Broad beans are finally in season over here after bravely battling through an eternity of rainy days and plant-destroying gales.  I had what looked like a big paper bag full in my veg box a couple of weeks ago. Nik and I shelled them together the day before I cooked them, standing side by side in the kitchen.  Marvelling, as every year, at the thick protective cushioning in each pod.  So thick and tempting looking. But a little lavish perhaps on the bean to pod ratio – by the time we were done there were barely enough beans to fill a cup.

Starting out to make lunch for the two of us the the next day there were barely enough beans to feed one, never mind two.  I stuck to most of my original plan for the beans but padded them out with some leftover chickpeas.  This worked well so I thought I’d share the tip; chickpeas make a great substitution if you don’t have enough broad beans as the flavour and colour of the chickpeas don’t compete with the long-awaited broad beans and the texture is surprisingly similar.

There’s a very similar amount of protein in both broad beans and the chick peas (about 8g of protein per 100g) and just a little bit less fibre in the chickpeas (4g versus 6g per 100g) so they make a great nutritional substitution too.  The protein and fibre together make them a satisfying option for lunch.

I double podded my beans here. If they’re in a creamy sauce like this tagliatelle with broad beans, chicken, mustard and mint it doesn’t matter so much, but in a spread like this you want to see the splendid emerald of the inner bean, not the greyer outer casing.  Besides, by the time you’ve podded them once it’s not really so much of a stretch to do it again.

You can serve this on toast like I did (or anything else designed for spreading), or else eat it as a side dish or dip. I think it would be particularly lovely with fresh trout or salmon.

This wintery saute has been on regular rotation this autumn, in fact pretty much every week there’s been a good savoy cabbage available.  It’s ready in less than 15 minutes (including prep) and uses only one pan, a chopping board and knife. There’s plenty of plant based matter here and carbohydrate from the chestnuts and protein from the chickpeas.  And you don’t even need a pan of boiling water.

I’ve said before that you can make a stir-fry right from your store cupboard – pretty much all of the ingredients here in this saute are pantry friendly with the exception of the cabbage.  The end result isn’t at all fancy but it’s healthy and tasty and strikes the right balance of autumnal sweetness and spice without being overfilling.

Savoy cabbage, sweet chestnuts and the subtle lemony warmth of nutmeg are decidedly comfort food territory. The chickpeas (garbanzo) might not be the obvious pairing with chestnuts and cabbage but add substance, nutrients and texture to your meal without competing overpowering the other
flavours. We like this saute topped with a poached or fried egg to turn it into a more substantial meal.  I have mine with a drizzle of truffle oil and hubby likes his with a splash of soy sauce.  A dusting of grated parmesan might also work well.

Related recipes
Chestnut, parsnip and orange soup
Italian lentil and chestnut stew
Brussels sprout stir fry with egg, chilli, ginger and garlic
How to make a quick stir-fry from your store cupboard

Even if you only dabble in growing your own vegetables, chances are that you grow a few radish here and there.  Few crops are as reliable or quick, speeding from sowing to serving in as little as three weeks. Our garden alternates between the mild, multi-coloured globe shaped radish that were my first ever crop and the hotter, torpedo shaped french breakfast radish.

This raita was inspired by a memorable keralan dinner cooked for us by friends, inspired in turn by their recent trip to India.  All of the food was vegetarian and included a dish that looked like a regular cucumber yogurt raita.  The first taste was cooling yogurt and cucumber, but swiftly followed by an unexpected and warming kick of ginger.  The same concept works equally well with the modest radish, which is also much easier to grow in the UK (though I am tempted to have a bash at propogating supermarket ginger indoors).

Like tzatziki and cucumber raita, this dish doesn’t keep terribly elegantly.  It’s not that it goes off overly quickly, just that the vegetables steadily seep water which separates from the yogurt.  You can easily drain off the excess liquid give it a good stir, but as the whole thing only takes five minutes to pull together I just tend to make a batch as I need it.  We use this as an accompaniment to veggie dishes (like the spicy chickpeas in the photo), simply cooked fish and barbecued or griddled meats.  If you fancy it you can add some finely chopped ginger for extra heat.

Other people’s radish

• Spicy Heirloom Radish Salad, with swoonworthy photos from Penny de los Santos
• Pickled radish from Lucy at Nourish Me
• Sarah Raven’s Radish top pasta, for the leafy part
• An Asian radish slaw, from Tea of Tea and Cookies

In the snowy weeks at the start of the year there were a couple of days when I couldn’t get to work and I had the opportunity to really immerse myself in some reading. Springing off from Elaine’s excellent collection of links on How to build & maintain healthy bones on a plant-based diet I spent a happy couple of days reading up on bone health and found inspiration very close to home.

In Oxford (where I live and work) there is an ongoing research study called EPIC, the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition. EPIC is an impressive undertaking; it has been running since 1993 and has followed the diets of 65,000 Oxford residents since then, watching and waiting to see which patterns emerge between the food we eat and our health.  Because Oxford has such a lot of vegetarian folk, the study has provided excellent opportunities to look at the pros and cons of being vegetarian and vegan.

Are vegan diets (by definition dairy-free) good or bad for your bones is one such conundrum the researchers hope to answer.  So far in the EPIC group, the meat eaters, fish eaters and vegetarians all seem to have about the same overall risk of having a fractured bone.  The vegans in the group however had about a third more fractures than those other groups.  It’s a deceptive result this one though, and the true picture only emerged after the statisticians had a closer look at the numbers.  Those vegans who had enough calcium in their diet were no more likely to have a fracture than those following other styles of diet. It seems it’s not a vegan diet that is bad for your bones at all, just a badly balanced vegan diet without enough calcium in it.

As I see a lot of vegans in our bone health clinic, I’m always looking out for good vegan calcium sources, and it’s even better if several of these can be combined into a tasty calcium-rich meal. A chance mention on this guide to vegan calcium sources of the very Italian pairing of figs and white beans led to this calcium-rich spread recipe. There’s about 140 mg of calcium in a half serving of this recipe, plus a good amount of iron and fibre.  A batch of this in the fridge can be used as part of a main meal, spread on toast bruschetta-style or used as a dip with oatcakes or Lucy’s olive oil crackers.

Isn’t this purple cauliflower amazing? I was prepared for disappointment with this cauliflower, having had my heart broken a couple of summers back by the amazing purple beans that turn dirty green as soon as they hit water.  Even the lady who grew said cauliflower warned that it would turn an unflattering mucky colour on cooking.  But no, happy days; the cauliflower turned a glorious, unnatural looking blue-tinged lilac.  Maybe it was the steaming that did it?

Cauliflower has been given a bad rap by those for whom its characteristic smell brings back memories of school dinner and also by those who believe no beige food could ever be nutritionally worthy. This is totally unjustified – all of the fruits and vegetables that you can squeeze into your diet count and it is definitely worth having variety as your mantra where veg are concerned as they all have their own hidden talents.  The humble, beige (and purple) cauliflower is packed with glucosinolates, a group of chemicals that seem to help cells repair their DNA and so reducing the risk of cancer-causing damage.  Glucosinolates (found in cabbages, broccoli and cauliflower) incidentally contain sulphur, hence the classic brassica smell.

I was after something a little more substantial than cauliflower mash and so added a can of drained butter beans (almost certainly an idea that had wormed deep into my sub-conscious after reading Kathryn’s excellent cauliflower mash recipe in An Honest Kitchen Winter recipe collection – there are as many new recipes in the world as there are songs).  Tahini brings out the nuttiness of both the cauli and the beans. Chives add that little something that all of the onion family bring to the table with non of the bother of cooking or harshness of the raw.  This puree is delicious as a side dish or slathered onto a piece of garlic-rubbed toast (if you’re adventurous I’m sure you could even turn it into some sort of soup). Unlike mashed potato, which doesn’t count at all, a portion of this puree counts as two servings of veg.

Skirlie is an old-fashioned savoury oat dish from Scotland made with oats and onions cooked in butter or dripping.  I’ve been experimenting with this again recently made with olive oil, fresh herbs and a few extra veggies.  It’s ridiculously easy to make, healthy and far easier to wash up than porridge.

Skirlie has a different texture to porridge; it’s a little moist but also chewy, more like the consistency of cooked brown rice. Ergo, if you aren’t keen on porridge in all its gloopiness you may find that you enjoy skirlie. Likewise die hard porridge fans may find it takes a few mouthfuls to get used to.

That gelatinous wobble of properly made porridge comes from the beta glucan in the oats, a type of soluble fibre that becomes jelly-like when moist.  Large amounts of this soluble fibre is root of many of those health benefits ascribed to oats.  It can keep you feeling full through an ability to swell up dramatically when moist and also because it causes the energy from the oats to be released very slowly into your bloodstream (oats are low GI) .  Soluble fibre also seems to assist your body in getting rid of excess cholesterol, helping to protect against cardiovascular disease (and in case you wanted to know but didn’t like to ask, yes soluble fibre helps to keep you regular too).  Skirlie contains just as much of this beta glucan as porridge, it’s just that it is less physically apparent than in porrdige because the dish contains so much less liquid.  Instead all of that that expansion of the oats will happen inside your stomach instead making skirlie a fairly filling prospect.

Oats love the temperate UK climate, growing over the winter months with about half of the crop going for human consumption and half for animal feed (there’s more info on UK arable crops from DEFRA if you’re interested).

Like so many vegetarian dishes, top it with a poached egg and you have a complete meal (brunch perhaps?). I also use skirlie as a side dish to oily fish or roast chicken (it’s even better with meals that have a little gravy or sauce alongside).  You could also try using it as a stuffing or stirring it into mash.  The flavourings and vegetables you use can be swopped and changed, for example on other days I’ve made skirlie with orange zest, lemon thyme and skinny ribbons of leek.

One of the side effects of eulogising about seasonal food is that you can’t help feeling a little bit of a fraud writing about vegetables you’ve never eaten. Enter chicory, the one you might know as belgian endive or witloof.  As soon as I had typed the word onto my spring seasonal fruit and veg guide I realised I’d better get my culinary finger out and actually try some.

For some reason we’ve just never gotten round to trying it, probably because of its reputation for bitterness. But the bitter taste isn’t overpowering and makes the perfect foil to a sweet dressing.  Chicory is pretty readily available, though it seems to cause the shops a bit of confusion by not fitting neatly into any of the established groupings of vegetables. In our supermarket the chicory was nestled underneath exotic ginger and chillies from much farther afield.  Despite chicory being in season in the UK at this time of year much of the stuff we buy in the shops is actually grown in France (around Calais). But as Rose Prince points out in her excellent New English Table book “…strictly speaking this is just 20 miles from Kent, so more local to people in the South of England than a Scottish raspberry.”

Orange juice and butter is a classic chicory accompaniment. This braised chicory dish uses olive oil in place of the butter and has a plenty of flavour courtesy of the orange zest and a hint of honey.  We had ours with roast chicken but it would go well with anything that isn’t too overpowering in flavour (pork, fish, a multitude of vegetarian dishes or maybe a grain to soak up the juices).

Some other side dishes
French beans with almonds
Baby carrots with plums and chilli
Courgette pilaf
Beetroot, sumac and sweet potato salad
Calming lettuce noodles

Last week was all about those ingredients that sound like they are going to be wholegrains but turn out not to be.  This week is a little of the opposite – I have been cooking with cous cous.  Now those clever foodie types amongst you will know that cous cous isn’t really a grain at all, despite it’s teeny tiny appearance, but that it is actually little tiny pieces of pasta.  But surprisingly perhaps, you can get still get wholegrain cous cous; simply cous cous made from wholewheat flour.

The cous cous, sumac, pepper and date salad featured here is a very simple recipe.  Everybody makes a salad like this every now and then – perfect as a side dish or as a packed lunch to take to work.  Every time I make it this salad it is slightly different, however the ideas behind it are always the same.  I have five broad categories of ingredient in mind to make sure that my salad provides a good range of nutrients:

A wholegrain – choose from quinoa, brown rice, buckwheat, wholegrain spelt, wholewheat cous cous and millet or whatever else you fancy.  Wholegrains are higher in vitamins and minerals than their refined equivalents and full of fibre.  People often find that wholegrains are more filling than refined carbohydrates, so a wholegrain salad is perfect for keeping you energetic and wide awake well into the afternoon.

Fresh vegetables – any chopped fresh or lightly blanched vegetables such as peppers, green beans, radish, tomato, grated carrot, courgette, spring onion, red onion, cucumber or sweetcorn.  All of these will count towards your five a day as well as providing vitamins, potassium and fibre.  I like to include something that I know will give me a decent amount of vitamin C – usually red or yellow peppers.  You can of course use leftover roasted vegetables, in which case how about complementing them with some chopped fresh fruit so that you still get plenty of Vitamin C?

Dried fruit – dates, apricots, figs, sour cherries etc will all add an appealing sweet note to your salad.  Most dried fruits are very high in fibre and usually rich in minerals (particularly iron and sometimes also calcium).

Nuts or seeds – these provide healthy fats, more fibre and a little bit of protein. Most importantly they add bags of texture and flavour.

Flavour enhancers – a little something to boost the flavour.  I used sumac, which adds a lovely tart note against the sweet dried dates (not to mention an exotic pink hue!).  But pretty much anything goes; lemon juice, black pepper, fresh or dried herbs, chilli sauce, spices, seasoning mixes. The idea is to boost the flavour of your lunch without needing to add large amounts of calories or salt.

All of these ingredients are nutritious and tasty in their own right but I find that having this mental “tick list” of foods to include makes sure that my lunch is always well balanced and interesting – the wider the range of ingredients you add the more colour and different textures your salad will have, as well as plenty of nutritional variety. There are other advantages to following this plan; by eating your dried fruit and wholegrains alongside a vitamin C rich vegetable, your body will be much more able to absorb the iron from the dried fruit and grains.  This type of cooking is also immensely frugal and planet friendly; with only a basic outline of the recipe defined there is ample scope for seasonal adaptation, fridge clearance and using up those odds and ends of dried fruit and grains in the cupboard.

There is a moderate amount of protein in this kind of salad from the wholegrain and the nuts; probably enough for most people if you are having a good source of protein at your main meal.  If you know that the rest of your day might be a bit lacking in protein then go for the wholegrains that are higher in protein (particularly quinoa, spelt and rice) or consider adding a helping of fish, lean meat, cheese, tofu or beans.

A short aside
Kathryn Elliott over at Limes and Lycopene is running a fantastic series of posts daily through August called 31 Days to a better diet.  Do check it out if you haven’t done so already; two of my favourites so far include this post about keeping convenient fruit and vegetables handy and this one about trying out one of those new ingredients that we all have tucked away at the back of our cupboards but have never used.  

Related recipes on Mostly Eating
How to interpret wholegrain label jargon and a summer spelt recipe
Mackerel, Pepper and Bulgur Wheat Salad
Instant gratification – tuna, bean and watercress salad
Warm beetroot, sumac and sweet potato salad
An earthy fig, chicken and mushroom salad

Nobody is more surprised than me by my current emotion (well OK, maybe my Mum will be a bit more surprised than I am if she’s reading this).  I’m upset because …. march is the end of the brussels sprout season!

Sprouts are a fabulous winter source of vitamin C and being so readily available locally meant that this winter just seemed like the time to put previous prejudice aside and give them another try.  I’ve always hated brussels sprouts, but a couple of factors have won me round.  First and foremost, sprouts are just tastier than they used to be – growers have been working hard to come up with sweeter tasting varieties (if you don’t believe me, well then that’s all the more reason to give them another try).  Secondly, the blogosphere has sprouted some amazing recipes over the last couple of winters. If you look closely at the recipes they all have one quality in common; the sprouts are at no time be cooked using water. Therein lies the top tip – if you want to learn to love sprouts in all their glory then you need to start by steering well clear of anything boiled or microwaved.
Heidi’s golden crusted spouts recipe dusted with cheese was the deal clincher for me, after which I have progressed swiftly through cheesy pasta sauces and on to virtually undisguised sprouts in healthy stir fries.  Still to come is the ultimate pinnacle of sprout acceptance, the raw sprout (roll on the first frost of winter 2008).

Five recipes to make you love brussels sprouts
Start with Heidi’s golden crusted sprouts and work your way through.  Not a recipe but useful for those who have been willfully avoiding sprouts is Vegan Yum Yum’s article on How to Buy and Prep Brussels Sprouts

• Golden-Crusted Brussels Sprouts Recipe Heidi at 101 cookbook
• Pasta with Hashed Brussels Sprouts and Pine Nuts Molly at orangette
• Brussels sprouts with spiced breadcrumbs recipe by Tom Norrington-Davies (channel 4)
• Roasted Brussels Sprouts Recipe with Balsamic, Parmesan, and Pine Nuts by Kalyn at Kalyn’s Kitchen
• Caramelized strips of tofu served over sauteed shredded brussels sprouts Heidi at 101 cookbooks
• Brussels sprouts and tofu by Yotam Ottolenghin and ably tested by Wendy

My contribution to the sprout lexicon is testament to my new found love of the little chaps; so enamoured have I become that my standby lunch over the winter has been a stir fry of shredded fresh sprouts with chilli, ginger and egg.  Provided that you cook a little extra rice the evening before this dish can be on the table in 10 minutes.

This recipe is my entry for weekend herb blogging, hosted this week by Kel from Green Olive Tree

There are always raw food enthusiasts around telling you that a diet exclusive of food cooked using heat is the way to eternal life but in reality the answer (as is nearly always the case in nutrition) lies in variety. As much as some nutrients are diminished by the water and heat that they encounter during cooking, there are a whole host of others that only become user friendly with a touch of heat and a drizzle of oil. The Japanese are probably the best at this balancing act with their talent for mixing raw and cooked vegetables within a single dish, providing bags of texture and nutrients.

This winter I have been studiously avoiding imported salad vegetables as far as possible but I miss the crunchy stuff, and there are only so many kettle chips a girl can reasonably eat to fulfill this particular craving. Enter the winter coleslaw – fantastically crunchy and very nutritious.

Coleslaw is a really good example of why it is the variety of produce and cooking methods that you use across the week as a whole that counts. Cabbage is surprisingly packed with vitamin C (49mg per 100g of cabbage, compared with 54mg in the same quantity of orange, and 1mg in the same amount of cauliflower). Red cabbage is purportedly even higher in vitamin C than white or green cabbages, but the rub is that this vitamin C is a sensitive little nutrient and fair chunks of it tends to be obliterated during cooking. The same goes for the folic acid in the leek. Hurrah for raw food you might be thinking, but the story doesn’t end there – by eating them raw you will almost certainly absorb less of the beta carotene in the carrots. But the point is that’s OK, you can roast them or whatever you fancy later in the week.

Holding the mayo by the way is worth it, saving a whopping 21 grams of fat per tablespoon even if you use luscious thick and creamy greek-style yogurt.

We had our coleslaw alongside jacket potatoes and chicken baked with a crispy oatmeal coating, and then again with lunches later in the week (it will stay crunchy in the fridge for a few days, much more so than the stuff from the shops). I’d made this coleslaw a few times before I saw the winter vegetable coleslaw recipe in Jamie Oliver’s new book Jamie at Home – his recipe is very similar so check that out too if you have the book. Jamie uses red onion but I’m sold on using leek which is sweeter and adds those gorgeous vibrant strands of lime green through the slaw.

Cut up the veg in whatever way suits; the fennel, leek and red cabbage can all be sliced thinly with a sharp cook’s knife or shredded in the food processor. By slicing the leek in half lengthways you can open it out to get flat sheets that are much easier to cut into strands. As I’m nearly always too lazy to get my food processor down from on top of the fridge I tend to use a knife for almost all of the prep work, and my trusty julienne peeler for the carrots (a coarse grater is fine).
p.s if you are stuck for inspiration about what to make for your loved one on valentine’s day, this time last year I posted a healthy macaroni cheese recipe which we both really love!