Valentines day is this week and we think this would make for a very special meal for the one(s) you love. Deliciously spiced, creamy and satisfying all the things a curry should be. We have roasted some butternut squash and tofu for extra texture and it tastes fantastic.
Butternut squash are a great winter vegetable thats so versatile and perfect in a silky sauce.
Sugar and spice and all things nice for your special person this Valentines- we’ve got you covered.
Step 1: Preheat the oven 180ºC. Dry the tofu thoroughly with kitchen paper. Toss the butternut squash in oil, salt and pepper and place on a baking tray. Toss the cubed tofu in 1 tablespoon of cornflour and a small pinch of salt place on a second baking tray. Roast both in the over for 30 minutes. The butternut squash may need a bit longer, it is ready when it pierces easily with a knife.
Step 2: Start the sauce: Warm a wide pan on a medium heat, add the butter and onions and cook to soften for about 5 minutes. Add the grated garlic, ginger and cook for a further 2 minutes. Then add the rest of the ingredients and stir to combine. Simmer for 5 to 10 minutes. Taste and adjust the seasoning if needed.
Step 3: When the tofu and squash are roasted stir them into the sauce. Cook on low for a further few minutes then serve up.
Serve with boiled rice, green beans, fresh coriander and naan bread.
A good friend of mine showed me how to make chapati a long time ago. I was so amazed at how few ingredients were needed and how quick and tasty they were. Chapati are traditionally served with lentils or a curry but I wanted something light for lunch.
I really fancied hummus but realised I had no chickpeas but still determined to have hummus I made do with my cauliflower, roast garlic, tahini and spices and it was delicious.
Its amazing what you can make with so few ingredients and a bit of imagination.
Step 1: Make the chapati dough. Mix all the ingredients together and knead for 5 minutes. Diving into 8 balls and leave on the counter top under a clean tea towel to rest.
Step 2: Start the cauliflower hummus. Wrap the garlic with a tablespoon of oil in a tinfoil parcel and roast in the oven or air fryer @180ºC for 20-30 minutes until completely roasted and soft. Steam the cauliflower florets or boil them in water until soft.
Step 3: Flour the work top and dust a rolling pin, roll out the dough balls into flat circles, they should be thin like a tortilla. Keep the dough covered all the time with a clean tea towel. Warm a frying pan on a medium heat, make sure the pan is hot. Add the first chapati and cook until you see bubbles, then flip and cook the other side, repeat. They will have brown spots but try not burn them too much.
Step 4: To a blender add the cooked cauliflower, squeeze the roasted garlic, add the tahini, turmeric, cumin, salt and olive oil, blend until smooth.
Serve the chapatis with the cauliflower hummus, chopped herbs, raw red onion or cabbage.
Slowly cooked risotto is deliciously creamy and comforting especially on a crisp cold day in January. After the costly pinch of Christmas its great to have a few dishes that are easy on the pocket yet packed of flavour.
This is a plant based version, made with plant based butter and cheese.
Sweet Irish leeks are one of my favourite vegetables and they are the perfect partner to vitamin D rich Irish mushrooms in this one pot meal.
Gradually adding hot stock to the rice will create a perfect bowl of risotto. It’s always worth the effort.
Let us know if you try it we love to hear from you.
1 litre of hot vegetable stock (substitute 100ml stock for dry white wine if you wish)
juice 1/2 a lemon
A big knob of butter (30g), use dairy or non dairy
1 tbsp. Nutritional yeast
Salt, pepper and olive oil
grated firm cheese to finish, use dairy or non dairy
optional topping: a handful of chopped fresh parsley
Method:
Method: Step 1: Heat 1 litre of stock in a pan and bring to a boil.
Step 2: Meanwhile, in another pan, sautè the diced onion for 5 minutes in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, season with salt and pepper, and then add in the diced leeks and cook to soften. Next add the grated garlic and mushrooms cook for a further 10-15 minutes until cooked through.
Step 3: Stir through the rice. (If you want to add white wine add it now) Pour in a ladle of stock, stir gently and once all the liquid has been absorbed, pour in another ladle and repeat until the rice is al dente, or cooked to your liking. Continue stirring the rice so the starch is released and it becomes creamy.
Step 4: Stir through the nutritional yeast, butter, grate in some firm cheese and finish with lemon juice. Taste and adjust the seasoning if needed.
Serve with fresh chopped parsley, black cracked pepper and a good extra virgin olive oil.
We are spoiled for choice with all the gorgeous produce and products from the farm and our fantastic organic suppliers. We added lots of amazing Irish vegetables to our sweet bakes this year, beetroot, carrots, courgettes, butternut squash and heaps of fruit too strawberries, blueberries, blood oranges and apples to name a few.
Here are 5 of our favourite recipes. We hope you give them a try.
Lou 🙂
Tap the recipes below to take you to the full recipe:
Many years ago, I had the good fortune to come across the book “Small is beautiful: A study of economics as if people mattered” by E.F. Schumacher.
A key quote from the book: “Modern man does not experience himself as a part of nature but as an outside force destined to dominate and conquer it” epitomises the reason we are facing the challenges we currently face on planet earth.
There is no greater urgency, or greater need than reversing the damage we have inflicted on our beautiful planet. The time for deliberation has come and gone, now we need action.
Schumacher goes onto say that we are rapidly consuming the capital our lives are built on whilst all the time focusing on the income. The idea that our planet is finite is a law that most self-respecting scientists accept and yet the business of retail and production is based on ever expanding consumption seemingly assuming the law does not apply to them.
Protection of our capital in this case our home planet earth must be given as much weighing as the income we derive from it, otherwise we may find sooner than we would like that the goose who lays the golden eggs is gone.
This is heavy going for the final letter before Christmas, but I think it may be justified.
I know that it is difficult to make the choice to spend more on food, so thank you.
I know that you have chosen to do just that. You have made a conscious choice and invested effort to source your produce from us. We may not always get it right and there is always more to be done, but we have never wavered in our commitment to protect our planet no matter what else comes our way.
So, thank you for your continued support, for your good will, for you cheer and encouragement, for spending your hard-earned euros with us.
We have had the busiest Christmas in our history as a farm and business, and for that we are eternally grateful. There have and continue to be plenty of challenges but at least for now for another while we can keep going. We have planned our planting season for the year ahead we look forward as we always do to a new growing season, and we hope that we can get more things right that we get wrong.
Thank you so much, you may not really feel it, or realise it, but you truly are making a positive difference to our world.
We hope you have a lovely, happy, peaceful and healthy Christmas
Kenneth and all the team at Green Earth Organics
PS:Our Farm shop is open tomorrow Saturday the 23rd from 10am-5pm, H91 F9C5, and there is still time to get all your Christmas produce.
We are closed all next week, there will be no deliveries and our office will be closed. Our new box contents are already live on our website and you can place your orders at any time over the next week for delivery week commencing Tues the 2nd of January
We like our veg dirty, we harvest them fresh from the ground and we leave the dirt on.
This dirt, good clean dirt we think is amazing, it is a natural preservative, none of those artificial waxes or fungicides required here. But there is other dirt hidden in/on conventional food that we don’t think is that amazing.
The dirty dozen is a list which is compiled both in the UK and the US each year based on measured chemical residues in and on conventional crops. It is a resource to allow us as consumers to make informed decisions about foods to potentially avoid or buy organically if possible.
It is a no brainer that removing synthetic pesticides and herbicides from our diet can only be a positive.
There are certain crops that seem to make the list each year, you may be surprised to learn that apples regularly feature on the list. In 2020 according to the PAN (pesticide action network report) 67% of samples had pesticide residue and one sample had 13 different types of residues!) This is I guess a little disturbing as apples are one of the most consumed fruits in the world.
Right here in Ireland based on a report by the dept of ag in 2014 (the most recent data I could get), the chemical Captan, which is a fungicide and classified as a probable human carcinogen was applied to 252 Hectares of land, and over 1.2 tonnes of the stuff was sprayed on apple trees.
For the life of me I can’t understand how kale makes it onto this list (in the US). Kale of all the crops is hardy and tough and at least in our experience on our organic farm performs amazingly well. In fact, if we leave our brassica crops uncovered (we cover our crops with netting to prevent birds eating them) then the pigeons will eat everything else before they have a go at the kale!
Maybe it’s the healthy organic matter rich soil, maybe it’s the lack of forced nitrogen nutrition that pushes growth of crops on and can cause them to be soft and disease prone, maybe we are just lucky. Whatever it is we are grateful and happy that we have amazing crops that rarely suffer from pest or disease affliction.
Spinach another relatively hardy green features regularly in the UK and the US list.
When all is said and done, the production of food is hard, and the pressure to produce food at rock bottom prices, controlled and forced on farmers by the supermarkets will always lead to compromises, such as intensification and the use of chemicals.
It is a pity that the supermarkets are so concerned with how our food looks, rather than with how it is produced and what goodness is on the inside. Take a look at just how shiny some of the conventional apples are next time you are in a supermarket; many are coated in a shellac and/or carnauba wax to prevent them drying out or rotting.
We are lucky that we have a fantastic supply of organic apples from Richard Galvin, from Waterford, grown right here in Ireland without the use of chemicals, again proving the point that indeed it can be done, the apples are amazing, fresh with no coatings and no chemicals!
Thank you for supporting a food system without chemicals.
Kenneth
PS We are in full Christmas mode now. Please get your order in next week to guarantee delivery the week after.
We are excited for all the lovely Irish produce that is jammed into our Christmas boxes, such as Battlemount organic farm potatoes (Kildare), Philip Dreaper’s organic carrots and Beetroot (Offaly), Beechlawn organic farm’s brussel sprouts, red cabbage and savoy cabbage (Galway), Mcardles amazing chestnut and portobello, mushrooms (Antrim), Leeks, parsnips, Celeriac, swede and Kale (right here on our own farm); apples from Richard Galvin (Waterford) and finally our very own handmade organic Cranberry sauce (with fresh organic cranberries) made by Rachel in Dunmore! PLACE YOUR CHRISTMAS ORDER NOW
The Christmas is meal is the ultimate seasonal meal and we have definitely got you covered on this one, so please get your orders in soon!
Every Christmas dinner needs a centrepiece and this is a delicious one. Organic butternut squash with mushrooms, herbs and nuts tastes delicious wrapped in crispy puff pastry with all the usual side vegetables.
You can make this ahead of time and keep it wrapped on a tray in the fridge for 3 days. If you fancy making your own gravy check out our recipe Groovy Gravy.
Save the recipe to try this Christmas.
Lou 🙂
Ingredients
2 pack of ready rolled puff pastry – most are vegan (375g per pack)
1 cup chopped nuts – walnuts/hazelnuts/almonds/cashews/pecans
salt and pepper to taste
80g breadcrumbs
Method:
Step 1: Preheat the oven 180ºC, line 2 trays with parchment paper. Take the puff pastry out of the fridge and let it come to room temperature. Put the diced squash on one tray, drizzle with oil, salt and pepper and roast until soft, 30-40 minutes.
Step 2: Warm a frying pan on a medium heat, add a tablespoon of oil and the chopped onion, cook to soften for 5-10 minutes. Next add the garlic, leeks, some salt and pepper cook for a further 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms and cook them fully for 15 minutes. Once cooked add in the sage, parsley, chopped nuts, soy sauce, maple syrup, stir to coat.
Step 3: When the squash is cooked add it to the pot with the cooked mushroom and mash with a fork or potato masher. Pour in the breadcrumbs and stir well. Set aside to cool.
Step 4: Unroll both packets of pastry lay one on the second baking tray. Spoon the squash and mushroom filling into the middle of the pastry and make a long sausage shape mound. Mould it with your hands so its compact. Lay the second piece of pastry on top. Cut away the extra pastry (use it for something else) seal the edges with a fork, score a diamond shape on the top. Brush with milk or egg-wash.
Step 5: Bake in the oven 180ºC for 1 hour 20, until golden brown and cooked through.
Baking with vegetables fills us with joy. Courgette is a great vegetable to bake with and paired with chocolate it works very well. My kids ate big slices and didn’t notice the green vegetable….I said nothing just incase.
We added cane sugar that is a healthier option over refined white sugar, or you could add coconut sugar too if you like. Our courgette season has come to an end but you can still get the best courgettes from our organic grower in Spain.
This is a delicious chocolatey moist cake we hope you try it.
Step 1: Pre-heat the oven to 180C and grease and line a loaf tin. I use a liner.
Step 2: In a large mixing bowl, stir together the self raising flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, cocoa powder and sugar until well combined
Step 3: Grate the courgette into the bowl along with the dark chocolate chips, stir everything together
Step 4: In another bowl or large jug, whisk together the eggs, vegetable oil, vanilla extract and yoghurt. Pour the egg mixture into the bowl of flour/courgette etc and stir everything together until well combined.
Step 5: Pour the mixture into the loaf tin, top with chocolate chips and bake for 1 hour, or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Leave to cool fully
Store leftovers in an airtight container in a cool place and eat within 3 days
I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry when I discovered earlier this year, that one major supermarket is now, at least, at times, highlighting the chemicals on or in some of its citrus fruit.
I guess it is not a laughing matter, the issue of chemicals in our food chain is serious, it is important as it has a knock-on effect for our health and biodiversity.
It is my belief that agriculture can be a force for good in our world, an endeavour that can produce safe wholesome food whilst enhancing our locality and planet. But that will require a change of mindset and policy when it comes to the fair pricing of food.
All the things that are good about agriculture are slowly being sucked dry by the loss leading of fresh produce by supermarkets and the race for intensification and the lowest possible price. Like any business if there is not enough money in the pot you cannot invest for the future, you cannot survive, it is no different for farmers, getting a fair price for our crops is not too much to ask, and if we don’t then how can we invest back into the land.
Anyway, I digress, back to the case at hand, chemicals on our food. The last few weeks we have been talking here about the test for the 870 chemicals on our kale that came back clean (This test was part of our organic certification spot check) and how maybe conventional foods should be labelled with what they include, rather than the organic farmer having to prove that his/her food is clean and good.
I wonder though as this large supermarket chain has marked the inclusion of chemical products in two of its citrus fruit did it forget about all the other fruit and veg it sells? I can only assume that they too have offending chemicals present.
One of the products on sale, a conventional lime, is labelled “not suitable for vegans!” (Without, the exclamation mark obviously, I just added that in for effect) the offending lime in question contained a mixture or some of the following…… wait for it…
Another product and one that is in season right now: ‘Naturally Sweet Leafy Clementines’ Contained: E904, E914 and Imazalil.
(Incidentally E904 is shellac. Shellac is a resin secreted by female lac bugs, and this is what makes the limes non vegan. You may also be interested to know that imazalil and thiabendazole are two hormone-disrupting fungicides, one of which is also a likely carcinogen.)
Do your own research, check it out. Having mulled this over for some time I think it is a good thing that this information is displayed. Do you think it should also be printed on the pack in the supermarket aisle? Then you and I could make an informed decision or at the very least we would know what we are getting for our money.
Of course, these chemicals are labelled as safe once used below the MRL (the maximum residue limit). These limits are set to protect you and I from ingesting too much of these chemicals. However, as I have spoken about in the past the setting of these limits can be questionable and, in some cases, seems to have been set in relation to the level of application required rather than in relation to whether the product is safe. I refer to the research on the increased MRLs for glyphosate that have been increased 300-fold between 1993 and 2015 in the US. Is it safer now to eat 300 times the dose? I think probably not.
I will finish on this note: farmers are doing the best they can, we all are, we are working to survive in a system that is fundamentally flawed, but for all its issues, it is the system we have, and it provides our food, we cannot do without it, not when there are so many of us on this planet. But there is no question that step by step we must and can introduce more positive ways of producing food and we can support this transition by deciding with who and on what we spend our money.
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.
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.
