Cookies, pesto, fish with coconut

[halojedha]

Cookies

On Sunday I enlisted E to help me make toddler-friendly four ingredient cookies: 1.5 ripe mashed bananas, 1.5 cups porridge oats, 4 tbsps crunchy peanut butter and two shakes of cinnamon, all mushed together and squidged into cookie shapes. They were delicious. I baked them for 15 minutes at 200c and I think they'd have been even better taken out a couple of minutes earlier. We ate two each straight away. (E also ate several handfuls of raw cookie mix, which is always a good sign.) If you weren't baking for a toddler you could add honey or sugar, but they were yum without. There were five left, I'm not sure if E has eaten them or if they're hiding.

Pesto

We get a weekly Riverford veg box and they often give us carrots with the tops attached. Their cool little recipe leaflet/newsletter that accompanies each box often suggests using the carrot tops to make pesto. So far we've mostly been throwing them away due to lack of pesto-making mojo, although one time we added them to stirfry (not a success: simultaneously wilty and fibrous with an astringent taste). At the weekend however, flush with delight after harvesting an armful of chard (and several slugs) from the veg patch, I decided to give it a try.

I used the magimix to blend 1 bunch carrot tops, 2 garlic bulbs cloves, juice of half a lemon, 30g walnuts, 50g cashews, and salt and pepper. I needed to give it a bit of a stir halfway through mixing to make sure everything got processed. Once the nuts were in small bits I started glugging in olive oil. It took a LOT of olive oil, which luckily we buy in bulk. Eventually it was pesto consistency and oh wow, that is a million times nicer than shop bought vegan pesto (which contains stealth potato, so Leo can't eat it).

I chucked chard (more veg patch crop) and peas in a wok with a generous scoop of coconut oil and 2 sliced garlic cloves, and stirfried them til they were coated in the oil, then added a couple of handfuls frozen peas and braised in their own steam with the lid on. Added a squeeze of lemon juice and a bit of tamari.

With a portion of gluten free pasta for Leo and a portion of wholewheat pasta for me and E, it came together into a surprisingly perfect summer dinner. We both had radiatori, an excellent pasta shape for collecting large quantities of pesto. It was very decadent to be able to serve pesto by the tablespoon rather than the teaspoon. The pesto was rich and savoury and complex, the chard (picked half an hour before eating) was buttery and bright, and the whole meal felt fresh and delicious, the sort of thing you could serve at a dinner party to show off how well you're coping.

Fish with coconut

I want to call this "fish pie" cos it uses fish pie mix, but there's really nothing pie-like about it. Quick weeknight dinner when I was craving Much Nutrition. 

Diced a big chunk fresh ginger and set it sizzling with a lot of coconut oil. Added two packets of frozen fish pie mix to start defrosting in the pan. Sliced garlic (about half a bulb) and diced a white onion and added them both. Cut half a pack of chestnut mushrooms into quarters, added those. Gave it a stir and turned the frozen fish chunks over periodically to help them defrost. Put the lid on in between so the steam would help them along. Detached E from my leg and gave them cream cheese on a cracker to tide them over while the fish was cooking.

Ground and added whole spices: cumin seeds, coriander seeds (about 1tbsp each), black pepper and mustard seeds (about 1/2tsp each). Also added a shake of turmeric, a couple of cardamom pods and a couple of shakes of black onion seeds. Gave it all a stir.

Once the fish was defrosted and the mushrooms looking cooked, added 1 tin of coconut milk and put the lid on. Defrosted 3 homemade stock cubes from the freezer in the microwave and added two of them to the pan; used the third to make a slurry with 1tsp of cornflour, and added that to thicken it.

Served the fish with microwaved leftover brown rice, and very simple 'buttered' greens (chard with sliced garlic fried in a wok then braised until soft). Very popular with hungry toddlers, and hungry parents too!

Comments

[originotley]

Sounds wonderful. So glad your veg patch is starting to produce tasty goodies! The pesto sounds delicious, will have to try that. Sadly we had to leave our chard behind in the move but it was struggling in a pot, so will start again if we ever get time for gardening!

[pauraque]

Huh, I never knew carrot greens were edible! Something to remember next time I get the pesto-making urge. (Making it is just enough work that I usually get store-bought, so I feel you on the lack of pesto mojo.)