Allotment Soup and Upside Down Rhubarb Fool Cheesecake

Monday 5^th September 2016

This soup is really yummy and I have been serving it at workshops last weekend.  Everything in it was grown on the allotment! It contains no brassica which I know some people don’t like and it has gone down very well.  Here is the recipe which made enough for 8 so you could freeze some. I serve it with bread and sometimes warm buttered toasted crumpets, pickles and several cheeses:

• 3 or 4 squash (I used Japanese squash that are orange and quite like small pumpkins, and Patti-Pan squash which look like yellow, fat flying saucers)
• 5 or 6 large courgettes (I used mainly yellow and two large dark green ones).  A marrow would also do nicely though you might de-seed it.
• 3 large brown or white onions
• 3 cloves of garlic (I made one lot with garlic and one lot without)
• 3 teaspoons of ground ginger
• Vegetable stock
• 2 teaspoons of coriander seeds
• 2 teaspoons of mustard seeds
• Black pepper (lots) and some sea-salt flakes
• Rape seed oil

De-seed the squash but do not peel.  Chop into smallish chunks and add larger chunks of the courgettes and the sliced onions and garlic, peeled and whole.  Pop them into a large roasting tin and douse with a good slug of good quality rape seed oil.  Add the spices, salt and pepper, mix it all up and roast it for ages.  I start mine slow and then move it up for the last hour or so.  Eventually, it will start to caramelize a bit and will all be very tender. Transfer to a huge stock pot.  Add enough veg stock to cover well and simmer for a few minutes.  Cool.  Blend. It will go velvety thick.  Too thick probably, so if you want to eat it now, add more water or stock, re-heat and serve.  If you want to freeze it, as I did, freeze it now and then once it has de-frosted and you have re-heated it, let it down a bit more then.  it looks odd at first when you de-frost it but just heat well and stir a lot, then add more water or stock to get it how thick you want it. Another crop that has been abundant is rhubarb.  Here is upside down rhubarb fool cheesecake pots and this makes about 8 – 10 small pots:

• Lots of rhubarb washed, trimmed and chopped
• Some fresh grated ginger
• 6 slightly crushed whole cardamon pods
• Caster sugar to taste
• A large pot of double cream (and optional, I am doing this next time, substutute half the cream for a full pack of cream cheese)
• About 4 oz of butter
• About half a pack of digestive biscuits

Put the rhubarb, sugar, ginger and cardamon in a shallow roasting tin and roast for as long as it takes for the fruit to be very soft and deepening in colour.  It should still be quite syrupy.  Fish out the pods and squeeze the black cardamon seeds back into the mixture, chuck away the skins.  Mash or blend it – I mash so it is still textured.  Cool and chill.  Whip the cream to a soft peak consistency.  Add about 2/3rds of the chilled rhubarb mix and stir it all in well.  Crush the biscuits to a coarse powder and add the melted butter.  Mix well.  Cool and chill.  Spoon the rhubarb/cream mix into your pots and on top of each add a generous dollop of the rhubarb compote that has no cream in it.  These can now be covered tight and chilled and will keep fine for 24 – 48 hours.   The biscuit mix can be put in a food bag, air pushed out, sealed and chilled for up to 24 – 48 hours too. When you want to serve them, make sure the biscuit mix is back to room temp and sprinkle a generous layer on the top of the rhubarb.  To make it even more cheesecake-ish next time I am going to blend the rhubarb compote with half cream, half cream cheese.  I will let you know how that goes.