LEFT OVER SAGE AND ONION STUFFING ROAST POTATO WAFFLES

VEGAN

These are brilliant and a great way to use Sunday’s left over roast potatoes and vegetables, serve them with vegan sausages or meatless meatloaf for a great brunch dish, for vegetarians top with poached eggs and hollandaise sauce.  Any left overs are great I made these with roasted potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, peas, cabbage, sage and onion stuffing, if you don’t have enough leftover roast potatoes, because in my home no matter how many extra roasts I make somehow they just disappear, add some mashed potatoes for a balanced potato waffle.  

Don’t own a waffle maker (then change that !) you can make patties and pan fry in a skillet.

Prep time 5 minutes / Cooking time 7 minutes

Ingredients

Several left over roast potatoes crushed and smashed

Left over vegetables finely chopped

Left over sage and onion stuffing

Mashed potatoes (optional) if needed

Sea salt

Black pepper

Combine all the ingredients well, brush some oil over your waffle maker, pile in the filling and close the lid, cook for 5-7 minutes until crispy all over, turn out and serve immediately with your choice of accompaniments.

ARTICHOKES HOW TO GROW COOK AND EAT THEM

A magnificent plant with beautiful Jurassic looking flowers, harvest before flowering and the artichokes are a delicate treat for the tastebuds, a fair amount of effort for a small edible portion of the artichoke, but so worth it especially when served with a buttery hollandaise sauce.

Artichokes like to grow in a warm sunny spot with free draining soil, they will need wide area of space as their Jurassic looking leaves get rather large, a meter between plants is a good space.  Propagated plants generally flower in year two and if you have grown from seed in a glass house from early spring you can plant out early summer once the plants have five true leaves, artichokes grown from seeds often flower in their first year.

Mulch the plants in spring with manure or homemade compost, add potassium in to feed them.  Artichokes should be divided in half or three every 2-3 years and generally stop producing artichokes by year seven.  Artichokes get more prolific each year and can be harvested from June onwards.

Cut the artichokes leaving a 2-3 inch stalk, place in a steamer with lemon halves and steam for 20-30 minutes depending on the size until a tip of a knife slides easily into the heart.

Pull the outer leaves off, reserving the base ring of leaves as the inside of these leaves can be dipped in butter or hollandaise sauce and you can suck out the juicy flesh.  

Pull off the hairy stems, they just lift off with ease and this will reveal the succulent heart of the artichoke, enjoy this with a sauce or marinate in a herby garlic olive oil, alternatively the hearts can be blitzed into a sauce and tossed through some pasta.

The prized succulent artichoke heart.

Hollandaise Sauce

150g - 200g hot melted butter

3 egg yolks

1/2 lemon juiced

fresh chopped tarragon (optional)

1 pinch Himalayan sea salt 

1 pinch white pepper

1 pinch cayenne pepper (optional)

1/2 tsp Dijon mustard (optional)

There are two ways to make hollandaise sauce, the quick and easy method is to place the egg yolks, lemon juice and seasonings in a food blender, meanwhile melt the butter either in a double boiler or the microwave then blitz the egg yolks to combine with the lemon juice and seasoning and slowly drizzle in the hot melted butter until you have a medium thick sauce that coats the back of a spoon, serve immediately.

To make on the stove top, place the egg yolks and lemon juice in a bowl over simmering water, whisk constantly until ribbons appear, slowly start to drizzle in the hot melted butter whisking all the time until the consistency coats the back of the spoon, season and serve immediately.

TURMERIC CHIA FLAXSEED CRACKERS

Kcal 92, Fat 6.3g, Sat Fat 0.5g, Carbs 6.6g, Fiber 5.2g, Protein 3g

(per large cracker)

A cracking cracker !  Super tasty and super good for you, these great crackers are loaded with flax, chia, pumpkin, sunflower and sesame seeds, brazil, hazel, almond and walnuts, psyllium husk, turmeric and black pepper (piperine) which is essential to aid the absorption of curcumin from the turmeric, seasoned with Parmesan (optional), sea salt and then depending on what I want to eat with them a choice of spices for example a savoury cracker for cheese would have nigella onion seeds, spring onion and maybe black mustard seeds to complement the cheddar cheese toppings and sometimes I’m Asian inspired with sesame oil, spring onion, coriander seeds, ginger and fennel seeds.

The main seed ingredients for these crackers can be in any quantities providing you follow the magic formula of a overall 360g mix of flax, chia, sesame and psyllium husk then a handful of sunflower and pumpkin seeds and a few nuts with 500ml of water, then salt and spices.

Prep time 15 minutes / Cooking time 40 minutes

Yields 24 crackers

Ingredients 

(makes 24)

The Magic Formula 

100g flaxseed ground

100g chia seeds ground or whole

100g sesame seeds

50g sunflower seeds

50g pumpkin seeds

60g psyllium husk

50g mixed nuts ground to powder made up of...

(1 brazil, 5 hazelnuts, 4 almond nuts, 6 walnut halves)

1 cup Parmesan grated (optional)

1 tbsp turmeric

1 tbsp Himalayan sea salt 

1 tsp fresh ground black pepper

500ml water

Optional Spices

(roughly 1 tsp)

Nigella seeds

Fennel seeds bashed

Coriander seeds bashed

Cumin seeds bashed

Mustard seeds

Harissa spice mix

Fenugreek seeds bashed

Ground paprika/smoked

Dried chillies

Ground coriander 

Ground ginger

Ground cinnamon 

Mixed spice

Curry powder

Moroccan spice

Pre heat oven to 170 C  / 338 F.  Place all the dry ingredients in a large bowl and combine, add your extra choice of spices at this point if you want to, add the water and mix well, leave to stand for 15 minutes for the water to be absorbed into the seeds.  

Place a sheet of baking paper twice the size as your baking tray on your work top.  Take a quarter size ball of the dough and place in the centre of one half of the baking sheet, fold the other half of the baking paper on top of the dough and press down to flatten the dough out a little.

Take your rolling pin and roll the dough through the paper as thin as you dare, cracker thin.  Peel off the top baking paper and using a knife or pizza cutter score the dough in to your crackers, this can be triangles for corn chips style or long and thin for more fancy presentation or just your standard squares.

Slide your baking paper on to your baking tray and pop in the oven, these crackers will take 40 minutes to bake to perfection, they are cooked when dry and crispy to touch.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool on the paper, these will keep for a week plus in a air tight tin.

Extra Turmeric Flavoured Crackers

My Geeky Science bit…

TURMERIC 1500mg RDA

Turmeric is super good for you, but more important is the need to eat turmeric with black pepper, why?  The curcuma longs L in turmeric is not utilised in our body due to its rapid metabolism in the liver and intestinal wall, combining consumption of piperine a know inhibitor of intestinal absorption found in black pepper significantly increased the concentration of curcumin up to 2000% in turn extending the absorption time.

Turmeric is one of those little spices you should try and eat every day, helps control high blood sugar, great if you have or are pre disposed to diabetes, anti inflammatory, anti oxidant helps protect against ageing, anti atherosclerotic, heart protecting and weight reducing actions, another great benefit for diabetes and reducing complications from associated diseases.  Important role of curcumin a key component in turmeric in the the prevention and treatment again of diabetes and associated disorders, neuroprotective and anti infections actions.  Helps protect against Alzheimer's.

Vitamin B6, manganese, iron, fibre, copper, potassium.

Turmeric is the livers favourite spice, boosts liver detox by assisting enzymes that actively flush out dietary carcinogens, curcumin compounds heal your liver aiding detoxification and strengthening your whole body.  Antioxidant, controls blood cholesterol levels, anti carcogenic, powerful medicine in anti inflammatory, supports flatulence, jaundice, menstrual difficulties, bloody urine, hemorrhage, toothache, bruises, chest, pain and colic. 

Flaxseeds

Loaded with omega 3 ALA fats, huge wallop of fiber and low in carbs, high protein along with vitamin B1, manganese, magnesium, phosphorus and selenium which gives you healthy skin and hair, lowers cholesterol, supports digestive health and are highly antioxidant and finally Chia seeds super high in fiber, supports digestive and heart health, supports diabetes because their rich in alpha-linolenic acid which helps lower excessive fat in the blood and supports strong bones and teeth.

Chia seeds 

Chia seeds are amoung the healthiest foods on the planet.  The black seed from the Salvia Hispanics plant, A important food for the Aztecs and Mayans in the day, Chia is the ancient Mayan word for strength.  Just 1 oz, 28g, 2 Tbsp of Chia seeds have 137 Kcal, 1g carbs of that 11g are fiber, 4g protein, 9g fat of which 5g are Omega3s (ALA) which is more than salmon gram for gram, BUT these omega3s being mainly ALA and DHA need to be actively converted by our body to make DHA, which our human bodies are inefficient at doing so!  Therefore plant Omega3s tend to be vastly inferior to animal sources, therefore it is recommend to take a plant based (seaweed) DHA supplement.

Super high in fiber, supports digestive and heart health, supports diabetes because their rich in alpha-linolenic acid which helps lower excessive fat in the blood and supports strong bones and teeth due to the good levels of calcium, phosphorus, magnesium and protein.  High in antioxidants giving a positive health effect in fighting free radicals which can damage our cell molecules contributing to ageing and diseases.  The high level of fiber neither raises blood sugar and does not require the production of insulin unlike carbs from simple starchy sources.  A high soluble fiber, chia seeds absorb 10-12 times their weight in water becoming gel like in y’our stomach increasing fullness and feeding your friendly gut bacteria.