Simple and in Season (End of January) Round Up

Last month, Karen from Lavender and Lovage hosted an extra-long round of Simple and in Season, which ran up until the 15th January. So, I opened a quick round for the end of January just to keep things going until our next host, Caroline at Cake, Crumbs and Cooking takes over in February.

Here were your lovely entries – thank you everyone for your support.

1. I set the ball rolling, by linking up my Breaded Pork Steaks Polish-style, which I served with mashed butternut squash as a change to mashed potatoes or sweet potatoes. It was very light and tasty and made a great side to my one of our favourite family meals.

2. Jen over at Blue Kitchen Bakes challenged herself to take part in Dom’s Random Recipe’s challenge and made Rillettes de Canard from a book called The French Market. After cooking her duck legs down very gently, served the duck meat in ramekins with some of the juices with a celeriac and swede mash and some broccoli.

3. Shaheen from Allotment 2 Kitchen made an inspired Retro Parsnip, Hazelnut and Violet Cake for her niece, who turned four. I have never used violet syrup in a recipe, but I recently came across a recipe that needed it, so I’ll be hunting some of that out. I really love the idea of using grated parsnips, too, instead of carrots, to give the cake sweetness as well as extra moisture.

4. We were joined by Cherrapeño this month who made a lovely dish – perfect for a seasonal supper, of Roasted Mushrooms with Rosemary and Thyme. Orange peppers, chilli and fresh herbs really lifted these mushrooms.

5. Janet, a staunch Simple and in Season supporter, who blogs at The Taste Space, sent across her Beefy Portobello Mushroom and Cranberry Stew, another great idea if you are reducing your meat intake or are looking for vegetarian inspiration.

6. Helen, who has recently had a very lovely blog makeover at Fuss Free Flavours, sent us these Chocolate, Orange, Date and Seed Energy Balls – perfect for a healthy pick-me-up snack for the whole family, loaded with dried fruit and Seville orange juice.

7. Jen at Blue Kitchen Bakes came back to us with her superb Apple Crumble. Who doesn’t love apple crumble? And there are so many British apples to chose from! Jen used Bramleys.

8. And another lovely and unusual entry from Jen at Blue Kitchen Bakes, with these Sweet Potato, Celeriac and Sultana Muffins. I’d love to know how these taste. Jen says they make a great breakfast or afternoon snack.

9. Rita at Rita Cooks Italian, joined in again this month and made some Jam Thumbprint Orange Biscuits, which reminded her of the Italian Pasticcini Mignon.  With carnival season soon upon us, I’m sure these would be a really popular treat.

 10. And to end our quick January round-up, we welcomed back Sanchita at The Nutty Cook, who made this super-healthy Carrot and Broccoli Soup. Sanchita is always looking for tasty food to cook for her toddler, luckily this soup was a winner AND Sanchita had time to blog about it!

Thank you all so much for joining in with this super-quick round.

Don’t forget that you can now link up your February Simple and in Season entries to Caroline’s post over at Cake, Crumbs and Cooking.