Category: Food
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Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes
I have to confess that in my pre-mamma days I wasn’t really a cupcake person but there’s something about that swirl that just drives my five year old wild, so I’ve adapted! I think in the past the major turn-off was simply the overwhelming sweetness of the cakes on offer, loaded with so much standard…
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Wild Garlic & Mushroom Ramen
Every April I walk in the woods with a positive spring in my step because wild garlic season has returned! While it’s a time of quiet beauty with it’s own special charm winter can seem to last for an age in these spaces. When the undergrowth has died back to a tangle of brambles and…
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Celeriac & Apple Soup with a Hazelnut Crumb
Celeriac may look like the brute of the vegetable patch, but this underused root is a complete gem in the kitchen. We love it roasted with thyme, as a silky puree beneath roasted fish and meats, thinly sliced and baked with cream and plenty of rosemary and as a velvety base for all kinds of…
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Winter Fruit & Bitter Leaf Salad
I love cooking in all seasons but I must admit that towards the end of winter I begin to grow tired of the sweet and stodgy comfort foods that define the season. I crave freshness. Fortunately this is when forced chicory and radicchio come into their own and why they are so invaluable in my…
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Pea & Coconut Soup with Garden Herbs
As we were walking the dogs earlier this week, we noticed that one of the fields near our house- that had seemed completely bare a couple of weeks ago – is now filled with sturdy pea seedlings, curling out of the earth. It’s a familiar sight at this time of year; the area just east…
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Garden Pea & Asparagus Bruschetta
This a quick and easy post for a quick and easy recipe. At this time of year I often notice that cooking becomes a lot more relaxed than in other seasons. There’s an abundance of fresh produce that needs very little attention to coax out its quality – in my experience, a little salt, olive oil and lemon…
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Wild Garlic Hummus with Spring Crudités
As readers of any of my previous posts on the subject will know, I am more than a little enthusiastic about the Springtime emergence of wild garlic. As April arrives, the nearby woods are lush with its strap-like leaves and distinctive allium scent, and by Mid-May the woodland is dotted with clusters of white, star-shaped flowers,…
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Spring Potato Salad with Saffron Aioli
Spring is definitely here! The Hawthorne hedges that line the lanes around our house are budding with May flowers, slender acid-green leaves are shooting from the willows in the garden and our fruit trees are full of soft, trembling blossoms. Perhaps it’s because Easter was so early this year, but the season seems to have…
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Simple Marinated Beetroot
Just look at how beautiful these vegetables are! We’ve been growing our own beetroot for a few years now, as most stores (and even markets and farm shops) have yet to embrace the rainbow of varieties available. In our little plot we grow Boltardy (the traditional, full-bodied deep purple), Chioggia (pink and white candy-stripes), Burpees Golden (a…
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Wild Mushroom Soup with Spelt Gremolata
A few years ago I spent the summer in Austria. The pickings in the woods there were just incredible. As long as you went for a walk with a beady eye and a lot of patience, you could be rewarded by intensely flavoured mountain strawberries and raspberries, wild bilberries and a plethora of mushrooms. I had…