it lasts well over a week! Yesteday we cleared through our cupboards making sure that everything is clearly labelled and this week we will be mainly eating what’s already there.
Make a pledge to join us this year in our effort to help reduce waste, to take care of ourselves better through nutritional meals and to benefit our pockets. There is plenty of inspiration and help from us and Green City Events coming up with Love Food Hate Waste roadshows and cook ups scheduled most of the weekends of January and February 2016.
To stay up to date with booking links and further information, follow us on twitter and facebook, and subscribe to our mailing list.
http://www.twitter.com/liaskitchen
http://www.facebook.com/liaskitchen
http://liaskitchen.us8.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=b2e35c09f36569927d96ab105&id=5cdbfd6e87
Share this:
This entry was posted in Comment, Events.