Readers' Recipe Swap: Sustainable

Felicity Cloake samples your sustainably-sourced recipes.A lovely crop of spring-like recipes this week, using everything from young nettles (and who doesn't want to get rid of them?) to more welcome members of the vegetable patch, such as rhubarb, new potatoes and asparagus.My favourite, however, was Jess Baum's vivid pink beetroot hummus, which has made me look at that root in a different way. I've always thought of it as a winter vegetable, but British beetroot is actually at its sweetest in warmer months, and this makes a colourful accompaniment to cold drinks in the garden.There's still a couple of weeks to make Rachel Demuth's wild garlic soup too, but hurry - those wonderfully pungent banks of white flowers won't last forever.

The winning recipe: spiced beetroot hummus

This spiced, lemony beetroot hummus is super-quick to make, especially if you have a food processor. Beetroot is cheap as chips and environmentally friendly to boot. It's best suited to northern European climates - so is perfectly sustainable for British soil - and rarely needs treatment with pesticides. This red orb can do no wrong.Jess Baum, Bristol, themotherinlawskitchen.comMakes 1 large bowl
250g raw beetroot or ready-cooked beetroot (not pickled)
1 x 400g can chickpeas, skins removed
3 tbsp tahini
Juice of 2 lemons
1 tsp ground coriander
3 large garlic cloves, crushed
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp sesame seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds1 If using raw beetroot, wash but don't peel, and place in a saucepan. Cover with cold water, bring to the boil and then simmer until tender. Drain and leave to cool slightly before peeling: the skin should just come off under cold running water.2 While the beetroot cooks, remove the outer husks from the chickpeas to give a much smoother, less grainy result.3 Once the beetroot is peeled and cooled, roughly chop and place in the food processor with the tahini, drained chickpeas, lemon juice, coriander and crushed garlic. Blend to your preferred consistency.4 Heat the olive oil in a large heavy frying pan and fry the sesame and cumin seeds, stirring continuously, for no more than 2 minutes, making sure they don't catch and burn. Add about two-thirds of this to the food processor, along with some seasoning, and briefly blend.5 Spoon the hummus into a dish and pour the last third of the spice mix on the top.

Nettle brandade

This is inspired by salt cod brandade. Serve it with slices of grilled country bread or with steamed vegetables.Betty Bee, via guardian.co.uk/witnessServes 4
100g green lentils
1 onion, peeled and quartered
3 bay leaves
200g nettle leaves
2 large floury potatoes, peeled and roughly chopped
3 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
100ml olive oil1 Cook the lentils in boiling water with the onion and bay leaves. When cooked, drain and discard the onion and bay leaves.2 Blanch the nettle leaves in boiling salted water for 5 minutes. Drain and, when cool, chop finely.3 Cook the potatoes in a large pan of boiling water until tender. Drain and return to the pan with the nettles and lentils. Mash until smooth.4 Add the garlic and then gradually incorporate the oil into the mixture. Season and serve.

Homegrown seasonal salad with mint, oragano and lime dressing

This is a salad that comes from a combination of my garden and allotment. There is nothing fancy about it but what I love is how fresh and delicious it tastes and the fact it costs next to nothing to put together. It is more of an assembly of ingredients than anything else, but that pairing of harmonious flavours is what I love to do most.Laura Scott, Epsom, howtocookgoodfood.co.ukServes 2
A large handful of new potatoes
2 large spring onions, finely sliced
A handful of chives, chopped
A handful of mint, chopped
A few sprigs of oregano, chopped
1 dried birdseye chilli (optional)
3 tbsp olive oil
Juice of ½ a lime
A large handful of mustard leaf, watercress, rocket or round lettuce1 Boil the new potatoes until they are soft. Drain and, when cool enough to handle, chop them up and place in a salad bowl with the spring onions and chives.2 Roughly chop the mint and oregano and put in a pestle and mortar with a pinch of sea salt and the dried red chilli if using. Crush to a paste and add the olive oil gradually to create the dressing. Add the lime juice and check the seasoning.3 Pour the dressing over the slightly warm potatoes and spring onions. Stir to combine.4 Add the salad leaves just before serving, so that they retain their flavour and shape.

Wild garlic soup

Raw wild garlic is very pungent, but it has a delicate flavour that can easily be lost when cooked, so be generous and only add it to the soup towards the end of the cooking. It's best very young, so pick small tender leaves: the moment the garlic begins to flower, the leaves become too strong, but pick a few flower buds to decorate the soup.Rachel Demuth, Bath, racheldemuth.co.uk/blog Serves 4
1 onion, chopped
1 tbsp rapeseed oil
250g new potatoes, scrubbed and cubed
1 litre vegetable stock
125g wild garlic leaves, washed and roughly chopped
A squeeze of lemon juice
1 Saute the onion in the rapeseed oil in a large saucepan for about 10 minutes, until soft, then add the cubed potatoes and quickly stir-fry.2 Add the stock and simmer until the potatoes are just soft, which will take about 15 minutes, depending on the size of the cubes.3 Add the wild garlic, cover and simmer for a couple of minutes until wilted, but still vibrant green, then liquidise if you prefer a smooth consistency.4 Add a squirt of lemon juice, salt and lots of freshly ground black pepper. Decorate with garlic flower buds to serve.

Rhubarb and ginger yoghurt

Although my back garden is only napkin-size, it's stuffed with rhubarb, so this is almost completely sustainable ... and you could always grow the ginger instead of buying it.Vicki Johnson, ExmouthServes 4
500ml milk
1 tsp plain organic yoghurt

6 stems of rhubarb, chopped
Syrup from a 350g jar of stem ginger
1 ball of stem ginger, chopped
1 orange, sliced1 Boil the milk with a milk watcher (the best £1 you will ever spend!) if you have one, until reduced to 400ml. Leave it to cool to exactly 40C.2 Whisk in the yoghurt, pour into a thermos flask and leave overnight.3 Put the rhubarb in a baking dish with the stem ginger syrup and some slices of orange and bake at 200C/400F/gas mark 6 until tender. Cool.4 Combine in layers in glasses with the chopped ginger on top.

Asparagus lasagne

During the snow in April I made a promise to myself - no more strawberries in February, no more brussels sprouts in June - in the hope that the great She-Ra might send out even so much as a glimpse of sunshine. It hasn't worked so far but I persevere.Asparagus really only tastes amazing at this time of year, when it hasn't travelled any great distance and that surely is reason enough for a brief gluttony. Making the sauce with stock rather than milk gives it a delicacy that matches the flavour of the asparagus perfectly.Bronwyn Wolfe, LondonServes 4
1kg asparagus, woody ends snapped off (save to make a light stock)
3 tbsp olive oil
60g unsalted butter
2 tbsp plain flour
500ml chicken or vegetable stock
200g rocchetta or other soft spring cheese, crumbled
1 tbsp lemon zest
100g parmesan, finely grated
12 dried egg lasagne sheets
200ml double cream1 Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/gas mark 6. Cut off the tips of the asparagus and reserve, then spread the spears out on a baking sheet and drizzle with the olive oil, tossing to coat. Roast for 5-6 minutes until they are just crisp and tender. Season with a little coarse salt and allow to cool a bit before cutting into 2cm lengths. Reduce the oven temperature to 180C/350F/gas mark 4.2 Melt the butter in a medium pan, whisk in the flour and cook over a gentle heat for about 3 minutes, until the flour has taken on some colour and smells biscuity. Whisk in the stock and simmer gently for about 5 minutes. Stir in the crumbled soft cheese and lemon zest and season to taste. Keep whisking until silky smooth.3 Coat the bottom of a 20cm-square baking dish with a little of the sauce and add a layer of pasta, then sauce, followed by asparagus and then grated parmesan. Repeat until all the ingredients except a little parmesan are used, finishing with a layer of pasta.4 Scatter the asparagus tips over the top of the pasta. Put the cream and a pinch of salt into a small bowl and whisk until it holds soft peaks. Pour over the top of the asparagus tips. Sprinkle the last bit of parmesan over the top then bake for about 30 minutes, until golden.5 Let it sit for 10 minutes before serving in generous portions with a little green salad and some crusty bread on the side. It will make it seem as though the sun is shining.Bright and spiced beetroot hummus Photograph: Tricia De Courcy Ling for the Guardian