Diary Recipes

This was a simple little salad to put together, but it made good use of some of the vegetables now coming of our garden. I found the original recipe in a cookbook from around 1890, and have expanded it a little - yeah, that was a really simple recipe.

I garnished mine with a few sliced olives, which I thought was a nice touch.

2 to 4 servings
15 minutes prep time but allow 2 hours for cooking and cooling


Make the Dressing:
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
 1 tablespoon sunflower seed oil
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
salt & pepper to taste

Whisk or shake together in a small bowl or jar.

Make the Salad:
4 medium beets
1/4 cup sliced sweet onion
1/2 cup (1 small) sliced fennel bulb
OR 2 stalks of celery
salt
2 large eggs

Cook the beets in advance by putting them in a pot with water to cover them generously, and boiling them until tender, about 40 to 45 minutes. Alternatively, wrap them in foil and bake them at 350°F for a similar or slightly longer amount of time. Let them cool, peel them and slice them.

Peel and slice the onion. Trim and slice the fennel or celery, into fairly thin, fine slices. Put them in a shallow dish, and salt them heavily. Set them aside for about half an hour, then rinse them well and squeeze them gently dry.

Put the eggs in a pot with cold water to cover. Bring them to a boil and boil them for one minute, then turn off the heat and leave them, covered, for 10 minutes. Put them in cold water until cool enough to peel. Peel them.

Arrange the onion and fennel or celery on individual plates, and arrange the beet and egg slices over the top. Less decorative, but probably a bit easier to eat would be to chop the beets and eggs finer, and mix them with the onion and fennel.  Either way, then drizzle the dressing over the top of the salad.




Last year at this time I made Pork with Fennel & Peppers. 

Decoration: Ham, canned peaches, tomato rose and cucumber strips.

For 3 layers of bread (refer to the first sandwich loaf post for more information)

150 g mayonnaise
100 g sour cream
Aromat or Accent, to taste (may be left out)
Piquant seasoning
150 g thinly sliced ham
5 hard-boiled eggs
1/2 can green asparagus

Mix together mayo, cream and seasonings. Mash the eggs with a fork and chop the asparagus finely. Mix everything together. Put the spread between the layers of bread, spread mayo-sour cream evenly mixture over the loaf and cover with slices of ham. Garnish with, e.g. tomato roses, egg slices, cucumber, bell peppers, halved or quartered grapes, fresh parsley.


More decoration ideas:

Decoration: ham and red bell pepper.

A roll. Decoration: ham, red and green bell peppers.

A giant sandwich. Decoration: ham, canned peaches, red bell pepper strips, orange slices, asparagus and parsley.

With Chef Jeena an egg custard recipe never has to be difficult ever again.

Here is one of Chefs favourite delicious tasting sweets of all time, the humble egg custard.

Egg custards taste absolutely wonderful, if you have ever bought an egg custard from a shop and thought it tasted good, then I promise that once you taste thias recipe you will never buy another custard again.

These egg custards are the real deal.

It is the kind of recipe that reminds you of how they tasted when you were a kid, if you have never tried an egg custard before then try this recipe it is a must.

It is really simple to make, you may think it is hard to bake something that has to set but I assure you there is nothing complicated about this recipe.

You do not have to blind bake(blind bake is where you pre-cook pastry so the bottom does not go soggy when the filling is added) the pastry for this recipe.

These egg custards are so tasty and the custards are a fantastic dish to pre make before you have visitors round.

Go ahead give Chefs egg custard recipe a try and see for yourself that you can really bake those lovely foods you never thought to make for yourself.