Venison shanks in apple sauce

Slow braised 4 venison shanks, using a lot of cooking apples as the sauce, since the harvest is great. 
Peel and cut up 4 cooking apples, bring to boil with some water, add garlic, ginger, star anis, bay leaves, season with salt, miso, brown sugar. 
Pour onto baking dish with venison shanks, bake at 130˚C until tender, around 3 hours. 

Goes well with stir-fried Kalette with garlic.  

Small edamame

The small organic soy bean grown in Austria that I ordered to make Natto and germinated in the greenhouse finally bear pods. Harvested them green to enjoy as fresh soy bean or edamame. They are small and sweet, after blanching. 

Myoga Japanese ginger blossom

A surprise to see that there is another burst of this ginger blossom, normally only once in summer. This time is a lot more than what was harvested 3 months ago. 

Kept 1/3 fresh for cooking - stir-fry, 1/3 pickle in cider vinegar, honey, salt and cloves, and 1/3 pickle in miso, just to extend the use of this beautiful, crunchy mildly gingery vegetable. 

Venison with basil miso sauce

Time to take Bruno out for having hot food, searing venison leg steaks. I made a simple purple basil, white miso, water, and Gomasio as a mild but fragrant sauce, also an easy way to increase the number of ingredients per meal. 

Beetroot with pesto sauce

Harvesting beetroot from the third successive sowing of the year. I like to eat beetroot on a regular  basis, as it has ingredient that improves elasticity of blood vessels. This one is steamed then mixed with pesto sauce, just to bring out the sweetness more.

Alfresco bbq dinner

Early October, still mild at 16 degrees, could be a final day to be able to sit outside to enjoy dinner. Simple bbq thick striploin, with boiled potatoes and salad with tomato and herb. 

Deep red tomatoes and ripen bell pepper

Even though I had a slow start of growing season as May/June’s weather was odd, due to long daylight in Ireland, tomatoes and bell peppers are able to reach maturity. Deep red tomatoes and thick walled sweet bell pepper. 

I steamed bell peppers whole to enjoy the texture and flavour. For tomatoes I tried drying then in air-fryer using warm up mode for an hour to concentrate flavour, worked well. 

Semi-dry tomato in dehydrator

A bit of a slow start of the tomato season this year, finally they are turning red and more than enough to be used up in daily meals. I have to use the dehydrator to turn into semi-dried slices to be stored in the freezer to enjoy later. Tomato tasted so much better after a bit of water is removed. 

Italian radicchio with tomato

Combining ingredients in season and what I have in the fridge is my strength, make cooking less boring and can enjoy tasty and new dishes every meal. 

This time to cook radicchio, I use left behind corners of tomato after cutting up to semi-dry in dehydrator, and left behind lacto-fermented liquid that have been stored in the fridge. Just need to add a bit of sugar to counteract bitterness of radicchio, the dish turns out pretty and very tasty. 

Cauliflower 2 ways

With more rain in the last month, cauliflower grows bigger than earlier in the year, I should never plant them so early, or I have to water a lot more!

Big enough for 2 meals for 2, I figured two ways to enjoy it. 

Cut into big thick slices, season with salt, pepper and spices, drizzle olive oil on top, bake at 180˚C until just turn soft, around 20-25 minutes. 

The loose florets are cut smaller into bite size pieces, cook soft with water and garlic, mix in minced ham and pesto just before serving, looks like a pasta dish, delicious. 

Baked radicchio

I have been using radicchio in salads, but as weather turns cold, it is better to have it hot. The normal way is to sear slices of the veg in a pan, but to simplify this, I baked in the oven instead. 
Cut radicchio into wedges, lay on one layer in a baking tray, season with salt and spices, drizzle olive oil on top, add pumpkin seeds for extra texture. Cover the top loosely with another sheet of baking paper, bake at 180˚C for around 30 minutes, delicious.

Hot creamy tofu cucumber pear soup

Weather turns cool and wet, it is time to enjoy hot soup. Instead of cold cucumber soup I make a hot one, using silken tofu to make it creamy. Adding pear gives a pleasant sweetness to it. 

Baked beetroot and pear

It is great to know that gold beetroot has the same level of nitrate as red ones, that will be converted to nitric oxide after digestion, which help blood vessels to dilate. 

This is the harvest from second sowing of beetroot, first one in March, second in May and third one in August, to ensure a continuous supply. 
 

Cut beetroot into slices, drizzle a little olive oil and bake at 180˚C until soft, around 30 minutes. Since pear is maturing now, I also added some sliced pear in the baking. Before serving, place a few dollops of pesto sauce on top. 

Eggplant

Gradually eggplants are producing fruits, one at a time. I cut it up and steam for 8 minutes, just enough to soften and still keeping the beautiful purplish colour. Then mix with a sauce of soy sauce, miso and sesame oil, simple yet tasty. 

Tomato harvest

With a poor start of the growing season with cold May weather, killing the first batch of tomato seedlings, the second batch was planted in early June and finally I have some ripen tomatoes to enjoy. 

Red Ailsa Craig and bright orange Vivacious, both growing well bearing many fruits, just need the weather to stay not too cold for them to ripen gradually. 

Vivacious is a variety famous for robust growth and has a high level of beta carotene. It is a fleshy type with little juice, mild taste. 

Ailsa Craig is an heirloom variety famous for its deep red colour, medium size and good balance of sweet and sourness. 

Lacto fermented cucumber

When there are more cucumbers than I can finish within the day, I ferment them to preserve and have a small portion in every meal.  Fulfilling this year’s plan of having more fermented food regularly. 

Cut cucumber into slices, weight and mix with 2% its weight in salt for half a day to soften. Fill a jar 2/3 full with softened cucumber and its juice, cover up with 2% brine, cover loosely with cling film and leave at room temperature to ferment. It will start bubbling after a day, after 4 days it will be sour enough for my taste, transfer into a preserving jar and keep in the fridge with the lid loose. 

Can be served as such, or change the flavour by adding a spicy plum sauce and a sprinkle of sesame and seaweed. 

Silken tofu dips

Created another way to enjoy silken tofu, blend to puree and use as dips, high protein low fat version.  I used pomegranate molasses and chilli oil in one and pumpkin seed miso in the other, perfect texture.

Kalette

This is a new variety in the brassica vegetable that I bought from a seed catalogue, describe as similar growing habit as Brussel Sprout, but produces small open up leafy heads instead. 

Super easy to germinate, planted out in April and grows steadily without any problem to a majestic size. Finally I can see the top and the  trunk started to have small opened leafy buds, but at the same time aphids arrived too. 

So it is a game of who gets to the plant earlier, this aphid problem is why I stopped growing Brussel Sprout and it is a pity to see the same problem in this new variety. 

Tasted good, a bit more like Kailan than kale. 

Runner and climbing bean

A strange growing season, bean plants finally able to develop well after series of heat waves to bear fruits, first decent harvest of runner and climbing beans, nearly a month later then normal. 

Young green pepper

This is pepper variety Hamik that will turn orange when mature, but it takes so long to mature and at this green stage, it looks like Spanish Padron pepper. So I just harvest them young and cook in Air fryer to slightly brown, then sprinkle salt on top, as delicious as Padron pepper.