Celeriac, Apple & Spinach Soup

This soup really celebrates the crops that are being harvested at this time of the year. Knobbly celeriac, earthy potatoes from the farm, crisp Irish apples and lovely iron rich spinach. Theres great comfort in a big bowl of flavourful nourishing soup.

This is sure to boost your immune system and keep winter bugs at bay.

Enjoy,

Lou

PS. Save it for your Christmas day soup course

Ingredients: 6 servings

  • 1.5 tablespoon cooking oil
  • 1 small celeriac, peeled, diced
  • 2 potatoes, peeled, diced
  • 2 apples, peeled, diced
  • 2 onion, peeled diced
  • 2 sticks celery, diced
  • 4 cloves garlic, chopped
  • 1 – 1.2 litre vegetable stock – add more if needed
  • 50g baby spinach
  • salt and pepper
  • Serve with crumbled feta, seaweed flakes, extra virgin olive oil

Method:

Step 1: Warm a wide pot on the hob and add the oil, onions and celery. Sweat down for 5-10 minutes. Add the garlic, cook for a further minute add a good pinch of salt and pepper. Then add in the celeriac, apple, potatoes, stock and stir. Simmer on the hob for 30 minutes until all the vegetable are soft.

Step 2: Next add the baby spinach and blend the soup to your desired consistency.

To serve crumble on some feta, sprinkle seaweed flakes and finish with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

Recipe Roundup – Celeriac

This knobbly ugly root vegetable is seriously underrated, and I think people sometimes struggle finding ways to use it – well look no further, here are some recipes using celeriac!

Click on the bold text to go directly to the recipes.

I hope I’ve been able to inspire you to give celeriac a go, it’s so good for you and tastes great. Enjoy x

Mushroom & Celeriac Stew

This stroganoff-inspired stew uses a not-so-secret ingredient that we are currently obsessed with. Blended beans! For a shortcut to a creamy, luscious, perfect-textured sauce, try blending beans! We have even started blending beans into our pasta sauces for extra creamy texture and nutrients. Beans are thrifty and so incredibly healthy. They are a great crop for the planet too, a real win win. Meaty mushrooms and tasty cubes of celeriac are simmered with this simple sauce to create a satisfying stew with complex flavours and the perfect silky texture, usually only achieved by low, slow cooking. This is wonderful winter food which will warm you up from the inside. Enjoy with rice or mashed potatoes and a side of winter greens.

Liz x

Ingredients (serves 4)

  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • about 20 chestnut mushrooms, halved
  • 1/2 a celeriac, peeled and cut into bite sized cubes
  • 1 tin of kidney beans, drained
  • 1 tbsp bouillon powder
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • 1 tbsp smoked paprika
  • 1 tbsp tomato puree
  • 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
  • approx 300ml of cream or milk
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • fresh dill, cooked rice/potatoes & wilted greens to serve

Method

  1. In a heavy bottomed pot, sauté the mushrooms and celeriac with the oil and a sprinkle of salt and pepper. Cook over a medium heat, stirring often, until the vegetables are softened and have taken on a lovely golden colour. Alternatively, you could do this in the oven or airfryer.
  2. Place the beans, bouillon, paprika, garlic, tomato puree, mustard and milk/cream in a blender. Add salt and pepper to your taste and blend into a smooth cream.
  3. when your mushrooms and celeriac are cooked through, pour the kidney bean cream over them and simmer and stir to warm through. Taste and adjust the seasoning if needed.
  4. Serve over cooked rice or mashed potatoes and scatter over freshly torn dill and a good grind of black pepper. Enjoy!

Celeriac Soup with Smokey Mushrooms

Our large, knobbly celeriac are finally back in season, perfect for all your winter soups and stews. If you haven’t tried celeriac before, it is a delicious and versatile vegetable which tastes like a cross between celery, parsnip and potato. As well and soups and stews, it is stunning raw in creamy salads like remoulade. You can also roast it or bake it in a gratin. We love pairing it’s sweet, herby, mild flavour with something strong flavoured like capers or these salty, smokey mushrooms. Give it a try and do share your favourite celeriac recipes in the comments, we are always looking for inspiration.

Liz x

Ingredients (serves 6)

For the soup:

  • 1 tbsp oil
  • 1 white onion, peeled & diced
  • 4 cloves of garlic, peeled & sliced
  • 3 sticks of celery, sliced
  • 1 celeriac, peeled & cubed
  • 1 stock cube or 1 tbsp bouillion powder
  • 1 tbsp dried thyme
  • salt and pepper to taste

For the smokey mushrooms:

  • 1 tbsp maple syrup
  • 2 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1 tbsp oil
  • 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • 2 tsp smoked paprika
  • 300g chestnut mushrooms, thinly sliced

Method

  1. Put a kettle on to boil with 1 liter of water. Then, in a large soup pot, sauté the onion, garlic, celery and celeriac with the oil and a sprinkle of salt and pepper. After 5 minutes the vegetables should be slightly softened.
  2. Add the thyme, crumble in the stock cube and pour in the freshly boiled water. Give the pot a stir then get the lid on and simmer the soup for 15 minutes or so until the celeriac is soft enough to blend.
  3. Meanwhile, mix together the maple, soy, oil, garlic, pepper and smoked paprika in a bowl. Tumble in the sliced mushrooms and mix well to coat each slice in the marinade. Scrape the mushrooms into a large frying pan and stir fry until hot and beautifully browned.
  4. Blend the soup and taste for seasoning. Add more salt or pepper as needed then serve in bowls topped with the smokey mushrooms. Enjoy.

Creamy Celeriac Crumble

This savoury crumble is full of comforting winter vegetables and white beans. The creamy white sauce is made from seasoned oat milk thickened with a little cornflour. The oaty crumble is delicious and buttery (thanks to our new Naturli butter) and spiked with fragrant rosemary (use any winter herbs you like eg thyme or sage). Serve with a simple salad of shaved Brussels sprouts dressed with lemon and good oil. The not-so-secret ingredient which brings the dish together? Nutritional yeast! Fondly referred to as nooch, it brings a moreish, cheesy flavour to the party. What will you put in your savoury crumble?

As it’s gluten free day this week I’ve used certified gluten free oats in the crumble and gluten free Rude Health oat milk in the white sauce. If gluten isn’t an issue for you then of course you don’t need to worry about that, but if you are avoiding gluten then we can help with a range of gluten free groceries, conveniently delivered to your door.

Liz x

Ingredients (serves 6)

  • 1/2 a celeriac, peeled and cubed
  • 1 large leek, washed and chopped
  • 300g mushrooms, halved or quartered
  • 3 tbsp olive oil
  • salt & pepper to taste
  • 2 tins of white beans, drained

White Sauce

  • 2 tbsp cornflour (or flour of your choice)
  • 2 tsp Dijon mustard
  • 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
  • a handful of nutritional yeast
  • salt and pepper to taste (about 1/2 tsp of each)
  • 500ml gluten free oat milk (or any milk you like)

Crumble

  • 250g gluten free porridge oats (or regular oats)
  • 2 sprigs of fresh rosemary, stripped from stalk (or any winter herbs you like)
  • salt and pepper to taste – a generous pinch of each
  • a handful of nutritional yeast
  • 100g butter (we use Naturli vegan blocks)

Method

  1. Preheat your oven to 200C. Find a baking dish and tumble in your chopped celeriac, leek and mushrooms.
  2. Season with salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil. Mix well then put the dish in the oven to roast the vegetables while you prepare the white sauce and crumble. Remove the dish every 10 minutes to stir.
  3. In a mixing jug, whisk the cornflour, nutritional yeast, nutmeg, Dijon mustard, salt, pepper and a splash of the oat milk into a paste. Then add the rest of the oat milk and whisk into a thin sauce. This will cook and thicken up later in the oven. Put to one side for now.
  4. Make the crumble in a food processor with the blade attachment. Put the oats, rosemary, nooch, salt and pepper into the processor and blend into a rough flour. Chop the butter into cubes, add to the flour mixture and pulse into a crumbly texture.
  5. When the vegetables are cooked through (this should take around 30 minutes) add the drained white beans and sauce. Stir well then top with the crumble and return to the oven for another 20 minutes or until bubbling and golden on top.
  6. Serve with some seasonal greens. We like thinly sliced Brussels sprouts simply dressed with good olive oil and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice for some acidity and freshness to cut through the creamy crumble.

Celeriac Steaks

We haven’t grown them for quite a few years so we are delighted to let you know that our celeriac are back! Have you tried one? They’re a gorgeous winter root vegetable. Big and bulbous and full of flavour. Think a hybrid between a potato and a parsnip with a delicate celery flavour. These beasts are stunning in soups and stews, but they also lend themselves nicely to coleslaw, in fact raw, grated celeriac is really gorgeous tossed with a mustardy mayonnaise. I’ll tell you about that another day. But today I am eating celeriac in thick slices, fried like a steak in lots of butter. I LOVE a vegetable steak (cauliflower, portobello, butternut…), it’s a great way to really highlight a vegetable and focus on the flavour. Serve with mashed beans and roasted garlic for lip-smackingly delicious, filling, protein, some wintery greens like kale or cabbage and a creamy wholegrain mustard sauce. Quite a special dish, fit for a date night, but really not very complex to make as you’ll see below. Enjoy!

Liz x

Ingredients (serves 2)

  • 1 celeriac – peel with a small, sharp knife, then cut 4 thick slices out of the middle and save the ends for a soup
  • 1 tin of butterbeans or cannellini beans, any white beans will work
  • 1 whole bulb of garlic
  • kale or cabbage, as much as you like
  • 1 heaped tbsp wholegrain mustard
  • 1 tbsp corn starch or plain flour
  • oat milk – enough to loosen the pan juices into a thick sauce
  • butter, olive oil, salt and pepper to taste

Method

  1. Pre-heat your oven to 200C. Pop a whole bulb of garlic (that’s right, the whole bulb, not just a clove) into a small, oven-proof dish with a drizzle of olive oil. Put it in the oven to bake until soft – around 15-20 minutes.
  2. Meanwhile prepare the celeriac as above, chop and rinse some greens (kale or cabbage go well here) and put them in a pot with a lid, some seasoning and some butter/oil on the hob. Drain some of the liquid from your tin of butterbeans and pop them into another small pan.
  3. Get your widest frying pan (or use two) on to a medium heat and melt a generous knob of butter with a couple of tbsp of olive oil. Add the celeriac steaks and season well with salt and pepper. Cook, turning occasionally until they are softening and turning a gorgeous caramel colour. They should smell amazing!
  4. When the celeriac are nearly cooked through, take the garlic out of the oven to cool slightly, turn the heat on under the pot of beans and the pot of greens. Cook both, stirring often, until piping hot. Then turn off the heat.
  5. Put the celeriac steaks in a small dish in the oven to keep warm (turn the oven down to 150C so they don’t burn) whilst you make the mash and the sauce.
  6. Pull apart the roasted garlic and squeeze the soft, fragrant flesh into the pan with the beans. Season well with salt and pepper, add a drizzle of olive oil or a knob of butter and mash the beans and garlic into a puree. Or use a stick blender if you’d like your mash extra smooth. Taste and adjust the seasoning if needed.
  7. To the frying pan in which the celeriac steaks were cooked, add a tbsp of flour and a tbsp of wholegrain mustard. Whisk into the buttery, caramelised, celeriac juices that are left in the pan and add a splash of oat milk. Turn the heat up and keep whisking and adding milk until you have a silky, creamy sauce. Taste and season with salt and pepper and now you are ready to serve.
  8. Divide the greens and garlicky mash between two plates, add on the steaks then drizzle with the sauce. Have extra wholegrain mustard on the table and enjoy with a glass of wine or a cold beer.

Autumn Minestrone

This humble half-soup, half-stew (stoup?) is so delicious. One of those perfect easy, one pot, mid-week meals that soothes and satisfies. Smooth, blended soups are great but this Autumnal twist on a minestrone is all about the combination of textures. Crunchy, delicate cabbage, floury, hearty beans, nutty, sticky brown rice (or swap with pasta) and melt-in-the-mouth pumpkin, all suspended in a silky broth.

All the ingredients can be delivered by us to your door. We have an abundance of autumn vegetables coming out of our fields at the moment. Why not cook up a few batches of this soup and freeze for a rainy day?

Liz x

Ingredients (serves 4)

  • 4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 small leek, rinsed & chopped
  • 250g kuri squash pumpkin, diced
  • 250g celeriac (or celery), diced
  • 4 cloves of garlic, peeled & chopped
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 1 tsp dried thyme (or herbs of your choice)
  • 1 tbsp dried mushrooms, chopped
  • 100g short grain brown rice (or 200g pasta)
  • 2 x 400g tins of white beans
  • 1/2 a Savoy cabbage, rinsed & sliced
  • 1/2 a lemon, juiced (or 1 tbsp vinegar)
  • salt & black pepper to taste
  • pesto/cheese/olive oil/pepper to serve

Method

  1. In a large pot, sauté the leek, pumpkin and celeriac/celery with the olive oil until the vegetables start to soften.
  2. Add the garlic, thyme and bay leaves, season generously with salt and pepper and stir for 2 minutes.
  3. Then add the dried mushrooms, rice (or pasta) and cover with a litre and a half of water. Stir briefly then put the lid on and simmer until the rice (or pasta) is cooked through.
  4. Add the beans along with their starchy cooking liquid, and the chopped savoy. Brighten with the lemon juice (or vinegar) and add another litre or so of water so you reach the consistency you prefer.
  5. Taste and adjust the seasoning with more salt if needed. Reheat to wilt the cabbage and serve.
  6. This is delicious as it is or give it a little lift with a drizzle of good olive oil or pesto over each bowl. For added richness and flavour add grated cheese (or a sprinkle of cheesy nutritional yeast flakes if you want to keep it dairy free).

Jay and Joy Vegan Cheeses

Have you tried the Jay and Joy range of vegan cheeses we sell yet? They are absolute game changers. There’s no doubt that there are some dodgy tasting plant based cheeses out there, but these are the real deal. We love that they use recognisable, all organic ingredients. We love that they are made using ancestral French cheese-making techniques. But most of all we love the flavour. Here are some serving suggestions to inspire you to make the most out of these delectable little boxes of cheese. Let us know your favourite way of eating them in the comments or over on our facebook group. We are always looking for new ways to enjoy our carefully curated organic products.

Liz x

*as always, words in bold are clickable links to our shop so you can easily add the ingredients to your usual order


Goat Cheese, Blood Orange, Red Onion, Black Olive

Method (serves 2)

Arrange some washed fresh lettuce leaves in two bowls.

Trim off the skin of 1 blood orange and add juicy slices of it to each bowl.

Peel and thinly slice quarter of a red onion and add a few circles to each bowl.

Add a handful of halved salty black olives to each bowl.

Add four slices or so of Jay and Joy Goats Cheese to each bowl.

Drizzle everything with our excellent extra virgin olive oil and a crack of black pepper.

Simple as that! The sweet tang of the oranges contrasts the olive oil, salty cheese and olives perfectly. Every mouthful a delight.


Celeriac Steaks, Kale, Blue Cheese, Pear, Walnut

Method (serves 2)

Slice 4 steaks out of the middle of a celeriac – about 1cm thickness each. Then trim off the skin and knobbly roots of each slice. (Reserve the leftover ends of the celeriac for soups/stews/risottos…)

Melt a tbsp of plant based butter with a tbsp of olive oil in a large frying pan over a medium high heat.

Then add the celeriac steaks and season them with a pinch of salt and some cracked black pepper. Fry on both sides until golden brown and tender – this takes about 10-15 minutes.

Keep the steaks warm, propped up in one side of the pan then add lots of rinsed and chopped kale to the pan. Stir fry to wilt for 3 minutes or so then taste and season if necessary (there may be enough seasoning already in the pan from the celeriac steaks and butter/oil).

Divide the cooked kale onto two warm plates, top with the celeriac steaks and then quickly toast two generous handfuls of walnuts in the now empty frying pan.

Add a sliced pear to each plate, the toasted walnuts and finish with little slices of Jay and Joy Blue Cheese.

The balance of sweet pear, buttery celeriac, crunchy nuts and salty blue cheese is absolutely gorgeous. I hope you really enjoy it!


Baked Brie, Caramelised Red Onion & Thyme Toast

Method (serves 2)

Melt a generous tbsp of plant based butter and a tbsp of olive oil in a frying pan.

Add one peeled and sliced red onion and a pinch of salt and fry on medium for about 10 minutes or until it starts to collapse and caramelise.

Add four peeled and chopped cloves of garlic and fry for another 5 minutes or so.

Then to help the caramelisation, add a tsp of brown sugar and season with some black pepper and a tsp of fresh thyme leaves. Fry for another minute or so to bring the flavours together.

Meanwhile cut and toast two slices of sourdough bread.

Put the toast in a baking dish, divide the caramelised onion between the two slices and top with slices of Jay and Joy Brie.

Drizzle with a little olive oil and put the baking dish in a hot oven or under the grill for a few minutes. This vegan brie does not melt like regular brie, but warming it up really brings the dish together.

Scatter with a few more fresh thyme leaves and enjoy! Crunchy toast, sweet caramelised onion, creamy cheese and fragrant thyme…so good!