[simonj]

This is a great way to use up small veg.Served with Bacon and cabbage
More pictures and ideas as always at the garden blog, link in signature

My turnips were grown in too much shade, so never really got up
to a full size, something that will be rectified next year
with the chopping of a few trees.

The flavour is rich and buttery. As always, I used cuinneog butter
- mostly for the flavour but also to support a small Irish company
and reduce food miles.

You can, of course, do only potato's or other root veg,
I just decided to do a mix.

INGREDIENTS
2 small turnip
2 small suede
2 small beetroot
2 small potato (I used kerr pink)
2 cloves garlic, crushed
160 gm Cuinneog butter
80 ml chicken stock
1/2 tsp Rosemary
1/2 tsp Thyme

Peel the veg.
You can reserve the turnip, beetroot and swede leaves for the greens.
Then cut the veg in slices to about 2 cm thick.
The veg has to have a flat top and bottom, like a flat barrel shape
Real chiefs at this stage use cookie cutters to give an even, all round shape.
I just trimmed with a peeler around the sides, the important part is to
bevel the edges to prevent burning.
Melt 160 grams of butter in a heavy bottomed pot on a medium heat.

When this was bubbling I started to add the veg.

I used beets, turnip, swede and potato.
All of these cook at different speeds so I staggered the cooking
- i.e. only after the beets got their first turn did the turnip and swede go in,
and only after they were turned did the potato go in.
The vegetables in total took about 12 minutes to
start going a golden brown.
At this stage add two crushed cloves of garlic and the herbs.
After about 3 minutes stirring in the garlic and herbs add
80ml of chicken stock.
A word of warning - it will start to spit and bubble.
Allow the veg to simmer for 30 minutes or until tender and the
stock is absorbed.

This meal is so simple, and apart from the meat, flour, milk and butter
there is really very little that anyone with even a small garden
needs to buy, reducing costs and food miles.
I write these recipes for my own amusement mostly,
but every time I do a meal, I try to minimise on cost,
basing recipes on what might be on offer at Lidl, Aldi,
Dunnes and other stores.

A lot of recipes use food that people throw away that is perfectly good
- i.e. chicken bones and veg offcuts for stock or the turnip leaves that
are used in this recipe - and what might be wasted from this one
like the bacon and greens cooking water that can be used in a future dish.

I hope this and other recipes might inspire readers to take
Irish food and look at it in a different, more adventurous way
and see how a few quid can be stretched.

[Sive]

mmmmmmmm, simonj, looks like perfect comfort food for this weather. I love the idea of putting a meal together from ingredients at hand. I rarely open a recipe book any more, I just enjoy being creative....far more fun.