I don't know much butter know I love you

Winter is a difficult time of year to get excited about, not least in the cooking department. After months of cooking root veg, who can blame you if your greatest culinary desire is the quick fix of a salad. Root vegetables (the humble carrot aside) are not really known for their speed of delivery. Its a strange man who enjoys chomping on some raw turnip.

They are also sometimes pretty time consuming to prepare. Whilst The Seasonal Beets thoroughly recommend keeping skins on where possible (for we all know that's where the best nutrition is stored) there are times when that is just not possible. My dog loves turnip skin: I am less enamoured by its woody texture.

On top of that whilst root vegetables are filled with nutrition and can be sweet as sugar, the stereotypical varieties we can easily access do lack a certain variation in flavour (yes bothersome friend turnip I'm referring to you again).

And yet root vegetables are cheap, nutritious and very seasonal so we should definitely be eating them in plentiful supply. How can we fix this tricky conundrum? The answer my friends is butter.

"Is there anything better than butter? Think it over, any time you taste something that's delicious beyond imagining and you say 'what's in this?' the answer is always going to be butter. The day there is a meteorite rushing toward Earth and we have thirty days to live, I am going to spend it eating butter. Here is my final word on the subject, you can never have too much butter." Julie Powell, Julie and Julia.

Whilst butter alone is wonderful, its magical taste enhancing capabilities can be heightened by the addition of a few key ingredients. Flavoured butter should be a staple in any tasty kitchen. It can be added to baked potatoes; mashed vegetables, boiled vegetables, oven roasted vegetables, fry your vegetables in it or just spread on a piece of crusty toast. The possibilities are for flavoured butter are endless and its so easy to make.

• Take 1 packet of unsalted butter and leave it out of the fridge to soften.
• Then get out the biceps and your spatula and start beating the butter until it becomes soft and pliable (or use a foodmixer...).
• Add your ingredients and whip into a frenzy until all incorporated.
• Leave to stand for 30 minutes and then place it in the fridge to harden.
• Once hard roll into a sausage shape and wrap in baking parchment (like a christmas cracker)
• This can then be stored in the freezer. Just cut away what you need when you need it.

Recipes for flavoured butter

Roasted Garlic Butter (excellent in mash)

1 packet of butter

1 large head of garlic

1/4 tsp salt

Cut the garlic in half and roast the garlic in the oven until soft. Squidge out the garlic, let it cool and add to your butter.

Herby Butter

(the world is your oyster here, I like rosemary and thyme together but tarragon is also very nice, especially on mushrooms! Check out our recipe booklets for other good herb/veg combos)

1 packet of butter

1 handful of freshly chopped herbs

1/2 tsp salt

Chilli Butter

(melt and use to make Kale Chips!)

1 packet of butter

A zest of half a lemon

1 tbsp of dried chilli flakes

1/4 tsp salt

Loads more recipes can be found on the BBC Good Food website and at The Nibble but look out for more flavoured butters on this blog too!

Tutti Rooti

Winter gets a bad rep for vegetables and unnecessarily so. This is the time when we can indulge in that hidden delight of the plant: the root!
Hearty, healthy and full of flavour this next recipe makes the most of winter's best produce.

(this recipe can be found in its original form on the BBC Good Food Website... but trust me its better this way)

Turnip and Bacon Pie

Ingredients
1 turnip (peeled and chopped into 2 cm cubes)
1 onion (chopped)
1 carrot (sliced)
12 rashers of bacon ( devoid of fat and chopped into slithers)
3 potatoes (peeled and chopped into chunks)
1 parsnip (peeled and chopped into chunks)
300ml chicken stock
lots of parsley (chopped)
1 tbls butter
1 tbls milk
salt and pepper

Method

• Boil your potatoes and parsnip until soft and then mash with the butter and milk.
• Fry the bacon in a little olive oil (or you can use some of the discarded fat)
  
• Remove the bacon from the pan and sauté the onions in the same oil (adding more if necessary) until soft
• Then add the turnip and carrot and cook for 2 minutes.
• Pour in the chicken stock and cook until the vegetables are soft but not smooshy.
• At this point you might want to add a little cornflour (about 2 tsp mixed in 2 tbls of water) to thicken the gravy
• Season the mix and stir in the parsley.
• Transfer the filling into a medium sized pie dish and cover with the mashed potato/parsnip.
  
• Fluff up the potato topping with a fork (this gives nice crusty bits later on)
• Grill the pie until the topping starts to turn crispy and light brown.
• Serve piping hot from the oven for a great winter supper.
  

If the stew fits.

Every "seasoned" cook has a little notebook in which they keep favourite recipes jotted down from here and there. Whilst I would never consider myself a cook - more of a epicurean experimenter - I too have such a notebook. Mostly I have no idea where the recipes come from but this next one I think may be courtesy of the wonderful Claire MacDonald; a super cook who frequently uses seasonal Scottish (very similar to Swedish) produce in her food.

The original recipe calls for dumplings, however, I found the meat and vegetables itself hearty enough so have omitted them (also, secretly, when I try to make them they always fall apart). The recipe also suggests peeling the carrots and parsnips, personally I think life is too short. I don't have pictures for this post, but then stew probably falls into the category of "tastes better than it looks"

n.b I think this is a "start the day before" recipe which might put some off, but trust me its worth it!

Winter Beef Stew

Stew Ingredients:
4 tbsp sunflower oil
1 kg of stewing beef
2 tbsp flour
2 onions (chopped "lagomly"*)
1-2 garlic cloves (chopped finely)
2 carrots (chopped "lagomly")
2 parsnips (chopped "lagomly")
half a turnip, (peeled and chopped "lagomly")
2 leeks (sliced)
2 sticks celery (sliced)
2 beetroots (peeled and chopped "lagomly")
2 pints of beef stock

• Heat the oil in a heavy casserole dish
• Put the beef and flour (and some salt and pepper seasoning) into a bag (if your veg came in a polybag why not use it) and toss until thoroughly coated
• Brown the beef in the hot oil and remove using a slotted spoon, before cooking the onions in the remaining oil.
• Once the onions are a nice golden colour, stir in the garlic.
• Add the vegetable and stock. Once the stew has reached a gentle simmer, return the meat to the pan.
• Pop on the lid and cook in a moderate oven (about 180-200°C) for 2 hours.
• Take it out the oven and let it cool (hence why this is a "day before recipe").
• Once the dish is cool (or before you plan to serve the stew) return the pot to the moderate oven until it reaches a simmer. This takes between 30minutes -1 hour. Then let it simmer for 30 minutes or so. Just enough time for a nice brisk walk in the winter snow.
• The stew can be served on its own, with crusty bread, mash potatoes or dumplings. Whatever tickles your fancy.
  

* chopped "lagomly" = neither fine nor chunky but rather just right