Coriander two ways, new kitchen goodies and Fiesta Friday…

This weekend it is my honour to co host Fiesta Friday, along with Quinn from the blog Dad What’s 4 Dinner. We hope that lots of you will join us and bring your wonderful dishes. 

Before I get onto my dishes of food, let me show you my beautiful new actual dishes; this time last week I was visiting the BBC Good Food Show as a guest of the lovely Gill from Sytch Farm Studios. The show was as busy as ever, full of great food, new products and lovely kitchenware, none more so than the items that Gill makes by hand..

…of which several just had to come home with me…

…along with the board that was made by Gill’s equally talented partner, Jon. They are such a wonderfully creative pair and I love everything they make! This beautiful bowl just makes me smile daily..

…look at that colour!!! I love it 🙂 

Anyway, enough of my Sytchware love affair, let’s talk coriander..

I buy at least two huge bunches of fresh coriander weekly, rarely without a plan, but it always gets used, whether in salads, sauces, curries, dips; this week was the same. 

And then I saw a post on Instagram by a lady that I follow for a Georgian style walnut and coriander paste; it included spices, and garlic, olive oil and pomegranate molasses…what’s not to like???? 

So this is my version, and it was lovely!!! I used a mixture of walnuts, almonds and pumpkin seeds (both of which I’d already roasted), mainly because I didn’t have enough walnuts. You can use all walnuts or mix it up. 

Ingredients

A large bunch of fresh coriander, leaves stripped from stalks (don’t throw the stalks away – details below)

A handful of fresh walnuts

A handful of almonds

A handfuls of toasted pumpkin seeds 

2-3 cloves garlic, peeled 

1-2 tbsp ‘khmeli suneli’ spice mix – I made may own from this recipe 

A couple of good glugs of pomegranate molasses and the same of olive oil

Method

All in a blender and whizz it up, keeping it still a bit rustic, not too smooth. Add additional olive oil and/or pomegranate molasses to taste if necessary 

I found that it thickened up a bit by day two and I loosened it up with a bit of water 

Use it as a dip, spoon it over roasted vegetables, as a filling for a roasted sweet potato, or eat straight from the bowl with a spoon…or mix with chickpeas like I did as a side dish…

And of course, I whizzed up some of these chickpeas with some tahini and water to make a dip which I enjoyed with my lunch today..

With a pile of leftover stalks I decided to whizz them up into something else – I end up with so many stripped stalks in my kitchen, I literally spend hours and hours stripping parsley and coriander leaves from stalks, I view it as a form of meditation, but recently I’ve started utilising the stalks too – and so on this occasion I created a paste/pesto with coriander stalks, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and za’atar, and it worked really well..

Ingredients

A pile of coriander stalks

A handful of toasted pumpkin seeds

A handful of toasted sunflower seeds 

2-3 garlic cloves, peeled

2-3 tablespoons za’atar spice mix

Lots of olive oil

Salt to taste 

Method

Whizz in a blender, keeping it rustic and maintaining some crunch from the seeds 

Again, if you have some left and it thickens overnight, loosen up with a splash of water 

Use as a dip, as a pesto, whatever you fancy! I added it to all sorts of dishes and salads.

I hope you like my coriander ideas, and that you’ll join us at Fiesta Friday and see what everyone else brings along. 

Happy Friday!