Steamed vegetables are a great way to boost the plant content of your meal while preserving as many of the nutrients as possible, but steamed veggies can also be a little bit boring and bland at times.  There is no harm in adding some little extras to add crunch,texture, spice or freshness to your steamed vegetables to make them a more enjoyable part of your meal.

Happily Kathryn and Lucy from An Honest Kitchen share my philosophy on this and have written this great guest post about how to make steamed vegetables less boring.  The post is an extract from the latest issue of An Honest Kitchen (you’ve heard me talking about AHK before, the inspiration behind this canellini bean, leek, fennel and noodle soup) and the issue is full of excellent tips for making over regular meals to get them healthier and more veggie-packed.  The recipes are delicious, something I can attest to as one of their covert team of recipe testers. Anyway, over to Kathryn and Lucy
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Bored with Steamed Vegetables? How to Give Them a Makeover

We all have meals we love, the ones we look forward to, crave even — comfort meals. But so often these favourite dinners are neither healthy nor easy to prepare.They might be packed full of cream, fat, cheese, carbs and stodge, or they take ages to cook and involve multiple processes.

One of the major problems is they usually contain nowhere near enough vegetables.

While you can fit more vegetables into the meal you’re cooking, it’s often easier to just serve dinner with a big pile of steamed vegetables. However, after a couple of days of plain steamed veg, you may find yourself looking around for ways to add some extra oomph to your plate, new flavours to keep things interesting.

We don’t hesitate to add a few goodies to steamed vegetables because anything you add will make the vegetables a more appetising prospect, and at An Honest Kitchen, we want you to really, really love eating your vegetables. Herbs, cheese, oils, condiments and nuts can all add flavour, texture and interest and as long as your vegetables aren’t swimming in fat and salt these toppings and flavours won’t detract from the goodness of your meal.

Firstly, you don’t need a steamer

There’s no need to go out and spend a lot of money on a steamer. Bamboo steamers work really well and are available from most Asian grocers for just a few dollars. Alternatively, if you have a colander or sieve, you can use that. Simply fill a pan with enough water so that the level sits beneath your steaming device and balance the colander or sieve on top. Bring the water to the boil. Add your vegetables to the colander, reduce the heat under the pan so the water is at a lively simmer and cover with a saucepan lid or plate. This will keep enough of the steam inside to cook your veg.

The amount of time you steam vegetables for will depend on the type and how big the pieces are. As a very rough guide, most vegies will steam in 3 – 7 minutes, however, keep an eye on your vegetables while they’re cooking and take them out when they’ve softened but are still brightly coloured. Grey, over-cooked vegetables are pretty unappetising.

10 ways to add flavour to steamed vegetables

1. Sometimes a simple squeeze of lemon or lime juice, together with a sprinkling of salt and black pepper is enough. Simple, yet fresh flavours.

2. Toss through a couple of teaspoons of pesto or harissa.

3. Salad dressings work really well on steamed vegetables. A small amount of olive oil, vinegar and mustard, whisked together and then tossed through your hot vegetables can make all the difference.

4. Chop together some sundried tomatoes, lemon zest and parsley. Add a small amount of olive oil and then toss your vegetables in this mixture.

5. Scatter over some toasted nuts or pepitas.

6. Mix together a small amount of butter, with some black pepper and fresh chives. Keep this in the fridge and dot a teaspoonful onto your steamed vegetables.

7. Steamed vegetables are lovely topped with a dollop of hummous and an extra squeeze of fresh lemon juice.

8. Chop up fresh avocado, coriander and chilli and stir through some lime juice. The avocado melts slightly as it comes into contact with the vegetables and forms a kind of sauce.

9. Make a pangrittata: breadcrumbs mixed with crushed garlic, black pepper, dried oregano and whatever leftover fresh herbs you might have. Cook this in some olive oil in a frying pan, until golden brown. A spoonful of pangrittata over steamed vegetables adds flavour and texture.

10. A quick tahini and garlic sauce is delicious over steamed vegetables. Crush a clove of garlic, mix with a tablespoon of tahini and then whisk in enough water to make it a drizzling consistency.

You don’t have to use a lot of any of these ingredients and a small amount of anything is not going to break the nutritional budget. There’s no reason that good food can’t taste delicious and there’s no reason not to have small amounts of the flavours you love the most.

Kathryn & Lucy

For more ideas on making over the meals you love take a look at our publication An Honest Kitchen: Makeovers. An Honest Kitchen is a regular publication all about real food that’s good for you. Each issue is full of simple recipes, practical cooking information and healthy eating advice. Our latest edition, Makeovers, in which we revamp popular meals is available in e-format from 11 June.

http://anhonestkitchen.com.au/

It snowed here again last week (in April!) so we’re still cooking wintery food and dreaming of fresh tomatoes and summer berries. On the stove are hearty soups like this one made of tomato, fennel, beans, leeks and wholewheat noodles providing a complete meal in a bowl.

There are two types of soup in the world, the sort that needs a good chunk of bread and the sort that is a complete meal in itself.  This soup is the latter type with at least 3 servings of veg per portion, wholegrain carbohydrate and plant-based protein from the cannellini beans.  As well as covering everything I look for in a balanced meal the combination of fibre, fluid and protein mean that the soup is really filling.

The recipe is completely inspired by a much loved ‘Chickpea and spinach soup’ from the 1st edition of An honest kitchen, a genius recipe which is much brightened by shoyu sauce and a handful of fresh mint.

It’s a very well though out recipe:

• minimal pans are used, the noodles are just cooked by pouring hot water over and leaving them
• shoyu sauce provides a complex salty note but with less sodium overall than adding salt
• all of the ingredients are ones that we usually have in
• You can swap in different fresh veg (I always try to include one from the allium family)

My version here keeps all of the cleverness of the original recipe but with ingredients well suited to a UK winter pantry, including parsley, the only soft herb to grow in my garden right the way through the Winter. Recipe étiquette is a tricky thing, but having just read Kathryn’s post on the Honest Kitchen blog on how much she enjoys seeing her and Lucy’s recipes tweaked and adapted, I think she will be more than happy to see her ideas put to good use.

As you’ll know, I’m not one to fill this little online space with reviews. I think the last book review I did was probably my second ever blog post in 2007.  But I’m very happy to say a few words here about Jules Clancy’s new book, ‘5 ingredients in 10 minutes’.  Jules has written her great Stonesoup blog for as long as I’ve been hanging out over here and so she feels like an old friend (albeit a virtual one). More recently I’ve been enjoying her experiments in cooking with only 5 ingredients.  Limiting recipes to only 5 ingredients is a real discipline, and one that can give life to some very elegant solutions (and I must admit some others that make me itch to add that little bit of extra spice, or another vegetable).

For me the beauty of this book is that provided you have an even half-decently stocked larder and fridge, you will always be able to find something to make for dinner. Unlike many of the books which claim to feed you quickly, this one has an ingredients palette firmly populated with real foods rather than manufactured shortcuts.

There are some beautifully simple ideas and recipes in the book including:

•    broccoli with lemon zest (yes, this simple)
•    quinoa with cauliflower and pesto
•    noodles with hot tuna and aubergine
•    lamb fillet with mint and houmous
•    chickpea and rosemary frittata (delicious in a wrap with a dollop of autumn chutney)

This isn’t a vegetarian book, but I don’t think a vegetarian would be disappointed with their purchase.  We eat in a flexitarian way, with some fish and very little meat, and I was spoilt for choice. with ample lentil, bean, egg, tofu and cheese dishes.  Along side this for every recipe Jules has included variations for making many of the meaty dishes vegetarian and the vegetarian dishes vegan and/or dairy free.

I’ve also included a few tips here from Jules on using one of my store cupboard favourites – the almond

How to use almonds – Jules says …

“I love all nuts but almonds are one of my all-time favourites. They are brilliant for adding crunch to your cooking without increasing the cooking time. I also use them to add veggie protein to make a meal more substantial. They’re also my go-to healthy snack. I’m kind of kicking myself now that I didn’t include a picture of almonds on the cover of ‘5 Ingredients 10 Minutes’ given how frequently I’ve used them in the book.

I usually buy dry roasted nuts because the flavour is so much better. The only downside to roasted nuts is they are more prone to go rancid than raw nuts. So if you aren’t going to be eating them within a month or so it’s best to buy raw nuts and roast as you need them.

Add almonds any time you want a bit of crunch or if you feel like you need to make a dish more filling. They’re brilliant tossed in salads or with most vegetables. In the book I use them to make a meal out of a big bowl of ‘super simple’ cooked broccoli. On another recipe they provide protein to a simple pasta supper of fresh noodles and wilted greens.

Almond meal or ground almonds are a great gluten-free ingredient that I use for more than just baking. Toss a few handfuls of almond meal in to thicken up a watery soup. In the book I team almond meal with peas for a creamy thick dairy-free soup. Or try mixing equal amounts of almond meal with good quality mayonnaise for a lovely ‘instant’ almond sauce to serve with chicken, fish or roast vegetables.”

Jules will be sharing her ideas for other ingredients as part of a blog tour – see the image for details where and when

Disclaimer: penguin sent me a free copy of this book to take a look at

Eating well all week undeniably takes time and effort. Much as magazines and certain celebrity chefs would like to tell us that it’s possible to put a healthy, balanced and brilliantly tasty  meal on the table in less than 10 minutes, most of us just aren’t that speedy in the kitchen (and nor should we be. As Kathryn has so eloquently put it, eating well is a choice of personal priority, and if you want to eat well it often means making a bit more time to cook and shop, and spending a bit less time on something else).

Having said that, the more you cook the more patterns and opportunities you see. That old adage of “work smarter, not harder” isn’t just for, well, work.  That mirepoix of carrots, celery and onion for tonight’s stew, well that’s going to be showing up again later in the week for a soup so why not chop double the quantity now? That brown rice that take’s a while to cook – throw in an extra handful and you’re much closer to an easy lunch for work, especially if you doubled that lemony dressing too.

If you watch for them, the kitchen is bristling with these little opportunities to double up.

At the moment one of these steps is for me is sauteing more vegetables that I need to use for the dish that I’m making.  I use this cycle of cook – eat – repeat in our house for all kinds of wintery dish.  Chopping a handful or two extra veg is easy enough and the cooking time isn’t really altered but by the time you’ve finished one meal you have a head-start in your fridge for later in the week.

A bit extra of vegetables that soften down well (such as courgettes and leeks) are perfect to save for scrambled eggs such as these courgette scrambled eggs .  Or more often that not I end up making a sort of shakshuka or pisto style dish with the eggs cooked in a tomato-based sauce.

These pictures are more of a template than a recipe.  Most vegetables that saute well can sit happily in a tomato sauce (leeks, onions, shallots, mushrooms, french beans, fennel, celery, cauliflower, asparagus, spring onion, aubergine, courgette, peppers).

A sort of shakshuka made with leftover veg

1. Pour a little olive oil into a deep-sided pan and turn the heat up to medium

2. Add your leftover cooked veg (I had a fennel and onion mix) and heat until just warmed through

3. Add a can of chopped tomatoes and simmer for 10 minutes.  You might also add some additional seasoning at this point – harissa, chilli flakes, black pepper, ground cumin and coriander are all tasty and easy

4. Taste your tomato sauce and add more seasoning if you like

5. Crack your eggs into small bowls.  I use one or two per person depending how hungry we are and what else we might be having alongside. Make a little dent for each egg in your tomato sauce and gently pour in the eggs.  Reduce the heat to a minimal simmer, cover the pan with a lid and leave the eggs to cook. Without a lid the tops of your eggs just won’t cook but that’s OK – just finish your eggs under the grill.

6. Cook until the white of your eggs are just set, so usually between 10 and 15 minutes

Serve straight away while the yolks are still gloriously runny.  Nice additions include a slice of granary toast to dip in the yolk, a sprinkle of parsley for freshness, a handful of dark green leafy salad or a sprinkling of feta cheese.

This soup was inspired by one that I had a new local restaurant Florio on my last visit there, a simple butternut squash soup topped with greek yogurt and almonds. A pretty straightforward soup, but much more enjoyable than expected because of the deep lemon flavour and the clever garnishes. This is not a fancy soup by any means but the combined tang of citrus juice and the sweeter zest really lift the soup and the yogurt and almonds mean that each mouthful is slightly different, right the way to the bottom of the bowl.  Happily for once my experiments at home turned out pleasingly similar first time.

Early in the Autumn a soup can be a simple thing like this.  I’m sure that come February our collective taste in soup will become more demanding and we’ll be looking for full nutrition-in-a-bowl, rejuvenating solutions complete with protein and whole grains and fresh asian flavours.  But for now this little squash and citrus number will do just fine.

p.s if you’re after a spicier,more robust squash soup this one arrived in my inbox while I was writing up my recipe

You know my feelings about oats. They are far too modest to say so themselves, but how many other foods are wholegrain, low GI and more than usually endowed with cholesterol mopping soluble fibre?  And so versatile in the kitchen too.  I’m always pleased to find another excuse to include them in my week and hence my delight at having these spinach, cottage cheese and oat pancakes as a new savoury oaty option.

I know some people pooh-pooh cottage cheese but if you buy the normal stuff it’s actually rather nice and creamy. I think it was all the extra low fat cottage cheese (very watery and lumpy) and those strange additions like prawns and pineapple that did for its reputation. That, and all those flavour free, soul-destroying diets of the 1970s and 1980s.  But if you’re still sceptical about the merits of cottage cheese then give this Baked cottage cheese french toast with a courgette and corn salsa a whirl as a stepping stone to moving on to these pancakes (honestly, I dare you not to like them).

Those savoury oat, spinach and cottage cheese pancakes combine both of these ingredients and are literally a case of blitz and cook.  Credit where it’s due to the awesome Shauna for spotting the sheer simplicity of this recipe. We like these as brunch and making a savoury twist on the original fruity recipe makes it really easy to fit in some extra portions of fruit and veg alongside the pancakes (today a heap of salad leaves and some roast cherry tomatoes).

People with problems absorbing lactose be aware that cottage cheese has much more lactose in it than hard cheeses.

Many more ideas for including more oats in your diet over here, plus a whole host of cheese and egg recipes.

After a record-breakingly wet year to date the sun has finally arrived in Great Britain.  When you live in a place where Summer is short, you have to get out there rather than sweltering in the kitchen.  I thought you might like a nosey into what I’ve been cooking (or not cooking).

• My new favourite – this blueberry, mint and feta salad. I’m not a fan of blueberries but using them in a more savoury salad is a revelation. It works on its own as a light meal, or pair it with some meat or fish or some good bread (we had some soft walnut bread which was unexpectedly good for a spur of the moment supermarket purchase)
• A few different salads that can be made into easy meals with a piece of grilled meat or fish one day and falafel or griddled halloumi cheese the next. Tzatziki, grated carrot & raisin with a squeeze of orange juice, salad leaves, spicy cucumber salad and roast peppers will all keep for a day or two.
• a big batch of this summer fruit salad, full of fruits that I love
• An old favourite, Nigel Slater’s cold salmon noodle salad which has a properly tangy dressing with thai fish sauce, fresh herbs and chilli.  There’s not much vegetable in the noodle dish so the aforementioned cucumber salad wouldn’t go amiss.  I also poach the salmon so that I don’t have to stand over it.
• Wholewheat spaghetti, tossed straight from the pan with truffle infused olive oil, salt, pepper and lots and lots of rocket
• Martha Rose Schulman’s Farro Salad with Tomatoes and Romano Beans (actually made with green beans, spelt and a sprinkle of feta)

I’ve also been making recipes from An Honest Kitchen’s Summer edition; recipes I have been drooling over for some time but which have never quite made it to the top of the queue due to it, well, just being rather cold.  Highly recommended – delicious spicy mango ice lollies and a crunchy carrot and parsley salad.

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.

Becoming mindful teaches you that the nothing is the same twice.  Each breath we take is different and though it might seem the same each cup of tea that we drink is subtly different in multitude of tiny of ways.  Same for those regular meals that we cook week in, week out.  So what has this got to do with leftovers and frittata I hear you ask? The same is true for portion sizes also. Cooking and eating mindfully includes deciding how much is enough today. Not the amount that’s usually enough or what worked last week but what seems enough today, at this particular one-off mealtime.

With these two lovely new chickens taking us up to five girls in total, we’re regular frittata eaters in our house.  The recipe I’ve posted below is for the amount that I always make. It’s a variation on this ever adjusting Parsnip, Red Onion, Kale and Gouda frittata which in turn is from this basic frittata recipe. I am forever indebted to Kathryn Elliott for pointing out the simple beauty of a frittata for those days when you don’t have anything planned. So long as you have some eggs, an indiscriminate assortment of vegetables and a few scraps of cheese then you have dinner.

A 6 egg frittata isn’t the right portion for two people every time. Sometimes it’s just perfect, other times it’s a bit too much.  Which leaves the happy accident of leftovers for breakfast or lunch.  Sometimes enough for two people, sometimes enough for one and sometimes none at all.

This post is for Helen’s Breakfast Club Event, hosted by Monica at SmarterFitter.  As I’m a big fan of Monica, Helen, breakfast and leftovers I thought I’d join in!

This little article in the Independent caught my eye a few weeks ago Tips with everything: Chefs reveal their craftiest kitchen tricks.  There was a theme threaded through the tips of salt and the skill of seasoning food perfectly. The variation in the attitudes of different chefs interviewed to using salt and other seasoning techniques was fascinating and got me thinking both as an eater and a nutritionist.  Here are a few of their approaches:

Yotam Ottolenghi experiments with different seasonings

In his tips Yotam describes using dried chilli heated briefly in olive oil or butter as the finishing touch for many different types of dish. Even if you aren’t already familiar with Yotam’s imaginative cooking, his choice of words are a dead giveaway that this is only the latest in a long line of experiments; “this is something that I’ve been doing quite a lot recently for finishing dishes. You can use it over roast vegetables, or if you want over fish, meat, or even soups.”

“It starts to cook and it spreads its flavour in the oil, but they also give it a slightly red colour, so it looks pretty good to finish a dish and also improves the flavour as it gives it a bit of a kick, as well as a very slight smoky aroma”.  He’s right too, it works beautifully in these baked eggs with yogurt and chilli which is a regular in our house.

Angela Hartnett uses sugar as a savoury seasoning

Angela’s tip is one I’ve used many a time, adding a tiny pinch of sugar to bring out the best in canned tomatoes.  A tiny pinch of sugar isn’t enough to add significant calories or damage anyone’s waistline, but it will make the tomato flavour sing and take away any strong acidity.  Using other seasonings often means that you don’t have to add as much salt to get a tasty dish.

Rowley Leigh uses salt, but at just the right time and with other seasonings

Rowley explains that it’s important to add your salt at the right time in cooking, for example to bring out the flavours in a risotto the salt needs to be in there from the start.  I like this philosophy – if you’re going to add salt to a dish then make sure it has the right impact.  He’s also always got a lemon up his sleeve to bring out flavour.

Jacob Kenedy adds as much salt as he can, and has a wealth of strategies ready to kill the salty taste if he adds too much

For Jacob “Correct” seasoning, to a chef, is as much salt as you can possibly get into the dish without it tasting too salty.”.  He follows this up with three different tips on how to disguise the salty flavour if you happen to go to far and make it too salty (starch, acid or fat).  What a shame you can’t disguise it from your blood vessels too.

If we eat out, we don’t know how much salt has been added

I’ve cheekily chosen the extremes of the article but it’s a good reminder of the difference in the control and knowledge that we have regarding our salt intake when we eat out compared with eating at home.  I think I know which of these chef’s restaurants I’d rather eat in, but the truth is that we rarely know how much salt has been added to meal cooked for us by somebody else.

The interesting message from this article for me was that when you eat out you rarely know what the chef’s approach to seasoning food really is.

For most of us around three quarters of the salt we take in is from the processed foods that we buy, with a much smaller amount coming from the more obvious salt added at the table or when we’re cooking.  If you eat out a lot then it’s definitely worth counting salt added by the chef into this equation too.

If you’re cooking at home, there’s plenty to experiment with

Our kitchen at home is full of seasonings – chilli, garlic, lemon, lime, pepper, miso, fresh herbs, mustard, horseradish, pickles, jars of all manner of pungent pastes and strange spice sachets. I do add some salt when I’m cooking, but I keep an eye on how much I’m adding and use plenty of other flavoursome seasonings alongside.  It’s all too true that our taste buds get used to having more salt, and so once the amount of salt you eat has creeps up a little it takes a while to get used to having less again (three months in fact, while you grow a full new set of taste buds).  When you get used to eating less salt you can spot an overly salted dish at home or out much more easily.

On a related note is Bee Wilson’s article ’Tis the seasoning: the difficult art of adding salt  and this from Kathryn Elliott on what to do when a recipe calls for stock, a particularly high salt ingredient

How do you use salt and seasonings in your kitchen?

 (p.s the photos are a couple I took at the salt flats at Marsalforn on the island of Gozo)