The everlasting pumpkin

I love Halloween but this is the time of year that pumpkins are in the shops in abundance. I love pumpkins, the orangey-ness of them. I always have loved them and always will. I used them a lot as photography props but I also eat them afterwards.

As a food item pumpkins aren't that popular or fashionable in this country so shops seem to stock them with the intention of children carving them for Halloween decorations and for this reason they are really cheap.

I bought this large pumpkin from Waitrose for just £2. I know £2! But it serves so many purposes. Out of that one pumpkin I will create the following recipes:

• Spiced pumpking fold over (this recipe is in the River Cottage Veg cook book)
• Pumpkin, Carrot and Coriander Soup
• Pumpkin Pie (probably savoury this year)
• Pumpkin and chickpea stew

And those recipes will also last more than one serving which is great.

I also use the pumpkin seeds to make a nice snack. I put them on a roasting tray, sprinkle them with salt and paprika and roast them until they are a nice golden colour.

It's old fashioned thrifty cooking at it's best.

But then I do look forward to November because after a while I do get sick of too much pumpkin!

Here is Betty and Bert modelling with said pumpkin:

Forraging - Elderflower Cordial

I just love this time of year, I like going out for a nice walk and seeing what bounties I can forrage!

What people don't know when they smile as they pass is that often I have a carrier bag and a pair of scissors in my pocket! Why I hear you ask, well for elderflowers. I love love love em and the best bit is they are free. I use them for cordial, champage and for fritters. DELISH!!!

For now I have made elderflower cordial and thought I would share the images from the process with you. What sparked it off was this darling little lady bug - so cute I grabbed my camera and from there I thought why not lets shoot the whole thing. Don't worry, the little bug was not harmed in the procees, she was put out to graze in my garden.

So piccies first and the I will share the recipe with you and then some tips on foraging!

Elderflower Cordial Recipe

To make approximately 3 litres

40 heads of elderflower
3.5 Kg sugar
2.5 litres water
4 lemons
150g citric acid
Bottles - Glass looks pretty but you can also use plastic.

1. Shake the elderflower heads to remove any bugs and beasties and also to shake off dead flowers and pollen
2. Trim as much of the green stalks off as possible as these can make it taste more bitter
3. Put the flowers into a large bowl (or two medium sized). Slice up the lemon and add this to the bowl with the flowers. If you would like the cordial to be less torte, use fewer lemons!
4. Pour the water into a large (or two medium sized) saucepan, add the sugar and slowly heat.
5. Once the sugar has dissolved, pour this into the bowl over the lemons and the flowers and savour that wonderful smell!
6. Stir in the citric acid, cover with a cloth.
7. Leave to infuse for 24-48 hours stirring occasionally.
8. Pour into clean sterilised bottles using a sieve or muslin cloth and a funnel.

Can be stored for up to one month or it can be frozen in batches and defrosted to use when required. This is what I do. I use smaller plastic bottles, the type that you buy for a one off drink about 500ml, I fill the bottle 3/4 full and then freeze it. That way I can get a bottle out when I like and not much goes off. It keeps for months and months frozen.

My tips and how to identify the plant

Elderflowers can be harvested approximately May – June.

I had bought cordial in the shops and paid an absolute fortune for it (particularly in the pretty fancy unusual bottles – I am a sucker for that – it must be posh and good if it is in a posh looking bottle, surely? All I knew was that Elderflowers taste yummy, the grow wild and are free. Making things with cordials must be easy and I no longer had to spend a fortune on my luxury cordial, or posh squash as Jon likes to call it!
I want to make elderflower cordial, I had that established but where on earth do I start? Where do they grow? What do they look like? My main worry with picking elderflowers is that I wasn’t entirely sure what they look like. This was our first foraging for free food experience and I was terrified that I was going to poison us!

Once you know what elderflower looks like, you always know. That may sound silly but now every where I go I am like, ooooh there’s one, ooooh fancy it growing there. It becomes an addiction.

The main plant that you could confuse elder with is the Guelder Rose. The guelder rose however is a much smaller shrub. The branches of Elder are very brittle and the bark is slightly corky looking. You can also tell the elderflower apart from the guelder rose by the leaves. Elder  leaves have finely serrated edges on a stem with two or three pairs and then a single leaf at the end. The Elder flowers are individually very small - the whole flower head being of a larger spread than the Guelder Rose. The latter has much larger individual white flowers open around the outside of the flower head, and smaller flowers very similar to the Elders in the centre of the flower head. Leaves are totally different to the Elder, being broader - a bit like a Field Maple shape.
Elderflowers smell of what can only be described as being “Tom cat ish” if they smell too much like tom cat then they have gone over and shouldn’t be used. Anything you make with gone over elderflowers will smell equally noxious!

The other plant that you could perhaps mistake them for is the white cowslip.

I would recommend that you harvest from as high as possible to avoid the concern that a doggy may have already paid a visit and to ensure that you are not harvesting cowslip. Also as ever avoid harvesting from a bush that is potentially polluted, from by the side of a road for example.

ENJOY!!!!

National Vegetarian Week

Did you know that this week marks the start of National Vegetarian Week? I did but that is only because I saw it in a magazine so decided to find out more about it. We are vegetarian's 99% of the time anyway so I suppose there is not much change for us other than to shout and be recognised this week.

Unfortunately all the events that seem to be happening, that I can see so far are all in London. One thing I have found out though is that there are lots of lovely recipes on the website so go check it out.

So how will you spend your week?

Book Review: Food For Free

I think if nothing else the title should really grab your attention, I mean afterall who wouldn't want to eat for free huh!

It's a Collins Gem book and I tell ya, it really is a little Gem! It is small in size but certainly not in content. I think I paid something like £3 for it and it was well worth it. In fact we keep it in the car so that it is handy for trips out etc but I am thinking of getting another couple and leaving them in bags etc as there are often times when I wish I had this little book with me.

It has details of pretty much everything you can imagine that you would want to forrage and then eat. It has both photographs and drawings /paintings so that you can easily identify what it is. The write up about each food stuff is pretty good and it is certainly a good start if you are thinking of forraging it or not, the only thing I would say is that I have refferred to other books or the internet later on for ideas of how to eat / cook / preserve the items. At the end of the day I don't mind that though as if it had all that information in the book would be huuuuuuuuge and I really want it more as an identifier whilst I am out and about.

Here I am in the tent after a walk along the saltmarshes forraging. I just wanted to show you how small the book is. So what are you waiting for? Go buy the book and go forraging. It is certainly a liberating experience and truly a way to get back to nature.

Forraging - Saltmarsh style

For the bank holiday we decided to have an impromptu break and go to the coast for a couple of days. Camping of course. You knew the weather by the seaside really was very pleasant and we were certainly warm and cosy in the tent. I love Norfolk. We stayed in Stiffkey and went along the stretch of coast from Wells to just after Blakeney. I do love the area and whilst it has become a lot snoottier over the years it has meant that a lot of small independent shops have opened up in the area. Far far more than we have here which is lovely. I do agree with Nicola though, when she wrote on her blog about local Farm Shops...

It’s the kind of place where all of the customers seem to drive immaculate 4×4’s, wear pristine hunter wellies and gilets and be incredibly well-groomed and manicured, as if they want to present the image of country living without actually coming into contact with real country life.  http://thegoodlifechallenge.wordpress.com/

Why is it that farm shops are more like posh chutney shops than actual grown produce? Anyway back to Norfolk...

So we were staying in Stiffkey which if you know the area you will know that the campsite is right next to the saltmarshes..

Our love of self sufficiency and our love for nice walks has lead us to forraging for our tea.

Armed with a bucket, pen knife, waterproofs and a sense of humour, we had a lovely walk along the salt marshes. It is a verritable buffet of lovliness it really is. On this trip we settled for Samphire and Mussels, a lovely combo! Some books and even some critics would probably say that it is too early in the year for such forraging. Well by the book yes it is, but remember before all the rain we have had of recent days it was unseasonably warm and everything was growing like crazy!

Below you will see the greyish area on the sand - these are all mussels and lots of them, oh and a windswept looking me!

My advice to budding forragers is to read good books. We reccommend the following:

River Cottage Handbook - Edible Seashore
Seaweed and Eat it: A family foraging and cooking adventure
The Camper Van Cookbook: Life on 4 Wheels, Cooking on 2 Rings

They tell you what to look out for, identifying your finds, safety, the law, and how to cook your finds.

And then of course have fun!

The books will tell you everything you need to do but make sure that the mussels are all still alive (OK that bit chokes me up!) and that they have been soaking in fresh water that has been changed several times. You need to make sure that they are nice and clean so give them a good scrub. Any floaters are dead so they need to go. Pop all your ingredients in a pan and they are ready to eat when they have opened up!

BUT PLEASE READ MORE ABOUT THIS.... I don't want you to get food poisoning!

We cooked our mussels in cream and garlic and served them over sauted samphire. It really was a scrumscious meal and almost FREE!

Baking Day

I am adopting a bit of an old fashioned approach and having a baking day once a week. I figured that if I am cooking something and it takes me half an hour a day, I may as well spend longer in one hit and bake loads to last. I also thought that this was a sound eco choice as it takes a good deal of energy to heat the oven up to temperature. Why do this every day when you could just do it the once.

On my baking day this week I made a mushroom lasagne which will do us two meals, three pizzas which will do several meals / lunches, rolls and a big 'ol cakey. I was plum tuckered after but it feels so satisfying when you look at the mounds of food that I have made. I am really starting to enjoy cooking and am seeing it as a pleasure activity whereas in the past I always saw it as a chore. I think having a small kitchen makes it seem more chore like as I am always tripping over myself. I need to be more organised which I am not!

I am slowly getting the hang of the domestic Goddess thing. I still don't look cute in my little dress and pinny. I am still filthy, covered in flour, kitchen a mess but I am getting there and improving all the time. Except my cake sunk in the middle but then as a friend said to me on Facebook "more room for cream".

The recipe that I use for my cake is Jon's Grandma's that was handed down to my Mother in Law who has since handed it down to me. I hope to be able to do that with my children someday, there is something so lovely about hand me downs. I like modern recipes but sometimes I think the oldies are the best. The good old tried and tested ones really do stand the test of time. I like modern cook books but I do find that they try and zazz the recipes up with extra ingredients that aren't really needed just for the sake of it.

If you would like to have a go at Grandma Freda's cake here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

100g Margerine
150g Caster Sugar
150g Plain Flour with 3tsps of Baking Powder, although if you prefer you can use 150g of Self Raising Flour instead
3 Eggs
Flavouring: Either a few drops of vanilla essence or for a lemon cake add the zest of one lemon.

Method:

Cream the margerine and sugar together in a bowl. Add your eggs and flavouring and mix. Slowly add your flour. Once everything is all mixed together, transfer to your tin then bake in the oven at 180 degrees C for approx 30-40 minutes.

Finishing:

I made a victoria sponge so filled my middle with strawberry jam and butter icing (butter and icing sugar creamed together), however if you wanted to make it into a lemon drizzle cake just add the juice on one lemonwith 3 tablespoons of caster sugar and drizzle it over the warm cake as it comes out of the oven.

Yummy scrummy!

What to eat when the cupboard really is bare

So a couple of days again I had the Old Mother Hubbard syndrome. The cupboard seemed to be bare but I still managed to make a meal. Well actually I haven't been shopping since so this time when I looked the cupboard really was bare. I have been trying to leave it as long as possible before going shopping ...

1. To make the expenditure eek out (it's getting close to end of the month / payday!!)
2. So as to avoid wasting food, so many times I have thrown things out that have gone past their dates because I have bought more food
3. To see how resourceful we can really be
4. To test my cooking skills and creativity
5. To learn what it is like to only be able to cook and eat what you have in. We are far too used to being able to pop to the supermarket and buying fruit and veg from all around the World out of season. I want to get better at learning to use what we have when we have it.
6. To not eat so much, if we have to be a bit more frugally then portion control is better

So far we are doing OK. We haven't starved and we have still eaten fairly nutritious meals. Here is one of my "Oh y God we really don't have anything in at all" meals:

Ingredients

•  Baked Beans
• Chick peas
• Onion
• Chilli Flakes
• Tom Sauce
• Curry powder
• Potatoes

Method

Chop the pots up into bitesize cubes and boil in a pan until cooked. In another pan lightly fry the onions until transparent then add the curry powder and fry off a little. Add the remaining ingredients to the onion pan and warm through. If the sauce gets a little too thick add a couple of spoons of water to loosen. Once the pots are cooked add them to the other ingredients.

Mix together and serve in nice deep comfy huggable bowls.

Eat on the sofa in your PJs watching a nice film knowing that you are eating a heartwarming snuggle comfort food!

So you see, very little ingredients needed, mostly store cupboard items. Cheap as chips, fairly healthy, tasty and very comforting.

Old Mother Hubbard Syndrome

Is the cupboard really bare or are you just not looking?

OK so you remember when you were a kid, you used to look in the fridge, then the cupboard, then the fridge again then hollah “Muuuuuuum, there’s nothing to eat” and of course your Mum would respond that there was in fact lots to eat if you were only to look. Of course you were looking. What you saw was ingredients for meals that quite frankly you didn’t want. It had been a while since she had gone shopping and all the quick grab and go food was gone. You know the sort of thing, sausage rolls, crisps. All the things teenagers love. What your Mum saw on the other hand was a fridge full of lovely fresh ingredients ready to make fabulous gourmet meals with. So really in fact she was right, there was lots of food and you were an ungrateful teenager.

I still sometimes think like this now. You know when you are in a rush and hungry and you just want something quick to eat, you don’t want to have to prepare food. Isn’t it funny though, you open and close the fridge door, somehow hoping that rather miraculously a fairy had placed something in there. No matter how many times you look though there is no change. Still the fresh ingredients crying out for something to be done with them.

Now I try and be sensible with our food shopping. I try and make it last as long as possible eeking the time out between shops. I hate to see food going to waste or being thrown away so I try and plan meals to ensure that I am only buying the ingredients that I actually need. This works most of the time, occasionally though there are things left where you have bought too much due to pack size etc. I have already said that I am not an avid recipe follower so what I tend to do on these such occasions when we are in between shops, is scratch around and make meals from whatever I have in. Sometimes this is great and we have even had some pretty good meals this way. Sometimes this has dire consequences lol!

I opened the fridge and all there was really was a pack of cherry tomatoes and a sweet red pepper. Hmmm! What to make what to make? Ahhhh this:

Anna’s tomato and pepper pasta I have nothing in concoction

• Pack of Cherry Tomatoes
• One Red pepper
• Basil
• Thyme
• Salt
• Garlic
• Olive Oil
• Balsamic Vinegar
• Red onion
• Pasta
• Black Pepper

Cut the tomatoes into half, and pop in a roasting tray along with the chopped pepper and chopped garlic. Sprinkle your herbs, black pepper and salt on top and then smother with olive oil. Roast in a hot oven for approx half an hour.

Take the tray out, lightly crush the tomatoes, pour over some balsamic vinegar and put back in the oven, this time reducing the heat right down.

Pop your pasta on to boil.

Chop up a red onion and fry in a little olive oil until softened. I didn’t add this to the oven tray as I find that the onion get burnt and over cooked.

Once the pasta is cooked, drain and leave in the pan. Take the tray out of the oven stir and add the onions. Mix everything together with the pasta.

I also served with some nice bread to soak up all the lovely juices. Nom nom!

I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

Carrot Chutney and a not so domestic Goddess!

OK so as I said I am going to independent shops for most of my groceries and this is going well. I haven’t quite got to grips with my dairy items yet and some household goods (although I have been given some leads to follow up on which I will do soon). 

I went into town and went to the green grocers for my veggies and Health Food shop for everything else. I am actually enjoying the experience of trying different shops out and you know what everyone has been so nice and so friendly. Ray in the Health Food shop is such a nice man, really helpful!

Now household items like loo roll. There is a shop in town that sells such items but they are not recycled so I am choosing to go to a Supermarket to get these. Here I figure that recycled is better than shopping independently.

I went to Waitrose this week to get loo roll and diary bits. Whilst I was in there, I noticed that organic carrots were on offer, in fact they were less than half price. Now I do like a bargain but I also thought that it was better that I bought them then let them go to waste, un purchased. I hate to see food wasted. Also I remembered seeing in one of my Mum’s vegetarian magazines that I was borrowing, a carrot jam recipe.   So I bought them. Several bags of them actually. And later in the day I decided to get-a-making!

I tell you it was certainly good eco fitness making the jam and I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a good deal of sweat in it too! The carrots needed to be finely sliced, you know when you use the slicer thingy on the grater, that thin. Man my arms ached doing that. I put my soul into that I really did. Of course the rabbits and guinea pigs were grateful that I had bought the carrots and was making jam as they helped to dispose of the peelings and ends that had been cut off. Everyone was happy.

Now being a domestic goddess type person is not as easy as it is cracked up to be. Nigella makes it look so easy and so sexy. I just looked like a hot dirty mess, with a dirty kitchen surrounded with carrots and peelings and sticky-ness! I did not even feel all homely when stirring it. I did when I started all enthusiastically but my enthusiasm started to wane.

Picture credit: Daily Mail article on Domestic Goddess becoming a thing of the past. 

 

My jam did not turn out as jam more of a chutney. Part of the problem was too much liquid. Oh, something I need to say now which might help is that I NEVER follow a recipe whole heartedly. I only ever use it as a guide and am totally up for experimenting as I go along. Ask my poor suffering hubby, he will tell you this is true. Sometimes when he comes home he asks "what's for dinner?" and I say "well it was supposed to be....". This was no exception. The blooming thing would not set and it seemed to be bubbling and boiling on top of the stove forever. It was not a glamorous look. I was not wearing a little skirt and pinny. To be quite frank I was fed up. 

Well I kept with it and you know, the jam turned into chutney and whilst it was wetter than I would have liked, it tastes good. I put it into jars and it looks all striking and orange, it looks good and yummy. I have made enough for us, a lot for us in fact and I am even going to inflict it onto my Mum and Mother in Law. I like to feel generous and it does make me happy to give gifts especially home made gifts.

At the time I wasn’t entirely enjoying the experience, it was hard work and frustrating but now I look at the jars of loveliness I am so pleased with myself and now feel all domestic like!

If you would like to try this recipe for yourself here is my (adapted) recipe. Go on try it, I am sure you will like it. It tastes yummy with crusty bread, cheese and salad. I will let you know when I find more uses for it as I am sure there will be more. We have plenty to experiment with anyway!

700g Sugar

400ml water

800g carrots, peeled and thinly sliced

Juice and zest of 2 oranges

Juice of 1 lemon

50ml rose water

100g flaked almonds

Bring the water up to boil (I find the kettle most economical then transfer to a pan) and add the sugar. Once the sugar has dissolved add the carrots and the orange zest and leave to simmer until the liquid becomes more like syrup. This takes up to 10 minutes but I wouldn’t advise going too far away just in case. Then add the rest of the ingredients and allow to simmer until the liquid has reduced and becomes thicker and stickier. This bit takes the experimenting with the time skills. It is about 10 minutes though sometimes more. Once it is ready transfer the chutney to sterilised jars and seal to form the air lock whist still hot. Allow to cool and enjoy!