I Bought A Turnip

See? Here, it is.
In my experiment to try and cook most vegetables, Part 2 is the turnip.

It turns out what I thought was a turnip, is actually a swede. Ooops. Probably a good thing I am trying to widen my vegetable repartee.

However, I am not sure what to do with it now.

According to this website, I can
Steam it
Bake it
Mash it
Sautee it
Boil it
Eat it raw

Not sure I can face eating it raw.

So I am throwing it out to you.

How do you think I should cook it?

I was thinking half done one way (your way) and the rest shoved in some chicken soup I am planning on making tonight with a left over chicken from Sunday.

Frugally yours
Abigail
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I Don’t Know How To Make Cauliflower Cheese.

I really don’t, never cooked it and never buy cauliflower as it is just too big a vegetable when you are only cooking for one.

However, my parents went on holiday early this week, and Mum very kindly emptied her perishables into a bag for me.

I picked up a huge cauliflower.

Not every having made cauliflower cheese before I checked a few online recipes.  I did seem to remember my Mummy used to make it as a main course when I was knee high to a grasshopper.

It is lovely to have the luxury of following a recipe. However, with supplies limited I decided to make it up as I went along.

You can all send me your thoughts on what I did wrong.

First I cut the cauliflower into hefty florets and gave them a wash. I then put them into a pan of boiling salted water and left them to cook whilst plumbing cupboards and the fridge for additional ingredients to bulk it up.

So I fried the one red onion I had left with two chopped sticks of rather bendy looking celery and a teaspoon of garlic granules.

I left that to cool and hard boiled 4 eggs (another freebie from Mum's fridge) whilst making a cheese sauce.

Once everything was ready I assembled the cauliflower in a pie dish arranging the quartered eggs in between with the onion and celery over the top. It still looked a little bare, so a tin of tuna and a tin of sweetcorn got dumped in too.

I then covered the lot with the cheese sauce, some bread crumbs over the top and then more cheese.

I then baked the lot for 20 mins at 200. It was sooooo yummy. And by my reckoning should last 4 meals.

This is my favourite type of cooking, the “Ah Hell, Give It A Go Abigail” school of cuisine.

Plus apart from the milk I picked up yesterday, I still have not been back to the supermarket this month.

Brilliant!

Frugally yours

Abigail

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It Is A Butternut Squash Fiesta!

I got home from work early (you have got to love a work meeting held at 5pm 200 yards from where you live). Infact I was very early, walking through my own front door at 5.30pm, a full hour and a half before the usual time.

How to make use of an unexpected 90minutes?

Ah hah! the Butternut Squash I bought over the weekend!

They takes blooming ages to chop up! It is rather like a pumpkin with very tough flesh and stringy type seeds inside. A very sharp knife cut through and after skinning the vegetable I chopped it into bite sized pieces and flung, haphazardly placed them in my largest roasting dish with a sliced courgette and 3 sticks of  chopped celery.

I then covered them with olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper and a sprinkling of dried mixed herbs.

Shoved Carefully placed them in the oven on 150 for an hour and a half.

Oh My God, slow roasted Butternut squash done this way is delicious! Dinner was just a plate full of the veg.

But there was so much of it for little old me.

So I had another go at making pastry this time 4oz of plain flour, 1oz of lard and 1oz of Flora and a pinch of salt and some cold water to bind.

I then blind baked the case and covered the bottom with the courgettes, squash and celery. 3 eggs beaten and a finely chopped rasher of bacon made a rather nice quiche sprinkled with cheese.

The rest of the courgettes, squash and celery was then covered with some water and a stock cube, bought to the boil and simmered for 10 minutes, before puréeing with a handheld blender (affectionately known as a “Zuzzer” by my family, 10 yrs old & bought for £9.99!) a glug of milk and it was done.

Ok the quiche pastry I made was not the prettiest, (the edges fell off as I pulled it out of the oven) but not bad for my second attempt!

I am actually rather pleased with this and fancy having another try at cooking with an unusual (for me) veg. Am thinking turnip or artichoke. Unless you have an idea? What is in season now?

Frugally yours

Abigail

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