Rainbow Chickpea Balls

by Liz Child

This nutritious, protein-rich, falafel-like mixture is so handy for making things like burgers and meatballs and of course it makes delicious fillings for wraps. You can flavour it with whatever herbs or spices take your fancy and colour it (and add sneaky veg) with any vegetables you like too. I felt like making some multicoloured balls as Easter ’eggs’ to have for a pastel coloured Easter lunch this week. Nestled in a bowl of creamy mashed potatoes and grilled asparagus and drizzled with a spring pea salsa. You could serve it with roast potatoes, gravy and trimmings for a Sunday roast too.

Liz x

Ingredients

  • 3 tins of chickpeas
  • 3 onions
  • 6 cloves of garlic
  • 3 tbsp olive oil
  • 12 tbsp porridge oats
  • 1 tsp turmeric
  • 3 tsp ground coriander (or any spice you prefer)
  • 2 cooked beetroots
  • 3 cooked carrots
  • 6 large kale leaves, chopped, cooked and squeezed to remove water
  • a couple of handfuls of parsley
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • extra olive oil for brushing and baking

Method

  1. Drain the chickpeas and tumble into 3 bowls. Add 4 tbsp of porridge oats to each bowl.
  2. Finely dice the onion and garlic and sauté until soft and golden with the olive oil. Divide amongst the three bowls.
  3. To each bowl, add a tsp of salt and grind black pepper to taste. Add a tsp of ground coriander to each bowl too if you like, or another spice or herb of your choice.
  4. Put the cooked carrot in one bowl (along with a tsp of ground turmeric for bright yellow colour), the cooked beetroot in one bowl and the kale and parsley in the last bowl. Now you are ready to blend the mixtures.
  5. In a food processor, first blend the yellow carrot mixture. Tip in the contents of the bowl with the carrots and pulse the mixture together until you reach a rough, sticky mixture. Scrape it out, back into the bowl, then repeat with the green kale mixture then the pink beetroot mixture. If any of the mixes seems a little wet, add an extra tbsp or so of oats and blend again. If it is too dry, add some olive oil or lemon juice to the mix or some extra vegetables.
  6. Pre-heat your oven to 200C and line a large baking try with baking parchment. Then squish and roll the mixture into small, colourful balls – or make layered balls like I did with the yellow mix in the middle, then carefully wrap a layer of pink beetroot mix and finish off with the green outer layer. TOP TIP: use wet hands to avoid frustrating stickiness. just keep a bowl of warm water on the work bench and wet your hands when they start to get a bit sticky.
  7. Brush the balls with olive oil and put them in the oven to bake until hot through and golden and crispy on the outside. Timings will depend on the size of your balls so just keep an eye on them.
  8. Serve however you like but they definitely need a sauce or gravy. This time I served them with creamy mashed potatoes, grilled asparagus and a pea salsa (I just blended a mug of peas with about 4 tbsp of capers and a splosh of the caper vinegar, a handful of chopped dill and a generous drizzle of olive oil).

Easter Inspiration

by Liz Child

Go green this Easter with some veggie meals and treats from our archives. Just click on the photos or the words in bold to be taken to the recipes. Happy cooking! Liz x

To Start

Try this steamed asparagus and artichoke dish with wild garlic butter. Asparagus, artichokes and wild garlic are all really special perennial vegetables, perfect at this time of year and such a treat.

Or how about a soothing bowl of wild nettle soup? Use our organic vegetables as a base and add some locally foraged wild nettle tips from near you.

Or a platter of these vegan devilled eggs? A lightly pickled mushroom replaces the traditional egg white and the yolk is made from beautifully seasoned chickpea puree.

The Main Course

This easy, one-tray dish packs a lot of flavour. Try our portobello mushrooms steaks with roasted potatoes and asparagus, drizzle over some vibrant chimichurri to make the dish sing SPRING!

Try your hand at making a homemade pasta dish? Ravioli is easier to make than it looks and this beautiful beetroot ricotta is just what a spring lunch is calling for.

Rainbow chard parcels are so versatile and you can really make them your own with your favourite fillings. Here’s one way to enjoy this colourful leafy green.

Something Sweet?

Easter isn’t Easter without hot cross buns. Try this easy vegan version. Keep it dairy free by toasting and slathering with our new vegan butter.

Make your own little Easter eggs with these dates stuffed with nut butter and coated in chocolate.

With a nod to the Easter bunny, make this very carroty raw carrot cake. It’s naturally vegan and gluten free, refined sugar free too, but tastes so so good.

Leek & Lemon Orzotto with Hazelnuts

by Liz Child

Leeks are one of our favourite vegetables. They are so delicious, I like to make them the star of the show when I cook with them. This simple, one-pot, spring dish is all about those luscious, soft and sweet leeks offset by toasty, crunchy hazelnuts (we stock organic hazelnuts in compostable bags here) and tangy caramelised lemon. Orzo is just rice shaped pasta which I love to cook like risotto rice, we stock an organic bag from Irish company, Bunalun. We love their store cupboard staples so much. Top quality, organic and affordable. Add some Bunalun groceries to your next fruit and veg order with us here. We deliver nationwide.

Liz x

Ingredients (serves 4 hungry people)

Method

  1. Find a large, deep, frying pan or pot. Start by toasting the hazelnuts in the dry pan. Just turn the heat to medium-high, tumble the hazelnuts into the pan and keep them moving around until they smell amazing and are deliciously toasty. Tip them into a bowl to cool a little then chop or crush into smaller pieces and save for finishing your dish at the end.
  2. Then, in the same pan, add the butter and oil. Place the lemons, cut side down, into the melted fat and let them cook until caramelised. Remove them to a bowl to finish your dish with later too. Caramelised lemon is so delicious. It makes the lemon softer, juicier and sweeter…and it looks pretty too.
  3. Tip the chopped leeks and garlic into the pan and season with salt and pepper. Stir fry until the leeks are starting to soften.
  4. Add the orzo and stock to the pan and simmer and stir until the pasta has absorbed the liquid and is cooked through. Taste and tweak the seasoning if needed with more salt and pepper.
  5. Stir the chopped parsley through, then serve in four bowls, each topped with a caramelised lemon half and a handful of chopped, toasted hazelnuts. Enjoy!

Easter Dates

by Liz Child

These sweet treats are so easy and fun to make. A delicious chocolate layer around a sticky date (which tastes just like caramel), stuffed with nut butter – this treat is reminiscent of a snickers bar, but the quality ingredients make it so much better! You can customise them to your taste using your favourite chocolate, nut butter and decorations. I’ve gone for a white chocolate drizzle here, but crushed hazelnuts or desiccated coconut make delicious decorations. Or try some Achill Island flakey sea salt to offset the sweetness of the dates? I’d love to see your re-creations. Tag us on social media or share in the comments below.

Liz x

Ingredients

  • Pitted dates
  • Your choice of nut or seed butter (we stock peanut, almond, hazelnut and tahini works well here too – or you can make your own nut butter, it’s easy! Simply blend roasted nuts or seeds into butter with a pinch of salt. We sell organic nuts and seeds in compostable bags here.)
  • Your choice of chocolate (we stock a really good range of ethically sourced, organic chocolates here.)
  • Your choice of toppings or decorations eg white chocolate, crushed nuts, desiccated coconut, sea salt flakes…

Method

  1. Gently melt chocolate in a bowl over a simmering pot of water. Place a sheet of baking parchment on a tray or chopping board.
  2. Open up a date and stuff it with a 1/2 tsp or so of nut butter. Close the date up again.
  3. Dunk the stuffed date in the bowl of melted chocolate. Use two small forks to turn the date over a few times to get it completely coated in chocolate. Then remove the date with a fork and place on the baking parchment.
  4. Repeat until you have made as many Easter dates as you like. Now, while the chocolate is still wet, you can quickly decorate the dates with some sprinkles of salt/nuts/coconut or a drizzle of white chocolate.
  5. Allow the chocolate to completely set in a cool place. Then enjoy! Pack into little Easter baskets to share with friends or bring along to a coffee date. They should stay fresh in an airtight container in the fridge for 4 days.

Food Resilience

by Liz Child

A resilient food system is one with the ability to prepare for, withstand and recover from a crisis or disruption. This is important at any scale. If you are an allotment holder or have a veg patch in your garden, you want it to be resilient. You want to ensure your efforts can’t be completely destroyed by unexpected pests or weather so you plant a variety of crops in case some fail, you prepare for and prevent damage from pests and weather. The same goes if you have a large farm – it’s wise to plan with resilience in mind too. Planting huge mono-crops, or factory farming animals, although less work and more profitable in the short term, is terrible for the soil and the environment, and you need to use a lot of pesticides and antibiotics to ward off large scale pests and disease. It is a shortsighted, damaging way of farming.

Organic farms on the other hand, have resilience built into their roots. Organic agriculture doesn’t rely on external, artificial or chemical inputs, or genetic engineering to grow sufficient food. Organic vegetable farmers grow trees and hedges alongside a diverse range of crops and cover crops which mimics nature and prevents flooding, drought, pests, soil degradation, water pollution and more. All these protective and nourishing measures combat climate change and future-proof our agricultural land. We dream of a future where organic farming practises are the norm.

We like to think, if you run a country, food resilience and the ability to feed the nation when things go wrong should be one of your top priorities. Resilience-testing events like climate change and wars are no longer just on the horizon. So apart from voting for leaders who prioritise climate action, peace and fair trade with our neighbours, what can we do to ensure Ireland is a food resilient nation? We say, also vote with your money – buy local whenever it’s available and alway choose organic. What are your thoughts?

Okonomiyaki (Japanese style cabbage pancakes)

by Liz Child

This plant-based twist on the ’anyway you like it’ Japanese street food might be my new favourite way to eat cabbage! Instead of an egg and wheat batter (and several impossible-to-find specialist Japanese ingredients) I’ve used a simple chickpea flour batter. This simple dish doesn’t take long to put together and is perfect for any meal! Breakfast, brunch, lunch or even a quick dinner. Top with mayonnaise (I like a bit of sriracha too), kimchi (find my recipe here) and sesame seeds. Delicious!

Liz x

Ingredients (serves 2)

  • 1 small mug of chickpea flour
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 small mug of water
  • 1/4 of a cabbage, chopped
  • 1 nori seaweed sheet, snipped into strips
  • vegetable oil for frying
  • kimchi, mayonnaise, sriracha and sesame seeds to serve

Method

  1. Whisk the chickpea flour, salt and water together into a smooth batter.
  2. Add the cabbage and nori and mix well to coat them in the batter.
  3. Heat a frying pan over a medium heat and add a generous drizzle of vegetable oil.
  4. Add half the mixture to the pan and spread out. When golden brown underneath, carefully loosen and flip the pancake over and cook on the other side until golden brown.
  5. Cook the other half of the mixture in the same way then serve with toppings as you like.

Kimchi

by Liz Child

We are very excited about the first harvest of radishes this year. Have you ever grown them yourselves? They’re what we recommend for beginners (or kids!) as they are so satisfying to grow and only take a few weeks to turn from tiny seed to plump, ruby bulbs. They are so refreshing and peppery, of course brilliant in a salad, but our favourite way to eat them is fermented in a kimchi along with their leaves. Zero waste! Kimchi is a really delicious fermented cabbage, Korean side/topping, like a spicy version of sauerkraut. If you’ve never tried it before, it’s like a pickle – tangy, salty and spicy. So good with rice or noodles, in sandwiches (you HAVE to try a kimcheese toastie!) …we love filling dumplings with tofu and kimchi and pilling it up on savoury cabbage pancakes. Here’s the very flexible recipe.

Liz x

Ingredients (these are suggestions and amounts can be flexible)

  • 1 cabbage (Chinese Napa cabbages are traditional but you can use any loose, leafy cabbage – Savoy or January King work really well here)
  • 4 carrots
  • 2 bunches of radishes (including their leaves)
  • 1 leek or a bundle of scallions
  • Optional extra veg like a kohlrabi or a turnip…
  • 6 cloves garlic, 1 large thumb of ginger and 3 red chillies to make a paste
  • salt (2% of the weight of all the above)

Method

  1. You will need clean equipment (large bowls, jars, chopping board, knife, blender, serving spoon and rolling pin) but it does not have to be sterilised. Apart from the superior taste and beneficial bacteria, fermenting rather than pickling is also easier in this way.
  2. Rinse your vegetables and start chopping. Save a few outer leaves of the cabbage but cut the rest into bite sized pieces. Weigh it and add to a large bowl. Thinly slice the other vegetables, leave the radish leaves whole, weigh them and add to the bowl.
  3. Weigh the garlic, ginger and chilli then blend into a paste. Add up the weights of all the different veg to find the total weight and work out what 2% is.
  4. Measure the salt and mix it through the chopped vegetables. Give them a light massage to encourage brine to form. Then stir the spice paste through using a serving spoon.
  5. Pack the mixture very tightly into jars. Use the spoon or a clean rolling pin to really pack the vegetables into the jar ensuring no air-pockets have formed. Leave a couple of inches of head room in the jar if you can. Then break a reserved cabbage leaf to size and press it down on top of the cut vegetables and tuck it in under the shoulders of the jar to keep the small bits of sliced vegetables submerged in brine. If they get exposed to air then they are likely to go mouldy. Your cabbage leaf may be enough to keep the kimchi submerged in brine, if not, use a weight. Something brine-proof like a glass, small jar or ramekin.
  6. Place the lid on the jar loosely to allow gases to escape during fermentation (be aware your kitchen is going to smell a bit funky this week!) and put the jar on a plate in a room temperature place in your kitchen, not too exposed to light as the extreme changes in temperature are not ideal. Allow the kimchi to ferment at room temperature for one week then refrigerate.
  7. TOP TIPS: – no double dipping! This could introduce new, unwanted bacteria from your mouth. – Remember the mantra, “Submerge in brine, all will be fine”. Check the jar every day whilst fermenting. Have the gases pushed the vegetables up above the brine? If so push them back under with a clean spoon.

Unsustainable Supermarkets

by Liz Child

The word ‘sustainable’ doesn’t just refer to environmental issues, it can refer to anything and means ‘something that is able to be maintained at a certain level’, like matters of economy and food security. So when we say ‘supermarkets are unsustainable’ we are not just talking about their over-use of plastic or their mountains of food waste, we are also talking about the way they source their products and pay their suppliers.

It has recently come to light here in Ireland, (read this article for the facts and figures) that local vegetable growers are being squeezed from all sides, so much so that many vegetable farmers in Ireland are forced to quit. Supermarkets demand lower and lower prices and present vegetables as ‘low value’ with ridiculous discounted prices (which, understandably, customers then begin to see as the norm which perpetuates the problem), and yet farming costs go up and up. It is unsustainable. Where will this leave us in the long term? Will there be no more Irish vegetables soon?

You know something is not right when it is cheaper to put potatoes, cabbages, onions, tomatoes, lettuce etc, all things that grow very well here, on a ship or an aeroplane and bring it over to Ireland than to just grow it here and pay Irish farmers enough to cover their costs. Now, just 1% of all farms in Ireland grow vegetables.

This is not to say importing is wrong. We love to trade with the world, who doesn’t love exotic fruit, tea, coffee, chocolate, olive oil, wine…? In fact, even here in Galway, our small business imports plenty of products and fresh produce ourselves to fill the gaps in your boxes (by the way, we never use airfreight). But when there is an Irish, organic option, even if it is more expensive, we always choose that. We grow as much as we possibly can ourselves, then source from other Irish organic farms, then import the rest. We would love to see more organic vegetable growers here in Ireland.

So what’s the solution? Do we just give up trying to produce vegetables here in Ireland? Do we rely solely on imports? Well, with food security issues being what they are at the moment, we believe that would be a very unwise decision. Not to mention missing out on the many benefits of buying local. One way to help is to buy Irish as much as possible. If you must go to a supermarket, spend a few extra cents getting the Irish option, otherwise we urge you to skip unsustainable supermarkets altogether and buy directly from farmers, farmers markets and veg box delivery schemes like ours. The future of food here in Ireland depends on it.

Have a look at our all-Irish selection here.

Fluffy Broccoli ‘Omelette’

by Liz Child

Another recipe inspired by Ukrainian chef Olia Hercules, is this delicious, veg-forward breakfast. I LOVE having lots of vegetables for breakfast. Sautéed mushrooms, kale, and tomatoes on toast is probably my favourite. So when I re-visited ‘Summer Kitchens’, one of Olia’s brilliant books, and saw this puffed broccoli omelette I knew I had to make a plant based twist.

We have just added chickpea flour to our grocery section. It’s one of my favourite pantry ingredients, so useful for making fritters, socca bread, bhajis, vegan tortillas or quiches and egg free omelettes. To make it puffy, I just used bread soda activated with some apple cider vinegar. The results were delicious and I’ll be recreating this veggie breakfast over and over again using different seasonal vegetables. Of course it would be wonderful with our purple sprouting broccoli and I’m going to use leeks next time for sure! Don’t forget to tag us in your re-creations, we love to see the spin you put on our recipes.

Liz x

Ingredients (serves 2)

  • 1/2 mug of gram flour
  • 1/2 mug of water
  • 1 tsp vinegar
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • black pepper to taste
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • sliced broccoli to cover frying pan
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • salt and pepper to taste

Method

  1. Start with the batter. The longer the chickpea flour has to re-hydrate, the better texture – you could even make the batter the night before and leave it covered overnight at room temperature to lightly ferment. Whisk together the flour, water, vinegar, salt and pepper. Wait to add the baking soda just before frying.
  2. In a frying pan which has a lid, fry the broccoli with the olive oil, salt and pepper until just starting to take on some colour. Then spread the broccoli evenly over the base of the pan and turn the heat down to medium.
  3. Add the baking soda to the chickpea flour batter and whisk it in – the batter should immediately start to fluff up. Quickly pour it over the broccoli and put the lid on the frying pan. This will ensure a crispy bottom and a fluffy, steamed top to your omelette.
  4. After 3-5 minutes or so, the batter should be cooked through. You can test it by touching the top of the omelette, your finger should come off dry without batter.
  5. Slice it into wedges and serve warm. It’s delicious with some juicy sliced tomatoes alongside too.

Beetroot & Tofu-Ricotta Ravioli

by Liz Child

Wouldn’t this pretty pasta be perfect for Mother’s Day? It takes a little more effort than our usual recipes but the ingredients are few, simple and affordable (using our ingredients at the time of writing this blog, this cost €5.64 to make 30 pieces).

Liz x

Ingredients (makes around 30)


~ pasta
• 300g fine flour
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp salt
• 150ml water
• parsley leaves

~ beetroot tofu-ricotta
• 200g extra firm tofu
• 1 small cooked beetroot
• 1 clove of garlic
• the juice of 1/2 a lemon
• 1 tsp salt
• 5 tbsp olive oil

~ 1/2 jar of pesto to serve

Method

  1. Mix the pasta ingredients (except the parsley) into a shaggy, quite dry dough then knead it very well into a firm, smooth dough. This should take around 10 minutes of kneading. If your dough is too dry, wet your hands occasionally whilst kneading to incorporate just a little extra water. Rest the ball of dough in a bowl covered tightly with a damp tea towel.
  2. Blend all the beetroot ricotta ingredients until smooth. Taste and adjust the seasoning if needed with more salt or lemon.
  3. Roll your pasta dough out on a lightly floured surface. Once you have a large oval/rectangle, arrange some parsley leaves on one half and fold the pasta over. Now roll again into a very long strip, just over double the width of the size you want your ravioli. Get it as thin as you can – you should be able to read a paper through it.
  4. Space teaspoons of the pink ricotta along one side, wet the other side to help it stick, then carefully fold the pasta over the ricotta blobs and use your fingers to seal around each one. Use a knife or pasta wheel to cut the ravioli and save any off-cuts, they are just as delicious!
  5. Drop the fresh ravioli and off-cuts into boiling water, cook until soft but still with bite (around 3 minutes or so – test an off-cut) then scoop out with a slotted spoon, dress with pesto and serve!