Eat The Seasons...x

I read somewhere that a good cure for jet lag, is simply to watch the sun rise and watch the sun set. Your body, absorbing the sun's rays, understands.

Seasonal eating, I like to think, is a similar process.

I think it is completely possible that the nature knows best and that asparagus*, broccoli*, purple sprouting broccoli*, radishes*, rhubarb*, rocket*, sorrel*, spinach*, spring onions*, watercress are just what we need in Spring, after a long winter. All little packages of iron, vitamin C and fibre. In the summer fruit and veg is plenty and we can eat little and often. Come Autumn, who doesn't crave butternut squash, courgettes, marrow and fruit crumbles, stewed apples. Stocking up on our resources for the winter ahead, Then through the cold, shorter days artichoke*, beetroot*, butternut squash*, celeriac | celery*, chicory*, jerusalem artichoke*, kale*, kohlrabi*, leeks*, parsnips*, potatoes (maincrop)*, pumpkin*, swede*, turnips*, watercress*, wild mushrooms* are at their best, filling carbohydrate rich foods to keep our energy up and our bodies warm.

It is not fashion or fad to take a seasonal approach to food, it is common sense. Food tastes much better, (it actually 'tastes'....out of season tomatoes, anyone?....urrrgggggh!) it is aplenty, it should cost less (say no to supermarkets racking up the prices of something that is in season....it's NOT 'finest' it is simply being eaten when it should be, from where it should be, with less murky, science-y jiggery-pokery!) and when, even better it is prepared by you, it is wholesome!

August

VEGETABLES

artichoke*, aubergine*, beetroot*, broad beans*, broccoli*, carrots*, courgettes*, cucumber*, fennel*, french beans*, garlic*, kohlrabi*, leeks*, mangetout*, marrow*, onions*, peas*, peppers*, potatoes (maincrop)*, radishes*, rocket*, runner beans*, sorrel*, sweetcorn*, watercress*

FRUIT

apricots*, blackberries*, blueberries*, damsons*, greengages*, loganberries*, melons*, nectarines*, peaches*^[i], plums*, raspberries*, redcurrants*, tomatoes*

MEAT

lamb*, rabbit*, wood pigeon*

FISH & SEAFOOD

cod*, crab*, dover sole*, grey mullet*, haddock*, halibut*, herring*, john dory*, lemon sole*, lobster*, mackerel*, monkfish*, plaice*, salmon*, sardines*, scallops*, sea bass*, squid*

Here in the city, I usually have to rely on our greengrocers, supermarkets and the occasional Farmer's Markets. I have however been doing some cyber 'surfing' and as with all things crafty there is an amazing foodie vibe out there too! I have found more markets and farmer's shops in my area, something I didn't think possible without living somewhere posh and having a car, thanks to the following sites. And have become wholly inspired and convinced by the idea and practicality of seasonal eating!

www.localfoodadvisor.com, www.eattheseasons.co.uk, www.farmersmarkets.net

Have a browse! If you find something gorgeous, don't keep it to your ownsome....let us play too!

x

Quick Blackberry Jam

1lb blackberries (surprisingly few, I managed to collect 2lbs, just pootling along with the mini B's)

1lb sugar

175ml of water

juice of 1 lemon (I used a lime as that is all I had to hand...as far as I can tell the jam is no the worse for it!)

Stew your fruit, gently, in the water, which takes about 20-25 minutes, mashing the fruit to extract as much juice as possible. This is a gorgeous process, I was happily surprised at the sweet smell of blackberries...just like a fruit pastille! The colour was glorious. I would love a cord dress that colour!

After this add your lemon juice (or in my case lime, I think it is probably something sciency about acids rather than for the flavour anyway!) and sugar, keeping the temperature down mix for 10-15 minutes to ensure all the sugar granules are dissolved.

Then rack up the heat! Boil rapidly and unafraid, for 8 minutes! Then the mess can begin.

Take your sterilised jars (and this is where I stray from Delia's sensible, measured tone...), place a jam funnel on top, and using a sieve pour your jam through, pushing with a spoon, to get the juice through quickly. Now Delia would have you sieve this into a hot bowl then pour into the jar....but I didn't really 'get' the two fold process and since I was only making enough for me and a neighbour, I couldn't see the sense. So straight into warm jars it went, using my tiny sieve! No need for great speed, there was ample time and the jam set fine! I even tried the pulp left over because it looked so good and I thought maybe like raspberry jam, the seeds would be fine. Don't make that mistake! On that account Delia is quite right, they are gross, hard and may crack a tooth....and I don't want to be held accountable!

And there we have it!

There are not words enough, for the joy that is this jam! It is August in a jar! Brilliant on my current poppy seed scone obsession, with the cream cheese. The boy B's had it on toast this morning! And I tell you what, I bet it would make amazing homemade jammie dodgers!

x

I Can't Resist!

She's right, you know! What can I say... I can't resist! How could you? The cupcake is a glorious thing! Miniature (I adore all things small!), the realms for creativity are boundless and even when plain they are perfect! So I have started you off with the recipes that I use! Ha ha, bring on National Cupcake Week (a whole week.....love it!!) So whip out your pinnie, grab your cupcake cases and get practising! The Perfect Cupcake Recipe (Nigella's....naturally!) INGREDIENTS 125g self-raising flour 125g caster sugar 125g soft unsalted butter 2 eggs Half a teaspoon real vanilla extract Approximately 2 tablespoons milk METHOD 1. Preheat the oven to 200C and line the tin with the muffin cases. 2. It couldn't be simpler to make cup cakes: just put all the ingredients except for the milk in the processor and then blitz till smooth. 3. Pulse while adding milk, to make for a soft, dropping consistency, down the funnel. Or using a bowl and wooden spoon, cream the butter and sugar, beat in the eggs one at a time with a little of the flour. 4. Then add the vanilla extract and fold in the rest of the flour, adding the milk to get the dropping consistency as before. 5. I know it looks as if you'll never make this scant mixture fit 12 bun cases, but you will. I promise you this mixture is exactly right to make the 12 cup cakes, so just spoon and scrape the stuff in, trying to fill each case equally, judging by eye only of course. 6. Put in the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes or until the cup cakes are cooked and golden on top. As soon as bearable, take the cup cakes in their cases out of the tin and let cool, right way up, on a wire rack. Vanilla Butter Icing Ingredients Enough for 2 layers in one 18 = 20 cm cake 2 1/4 cup (250 g) icing sugar (confectioners sugar) 1 stick (8 tbsp) 4 oz (112 g) softened butter 1/2 tsp vanilla essence 1 tbsp milk Method 1. Mix the vanilla essence with the milk 2. Sift the icing sugar and add gradually to the butter with the milk 3. beat until the icing is smooth and of a soft consistency Looking forward to sharing a cuppa and a cupcake (and another and an another....ooooooh one more) with you! x

Herby Pretzels for Packed Lunches...

I love baking a food item that is an equal favourite with Children and Adults. As you can imagine, i am not the sort of lady to suffer nonsense! We all eat the same foods in our house and we don't cater to the 'whims' of children (or menfolk). It has had the desired effect, as i now have a daughter who eats blue cheese, olives, smoked salmon... and will try anything at least once.

These are a great food to bake. Herby Pretzels are a healthy snack at midmorning - or an accompaniment to soups / salads - and simple to chuck in a lunch box or snack pack when you're out and about.

*200g plain flour

*1/2 teaspoon baking powder

*6 tablespoons of unsalted butter (this is the recipie i used - but i used room soft butter not liquid / melted butter)

*salt + other herbs of choice: I used crushed corriander seeds / mustard seeds / paprika and celery salt.

*Splash of milk

*egg to glaze

Basically, bung the flour in a large bowl and add all the herby choices. Mix round a bit. I used a generous teaspoon of each dried herb listed and smashed them all up with the pestle and mortar so my daughter didn't have any surprise chunky herbs that put her off. The paprika gave a nice redish tint.

Rub in the butter to make breadcrumbs. Gentle add tiny splashes of milk until you can knead it all together in a non sticky ball of dough. You can refridgerate the dough for half an hour to make the dough easier to shape... not me, you understand, i am too impatient - so i used lots of flour on my hands when rolling to avoid a sticky mess.

I pulled off a clump a bit bigger than a golf ball. On a floury surface with floury hands i rolled it into a long sausage and then folded it into the pretzel shape. THEN, at this moment, i wished i had greased and prepared my baking tray at the BEGINNING as i now have sticky hands and nowhere to put the pretzel shape (quick wash hands - grease my biscuits tray x2 - start again)

Then i have that dilemna i have every time.... it seems like such a waste of an egg to just crack one open for a glazed effect, but i think it's worth it - so i glazed the top of each pretzel with egg before popping them in the oven. I could have used milk, but then i made my daughter 'Eggy Bread' for lunch with the remaining egg, so i get extra points for thrifty cooking :)

Onto a tray and in the middle of the oven 180 / 350 / gas4 for about 18mins....

We looked at them and decided they looked a little bit like doggy poos sat there. But don't let that put you off, they taste great! But next time i might change the shape slightly, ya know?

Leave to cool on a wire rack to stop the pretzels overcooking on the hot tray.

They keep for about a week in an airtight tub but i have a few greedy bugs in my house and they lasted 2 days.... All good though, they aren't a bad thing to binge on.

Obviously the key things to this recipe are:

1. They are soooo quick to make.

2. You don't need any ingredients that a cookery loving adult wouldn't have in their cupboard.

3. They last for a week which is good.

4. You can change the flavours: Rosemary and Garlic? Cheese and Red Pesto?...

5. A great finger food for toddlers ... age appropriate thru teens to adults.

I do have a pretzel recipe that i much prefer BUT it involves yeast and rising and i tend to save that when i feel like crying, so i can bash the dough around and get rid of angst.... i'll save it for another time x

happy fooding :)

Love.... Roast Chicken!

Ah roast chicken! What does it mean to you?
Sundays at home, warmth, comfort, family....perfect left overs (MrB loves a buttie!)
This recipe is simply perfect! Lemons, thyme, garlic and melting butter! Just the ingredients make me smile!
Buy yourself a good chicken. Of course we all know this by now and most people I know would hide their baskets in shame if they were to buy a miserable, battery raised, skinny, anaemic looking bird. But I am all too aware that there is a lot of equally miserable, skinny, anaemic bank accounts out there! I do believe however that it is better to have slightly less meat and fill your plate with the delicious potatoes, that go with this dish and lots of veggies, than to eat something that will just leave your taste buds and conscience feeling cheated!
I bought this wee chicken, who was corn fed and free range and delicious, for only £4.88! My husband joked he looked more like a sparrow, when cooked, but what he lacked in size he made up for in flavour. We were all amply fed and I will use the carcass for soup today.  Two meals for under a fiver!

So children are being entertained, classic fm is on....happy chef, happy tummies!

Separate the skin from the breast of the chicken, by wiggling your fingers up through the neck skin, just pushing with your fingers (is it wrong that I actually enjoy this process??). Take a good couple of teaspoons of butter and push into the space you have made under the skin, flatten out, over the breast of the chicken. Next thinly slice your lemons and place as many as will cover the butter and fit in a single layer. Take three or four, stems of thyme and strip the leaves, push these under the skin. Next place, a small bunch of thyme, two or three peeled (but unchopped) garlic cloves and half a lemon (slightly squeezed) into the cavity. This is your chicken finished! Place this breast side down in a roasting tin.
Now for the most perfect potatoes! I used charlotte potatoes, the little waxy, new potatoey ones! I leave them unpeeled. Cut them into halves, bite size. Scatter them round the chicken. I use the whole bag, as I have a carbo fiend to feed, but you decide how many (just let it be re stated, they are amazing!!) Place blobs of butter all over the potatoes, using about 1tbs. Scatter four or five stems of thyme round the chicken and bury three peeled garlic cloves in the potatoes.

Finally pour about 400ml of water over the potatoes or as much to come half way up the potatoes.

Cook in a moderate, 180 oven for about an hour. The water helps cook your chicken quickly but keeps it moist.  Turn your chicken at this point and give it a further 2o minutes to crisp up the skin.

Remove the chicken and let it rest, covered with a clean tea towel.

In a saucepan, melt a tsp of butter. Remove from the heat, mix in a tsp of plain flour. Pour the juices from the roasting pan, into the saucepan, whisking as you go. Leave on a medium heat. This will make the gravy, the like you never get out of a tub! It is chickeny, garlicky, lemony.......blissfully yummy! While this is happening leave your potatoes in the now dry roasting tin to crisp up slightly.
There you have it, perfect potatoes, perfect chicken, perfect gravy!
Serve with greens, a glass of cheer and good company!

Lick your plate clean!
Hope for some left overs (fat chance in our house!)

x

The First of the Five Major Food Groups...

I feel it only proper to start my contribution to this food blog, by demonstrating the very first and very important of the five major food groups, essential for living... I couldn't possibly begin dinner tonight without Mummy's 'Little Helper' - the Gin bottle.
"Sloe Gin" yum yum - not even made by me, but my fantasy lover 'Gordon' (more about him at a later date).
Gin + Tonic + Garden Mint + Lemon + Lime + Ice = happy me :)

The Other 4 major food groups you ask?
- alcohol (as shown)
- chocolate (of course)
- cake (the food of gods)
- lemons (to prevent scurvy, obviously)
- and water (to prevent dying)

Cheers Darlinks x A toast to you all.
P.s. I do genuinely want a good recipe for SLOE GIN - anyone point me in the direction of a tried and tested method?