Always Autumn

I Bought A Book: Vegan Pie In The Sky

2012-01-24T13:05:00.000Z

It's taken me a long time to get this one which is both a shock (must have new books day come out!) and a shame. I don't think there can be anything I can say to recommend this book more than the names Isa Chadra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero sitting on the front cover already do. I do though. I do recommend this book. Wholeheartedly.

The first section gives us the basics on pie. Your essential ingredients, the bits and bobs you need to cook one, how to get the perfect crust. There isn't really a sweet pie culture in the UK (aside from apple, generally looking sad in school dinners) and when I was growing up the distinction between type of pies was 'tater and meat' or 'meat and tater'. I really needed the primer.

Then the recipes going above and beyond the delectable fruit pies (I'm going to buy so many berries this summer!) Into the realm of cheese cakes (not a tub of toffuti in sight!), moose and pudding pies, tarts and toppings. Need to cook so much out of this one. Still you have to start somewhere and my rough looking rookie pies came from the fruit section.

Turns out it's easier to weave a fence then a pie

I made a half sized She's My Cherry Pie for Stephen's parents. I re-purposed a casserole dish to cook it in, still looking for cute British pie plates but this is the best I could find in twenty minutes in Torquay on a Saturday. I loved making it and, through my mother's eyes, looks lovely but I didn't eat it so I can't tell you about the taste.

Bleeding Heart

I did get to try these yummy Strawberry Filled Hand Pies before shipping them off to Stephen's work. They where delicious, if a little messy round the edges.

I've been super happy with everything I've made from Vegan Pie: In the Sky so far and I can't wait to get back in the kitchen.

Home Made Hair Gunk

2012-01-17T17:30:00.000Z

Our trip ever so slightly east last week involved plenty of swimming. At least messing about in a swimming pool which is really my favourite part of swimming. And unlike my dip in the healing pool at Chalice Well this was a fully heated, chlorinated and sometimes indoor experience. The chlorine cleared up some of my more annoying patches of eczema but it really did a number on my hair, reducing it to something with the strength and flexibility of uncooked spaghetti.

Infusing my fresh, home grown herbs

I came across a recipe for Enriching Hair Treatment Gel in Grow Your Own Drugs: A Year With James Wong which is intriguingly based on xanthan gum. I thought I'd give it a go and document the process for your (although, honestly, mostly for my own) amusement. It was fun to whip up the gel and I let it soak in while reading The Complete Claudine in the bath. It felt exactly how it looked, especially when still warm, so that was slightly disconcerting but as my hair is now pleasantly moisturised I'm not complaining.

Process pictures, including me in a charming shower cap, after the jump.

Herbal infusion with the addition of Xanthan Gum, not terribly appetising

Herbal infusion whipped up with Xanthan Gum, possibly less appetising

Dignified, as always, I wait for it to soak in

Garden Visit: Chalice Well

2012-01-16T12:48:00.001Z

I've wanted to visit The Chalice Well in Glastonbury since I was a baby pagan. I'm not going to pretend I was the only 14 year old planning a visit to Glastonburyno,notthefestivle but, let's face it, we are few and far between. Anyway, like many trips I planned as a 14 year old it didn't happen. But last week we where driving slightly east and passed The Well. I did a bit of googleing to check that it was open in winter and seeing that it was I begged that we stop on the way back.

The Vesica Pool in the Chalice Well gardens

I turned the phone off, and we paid our entrance fee and walked into the garden. I was struck by the peace of the place and we walked through, talking quietly weaving our way to the well. There where some gorgeous plants on display. Some unseasonal crocuses where pushing through the paving and slightly more seasonal (but not by much) snowdrops where bowing their heads in clusters under bear trees. We loved these little purple berries (ID anyone?) we saw as we walked up to the meadow.

Stunning winter colour

Then we came to the well with it's stunning cover. A very tame robin preened itself on a tree behind us looking adorable and distracting us from the water. The wrought iron Vesica Picsis is just gorgeous though. And the wood behind has a stunning colour in the January light.

The Well Head

To collect our water we walked on down to the Lion's Head. We drank the water, it had a strong, but not unpleasant, mineral taste and, of course, a strong iron taste to it. We took a bottle of the water home (Chalice Well sells bottles for you to fill) although I haven't yet decided how to use it.

The shock of bathing in healing waters in january

On our way back out to the Vesica Pool we found the healing pool and never being one to say no to getting wet I decided to walk in. In January. It wasn't unpleasantly cold actually. I bathed my feet in the water, which felt lovely. We walked to the Vesica pool, looked round the shop and I said a quick thanks before heading back out to the car.

Camomile and Oat Bath Soak

2012-01-08T21:33:00.001Z

Generally the advice for eczema is to minimise baths and showers. I do find though that eventually build up from all my potions and lotions is just as irritating to my skin as being dried out in a shower.

One solution is a bath filled with things that are kind and gentle and soft on your skin so you get moisturised while washing off the built up gunk.

I've been tinkering with a couple of recipes, throwing together bits from two places in particular. I've melded this from recipes in A Year of Grow Your Own Drugs and The Ultimate Natural Beauty Book.

The camomile is great for sensitive skin and oats are a brilliant emollient. The bicarbonate of soda softens the water making it lovely and silky.

All it is:
4 tablespoons dried camomile
8 tablespoons oats
3 tablespoons salt
2 tablespoon bicarbonate of soda

I like to make this in a coffee grinder, mixing everything together. A blender or mortar and pestle also work. After it's good and mixed I store it in a clean jam jar tossing it into the bath three or four tablespoons or so at a time.

Just Keep Eating

2012-01-03T21:44:00.001Z

There is something about New Years that makes me want to hide away. Staying up all night, making resolutions and pressuring yourself about them.

I'm not a fan.

Especially when it comes to dieting. I don't hold with dieting at the best of time. I don't think it works for most people and I find the rhetoric of the diet world troubling and... dangerous in some respects.

And that is why I want to hide at this time of year. Normally sane people who I love and admire are talking with these hateful words. They are talking about how much they hate themselves (and I know, not about me, but that shit is contagious) and their bodies and I don't want to listen anymore.

Dignified silence isn't my specially so forgive the rant. I just want to beg people to stop with this madness. Sure eat food that makes you feel good. Eat vegetables, juice like crazy. But not to loose weight. Please. It's an uphill battle that you probably aren't going to win. And that's fine because just the way you are is right by me.

I say you but I'm addressing myself here because I need the reminder too. I need the reminder a lot at the moment actually.

What gets to me even more is the demonisation of food. In the last couple of days I've read (and I'm not naming names because these are people I love and respect) that food is addictive. That we must fight against our craving for it. That hunger is a good sign. That feeling faint is a good sign, means you are detoxing.

In my book it means you need to eat something and ignoring those feelings of nausea or feeling faint is the opposite of a healthy start to the new year. Please don't do that to yourself.

Revealing the Nibble List

2012-01-01T22:15:00.003Z

This summer I swore, curse, ripped out my hair and refused to look on the balcony for days on end. Even my fuss free crops failed me. My chives barley stayed alive this year. My fennel, usually still growing strong, ruthlessly wilted and died back in June. My mint, for God's sake my mint, refused to do grow much at all. The kiwi that I begged for didn't take to it's new home at all and died after a few weeks.

Happy New Year... just let me finish bitching about last year first

This year I was the suckiest gardener that ever sucked. My plants must have thought I was death only with secateurs insted of a scythe.

The weather didn't help. A dry early season when I needed at least a few days of rain to establish my crops and a wet autumn when I needed to harvest what wouldn't keep and sow for over winter without things rotting off. I never did get chance too, although I bet we would have had bumper winter crops with the mild weather.

I was so disheartened by the fate of my plants that I didn't get to fulfil my garden goals of finding a water storage solution and figuring out a way of composting that works with such a small space. Still there is always next year and despite the hardships I managed to harvest a few things.

I kept a nibble list attached to my fridge to record what I did harvest. My yields where down and the size of my fruits was pathetically small (hot weather, again!) but I did manage

Three carrots from my overwintered carrots, my spring and summer sowing didn't take.
Six radish, surprising as usually I can't grow them at all
Five big salads worth of home-grown lettuce
Fifteen salad garnishes on sandwiches and burgers
One lot of mustard and chard for a stir-fry. My chard was severely, severely, stunted by the heat
Four handfulls of Spinach
100g of blackcurrants
875g potatoes. Happy days!
Ten handfuls of tomatoes, many small fruits continuing late into autumn.

So it wasn't all bad and, of course, there is always next year. My daffodils are trying to make and appearance already.

Lavender and cursing

2011-12-20T12:47:00.002Z

I'm going to blog today about my to favourite cushions. The first one is very sensible but the second one is features a pattern from the Subversive Cross Stitch so if you aren't a fan of swearing I'll put that after the jump. Let's start on the sensible though.

Nap Time

So what about the sensible one? This is a cushion to help me sleep. Since about June and all though my appendix problem, vegan mofo and most of November my sleep was almost none-existent. So I had to do something serious. I do not cope remotely well without sleep. I had no energy, my scheduling became more about when can I make time for naps rather than when can I make time to work on things. I tried the usual stuff: exhausting my body, not napping through the day so I was tired at night, keeping to a routine. I was still up half the night.

I decided to bring out the big guns. following the recipe in Grow Your Own Drugs I made up a mix of lavender and hops and stuffed it in this hand stitched pillow. I also appliquéd and embroidered on the top of it for a bit of extra magic. So far I've slept soundly every night it's been under my pillow.

Seriously though, Happy Holidays

The second cushion is constructed much in the same way only with a more traditional filling and a less traditional front piece. It's re-coloured from Subversive Cross Stitch and I Stitched it onto even-weave because I like the more even look. It might be my favourite decoration.

Devonmade Christmas Market, Sunday 11th December 12pm to 5pm

2011-12-07T11:18:00.001Z

It's that time of year where I'm mucking about in the kitchen, with my herbs and potions and with my needle but I can't exactly post about them without giving away any surprises.

We're also preparing for the Christmas Market at Oldway Mansion next Sunday. Stephen will be selling fudge and I'll be selling cute accessories made from vintage and leftover fabrics like these hair clips made from a vintage Laura Ashley floral.

Stop by if you can, it was a great event last year and there was lots of lovely things to buy and eat. Devonmade Christmas Market.

Preserves Course Love

2011-11-16T12:25:00.001Z

I can't really remember what a weekend is, my last two have been packed with fabulous, tiring and incredibly rewarding volunteering. This Sunday I helped at the preserves course over at Occombe farm. This was my second year (last years blog is here) helping at the preserves course and I absolutely love it. My thoughts are over on the Occombe Blog if you want to check it out.

All Because Someone Mentioned Orzo

2011-11-10T15:48:00.000Z

Twice now orzo has been mentioned by two different people in two different circumstances and so I think I was meant to eat this.

Orzo. First this recipe for Tempeh Orzilla pops up on the PPK blog then I have the 'it's a pasta that looks like rice' conversation with Stephen in the Supermarket. So home it came. Like I said, I was meant to eat this. However getting hold of Tempeh isn't as easy. It's an hours bus journey before I can get the good stuff and with my weekends once again booked solid it's going to be weeks before I can manage that.

So is it a pasta or is it a rice?

What I do have are some ripe tomatoes, a leftover bag of parsley some olive oil and some garlic. Combined with the orzo this makes a lovely, lovely dish. The pasta is pure comfort while the tomatoes and parsleygive it a lift. Not to far though, it's almost winter after all.

Orzo with Tomato and Parsley
(serves 1)

4 medium tomatoes, seeds removed and diced
1 heaped tablespoon of parsley
1 finely chopped clove of garlic
2 tablespoons of olive oil
About 100g of orzo

1. Start cooking the orzo according to the package directions.

2. Heat the oil in a saucepan to a medium heat and add the garlic, cook for a minute or so

3. Add the tomatoes and cook. I like mine cooked until water is well and truly released and the skin is softened. That took about four minutes. But go with what you like best.

4. Reduce the heat to low and stir in the parsley. Cook for a minute and turn of the heat. Stir through again and season to taste.

5. When the pasta is done drain it off and mix it up with your tomato and parsley.

6. Eat!

The Last Day of Mofo is Rather Spooky

2011-10-31T21:48:00.002Z

Another Mofo over. I want to do a round up post when all the dust settles. And clean my flat. I haven't done that in a while. I'm getting ahead of myself. There is still one night left. And it's a spooky one.

Care to convert?

One of our young leaders arranged a Halloween party for the Guides. As with most nights at our Guide unit we had two rules: bring food, and dress up. I'm a bit evangelical about pumpkin. We don't eat enough of it in Britain so I thought I'd give my Guides a chance to sample the awesome Pumpkin Pie Brownies from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar I made them mini by baking them in a tart tray for half the time. I thought they taste great but my unit is still a little pumpkin sceptic.

I don't know what shocked them more, being mummified or being eaten

The second spooky treat was made specially for our vegetarian girl. I didn't want her to be left out at feeding time. I didn't want to be left our either. So I made these Mummy Dogs, inspired from here but using the Pups In Blankets recipe from Vegan Lunchbox to make a fabulous veggie treat. My veggie Guide was happy with them and even more happy that I'd gone to the effort, she was worried there wouldn't be anything for her to eat. Not in my unit!

Tigers go 'ner-ner'

And did I mention they made us dress up?

Sheesy Pizza

2011-10-30T19:33:00.001Z

A couple of weeks ago I won the Sheese give away on the Mofo Blog and yesterday my Shieese arrived. One block of cheddar, one block of red cheddar, one block of smoked cheddar and some melting mozzarella. I knew I had to make pizza as soon as possible. Last night I was volunteering at a pumpkin carving which was brilliant fun but hardly gave me time to eat never mind make pizza dough. Today I had the afternoon free for pizza making.

A Sheesy Gift

The first ting I noticed when it was time to sheese up my pizza was the smell. The smell is spot on. Stephen tried a bit of the uncooked taste and said the taste was good too. When it came out of the oven it still tasted fab. The texture is a little doughy but the taste is great. It was only great for three quarters of my pizza though. After that it started to get sickly. Sheese mozzarella? Incredibly good, in moderation.

Melted: with TVP pepperoni

Free Friday: Nasturtium Jellies (Again)

2011-10-28T19:57:00.000+01:00

I only grown red nasturtiums but last year I made jelly with mixed colours from Occombe farm and the jelly turned out a little lighter. After writing up the recipe last week I decided to try and get my hands on nasturtiums in three different colours to see how the finished jelly was different.

Not quite the rainbow I was looking for

Turns out not as different as I was expecting. I started with a pile of yellow, a pile of orange and a pile of red flowers. I worked on the yellow ones first as I was expecting more of a difference. And as the colour seeped into the water it was quite different. As I strained the petals it was still different. But what I wasn't expecting at all is the effect the rice vinegar has. Excitingly it makes the mixture red. The yellow evened out into orange, the orange into a orange-red and the red, well the red stayed red. They all look stunning though.

Food Friends: Free-form Chocolates To Make With Little Hands

2011-10-27T20:29:00.001+01:00

As I've written about sharing food knowledge this mofo I though I'd also throw in a recipe idea for things to make in the kitchen. These super fun and super cute free-form chocolates are great to make with kids. Or just as a late night snack.

I've made simple circles with Brownies (7-10) and they found it easy to do as long as someone else melted the chocolate. Older kids I've done different shapes with although given enough time and a reminder that perfection is the enemy of good I'm sure younger children would enjoy simple shapes too.

What you need is a bar of chocolate. I've used dark here because it's the easiest vegan chocolate to buy but I've also done it with vegan milk chocolate. You could add a touch of black food colouring to make it more festive. White is a little more difficult to work with, it is much easier to overheat, but it would make lovely little ghosts if you feel up for it.

You might also want some decorations. Sprinkles to stick on top of plain circles, nut or even strawberry laces to work as spider's legs. But what really makes this project is a good baking parchment. You don't want anything at risk of sticking, you may want to test some first. I've seen it done on cellophane but that's not really for me.

1. If you are making shaped chocolates draw a template onto your baking parchment.

For once my bad drawings pay off, you want rough, fairly chunky shapes

2. In a small glass or ceramic bowl over a pan boiling water, melt your chocolate (cleaning hint: the boiling water can later be tipped into the bowl for easy cleaning)

3. Once the chocolate is melted hand it over to your little person.

Fill in with a teaspoon...

4. Have them drip it onto the chocolate. If they are making patterns use a teaspoon to fill in the large areas and use a toothpick or a skewer to fill in the detail.

Use a skewer for detail...

5. Decorate the chocolates before they set. Use your imagination and go nuts.

Sprinkle some sprinkles

6. Leave to set and then... stuff your face.

Food Issue: Choosing Fairtrade

2011-10-25T20:39:00.001+01:00

Almost 50 million people in the world depend on chocolate... no not like that. They depend on the cocoa crop for their income. And yes, we may think that we depend on chocolate. It certainly keeps me perky but it's important to remember that only 6% of the price we pay, in as consumers in well off countries, goes to growers.

Another problem with cocoa production is child labour. If you are aged between 5 and 17 and you live in a cocoa producing region there is a one in four chance that you are working with cocoa. There seems to be a bit of a disconnect when talking about child labour. We think it is bad and so our immediate reaction is to say ban it. Stop it. I won't buy any chocolate produced with child labour. But it's not like people send their children out to work for no reason. Kids end up working because the family can not be supported with the parent's income or there are no parents in the picture and no other support network. Child labour is a problem of poverty. It's no good ending child labour without supporting the community.

Fairtrade chocolate is our way of supporting cocoa growers and their communities and we especially love Divine chocolate. 45% of Divine is owned by a farmer's co-op and their chocolate is brilliant and delicious. All of their products are suitable for vegetarians and

70% Dark Chocolate, 70% Mint Dark Chocolate, 70% Dark Chocolate Hearts, 70% Dark Chocolate Advent Calendar, 70% Dark Chocolate Mini Eggs, 70% Dark Chocolate Easter Egg, After Dinner Mints and Divine Delights are possible choices for vegans, though we cannot guarantee these products are totally milk-free as milk is used elsewhere in the factory.

Sorry, what? Mint Dark Chocolate. I haven't tried this one before! And as it's vegan mofo, and as it's vegan chocolate, and as they sell it in my local Oxfam shop I'm going to have to try it. Stephen and I shared the entire bar after our tea and I loved it to bits although Stephen found the after taste a bit bitter. I didn't think it was too bitter, but then I often find things too sweet.

I love eating divine chocolate but it isn't just about enjoying eating it, I also get to enjoy paying for it. And that isn't something I say everyday.

All figures, percentages and facts from the first two paragraphs were taken from this Fairtrade foundation report (PDF)

Local Loves: Bonfire Foods and Plenty of Parkin

2011-10-24T17:21:00.000+01:00

November 5th is bonfire night. A night when British people celebrate... well bonfires or fireworks. At some point Guy Fawkes managed to attach himself to it but really it was always more about the fire.

Where I'm from, a town called Heywood in north Manchester, bonfire night has plenty of special rituals attached. At least when I was a kid and such things happened by magic. There would be a big local firework display complete with fairground and bonfire and we'd sometimes get together with my cousin Mikey and his family for a few fireworks round and their place or we'd go to the cricket club to see their small display.

Food too is important. No firework display would be complete without black peas, a very local dish of dried peas soaked and boiled into a mush and served with salt and vinegar. Admittedly it's never been one of my favourites but the adults in my family savoured every mouthful. You could make them yourself, I remember my Mum's big batches, or buy them. Newsagents that didn't normally sell food would stay open late to take advantage of the foot traffic coming back form the bonfire selling small cup fulls. Almost everywhere that sold sandwiches and pies for lunch would add black peas to the menu for a couple of autumnal weeks.

Of course being a kid a cup of black peas didn't much appeal to me. My favourite bonfire treat was, and is, treacle toffee. It's a hard toffee flavoured with treacle. It has a rich, dark, heady taste. I guess it's an acquired taste, I've tried to get some Southern men of my acquaintance to try it and they wince and decline. I think it's brilliant.

For the bonfire in your belly

The taste of treacle toffee watered down, mixed with cake and ginger for the fabulous Yorkshire Parkin. So when I tried it for the first time it was a revelation. Rich, dense and beautiful. It keeps fabulously, indeed it's better aged when the flavours mellow and sink into each other. It's a dense, beautiful warming cake perfect for autumn. And if you make one this week you can have it ready for 5th. If you can wait that long.

I don't have a family Parkin like I don't have a family Yorkshire Pudding. I'm not from Yorkshire. I'm an admirer of Yorkshire food, and I lived there for three years but my family is from the other side of the Pennines. I'm not sure why it is that people think I know all of Yorkshire's secrets, although I expect it is the same phenomenon that makes people think to Norwich is in The North, but I don't. So instead I've had to tinker with the recipe from Cakes, something I've been working on since February, taking a break for summer.

Parkin

6 tablespoons of vegetable oil
100g golden syrup
100g treacle
75ml of non-dairy milk
125g of light brown sugar

225g plain flour
125g oats
2 tablespoons of cornflour
3 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
a pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 180C and line a square baking tin.

In a saucepan heat the oil, golden syrup, treacle, milk and sugar. Do this very gently, on a low heat, stirring fairly often until the mixture comes together, looking wonderfully glossy.

While that is happening mix the dry ingredients together.

Once the stuff in the saucepan in ready pour it into the dry ingredients and mix until well combined.

Pour into your prepared tin, spreading evenly. Cover the tin with kitchen foil and bake for 35 minutes.

Remove the foil and return to the oven for 20 minutes, or until a skewer pushed in the middle comes out clean.

Cool in the tin and store in an airtight container.

Iron Chef Challenge: Courgette in Coconut Sauce

2011-10-23T17:04:00.003+01:00

With the secret ingredient of coconut I knew this Iron Chef Challenge was going to have to be Indian inspired. This is a curry sauce that I've been tinkering with to make it vegan, lighter and easier to make from the store cupboard. It is adapted from Coconut Fish Dream in Cooking Like Mummyji

There is a lot to be said about a basic curry sauce that you can chuck with all sorts of veg to make a quick, seasonal and satisfying meals. This is one for your arsenal. Luxurious yet light with just the right amount of spice. Today I've put courgette with it because that is what is in my fridge.

Saucy

Courgette in Coconut Sauce
(serves 2)

1 medium courgette thinly sliced into disks.
1 tablespoon of ground nut oil (plus more as needed for frying the courgette)
1/2 teaspoon of cumin seeds
1 small onion, diced
1/2 cup canned chopped tomatoes
1/2 teaspoon red chilli powder
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
1/4 teaspoon gram masala
1/2 cup coconut cream
tablespoon of chopped coriander

1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan and add the cumin. When they have started to smell brilliantly and sizzle a bit throw in the onion. Fry until translucent

2. Now add the tomatoes, chilli powder, turmeric and a pinch of salt. Cook on a medium heat until the oil separates, making everything look shiny. 3-4 minutes

3. Add the garam masala and the coconut cream. Stir until everything is good and mixed together. Cook for another couple of minutes and taste for seasoning.

4. At this point I removed mine for the heat and blended mine for a smooth sauce. If you don't want a smooth sauce don't bother blending, just take it off the heat.

5. Cook your vegetables. I fried the courgette in oil for around 2-3 minutes until it was starting to brown.

6. Add your vegetables into the curry sauce and cook together for about 5 minutes or until the sauce is heated through. Stir through the coriander.

7. Eat! I served mine over white basmati rice.

In which I convince myself that stew is fabulous

2011-10-22T20:16:00.003+01:00

It's been a busy week: I've been getting over the annual mofo illness, making all sorts of preserves, spending massive amounts of time baking with frustratingly wet dough. I've taken Guides down a cave, I got them all back out, then I did the same with my Brownies. Now I'm tired.

And I need something comforting, something tasty, wholesome and simple.

Worth arguing for

Tastebuds: Ohhh you know what? We should eat stew.
Rational Brain: We don't like stew.
Tastebuds: just think of it like a curry without the spiciness of it all or a chilli without beans.
Rational Brain: Or a soup with bits. Look, we don't like stew.
Tastebuds: I promise this time will be different.
Rational Brain: Okay then but you better make this good.
Tastebuds: Well let's think of what we've got.
Rational Brain: Why do I have to do all the hard work? Okay, you insisted on us buying some cavelero nero yesterday, and tempeh last week. Which you still haven't ate, by the way.
Tastebuds: Smoked paprika, we still have some of that.
Rational Brain: Yeah, you've only managed to eat quarter of a jar in a month you obsessive freak. So what is the plan then?
Tastebuds: Smoky Tempeh and Green Stew from Appetite for Reduction

Stephen: I can't believe you just spent half of a blog entry talking to yourself.
Clare: Who cares? The Stew was incredible.

Free Friday: Coffee Morning, Coffee Muffins

2011-10-21T20:28:00.001+01:00

I'm getting that itch. That itch that every Guide leader gets when she has been too long without a camp. And why has it been so long since we went camping? Well, we need new tents and for that we need to fund-raise. We've got back packing planned and a raffle and all the old standbys. Tomorrow is our Coffee Morning and their will be a stand of cakes to buy.

In Blue

My contribution to the cake stand has also contributed to the short length of my post. All my spare time today has been spent baking. I've made some mini loaves of pain rustique and these wonderull muffins. They are the Coffee Chip Muffins from Vegan Brunch. I know I shouldn't brag about my own cooking but I love the top on these!

Food Friends: Preserving the Love

2011-10-20T16:56:00.001+01:00

The reason that I prefer the 35oz jars is that they are small. One benefit is that in a two person household it means less spoilage, the other is that it allows us to put little 'sample packs' of the preserves we've been working on all autumn together as Christmas gifts. I usually don't post about them until I've packed them up and sent them off but this one is going out a little earlier.

One of my Brownie leaders is a big fan of chillies. I had intended to grow a few plants this summer and share my harvest with her by making some kick ass chilli jelly. That didn't happen. I got two chillies. But thanks to apple day I had the ingredients for this jelly hanging around the flat. I thought about string chopped chilli in but instead I went for suspending a single, tiny chilli in each jar. It's lovely and fiery but hopefully not hot enough to scare the people on my Christmas list.

Grow To Eat: Nasturtiums

2011-10-19T15:36:00.001+01:00

There are fun aspects to eating flowers. Especially if you do it in front of kids who find it fascinating. Or 'those ladies' who Cara and I were talking about in the comments the other day, they are fun to tease. My favourite flowers to eat are nasturtiums. They have a lovely peppery taste. The leaves go great in salads. I've picked nasturtium leaves to sit on Michelin star plates and ate them from my plain ones. They also make a lovely salsa. The pods can be pickled although I've never done it.

Nasturtiums, on a cold Mofo morning

They are incredibly easy to grow and both the leaves and the flowers look great. They come in a multitude of colours, including vivid red. They are a fabulous companion plant. What's not for the edible gardener to like? My growing advice is this: acquire seeds, sow when frost danger has passed... that's it. I find mine grow steadily over the summer with a spurt in September. they die off with frost. Last year at Occombe we pulled the remaining Nasturtiums out of cold November ground with shards of ice hiding in the foliage and I still came home with flowers.

And their bright red jelly

When I get a few flowers I love to make this jelly. I can't remember where I scrawled the original recipe from but I spent last summer making it, tinkering with it and making it more British. It's a super easy jelly to make, you can do it in just over an hour start to finish and you don't need a jelly bag. The colour depends on the colour of your nasturtiums, I like to grow vibrant reds.

This make a small batch, about 2 3.5oz (just under 100g) jars full, multiply according to your flower supply.

Nasturtium Jelly

1/2 cup Nasturtium flowers
1 cup water
1 tablespoon rice vinager
1 3/4 cups of jam sugar (jam sugar has added pectin)

Have ready and sterilized 3-4 (always have a couple extra!) 3.5oz jam jars or similar. My favourite method is to wash them thoroughly and dry in the oven at 100C.

Heat a large, empty saucepan for 30 seconds while you tear or roughly chop the nasturtiums

Turn off the heat and throw in the petals. After 30 seconds or so add the water.

Bring the water in the pan to the boil, when it is boiling switch of the heat and leave to stand for 15 minutes. The flowers will turn brown and the liquid will colour.

Strain the liquid through a sieve.

Heat the liquid in a large pan and slowly add the sugar. Slowly heat the jam until it reaches setting point. I prefer to use a jam thermometer to test but do whatever you feel most comfortable with.

Poor the jelly into the jars and seal.

Food Issues: Organic friends

2011-10-18T22:07:00.000+01:00

We’re passionate about organic agriculture. We pay for organic food, we volunteer to help grow it and we rant about how more people should have the option of good affordable organic grub. There are many reasons we prefer organic food and think it’s the best way to feed people. This one we’ve been paying close attention to recently. Stephen has been tracking the insects and uninvited plants that have ended up on our balcony. — Clare

When your garden is on a balcony three floors up, you don’t expect to see much wildlife. There’ll be no foxes, badgers, or hedgehogs — to make it here you have to crawl or fly. The sheer range of creatures that have done so has taken us by surprise, and this post details a few of them.

Probably the oddest visitors were two leeches (pictured right), seen a year apart, crawling across the glass of the balcony doors during wet weather. How they made it here is a mystery.

The most surprising visitors, at least in terms of making us jump, are the birds — you just don’t expect to look towards the balcony and see a large bird on it. For a short time we made a concerted effort to attract birds, using feeders that stuck to the balcony glass. Unfortunately the only bird they ever attracted was a magpie — and while I like magpies, I was really hoping for a selection of smaller birds. A carrion crow stopped by once, and for a few months two pigeons (who Clare calls our ‘pigeon pals’) frequently rested in the joists above the balcony.

During the Summer we’re visited by a range of pollinators, and towards the end of this Summer I started trying to identify the species, which included common carder bees (pictured left), European honey bees, common wasps, and the hoverfly Eupeodes luniger. We’ve also had some insect visitors most gardeners wouldn’t welcome, such as the large white butterfly and its caterpillars. Clare’s favourite has been the ladybirds, both for their beauty and their attacks on the aphid population.

Local Loves: Apple Day

2011-10-17T12:25:00.002+01:00

Apple Day was started in 1990 to celebrate apples and orchards and the local food landscape. It falls on 21st October and this year Cockington held their festivities on the 16th. Yesterday. And we loved it. Apple Day is one of our favourite days of the year. Better than Christmas in my opinion. Cockington court is turned over to local craft people, food producers and cider... it's a great atmosphere with everyone sharing the food, drinks and fun. We've blogged about it before (go check out that post for pictures of the rangers working the amazing Victorian apple press) but every year is different and we managed to stuff ourselves with different foods. Onward to Apple Day!

"Boyfriend! Stop taking pictures and hurry up!"

We don't drink. At one point we tried buying cider for my Dad but he said it was strong enought to remove paint. We assume it is too West Country for him. However there where some non alcoholic samples available. Tea's Me were there, Lori from Shute Fruit had her amazing elderflower cordial and I bought some amazing Strawberry and Apple Juice from Milltop Orchard. It had the taste of happiness so I drank a small bottle for lunch. You'll notice that Tea's Me is the least local of all three, coming from 20ish miles away in Exeter. Quite impressive. We also bought a bottle of the freshly pressed apple juice straight off the Victorian apple press.

"Can you try to make that look less phallic?" "...no"

Preserves? We tried everything but only bought from Lori (once again, Shute Fruit if you can get there go there!) partly because she is the best and partly because I don't mind admitting that her jams and jellies are better than mine. We bought Stephen's favourite; the hedgerow jelly, and my Dad's favourite; the strawberry jam. Last year I helped Lori at a Preserves Class at Occombe Farm, they have another one scheduled for this year. If you are tempted, go for it, you won't regret it. Anyway back to apple day. We also stuffed our faces at the vegetarian food stand including trying our very first corn dog. Being British we've never really been exposed to corn dogs before but I can say that we are corn dog converts. Cornverts? No, never mind...

"What am I going to do with you?"

Fresh produce is another big win. We got to meet the woman behind our Riverford deliveries. She is lovely and it was nice to put a face to the box that appears on our doorstep fortnightly. I bought a bag of lovely chillies from Dartmoor Chill Farm and discussed the bad weather this year and how it affected yields (you can probably tell this is one of my favourite subjects right now!) and, as you can't go to apple day without buying apples, I came home with a bag of Egremont Russets (my favourite, in the front) and bramleys for cooking. Score!

The Star Of The Day

Blog Action Day: Sharing Our Food Knowledge

2011-10-16T10:05:00.001+01:00

In this post I'll be combining Vegan Mofo and Blog Action Day. Blog action Day this year is about food so it's not that hard to combine the two. That hardest part is picking a topic. Food seems to be the most simple and the most complicated thing in our lives. I've picked a topic that is very close to my heart. I want to talk about sharing. Not just sharing food but sharing the knowledge that goes with it.

Everyone is saying it. Days barley pass before another newspaper complains about it. Kids today have lost touch with were there food comes from. I think that's wrong. Young people haven't lost knowledge. They aren't born knowing everything and then forget it just to annoy us. It's our fault. We've failed them. We haven't been passing knowledge down. In some cases we've been failed too. Nobody gave us the knowledge, nobody certainly gave us any confidence, or money for ingredients, or time to cook, or decent kitchens. We're in a mess.

One of the ways I try to dig myself, and my community, out of it is to teach young people how to cook. I've held impromptu lessons with my brothers, roped kids walking through Occombe farm into a quick lesson on herbs and vegetables, I've helped at cookery classes for young people and grown-ups alike. One of the best things in my life is volunteering for Girlguiding UK. And you can be sure I've slipped some food into that.

Actually it's not all that hard to combine food and Guiding. It's one of the things we're famous for. Most, if not all of our planning also comes from suggestions from the girls and they suggest eating an awful lot. It's almost always the first thing mentioned when asking my Brownie unit what they want to do this term. We're always happy to oblige.

My Guides, who find it less cook to shout out 'cooookies' when we ask them what they want to do this term also enjoy cooking. And eating. I try to broaden their horizons with food. We've had thinking day with global pot lucks and I've taught the girls how to roll sushi. Guides is over 100 years old and we've cooked our own traditional food: smores, bananas with chocolate inside, sausages (veggie variation)... We've cooked with them over flames, on gasses, in kitchens. They've tried new things and cooked old favourites. They have fed themselves and each other. It's really cool to watch and be a part of.

Our young leader demonstrates knife skills

Brownies is more basic in a way. I wouldn't try sushi on them. The younger girls especially don't have the manual dexterity for tight rolls. We have made pizza and soda bread. Right now we're exploring foods from our little corner of England. We've had scones, obviously. Last year we sat them down and had them try different varieties of apples from around the UK. They learned not to judge an apple by it's cover, that all different apples have a different taste, that even if you don't like supermarket reds you may like a sweet, smooth Discovery, and that russets may look boring but taste lovely.

Pastry gets pressed in cases and we learn the meaning of the word gently

This year to celebrate apple day we had mulled apple juice and made these little apple tarts, based on the apple galettes from Veganomicon, I don't have a picture of the finished things and you can probably guess why. At the end of this meeting we invited parents in to try the apple juice and each girl took three tarts home. Enough to show off her new skills to her family. So as well as teaching them the skills we taught them the art of sharing food and brought together the parents who support us.

We learn what half a tablespoon means and what happens when you overfill a tart

I find it so much fun to share my food passions with young people especially as they are often equally passionate. Watching the girls learn new things, gain confidence, and try new things is great. Even if they decide that they really don't like juicy apples or nori. Giving them a space where they can try new things, no pressure if it doesn't work out, is a great part of my job. You don't need a Brownie unit to share your food passions with, although if you want one then go ahead, swap skills with friends, drag your kids into the kitchen, or relative's kids, or friends kids. Share your kitchen. It is a joy and a privilege.

Cute shapes!

Saturdays Are For Scalloped Potato Pie

2011-10-15T19:57:00.002+01:00

I'm back to cooking, which is great and reassuring. I don't know how I always manage to be ill over Mofo but there we have it. To celebrate being able to stand in front of a cooker again I made the Scalloped Potato Pie from Hearty Vegan. I was hoping the pastry/potato/cheese combo would please Stephen's taste buds but both of us were incredibly impressed. The flaky puff was great and this is defiantly the best non-dairy cheese sauce I've ever had.

Yummy, crispy, cheesy... no vegetables... just how I like it

Free Friday: More Seitan

2011-10-14T11:40:00.002+01:00

My cold is progressing nicely, I feel like someone pored cement into my ear and I'm tilting my head to the left because otherwise I feel dizzy but I can now mostly breath through my nose so I think I'm getting over it. Luckily I have good food to comfort me.

Actually I mad this one last week as a treat for myself as Stephen was out with people from work. I needed spicy, I needed filling and I needed to ply around with my new love: seitan. So I turned to the book that stated it all and made the Jerk Seitan from Vegan with a Vengeance

It's nice to eat a huge portion of spicy food when nobody is around to judge you...

Served with white rice and grilled corn it was wonderful and delicious and I ate the caramelized sauce off the bottom of the pan... of course I didn't... I'm way more dignified than that.

(no I'm not)

I Bought A Book: Hearty Vegan

2011-10-13T19:33:00.001+01:00

So I was going to blog about sharing food today but I doubt anyone wants to share food with me right now, I have a bad cold and I've spent most of the day trying to sleep it off. So instead I offer you a review of Hearty Vegan and we'll get back to the theme on Monday, when I don't feel like death. Hopefully.

So I bought Hearty Vegan Meals For Monster Appetites because I have one hell of a monster appetite. I love to eat and coming from the north large servings of filling foods is how I was brought up. I don't have a small appetite and I don't do small portions so if I see a book called Hearty Vegan Meals For Monster Appetites, I'm going to buy it.

I must have flicked through it at least a dozen times since I bought it, listing ingredients to buy and trying to persuade Stephen that I won't kill myself trying to make Funnel Cake (Funnel Cake!) and, of course trying out a few new things. The first got eaten without me taking a picture although I used the same dough for the bun here. The White Panini Rolls bridge the gap between the type of bread I like, super crusty, and the type of bread Stephen likes, sickly soft. They are flavourful with a good, lofty crumb and a crust that is soft while still giving you something to sink your teeth into.

Munch Time!

Then, as I had some of the TVP Peperoni on hand from experimenting with The Complete Guide To Vegan Food Substitution I thought I'd give a go to the Crispy Pepperoni Bites. I ate these so fast I can barely remember them! They where delicious: nice crispy crust, totally saucy and fabulously spicy from the pepperoni. I must take these to every occasion.

Yes dear, that's tofu

The latest thing I made was the Tofu Jerky... it's wow. It has a long cooking time and with all those smells from the marinade it was more like foreplay. They entire thing smelled so good when I was cooking it that I knew something special was coming. Fresh out of the oven it was just like baked tofu with a yummy marinade but when it had been left to cool the flavour soaked through and the tofu firmed up and... well look at the picture. It was fabulous. I paired it, as suggested with the Spinach Pesto but I had to wrap mine as I was low on bread that day. Those Panini Rolls just go too fast. It was sublime though. Perfect lunch.

If you want to impress or fill yourself up good you can't go too wrong with Hearty Vegan Meals for Monster Appetites it's the type of book you want to ask to marry you.

Grow To Eat: Carrots

2011-10-12T22:02:00.000+01:00

Carrots aren't the most glamorous crop but they are incredibly simple to grow and they are a good litmus test for the balcony gardener. It wont tell us if we are any good but it will tell us if gardening books are. I don't know about you but I own a few books that promise that container growing is easy and there are tips within to help you only to realise, reading the book, that the author probably hasn't spent much of their gardening career container growing. One of the best tests is if they discount the idea of us growing nice long carrots and say 'well I suppose you could grow the stubby ball kind'

The Carrots pictured in a previous MoFo. Because it's dark out.

We can grow carrots long too! All you need to grow a nice long carrot is unobstructed compost that goes down about the size of a long carrot. As I'm sure I've posted about before we grow ours in an office bin with holes in the bottom. It's orange. This amuses me. I've started sowing them with a cover of love in the mist which is gorgeous.

I sow carrots as soon as it's warm enough to, usually a crop in march and a crop in June. I pull them when I want them. I don't pull them to store, preferring to leave them in the ground, so to speak. This did backfire one year when I ran up to the flat to get a carrot for the nose of our snowman and finding none in the fridge I went to the tub. Of course you can't pull out of frozen solid soil and I fell backwards across the balcony. It's only really cold enough not to be able to pull carrots two weeks of the year, if that, and I don't really have the space to store them inside so this works best for us.

And what do I do when I pull them? Well many, many, varied things. Okay, so mostly I just roast them and serve them where I would usually eat chips like on with burger or hot dog or bits of tofu. They really go great roasted with the same spices as I put with Baked Celeriac Chips or Sweet Paprika Kholrabi and Carrot Chips or just with salt and pepper. Both of which, you'll notice, I served with burgers. But while I was thinking about this post I couldn't get two flavours out of my head. One is the Cornish Sea Salt Pinch Salt I bought last month in Penzance which is combined with garlic. The other is the made in heaven combination of cumin and carrots. So...

Well done carrots, with a lovely cumin and garlic taste

Roasted Garlic and Cumin Carrots
(serves one, on the side, multiply as desired)

About six carrots washed and halved
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt

Heat the oven to 180 and place the carrots on a bakeing try

In a separate dish mix the cumin, oil and salt

Poor the spice mixture over the carrots

Bake for 20-30 minutes (smaller or early season carrots may need less time, unless you like things a bit brown like I do) flipping half way

Enjoy

Food Issues: Watching The Waste

2011-10-11T19:34:00.000+01:00

Waste is a big deal. Think about everything that goes into your food. The water it takes the crops to grow, fertilizer, perhaps pesticides, labour, transport, packaging, storage, the electricity the lights the shops and runs the fridges so you can buy it. It's a big effort. It costs you money and time to stock your fridge and cook your food. It's great to have a well stocked pantry and fridge, especially if you are food obsessed like me, but not to trow things away before they get a chance to be delicious.

There are plenty of ways you can look at what you are eating, cooking and buying to minimise food waste but what I want to talk about is imperfection. If you have grown food or bought from small organic places you may have noticed something. Not all food looks supermarket perfect. Shocking I know. According to supermarkets we'll only eat the most perfect looking food. We may be so confused by a small broccoli or a carrot with legs we wouldn't know what it is. It would terrify us. Or not.

Feeling Green? Try Swiss Chard and Green Olives

Volunteering at Occombe I often get to take home vegetables that are too ugly to sell like leafy greens with massive holes in them or courgettes grown too big to be a delicate treat. One of my favourite ways to eat this garden waste is to cook some pasta and toss the vegetables with it. It works after a long day of volunteering and makes even the most hole filled piece of chard look fab. It's also great to clear out your leftover bits and bobs. Think of it as cupboard pasta remixed with a little fresh veg. Here be a rough guide. Pick things from each category and go for it.

Anything Pasta
(serves... whatever)

80-100g of pasta per person (depending on how much of everything else you put in)
extra virgin olive oil

And Anything, Especially From The Following:

Fresh
Tomatoes, best de-seeded, halved and cooked until the skin blisters or add raw at the end
Peppers, diced and cooked until slightly softened
Onions, cramalized or diced and lightly cooked
Chard, shredded and cooked until slightly wilted, if you are using stems they take longer
Perpetual Spinach, as with chard
True Spinach, cooked until slightly wilted or added raw at the end
Broccoli
Peas
French beans
Runner Beans

Store-cupboard
Olives
Sun dried tomatoes
Roasted red pepper
TVP Peperoni
Pesto
Breadcrumbs

Herby
Parsley
Thyme
Basil

1. Cook the pasta

2. While said pasta is cooking heat about three tablespoons of olive oil in a frying pan and cook the rest of the ingredients too you liking

3. When the pasta is done, drain it and add it to the frying pan

4. Toss the pasta with everything and season to your liking

Feeling Red? Try TVP peperoni, roasted red peppers and fresh cherry tomatoes

So that is my hidiously rough guide to feeding yourself quickly with things that taste great but don't look it. So go out and buy, or otherwise acquire the imperfect vegetables. Don't let them be relegated to the compost heap, or the bin, when they will be fabulous on your plate. Use them in everything. Give yourself permission to experiment with whatever comes your way.

And if you think I've missed anything that you would throw into random pasta dishes then post in the comments.

Local Loves: Cockington Chocolate Company

2011-10-10T10:59:00.001+01:00

I swear that we are not going to use this spot just to talk about chocolate. That being said: chocolate. Cockington has recently expanded it's craft studios and there are some really good new businesses that have moved in. There is a lovely husband and wife team selling all sorts of crafty bits, some fabulous furniture painters, someone making canoes and other shops that I can't remember because I suck. Today, lets talk about the chocolate.

The Cockington Chocolate Company in it's pretty home

Cockington Chocolate Company is owned by the same blokes that run the cafe which means you can get chocolate and ice cream from the same people. Or impress your relatives with a real Devon cream tea and then buy chocolate. You could also buy chocolate from the cafe and then go round the back and buy chocolate from the craft studios, hiding how greedy you really are. Just me? Okay.

All that camouflage and we still ate them...

Anyway. The chocolate is made right there so you can see all the fancy chocolate making machines and the funky moulds and whatnots. Since it opened we've made it a tradition to go in, tell each other what we want everything in there for Christmas and picking out something little to nibble on our way home. This time we picked these dark chocolate peacocks which are absolutely stunning and incredibly delicious.

Vegan Iron Chef Challenge 1: Chickpeas

2011-10-09T19:40:00.001+01:00

Double blogging today to present you with a recipe whipped up for the Iron Chef Challenge. The secret ingredient is chickpeas so I'm taking advantage of chickpea flour the best way I know how; I'm making pakora. These light, delicate pakora are made with swiss chard. Perpetual spinach would make a good, seamless sub but any green will work with a bit of experimenting.

Little bites of flavour

Swiss Chard Pakoras
(makes 9 small)

1 packed cup swiss chard
1/2 cup of chickpea flour (also know and gram or besan)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon chilli powder
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon garam massala
1/4 teaspoon pomegranate powder
a inch of salt
1/3 cup water
Oil for shallow frying (I like groundnut, sunflower or vegetable)

1. Chop the chard into thin slices, try for about 50mm

2. Except for the chard put all the dry ingredients in a small bowl. Mix together.

3. Add the water to the dry ingredients and whisk in. When you have mixed the batter add the chard, distributing evenly.

4. Cover the base of a frying pan with 50mm or so of oil and heat to medium hot. To test the oil is ready for frying add a dropp of the batter, if it bubbles instantly it is ready.

5. Drop the batter into the mix a table spoon at a time. You should have enough batter fro around 9 small disks.

6. After 3-4 minutes the bottom should be solid and brown, flip over and cook for another 3-4 minutes until both sides are done

7. Serve instantly.

I Bought A Book: The Complete Guide To Vegan Food Substitution

2011-10-09T14:40:00.000+01:00

I bought two books to kick start MoFo both by Celine Steen and Jonie Marie Newman and both because the contents page contained fabulousness. Both haven't disappointed me so far. The one I'm reviewing this week is The Complete Guide To Vegan Food Substitutions. We'll come to the other one next week.

So vegan food substituting? Cool! The substituting guides are broken up into dairy (including cheese recipes), eggs, meat (with the fab Beef and Broccoli Bowl) and animal by-products. There is also a section on gluten, soy, sugar and fat free cooking. The guides are great, they get you to think about what the purpose of an animal product is in a dish and use that to tell you how to switch it out. There are also incredible recipes which, of course, I've been trying out.

The first thing I made was from the soy free section it was listed as 'naturally soy free' and I had all the ingredients on hand. Potato Chutney Over Rice. I made a bit of a substitution of my own, I didn't have walnuts so I tossed in some slithered almonds which is, admittedly, a different taste but they are sweet and crunchy and I didn't want to go shopping again. For my rice I used a mix of brown and wild which was really great. It's a really comforting dish especially as - forgive me if you have no idea what I'm talking about here - it tastes like that sweet curry you can sometimes get from a chippy.

best served in a bowl

Then I went on to something a bit more junky. Time to play in the meat substitute section a bit and fill a longing left over from my childhood. Pepperoni Pizza Topping! I've heard it said by other vegetarians and it's definitely true of me but when I say I miss meat, I don't really miss meat. It's more the seasoning, the sauces that hit the craving spot. Especially it's true for peperoni. If it tastes salty, greasy, spicy in just the right way I'll be happy. Very happy.

More pizza lumps than rolls...

Two versions are offered here one is TVP based the other wheat gluten based. As it's much easier for me to pick up a bag of TVP I went for that. I also had to substitute smoked paprika for the regular because liquid smoke is practically unknow here. If anyone knows of a good, cheap supply I'll love you forever. I used the peperoni in some Pizza Rolls following Vegan Dad's method. Using the original Vegan With a Vengeance dough because I only had plain flour about the place. Mine aren't very pretty. Next time I will be a good girl and let the dough rest. For all their lumpy bumps they taste fantastic. Like I said: very happy.

Autumn: in a bun

The third recipe I tried out was the Butternut Lentil Burgers. Butternuts are starting to appear in the veg box and in shops so it's an absolutely perfect time to make this burger. I served mine on a slightly too large bun with chilli relish, and a helping of slightly too carmalized onions. Yeah, I wasn't paying attention and burned them. The burger is lovely, chewy, slightly sweet with a great depth of flavour. I love these recipes.

Word of warning, as usual, my fellow Brits may not be able to get hold of some ingredients without specialist shopping and the brand name replacement recommended (but not relied upon in any of the recipes) aren't always available here. The only thing I didn't like was the sugar replacements used throughout the book but I can deal with that easily enough. Even with all that in mind I don't hesitate to recommend this book: The Complete Guide to Vegan Food Substitutions: Veganize It! Foolproof Methods for Transforming Any Dish into a Delicious New Vegan Favorite

.

Elderberry Cordial and The Fun Of The Forage

2011-10-08T11:00:00.000+01:00

After gaining some extra foraging confidence from The Thrifty Forager it was time to go out and do something I've been meaning to do for a while now. Make. Elderberry. Cordial. Aside from having fabulous flowers that get made into cordial in my kitchen every spring (take a look at this spring's), they have wonderfully purple autumn berries. Just don't eat them raw, the cyanide might make you feel a bit ill.

I've always wanted to pick them but I always forget or don't walk past the trees at the right time. And why did I want to pick them? Well you can make a cordial out of them too and I've always wanted to try it. I picked the berries about ten meters away from the office where Stephen was sat working. I'm mentioning this partly to excuse not having a cute picking picture and also to show that foraging can happen in a town centre. I did get a few looks but curious 'she's mad' way, not in a threatening 'throw things because she is mad way' so I didn't really mind.

Very goth...

Coming home I made the cordial following the instructions Grow Your Own Drugs: A Year With James Wong and, as some didn't fit in the bottle, I had a small sample. I can't say I really made my mind up about it. One mouthful was present, the next a little astringent. One mouthful too strong, the next fell a little flat. Possibly it's a taste I'm going to have to get used to. My brain is like that sometimes, if a taste isn't what it's expecting it freaks out on me and revives all my old food issues. I'll have to try it again with Stephen around...

Free Friday: Seitan

2011-10-07T10:50:00.000+01:00

I've made it to Friday but I seems so much longer. I've been cooking and trying new things almost flat out I get through a couple of recipes a day. There is some good stuff coming out of my kitchen just waiting to be blogged about. I always like to try new things for Mofo and top on my list this year was cracking seitan. Seitan is something that didn't really register on my radar until I bought Vegan With A Vengeance and as I expanded my library with American vegan titles my mouth just kept watering.

But what is a British girl to do? We can't get vital wheat gluten very easily here and while I knew of a few mail order places I never actually totalled up the cost and ordered any. I did try to make some by washing flour last year but considering I've never posted about seitan before you can guess how that ended up. This year I decided to stop procrastinating - it's been four years since I first bought Vegan With A Vengeance - and order some damn vital wheat gluten. I bought mine from Real Foods and it's organic so... yay!

I've wanted this for four years

I crawled through all my cookbooks for a seitan recipe to try and I landed with the one in Appetite for Reduction, it seemed simple enough and didn't require nutritional yeast. Making it was a bit odd. I really wasn't expecting how solid and hard to work the dough would become in such a short time. After shaping the balls, such as they where, went into the broth for simmering. When they came out it was a tiny... huge... massive shock to me. They bloody felt like meat! Not steak at a posh restaurant but respectable enough for a meatball sub. It was weird.

There once was an ugly duckling...

So into my fridge they go and I spend some time plotting how I'm going to eat it. Two thing contributed to my decision. One is that I had broccoli in my vegetable box the other is that I have a deep, and consuming love of syrupy sauces like the ones served at the local Chinese chippy when I was growing up. When I'm back up North I eat all the syrupy Chinese dishes I want with tofu but here in the South I haven't found a Chinese take-away that I like in walking distance. And none of them do double duty serving traditional chip shop pies, fish and peas as well as Chinese food. I'm assuming that's just a Northern thing?

I decided on the Beef and Broccoli bowl from The Complete Guide to Vegan Food Substitutions. It hits all the spots that my childhood Chinese food did. It has a sweet, thick sauce that soaks through the rice, broccoli and a beef like thing. And that beef like thing? A little weird, it does look like cheap processed meat but thankfully it tastes fabulous, has a great mouth feel and goes fabulously with the sauce.

Four years? That was way too long to wait to try this stuff. Thankfully there is more in my fridge.

Food Friends: My Grandma

2011-10-06T12:04:00.001+01:00

I know almost everyone argues that their Grandma is the best cook ever but, you know, mine is. Her roast dinners are fabulous. And if you know any English people at all you know how we value our roast dinners. My Grandma's are the best. Her roast potatoes are pure potato heaven, her cabbage is the stuff to write epics about. When I was little I used to eat bowls of that leftover cabbage with mint sauce and gravy. The cabbage was so good that is all you needed.

Coconut Cake?

She is famous for another thing, my Grandma, well many other things but I'm talking about her coconut cake. And this is where I get into trouble because not only am I going to share the recipe, I'm also going to veganise it. So in a way this isn't my Grandma's coconut cake and if you want her awesome incredible cake you still have to go to her for it because I'm not telling anyone how to make it just like she does. Besides, I'm going to be killed anyway for adapting the recipe.

Adapting it was fairly easy. Grandma follows the thrifty tradition that butter is too precious to waste on baking (in a different way, I guess, that is how I see it too) so there was already margarine my biggest issue was getting rid of the gas mark.

Granny Annie's Coconut Cake
(makes one, crumbly awesome coconut cake)

112g of plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
85g sugar
140g margarine (we use vitalite)
112g of dessicated coconut + 1 tablespoon to sprinkle on top
60ml coconut milk (the rest of the can can be frozen until you need it again)

Pre-heat the oven to 175C (gas mark 4)

Line a loaf tin with baking parchment

In a sauce pan melt the margarine

While it is melting mix together the flour, baking powder, sugar and 112g of the dessicated coconut in a large bowl

When the margarine has melted poor it into the dry ingredients, add the coconut milk and stir to combine

Once the mixture is well combined poor into the loaf tin and sprinkle the remainder of the dessicated coconut on top

Bake for an hour

Like I said, this sin't exactly like my Grandmas coconut cake but it hits the spot.

Grow To Eat: Tomatoes and Rough and Ready Gardener's Tomato Sauce

2011-10-05T11:00:00.000+01:00

Almost every beginner edible gardener is enchanted by the idea of growing their own tomatoes. And why not? They are fairly easy to grow, if a bit needy. They'll even do well on a windowsill. As every gardening magazine is equipped with a free packet of Gardener's Delight come spring you may as well grown them.

We've been growing tomatoes ever since we started growing food and here is our procedure.

Home Grown (just not that big)

Winter
Picking the varieties is always fun. But we don't have much space. Each year about half of our plants are the prolific performers Gardeners Delight. I love them. They may be small but they produce, and produce and produce. We have also grown beefsteak which provided fewer but larger fruits and this year we trailed some early varieties: koralik and latah. Planning varieties back in January 2010

January
We get ours off to an early start. We sow the seeds around mid January. We're quite blessed climate wise. Obviously when you start sowing will depend on when you can get them out. For us an early crop is best as it avoids blight and late summer winds. We sew plenty to a pot and cover with clingfilm. Sowing back in January 2009.

February
Remember all those seeds? They are up. February means pricking out the strongest and potting them on. I don't like this part of the process, it feels cruel. Putting it off will lead to stunted tomatoes and won't lead to less waist so I guess I have to. When they are all in big pots they get their own label. Pricked out tomatoes in a post about recycling in the garden last March.

March-April
Time to acclimatise. As soon as the tomatoes are looking strong enough and the weather is looking good enough I get them used to nights outside. With a old drinks bottle over them I take them out in the daytime and bring them in at night. I do this for about two weeks before planting them out properly. They keep the bottle hats for a week. The next week I put the bottles on at night but take them off in the day. Then the babies are ready to face the outside alone. Now all they need from me is tying to supports, watering every morning and feeding once a week. I don't bother pulling off side shoots as blight is a concern and I don't want to weaken the plants. Tomatoes planted out with their bottle hats on, April 2010

Eventually, and hopefully before the blight hits you get fruits. And then you can start eating. We like to make all sorts with our tomatoes like Hot Summer Tomato Soup or Passata or a million other things. This year though the crop wasn't great. Early spring heat lead to stunted plants and small, late fruits. They didn't ripen within good time of each other either. Instead of making one big quantity of tomato passata we made several small amounts of tomato sauce.

Rough And Ready Gardener's Tomato Sauce
(serves 1, scales up easily for more)

There are tomato sauces that require hour of work in summer, peeling, de-seeding and chopping until your fingers hurt. There are tomato sauces you make from a can in the dead of winter. There are tomato sauces you buy in a jar because you are cooking at your mums house and you don't even know if she owns pepper (she doesn't) Then there is this. Tomato sauce made in all of fifteen minutes because you are starving and barely have time to was the mud off your hand before you need to eat.

2 handfuls of tomatoes, about the quantity in the bowl at the top of the post,
1 tablespoon of olive oil,
1 clove of garlic peeled,
Salt and pepper to taste

Chop the tomatoes roughly. Very roughly.

Really, quite roughly

Pop them in a pan with the garlic, olive oil and a pinch of salt.

Get ready for heat

Pop over a medium heat for around 15 minutes, until skins are a bright red and the juices have come out.

Almost Edible

Whizz in a blender. Depending on your blender's strength and your tolerance for stray bits of tomato skin you may want to push it through a sieve too. Return to the pan, heat through and test for seasoning.

Eat this

Serve, as you would any other tomato sauce. Over pasta or polenta or on whatever you want...

Food Issues: Tomatoes and Slavery

2011-10-04T11:43:00.000+01:00

When I started out writing about this topic I knew I was in over my head. Like way over my head. I wondered if I could do justice to the subject. I'm still not sure. But I don't just want to sit on the idea of perhaps one day writing this post. So I'm going to recommend you read this.

It's the old story happening again and again around the world. Gangmasters supply workers, who are often indebted to them and/or sigh up under false pretences, to farmers. And every one up the supply chain has no idea (honestly) what the people bellow them are doing. From the conditions the workers are forced to work in

"he expects to spend between ten and twelve hours a day in the exposed tomato fields, picking by hand; bending, plucking and carrying the filled crates. The work is arduous, repetitive and hot. The temperature can reach 40C degrees."

Or live in

"There's no running water or electricity. The men appear to sleep communally on mattresses spread out across the stone floor. The workers cook, wash and shit outdoors... it will be so overcrowded that some will have to sleep outside"

Or how little they are paid especially after:

"Some deduct money from wages upfront for workers' food, accommodation and transport. Others charge for these essentials after they've been paid. Other 'services' and supplies must also be paid for – charging a mobile phone, organising clean drinking water, supplying a bike "

And all this for tomatoes. Slavery to produce what has become a staple in most households, including my own. Which makes it almost impossible to know what to do. The problem stems from the same old issue. Prices of production are going up while prices we pay for food are staying the same, or going down. And while the easy answer of pay more for your tomatoes sits at the tip of the tongue the reality is that in some households that isn't an option.

If it is for you that is great. We'll talk about other options later. It angers me though that we live in a world, we're part of a food system where the only way for some people to survive is to kick others in the teeth. That ethics are something that we pay extra for. Ethical practices should be the default not the selling point. I wouldn't pat a man on the back for not enslaving people but corporations expect a hearty 'well done for not being a monster'.

Tomatoes for passata

So what is there to do? Educate yourself about the issue, advocate for change and, when possible, make ethical choices with your shopping. I'll be reading up as much as I can, not to mention passing my reading along in rants, writing to my supermarkets to ask that they make sure that all parts of their supply chain are fair to their workers.

The other thing we do, and have done for the last two years, is to make our own passata (beware of the cheese when following that first link). This is first year that we are using bought tomatoes. The balcony tomatoes usually supply us just fine - last year we had enough passata for home made pizza every other month - but this year was terrible and so we bought some in from Riverford. This is obviously a very time intensive process and it does involve learning about preserving safely but it is fairly easy and tastes wonderful. If - big if, I know - you are able and willing I recommend giving it a go.

I don't want to write any conclusion here because I haven't got an easy answer but I feel that isn't good enough of a reason to ignore a problem. And even though none of us are able to take big world changing steps here, the little ones can all add up.

Local Loves: Raw Chocolate Peppermint Pie

2011-10-03T11:00:00.000+01:00

On a recent trip to St Ives we made a return visit to Living Food. This time we came away with a raw chocolate peppermint pie, and a helpful leaflet explaining what exactly a raw chocolate pie is.

The introduction explains:

Our very own Raw Chocolate Pie — dairy free, sugar free, gluten free… guilt free! Delicious too — raw chocolate is so good for you.

In many civilisations chocolate is considered a medicine. It is primarily here in the West that we destroy the benefits of chocolate by adding fat and sugar to it. Raw chocolate is a powerful anti-oxidant and an energy boost, a support for heart and brain. Vegetarian and Vegan friendly.

While I’d agree that it was delicious, and wonderfully minty, it’s the health claims that I find difficult to stomach. The ingredients are raw cacao nibs, coconut butter, agave nectar, lucuma powder, ground almonds, carob flour, and peppermint essence. Coconut butter is almost entirely fat, of which around 85% is saturated. Agave nectar is around 70% fructose and 20% glucose, and while the health effects of fructose in comparison to sucrose are still being studied there’s no denying that it’s still a sugar. Enjoy it as a snack, but please don’t pretend it’s good for you.

Rant over, let’s talk about the positives. Its taste was like dark minty chocolate, but much stronger — the bars might not look big but you’ll be eating them in small pieces. Despite the slightly greasy outer surface the inside was drier, slightly crumbly, and quite crunchy. If you’re ever in St Ives I’d certainly recommend popping in to Living Foods and giving one a try (and they have free samples).

I Bought A Book: The Thrifty Forager

2011-10-02T11:00:00.000+01:00

That moment where two things you love come together in one package? That moment is now. And I'm very happy. Earlier this month a book was published by Alys Fowler about foraging. For me at least that is very exciting. But how can we make it more exciting?

Well for one thing I could afford a copy. I saw it on Amazon and went to sniff a real life copy in town, just to flick through, see what information I had elsewhere and make an assessment on how desperate I am to get a copy. Very by the way. On my way to being a productive member of society I ducked inside the discount book shop just to see if they also had a copy. Just on the off chance. And I came out happy. It was £4.99 and I may be hard up but I did have a fiver in my pocket that day. Bliss.

So what makes this different for all my other foraging books. Let me count the ways... It's actually less about foraging and more about, as the title suggests, 'living off your local landscape' which yes means foraging but also means it's full of encouragement to start community growing schemes, and get together with people to get yourself fed. There is even advice on how to grow these wild foods, taming them for your own back yard.

There are three case studies from different parts of the world showing plant geekery and community efforts to make the most of the landscape they are surrounded with. Each one is truly inspiring. Turn the pages and there are some fab recipe ideas including the best and most user friendly basic jam, jelly and chutney formulas I've ever seen.

A bowl from my own edible landscape

And then we get to the plants. Each edible described beautifully. Not everyone has a picture which, along with the size of the book, rules it out from being a field guide but it's not really trying to be. It's nice to see the plants that are pictured show context. Gives me a better idea of what to look for.

What is especially wonderfully different is this book is it's more urban focus. Perfect for all those cherry trees in municipal planters. It's full of the joy and gentle encouragement that you expect of a book with 'Alys Fowler' written across the front cover and that is just what I needed to take my own foraging skills and applying them close to home.

The rowan tree you can see from my balcony. Where?

You see I do notice that elderberry or those escaped herbs. Most of the bay I use in the kitchen comes from the centre piece in a decorative bedding scheme. But I've always been a bit reluctant to do any real foraging. Inspired I filled my hand bag full of Rowan berries on the way back from a meeting and used them to make a tiny test batch of Rowan jelly. The berries came from the estate. One of the trees you can see from my flat.

There it is!

I wouldn't hesitate to recommend adding this to your foraging library. And if you don't have a foraging library it will make you want to start one. The Thrifty Forager: Living Off Your Local Landscape

Hello MoFo (take 3)

2011-10-01T11:30:00.000+01:00

It's that time of year again! Vegan Mofo 2011, my third vegan Mofo. This year I'm all about Food Links. I'll be taking about how food connects us to the community and the world around us.

We'll start on Mondays talking about Local Loves, those food obsessions that are particular to the place we live and the places we grew up.

On Tuesday we turn out minds to the Big Food Issues and wonder how, and if, our little food choices can make a difference.

Wednesdays is all about growing to eat. Making the connection from plot to plate.

I'm inviting people over on Thursdays to share their foodie wisdom. Any ideas?

Fridays will be Free Fridays again, fair game for anything and everything. Always useful for the amount of information and awesomeness I manage to pick up reading other people's Mofo efforts.

Now that the house keeping is out of the way: recipe after the jump.

Tomato and Chilli Risotto

(serves two)

Risotto, it is so hard! Right? Nothing brings out food snobbishness more than instructions on how to cook risotto. Especially if you are a vegetarian. This seemingly veggie friendly dish apparently apparently falls flat without the magical properties only found in animal stock or Parmigiano-Reggiano. Even the usually level headed Mark Bittman makes it seem next to impossible to get a good animal free risotto in How To Cook Everything Vegetarian.

Whatever. I used veggie stock in my Risotto, go without the cheese and throw in a chilli for good measure. Then I go back for seconds and thirds. Sometimes I even use anonymous short grain rice instead of branded risotto rice, sometimes I don't even stir it constantly. I've never noticed a difference there. But you do have to eat it right away. Sometimes I heat up leftover the next day and while it is perfectly edible it has lost the magic.

500ml of vegetable stock
200g of risotto rice
1 400g tin of chopped tomatoes, whizzed in a blender
a smidge of chopped basil (optional)
1 chilli of your favourite variety, I used one from the balcony, chopped finely
1/2 onion, finely chopped
1 table spoon olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat the olive oil and fry the onion, chilli and garlic over medium heat until the onions are translucent. It will take about 2-3 minutes. Take care not to let anything brown.

Add the rice and stir to mix, cook for about a minute before adding half of the stock, half of the tomatoes and a small pinch of salt. Simmer for ten minutes, stirring every now and then.

Add the remainder of the stock and tomato, simmer for around ten minutes more until the rice is cooked. If you feel you need more liquid just add some water.

Test often, different brands cook at different rates. Once the rice is cooked to your liking taste for seasoning and serve.

Then eat it. Right now!

Cowboy Cookies and A Working Oven

2011-09-26T11:37:00.001+01:00

The nice gentleman with the new element came round on Friday and I've been baking. Baking! First I made a brownie. I didn't manage a picture of it because it was dark by the time it cooled and the piece that was left for me when I came home from church on sunday the piece left for me was about 6cm. So more like a crumb than a piece.

I also made a batch of these little guys. Cowboy cookies. My brownie stealing boyfriend, you may remember, wouldn't eat nuts once upon a time. Of course I also, apparently, cared about calorie counts back then and now I couldn't give a... anyway... Stephen has been trying new things and liking them. Including nuts so I'm able to look at recipes like these cowboy cookies in a new light especially as they are packed with some of his new favorites: oats, pecans and coconut. And they have chocolate.

They also taste fabulous with a good crisp outside and cakey centre. One bite is indulgently chocolate filled, another one has the sweetness of coconut or the caramelized nuttiness of the toasted pecans. Win. I've delivered the leftovers to Stephen's work mates. The recipe, no surprises, is from the fantabulous Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar

Cold and Fried

2011-09-21T16:59:00.002+01:00

So. It's ten days to the start of Vegan Mofo '11 and I don't have a working oven. It's like the end of the world. The heating element has gone to the big oven part factory in the sky and we're waiting until a new one can be sourced. In the mean time all my cravings involve things that are baked or roasted and I've been distracting myself with frozen and stove top wonders so I don't go crazy for lack of cookies.

Small portions: not usually my thing

I made ice cream yesterday, just in time for Brown Owl to come over and ~~try some~~ plan the next term of Brownies with me. There have been three bowls eaten but not one decorative photo taken so I scooped a single spoonful out of the freezer for this very important purpose. It's the recipe form Veganomicon which I first used last mofo only this time I went for the vanilla and made the mistake of only churning every hour which lead to bigger ice crystals. It tastes good though I might try it with a little less vanilla next time. The brand we buy tastes a bit alcoholic sometimes.

My Baby, bravely facing the sea 'breeze'

This thing is probably my one and only chilli this year. After the money we spent on plugs too. It just hasn't been a great year with that dry start to the season stunting everything. On the positive side I got to make this into a curry using the last of the beetroot from my veggie box.

The curry comes from Everyday and Sunday and is creamy, silky, and devilishly red. Perfect curry comfort food with two of your five a day served here with mixed brown basmati and wild rice.

Still I'm counting down the days until I can have a cookie.

2011-09-09T09:33:00.000+01:00

You can check out my Write Club entry, posted today, over at Emma's blog. It's all about what I get out of being a garden volunteer.

Go read!

Tulipa 'Oxford'

2011-09-06T11:53:00.002+01:00

The wonderful world of knitting. It has plenty of surprises. Good surprises, like how your yarns works up beautifully soft, and bad surprises, like your tension changes leaving you with an unwearable mess. Yes... this project had it all. This is the Tulip Top from Stitch 'n Bitch Superstar Knitting which I bought mainly for this top although it is full of treasures. And It's knit in Debbie Bliss Eco Aran which is Organic, Fair Trade, and comes in a luscious shade of red.

A second later I trip up

I cast on the yarn and I started knitting. I knit through weeks of sleepless nights. I knit through a train journey, through my brother's cricket match, at my Nan's house waiting for a curry to arrive, I knit on the return journey. I knit and I knit and I knit. I knit while my Denise cable broke and I knit on a far too small needle. I bought a new needle and carried on knitting. Transferring stitches over in the centre of Manchester with my rucksack, which is almost as big as I am, on my back. And then the end was in sight. I separated the front and the back and for the first time and saw just how big it was. I swore.

Check out the Hello Kitty shoes. I'm the maturyiest

Yes I swatched. I did. Honest. I swatched and my tension was spot on. I think perhaps that I may have been knitting tighter because I knew the numbers on the ball band where different from what I wanted. The top didn't match. Luckily I was home when I figured this out. And so was Stephen. We put our heads together, his for the maths skill mine mainly for whining, and found that if I knit the second smallest size it would come out just about right. So I knit and two weeks later...

Look, it was bright out okay

Off the needles it came. I applied the i-cord and all was right with the world. I love the way the cotton knits up. It's very loosely plyed so you have to watch for splitting but with smooth needles and loose enough stitches I didn't have a problem. You may want to watch out if you are a tight knitter though. Knit up it has a lovely sheen and softness and the fact that it matches my bright red tights tickles me. My one style note, insomuch as I have any style at all, is that a longline bra looks so much better under this. That is why I posted the squinty picture, the one without the longline. Perhaps it's the more casual drape of the knit fabric needing a more sculptural bra. Whatever, I'm now officially a longline convert. Gertie was right.

A Book and A Basket

2011-09-01T12:47:00.001+01:00

Under the tree last Christmas was a copy of Knit Green. It's a great little book full of information about knitting sustainably weather your focus is on animal welfare, fairly traded products, eco friendly growing practices or reducing consumption. The range of patterns in it is simple and well designed most of them challenging you to knit something that would make your life a bit more green like knee length socks and lofty cardigans. As an aside to the international set the examples of yarns are American however the principles translate and, as a British person, I don't find it too hard to substitute. Besides learning about American craft traditions is fascinating in itself.

A Family of Monkeys Strongly Objects To Being Used For a Photo Opportunity

Knit Green has been teaching me to re-evaluate my yarn. I'm sat here writing this in a fair trade, organic cotton top that's fresh off the needles contemplating my next yarn buy from a company with a strong ethical policy. Recent addictions to my stash include some naturally coloured, supper warm, Shetland wool and some sock yarn dyed and spun very close to were I was born. And I'm also exploring the wonderful world of recycled yarns.

I Tried To Convince People It Was Just a Decorative Large Malteaser and Not Another Unfinished Project...

So following the instructions in Knit Green shortly after last Christmas I cut a bed sheet into bed sheet yarn. I watched a bad action film while I sliced it up. Nobody could walk across the living room for a couple of hours. But because the 15mm circs are a) not terribly easy to find and b) rather expensive once you do the ball of bedsheet yarn languished in my living room for months. But then I visited Purl City Yarns in Manchester, got some 15 mm tips for my knit pros and finally cast on.

Recycled Yarn and Rainbow Needles... Like You Didn't Know I Was a Hippy

And that was hard. Bedsheet yarn has little to no elasticity and requires a great deal of wrestling, especially when casting on and binding off. I do not recommend this to unrepentantly tight knitters. However if you are a rather loose knitter, like me, and don't mind a bit of manhandling this is quite a fun project.

Abandoned By The Monkeys

Knitting the increases and the body of the basket went blissfully fast. Even though a lot of the knitting was done with me lying on the couch with the basket resting on my tummy making about four stitches a minute. Even given how exhausted I've been this week I took me three days to knit.

My Incisiveness, Encapsulated In One Picture

I didn't do any of the reinforcements. I find the slouchy look charming and it's contents give it shape anyway. I'm not sure quite what to do with it, apart from storing monkeys. It's machine washable so perhaps I can store gardening tools in it. I'll work it out.

World Vegetarian Takes Us to Spain

2011-08-29T19:12:00.000+01:00

Stephen has a friend over. Which means two things. The first is that I get to cook and try new things out on someone other than me. The second is that I get time to blog while they watch Avatar which is a bit of a once is enough film for me. Our main dish was a tortilla because we have plenty of potatoes hanging around and we've both come to love them over the summer. But, you know, colours are a great. So is eating more than one vegetable with each meal. Open Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian, go to the index and look under 'Spanish'.

I picked two gorgeous dishes that both depend on fabulous flavoured oil. Spanish-style Garlic and Parsley-flavoured Olive Oil. The recipe is hidden at the back and proves that simplicity tastes fabulous. As well as reserving some for dipping bread I used it to flavour Roasted Red Peppers with Garlic and Parsley Flavoured Oil and Spanish-style Grilled Courgettes. I love roasted red peepers when they still have a bit of a charred taste and texture from the skin so I left it on.

I was a bit dubious, as I often am, about whether or not it would work cold. To answer that let me just tell you one thing: I'm taking the leftovers for lunch tomorrow.

Potatoes in the sky

2011-08-22T12:23:00.000+01:00

There are challenges unique to growing on a balcony and there are challenges that every gardener faces. This year a very hot late spring/early summer has left a lot of us suffering. On a balcony that is compounded by the already dry and hot nature of gardening on our balcony and... nothing, nothing has done as well as in the previous two years. And this has got me severely down, I don't want to go outside and I apologise to everyone who accidentally sees the balcony.

But there has been one bright point in an otherwise dismal year: or first crop of potatoes. I planted an seed potato from this years box to grow and covered it, as it grew, with more and more compost. It got to work. We didn't get a massive amount but 800g is nothing to complain about.

We are actually really pleased. It was so much fin pulling them up. The big ones teasing us by being right at the bottom. Each little golden nugget was welcomed with a squee. We have no intention of keeping them very long. We pulled them yesterday and only two have survived being eaten so far. And I have plans for them. So Stephen kindly cleaned them up while I went and had a bath, then a nap... but then I got cooking.

Last night we had most of them simply, and gorgeously roasted. We didn't peel, the skins where too soft to bother, just cut them in to bits and threw them in our roasting tin. They came out like little jewels and tasted just as precious. Soft, buttery, nommy.

Hand made gifts for a gardening friend

2011-08-18T11:34:00.000+01:00

We were very happy to learn that one on the trainees at Occombe farm was going on to a different project but very sad to see her go. So we sent her off as only we can do. Hand made gifts. Obviously something from the kitchen, Stephen whipped up a batch of his famous fudge and I set to work on the sewing machine.

Dotty green garden fun

The apron was made from the directions in You Grow Girl which is probably the best basic gardening apron ever. This is the second one I've made. My own, made of mismatched vintage fabrics, is always proving useful as a place to put the secateurs and pasty wrappers.

A little owl, not to be confused with Little Owl

I though this cute little owl might look good as a brooch, especially as the recipient is a fellow Brownie leader. What I especially liked about this project is that it took 20 minutes or so to knit and twice that time to pick out the right colour of floss and buttons. Typical of me really.

Tiny Knitted Things

2011-08-16T20:15:00.000+01:00

Things have been a bit topsy turvy here. I have some bigger projects under way but in the mean time these tiny little knits are helping me stay sane, and feel like I've accomplished something.

This one is partly practical. I've been doing more volunteer days at Occombe farm which means I'm not in walking distance of home at lunch time. So there are more lunches out and you can only eat so many homity pies before you break down and pack a lunch. So I needed an apple cozy.

Speaking of Occombe, they have started their organic box scheme going and I thought the packing shed would look nice with a few knitted veggies about. I started with a carrot as I had leftover (and all of these projects came from tiny balls of leftovers I could never throw away) bright orange DK.

I knit a second one for the flat which is currently sat on the desk with my gorgeous baby Totoro. We grow our own food so having Totoros about the place is a must. They help with yeilds... honest... okay but they are cute.

And we always need cute things. Like this little heart that matches our bedroom perfectly.

Introducing the pigs, July at Occombe

2011-07-25T12:44:00.000+01:00

I managed to miss-title last months post. Last month was indeed June and we're now in July. Just thought I'd clear that up before I recapped what we got up to in the garden this month. It was a good volunteer day this month. The weather was gorgeous and there was a cheery atmosphere even though that we were all sad that one of the trainees would be leaving us after today. She is moving on to another garden.

Three Little Pigs

But at Occombe we have some new friends too. These pigs have been moved to the back of the wartime allotment. They came across on Monday and they are making quick work of their patch. I'm told it will be mud in two weeks and with all the snorting, snuffling and wallowing going on I'm sure it will be. It's nice to see pigs back in the garden as the garden is on the field that used to belong to the pigs. When Stephen and I first started volunteering the pigs still took up part of the field and they used to be fed our weeds. Since then the forest garden has moved in on that spot and the wild flower border has grown up massively.

Stephen poses, farmer style

We picked some sweetpeas for the shop but the bulk of our work this Saturday was clearing weeds from the CSA fields. We started on the sweetcorn and managed to get in impressive amount cleared working together. Unfortunately we left after lunch but it was already looking drastically different before we left.

Round Courgettes Make Admirable Bowling Balls

We didn't leave empty handed though. The picking shed has a table filled with past their best courgettes that ranged from oversized to marrow. I took two of these massive ones home. I turned half of one into gnome cakes from Cakes (River Cottage Handbook) which are lovely. I left them blonde to eat with a hot drink rather than put on frosting. That and I was tired after a hard days work. I intend to turn the rest into chutney. recipes anyone?

Fit for a gnome

I Bought A book: Everyday and Sunday

2011-07-18T12:43:00.000+01:00

Cartwheels, that's what I thing of when I hear there is a new Riverford recipe book coming out. I especially liked the concept for this one. separated seasonally, each month has recipes that are 'everyday' and easy to put together and a one or two more special 'sunday' feast. For fellow vegetarians the book is a treasury of great vegetable dishes although there are some meaty offerings and, annoyingly, one of 'our most popular vegetarian main courses' the Chard, Spinach and Blue Cheese Torte contains 50g of Parmesan. So not vegetarian then. However I'm glad to see the the vegan variation on the courgette fritters and can't wait to give them a try.

I've had the book for a month now and have managed to test it in the kitchen. For my first go I went for a recipe for broad beans because they are so seasonal and special that I have to try something new with them each time that come into the the kitchen. I tried them in the Salad of Broad Beans, Feta and Mint. It's a lovely salad, totally refreshing with the mint and feta working perfectly together and the broad beans rounded it off nicely.

With more broad beans in the box I put together a batch of Red Pepper Dressing to go over some broad beans and grilled polenta. It would have gone fine if I hadn't overcooked the broad beans in an effort to do 70 things at once. The red pepper dressing did go very well with the polenta though.

You can get a copy from Amazon or have one put in your box

Scalloped Edge Skirt

2011-07-13T12:18:00.000+01:00

Quick, before I blow Away!

As I pulled this skirt on this morning I realised that I had forgot to blog about it. My brain seems to be elsewhere right now but never mind, better late than never.When I bought Lovely Things To Make For Girls Of Slender Means back in may I was enchanted by the scalloped skirt in it. Not so much the skirt actually but the background of the picture of the skirt. The gas fireplace and heaps of books and magazines stacked everywhere made me think what my life would be like if I didn't have someone telling me to put away the books. I used to sleep with 10 or so in my bed, can't get away with that now.

I didn't really feel like paying for the fabric or going to the effort of making a skirt just to scallop the edges so I hit the charity shops finding this New Look pencil skirt for £1. Not arguing with fate it came home. The first thing I did was unpick the bottom hem and press it flat, ready to install the hem.

Getting the hight right

I used a CD as my template for the scallops. Later I realised that I could have done something cool with pi to make a neater edging but it didn't come to mind at the time. I drew the edge on to a piece of paper first. This gave me an idea of the depth of the scallop so I could cut off a strip that deep from the unpicked hem. This would but the facing.

A facing is born

I pinned the facing fabric to the skirt and used chalk to draw the scallop shape. After I had it drawn on I took the scissors to both pieces of fabric at once. Apparently I thought this would be quicker. Instead I had the stress of juggling both pieces of fabric, a pair of scissors and pinning myself. Oh well.

The facing, and skirt, ready for pinning.

I separated them to zig-zag the new edges. I pinned the skirt and facing again, right sides together and followed the contours of the scallops as closely as I could with the machine. When turned the right way round it looked jagged and scruffy. I took the skirt over to the ironing board with a rounded butter knife and carefully pressed each of the scallops into shape.

No, there isn't anything to see.

The final step was to embellish each one with a different off button from my collection. And wear to Barnstaple, of course.

July in the Garden

2011-06-28T07:53:00.001+01:00

Cuter Than Your Average Farm

The last weekend of the month is set aside to visit Occombe farm for the monthly volunteer day down in the garden. This month we arrived a little late having stopped for tiny things: wild strawberries and snails. Our first job was to help pick flowers to go in the shop that day. They sell carnations and sweetpeas straight out of the garden for £1.50 a bunch. I know carnations aren't the most popular flower but picking them still wet after the night's rain and seeing the fragile white petals strong enough to take whatever was thrown at it... well, you get an appreciation.

Readers: for you

Next we nursed the bolted lettuces into a healthy productivity by cutting them right back down to the ground. The gardeners tested before we arrive and they actually do grow a second head as advertised. Stephen did the bulk of the cutting before passing it to me. I salvaged the bottom, tastiest looking leaves and threw the rest in the wheelbarrow ready for composting. Then I walked behind him cleaning up the remaining stumps. The Leaved I'd picked off as being edible weren't good enough to sell so the volunteers where told to help themselves. I ate a big plateful that night and, although there was a little toughness, it was great.

And You Shall Know Us By The Trail Of The Lettuce

To make up for all the chopping down we spent the rest of the day planting. We put plugs of lettuces out and cleared the more tired looking parts of the salad bed, sewing new radishes, rocket and lettuce as we went. We finished the day with a little red on our cheeks because I haven't yet learned that I can still get sunburn when it's cloudy out.

I bought a book: Jekka's Herb Cookbook

2011-06-19T16:05:00.000+01:00

Another book that came out last year that I couldn't afford was Jekka's Herb Cookbook. As I love cooking, I love growing things and 'I'm not sure ask Jekka' (as in look it up in Jekka's Complete Herb Book) is commonly heard in my house Stephen thought it would make a good birthday gift. And it did.

It's a perfect book. It looks stunning. Hanna McVicar's illustrations look great and give the book an incredible vibrancy. It's a great book for those times when your horticultural eyes are bigger than your chef's belly and you end up wondering what do I do with all this damn fennel now?

Rosemary Bread chills out

On to the test drive recipes. The first was easy to pick. I wanted to give something special to a couple who are always doing us favours and there is nothing more special than home made bread. Especially one flavoured with home made herbs. Rosemary Bread seemed like the perfect gift and delivered still warm it made a great impression.

The flowers my Dad ate

Then my Dad arrived and I knew what I wanted the next recipe to be. Nasturtium Salsa, made with both the leaves and the flowers. My Dad is a big salsa lover and I was interested to see what he would think. But first I needed my velvety red 'mahogany glen' nasturtiums to burst into flower. Obligingly I saw their gorgeous red faces appear the day after he arrived and I got to making this lovely, subtle but very fiery salsa. I didn't bother seeding my chilli, not for me and Dad to eat.

I'm having so much fun so far going into all the recipes and flicking through the pages. It's very vegetarian friendly but not exclusively veggie so if meat recipes bother you you might want to stay away. This is the recipe book to buy if you want to experience all the flavours herbs bring to the table.

Preserving the Floral Forage

2011-06-03T10:39:00.001+01:00

This spring we didn't get much opportunity to forage but we did manage to get a decent harvest of flowers and as the elder flower is still out in force I'm sure it will continue. I tried my hand at preserving some of the flowers in a dandelion jelly (supposed to be a marmalade but I'm four years old and hate bits), a rose petal jelly and, elderflower cordial.

For the cupboard

The dandelion jelly and the rose petal are interesting to compare and contrast. Although the flowers taste subdued when eating them alone in the jellies you could taste their completely different characteristics. The rose petal jelly has a more fragrant quality and a soft sweetness while the dandelion packs more of a punch. Of course the elderflower cordial tastes delicious as you can tell by the suspiciously half full bottle.

The back breaking labour of picking cute flowers.

One other thing I've learned from this preserving session is that the pectin I use (Tate & Lyle) can clump up when added into the mix. This leaves a nice blob to ruin the look of your crystal clear (in theory) jellies. So I've taken to whisking it furiously with a little water before adding it along with the sugar, like you would with cornflower. It makes my jellies look a little better.

Both jelly recipes where from Hedgerow (River Cottage Handbook) there is also an elderflower cordial recipe in there although I cobbled mine together from memory and a few books.

Pocket Power

2011-06-01T12:48:00.000+01:00

People at home should walk down the stairs sensibly

We went to Chester this year for my birthday. And in Chester there is a lovely little shop with quilting fabric at the back. I wasn't in the market for more than a little bit of fabric (or I was until Stephen pointed out that I'd have to cart it around two cities take it home on the train) so I head over to the remnant basket and in it was this cute little brown floral stuff. I knew instantly that it should be pockets.

Like my life: my sketches lack the professional finish I want

I wanted a nice full skirt with big pouchy pockets on the front, big enough for a kangaroos baby or half a dozen teddy bears or, at the very least, my keys. I sketched it out that night on hotel stationary. A black half circle skirt, possibly in something satiny for the contrast with big rounded pockets finished at the top with black bias binding.

Back view, and no I didn't get to go in that door.

The bias binding was the first thing to go. Mainly because I forgot to buy it when we where out buying fabric. I made some binding out of the remnants of the pocket fabric instead. The pocket shape was achieved by drawing round a plate and cutting the top off. I cut four pieces of the fabric, constructing the pockets by sewing two together, right side facing, missing out the top edge. After I turned them right side out I attached the binding and later topstitched them to the skirt.

Love pockets

The skirt is a half circle skirt. After reading some confusing instructions, and Stephen reading the same instructions I took some measurements and he drew a diagram that made it perfectly clear. After that the making up wasn't at all stressful. My only moment of doubt came when I had a finished skirt and it was time to put the pockets on. I liked the skirt as is and I doubted the contrast would work. Would it look like a Frankenstein's Monster of a thing or a cohesive skirt? I top stitched the pockets on anyway and when I first put my hands in them I knew that they were staying. It's just a fun skirt to wear.

Somebody has been eating my lettuce

2011-05-28T21:17:00.001+01:00

I went out on the balcony to pick some lettuce to top a veggie burger. It's the kind of thing I do often. But this time I had a bit of a shock. Where had all my lettuce gone? It was there yesterday. And why is there a green leaf underneath the red... oh wait.

The Big Guy

This is what happened to my lettuce, and the leaves on my kholrabi. This tiny little caterpillar, bright green and jewel like. So cute you could cuddle it. If you weren't a gardener and it wasn't eating your crops. I guess I'm just a soppy fool though, I moved the little things where they can't harm my edibles. Am I far too soft?

And his brother

Lovely Leftovers

2011-05-24T15:32:00.001+01:00

Perhaps it's because I was cooking up some bubble and squeak or perhaps it was just the big pile of fabric stopping us fem getting from one side of the floor to the other but I sat down and cobbled a few things together from my leftover skull and stripe fabric.

Handbag takes a trip to Exeter

With the bulk of it I was able to put together a Library Tote from The Crafter's Companion. I made one of these when I first started sewing and, although I loved it to death, I made a lot of beginner mistakes with it. Starting with the fabric choice, I used a stretch so the bag strap came out more like a bungee cord. So it's interesting to make again now I can cut in a straight line. Although if I make it again in a few year's time I'm sure it will be much better. It's a great bag for taking on a shopping trip. You can fit your purse and keys in the front pocket as well as your umbrella, sunglasses (that's the South West for you!), reusable bags, kindle and a small project in the main section.

Lilly is a Pirate Tiger, but she doesn't know what that 'W' is for

The second piece was a request. My Dad wanted a doggie bandanna for his dog/canoeing companion Watson to wear. So I hemmed a square of fabric. Then, when I was feeling a little more adventurous I drafted a little 'W' based on the text on the front of Appetite for Reduction. See the 'W' in Moskowitz? It's being modelled by Lilly, a tiger acquired on our last trip to Paignton Zoo. We won't get to see Watson in it until he goes on holiday with us this summer.

Aww, skull hugs!

The last one was a scrappy little brooch inspired by one of the projects in Lovely Things to Make for Girls of Slender Means. I picked up the design in some blood red embroidery thread and stuffed it raggedly to make a cuddly punk brooch.

I bought a Book: Lovely Things To Make for Girls of Slender Means

2011-05-20T10:07:00.002+01:00

It is a testament to my own slender means that it took me a year since this was published to get my hands on a copy. Amazon tells me I bought a copy of Yeah, I Made it Myself back in 2006 it helped me work up the courage to buy a sewing machine and to use it. And it still sits beside my machine. So it stands to reason that I'm a big fan of Eithne Farry's approach but will you be?

Well it depends. Are you the type of person who wants to make something, consults google, sketches a bit and gets to work? Or, like me, do you want to be that person. If mistakes are part of your process and it's more about the joy of making and wearing than having the inside of your outfit look professional then go out and buy a copy now. You'll be making patterns out of newspaper and ripping apart old pyjamas to get the perfect fit in no time.

Daisy variation with giant green button

I use this book to cure me of my own perfectionism ('what's the point of doing anything. I can't be perfect!') but if you don't find the process fun unless you know exactly what you are doing and your end result is flawless then I would stay away. It's all about the joy of making.

Great Big Dahlia

The projects are separated into four seasons which actually make sense. Spring is about new from old, repairs and flowers. Summer is cute, breezy and easy clothing. Autumn revels in handbags and attaching fake spiders to things. Winter has felted wool and fabulousness. All throughout are the chatty tone and cultural references that make the book more like crafting for the Gilmore Girls crowd. At least in the early seasons where the wardrobe looked more attainable.

Going Green

With seasonality a theme it was easy for me to pick my test drive project. I went out and bought a pack of elastic headbands and a bouquet of fake carnations. Pulling the carnations to pieces I found that I could go from daisy, with one or two stacked up, to dahlia, with three. So I now have two bright red flower headbands and an extra bonus foliage one for when I'm feeling ethereal and wood nymphy. I know. I'm short, fat, and loud: ethereal isn't my thing.

Lovely Things to Make for Girls of Slender Means

Stripy pixie skirt

2011-05-17T11:53:00.000+01:00

Unlike the projects I posted yesterday this had an unintentional pirate look. I knew I had to do something different and a little bit showy with this red and black striped fabric. I didn't really feel like playing match up with the stripes, I considered a circle skirt but I thought the keeping it square for a pixie skirt would be much more dramatic.

Chester Cathedral: a dramatic backdrop for a dramatic skirt

Then I decided to go for double layers to keep everything out of view. Although, as my family advised, I should have also gone put some shot in the hem for that. This is not a windy day skirt. Apart from that tiny problem it is certainly fun to wear. It has plenty of volume and the stripes looked fabulous running all over the place.

Side view, in the Chinese garden to show off the volume

It fastens with a zip I salvaged from another piece so I was able to make this without going to the shops. I kind of followed the instructions at What The Craft?

The big, bad hem.

Skulls and sewing machines

2011-05-16T10:46:00.001+01:00

I've been feeling itchy lately, yes the eczema is acting up again but also I need new clothes! I'm a little dissatisfied with my wardrobe and none of my button up blouses seem to fit any more (I'll leave it to your imagination as to what has grown) So with some prompting from the Boyfriend I sat down with some fabric and got to work.

The fabric in question was about three meters of skull and crossbones fabric. I bought it around Christmas time in the John Lewis Sale and I can only imagine that it was supposed to be made into soft furnishing for a pirate obsessed children's room. Or you know, I could dress myself out of it.

The top is made from Simplicity 3750 which I've made before. This time I made a few alterations My notes from last time said

I took out the sash, lengthening the bottom front. Next time remind me to drop the top front down two inches, cut the length of the elastic shorter by another one and clip the armholes shorter by a half.

Again took out the sash (so I didn't have to go out and buy contrasting fabric) and this time I made adjustments to the bust and armholes so that instead of just vaguely hanging off in all the right parts it fit like a glove. This time I also threw in the cap sleeves.

When I still had enough fabric left to drape around my bottom half I decided on a skirt. I just went for it really. Measuring my bum, adding in seam allowance, holding it up with a drawstring and adding a lightly gathered tier.

Glorious Greenfly

2011-05-09T10:23:00.001+01:00

When I first started the balcony garden I was horrified with bugs. Horrified. I squished and squashed, I washed away, I bought a biological control. And none of it worked. I had greenfly, I still get greenfly. I might have even made the problem worse. Now the greenfly come. I let them. I wash them off anything I'm about to eat and occasionally get freaked out by the entire 'born pregnant' thing but I generally let them live. The good thing about nature is that eventually the predator with catch up with the prey. And then I get ladybirds.

Love Hate: the greenfly

Last year we had ladybirds hiding all over the balcony. And I love ladybirds. They are red (except for when they are not) and cheery and wonderful, they fly, and they have spots. I love spotty animals, I will constantly argue how One Hundred and One Dalmatians is one of the most fabulous films. I really love ladybirds.

Ladybirds hide on the balcony, a reconstruction

And if you want ladybirds there has to be something for them to eat. I can oblige with my greenfly. That's why we had a nursery of ladybird larvae last year. We were hoping they would return and breed again and we did spot an adult earlier in the year. This weekend we finally spotted a baby crawling on our thyme.

When I grow up I want to be a ladybird

Springtime Spinach

2011-05-07T20:34:00.000+01:00

I love spinach and have been growing it on the balcony since I started. I grow spinach beet. It's easier and more tolerant of our high temperatures. I like to think it's maritime ancestry makes it feel more at home. But this year I've diversified slightly. Along with a large patch of spinach beet underneath one of our passion flowers I've also put in some true spinach.

Gorgeous Greens

It was an accident (as in a real accident not 'I accidentally went shopping') really, a pack of Unwins Gro-sure came in a copy of Gardener's world magazine. They promised to be easy to germinate and slow to bolt so I threw them in. They where easy to germinate however the luminous pink coating on the seeds (wash your hands after handling) was a little creepy...

You can still make out the scary pink seed casing

I've been harvesting leaves here and there for salads but today was my first harvest of any real quantity. I picked both varieties but I had more beet, It was sown earlier in the year and I had more seeds. Of course with spinach you don't really get to eat what you pick, introduced to a pan it and it quickly wilts away. Tastes brilliant though.

A harvest.

I didn't make anything ground breaking with it. Or anything I haven't cooked before. Or anything I haven't blogged about before. Or anything I haven't blogged about growing the ingredients for before. Spinach and Cilantro Grilled Tortillas. Doesn't matter how many times I cook it, I still look forward to it.

The dish

Eating Out in Torquay, One World Cafe

2011-04-26T11:27:00.000+01:00

There are many things I hate about Torquay in season. People who go out for a nice day at the beach and leave all their rubbish behind because their enjoyment is the only thing that matters. Or people who set up a BBQ, complete with copious cans of Strongbow, so it blocks the entire path through a public garden. Or people who... okay so I think we've grasped that rude sun seekers annoy me let's bring the positivity back into this post... but the thing I love about the season is that some of our favourite places come out of hibernation. Take the One World Cafe, a decidedly cute cafe nestled in Abbey Gardens that does the best sandwiches in Torbay.

Look down as you next walk through Abbey Gardens or you might miss one of the best cafes in Torquay!

And there is a lot we love about the place the international outlook, the quirky feel, the cute handicrafts for sale, the bookcrossing zone. Also food!

The One World Cafe serves breakfast but we prefer to either head out for a cake and drink or lunch. Especially lunch. There is a brie sandwich there with my name written all over it and Stephen and I love, and I mean love, the fantastic taste of their wedges. The cakes and hot chocolate have also met with approval.

Wedges served on this cute little platter for all your dipping delights

There menu is a little confusing at first glance. The cover is lovely but the contents seem to be all over the place and overdone with clip art. Although having become a repeat customer I'm starting to find the thrown together look of it kind of cute it's not the easiest thing to navigate.

The food and drinks have an international flavour while taking advantage of the fabulous local produce. The themed sandwiches are great, the sharing platters sound fabulous (maybe I can talk Stephen into the veggie one if he is in an adventurous mood) and the smoothies and hot chocolate are incredible. Stephen says great things about the milkshakes too.

Although they do have a children's section in the menu the atmosphere is chilled and grown up. I'd be hesitant to take anyone who isn't old enough to eat off the adult menu for anything more than a quick ice cream.

It's not the ethical cola that shocks me, it's the camera in my face.

One thing I do appreciate about the menu is the commitment to their ethics. One page explains exactly why they don't serve coke at all. I gave up drinking coke at Christmas because I was using the caffeine and sugar to get through the day creating a vicious circle of epic proportions and happy-hyper/slow-sad mood cycles. Not to mention it's not really a company that I want to support.

An icy cola is fabulous on hot days like these especially with the hay-fever scratching at the back of my throat so I'm absolutely delighted that I can get Ubuntu Cola at One World. It's just a fabulous place.

Hot and Spicy Days

2011-04-25T11:28:00.000+01:00

The unseasonable warmth means that I have been ~~drifting between naps on the couch and sitting reading on the balcony leaving me with no time~~ too hot to cook. But I still have to eat and in this April heat that means one thing: spicy food. Hot and spicy food was made for hot and spicy days.

I've been playing with the Broiled Blackened Tofu from Appetite for Reduction. Cooking it until my smoke alarm sets off and eating it down as fast as I can. To temper the heat and add a little touch of freshness I picked a salad of baby leaves from the balcony (another thing helped along by the heat!) I also picked some mint and parsley for the dressing for these Moroccan carrots, a recipe that came in my Riverford box this week. The carrots, in their warm but not too spicy dressing bridged the gap between the hotter than hot tofu and the fresh greens.

Vegetable croquettes (fried or baked)

2011-04-24T08:07:00.004+01:00

Unlike Clare, I’m not a fan of vegetables. I’m what’s called a fussy eater, and the texture or taste of most vegetables makes me feel queasy. It’s a shame, as it means I can’t just go out on the balcony and pick a meal like Clare can. My solution is to slowly introduce myself to more vegetables through the medium of croquettes.

I can vary the ratio of potatoes to vegetables to get used to the flavours, and change the boiling time of the vegetables to get used to the textures. The croquettes can be fried (as in the photo above) or oven-baked.

Recipe

Makes 6–8 croquettes.

200	g	vegetables (I use potatoes for half of these)
25	g	olive oil
25	g	plain flour
150	ml	milk
1		egg
100	g	breadcrumbs

If baking, preheat the oven to 200°C.

Cut the vegetables into small pieces and boil. Use the olive oil, flour, and milk to make a thick sauce and put it into a bowl. Drain the vegetables in a sieve or colander and then stir them into the sauce. Beat the egg in a small bowl. Make the croquettes by picking up handfuls of the mixture, dipping it in the egg, and then rolling it in the breadcrumbs.

If baking, put in the oven for 20 minutes. If frying, fry with a little oil, turning frequently, until golden brown.

The Second Box to Grow

2011-04-21T14:31:00.005+01:00

Last Thursday our Riverford box to grow arrived. We got one last year so we knew what to expect: tough as nails plants that keep on giving. I ate many meals last summer courtesy of our box to grow. This year I don't expect a difference although I was a little disappointed that there are fewer herbs this year.

The Box Arrives

This year we got:

6 Lettuce (two different varieties)
2 Rocket
2 Pointed Red Cabbages
2 Courgettes
3 Mustards
3 Rainbow Chard
3 Tomato
3 Khol Rabi
3 Beetroot
3 Spring Onion
1 pack of radish seed
1 pack of pea seeds
2 bags of seed potatoes
2 pots parsley

The CD rack when it was first brought home

Luckily we weren't too short of space. A couple of weeks earlier we came into some luck. Stephen found some old wooden CD racks in the server room at work. His boss let him take them home. Stephen though we could use them to sort out CDs but, before he even got them home, one of his co-workers suggested planters.

With the addition of Danish oil, chalkboard paint, compost and plants

I'm glad she said that. It meant I didn't have to. Considering I'd read about planting up CD racks in The Thrifty Gardener it's not that much of a crazy idea and with a little bit of weatherproofing and a coat of blackboard paint along the top I don't think it scrubbed up too bad. Besides, it's adorable.

And its twin

The CD planters are now full of quick growing khol rabi, beetroot to be picked young and salad leaves. Elsewhere I've stuffed things where they can fit with rainbow chard, parsley and tomatoes together in a medium size tub (growing leafy food under tomatoes keeps the pot from drying out as well as giving more room).

Lettuce is keeping the roots of the blackcurrant cool and the courgettes are left to scramble under the passionflower. I've still got the potatoes left to plant although Good Friday is the traditional day for that.

Al Fresco

2011-04-09T14:54:00.001+01:00

Last summer I was getting one big salad from the balcony a week. It was great and I loved it. I can't wait to get back into the habit this year as the weather warms up and the lettuce becomes an unstoppable force. But we aren't there yet. Fortunately a head of lettuce from Riverford is currently filling in the gap

Partly bought, partly home grown: a new season salad

I'm a believer in big salads. Salads have to fill you, they have to have lots of greens (my favourite part!) crispy veggies, herby stuff and tasty, tasty toppings. Bring me dressing. Croutons are optional. Grains are good. Cheese is decent. Falafel are better. So today's salad was lettuce, spinach falafel, balsamic vinaigrette and a few yums from the garden

French Breakfast Radish, grown under cover

I started some radishes off for an early crop. I put them under a little plastic cloche and waited. Yesterday I peeked under and saw that it was time to eat. I sliced one up for the salad, there is more to come. They took about 6 weeks to get to this point but they are bigger than they would have been without the cover.

Viola, I'm in love with them

I'm continuing my obsession with edible flowers this year. A pack of viola plugs we bought in mid-march has been flowering it's socks off. They look gorgeous, in the pots and on the plate. I also chopped off about two inches of onion stalk for a nice crunch and a subtle onion taste.

I loved my lunch today.

DIY Chalkboard Plant Markers

2011-04-08T10:22:00.000+01:00

A combination of writing this post about my recycled milk bottle markers and using these lovely cute chalkboard markers at Occombe made me think that I did need a new system of markers. Not for my seedlings, they are fine, but I've been thinking for a while now that I need to bring more quirky, cute, decorative stuff onto the balcony. If only to be redeemed for the style sin of using plastic 'terracotta style' tubs.

Chive marker with added Totoro

But I'm not convinced that I need to pay through the nose for lovely plant markers. I've seen gorgeous ones in the lovely quirky shops of Totnes. Only they were more than I can to afford and they weren't quite in the right shade of blue. The only way I was going to get my cute quirky markers was to do it my way.

So I bought a couple off bags of midsize markers, some blue paint and some chalkboard paint. It all came to less then £10. So far I've made 20 of the markers and I've got plenty of leftover paint. I set down with a old banana bag and got to work. First I painted them 'harbour' blue. When you have a sea view nautical themes creep in to everything. Add a couple of coats of chalkboard and we're done. Cool.

The mess that is my living room floor

When I was marking them up I decided to get a bit more decorative. I got my smaller stamps out and found my Totoro stamp. I decided the perfect place for a Totoro was with the chives. You see last year I pulled up my shallots. They spent a couple of days drying out in the sun but then the rain came. They spent the rest of their time drying inside. Only I made a bit of a mistake. I put them next to our Totoro. A cute, tiny cuddly Totoro that lives inside. And the Totoro did what Totoros do best. One of our shallots came back to life with an impressive green spear that grew overnight. Not ideal. But if a Totoro can do that for shallots in the living room what can it do for chives in the ground?

A pebble marks the rocket

While I had the chalkboard paint out it was time to solve another identification problem. I needed something smaller, lower down to mark what I've just directly sowed. I had some beach pebbles lying around - like a small child I can't resist bringing them home - so I slapped on some of the paint. Now all I need to work on is my handwriting.

Bran shortbread

2011-04-05T19:06:00.004+01:00

Having grown tired of bran muffins, I faced the question of what to do with the rest of the bran that I bought on our last trip to Totnes. The solution: bran shortbread, a slightly healthier variation on traditional shortbread.

Recipe

Makes 10-20 biscuits, depending on cookie cutter size.

100	g	butter
50	g	caster sugar
50	g	bran
100	g	plain flour

Preheat the oven to 150°C. Cream together the butter and sugar, and then stir in the bran. Add the flour and knead until the dough holds together (the dough will be dry and crumbly to start with, but after a while the warmth of your hands will melt the butter). Roll out about five millimetres thick on a lightly floured surface and cut into the desired shapes. Bake for twenty minutes.

Seed Sowing at Occombe

2011-04-02T10:04:00.002+01:00

Last week was our monthly volunteer day at Occombe farm. You can read about what we got up to in my post on the Occombe farm blog.

More Rainy Days

2011-03-29T16:50:00.000+01:00

It's officially an annual tradition! March rain bring all sorts of loveliness with it. The extra water seems to give plants an excuse to throw out lush leaves. Seedlings take it as a opportunity to poke their heads up. We've even got some flowers forming.

My chives were sown from seed back in 2009 (wow... the balcony before it was covered in pots!) and have been my constant garden companion since them. We love them as an ingredient in just about everything or sometimes just as a flavourful garnish. I'm really looking forward to the gorgeous, edible flowers.

If there is one vegetable I've fallen in love with since starting to grow my own it's chard. Here are some 'bright lights' seedlings. I'm happy to have them in my garden again this year.

Also half out of their seeds are these calendula. They are growing in front of the window for a gorgeous an extra bonus to the incredibly useful edible and medicinal flowers.

And one that never, ever stays suppressed for too long: mint. I can't be annoyed by it's tenacious growth. I love the flavour too much and the reliability soothes a nervous gardeners soul.

Floral-Irish Fusion on a Cupcake

2011-03-20T10:26:00.000Z

One of Stephen's co-workers used to live in America where a much bigger deal was made of St Patricks day then it is here. What with us being English and everything. But rather than have a sad programmer I made him a batch of green frosted cupcakes.

Some little plugs of violets that we bought at the weekend had also obliged us by coming into bloom so two of them where used to decorative the cakes but with Stephen insisting that they are supposedly edible this one got left until last. Sad.

Our former expatriate and the actual Irish chap Stephen works with were quite happy to see the day marked.

Mini Tunnel

2011-03-18T16:29:00.000Z

One of my garden recycling projects I didn't talk about in the last post was my milk bottle tunnel. I wasn't very sure that it would work so, although you can see it in some of the pictures if you squint, I left it out of the round up. But Today I was jumping up and down happily. You can see seedlings. So let's get down to the nitty gritty.
The two troughs by the balcony windows have housed salad leaves for the past two years. It works out fairly well in spring, autumn and - when mild - in winter but come summer and it's a mess of bolted greens. A fairly pretty mess with the long spikes of rocket flowers but not a very productive one.

I now like to grow lettuce under the cover of other things. They did well under the black current last year and in the shade of other pots. The troughs need rethinking. I'm tempted of fill them with alpines at some point but this year I've gone for the simple approach. Scattering poppies and other flowers that don't mind the baked, dryish soil.

I also found a pack of leftover lettuces from last year. I figure that if I can get this going early enough and pull it out by May (perhaps to be replaced by the start of my alpine collection) I'll have a decent crop and a pretty tub at the end of it.

For the early start I've sown them out under the protection of half a milk bottle. After a windy moment I weighed it down with a few pebbles. It's taken just less two weeks to germinate and I thinned the extras out today.

Recycling in The Garden

2011-03-14T10:55:00.000Z

Our first year growing we bought some small pots. Being on a balcony and starting from scratch we've needed to buy a lot of things in: endless amount of compost and the big tubs for outside, seeds, plug plants, bare root plants and impulse buys. But since that first year I've never bought another little pot. I just wash out my previous year's pots and hope my plant buying habit would also supply my pot needs.

Tomatoes Latah and Koralik Bask in Their Reused Pots

The one thing I've never, ever bought is markers. I used cut up drink bottles, usually milk, and write on them with my ~~best hand writing~~ chicken scratch. Sometimes I thing we should spring for something more decorative especially as we grow in such a small space but it never happens. It isn't in the budget. And to be honest I never notice the tiny things unless I'm looking for them.

Of course later in the month beans will be started in toilet roll tubes and my odd collection of cut up bottles will be used to gently encourage the tomatoes to spread their wings outside. You can see the bottles at work last year. Not the most gorgeous solution but it's gone in a week or two so it works out okay in the end.

Tomatillos and Nasturtium, Marked Up With Recycled Bottle Lables

This year I'm looking to expand our garden based recycling. I'm hoping that something will come along that I can use as a cheap or low cost mulch but most importantly I hope I can finally figure out a way to make composting work for our space.

Fairtrade Fortnight: Hot Chocolate

2011-03-13T20:40:00.000Z

An end to the frantic excesses of the last two weeks: a steaming mug of hot chocolate with squirty cream and giant buttons. Both the hot chocolate and the buttons are Cadburys. Cadbury's have a few products that are Fairtrade which is sightly good/bad news as far as my shopping trips are concerned. Bad news because having a cheap, ubiquitous Fairtrade chocolate means that some places have discontinued selling other Fairtrade brands or only put them in bigger shops which means I can't get some favourite products locally now, even ones that haven't been 'replaced' by Dairy Milk.

But overall I think it's incredibly positive that I can get Fairtrade chocolate from almost any corner shop. Places that probably couldn't have afford to stock Fairtade without one of the biggest, most popular chocolate companies switching over. So now I can walk down to a local business and buy some Fairtrade chocolate. Which is slightly incredible. I've not been grown up enough to do my own food shopping long but back in 2005, when I left home, I didn't see this one coming.

Still though a lot of the things we've bought this fortnight have been bought on special visits and long bus rides. I really hope that it will be just as easy to find Fairtrade golden syrup and pasta in the future.

Fairtrade Fortnight: Beyond Chocolate

2011-03-12T21:18:00.000Z

When I first though that I could blog about 14 different products and the recipes they work in for Fairtrade fortnight I should have thought that it would quickly become two weeks of chocolate. And it's not that I haven't had any chocolate today but I have miraculously found something else to blog about.

Oxfam have some fabulous Fairtrade cards available online and in some shops. With mother's day coming up I bought this one for my Mum. Now I'm hoping she doesn't read the blog.

Fairtrade Fortnight: Cut Out Cookies Of Cute

2011-03-11T20:10:00.003Z

It might just be one of my favorite recipies of all time. I know I make them often enough. The chocolate cut out cookies in Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar are just fabulous. They combine chocolate with cute shapes and, of course, continue our theme of fattening up for awareness of fabulous Fairtrade products. Brought to you by Green & Blacks cocoa powder and Tate & Lyle sugar.

Fairtrade Fortnight: Nuts

2011-03-10T20:01:00.000Z

To hold off on the sugar coma I thought I'd give some Fairtrade nuts a try tonight. I went for the fabulous brand Liberation who make these fabulous Oven Baked Cashew Nuts & Peanuts: Lemon & a hint of Chilli as well as other bits of nutty awesomeness like peanut butter and Harry's Nuts.

The chilli and lime variety are pleasantly zingy with a hint of heat that comes in at the last moment. Delicious and incredibly addictive. I only ate half the pack and I think I now have to go back for more.

Fairtrade Fortnight: Chocolate

2011-03-09T21:03:00.002Z

You would be forgiven for thinking that we eat nothing but cake if you had only been reading our blog for Fairtrade Fortnight. But don't worry, this post has some fruit content. Freeze dried raspberry granules to be exact. These sparkly little crunches of taste are embedded in the fabulous 70% Dark Chocolate with Raspberries from Divine.

I don't think you can really beat Divine in terms of an eating chocolate and when you read into how the company is set up it really sounds good. They also do an adorable advent calender but untill the season comes around again try the 70% Dark Chocolate with Raspberries.

Fairtrade Fortnight: Pancake Day

2011-03-08T21:10:00.002Z

Today is Pancake Day, and in keeping with Fairtrade Fortnight we sprinkled Fairtrade sugar over our pancakes.

Fairtrade Fortnight: Golden Syrup and Parkin Adventures

2011-03-07T17:09:00.000Z

Sundays are just awesome, even more so when Time Team is on because something about Time Team demands a big heart meal followed by a beautiful cake. Okay so this is probably one of those associations that my brain comes up with that is hard to explain to anyone else but trust me Time Team on a Sunday afternoon requires hearty food and cake.

What better excuse to showcase another Fairtrade ingredient from our pantry. We switched over to Rayner’s golden syrup from the more traditional tinned kind. Cynics may think that, in my case at least, this has more to do with my need for jam jars than it's organic, fairtrade credentials. They would only be slightly wrong. Yesterday I used it in Parkin. I'm toying with veganising the recipe from our new bible Cakes (River Cottage Handbook) I've had good, but not perfect results so far and I'll let you know as soon as I perfect the recipe. We also use this syrup in Stephen's Praline Cake. We get it from the Occombe farm shop but a quick google shows it's on sale at Goodness Direct.

Fairtrade Fortnight: Banana bread

2011-03-06T20:08:00.004Z

Green & Black’s Ultimate Chocolate Recipes: The New Collection is my favourite cookbook at the moment, and my favourite recipe from it is the farmhouse chocolate and banana bread. It’s easy to make, and a great way to use up over-ripe bananas.

A word of warning though: the recipe calls for 50 g of chopped chocolate to be pressed into the top before baking. The result is a chocolate crust which serves only to make the cake a little bitter. I omit this step, as has clearly happened in photograph accompanying the recipe.

Fairtrade Fortnight: Tradecraft Pasta!

2011-03-05T21:19:00.000Z

My stomach is being a little temperamental today so we're going for simplicity with today's Fairtrade Fortnight product review. I had pasta with tomato sauce for supper which, while always being very lovely and filling, isn't the most impressive dish. However while we were in Totnes today we bought some of this lovely pasta by Tradecraft. It's 80% durum wheat, 20% fairtrade quinoa which makes it sort of half way between plain white pasta and whole wheat in taste and texture. It's a little more substantial then your average pasta and incredibly filling. Perfect food after a long day.

Fairtrade Fortnight: Quick and Fair Snaks

2011-03-04T12:25:00.000Z

I suppose our love of Green & Blacks had been made obvious by now. The plain chocolate and the cocoa powder are pantry staples in our house, good for all kinds of delicious treats. But there are some treats that are quicker than others and with some ready made puff pastry you can be eating these two awfully quickly.

Back in MoFo I made some quick chocolate Croissant which is made with a packet of puff and a bar of good chocolate. But if you last bar of chocolate just got turned into a Brownie and you still need pastry covered nibbles these chocolate twists are made with cocoa powder and icing sugar. The recipy is in the The Vegan Boulangerie.

Fairtrade Fortnight: Praline cake

2011-03-03T19:17:00.005Z

Praline cake is the closest I have to a family recipe: my paternal grandmother made it for my dad, my dad made it for me, and now I make it for my workmates. Despite the name, praline cake doesn’t contain nuts, presumably due to its origin during the rationing of the Second World War. The original recipe combined margarine, sugar, drinking chocolate, ‘syrup’, and sweetened biscuits (my grandmother used Rich Tea), topped with an icing which my dad found too sweet. Over the course of a few experimental batches I modernised the recipe, using metric units and Fairtrade and organic ingredients.

Recipe

400	g	digestive biscuits (organic from Doves Farm)
100	g	water
100	g	butter (organic from Yeo Valley)
4	tbsp	golden syrup (Fairtrade and organic from Rayner’s)
4	tbsp	cocoa powder (Fairtrade and organic from Green & Blacks)

Crush the digestive biscuits with a rolling pin. Put the water, butter, golden syrup, and cocoa powder into a saucepan and heat, while stirring, until the butter has melted. Combine the liquid with the biscuit crumbs and then press down into a flan tin. Cut once cooled.

Fairtrade Fortnight: Fair Beans

2011-03-02T10:00:00.000Z

A couple of weeks I go I got a craving for baked beans. I generally only have beans on camp or as part of a breakfast so I really have no idea when I bought and cooked baked beans last. I'd seen a couple of organic brands and figured I'd try one of those out rather than the traditional Heinz. Looking on the shelves I was pleased to find these Fairtrade beans from Geo Organics. They are about 30p more expensive than your Heinz and around 60p more than your basic but we're happy to (and lucky to be able to) spend a bit more for Fairtrade beans.

Well, that is, if they taste nice! The beans themselves are a little larger which I think looks better on the plate. The beans where crammed into the can and the sauce was thick. No watering down going on here. And they did taste lovely. They weren't overly sweet like some baked beans can be, just a good basic tomato sauce with some pretty beans in. I split the can in two, my first half I had on a jacket spud, the second for a fry up.

And I'm very happy to hear, from this Waitrose press release, that sales of the Fairtrade Geo Organics beans are up. Rock on!

Fairtrade Fortnight: Scones

2011-03-01T10:06:00.001Z

Balance foods make a Fairtrade Rice Milk that is my favourite non-dairy milk. I use it often in baking. After the break is my recipe for vegan scones made with rice milk. We top them with chocolate spread (not vegan), jam or marge. This recipe is adapted from one we used in the kids cookery club at Occombe farm.

Scones with Fairtrade Rice Milk
(makes anything from 4 huge ones to 12 little ones depending on your cutter)

225g of plain flour
50g of margarine
100ml of Fairtrade Rice Milk
25g of sugar
2 teaspoons of baking powder
a pinch of salt

Pre heat the oven to 200 C

Combine the flour, baking powder and salt in your mixing bowl.

Just Like Breadcrumbs... sort of

Add the margarine to the flour and rub in with your fingers until it has an even, breadcrumb like consistency.

Then mix in the sugar and the milk until it comes together as a dough.

You don't need to use a rolling pin, unless you particularly fancy washing up one later, just pat the dough down onto a floured surface until it's around 1 or 1 1/2 inches thick.

Cut out your scones!

Cut out your circle/s. Because I used my largest cutter here I only had one scone to do at first. Don't worry though! Just scoop up your leftovers, squish them together, pat it down and cut again. Keep going until you run out of dough.

Place on a baking tray and wash the tops with more rice milk. Bake for 10 (for tiny ones) -15 (for huge ones) minutes, until slightly golden.

Then you can eat them. I'm not going to get into the fierce rivalry between Cornwall and Devon over the correct scone eating etiquette. I don't like clotted cream anyway. I favour a good chocolate spread, Stephen likes jam.

February Forest Garden Volunteer Day

2011-02-28T22:00:00.001Z

Digging holes in some poo to plant the wind break

On Saturday we went back into Occombe farm's Forest Garden for a volunteer day. You can read my account of the day over on the Occombe Blog.

Forking comfrey is clearly too much fun

Fairtrade Fortnight: Hazelnut and Chocolate Spread.

2011-02-28T10:00:00.003Z

Today is the start of Fairtrade Fortnight so well be blogging for fourteen day about our favourite Fairtrade products, places and food including a couple of recipes of things to cook with Fairtrade ingredients.

First up is something much loved by both of us: Essentials Organic Hazelnut and Fairtrade Chocolate Spread. Yes, hazelnut and chocolate. The food combination of kings. It's absolutely delicious, creamy and chocolatey without being overwhelmingly rich. I love to use mine to top scones (and the recipe will be posted tomorrow, giving you time to go out and buy some!)

We get ours from Occombe farm but it's easy to find online. Greenlife in Tones have some for sale.