The Great Big Veg Challenge

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L is for Leek Singing Soup
2007-07-20 10:41:00
 Emperor Nero avoided apples and consumed a lot of leeks. He had aspirations to be the Pavarotti of his time and felt that leeks made his voice more mellifluous. Because of this, he earned the nickname Leek Eater or ?Porrophagus?.Freddie also takes his singing voice very seriously, particularly when it comes to tuneless football chants. So we made some Leek and Potato Singing Soup , boosted with roasted garlic. Leek and Potato Singing Soup Serves 4450g leeks350g potatoes900ml chicken or vegetable stock1 roasted garlic bulb 2 tbsp olive oil4 tbsp of half-fat crème-fraicheSalt and pepper to seasonHandful of chopped chives to decorateWash the leeks and chop them finely. Peel the potatoes and dice them into small cubes. Heat the olive oil in a pan and sauté the leeks for three minutes on a medium heat. Add the potatoes and cook with the leeks for another 5 minutes, stirring them to stop them burning. Squeeze out all the soft garlic from the roasted bulb and stir in. Add the ve...

L is for Leeks
2007-07-17 16:52:00
 We reached L for Leek s the weekend we all went to Wales. This was Freddie?s first visit, his first experience of a formal dinner party to celebrate my Aunt and Uncle?s Ruby wedding anniversary. Freddie wore his first suit and sat amongst the adults. There was nobody there to protect him from the menacing plates of green. It began well. They served him Welsh lamb and new potatoes. He flinched slightly at the mint sauce. The next vanguard of waiters sashayed towards him with the real test, the vegetables.The waitress smiled and presented him a platter of vegetables. He went slightly pink. ?I?ll have a bit of everything please.? Everyone cheered. And not only did he invite the vegetables on to his plate: he ate them. We came home with a bunch of welsh leeks and a new confidence. I remember leeks as a child were always served up in a slimy cheese sauce. Our first leek recipe was very different. I paired the leeks with Caerphilly cheese and put them in a puff pastry tart. Ther...

Blogging for Positive Change
2007-07-16 08:28:00
We were very proud when the Slow Cook nominated the Great Big Veg Challenge for a "Blogg ers for Posi tive Global Change " award. This was originally created by Climate of Our Future, to salute bloggers who are taking steps to make the world a better place. Now its my turn to nominate five blogs that I think are making a difference. I have decided to nominate blogs that are trying to instill a love of real food in adults and children. These are all people who take the time to share their enthusiasm via their blogs with the rest of the world. Our first nomination goes to David Hall, who Freddie and Alexandra got to meet at the Childrens Food Festival this weekend. 1. Book the Cook Great Big Vegetable Challenge. David Hall is a talented chef who has such enthusiasm for encouraging children and their parents to learn to cook healthier, tastier food. With his co-chef Mark he spreads this infectious message in schools around Britain. 2.A Veggie Venture - Alanna's incredible resource...
More About: Blogging

L is for Lettuce
2007-07-14 08:22:00
 For a devout carnivore, Freddie is doing well. He has enjoyed the cooked lettuce recipes. Alex and I plotted the next move. As a Crisphead lettuce, the Iceberg had come out top for crunchiness. I read that it was given the name ?iceberg? because they used to be transported huge distances across America by rail, packed in ice to keep them fresh. We decided to be cunning. We made some of Freddie?s favourite herby burgers and served them wrapped in a single Iceberg lettuce leaf, secured with a cocktail stick. For him, red meat is irresistible, even if it involves crunching through a sweet crisp lettuce leaf. We edged him closer to salad with an easy Chicken Caesar Pasta dish with the Romaine Lettuce. Working either means preparing something in advance or making something extremely easy. This falls into the easy category with ready-made croutons and caesar salad dressing. There was something about the way the lettuce was first taste-tested and then reintroduced in a range of r...

Lettuce braised
2007-07-12 08:00:00
 The League of Lettuce meant that our kitchen looked like an allotment. At this stage, presenting a raw salad might have prompted a revolt so our first recipe involved cooking a lettuce. It seemed a little inappropriate to cook something that looks perfect fresh and raw. I opened a 1936 edition of Au Petit Cordon Bleu with recipes by Rosemary Hume and Dione Lucas: two of the greatest female chefs and cookery writers. We used four round lettuces which seemed like far too much lettuce but after boiling them and drying them, the poor things shrank. The end result was good enough to be a complete meal. The lettuces are cooked slowly and take on the flavour of the bacon. Freddie gave it 8 out of 10. Here is our recipe, adapted from Au Petit Cordon Bleu. Braised Lettuce4 Round lettuces8 rashes of unsmoked back bacon1 medium onion1 carrot100 ml vegetable stock2 tbsp double cream or crème fraicheSalt and pepper to season Discard the outer leaves of the lettuce. Put the four ...

League of Lettuce
2007-07-08 16:47:00
 It was Freddie who came up with the idea for a League of Lettuce. We were confronted with too much choice at the supermarket. ?Let?s put them into divisions like in football?, he suggested. So this is how the Lettuce League Tables were established. There are four main lettuce types which sound like they have come straight out of the civil war: the Crisphead, the Butterhead, the Looseleaf and the Cos or Romaine. Each group shares characteristics in texture or taste. And within each group there are hundreds of varieties. Alex and Freddie picked the lettuce teams: Little Gem, Round, Batavia, Green Oak Leaf, Iceberg, Frisee, Romaine and Butterhead Red. We came home on the bus with bags stuffed full of lettuces. In the the eight months since starting the Vegetable Challenge, Freddie has been growing into the role of Taste Explorer: the Marco Polo of the vegetable world. But he has a blind spot with salad. He can't see the point of it.  Back at home and Alex and Freddie ...

K is for Karela
2007-07-07 10:20:00
I couldn?t resist the karela. They were in the exotic vegetable pen, the part of the supermarket that looks more like a pet shop than a food counter. Their skins are reptilian, bright green like lizards with long thin bodies that taper off to a thin stalk. Buying them was the easy part. Finding out what to do with them took a fortnight of research. Well I call it research but it consisted of lurking. I waited at the vegetable/pet counter waiting for someone else to buy them. Fifteen minutes passed and the security guard started to glare at me. I tried my luck at the checkout. The shop assistant just laughed when I asked if he had ever eaten one.On the internet I learnt that the karela is also known as the bitter gourd or bitter melon and is grown across Asia ? including India, China and in Africa and the Caribbean.So my lurking became more persistent. For a week I carried round a mouldy karela in my handbag. My daily commute became an intelligence gathering operation. It enlivened a...

K is for Kohlrabislaw
2007-07-06 15:14:00
I was drawn towards an advert on ebay."Enormous Kohl rabi bulbs up to a foot in diameter! Sure fire state winner!" This belongs to the strange competitive world of giant vegetable growers. There is apparently a farmer in Alaska who has grown a Kohlrabi Gigante weighing in at over 96 pounds. Other smaller varieties of kohlrabi have regal names like the Kossack, the Grand Duke and the alluring Early Purple Vienna. I took my modestly-sized kohlrabi, chopped off its green tendrils and peeled it. It has a mild taste and we discovered it makes good coleslaw. Freddie and Alexandra enjoyed the Kohlrabislaw, giving it 8 out of 10. KohlrabislawServes 4 as a side dish1 Kohlrabi, peeled 2 carrots1 red apple3 tbsp plain yoghurt3 tbsp low-fat mayonnaise4 tbsp raisinsChop of the Kohlrabi stalks, peel the kohlrabi and grate it finely. Peel and grate the carrots. Core and then dice the red apple. Mix in the raisins. Add the yoghurt and mayonnaise and mix it up well. Serve.Read about the Great Big Veg...

K is for Kohlrabi
2007-07-05 07:28:00
This is a vegetable that knows how to make an entrance. I saw them piled up in a basket which looked like a graveyard of old Sputniks. These long green antennae spring out of a smooth dome, the size of an orange. The name Kohl rabi derives from the German for cabbage-turnip, where they have been popular for thousands of years. They have had a few knocks along the centuries, being labelled cattle fodder. Now they're enjoying something of a revival.I took tham home on the bus. I half expected them to climb out of my bag with their long green limbs and launch an invasion of planet earth. When I got them into my kitchen, the children were impressed. Anything that looks as if it is an alien extra from Doctor Who gets brownie points in our house.The Kohlrabi is incredibly versatile. It may look a little scary but you can saute, steam, roast, bake, stirfry or simply grate it and eat it raw. The green leaves and gangly stems can be eaten as well, like any green. But some Kohlrabi fans claim...

K is for Kale Chips
2007-07-03 22:47:00
 Our Kale festival went from strength to strength with a recipe left by Beth, who blogs at the Expatriate Kitchen. Her recipe for Crispy Kale reminded us of the crispy seaweed served at Chinese restaurants. It had a light crispy texture and was tasty. But Freddie and his friend Matthew found them a little salty. There was genuine praise from Freddie who said, "This doesn?t take anything like a vegetable.? 8 out of 10 was his score. Thank you Beth.Read about the Great Big Vegetable Challenge
More About: Chips , Chip

K is for Kale
2007-07-02 13:01:00
 I don?t know if it is just another urban vegetable myth but the biggest consumer of kale in the United States is reportedly Pizza Hut, who uses it to decorate the salad bar. I mentioned this to a fellow-shopper who was buying kale in the supermarket and was unimpressed that it was only being used as a decoration. She came from Bremen in Germany and told me about the annual kale festival. Apparently the really keen ones compete to be crowned the King of Kale . My children love trivia and I like to welcome a new vegetable with a few impressive facts. I went home and told them about the ?Kohl and Pinkel Fahrt?. This involves strolling around, decorated with sprigs of curly kale and stopping off at inns to enjoy kale with schnapps and a special sausage known as pinkel. Freddie giggled at the word ?fahrt? and Alexandra muttered ?losers.? But at least it introduced them to the curly kale that was sitting looking pretty in the corner of the kitchen. I decided to serve our firs...

J is for Jicama and Orange salad
2007-07-01 09:26:00
 The next day in the school queue I got chatting to a mum who comes from Mexico. I told her that I had found some jicama. Her eyes lit up. Everyone can name food that reminds them of home, of their childhood. For her, it was jicama. She said they could be cooked in casseroles but that it was a waste of jicama. Better to buy them small and juicy and cut them up in salads. ?We used to have them cut into batons with lime juice and a pinch of chilli powder and they are great with oranges or fresh pineapple.? I?m a great fan of the school queue. Here you can commiserate over lost sleep, compare notes on nits and have obscure conversations about Mexican vegetables. Who needs the internet?At home I returned to my jicama. The best ones are small and smooth. You can peel the skin away by hand. On their own, they taste slightly sweet but like a chameleon, they change when you add other flavours to them. This isn?t a vegetable that fights to keep its own identity. It?s passive ...
More About: Orange , Salad , Range

J is for Jicama Dippers
2007-06-30 20:11:00
 It was my good friend Laura who suggested our next J vegetable, the jicama. Her family live in New Mexico and the jicama (pronounced hikama)is a staple across Central America. It looks like a rather pale skinned tear-drop shaped turnip. Tracking down the jicama was rather harder. I visited five different supermarkets, three street markets and then resorted to phoning grocers and specialist food shops in the yellow pages. "Hello, I wonder if you can tell me if you sell a jicama? H-E-E-K-A-M-A - but it's spelt with a J. It is like a turnip. No I don't want to buy a turnip, I want a H-E-E-K-A-M-A."I offer up its other names; Mexican yam bean, ahipa, saa got, Chinese turnip, lo bok, and the Chinese potato. Eleven calls in and I find a man with several crates of jicama. But he only sells industrial quantities. I was sure Freddie would not appreciate having to eat through a tonne of unknown turnipy-style vegetables. The man with the jicama makes one helpful suggestion, a new ameri...

J is for Jerusalem artichokes, roasted.
2007-06-29 11:39:00
I returned to the market to buy more jerusalem artichokes, or ?sunchokes? as they are sometimes called. My friend Emma came along. ?You do know these things are evil?? she said. ?They can give you the most appalling wind.? On the blog,David commented,?Seriously...use with caution?. As with the warnings about horseradish I thought I knew better. I made roasted artichokes with rosemary. They were sweet and subtle tasting. Freddie devoured them.We went to see Alexandra acting in a school production of ?Romeo and Juliet.? It was during the second half that the trouble began. The action on stage became more intense, the theatre quietened. My husband turned to me and whispered in my ear, ?I think I?m going to give birth.? Freddie sniggered. I could feel these griping pains build up. This is what it must be like to be a colicky baby.The walk home was bracing. I had been warned. There is a reason why these vegetables are known as fartichokes. The cause is something indigestible called inuli...
More About: Jerusalem , Roast , Choke , Artic

J is for Jerusalem Artichokes
2007-06-28 06:49:00
Rumour and confusion surround the Jerusalem Artic hoke. Freddie was adamant he had already "done" artichokes. The thistle-like Globe Artichoke was the first vegetable he sampled for the Great Big Veg Challenge. But the Jerusalem Artichoke, as I explained to Freddie, is something entirely new. And it is badly named. It does not come from Jerusalem and it isn't an artichoke. It is actually the tuber from a type of sunflower. "It looks like a potato with warts." said Freddie. Apparently the Jerusalem Artichoke is used to insults. In the distant past, people turned away from this poor vegetable because they thought it resembled a leper's fingers. We were more charitable. I peeled the artichokes and sliced them very thinly and doused them in a few tablespoons of olive oil and lemon juice. The lemon juice keeps them from turning brown. We tried them raw. They are crisp and taste a bit like a nutty potato. Freddie and Alex were unimpressed. But it is amazing what the mention of pizza can ...
More About: Choke

I is for Ice Lollies
2007-06-26 11:56:00
 The letter "I" might not be rich in vegetables but we were undaunted. Having scoured the markets and searched the internet, we came up with Iceberg Lettuce. Now although this is a noble lettuce, it will have to wait until it features under L. But the iceberg theme caught my imagination. We had a hot, humid weekend in London and Freddie heard the cheery chimes of Mr Softee in the distance. I suspect that Mr Softee has,at some time in the past, attached a tracking device to Freddie so that wherever he is, the ice cream van finds him. Mr Softee was getting closer and closer, the chimes were getting louder and louder until the van stopped two doors down. Target located. An hour later when the ice cream had been bought and consumed, Freddie was thinking aloud. "Wouldn't it be good if the ice cream van sold healthy food so that parents didn't mind buying things?" And that is when the idea for Vegetable ice lollies was born. "Veggie Lipsmackers" were dreamt up by our chief namer of...
More About: Lies , Ollie

H is for Herby Beef Burgers
2007-06-25 11:18:00
 The blind-tasting contest had its benefits. We have a tiny patio garden in which Freddie reenacts Premiership football matches. Chalk lines mark out the pitch which covers an area of 2 metres square. And in this miniature stadium he kicks a tennis ball around, muttering a passionate commentary under his breath. At half-time he is the team manager, reviewing the performance of his imaginary players. Through the kitchen window, I caught sight of him picking from his herb plants and nibbling on the leaves like a rabbit. In fact, he was grazing on the herbs in the garden. His terror of all things green appeared momentarily to have vanished. After this half-time snack, the match resumed. I made Herb y Beef Burgers for supper. For Freddie, under normal circumstances, the flavour of the fresh herbs would have ruined a perfectly good beef burger. But things had changed. With Alexandra, he savoured the taste of the herbs. Both of them showed off their new-found skills in herb-identific...
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H is for Herbs
2007-06-24 08:07:00
  Having stunned Freddie's tastebuds with the fiery horseradish, we needed a gentler experience with H for Herb s . I know they aren't classed as vegetables but given we use them to enhance their taste, they clearly deserve a mention. Freddie has always enjoyed growing herbs in pots in our tiny back-garden. As Head-Gardener, he has also carefully avoided eating them. So we organised a blind-tasting competition. We laid out plates of thyme, basil, mint, rosemary and sage. The blindfolded taste-explorers were encouraged to touch, smell and taste the herbs and guess what they were. As the Great Big Veg Challenge has travelled through the alphabet, Freddie's fear of new flavours has faded. "As long as it doesn't taste of sick or earwax, I'll try it", said Freddie. Both he and Alex correctly identified four out of five herbs which saved us from a sibling row. And their prize was a huge plate of herb fritters for tea. The fritters scored ten out of ten.Herb Fritters1 tbsp thy...

H is for horseradish and Beef quiche
2007-06-21 04:58:00
 To rescue the situation from complete disaster, I took inspiration from Collinsville, Illinois. Collinsville hosts the annual International Horse radish Festival and claims to produce 60% of the world?s horseradish each year. This is an event which endows celebrity status on the horseradish root. There are root-tossing and root-sacking competitions and a little Miss Horseradish beauty pageant. (All of the children looked delightful - I could see no resemblance to the stingnose). They promise "a root-in tootin good time". Now when a town is prepared to put this much effort into a vegetable, you have to sit up and listen. I wanted a root-in tootin good time in my kitchen. Alongside a host of horseradish recipes was the advice that when cooked, the horseradish loses a little of its bite. This was worth trying. The children had so far been unimpressed with horseradish but I devised a quiche recipe that might rescue the root's reputation.BEEF AND HORSERADISH QUICHE375g readymade s...
More About: Beef , Radish , Dish

H is for Creamy Horseradish Sauce
2007-06-18 05:53:00
 Horse radish is the first vegetable that comes with a caution. Instructions on the internet included, "Grate horseradish in a well-ventilated room" and "Warning! The fumes are potent". I should have paid more attention. I peeled the root. There were no fumes. I became complacent and began to grate the root vigorously. Thirty-seconds later a wave of tear-jerking fumes hit me. This was a thousand times worse than an onion. I flung open the kitchen door and scrabbled around in the drawer for a pair of goggles, leftover from a make-your-own volcano kit. I now know that grating the horseradish and even worse, grating it finely, crushes oils in the root, releasing this all-powerful stink. It's no surprise it also goes by the name of Stingnose. To tame the Stingnose, I made a sweet creamy sauce. This is after all for children to try. Cream y Horseradish Sauce 3 oz of grated horseradish1oz of caster sugar2 tsp lemon juice200 ml creme fraichePinch of saltFinely grate the horseradish and...
More About: Radish , Dish

H is for Horseradish
2007-06-17 15:22:00
When did our High Street become an assault course? I was focused on buying one thing, which was horseradish. I had even been tipped off by a neighbour that I could find the fiery roots in the local supermarket. But before I got there, I was stopped in my tracks. Three men dressed in commando jackets stood in my way. "Do you have paintballing needs?" What sort of a question is that? I told them firmly and politely that as yet I had not discovered a need for paintballing. I walked on. A minute later and a bright yellow t-shirt blocked my way, emblazoned with the words "Fighting Poverty." I side-stepped the yellow t-shirt man. I tried to refocus on the horseradish. But it didn't stop. As I approached the last bend with the supermarket sign in my sights, a small woman dressed in what looked like a patchwork quilt drifted out in front of me."Can I show you the way of true love?" she asked with staring eyes. "No", I said. She looked crestfallen. I marched into the supermarket, straight t...
More About: Radish , Dish , Horse

G is for Green Beans, slow-braised
2007-06-16 07:28:00
 I have read that it takes a child between 10 and 90 tastes of a new food before they learn to accept it. Now I'm not sure of the science behind this statement but I like to look at it differently. I don't know if simply offering the same food repeatedly is what makes a difference. Presenting the same food cooked in very different ways, seems to give us more success. In the past, Freddie and I made no progress when I just placed the five green beans on his plate. We would have the same stand-off; the mealtime equivalent of Groundhog Day. But if you make the green beans look different, taste different at least you are helping to create change. They can't react in exactly the same way. A chance comment left on the blog led me to a recipe by Ed, the Slow cook in Washington DC. He describes himself as an urban insurgent and rails against fast food and the cult of the celebrity chef. "It's time to take back control of the food we eat and the pace of our own lives". He is passiona...
More About: Beans , Green

G is for Green Bean Twisters
2007-06-15 08:30:00
 Green bean twists are based on something I created for asparagus spears. I cooked the beans in boiling water for just three minutes, drained them and let them cool down. I thought if I could present the bean attractively, creating a bit of a diversion, the bean-hater might be bamboozled. The beans were divided into groups of four. I cut thin strips of puff pastry and wrapped them round the bean in a spiral. I brushed them with egg and sprinkled grated parmesan on top and placed them in the oven for about 20 minutes at 180C until the pastry was golden brown. Alexandra named them Green Bean Twisters. She already understands the importance of a catchy name for Freddie's vegetables. And it worked. Despite his distrust of beans, he liked the look of this dish. He even ate one without making a fuss. And another. That means he consumed 8 green beans. Parenthood is made up of small triumphs that no-one else can quite appreciate: using a potty, sleeping in a big bed, learning to tie s...

G is for Green Bean and Garlic Soup
2007-06-13 11:26:00
 We stumbled on eddoes and tracked down the daikon, so it seemed a little tame to be dealing with something as straightforward as a green bean. The letter G doesn't appear to have many vegetable candidates so I have promoted the green bean in the Great Big Veg Challenge. For years I used to place the obligatory five green beans on Freddie's plate in the hope that he would eat them. He never did. He might grimace and self-consciously nibble on the end of a bean. More often, he would quietly edge them to the outskirts of his plate and then when I wasn't looking nudge them off the plate, onto the table and thence to the floor. At the end of the meal I would find green beans scattered at his feet. Like a scene from Toy Story, they were motionless but I knew that only moments before, with the help of this pint-sized veg phobic, they had all been part of a brilliantly-planned escape. They may seem to be harmless but there is a quality to green beans that provokes a violent reactio...
More About: Garlic , Green , Bean , Soup , Arli

Chicken with Forty-One Cloves of Garlic
2007-06-11 07:47:00
It was my neighbour Erica who suggested Chicken with 40 cloves of Garlic . In France this is known as known as "Poulet a Quarante Gousses d'Ail". The Great Big Veg Challenge tries to bring out the best in every vegetable, making it feel special so that it stands the strongest chance of impressing Freddie. And in this recipe the garlic is supercharged. If you have heard of the tv show, "Pimp my Ride!",well this is Pimp my Chicken. And to make something involving industrial quantities of garlic, you need helpers. Alex and Freddie were given the task of breaking open the garlic bulbs and counting out the cloves as I set to work preparing the poor chicken. By now my husband had given up and resigned himself to having to defumigate the house, the children and his wife I always feel a little intimidated trying out traditional French recipes. I know how seriously these things are taken. We once had a holiday in Provence and rented a house belonging to a Mrs Tiggywinkle look-alike, k...
More About: Fort , Arli

G is for Garlic Potato Bake
2007-06-10 18:10:00
 Nobody ever told me that vegetables could lead you to lie. But that is what I did all week, so that Chris wouldn't realise his kitchen was being turned into a garlic-factory. I took to hiding clumps of garlic in my bag, carrying it to and from work on the tube. I secretly researched garlic recipes and gossiped about the attraction of the stinking rose with colleagues. Even the children joined in with the deception.I bought extra-minty toothpaste, introduced a rigorous routine of teeth-brushing and tongue scrubbing. I tried rubbing my hands on stainless steel spoons to take away the smell. (I can report that old wives tale didn't work.) When I cooked Garlic Potato Bake, the kitchen door and windows were kept open; all to keep 'He Who Hates Garlic' in the dark. Of course it didn't work. He came in the house like the giant in Jack and the Beanstalk,'Fee,Fi,Fo,Fum, sniffing out his vegetable enemy. Apparently its the sulphur compounds in garlic that make it so pungent. And t...
More About: Arli

G is for Garlic
2007-06-09 09:36:00
 After edamame,eddoe and even fennel, our next vegetable should have been a breeze. I use it without thinking in so many recipes but the challenge was to make it the star of the show. And this is where I came up against a huge impediment; my husband's loathing of garlic. I warned him that a difficult week was approaching and tried to reassure him that I would segregate the food to prevent contamination. But his antipathy towards the stinking rose extends to the cooking smells and more specifically the smell of garlicky breath. Freddie has not inherited the garlic-hating gene.In fact he holds the Pizza Express childrens' record for the fastest consumption of a plate of garlic doughballs. He started training for this event as a toddler when we would carry him out, at arms' length, his hair smeared in garlic butter. We called him dough-boy. I would soap and shower him clean before presenting him to his Dad for a bedtime story, deodorized.When I suggested to Freddie when he came...
More About: Garlic , Arli

F is for Fennel
2007-06-05 07:20:00
  "There's fennel for you.." (Hamlet,1601)We celebrated our arrival at F with a Feast of Flattery. Fennel was our next vegetable companion and the timing was perfect. In Shakespeare's time, fennel was a symbol of flattery. The bright green, delicate leaves that top the fennel wilt very quickly, supposedly like the attentions of a flatterer. The reason for our feast was a visit by a very special guest, Leo, who is Alex and Freddie's big brother. Now unlike his Dad and Stepmum, Leo has a proper twenty-something social life with all sorts of exciting things going on. So when he comes across London to see us it is a treat and a cause for celebration. Naturally, we want to impress him with a beautiful meal. So we went into overdrive with the Fennel. First off was Pear, Fennel and Parmesan salad which is a combination of flavours that I have tasted several times before. Note the order of Pear, then Fennel in the recipe title. This ...

E is for Eddoe Mash
2007-06-04 07:31:00
 Our adventures with our new friends the Eddoes continued. It's interesting how quickly children will get used to a new food. But then if you think about it, so much is new to children, the hardest hurdle is probably the first recipe, the first taste. I am sure that one reason why the Great Big Veg Challenge seems to be gradually taking away Freddie's fears about vegetables is that the pace is very gentle and very deliberate. He is given the opportunity to get to know a new vegetable, get used to its taste as a single entity and make up his own mind if he likes it or not. And he knows that whatever happens, we move on. The baked eddoes had been delicious so I struck whilst the iron was hot and gave them another simple dish of mashed eddoe. Alexandra, who loves cooking, helped me. We first washed the Eddoes and then placed them in boiling water in their skins. We boiled them, as you would a potato, for about 15 to 20 minutes, checking with a fork to see when they were soft. Wh...
More About: Mash

E is for Eddoe
2007-06-03 07:43:00
 Sometimes when you are looking for one thing you find another. I was resigned to moving from E to F in the Great Big Veg Challenge. But as my daughter and I scoured the shelves at the supermarket, I caught sight of what looked like small mounds of elephant dung. Individually they were small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. Their fibrous brown skins prickled with hair, like coconuts. If you look closely, they appear to be tattooed. These creatures looked friendly. The sort of vegetable we should take home. And joy of joy the label said "Eddoe". Even the name sounded cosy. But there was a whispering campaign against the Eddoes. A fellow shopper sidled up to me as I placed them in the trolley. He grimaced at them and uttered one word in my direction. "Slimy" he said. I asked him to justify this slur on the poor eddoe. "They're really, really slimy when you cook them." Alexandra was ready to put them back on the shelves. The defamation didn't stop there. A woman brushed ...