It lives!

I visited my allotment (in the rain) yesterday, and was pleased to find that my rhubarb has survived the winter. Normally the frozen waterlogged ground gets the better of it. I might actually be able to eat some this year! The best lunch I ever had was stewed rhubarb with a poached duck egg. Yum......



February half term is traditionally when I start to actually put some effort in after winter. The nights should now be light enough for quick visits after work. Everything is starting to grow again and it makes me happy!

An urban forage...

This morning I gathered 3lb elderberries, 2lb plums (greengages and victoria), 8 apples and 1 grape (just testing it!) all within the space of about half an hour.

Then I tried to make elderberry vinegar, but the recipe I followed didn't seem to work out, so it's not really vinegar at all - more like ketchup. Or perhaps syrup with a kick. Sweet and sour. But very yummy all the same and I might just make some more!

I also started some greengage vodka. It's kind of experimental. I imagine it will be quite sweet, and hopefully it'll end up a nice golden colour...

The apples taste nice, although they are a bit grubby so need cutting up rather than blindly shovelling in to the mouth! They are windfalls from an overhanging garden tree. The Victoria plums were also from a garden tree. And so was the grape :)

It sort-of feels like Autumn already.

Weeks 6, 7 and 8

Week 6: Hairy Bittercress grows all over the place and at most times of the year. It tastes cress-like (surprise!) but if anything a bit stronger and hotter than the type I grow on my windowsill. It'd be great in egg sandwiches!



Week 7: Alexanders.
This photo was taken in October. The plants are much more grown-up now. I gathered a handful of the thick fleshy leaf stems and steamed them in a tinfoil parcel with a lovely fresh Pollack fillet. Both foods were from Worthing seaside :)

Week 8: Wild Chives are surprisingly common. These are growing in a cemetery in the centre of Reading. I'm sure you already know what they taste like and what to do with them...

Week 4 and week 5!

On week 4 I chose lovely lemony tangy Common Sorrel - one of my favourite wild greens. You can eat it raw in salads or cook it as a vegetable. It goes well with fish, and makes a particularly yummy soup. I decided to try something new for the purpose of this blog. These are Sorrel tarts, a la Ray Mears:



The recipe (from the TV series "Wild Food") is fairly vague, but basically you cook the sorrel in a pan until it turns to a sort-of sludge, then add sour cream and sugar to taste, and dollop the mixture into pre-cooked pastry cases. I think I used too much cream, but they were still nice!

On week 5 I opted to try Cleavers. I've known this plant for ever (when I was little we called it Goosegrass) but never eaten it before. The taste is quite pleasant but I found that the rough texture didn't disappear on cooking so it was difficult to eat. Beggars can't be choosers though - there really isn't much else around after all the snow and ice we've had! Next week is gonna be tricky... ideas appreciated!

Seasonal cooking :)

Today's harvest consisted mostly of nettles and jerusalem artichokes, so I made nettle and jerusalem artichoke soup. The ingredients were onions + potatoes + artichokes + nettles + seasoning. It was ok - full of healthy goodness but a little bland. My plan for tomorrow is to add more flavour, which I've decided will come from crab apples and perhaps a bit of cinnamon. The resulting concoction will either be a work of genius or a complete disaster! I'll keep you posted...

Chestnut roast recipe

I made a nut roast with (some of) my foraged chestnuts:

RECIPE

a few tiny courgettes (or other veg)
a few shallots (or onions)
150g chopped cashew nuts
150g chopped chestnuts (or chestnut puree, which gives a smoother texture)
1 egg, lightly beaten
100g breadcrumbs
a few drops of soy sauce (or a dash of marmite)
chopped sage (or other herbs)

Fry shallots and courgettes til soft. Remove from heat and stir in other ingredients. Squish mixture into greased loaf tin, and roast in medium oven for, um, 40 mins to 1 hour. Simples!

This recipe is an adaptation of one regularly used by my ex, Paul. He makes his version (very well indeed) with chestnut puree. The ingredients and quantities are very much open to interpretation. I'm thinking of trying one with a bit of parmesan in it :)

Foraging and allotmenteering!

Is it my imagination or are the chestnuts extra tiny this year? I've collected a few handfuls but nothing much to boast about. Shame, I love chestnuts :(
Anyway, I'm going to make a nut roast with these at some point this weekend:



I spent the afternoon (day off - hurrah!) on my allotment. It was lovely and sunny! I haven't had chance to do anything constructive up there for what seems like months, but today I started clearing beds and cutting the grass etc. I came home with a few little courgettes, quite a lot of beetroot and yet more runner beans. I think those three crops have been my biggest successes this season, and my freezer is now full of them. From just one pack of seeds I honestly think I've had about 4 years constant supply of courgettes!

Hips 'n' Haws

What a beautiful sunny September day it has been!

This afternoon I decided to go out and collect rosehips. I also found gigantic haws the size of crab apples(!) so I grabbed those too. I'm on the lookout for some savoury recipe ideas - I've never been much of a sweet-tooth, I don't really eat jam, and I have very little space for wine-making. I found a recipe for rosehip soup which looks interesting... any other suggestions?

Trying new things...

Today I tried two new wild food things: Dandelion root and Fat Hen flowers/seeds (I've often eaten the greens from both of these plants).

Dandelion root is something I'd been meaning to taste for ages. It's one of the few wild roots that can easily be acquired by foragers, as people are generally desperate to get rid of them from lawns and so on. Initially I found it quite pleasant, but it had a bitter aftertaste. Overall I was disappointed. I only ate a few, chopped up in a risotto with various other wild and home-grown bits and bobs.

Fat Hen seeds, on the other hand, are yummy! Again, I only tried a few because I was a little nervous (I read something somewhere about saponins, but most sources don't mention any hazards at all). As long as they are safe (!) I think they would be lovely in bread/baking. Fat Hen is from the same family as Quinoa, and apparently both seeds and greens have been eaten by humans (as well as hens) since ancient times. Any advice from the more experienced would be much appreciated...

I was planning to go into more detail about my dinner but I think I need further practice before I share tips. It was the first risotto I've ever made! *hangs head in shame*

:)

Summer's here...

I picked my first little courgette today!

Just been watching River Cottage, in which Hugh sliced and fried baby courgettes with a bit of garlic and a lot of mint, and ate them on toast with a yoghurty topping. Must try...

Speaking of mint, I added some of the wild stuff (water mint I think) to some homemade lamb burgers. They were nice... even though they tasted like toothpaste. Next time I will add slightly less! :)

Edible Seashore

Above is the title of the latest River Cottage Handbook by John Wright, which I've just aquired and am enjoying reading (it's funny!). I'm not all that confident with seafood as I've relatively little experience of it, but my new year's resolution is to eat Oysters and I'd love to be able to forage for my own dinner on the beach. I'm particularly excited by the idea of catching Razor Clams... but more on that when and if I ever manage it!

Today Matt and I walked along the beach from Worthing to Goring (I think!) in East Sussex. We saw quite a few edibles including Sea Kale, Alexanders, Sea Beet, an ice-cream van and a fantastic little shack selling fresh fish. Although it's a bit late in the season (isn't it?) I took some Alexanders home for tea. I'd never tried it before - in fact I'd never even seen it until a few weeks ago when I visited Whitby. It's nice, but the stems were a little very tough, even after boiling. I'll have to remember where it grows and try to go back in early spring next year. Any cooking tips or other thoughts would be very welcome!

I'm very much enjoying my (now regular) visits to the seaside :)


Sea Kale

Nettle soup...

I've often used nettles in cookery - they're so common and nutritious - but I'd never made classic nettle soup until this evening.



My recipe was slightly adapted from the one in Roger Phillips' wonderful book "Wild Food" - and consisted of onion, leek, garlic, potatoes, veg stock, black pepper, and of course nettles. It was cheap, quick, easy, really nice to eat, and I'll certainly make it again!

Saucy Haw Ketchup

I made this tasty ketchup from a recipe in the River Cottage Preserves book. It turned out a bit too runny, but at least it looks pretty!


Hawthorn


Haws


Saucy Haw Ketchup

Dinner, and things...

I think I'm getting better at looking in the fridge to see what's there, and inventing a recipe to fit!

Tonight I had roast veg (potatoes, tomatoes, courgette) with vegetarian "meatballs". I added a crushed clove of garlic and a jalapeno pepper to the roasting tin (both of which I removed before eating - I just wanted a subtle hint of their flavours). On serving I added a dribble of Balsamic vinegar and a sprinkle of black pepper. Simple, but most yummy! And I was extra pleased with myself when I realised I'd grown everything apart from the veggieballs : )

Whilst cooking this I dry roasted a few handfuls of foraged Hazelnuts (Claire, I think we're too late - the squirrels seem to have been busy this year), in an attempt to fill up the oven and be more economical with the electricity...

I also saved half a courgette for breadmaking later on. I've done experiments and now I'm sure that courgette helps bread to rise. Anyone know why that might be?

Poppy seeds

These poppies invited themselves on to my allotment:



When the seed heads had dried, I collected them in a little pot along with a few others I found on some waste land near my flat. I shook the pot - and out from their cases came hundreds and hundreds of teeny black seeds.. They make a welcome addition to my breadmaking supply cupboard : )

Courgette loaf

My breadmaker cost £24 from Argos. I've *easily* saved that much money on bread since I bought it last August. It's simple to use, and it's fun! This loaf was based on a recipe for carrot bread, simply replacing grated carrot with courgette.