Category Archives: Seasonal eating

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Edible November – seasonal eating

So it’s November – or Movember if you’re into decorative face fuzz and raising money for good causes.

Things are a bit hectic at the moment. When I went away to find out what’s coming into its own, food wise, I found myself drawn to the simple, wholesome and hearty. It may be of interest to you to know that salsify, quince and winkles are currently in season. But the things coming out of my kitchen are a bit more rustic. I’ve opted to focus on potatoes, parsnips, horseradish and apples.

When I saw them all written down together, it occurred to me that they felt complementary in some way. So last week I decided to create a meal using all of them.

Parsnip and potato horseradish mash with a caramelised red onion and apple compote. Served with sausages because my philistine heart will choose a good banger over a sirloin any day of the week. And with peas. For colour. Because colour balance matters.

Roughly chopped potatoes and parsnips

Red onion and apple, to which I added a dash of sugar, about 1.5cm of water and a generous dash of a Culpepper's Apple pie spice mix

This was the result.

I wanted to use fresh grated horseradish in my mash. Not because I have strong chef-fy opinions about it, but because I’ve never prepared a fresh horseradish before and I really wanted to. But time limitations and a disappointing selection at the local Waitrose (interestingly I could have bought a quince…) meant it was creamed horseradish or nothing.

For another interesting combination to try, go to the National Trust website, where you’ll find a 1920s recipe for potato and apple pie.

I’ll leave you with this list, because it’s amazing: Worcester Pearmain, Egremont, Laxton’s Superb, Crimson Queening, Beauty of Bath, Peasgood’s Nonesuch, Braddock’s Nonpareil, Yorkshire Goosesauce, Ashmead’s Kernel.

Just the tiniest selection of apple varieties produced by specialist growers in the UK. Why would you choose a Granny Smith with that lot on offer??

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Edible October: seasonal eating

I completely failed to get a seasonal eating post up for September and I’m determined not to let October go the same way. Personally, I blame the unseasonably warm weather which, unlike the many die-hard summer devotees lighting up twitter and facebook with their gleeful enthusiasm, made me go all reverse-grinchy, cheated out of at least a week of my beloved autumn.

So what’s good in October? Lots of things. But a few of my favourites are explored below.

I’ll start with pumpkins and butternut squash because it’s Halloween this month and it seems wrong not to mention them. Butternut squash is an all-time favourite and one of the best ways to go is the simplest. Peel it, chop it into rough chunks, garnish with a sprinkling of sea salt, plenty of chilli flakes and a generous glug of good quality olive oil. Then roast it at 180 degrees for 30-45 minutes depending on the size of your chunks. It goes brilliantly with sticky sausages (for a great recipe have a look here, at the excellent Love Food Hate Waste. And note it doesn’t have to be cocktail sausages…!) and some steamed peas or petit pois.

Alternatively, throw some quartered white onions into the mix, roast for about 30 minutes (you don’t want it to colour too much) then whip it out, blend the veg with some fresh chilli (deseeded and chopped finely) and a good slug of coconut milk for a rich, creamy soup with a nice, warming bite.

I’m less familiar with pumpkin and a bit less keen on its stringier quality but in honour of a fellow blogger whose words are funny, moving and inspirational in equal measure, I strongly recommend you check out The Great Balancing Act for a bit of inspiration on how to cook it. The good people across the pond (and by that I mean Americans and Canadians) are just better with pumpkin.

Image courtesy of freefoto.com

At this time of year we’re also reminded of the special and enduring love between the blackberry and the apple – like one of those heart-warming 50 year marriages where the couple still hold hands in the street.

You can go down the stewing route and create a lovely tangy sauce to serve with ice cream, over breakfast pancakes or perhaps roast pork with crackling. Generally speaking, to stew them you need to cook them very slowly over a low heat with a bit of water and varying quantities of sugar. If you’re using sweet apples, you can get away with less. For cooking apples, you probably want to add a bit more. You can’t go too far wrong if you taste regularly, and remember to add the blackberries about halfway through the cooking time as they won’t need as long.

You can also go down the ‘oldie-but-goodie’ crumble route and bake your fruit with a crunchy topping. For the classic approach, try Delia’s recipe – billed as her ‘best ever’ crumble… To make it a bit less traditional, you might like to try adding a spicy dusting of ginger, cinnamon or a teaspoon of lemon zest to your crumble, or perhaps playing with the texture by adding rolled oats, ground almonds or finely chopped hazelnuts.

Image courtesy of freefoto.com

Happy eating!

 

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Edible July – seasonal eating

July is a very fruity month for seasonal foodies with most of the good, fresh stuff being berries of one sort or another. Berries are the perfect summer food because they’re so easy to eat, require minimum preparation and could even be the focus of a sunny day out if you opt for a visit to a PYO farm. So it’s a bit of a shame that I’m a bit picky about my berries! Strawberries and cherries (both at their best in the summer months) are fine; blueberries and raspberries (both equally in season) are more challenging. I’m not sure why the pickiness, although it might be a texture thing. I’m not a fan of seedy bits – the sort that get stuck in your teeth. And, while I love the face-scrunching acidity of citrus fruits, tart berries are a much sharper and less pleasant experience.

So my challenge for the month was to find alternative ways of eating berries so that I can make more of this sunshiney bounty.

Strawberries are easy because they need very little work. There’s much that can be done to them but they are usually at their best with just a scattering of sugar and a teensy pot of single cream for dipping on the side. If you wanted to be a bit more adventurous, you can try a tip passed to me by a friend and use balsamic vinegar. Here’s a recipe by Skye Gingell which is very simple to follow. There’s also no reason why you couldn’t slightly warm the mashed/sliced strawberries and the balsamic vinegar before serving, particularly if you’re going to follow Skye’s advice and add some ice cream on the side: the warmth really brings out the flavour of the strawberries. If you wanted something much more ‘out there’, try creating a savoury salad of sliced strawberries, mixed salad leaves (spinach is a good option), balsamic vinegar, olive oil, lemon juice and a twist of black pepper. Jamie Oliver also recommends serving with grilled halloumi cheese.

If you’re not eating them by the handful straight off the stalk at a picnic, cherries work really well with chocolate. Diana Henry describes this recipe as ‘Wicked, wicked, wicked (even a little naff), but oh so good!’ Which is just the best way of convincing anyone to eat anything, as far as I can see. Or for something a bit simpler (or only slightly more complicated than eating them off the stalk), and minus the chocolate, try this recipe for cherries in rose wine.

Blueberries are much harder. Possibly thanks to Roald Dahl and Violet Beauregarde (she of the three-course-meal chewing gum and the unfortunate swelling), I am suspicious of the blueberry. By scattering them over cereal or porridge you can add a hit of vitamins and antioxidants to your breakfast. But I’m realistically unlikely to do that any time soon. One place where a blueberry is not an unwelcome addition however, is a muffin. And this Nigella recipe claims to be the best. It’s smoke and mirrors, but a blueberry muffin just feels less unhealthy than a double chocolate choc-chip with a helping of chocolate muffin. I’m also drawn to this recipe for blueberry, lime and coconut ice cream from Good Food, which could just be the mini-heatwave we’re having today but could also be the happy tropical flavours and the hint of far eastern holidays.

Raspberries are very perishable and have a tendency to get mushy, which can be unpleasant on the palate. One good tip I picked up on the BBC Good Food website is to remove them from the packaging when you get them home and arrange them in one generously-spaced layer on a piece of kitchen roll on a plate. They’re very fragile and if they’re not squishing each other, will keep for a bit longer without mushing at the edges. Although you can’t really freeze fresh raspberries, you can turn a glut of them into a simple coulis, which can then be frozen and served with desserts or ice cream as required. Tongue-in-cheek website notdelia.co.uk has this simple recipe for a really simple coulis from Leith’s Cookery Bible. Alternatively, many people recommend using raspberries to flavour vinegar. Simply clean and mash your raspberries, then add them to some white wine vinegar and leave to infuse for at least 5 days. The raspberries will turn the vinegar a vibrant red (which makes it a fun, home-made gift option) and the flavour is perfect when combined with a fresh goat’s cheese salad.

Photo courtesy of FreeFoto.com

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Edible June – seasonal eating for early summer

“Hello June!” and “Oh my god where exactly did January-May go and why isn’t it still March where my head is?”. Sadly I haven’t conquered time. So to console myself over the terrifying time rollercoaster I appear to be sat on – with no emergency exit – I’m going to eat some seasonal treats. And here’s what I’m going to be eating.

Garlic:

Garlic gets chucked in almost everything that comes out of my kitchen, so I don’t honestly think of it as a seasonal treat. But at this time of the year, it’s nice to make a feature of the garlic rather than using it as a behind-the-scenes techie, propping up the other ingredients.

The simplest way to do so is to get a few big bulbs, turn them on their side and cut off the pointy end. You want to cut no more than a third off so that the cloves inside are exposed. Don’t remove the papery outer skin. Don’t do anything else. Just pop the decapitated bulbs on some tin foil on a baking tray, drizzle the tops with olive oil and a tiny bit of sea salt, loosely seal the foil to form little parcels and roast at about 190 degrees for about 45 mins. Roasting garlic softens the flavour so it’s smooth, almost sweet and, crucially, much less pungent. Once the bulbs are done, you can squeeze out the garlic pulp and spread it on crusty bread. Makes a fun starter if you’ve got people round.

Roasted garlic is also amazing with chicken. Scatter unpeeled cloves around a roasting chicken and when the chicken is done, you’ll have a ready-made condiment on the side.

Fresh peas (popped out of the pod):

Again, peas live in the supermarket freezer cabinet all year round and they taste just as nice. But at this time of year you can start getting them in the pod. I love to pop peas out of the pod because of the smell and the childhood association with my aunt and uncle’s allotment. And also because I can pretend I picked them myself out of my very own walled kitchen garden… Plus you get peas that are different sizes which, in these homogeneous times, is actually more attractive when served in a big bowl with a sprig of mint on top.

Peas are happy in risottos and frittatas.

This is also a classic, courtesy of BBC Good Food: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3671/peas-and-spring-cabbage-with-pancetta

This sounds really tasty, particularly if you want a bit more spice: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/461642/keema-with-peas

Broad beans (again, out of pod is best):

More fun with pods. Although broad beans have never been my all-time favourite, I find them a bit compulsive when eaten straight from the pod. A bit like the way some people react to pretzels….”I don’t know if I like them, so I’ll just eat 15 more to make sure…”.

Jamie Oliver comes up trumps on the humble broad bean, and two of the recipes below also include peas!

http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/fish-recipes/chargrilled-tuna-with-oregano-oil-be

http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/bread-recipes/incredible-smashed-peas-broad-beans (this sounds so tasty but is also worryingly reminiscent of the first ‘sandwich’ I was ever fed, at about a year old. Mashed peas and carrots. In bread. Mmmmm.)

http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/vegetarian-recipes/spicy-broad-bean-fritters-with-lemon-min

Beetroot:

Beetroot gets a bad rep because the supermarket pickled versions often taste mostly of vinegar and very little of beetroot. You can use fresh beetroot in salads by grating it or slicing it very finely. Or you can roast it, which is amAZing. Add a drizzle of honey and a splash of orange juice to bring out the sweetness. It’s also fun to make beetroot crisps (see a link to Riverford’s recipe below) or you can buy ready made vegetable crisps and pick out the beetroot ones because they are easily the best bit. Not that I do this…

http://www.riverford.co.uk/recipes/recipes/by:category/quick_ideas/baked-beetroot-crisps/?PHPSESSID=7a12ae86-baba37bd-7a12af86-baba37bd-00000002-hdv3sgbm9meo9t6l3en9uqoge5

Elderflower:

Elderflower is often paired with gooseberries (also in season) but I have a deep-rooted suspicion of the gooseberry and just can’t bring myself to eat it. It’s sour and hairy. How is this good?

I found this on the BBC Good Food site though, and will definitely be trying it. Elderflower and cucumber; no gooseberries in sight.

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/681662/cucumber-and-elderflower-spritzer

Image courtesy of freefoto.com

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Introducing seasonal eating – and what’s good in May

For me, the perks of seasonal eating can be summed up best using the strawberry. These days, thanks to global trade, modern shipping, refrigeration and farming methods, we can have strawberries whenever we want. They might well have been raised in an artificial environment such as a climate-controlled greenhouse, ’ripened’ without sunlight and have travelled further than most people on the average summer holiday, but we can get them.

The question is whether it’s worth it.

When strawberry season officially starts, I actually find it really exciting. They’re the trumpet fanfare heralding the arrival of  summer and call to mind all kinds of sunshiney associations (personally, I get the smell of sun lotion, the sparkliness of sunlight on blue water, the feel of bare feet on grass and [slightly unoriginally] the thock of balls on rackets at Wimbledon).

Buy strawberries in winter and you don’t get any of that. They’re just another one of your five a day, and probably insipid and watery in a way that they never are in the summer months. It’s great to have so much choice but I actually quite enjoy looking forward to things too. Asparagus in springtime, picking summer strawberries at my nearest PYO farm, apple and blackberry pie as the nights draw in and mornings start to get misty and cool again.

It’s a fact that seasonal food tastes better. It’s just fresher. It’s also more environmentally-friendly; buying seasonally and locally supports UK farmers and helps to cut down on the polluting food miles racked up in air and sea freight. But I think I love it most for the way it makes me feel more in harmony with the seasons (more so than debating when we can turn off the heating anyway), more in touch with my environment and more engaged with the way that I eat.

So what’s good for May?

Veg-wise, in May we finally get asparagus, as well as rocket and radishes. Possibly some early broad beans, beetroot and peas too.

Get in quick with the asparagus – you’ve got about six weeks before the season ends. Most people, myself included, reckon it’s probably best (and certainly easiest and most attractive – helpful if you’re cooking for others!) when it’s done simply. Just blanch in boiling water or grill and serve with a herb butter or vinaigrette. Jamie Oliver’s book ‘Jamie at Home’ contains recipes for grilled asparagus with olive oil, lemon and parmesan as well as white asparagus with smashed mint and lemon butter. He also recommends dipping them in soft-boiled eggs in his book ‘Jamie at Home’ which I haven’t tried, but totally would.

I love rocket for the exact same reason that The Man With The Camera loathes it – its peppery kick. Whether you’re adding it to sandwiches or salads, it gives it a bit of edge. You can also make a great pesto out of it by following the traditional basil-based recipe and just substituting rocket for the basil.

I regularly use the BBC Good Food Guide online for recipe inspiration. Helpfully you can search by ingredient (making it just as useful for creating miracles out of odd-couple store cupboard leftovers) and there’s a seasonal eating tab on the main menu: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/

I also subscribe to email updates from http://www.eattheseasons.co.uk/ - good for weekly reminders and inspirational links and how tos.

Happy eating!