Seasonal local food recipe No. 131: Carrot, cannellini bean and coriander soup

We’ve still got loads of organically-grown carrots to dig up on our community vegetable patch.

But this is positively the last soup recipe for a while (promise). It’s from the vegetarian cookery queen Rose Elliot.

This one’s a real winter warmer - filling as well as very satisfying. Rose says: “The beans help thicken the soup, so making it creamy and extra nourishing.”

Serves 4

Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 20 minutes

1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, sliced
500g carrots, sliced
425g can cannellini beans, drained
1.3 litres water or vegetable stock
4 tbsp chopped coriander
2-3 tbsp lemon juice
Salt and pepper

Heat the oil in a large saucepan and gently fry the onion and garlic, covered, for five minutes. Add the carrots, beans and water or stock. Cook for 20 minutes, or until the carrots are tender. Purée in a food processor or blender. Add the coriander and lemon juice and season to taste.

Try some more delicious carrot soup recipes from Camel CSA
Potage Crecy
Carrot and ginger soup
Carrot and parsnip soup

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Seasonal local veg from Cornwall in this week’s boxes

 This week everyone will have:
* onions (Camel CSA)
* leeks (St Kew Harvest)
* carrots (Camel CSA)
* savoy cabbage (Camel CSA)
* swede (Camel CSA)
* garlic (Camel CSA)
* parsley (Camel CSA)
purple sprouting broccoli (Restharrow Farm, Trebetherick)
potatoes (Burlerrow Farm, St Mabyn)

Standard boxes will have extra potatoes plus:
* parsnips (Camel CSA)
* celeriac (Camel CSA)
* salad leaves (Camel CSA)

* = grown to organic principles

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Seasonal local food recipe No.130: Parsley and potato soup with garlic mushrooms

Definitely no apologies for yet another soup recipe - it is that time of year after all.

This one from Nigel Slater uses the potatoes, garlic and  parsley in Camel CSA’s weekly veg boxes. The addition of chestnut mushrooms, fried in a little butter then tossed in garlic and parsley, makes it a winner.

Slater suggests in his Observer column having this soup alongside a crisp winter salad dressed with gherkins and mustard. I’m with him all the way.

Delicious with some real bread from St Kew Harvest Farm Shop.

Serves: 4

Preparation: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 20 minutes

Ingredients
For the soup:
750g floury potatoes
2 cloves of garlic
a large rib of celery
2 bay leaves
8 stems of flat-leaf or curled parsley

For the mushrooms:
150g small, chestnut mushrooms
2 tbsp butter
2 cloves of garlic
2 or 3 bushy sprigs of parsley

Method
Peel the potatoes, dice them, then put them into a saucepan. Peel and chop the garlic, roughly chop the celery, then add them to the potatoes and pour in enough water to cover. Drop in the bay leaves. Remove the parsley leaves and set aside.

Add the stalks to the pan with half a teaspoon of salt. Bring to the boil, then turn down to a lively simmer and cook for 15 or 20 minutes until the potatoes are soft and on the verge of collapse.

Chop the parsley leaves. Pour the potatoes and their cooking water into a blender or food processor, add the parsley leaves and blitz till smooth. Take care not to over-blend as it can send the mixture gluey - do it in short bursts. Check the seasoning, adding salt and pepper as you think fit.

Cut the mushrooms into thick slices, melt the butter in a shallow pan, add the peeled and crushed garlic, then the mushrooms and cook them till nicely coloured and sizzling. Season. Chop the parsley leaves and stir into the mushrooms.

Warm the soup thoroughly – until piping hot – then ladle into four bowls. Divide the mushrooms between the bowls and serve.

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Local, seasonal veg in this week’s Cornish boxes

Everyone will have:
* onions (Camel CSA)
* kale (Camel CSA)
* carrots (Camel CSA)
* turnips (Camel CSA)
* parsley (Camel CSA)
* beetroot (Camel CSA)
* celeriac (St Kew Harvest)
potatoes (Burlerrow Farm, St Mabyn)

Standard boxes will have extra potatoes plus:
* leeks (Camel CSA)
* swede (Camel CSA)
cauliflower (Restharrow Farm, Trebetherick)

* = grown to organic principles

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Grow-our-own veg team have no chance to hibernate

You might think that Camel CSA’s growing team have their feet up indoors at this time of year, browsing through seed catalogues, surrounded by chilli garlands and sustained by large vats of vegetable soup.

No such chance! It’s time to do all sorts of jobs on our community vegetable-growing plot.

Apart from harvesting the over-wintered stocks for the weekly veg boxes, we’re starting to get the site ready for next season’s crops.

On Sunday morning expert grower Jane helped Sophie and Freddie, two of our junior members, to sow the first crop of early carrots in our second polytunnel.

While they basked in the warmth, the rest of us braved the cold Cornish wind and carried on preparing and planting our new soft fruit area. 

As the ground there is quite poor and stony, we’re using the lasagne gardening method. This was a great success in our tomato, pepper, aubergine and chilli polytunnel last summer where it helped retain moisture and improve the soil.

The rhubarb crowns are already safe in the ground. The rest of the fruit bushes – culinary and dessert gooseberries, red, white and blackcurrants, summer and autumn raspberries – have been heeled in. They’ll be planted next weekend.

We’ve gone through an enormous amount of cardboard  - big thankyou to Laura and Joe at St Mabyn PO and Stores. But we’re fast running out again. If you have any old boxes, please leave them in the potting shed, which is between the tractor shelter and the polytunnels.

Many thanks to expert growers Jane and Mark N and the rest of Sunday’s volunteer growing team – Cath, Charlotte, Danny, Freddie (6), Gillian, Mark N, Mike and Sophie (9).

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Seasonal local food recipe No.129: Potage Crecy

No apologies for another soup recipe – made with organically-grown carrots in Camel CSA’s veg boxes.

Potage Crecy is a classic French soup which, characteristically, is thickened with rice. I always use arborio (risotto) rice, as I think it enhances the texture. The thyme is most important to the flavour and it tastes even better if made with homemade chicken stock.

This recipe is adapted from two versions by Jane Grigson in her Good Food and her Vegetable Book. 

Serves 4

Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes

Ingredients
60g butter
1 medium onion, chopped 
500g carrots, sliced
1 heaped tablespoon rice
1 litre chicken or vegetable stock
Sprig of fresh thyme
Salt, pepper, chopped parsley

Method
Soften the onion in the butter over a low heat so the onion doesn’t colour.  Add the carrots, put a lid on the pan and let the contents sweat for 5 minutes or so. Stir in the rice and allow it to absorb the juices.

Pour in the stock, add the thyme and cook gently for about 20 minutes. Remove the thyme stalk and liquidise the soup. Check the seasoning and sprinkle with chopped parsley before serving.

More carrot recipes from Camel CSA

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Seasonal local veg from Cornwall in this week’s boxes

The last of our squash are in this week’s share of the harvest. There were just enough for a Crown Prince variety in each box, minus the one that had been nibbled by the resident mice in our potting shed.

Everyone will have:
* parsley (Camel CSA)
* onions (Camel CSA)
* carrots (Camel CSA)
* red cabbage (Camel CSA)
* squash (Camel CSA)
* parsnips (Camel CSA)
* swede (Camel CSA)
potatoes (Burlerrow Farm, St Mabyn)

Standard boxes will have extra potatoes plus:
* leeks (Camel CSA)
* turnip bunch (Camel CSA)
* purple sprouting broccoli (Camel CSA)

* = grown to organic principles

Try these recipe ideas from Camel CSA: -
Spicy roasted squash
Squash and apple curry

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Seasonal local food recipe No.128: Cullen skink

Ever since coming to live in Cornwall I’ve encountered few homegrown Cornish fish soup recipes.

This is disappointing, as my Scottish upbringing means I LOVE soup. I make vast quantities of it from the contents of my weekly veg box.

So this week’s local food recipe is a type of chowder named after the small town of Cullen on the Moray Firth in Scotland. My thoughts always stray towards this hearty soup-stew in the cold dark days between New Year and Burns Night on 25 January.

It’s traditionally made with Finnan haddie (unboned cold-smoked haddock from Findon near Aberdeen).

In the absence of Finnan haddie, make sure you buy pale straw-coloured undyed smoked haddock – not that nasty yellow stuff you get in supermarkets. And of course use the leeks, onions and potatoes from this week’s vegetable box.

This version of Cullen skink, from Felicity Cloake’s series How to cook perfect in the Guardian, is as near as you’ll get to the real thing. For the purists among you, leave out the leek.

Skink, by the way, is an old Scots term for soup or broth. It comes from a Scandinavian word meaning “essence” apparently.

Serves 6

Preparation: 10 minutes
Cooking time: around 30 minutes

Ingredients
500g undyed smoked haddock, skin on
A bay leaf
Knob of butter
1 onion, peeled and finely chopped
1 leek, washed and cut into chunks
2 medium potatoes, unpeeled, cut into chunks
500ml whole milk
Chives or parsley, chopped, to serve

Method
Put the fish into a pan large enough to hold it comfortably, and cover with about 300ml cold water. Add the bay leaf, and bring gently to the boil. By the time it comes to the boil, the fish should be just cooked – if it’s not, then give it another minute or so. Remove from the pan, and set aside to cool. Take the pan off the heat.

Melt the butter in another pan on a medium-low heat, and add the onion and the leek. Cover and allow to sweat, without colouring, for about 10 minutes until softened. Season with black pepper.

Add the potato and stir to coat with butter. Pour in the haddock cooking liquor and bay leaf, and bring to a simmer. Cook until the potato is tender.

Meanwhile, remove the skin, and any bones from the haddock, and break into flakes.

Lift out a generous slotted spoonful of potatoes and leeks, and set aside. Discard the bay leaf. Add the milk, and half the haddock to the pan, and either mash roughly or blend until smoothish.

Season to taste, and serve with a generous spoonful of the potato, leek and haddock mixture in each bowl, and a sprinkling of parsley or chives.

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New Year veg boxes still have plenty of variety

Happy new year to all you grow-your-own enthusiasts from Camel CSA’s picking and packing team! Our vegetable boxes this week are full of homegrown produce after our two-week festive break.

We’ve nearly reached the end of our leeks and squash but still have plenty of onions, garlic, parsnips, beetroot, carrots, Jerusalem artichokes, red and green cabbage, chard, swedes, turnips, kale and parsley plus purple sprouting broccoli.

This week’s small boxes have:
1.5kg potatoes (Burlerrow Farm, St Mabyn)
* onions (Camel CSA)
* carrots (Camel CSA)
* leeks (Camel CSA)
* Jerusalem artichokes (Camel CSA)
* savoy cabbage (Camel CSA)
* beetroot (Camel CSA)

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