The grass is growing, the lilac is out, the clematis montana is spreading pinkly across my fence. My salads, neglected since winter, are sprouting into unwieldy unrecognisable alien towers, the mice have eaten a cake I left recanted in the shed, all, except the icing. I must abandon my recipe testing to mow the lawn. If only I had a husband, I've heard that they are good for that even if little else.
I have a window box which I can see from where I do the washing up; it has a teapot without a lid, pouring mauve hyacinth bulbs, now waned, and a cloud of nasturtiums, spurting peppery orange and green into the sky. Inspired amongst the suds, in my head I create a dish. Everyone knows you can eat nasturtium flowers but don't neglect the leaves, which can be used in salads, as a pesto or in a soup.
1 large banana shallot, thinly sliced
I have a window box which I can see from where I do the washing up; it has a teapot without a lid, pouring mauve hyacinth bulbs, now waned, and a cloud of nasturtiums, spurting peppery orange and green into the sky. Inspired amongst the suds, in my head I create a dish. Everyone knows you can eat nasturtium flowers but don't neglect the leaves, which can be used in salads, as a pesto or in a soup.
Nasturtium, courgette and buttermilk soup
Serves 4
50ml olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
2 large courgettes, cut in half lengthways and sliced
A few mint leaves
500ml vegetable stock (marigold)
1 tbsp of sea salt
300ml buttermilk
A large handful of clean nasturtium leaves
To garnish:
nasturtium leaves
nasturtium flowers
The rest of this recipe can be found on my blog post on WineTrust100 here.
Gorgeous, and such a beautiful photo too.
ReplyDeleteThanks Helen.
DeleteYou're not shouting into the void.... looks marvellous, might just be the only thing that'll get my OH eating our surplus nasturtiums. Mind you I'll also have to remember where in this part of deepest AndalucĂa I can source buttermilk............................ ;)
ReplyDeleteThanks Fiona. You can make buttermilk. Some people say you can do it by souring milk with lemon but actually you can make it by taking double cream, putting it in the food processor and whizzing it until it forms butter. The butter part you can eat as fresh butter (you can flavour it with nasturtium flowers and use it as the accompanying bread and butter) and the liquid part can be used as buttermilk!
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