Category: Recipes

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Recipe of June: White Asparagus with Tomato Vinaigrette

Surprise your diners with this appetizer of asparagus with hot tomato vinaigrette that we bring you this month. A very easy recipe to make that will give a fine touch to your starter.

This recipe is for 2 to 3 people. You only need very basic ingredients:

Start by peeling the asparagus carefully, making sure to remove the first layer completely. Then, cut the last 3 cms. of the stem away, as it is usually too hard to cook. Reserve for later.

Chop the onions along with the garlic in small cubes and add them in a small pot with the two tablespoon of olive oil. Stir everything over low heat and leave it for about 5 minutes or until the onion is soft. Add salt and black pepper to taste while increasing cooking to medium heat. Next, add the apple cider vinegar, coconut sugar, chopped tomatoes and stir for a few seconds, letting the mixture to boil a bit for a couple of minutes. You can add a bit of water if it looks too thick. Let it boil slowly for extra few minutes. Finally, add the herbs, a pinch of lemon juice and turn the heat off.

You can adjust the level of sourness or sweetness by adding apple cider vinegar or coconut sugar to taste.

Let's jump to the asparagus! Very easy: just put them to boil for 3 minutes, adding at least 6 teaspoon of salt to the water to let the asparagus absorb as much as possible.Β  The asparagus must be crunchy so be careful to not over boil them.

Finally, serve and decorate as you wish. We suggest accompanying this entry with a refreshing Chardonnay, totally ad-hoc for summer evenings!

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Recipe of January: Spiced Pumpkin Soup

The past few months we were serving β€˜Spiced pumpkin soup’ at Little Plant Pantry and we often hear comments like β€˜I love the spices!’, β€˜exactly what I needed’, β€˜so creamy’ and many times: β€˜can I have the recipe?’.

And as we still have plenty of cold and dark nights to enjoy warm and hearty soups like this one, I’m more than happy to share the recipe with you!

You’ll need (all organic of course):

pumpkin
Pumpkin soup

Let's do it!

There is no secret to this recipe but few tricks that make this soup so rich and full of flavors. First is to let the spices simmer slowly and a long time to release and infuse all the lovely aromas.

The second is to roast the pumpkin in the oven with some olive oil, salt, and a bit of coconut sugar. This takes the pumpkin to a whole new level with the deep, roasted, and caramelized flavors.

Start by washing the butternut pumpkin (no need to peel it for this recipe) and cutting it to smaller pieces. I cut it in half from the spot where the thick part starts. Then I cut the thick part in half and scoop out the seeds with a spoon and cut in smaller chunks. The thinner part I cut to 1-2 cm rings and then to smaller chunks.

Pile all the chunks on baking tray and drizzle with olive oil, tablespoon or two coconut sugar and few pinches of salt. Then mix around and spread evenly around the tray. Bake 180Β° until it turns nicely brown and caramelized. Check it every 5-7 minutes.

Opening the oven often for quick check also releases lots of moisture so it will also roast better instead of steaming.

It is good to remember when you open the oven, that steam is hot and will burn you if are not careful.

While the pumpkin is in the oven, peel and cut the onion, garlic, ginger, and carrots. In a large pot, heat some olive oil on medium heat and throw in all the vegetables. Let them sizzle and roast for few minutes mixing every now and then, lower the heat and add the cinnamon, cardamom, star anis, cloves and ginger.

Now you’ll just need to be patience and let everything roast, bake, infuse, caramelize and so on. You know, a lot of good things are happening there, and you will smell it and probably so will your neighbors.

Just keep an eye on it, adjust the heat if needed and mix regularly, the color should deepen, and everything caramelize but don’t let it burn. I like to let it simmer for about half an hour or more.

Once the pumpkin is done roasting and the vegetables and spices have been simmering long enough it’s time to add the pumpkin in to the pot, mix around for few moments and cover with water. Bring to boil, lower the heat and let simmer for half an hour or more. Season with salt, black pepper and blend until smooth. If it’s too thick just add hot water when blending. Pour through a fine strainer to strain out any pieces of spices.

I like to garnish it with chopped spring onion, roasted pumpkin seeds and serve with our homemade crispy seed crackers.

Pumpkin soup

Should serve 3-4 people but some might want a second round so maybe it’s worth to double the recipe 😊. Personally I like to make bigger batch and freeze any leftovers to make a perfect backup lunch for a busy day.

This is not strict recipe at all, feel free to play around with the amount of ingredients and spices to your liking and let us know how it turned out to be!

Pomi