Eating from the Redwall Cookbook: Spring

Spring is now officially over (what a weird season it's been) and with it some more cooking from the Redwall Cookbook.  In keeping with the type of British weather we get this time of year the recipes have been warm and on the slightly heavy side.  We didn't make all of them, but these are the ones we tried.

Hare's Pawspring Vegetable Soup

This is a good soup with a nice mix of vegetables which do give some good flavours, though I would want to add some herbs if I made this recipe again.  Obviously, this is meant to be for children so it's not really surprising that there aren't too many herbs and species other than salt and pepper.  Otherwise, it turned out pretty well and it a very healthy dish.  We happily finished it off with the dumplings I made to go with it, because why wouldn't you put dumplings with anything if you could.

Crispy Cheese'n'Onion Hogbake

I wasn't sure about this recipe but it turned out to be a definite win.  We didn't put the cornflakes on, mainly because we didn't have any and I wasn't going to buy them just for this dish.  Normally I would want to add some other flavours, but I liked this just as it was and is probably something we'll make again.  Obviously, the dairy products were swapped for non-dairy ones and we ate it with broccoli and rice.

Vegetable Casserole a la Foremole

This was another win, though it did take quite a while to cook so it's not necessarily a dish I would choose to cook during the week.  As with the Hogbake it tastes good without adding any additional spices and I changed the dairy products for non-dairy ones.  I just added green vegetables to it and we managed to finish it all off in one go, though we did feel uncomfortably full afterwards.

Gourmet Garrison Grilled Leeks

I completely forgot to take photos of this one, but I made this dish as a side dish as it was so small.  However, I have to admit this one didn't really blow us away.  There's nothing wrong with it as such and all the ingredients are good ingredients, but we just didn't take to it so we probably won't be eating this again.

Spiced Gatehouse Tea Bread

I wasn't certain how this recipe was going to turn out as I had to make quite a few changes to fit what items we have in the cupboard and what I need for my dietary requirements.  These included using gluten-free flour which usually makes these things much harder and dryer, sultanas instead of raisins, and chia seeds instead of the one egg required.  I also didn't have all the spices it needed so, instead, made a slightly strange concoction of cinnamon and mixed spice.  However, despite all that, it actually turned out pretty well and I think I'll be making it again in the not so distant future.

The four recipes I didn't make from this season were the Stuffed Springtide Mushrooms as I don't like mushrooms,  Abbot's Special Abbey Trifle mainly because I couldn't be bothered to make all the layers - lazy I know, Honeybaked Apples as my Mum makes these all the time, and Hot Mint Tea as, unfortunately, mint tea makes me sick.  Otherwise, it's been enjoyable actually                                                                                                                                                                                         `eating some of the food that we've read about in the Redwall books.  Next season looks like a whole lot of cakes and puddings so that's going to be very enjoyable.