First bag of the season!
By Catherine Lee, 14 July 2011 –
This is my first time as a Growing Well Crop Sharer and I was delighted to be asked to start a blog, sharing my thoughts and ideas about the produce and what I would do with it. I'm currently volunteering here and am an avid consumer of fresh, organic, locally grown vegetables, eating them raw when I can. As I'm always looking for new ideas to prepare healthy food I would welcome any comments you have, so please start blogging too! Just click below to add comments or recipe ideas.
The Crop Share got off to a great start, providing so much potential to broaden my repertoire. I was delighted to find the first crop of broad beans and immediately made one of my favourite dishes; Feta & Broad Bean salad. The combination of fresh mint and lemon juice makes this a regular feature of my summertime menu. Whilst I was well stocked with these ingredients I decided to incorporate them into Crushed New Potatoes with Feta Cheese & Mint, a fabulous summer dish, so easy to prepare.
The tarragon provided my first challenge, not a herb I usually use and most recipes were pointing towards incorporating it into a creamy sauce. I decided to go off piste and create something new by finely chopping the tarragon and mixing it with a little olive oil, creating a paste. I used this paste to marinate chicken breasts, and after a couple of hours in the fridge I griddled them before serving on a bed of the lightly steamed spring greens.
I saved some of the fresh tarragon to add to the salad, which was already a vibrant mix of flavours with the peppery rocket and spicy mustard leaves. Chard has become one of my favourite vegetables since I started working at Growing Well, either as a salad leaf, lightly wilted in some olive oil, or incorporated into a vegetable juice (making it darker and 'earthy' tasting - not for the faint-hearted!).
I'm already looking forward to the next bag of goodies...