Healthy and delicious broccoli and feta salad

I heart broccoli. It’s true. It’s green, good for me, and I often crave it. Broccoli is apparently one of the healthiest foods around, a “nutritional powerhouse.” Eating it makes me feel quite virtuous. I prefer broccoli steamed, to retain the powerhouse of nutrients, and because to me it tastes better. 

This salad is super simple, extremely tasty and takes less than ten minutes to make. I often have it for lunch on a weekday, but it’s also attractive enough to serve as a warm side dish at a dinner party. This salad also chills well and makes an excellent, colourful and nutritious addition to any BBQ. At this time of year though, I prefer my broccoli warm and straight from the steamer.

When buying broccoli make sure it’s crisp and bright. Avoid any broccoli that is a little saggy, or has lost its vibrant colour. And if you can, buy organic. Here’s the recipe.

Recipe

(Serves one hungry person, or two as a side dish)

One large head of broccoli

25grams Greek feta cheese

One small red pepper

15 black Greek olives

Juice of one lemon

Glug of olive oil

Ground black pepper 

Step 1 – Bring a medium size saucepan to the boil, and cover with a steamer. Chop the broccoli into florets and drop into the steamer. Using a pair of tongs, move the broccoli around every minute or so to ensure all of the florets are steamed. You’ll see the broccoli change colour from a dark green to a vibrant green. After five or so minutes taste a floret. When the broccoli is ready, it will taste crisp, but not raw. 

Step 2 – While the broccoli is steaming, chop the feta and slice the peppers. Mix the lemon juice with a glug of olive oil.

Step 3 – Transfer the steamed broccoli to a bowl. Stir in the peppers, feta and olives. Pour over the olive oil and lemon juice mixture and add ground black pepper to taste. Enjoy!

Cocktail hour - berry infusion

Over the last year or so I’ve reintroduced cocktail hour. When I want to morph into an old French man, I opt for a Ricard over ice, with a dash of water. I put my feet up, grab a deckchair and lounge in the courtyard, and dream the day away.

I don’t always want to feel like an old French man though. On other evenings I lean towards our house cocktail, more of a ladies drink really, a combination of a dryish Alsace Riesling and a dash of locally made raspberry liqueur.

Recently however, I’ve been craving an aperitif with a heavy burst of vitamin C, to both recharge and relax. It’s on these days that I scour the fridge and freezer for foraged berries. I tip them all into a glass and use a hand blender to puree them. While that’s happening I add a shot of Icelandic vodka, apparently distilled through basalt, and a little more ice.

The result – a slightly naughty version of a very healthy juice!         

Bon weekend!

Sunday Lunch at la Durantie – Part 1

Kristoph and I enjoyed Sunday lunch this weekend with the Comtesse de la Tour and the visiting Good Doctor. They’re taking care of Chateau la Durantie this week, the home of some close friends of ours, and their three dogs.

There are plenty of vegetables and herbs growing in the grounds of Durantie, and literally thousands of apples, pears and quinces falling from the trees in the orchard.

The Good Doctor and Kirstoph agreed some time ago to a competitive “chicken stuff-off,” however Kristoph’s recent thumb injury, means his thumb is encased in plastic and not at its best for chicken stuffing. Consequently, the Good Doctor took the lead in chicken stuffing, with Kristoph offering comments, commentary and general moral support.

I prepared a fig and chevre starter, with figs foraged from a neighbour’s tree, and an apple and raspberry crumble using fruits from Durantie, for dessert. I’ve blogged about crumbles quite extensively, and so in this post have focused on the fig and goats cheese starter. Part 2 of this post focuses on the Good Doctor’s stuffed chicken and roasted autumn vegetables.  

It’s hard to beat the silky sweet taste of figs picked directly from the tree. Figs are extremely perishable, because the best tasting figs are plump and mushy. So if you have a fig tree near you, I suggest keeping a close eye on it. When the fruit are ripe, spend a few minutes enjoying figs directly from the tree. Perhaps ponder the words of "each man under his own vine and fig tree" (1 Kings 4:25), which have been used to denote peace and prosperity.   

Baked figs are simple to prepare. Here’s my version of baked fig and goats cheese.

Recipe

10 figs

1 small disc of full flavoured medium-hard goats cheese

Honey

Ground black pepper

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 180C. Slice the figs in half and arrange on a baking tray.

Step 2: Chop the goats cheese in small cubes. Place one cube in the small hole inside the small depression in each fig.

Step 3: Drizzle the honey over each fig, and then grind pepper over the figs.

Step 4: Bake for 15 minutes until the figs begin to caramelize and the goats cheese is melted.

If you are lucky enough to have an open fire, I recommend eating these as finger food in front of the fire with a glass of Cote du Rhone.Enjoy!!

A Sunday forage and competitive bake off

Chris (my husband) and I spent the weekend with friends, and their four kids, at their place in the country. It was a perfect weekend, collecting fallen fruits from the damson, Victoria plum, and apple trees in the backyard.


We then headed out on country amble and an afternoon forage. We collected blackberries, sloes, elderberries and hawthorn berries from the hedgerows. Being before the first frost, it’s strictly a little early to pick sloes. However given my enthusiasm for making sloe gin, and the potential to use a freezer to act as the all important frost, we picked them anyway.

 
Dragging our haul of foraged goods back to Randolph and Lalu’s house, we quickly agreed to a “crumble off,” with Randolph and I as the two competitors and everyone else as judges. Randolph pleased the crowds with his mother’s crumble recipe, complete with rich and buttery crumble, and blackberries and apples infused with cinnamon. I managed to surprise the judges with my flippant inclusion of elderberries, together with the blackberries, apples, and plums.

The judges awarded first prize to Randolph, which was fair, because the crumble was superior, but sad for me, as it was my first experience of competitive baking!