Creamy Celeriac Crumble

by Liz Child

This savoury crumble is full of comforting winter vegetables and white beans. The creamy white sauce is made from seasoned oat milk thickened with a little cornflour. The oaty crumble is delicious and buttery (thanks to our new Naturli butter) and spiked with fragrant rosemary (use any winter herbs you like eg thyme or sage). Serve with a simple salad of shaved Brussels sprouts dressed with lemon and good oil. The not-so-secret ingredient which brings the dish together? Nutritional yeast! Fondly referred to as nooch, it brings a moreish, cheesy flavour to the party. What will you put in your savoury crumble?

As it’s gluten free day this week I’ve used certified gluten free oats in the crumble and gluten free Rude Health oat milk in the white sauce. If gluten isn’t an issue for you then of course you don’t need to worry about that, but if you are avoiding gluten then we can help with a range of gluten free groceries, conveniently delivered to your door.

Liz x

Ingredients (serves 6)

  • 1/2 a celeriac, peeled and cubed
  • 1 large leek, washed and chopped
  • 300g mushrooms, halved or quartered
  • 3 tbsp olive oil
  • salt & pepper to taste
  • 2 tins of white beans, drained

White Sauce

  • 2 tbsp cornflour (or flour of your choice)
  • 2 tsp Dijon mustard
  • 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
  • a handful of nutritional yeast
  • salt and pepper to taste (about 1/2 tsp of each)
  • 500ml gluten free oat milk (or any milk you like)

Crumble

  • 250g gluten free porridge oats (or regular oats)
  • 2 sprigs of fresh rosemary, stripped from stalk (or any winter herbs you like)
  • salt and pepper to taste – a generous pinch of each
  • a handful of nutritional yeast
  • 100g butter (we use Naturli vegan blocks)

Method

  1. Preheat your oven to 200C. Find a baking dish and tumble in your chopped celeriac, leek and mushrooms.
  2. Season with salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil. Mix well then put the dish in the oven to roast the vegetables while you prepare the white sauce and crumble. Remove the dish every 10 minutes to stir.
  3. In a mixing jug, whisk the cornflour, nutritional yeast, nutmeg, Dijon mustard, salt, pepper and a splash of the oat milk into a paste. Then add the rest of the oat milk and whisk into a thin sauce. This will cook and thicken up later in the oven. Put to one side for now.
  4. Make the crumble in a food processor with the blade attachment. Put the oats, rosemary, nooch, salt and pepper into the processor and blend into a rough flour. Chop the butter into cubes, add to the flour mixture and pulse into a crumbly texture.
  5. When the vegetables are cooked through (this should take around 30 minutes) add the drained white beans and sauce. Stir well then top with the crumble and return to the oven for another 20 minutes or until bubbling and golden on top.
  6. Serve with some seasonal greens. We like thinly sliced Brussels sprouts simply dressed with good olive oil and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice for some acidity and freshness to cut through the creamy crumble.

Orange, Rosemary & Black Pepper Almonds

by Liz Child

This aromatic, sweet and salty snack is the perfect nibble alongside a glass of wine or whilst watching a Christmas film. We stock organic almonds in compostable bags if you’d like to make your own. It’s easy to do and the flavour combination is just perfect! You might want to double or triple the batch and give some jars away as festive gifts.

Liz x

Ingredients

  • 500g whole almonds
  • the zest of a large orange (or use a few clementines)
  • 4 tbsp rosemary leaves
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 2 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 4 tbsp maple syrup or honey

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 175C and line your largest roasting tray with baking parchment.
  2. In a large mixing bowl, combine all the ingredients. Taste an almond and add more of any ingredient if you like, perhaps you’d like it extra peppery?
  3. Spread the almonds onto the lined baking tray in a single layer. Bake for 15 minutes or so until the nuts are beautifully toasted. Remove the tray from the oven every 5 minutes to stir the nuts and ensure they are not burning. Keep a close eye on them, once they start to toast they go very quickly!
  4. Allow the nuts to cool completely on the tray before storing them in an airtight container. They should stay fresh for a couple of weeks. Enjoy with a glass of wine and other delicious nibbly bits or gift wrap and share with your loved ones.

Sprout Spaghetti

by Liz Child

Brussels sprouts are in season and are certainly not just for Christmas Day. Have you been adding them to your boxes? What’s your favourite sprout recipe? I love sautéing them like this with garlic, herbs, nuts and citrus, then folding them through pasta. They’re also brilliant stirred through rice or another cooked grain like barley, quinoa, buckwheat etc for a gorgeous warm salad. Here’s my sprout spaghetti recipe, it makes a stunning mid-week meal and will only take as long as the time to boil your pasta. Quick, festive and delicious!

Liz x

Ingredients (per person)

  • 70-100g dry spaghetti (depending on appetite) or other grain/pulse of your choice eg quinoa, rice…
  • 1 heaped tbsp butter (I use our new dairy free Natruli blocks)
  • 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 clove of garlic
  • 7 Brussels sprouts, thinly sliced
  • a small handful of hazelnuts, roughly chopped
  • 3 sprigs of rosemary
  • 1/2 tsp lemon zest
  • 2 tbsp lemon juice
  • salt and pepper to taste (it’s extra good with lots of black pepper!)

Method

  1. Bring a large pot of water to the boil, meanwhile chop your sprouts, garlic and hazelnuts.
  2. Generously salt the boiling water and drop in the pasta. Give it an occasional stir to prevent it from clumping or sticking to the bottom. While the pasta cooks, prepare the rest of the dish.
  3. In a wide pan, melt the butter, add the oil and sprouts, hazelnuts, garlic and rosemary. Stir fry for a few minutes then season well with salt and pepper.
  4. Add the zest and juice of the lemon when the sprouts turn bright green and are mostly cooked through. Stir well, taste and adjust the seasoning if need with more salt, pepper or lemon. Turn off the heat for now.
  5. Drain the pasta but reserve a mug or so of the starchy cooking water. Add the pasta to the sprouts and turn the heat back on. Add a few splashes of the cooking water and mix the pasta and buttery sprouts together. The pasta water and butter should create a delicious, light, lemony sauce. Taste again and you’ll probably want to add more black pepper.
  6. Serve in bowls and top with grated cheese or nutritional yeast flakes if you like. Enjoy!

Ribollita

by Liz Child

This classic Tuscan soup is just gorgeous. A hearty combination of white beans, tomatoey broth and seasonal vegetables, most notably kale. What makes this soup extra delicious for me is the combination of garlic, lemon zest, really good olive oil and fragrant rosemary and sage. This is one of those stew-like soups that is better the next day. Once you’ve done all the chopping, it’s really simple to make. Leave it brothy if you like or thicken the soup with torn chunks of stale bread or blend a portion of the beans before adding them. I prefer to leave it brothy then serve the soup over torn bread. Let us know your favourite way of eating ribollita.

Liz x

Ingredients (serves 6)

  • 6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 2 onions, peeled and diced
  • 3 sticks of celery, diced
  • 3 large carrots, diced
  • 6 cloves of garlic, peeled and diced
  • the zest of a lemon
  • 1 tbsp chopped rosemary
  • 1 tbsp chopped sage
  • 2 stock cubes
  • 1 tin chopped tomatoes
  • 2 tins white beans, drained
  • 8 kale leaves, stems finely chopped, leaves torn
  • the juice of a lemon
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • stale bread to serve, optional

Method

  1. In a large, heavy bottomed pot, sauté the onion with the olive oil on a medium-high heat until soft and starting to colour. This should take at least 5 minutes.
  2. Then add the diced carrot and celery and the thinly sliced kale stems, season with salt and pepper and stir for a couple of minutes.
  3. Add the chopped garlic, lemon zest and chopped herbs. Stir for another minute or two, your kitchen should smell really really good now.
  4. Crumble in the stock cubes and tip in the tin of chopped tomatoes. Fill the tin with water 4 times and pour that water into the pot.
  5. Add the drained beans then bring the soup up to a boil, turn the heat down and simmer for 15 minutes with the lid on.
  6. Then add the torn kale leaves and the lemon juice to the pot, pop the lid back on and let the leaves wilt for just 3-5 minutes. Taste and adjust the seasoning if needed. Add more water if you’d like a brothier soup, blend some of the soup if you’d like it thicker.
  7. Serve in generous bowls, as it is or with torn pieces of stale bread.

BBQ’d New Potatoes

by Liz Child

This is my simple and adaptable method for BBQing our gorgeous new potatoes! I have fond memories of pricking large jacket potatoes, wrapping them in foil and packing them in with the food for camping trips. Then we would carefully tuck them into the BBQ coals to bake while the rest of the grilling was done, they’d often come out perfect if we remembered to turn them occasionally, but more often than not, half the potato would burn and half would be raw, or the coals would burn out before the potato was done and there’d be some disappointment… So this way of par-boiling, dressing then skewering little salad potatoes provides a much more consistent result.

Start by boiling scrubbed new potatoes until they are nearly cooked through. Test a few larger ones with a sharp knife or skewer. Then drain the potatoes and allow them to cool in the colander while you prepare a tasty marinade or dressing!

I love potatoes with garlic and herbs. This time I mixed olive oil, salt, pepper, crushed garlic, rosemary and lemon zest in a large bowl. Then toss the par cooked new potatoes in the dressing.

Push the potatoes on skewers (or cook in a BBQ basket) and get them onto a plate or tray ready to pop over the coals.

Cook on the BBQ, turning often until soft, smokey and delicious!

Then push them off the skewers, back into the dressing bowl and toss again to get any last bits of dressing and flavour back over the delicious, charred potatoes. Enjoy!