Cook book club February

Thistles and Kiwis,

When I looked at the topic for this month’s cook book club, my mind went blank. Did I have any books dedicated to summer? I made Julia Turshen’s beef and zucchini (courgettes) meatballs for this month’s post before I realised I actually have three ‘summer’ books: one in Swedish, one by Nigel Slater and Brontë Aurell’s Summer.

Anyway, I decided to start with Sommarmat på Stora Fat, a collection of recipes edited by Ulla Karlström and Cecilia Lundin and had a good browse. The title I guess would best translated as ‘summer food in a big dish’. Anyway, there are lots of good things in here but with some nice three coloured salad potatoes, I decided on the potatissallad med sardeller, timjan och oliver or potato salad with anchovies, thyme and olives.

As well as potatoes, the salad contains tomatoes, green beans, very finely chopped anchovies, spring onions, a little fresh thyme, olives and capers, with a dressing made of red wine vinegar, mustard, honey and olive oil. This is a really good summer dish to have with almost anything. I prefer less anchovies and more olives than are suggested, but really make this dish to your taste.

The second dish Quinoa, peas, sprouted seeds come from Nigel Slater’s Greenfeast Spring and Summer. With a new bag of a white, black and red quinoa in the cupboard, this seemed the right time to try this.

Cook the quinoa as per the packet instructions. Make a dressing with pomegranate molasses, lemon juice and olive oil and add to the quinoa. Add in cooked peas (at this time of year this means frozen), sprouted seeds such as mung beans and ‘micro leaves and marigold petals’ – well, I found some micro leaves with calendula…) and serve. This is also really good, and would go well with some feta. Serve on green leaves.

Entered in the cook book challenge hosted by Jo of Brookford Kitchen Diaries. Next month is what I thought this month was….something seasonal on 19 March.

Thistles and Kiwis is a Wellington, New Zealand based blog written by Barbara, who likes cats, summer, good food and pretends to garden.

You can find Thistles and Kiwis on Facebook, and also on Instagram @thistlesandkiwis.

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Published by Thistles and Kiwis

Loves summer, sunshine and cats. Beginner gardener, likes eating, cooking and reading about food

25 Comments

  2. Hmm, I’ve gone back-and-forth on the choices in your mind – shall go with the potato one but up the anchovies and possibly omit the olives. . . ? I presume the anchovies designated are the big, marinated ones with heads still on in a glass jar? My preferred breakfast as long as I can get hold of them . . .

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  10. For some reason my first attempt at a comment didn’t save, so let’s try again… I’ll need to dig out Greenfeast for that quinoa recipe, but I really want to talk to you about the potatoes… any chance of you taking a pic of the recipe and messaging it to me… oh wait… it’s in Swedish, isn’t it.

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