We got a swede in our veg box a couple of weeks ago, and I have to confess to not being a big fan, so it has been sat at the bottom of the fridge berating me for a while now.
But in the spirit of Waste not, want not, and being loathe to throw anything out, I consulted the good people of Twitter, and as usual, they responded with lots of really great suggestion. I was given a link to Abel and Cole’s ‘Roots Manoevre Curry’ but didn’t have quite all the stuff I needed. Instead of dashing out to the shops (which with 2 small people in tow, is never a dash-by the time you have asked them to put their shoes on 89 times, the big one has been to the loo, the Small one has decided that this is the best time of day to do a poo and needs a clean nappy, you have found the car keys, lost the car keys, entered into UN style negotiations about the wearing of coats…you get the picture) I got my stubborn head on and decided to root around in the fridge/cupboard to see what I could come up with.
This is what I had:
- swede (obviously)
- onion
- leeks x2
- a couple of tired carrots
- tin of tomatoes
- red lentils
- chicken stock cube
- dessicated coconut
- coriander seeds, cumin seeds,fennel seeds, root ginger, garlic
So I kind of bunged it all together, vaguely following the Able and Cole recipe for the spices.
I served it up with rice, and guess what…?
It was delicious!
Not the best picture, as usual I forgot to take a pic of it artisitically arranged on the plate, and this is some of the leftovers in a tupperware pot ready to go in the freezer..
Even BigSmall ate it and came back for more (and he is not a huge fan of vegetables..)
Yay!
Is it sad to get such a sense of satisfaction out of using your cunning and ingenuity to make sure you have no food waste?!
My Make Do and Mend Year 
That sounds delicious, I’m a great fan of chuck it all in and see what happens suppers! A real favourite of ours is all the oddsies of veg cooked up with pearl barley and a couple of meaty stock cubes…I keep a supply of precooked pearl barley and other pulses in the freezer (plus dumplings)
so its really easy to throw it all together!
I keep meaning to pre-cook some pearl barley-thanks for the reminder! Although, hopefully we are moving into salad territory if the weather behaves..!
I’m from the Maine in the States. What on earth is a swede?
Hi Judy. It’s like a big turnip. I just googled it, and Google said in the USA it is a Swedish turnip or yellow turnip. Is that right?!
Oh, great. And great that you got your little guys to eat it. It’s a rather strong taste. We love it especially at Thanksgiving.
Glad that translation made sense!
That’s my style of cooking! If you’ve got an onion and a tin of tomatoes then in my book you’ve got the basis for a meal!
Absolutely! I start to get twitchy if we run out of either…
I have never cooked a swede either , I admire your bravery, I decided we were eating whatever we could find in the freezer, my plan is to empty it and then when we do refill it give it a bit more thought. So we had frozen peas and sweetcorn, whitefish baked in foil with lemon (I found an old, maybe very old? jif lemon from some pancake day some year) and squirted that on it before the foil and oven, I also found some mixed rice and I said to hubs, look this is your tea, dont pull your face we are emptiying the freezer with the plan to only put nice things we actually want to eat this time, he ate up and didnt grumble, i have peaches and cream for afters, I am even being mindful of the contents of our cupboard, packet soups that seems like a good idea at the time etc?????? keep up the good work, I also voted for your blog good luck
Thankyou so much Maria. Loving your ideas for eating out of the freezer. Hubby keeps telling me we should eat of the freezer for a week, but it’s like my comfort blanket knowing there is a stash of meals in there if we need them, and I get a bit nervous if we start to eat too many (crazy I know..)
Those vegie boxes can really extend your cooking horizons! I use swede in soups and curries because I like the texture better than potato. I have never told the children, and to this day they think the white vegetable in stews and soups is potato…
Love it! It’s part of the reason I like getting a veg and fruit box as it saves me from the trap of buying hte same things week in week out and gives us some seasonal variety 🙂
I’ve always used Swede in “carrot & turnip” which is simply mashed up Swede, carrot & onion boiled together & drained. My kids loved it when they were smalls. Also use chunks of it in “Scouse” the flavours all blend together so it doesn’t taste strong at all. As it was a cheaper alternative to bulk out the more expensive carrots but prices have changed so carrots are much cheaper now.
Hubby is a big fan and would just have it mashed I think, but this was a good way of disguising it (from me mainly..!)
I was given a copy of BBC Good Food magazine recently and there was an article on swedes. They recommended roasting it and I must say that having tried it, it was delicious. I had always thought that it would be too hard but 45 mins in the oven and it was just lovely. Swede will now be appearing regularly in a pan of roast veg in our house. My m-i-l also serves swede mashed with a knob of butter and a sprinkle of pepper and that is good too.
Roasted swede! Would never have tried it, but will give it a go next time we get one, thankyou!
It is defininitly not sad! I recently bought the book “How to be an everyday kitchen magician” following a Love Food Hate Waste demo and I have learnt so much and have only read half of it! Highly reccommend the book, I am now addicted to flat bread which I never realised was so easy to make!
Book sounds great-will have to see if I can track down a 2ndhand copy! We had flatbreads last night when we had an impromptu BBQ and had no bread-they made very good hot dog/wrap things 🙂
I like swede boiled and then mashed with butter – or carrots added as suggested above – really lovely with a decent pie ( but then anything is!)
That’s how hubby likes his swede too Caroline..!
Sounds good to me! We had clapshot tonight. That probably wouldn’t work for you, but we happen to love swede.
Oh, and guess what? I finally made my own version of your dead cake pudding. It was delicious. I posted my version of the recipe on my blog, with a link to your original post, of course. I hope you don’t mind.
http://greedyminimalist.blogspot.nl/2013/05/dead-cake-pudding.html
No problem at all Leah 🙂