More pumpkin soup this weekend. This time with extra roasted garlic – a whole bulb of fresh local garlic roasted until sweet and then each clove popped out of it’s skin.
A whole pumpkin made enough for two weekend lunches. Saturday topped with roast beetroot and goat feta and Sunday topped with crispy bacon.
Today at Hill Street Farmers’ market the raspberries were perfect. It’s been several weeks since we last had a punnet (the NZ raspberry season is short, with the affordable season even shorter still) and the kids fell upon it like a pack of wolves. It seems appropriate to make this my Food Revolution Day post. Sometimes the simplest things are the best.
Got some gorgeous greens today from Hills Street Farmers’ market. Roasted some kumara rubbed with a little coconut oil, rosemary leaves and garlic cloves. It smelt mighty fine cooking, especially alongside a roast chicken. Steamed the greens, sliced up some ripe pear, shaved a little parmesan and toasted some pumpkin seeds. Random but rather lovely. For the dressing, mashed up the roasted garlic in olive oil and cider vinegar.
Yesterday afternoon we were feeling a little festive. I guess it was a combination of Saturday sunshine, family being together, and a pile of farmers’ market produce. We had a bit of a cook-up. A veritable feast really. Started with fresh fig, bacon and parmesan salad, with balsamic dressing.
For the main event ; Rannoch Farm steaks – 3 cuts cooked 3 ways (fillet, rump and rib-eye with blue cheese, bearnaise and chimichurri). This is seriously good meat. In fact, universal agreement that this is the best steak in recent memory.
With garlic roasted potatoes, and a pile of salad greens – mixed with blanched and peeled broad beans, and steamed sugar snap peas. Happy days.
I am pretty excited to be writing some posts inspired by Hill Street Farmer’s Market, of which this is the first. Not only is the produce fantastic, but in order to get to the market and back, before Saturday football, I have to duck out of the chaos that is family breakfast time. Shortly after 8am, with just the littlest member of the family under one arm, I was able to close the door behind me and breath in the still morning air. Anyone with kids will relate to what a luxury that is.
There was no traffic, a few students with remnants of last night’s fancy dress to smile at, evoking memories of footloose and fancy free days …and the promise of good coffee. No one asked me the same question 15 times in steadily higher pitch, from the back seat, or tried to draw me into refereeing side by side seat kicking match. Within moments of leaving the house I had decided this was a little outing I really needed to take every Saturday. So I figured I had better get something good. Something I couldn’t get from the local supermarket.. something I really needed to visit the farmers market for. I got a basket full.
First up, it’s the turn of the perfectly ripe peaches and sweet end of season raspberries. Some of which were just eaten fresh, but some formed the base of this gorgeous peach and raspberry upside -down cake. You start by lining the base of a cake tin and greasing it – sprinkling it with a little granulated sugar and covering it with peach slices. They don’t need to be beautifully chopped because it looks completely stunning anyway and having the peaches a bit randomly cut just adds to the charm. Between the peach slices, dot a few raspberries.
For the cake bit I used bigger quantities than usual as hoping it might actually last through the weekend, rather than be demolished in one sitting. 100g of melted butter , just less than a cup of soft brown sugar, 4 – 5 spoons of yogurt – beat it all together then in with 4 eggs, just under a cup of coconut flour, 1 cup ground almonds and a couple of spoons of brown rice flour, 1 tsp gf baking powder. It looks like quite a dryish cake mix so you kind of need to spoon it fairly carefully over the fruit – smooth it over and bake it. Once again I forgot to check the timings but it was probably close on 40 mins. It goes quite brown on the bottom and springs up.
More market treats coming later.
