In the Bag: Spring Salad with Feta Cheese, Watercress and New Potatoes

This is my second entry for this April's In the Bag food blogging event. Still had a few of the ludicrously overpriced Jersey Royal new potatoes left over so they had to go into something and I felt like something nice and light for my Monday evening supper. I also decided to get a bottle of extra virgin rapeseed oil. I've seen a few chefs using this recently for salad dressings so decided to give it a go. It has a really light, refreshing taste, the scent puts me in mind of a balmy summer meadow. The salad taste really delicious was so refreshing, a real taste of the spring season.


Ingredients
Mixed leaves - watercress, rocket and baby spinach
Feta cheese
Some cucumber cored, peeled and sliced
Stick of celery sliced
Some spring onions sliced
About a mug of green beans, broad beans and peas (I used frozen)
Mint leaves sliced
Parsley
1 tbsp lemon juice
3 tbsp extra virgin rapeseed oil
Salt and pepper

Method
Bring a pan of salted water to boil and put the potatoes in - boil until tender, drain.
Next as I'm using frozen veg, I threw that in the water for a minute, before plunging it into ice cold water to stop the cooking process.
Once the potatoes have cooled, slice them up and put them and all the others leaves, herbs and vegetables in a salad serving bowl - crumble the feta cheese on top.
Mix the lemon juice, extra virgin rapeseed oil and salt and pepper, beat together to make a dressing - pour over and toss the salad.

In the Bag: Watercress Soup with Feta, Potato & Thyme Bread

This is my first go at the In the Bag seasonal produce blogging event and I was keen to marry my new found enthusiasm for baking with getting more involved with the food blogging lark.

So I figured soup and bread would be a good start.


Ingredients for bread
175g self raising flour (I used light brown as that is what I had)
100g feta cheese cut into 0.5 cm dice
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
4-5 sprigs of thyme stripped of leaves
170g jersey royal potatoes grated
4 spring onions finely sliced
1 egg
1 tsp of grain mustard
splash of milk

Ingredients for soup
170g of Jersey Royal potatoes diced
170g bag of watercress
1 leek diced
1/2 onion diced
vegetable stock
splash of creme fraiche (optional)


Bread method
Preheat the oven to 190C.
Sift the flour, salt and cayenne pepper.
Add the grated potato, thyme leaves and 3/4 of the feta and mix thoroughly with a knife.
Gently beat the egg, milk and grain mustard, then add this to the flour mixture, use the knife to mix into a rough dough.
Empty the dough onto a well greased baking sheet, creating a rough round loaf, press the remain feta cheese into the top, dust with a little flour and add a sprig or two of thyme.
Place into the middle of the oven, bake for about 50 minutes, or until the bread is golden.

While the bread is baking make the soup.


Soup Method
Sweat the onions and leeks in a little olive oil and butter, add a touch of salt to draw the moisture out of the onions and prevent them catching.
Add the vegetable stock, I used just over a pint, and the diced potatoes.
Simmer gently until the potato is tender.
In another pan, steam the watercress briefly - when it is wilted and cooked plunge it into ice cold water to stop it from cooking. This will keep your soup bright green.
Drain the ice cold watercress, add it to the simmered stock and blend the soup.
Adjust the seasoning if necessary and serve with a dollop of creme fraiche and drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

Serve with hunks of the freshly baked bread.

Delightful Breakfast from Lawrence Keogh

This week's Saturday Kitchen on BBC1 featured Lawrence Keogh of the restaurant Roast in Borough market making a delicious breakfast dish - Tattie scone with bacon, field mushrooms and slow-roasted tomatoes in Worcestershire sauce . Voted the number one breakfast in London and a restaurant that boasts one hundred and seventy plus covers for breakfast, lunch and dinner - I certainly had to give it a go.


I had to substitute soda farls for the tattie scone and didn't have the fancy eggs that Lawrence used the results were still very delicious - I was really surprised at how nice the tomatoes in Worcestershire Sauce were - I thought they would be too strong a flavour, but the reduction made it less acidic and intensified the flavours and give it a nice little spicy kick to boot.