SHARING

Broad Beans
In our club, we often share what we harvest from the garden, from lemons, pears, kumquats and other fruits to vegetables, such as squash, silverbeet to broad beans.
Last Thursday I went home from the club with these fresh broad beans from Oliver's garden, they were enough for the two of us.

Picture - Courtesy of Wiki

Preparing broad beans is a labour of love; first you have to peel them from the pods, then you must peel the membrane to get the gorgeous green beans.  It can be tedious, but it is worth it.
These beans are delicious steamed, sauteed with oil or butter or if they were very young broad beans, you can simply blanch them in hot water, dress them with oil afterwards.   From here use the broad beans as you wish, they can be for a salad, or mix with other vegetables and so forth.

Leftover beef for the love of salads

In My Kitchen

Preparation for The Broad Beans

I thought the broad beans will be delicious to mix into my beef salad for our dinner.  I have to honour these fresh home grown vegetables.  The family is not very keen with broad beans, but I am sure they will enjoy the leftover roast beef salad.

Other vegetables which complement the beef are asparagus stalks, lettuces-cos and butter.  I also add fresh mixed herbs and thinly sliced shallot. The beef salad was dressed in lemon, mustard and olive oil.

Roast Beef and Vegetable Salad Garnished with Broad Beans.

The salad was served with turmeric rice, it looked good, and it's delicious.  You could enjoy it with crusty baked rolls if you wish to.

Turmeric rice with Roast Beef Salad garnished with Broad Beans.

I don't think that you need the recipe to prepare the salad, it is very straightforward.  Improvise, my idea of sharing is that broad beans can be made simply but so good.

Using leftover roast is easy enough, slice thinly for sandwich filling, also for a mixed salad,  and chop finely for pie filling.  If we are creative enough, we can use the leftover meat for other hot dishes, such as a stew or a pie. 

Nasturtium in my garden has been great, the flowers are so bright,  it lights up the place.  They are pretty to look at and also they are suitable for salads and garnishes.
Beautiful pictures of nasturtium in my backyard, exceptionally healthy plants with a lot of flowers. I could not help myself to use this beauty in my cooking.

The other day I cooked the leaves with a little water, then transferred to cold water.  It stayed green, looked so fresh and appetising.  The cooked nasturtium was dressed with olive oil, salt and lemon juice, garnished with the boiled broad beans if you wish.  The salad is delicious to be served with double cooked beef.

Cooking the Nasturtium Leaves and the Flowers

 The cooked nasturtium leaves dressed with olive oil and lemon juice

Sharing ideas about using leftover roast beef for a hot meal is so practical, comfortable and yet very fast to prepare.

Double Cooked Beef

Using a cold roast beef, slice the meat thinly, dip into nasturtium batter, fry in shallow oil until golden brown.

Here, I am trying to share about fresh is best, a celebration of fresh produce of the backyard garden.  Also, make the best of a leftover to become new dishes which are easy to prepare but delicious.

With extra effort, broad beans can make the dish a winner, I won't' be surprised if the family decided to love them since I served the salad.  As for nasturtium, however, the preparation may be, it's always welcome to us.

If you are lucky enough to have nasturtium in your garden, now you could prepare the batter and use it to fry any meat or vegetables that you like, such as chicken fillets, fish, cauliflower, celery, eggplant etc.

Sharing Recipes

Batter with Nasturtium
1/2 cup plain flour
1/2 cup water
1 small egg and a pinch of salt
some chopped nasturtium leaves and the flowers
Mix all ingredients together to make a thick batter.  You can add Parmesan cheese if you wish.
Happy Cooking and Have Fun!


Sharing - Baking
Baking is one of a big part in my cooking for the family, and sometimes I share the baking of the day with our club. The last one was the humble date, scones.  Date scone is sweet but healthy enough to serve with tea or coffee after playing a sport.

I was also glad that the scone brought back Lyn's memory of a baking lesson when she was at school awhile ago.  She told me it's nice to know.

To serve my date scones, the rustic date scones, simply cut in half and butter.

It can be a family treat, especially after you had a long walk or hard work in the garden.

Bake before you do the activities.

For variation, and thought of people who don't eat sweets, my savoury scones were also appreciated.

Preparation and Dressed Savoury Herb and Sundried Tomato Scones

The Recipe For The Date Scones

Susy Rustic Date Scone

Makes 20

Ingredients

flour, butter and dates

4 1/2 cups self - rising flour

Extra four for kneading

1 tablespoon white caster sugar

175 g, seeded dates, chopped

100 g unsalted butter

Extra butter to serve the scones

2 cups milk and 1egg lightly beaten

Extra flour for kneading.

Method

Preheat the oven to 225 degrees C (a fan forced furnace)               

milk and egg mixture

Rub the butter to flour

Rub the chopped date with some of the flour

Add in the sugar, the time onto the flour mix and mix together

Stir in the lightly beaten egg and milk mixture

Mix together quickly

Rub your hands with some of the flour, take the dough and Transfer it onto a floured board.  Knead and roll lightly, shape it into rectangular with the same thickness

Dip a sharp knife into flour, cut the dough onto 20 squares

Put them on a lined baking tray, bake in the preheated oven for 11 minutes

Take the scones out of the oven, and leave them on the baking tray for 5 minutes

Transfer the scones on a cooling tray, and when they are cold, split each scone onto two, butter them to serve. 

Forget about scone cutters for this rustic date scone, use a sharp knife dip in flour to cut the dough, it is quick to do, not to much mess and no waste.

Scone freezes well, do in the same day of the baking.  I do it sometime, particularly for the savoury scones,  thaw as you need it, and serve at once.



The other day Alistair shared a lot of fruit cans for the club, we were not there, but he thought of us.  We got them too,  only yesterday, they were peaches and pears, thanks, Al.


Sharing and being with people and friends is great, we all are good at it and loving it.

Today,  the second day of Summer, lovely and warm, a fun time at the table tennis with bonus-freshly grown broad beans from Irene.  Thank you.


It is going to be a delicious dinner for us tonight.





Thank You for Visiting
Until Next Post
Susy