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Blogvark loves...

Hi guys!

We just wanted to give you a little update! From now on on Blogvark we will be reviewing our favourite things for you a couple of times a week in a segment called 'Blogvark loves...'!

Stay tuned for lots of information on our products, new and old. If there's anything particular you'd like us to review, let us know and we'll get to it.

Blogvark

#blogvark #aardvark #aardvark alternatives #carmarthen #wales

Product of the Week - Ginger - Ginger curry!

Product of the week – Ginger! – Ginger curry

This week stomach settling ginger is the product in the spotlight! With that in mind, we’ll be showcasing some diverse sweet and savoury ginger treats for you in the next few days starting with this fragrant ginger curry!

The method is pretty simple, and it’ll be a breeze to follow even if you’ve never made a curry from scratch before. You can, of course, swap the chicken for a different meat, or for tofu, or replace with vegetables! This is a versatile curry, potatoes, mushrooms, tomatoes, fish, pork or tofu would all work beautifully in the place of the chicken I used here.

On to the ingredients!

Marinated chicken

· 1 pack chicken thighs (The pack I bought had six thighs in!). We’ll use thighs here instead of breasts because 1) they’re cheaper, and 2) they’re tastier, and they have more varied flavour and texture.

· 2 tsp vegetable oil (or frying oil of your choice)

· 1 thumb sized piece of fresh ginger, grated.

· ½ thumb sized piece of fresh turmeric, grated (you can use 1tsp turmeric powder if you can’t get fresh).

· 1 tsp mild chilli powder (or hot chilli powder if you like a real kick)

· 1 lime, or 1 lemon

· 4 garlic cloves

· Pinch salt

· Pinch pepper

Other ingredients

· Finely sliced onion (1 large or 2 small)

· 1 large sweet pepper – red or yellow

· 1 fresh red chilli

· 15g fresh chopped coriander

· 1 tin coconut milk – 400ml

· 1 stock cube (optional, but boosts flavour)

Method

· Get your pack of chicken thighs, and debone if they’re not already boneless! It’s actually pretty easy to do if you have a kitchen scissors. Just cut the meat around the thigh bone away until it separates, and voila! Deboned chicken thigh! Make sure to cut away and bits of gristle too. You can de-skin the thighs if you like, but I enjoyed the texture of them in the dish. Cut into bite sized chunks.

· Add marinating ingredients to chicken and give a good stir until evenly coated. Spread out in a bowl, or container. The longer you leave this to marinade, the tastier it becomes! A few hours in the fridge is sufficient, and then you’re ready to cook.

· Fry off the chicken in a hot pan until browned. Then add onions, peppers and chilli, and fry for a few minutes. Finally, add the coconut milk, stock cube and coriander, and simmer until fragrant!

And there you have it! A simple, tasty curry that’s pretty darn easy to make. The ginger (an ingredient I usually hate) is definitely present, but not overly so. The coriander adds a lovely freshness, and by the time you serve it the chicken is tender and beautifully flavourful.

I’d definitely make this dish again! Serve with all the traditional trimmings, and enjoy!

Blogvark

#aardvark alternatives #blogvark #ginger #tumeric #curry #indian food #india #fresh #herbs #spices #food #recipe #chicken #carmarthen #wales #aardvark

Flaxseed Week - Flaxseed crust pizza!

Recipe 4 – Flaxseed crust pizza!

So, last week the product of the week in the shop was v-omega 3 by Lifestream! In keeping with the omega 3 theme, we decided to showcase flaxseed (linseed) products, and so I decided to make a pizza with a flaxseed crust.

I looked up quite a lot of recipes online while hunting for a pizza base with flax in. I wanted a dough I could add some yeast to, not a base that was too crispy or floppy in texture, so I developed this recipe from a wholemeal crust recipe that contains some whole flaxseeds, and just substituted the white bread flour for the milled flax.

This recipe makes two large pizza bases, but you could probably get 3 or four 9 inch bases out of it, or a whole bunch of little pizzas! The crust is very tasty, and quite filling so you won’t be tempted to over-eat, and it’s full of healthy fats, and of course those essential omega 3 oils.

Here are the ingredients!

For the base -

· 3 cups warm water (This water is to activate the yeast, so don’t make it too hot! Just over lukewarm works well)

· 1 tbsp honey (or any sweetener – sugar would work as well)

· One 7g packet of yeast

· 3 cups wholemeal flour

· 3 cups milled flaxseed

· ½ cup plain flour

· 2 tsp oil (Olive works well)

· ½ cup of flaxseeds

· A pinch of dried oregano

· A pinch of salt

For the topping –

· A handful new potatoes thinly sliced(we have fantastic Pembrokeshire new potatoes in store – and they worked perfectly).

· 1 red pepper diced

· 3 white onions thinly sliced

· 3 garlic cloves minced

· 2 spring onions finely chopped

· About 100g cheese of your choice – I used cheddar, but something creamier like goats cheese would work really well. Alternatively, if you don’t like cheese or can’t eat it, a few sliced tomatoes would add a lovely texture!

And that’s all there is to it, really. Now for the making!

Method –

· Grab a bowl, pan or jug and get your warm water in there. Stir in the honey until it has dissolved, and then add your yeast. You can leave this to one side for five minutes until it has become kind of foamy on the top – this is the yeast working! If your yeast doesn’t look any different after a few minutes it may be that your water is too cold, or too hot. Just above luke warm is good! You definitely don’t want it boiling. I’ve ruined many a yeast mixture by being impatient and adding the yeast to water that just killed it.

· Whilst your yeast is activating, mix your dry ingredients in a large bowl. When they are thoroughly mixed and your yeast has worked its magic in the water, add the water to the dry ingredients. You want to add the 2 tsp of oil now too. I mix this mixture with a fork until combined. If it’s looking too wet, add a little more wholemeal flour! If it’s too dry, add a touch more water. Mix until combined, and until the dough is no longer sticky to the touch. Rub a little extra oil into the top of your dough ball, cover the bowl with a tea towel or some clear plastic, and leave somewhere warm to proof. Your dough may not get double the size, because the mixture is pretty heavy, but it should rise and become bouncy to the touch! When you have this texture, your dough is ready to become a pizza base!

· While the dough is rising, get to work on the topping of your pizza. I came across a ‘Potato Pizza’ recipe by Nigel Slater and decided that it looked amazing and was definitely something I needed to try out! I got some of our lovely Pembrokeshire New Potatoes, cleaned them and sliced them thinly. After they’re sliced, boil them for about 5-8 minutes until partly cooked, drain and set aside. Get a frying pan and add your onions and a little oil. Fry for a few minutes, and then add the garlic – I crushed mine in a pestle and mortar with some salt and pepper, but you could just as easily chop very finely, or use a garlic mincer! This insures that your garlic won’t burn when you put it in the oven. Add the garlic to the onions with a little water (about 3 tbsp or so – just so the garlic has a chance to cook without burning) and then add your potatoes and turn off the heat. The potatoes will soak up the flavours, and your garlic and onions will be soft and delicious!

· Preheat your oven – Gas mark 6!

· Once the dough has risen sufficiently, cut in half (if you’re making two pizzas – or into more, if you’re making smaller ones!). Get your pizza pan (I like the ones you can buy specifically for pizzas – they’re large, flat and round with some holes in the bottom to make the base crispy as it bakes) – a baking tray will serve fine! Flour the bottom and top of your dough and use a rolling pin to flatten it evenly into the tray.

· Add your toppings – I spread the onion/garlic/potato mixture evenly over the two bases, and then added my diced red pepper and spring onion before sprinkling with cheese. I added a pinch more flax seeds around the edge of the base too for presentation and a little extra crunch.

· Bake in the oven for 15 minutes, or until edges of the base are crispy and toppings are well cooked.

And that’s it!

I make home-made pizza fairly often (usually seeded wholemeal) so I was really interested before starting out with this recipe about how the taste and texture would differ with the milled flaxseed involved.

The verdict? This is my favourite pizza base ever! It was just doughy enough to be filling, not too crispy or too soft, it was satisfying and the taste was just delicious. The great thing about flax is that it can stand up to some quite jazzy flavours, so next time I might amp up the toppings with some chilli, or maybe some chorizo.

The potato topping was a new one for me too, but the new potatoes were great – I should have probably cut them thinner to get more out of the texture, but the flavour was excellent. To those of you screaming at the screen “TOO MANY CARBS, BLOGVARK!” – Chill out, man! Potato pizza is actually quite a traditional thing! Also, many of our favourite meals rock the double carb – Lasagne with garlic bread seems pretty normal, chip butty’s remain ever popular, and you seldom see toad in the hole without a side of mashed potato. So, trust me on this one – it’s good!

Mix, bake, and apply to face – this pizza base is a winner!

That’s it for today guys!

I’ll be updating reference links and photos (for now it’s only phone pictures until I get the laptop fixed), but there’ll be a sweet flaxseed recipe tomorrow, and then some awesome Quinoa ones in a few days time! :D

We hope to see you in the shop, and please let us know if you make any of our recipes! We love feedback!

Blogvark.

#aardvark alternatives #blogvark #aardvark #recipe #potato #wholemeal #flax #flaxseed #linseed #seeded #pizza #dough #healthy #omega 3 #carmarthen #wales

Event dates!

Hi guys!

Just a couple of dates for your diaries! :) We have some fantastic events coming up!

Organic September - All through September we shall be promoting organics in all of their forms. We'll be having taster days, recipes going up on the blog, some great offers will be going up both online and in-store and we'll be giving customers some great information on why they should choose organic products.

Within that month we'll be having Organic Beauty weekend, too! Come see our range of skin and hair care products!

27th September - Happy Birthday Aardvark! This will be the year anniversary of the day the shop re-opened in Lammas Street!

27th October - 2nd of November - 1940's week! We'll be having a 1940's week in late October - decorating the shop 40's style, offering you some tasters of genuine wartime recipes, and contrasting them with the massive range of produce we have on offer today. We'll also be having a Halloween day during this week, with some 40's style sweet treats on offer :)

That's all for now! :)

Blogvark.