Beetroot, beans, more beans, curry & stuff

Hello Friends,

This week, I have mostly been Doing Things With Beetroot. And when I haven't been doing that, I've been Doing Stuff with Beans. Shortly, just for variety, I will be Doing Stuff With Tomatoes. And peppers. And pears. It's just that time of year when all our veggie gardening efforts are repaid with baskets full of good things.

Here at the People & Cats Republic, we have a Love-Hate relationship with beetroot. I love it, the Big Hairy One can't stand it....which is fine, as it means there's all the more for me! For some reason that has so far eluded me, I am unable to grow beets much bigger than golf-ball size, but the flavour is always good. This year, I pickled some of my crop & ate the rest. I'd like to say I did something cheffy with them - a bit of a 'jus' with crumbled feta & watercress, served on a shard of slate, that kind of thing. The truth is, I was stuffing them into my face as quickly as I was peeling them. I know.......classy!

I always think it's a shame not to use the leaves, so I weighed out the best of these for a curry. I remember reading Madhur Jaffrey on the subject of curry leaves. Apparently, in India, people are much more creative in their choice of greens for 'saag' type of curries, using things like turnip tops, radish leaves, etc, whereas here, we would tend to go out & buy a bag of baby spinach.

We operate a zero food waste policy here, so these leafy beauties went into a batch of Spinach & chickpea curry. I can't take the credit for this recipe. It's from a book by Mridular Baljekar which I borrowed from the library many years ago, & would dearly love to buy, but it is no longer in print.

Spinach & chickpeas in chilli & garlic sauce

1 large onion, roughly chopped

2.5 cm piece of root ginger, peeled & roughly chopped

1 long green chilli, roughly chopped (I take the seeds out first)

3 tbsp olive or sunflower oil (I use 1 or 2 only)

1 tsp fennel seeds

8 cloves garlic, crushed

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

0.5 tsp turmeric

1 tsp chilli powder

1 tbsp tomato puree

400g can chickpeas, rinsed & drained

140ml warm water

225g finely chopped spinach (or substitute beet tops)

1 tsp salt

125g canned chopped tomatoes (inc juice)

0.5 tsp garam masala

Blitz the onion, ginger & chilli with a hand blender to make a puree. Heat the oil & sizzle the fennel seeds & garlic for 30 secs.  Add the cumin & coriander & pour in the pureed paste. Stir-fry for 5 mins. Add the turmeric, chilli powder, tomato puree & stir-fry for another 1 min. Add the drained chickpeas & the 140ml warm water. Bring it to the boil, cover & simmer for 10 mins. Add the finely chopped spinach & salt, increase the heat a little & stir-fry for 1 min until the spinach has wilted down & released its juices. Add the tomatoes & stir-fry for 7 mins. Add garam masala & stir-fry for 1 min. 

There you go, it's ready. Serve it with rice or any bread. It's filling & like all Mridula's recipes I've tried, tasty & inexpensive.

If you have LOTS of beet tops & TWO tins of chickpeas in your pantry, then it's worth doubling up, as this curry freezes really well. 

So that took care of this year's beets, both the roots & leaves. As for those sneaky plants which looked as though they were growing but cheated me by not producing a root, I'm not letting them win! Oh no.

 

Those have been left in the ground, & will be used to supply baby leaves for salads into the autumn months.

I can't pretend that veggie growing isn't hard work at times, but it's good for health & fitness & provides cheap food grown with zero chemicals. I might not be feeling quite so positive later this afternoon which I am likely to spend up to my armpits in runner beans & tomatoes!

Am heartily thankful for the sunny dry weather today, as Albert Whiskers has spent most of the bank holiday weekend on Wet Playtime. Of all the cats we've owned, Albert Whiskers takes the prize as 'Cat least happy about getting wet'. As he did sometimes have to go out for Essential Functions, bedroom doors were left firmly closed to prevent drying of paws on clean duvets. As Albert Whiskers had clearly hoped to spend the weekend like this.............

 

............he wasn't too impressed!

Hope there's someone somewhere out there who didn't have a soggy bank holiday. Off to slice my body-weight in beans now,

Till next time,

C x