http://www.localfoodadvisor.comeninfo@localfoodadvisor.com (Local Food Advisor)info@localfoodadvisor.comnohttp://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=166166It has been nearly five years since I moved to Yorkshire, but it was only last Saturday that I had the opportunity to take part in the tradition that makes many people come here from Britain and all over the world – game shooting. Shooting season for pheasants starts in October (partridges in September) and lasts till end of January, but this is not what attracts foreigners the most. The reason for this is that pheasants can be shot in many places in the world, but it is only Great Britain where you can find grouse. The grouse shooting season starts on 12 August, so called The Glorious Twelfth and finishes on 10 December. Thanks to our landlords Adrian and Bridget Thornton–Berry I had the opportunity to watch the group shooting pheasants and partridges. Adrian who owns Dalesport Agency has a lifetime of experience in field sports and personal and practical experience having been born and bred in the Yorkshire Dales. It is too expensive entertainment for me and surely I would never had the opportunity to take part in it – it is not even the cost of the gun and fancy clothes (yes, you will se from the pictures that special outfit is required), but the actual cost of shooting day can be quite high. This is the reason why I was extremely happy to be a part of it on Saturday and watch the others shooting. You would think that shooting day does not require much of preparation – so many guns goes to the place where they suppose to shoot and they just wait for the birds. (by the way fox hunting was banned in UK, first in Scotland and the in England and Wales in 2004, however there are still some fox hunting going on in the country, due to some gaps in law). It actually needs months of preparation, it has to be well organised and requires a work of many people. Preparations to shooting season take months. Landlord employs people who breed the birds, look after them on his land, so called game keepers. Population is placed in few locations and about autumn the birds are big enough and the shooting season starts. This is what mainly generates the high cost of such day out. We have started around 9 am and gathered outside of my landlords’ house and we were driven in 4x4 cars to the first location. It was a group of guns as well as people who take care of all the, lets call it technical background. We had seven drives in total – five before lunch and two in the afternoon, all on the private estate....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=165165On my visit to Riverside Farmers' Market at the weekend I met The Ethical Chef , Deri Reed. I must admit I came over a little star struck. During my many chats and interviews with various foodie people in Cardiff, his name has kept cropping up in conversation. There is a pure excitement in the community about this 24 year old who creates beautiful vegetarian food from local ingredients. He and his team of volunteers were brightly selling and offering samples of his food to customers when I headed over to say hello. I tried the smoked pumpkin soup with walnut and sage pesto and blue cheese; beetroot brownies and sticky toffee pudding.                                          Smoked Pumpkin Soup So creamy and delicious, perfect to warm me up when I got there. I would never think to serve it with blue cheese, but it set the dish off perfectly.                                                  Beetroot Brownies Slightly apprehensive due to my "fear" of this vegetable; I was so surprised to like it. It was not too heavy, but still had the slight gooey factor. These will be making another appearance in this blog very soon.                                                              Sticky Toffee Pudding By this point, Deri could do no wrong! And he certainly lived up to that with this pudding. One of my favourites and it kept me happy on my long walk home. Deri is the perfect example of what we can be doing with local food. Exciting, in-season recipes which appeal to everyone. I will hopefully be doing a few more posts on this genuine character, so keep an eye out over the next few weeks....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=164164A fantastic array of stalls selling crepes, artisan chocolates, woolly hats or fresh vegetables, against a backdrop of live music and a twilight Cardiff Gwdihw‘s first Sundown Market on Sunday night wasn’t massively publicised, mostly relying on social media,  so the feeling was of stumbling upon an exclusive, almost subversive gathering. But the atmosphere couldn’t have been warmer. The atmosphere couldn’t have been warmer Crossing through the bar area to reach the backyard and the tented stalls, my pace may have slowed just a nano- second, the sofas and people curled up eating bowls of food evidently bursting with lentils and vegis looked so tempting. But outside, stall holders happily chatted as the event steadily got going, spotlights and heaters gave a cosy feel, and swathes of fabric provided that touch of indy alternativeness. Smells and Sounds The music from the live band drifted through the doors and across the yard, and the smell was a delicious, if a little unusual, blend of truly authentic French bread, bubbling vats of dahl or apple and sausage casserole, and crepes being made on the spot. The night came in and the fairy lights twinkled and I had a wonderful time. The organiser, Jimmy Doogle, had time for a quick word: Jimmy Doogle Stallholders Lots of the stall holders were regulars from various Cardiff markets, and there were plenty of free tastings. I tried my very first oyster courtesy of Marty’s Oyster Bar , who was extremely strict about the correct way to enjoy the delicacy – with nothing but lemon juice. Fresh oyster from Marty's Oyster Bar, best with a hefty squeeze of lemon Real French bread with French flour  It was Mellissa‘s first time selling her beautifully  designed cakes and homemade jams and chutneys. She was managing just fine, probably because she’s normally used to churning out wedding cakes and Christmas hampers! Not bad for an Engineering student. Mellissa’s Cakes ‘n’ More 07810868016 I had a lesson in the art of the chocolatier from Gareth of Hipo Hyfryd . Chili flavoured chocolate, rather than being a new fad, I learnt, is actually the oldest flavour combination. He develops and tests at home, and reckons that balsamic vinegar flavour is nothing more than a natural choice, its dense sweet flavour perfectly complementing its twin, chocolate....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=161161Today I am going to take you for another journey in Yorkshire Dales. It was a gorgeous, warm, sunny autumn morning so I decided to set off to the local cheese factory in Hawes, called Wensleydale Creamery situated in the heart of the National Park. The Wensleydale is the valley (dale) of the River Ure on the east side of the Pennines in North Yorkshire. It is the only dale not named after a river, such as Nidderdale (river Nid), Coverdale (river Cover) or Swaledale (river Swale), but from a village called Wensley. However the older name, "Yoredale", can still be seen on some maps. The river Ure goes over our village and beautiful Aysgarth Falls (nice enough to feature in “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves”) and obviously passes through the city of York. If you are interested in history there are few spots you have to visit in Wensleydale. One of them is Castle Bolton , with its most famous event to have taken place in the castle's history - the imprisonment of Mary, Queen of Scots after her defeat in Scotland at the Battle of Langside in 1568. Also if you are looking for Richard III connections you have to visit Middleham - the smallest township in England (where we use to live for two years) with its remaining of castle , where king was brought up. Also it is interesting place if you are race horse lover - every year 14 local racing stables are open to public . Everyday you can see many horses on the streets going to get a daily training on the gallops just outside the town. I have to mention a lovely meadows, hills and specific climate that brings tourist to this place. Also milk from local farms where the cows graze the sweet limestone meadows that are rich in wild flowers, herbs and grasses has a unique flavour. It is this herbage that gives the milk, and hence the cheese, its special dales flavour. There is over a 700 different types of cheese in UK and they can tell a lot about history of this country or specific region they were made in. My local cheese has a unique and long history, as old as some of the mentioned castles. The art of cheese making was introduced to Wensleydale in XII century by French Cistercian monks, who then moved from earlier monastery established at nearby Fors, where the land was poor to Jervaulx. You can visit their abbey that remains in the area to the present day....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=159159So A. and E. were reunited once again for a third “date” evening of culinary experimentation, hilarity, wine-guzzling and mutual exchanges of geek knowledge. A. tanned and relaxed after three weeks swanning about in Corsica gorging on smelly cheeses and wild boar, E. shaking from caffeine overdoses, soaked to the bone and pale as a corpse. This time they met at Foxtrot Oscar , in who’s hype E. was naive enough to believe because of the blasted words “ Gordon Ramsey ” so often attached to this place. The fact is, beyond owning it, and – according to his fan club of diligent waiters – coming in now and again for a cheeky snifter, good old Gordon clearly has nothing to do with this place whatsoever except perhaps inflate the staff’s sense of self-importance and fill them with pretentious twaddle. It began when A. was told “Sir, your potatoes will be served at room temperature” as though serving them any other way would be catastrophic  scandal of hideous proportions. Poor old A. probably didn’t even want the room temperature potatoes in the first place, but the waiter was plugging them to him with the fervour of a used-car salesman on speed and A. got the feeling if he didn’t order them, he may well be evicted. E. secretly hoped A. might ask to have them served “hot” but heads might have rolled. Before even ordering any food, A. and E. already knew the life stories of all the waiters, and the chef, who is from Naples despite the fact that the menu fails to offer anything Italian, or neapolitan, prefering  to focus on British classics . Brilliant, thinks E. Locally sourced produce, delicious British food, perfect for impressing A. who is too full of French fancies that the British can’t cook anything (except room temperature potatoes). Well, it appears that the Neapolitan chef, or his team, aren’t really very good at cooking anything either. Perhaps they should’ve stuck to pizzas? A. had a goosnargh duck that could have been chicken. It also appeared to have fallen victim to a shrinking machine. E. had potted salt beef, which could well have come from the same shrunken chicken. The blandness of both dishes was alleviated by a bottle of Nergoamaro A Mano 2008, the choice of which prompted one of the over-enthusiastic waiters to give E....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=158158Serves 4 Ingredients Soup 1 Tbsp Olive Oil 1 Medium Onion, chopped 800g Courgettes, cut into chunks 1 Litre Vegetable Stock 200g Peas, fresh or frozen A Small Handful of Fresh Mint + 4 Small Sprigs, to garnish Sea Salt & Freshly Ground Black Pepper Courgette Cream 120g Courgette, peeled and diced (use the peelings in the soup) 45ml Olive Oil Sea Salt & Freshly Ground Black Pepper Method Heat the olive oil in a large pan and add the chopped onion.  Cook until soft then add the courgette and cook for a couple of minutes.  Pour in the vegetable stock, bring up to the boil and cover.  Turn down the heat  and simmer gently until the courgette is tender.  Add the peas and simmer for another few minutes. Take off the heat and leave to cool before blending until smooth.  Add the mint leaves and blend them into the soup until they form small green specks.  Return to the pan and season to taste. To make the courgette cream, simply blend together the courgette and olive oil until it becomes smooth and creamy.  Season to taste. To serve, reheat the soup and ladle into bowls.  Drizzle with a little of the courgette cream and finally add a sprig of mint to each bowl.http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=157157Why are we eating parsnips in the summer? Well... we grow our own vegetables and, last year, we planted parsnips for the first time. Early January was rainy and miserable and we left much of our winter crop in the ground for longer than we should have. So we urgently harvested a bumper crop of giant parsnips in January, just before leaving for a month in the Falklands . We froze several boxes, prepped and chopped into batons, and promptly forgot about them until a recent push to work through our freezer stock. A couple of months ago, I was sent a review copy of Hix Oyster & Chop House . Things were a bit busy at the time and I browsed through the book, bookmarked a handful of recipes that appealed and put it to one side. And there it stayed, on my mental list of things to get around to, until we were suddenly looking for parsnip recipes at the height of summer! As fans of gratin dauphinois – thinly sliced and layered potatoes and cream baked in the oven, sometimes with the addition of milk, cream and garlic – it's not hard to understand the appeal of parsnips baked with cream and cheese! Baked Parsnips with Lancashire Cheese You can see the original ingredients, quantities and instructions here: Our adjusted quantities (serves 4) 500 grams parsnips 150 ml double cream 200 ml milk a pinch of grated nutmeg 2 garlic cloves salt and freshly ground black pepper 100-150 grams Lancashire cheese Note: we omitted the fresh white breadcrumbs Our adjusted method Preheat oven to 160 degrees C. Cut the parsnips into rough 2-3 cm chunks. Pour the cream and milk into a saucepan, add the nutmeg and garlic, and season generously with salt and pepper. Bring to the boil, then turn off the heat and leave to cool slightly. Put the parsnips into a shallow ovenproof (gratin-type) dish and mix with the cheese. Pour the cream mixture over the top. I love that this photo includes Pete's foot! Cook in the oven for an hour until the parsnips are cooked through. The tang of the cheese against the sweetness of the parsnips is magical and the cream and milk make it wonderfully rich. This is definitely one of those dishes that's more than the sum of its parts, though its parts are all very good already....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=156156I love simple dinners that you can without thinking after hard day at work, that do not take to long to prepare as it means you do not have too wait long for your glass of wine! This is one of new favourite simple dinners and it is steak and home-made potato wedges. Stuart loves this too. It is so simple to prepare, its hardly a recipe. The potato wedges were inspired by Ina Garten from one of her Barefoot Contessa programmes. Steak and Wedges Ingredients Steak of your choice – I used Sirloin 1 large potato per person, cut into 6 or 8 wedges Olive Oil Rosemary (dried or fresh, whatever you have, chopped finely) Garlic (as much as you like, chopped finely) Salt and pepper Salad and dressing of your choice to serve Mayo/Garlic Mayo for dipping wedges in if you like Method Put the potatoes in a bowl, add some olive oil, garlic and rosemary. Season with salt and pepper and allow to marinate for up to an hour. Bake them on a roasting dish for 30-40 minutes at 180°c, turning occasionally. Meanwhile, heat up a griddle pan until smoking hot. Season one side of the steak with salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil. Put onto griddle pan and do the same with the other side. Cook until reached desired level of doneness (not sure what the word is LOL!) and set aside to rest. Prepare your salad and dressing and serve it with the steak and wedges. Add garlic mayo and serve. Eat and enjoy with a glass of red wine. Short post today. I will be back soon with a Masterchef related competition so stay tuned! Happy Cooking!http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=154154Always on the look out for new BBQ inspiration I thought I’d try out Nigel Slater’s  recipe for Five-Spice Grilled Pork Belly. So off I trotted to our local butchers to buy a choice piece of pork belly. The recipe suggests you cut the meat into strips and once marinated thread onto skewers. I decided to skin the piece of pork belly, taking the thick outer skin off and most of the fat layer below. I then cut the pork belly into long strips about 3 cm’s in width and laid them in a dish ready for the marinade. Ingredients (serves 4) 750g pork belly 3 cloves garlic 1 thumb-sized lump of ginger 2tbs light soy sauce 3 tbs rice wine 1 heaped tsp of five-spice stir fry paste or powder 1 tsp salt 2 tbs runny honey Grate the peeled garlic and ginger into a bowl using a microplane. Next add the soy sauce, rice wine, five-spice, salt and honey. Mix the marinade well and ensure the honey has fully dissolved and then pour over the pork belly. Gently massage the marinade into every piece of pork ensuring it is coated and then leave for at least an hour – the longer the better. I’ve recently been experimenting with proper local, kiln-fired, sustainable charcoal. I’m not sure I’ve quite got the hang of it, as it burns quite differently to the normal run-of-the-mill charcoal. Anyway, allow your BBQ to reach optimum temperature and then simply grill for 3-4 minutes on each side or, until the outer edges of the meat look nicely caramelised. The meat should be succulent and the outer fat crispy and delicious. We ate the pork belly with some broad beans and a  few home-grown Arran Victory potatoes which have beautiful purple skins and a fluffy texture. Very simple but, very satisfying! What’s tickling your fancy on the barbecue this summer?http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=153153Well, this week is filled with big things for the Intolerant Gourmet.   This Monday (the 16 th ) and Friday (the 20 th ) you can see me, The Intolerant Gourmet, cooking the first ever intolerance-friendly recipe on National TV!  It was a real pleasure to take part in the show and most importantly, it was of great meaning for me to have the opportunity to bring increased awareness to the allergy and intolerance cause.  When I started this blog back in October, it was simply a way for me to be able to share my joy and love of cooking for food intolerances and allergies.  My love of cooking is as strong as ever, it has, however, become much more meaningful to me and the wonderful feedback I have received along the way has only compelled me to want to cook more! Food Intolerances and allergies are becoming increasingly prevalent in today’s society.  Although we cannot be absolutely sure of the numbers; it is estimated that one in four of us will develop some kind of intolerance at some point in our lives.  For those who are already suffering from food intolerances (especially those who suffer from multiple sensitivities) day-to-day living and eating can pose more of a challenge than is necessary for a happy, healthy life.  In my experience, the fundamental elements of living with food sensitivities are universal: frustration, illhealth, isolation and the desire to eat well again.  My aim was for The Intolerant Gourmet to become an inspiring resource for anyone who has ever felt the loss and restriction that food sensitivities can bring....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=152152In order to do my weekly fresh food shop at the farmers’ market and not the supermarket I have to balance my pennies very carefully. Lots of things such as grass-fed meat are more expensive, though justifiably so, meaning there is less money for other things, even when meat is bought in reasonably small amounts. But there is one thing I buy from the farmers’ market that is such staggeringly good value I don’t know why I don’t buy it every week and that is a cooked ham hock. A hock of ham is the extreme shank end of the leg bone – it is large, in-your-face and well-and-truly meaty, yet it is one of the best value cuts of pork around; you can usually buy it cooked or uncooked to boil up at home. If raw, simply soak overnight to remove some of the salt and boil for up to 4 or 5 hours with some aromatics such as carrot, onion, bay and peppercorns in the pan for a delicious stock. Freshly cooked and pulled from the bone, these juicy ribbons are excellent served with mashed potatoes and fresh seasonal greens, feeding a family of four for around 75p each. Most weeks, because of time constraints I buy a cooked hock. The one I buy comes smoked or un-smoked from Downland Produce and costs just £2.50 and it is BIG. Even after a less-than-careful slicing off of all the ham (I wanted to leave a little on to boil the bone up for a stock) I reckon I came away with at least 600g of meat. Consider that even 100g of hand-sliced, nitrate-free, free-range ham will cost £3.99 plus in a high-end supermarket and you begin to realise quite what a bargain this is. Many good butchers seem to sell cooked smoked or un-smoked ham hocks which have seen a revival as a fashionable ingredient for back-to-roots English cooks and I am surprised that they can still be found so cheaply. I tend to go for un-smoked hocks as I find the smoky flavour can overpower other flavours. However if you want a replacement for pancetta or bacon this is a good and economical choice, for example in this bacon and beans recipe. And a smoky stock is excellent in place of chicken stock in this spiced chickpea and tomato stew . Today I boiled up the bone with some aromatics to make just enough for a soup base and am combing the chunkier bits of ham and stock with broad and white beans and vegetables for a soup to create a cheap and nutritious meal for a surprisingly cool summer evening....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=151151Having a few broad beans left in the veg. plot, I eagerly looked for something a little more exciting to do with them, rather than the ‘add to salads’ usual. My first thought, as is so often the case, was to turn to Jamie, who, never failing, had a great Broad Bean Fritter recipe from his Jamie at Home book. It’s really simple, but don’t make the mistake I did of not adding enough flour.   Simply whizz together the beans, after blanching and removing the skins if necessary, coriander, chopped mint, sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper, 1 level teaspoon ground cumin, ½ a fresh red chilli deseeded and finely sliced and the zest of 1 lemon. When combined, add enough flour to dry out the mixture, then form into quenelles, or balls as is your preference! This is where I made my mistake: I popped them straight into the hot oil and because they weren’t dry enough, they fell apart. So, I’d suggest you coat each ball in flour again before dropping into the hot oil. Fry until golden and crunchy, make a mint, lemon and yoghurt dressing and dip!http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=150150When you think “lavender” the next thing you would possibly think is “Tuscany” or “Provence”. Would you think “Yorkshire”? I doubt it. I was rather surprised when I found a leaflet of “Yorkshire Lavender” spot and I knew I was going to visit it as soon as possible. I am little bit obsessed with a lavender - I have got lots of lavender bags all over the cottage, lavender oil in burner and obviously some candles. One of our rooms is painted lavender, I use lavender and camomile bedroom spray to relax before sleeping, I love lavender soaps and shower gels. Not mentioning lavender plants in the pots on our patio. There was no other option than visiting this place at our earliest convenience. Yorkshire Lavender is situated in beautiful surroundings, outside Terrington, which is 3 miles west of Castle Howard, 14 miles north east of York and 8 miles west of Malton in North Yorkshire. It is not far away from charming Rievaulx Abbey - a former Cistercian abbey which is definitely worth visiting too. Yorkshire Lavender is a family project and it has only started from few rows of lavender but now you can enjoy many different varieties of lavender, amazing array of different colours in the summer. If you fancy having some at home, you can buy plants in a specialist plant nursery, where you can also find all the usual culinary herbs of different varieties. Very tasty Moroccan mint and golden marjoram plants which I bough are now growing nicely on my patio and I am using them with many different dishes. Huge bushes of different herbs in the garden amazed me with their smell when I was passing by. Also there is a award-winning tea room, restaurant and gift shop where you can buy lavender related items – oils, soaps, candles, lavender bags, scented sticks, lavender honey, biscuits, dried culinary lavender and many others. Obviously I bought some culinary lavender and I made my own shortbread inspired by latest Olive magazine recipe. It is scrumptious! Another attraction is a sculpture park named “The Spirit of Yorkshire” where you can find eleven metal fielding cricketers taking a cricket match and you should also be able to see some deer that were only few steps away from the gardens. It is definitely must see if you are a lavender lover....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=148148This is my first Taste of Lincolnshire themed food blog. Over the next few weeks I'm going to highlight some of the fabulous produce we have here in Lincolnshire and offer some recipes using my favourite items. I'll include meat, fish, vegetables, cheese and i'll probably do a baking blog using local flours and eggs etc. I'd love some feedback and suggestions of other products and recipes, so feel free to add comments here or on my facebook page:  Belleau Kitchen on facebook I think there's probably no better place to start than with my favourite food stuff, cheese. I love it! If I could exist on bread and cheese alone I would die happy (very quickly of cheese induced coma, I imagine) and there's been more than one occasion when i've tried... I've highlighted two local cheeses of distinction; The Lincolnshire Poacher and Cote Hill. The Lincolnshire Poacher is produced on our doorstep in Ulceby by F.W. Read & Sons and it's a hard cheese similar in texture and taste to a West Country Cheddar but has a slightly sweet, fruity and nutty taste... they do an extra mature version which, I feel, has quite a kick and a smoked version which i'm not crazy about (never been a fan of smoked cheese) but The Viking really likes.  They have also just started making a Lincolnshire Red, which is similar in taste to a Red Leicester but has a more mature and  creamy quality. You can see more about their produce and where to purchase here:  Lincolnshire Poacher Cheese  but I have seen it recently at The Queens Park Farmers Market in NW6 in London, so I know it's widely available. Cote Hill are newer to the market although they've been producing milk for years.  They make 2 cheeses; the Cote Hill Yellow (yellow belly) which is a continental style ball of cheese with a yellow waxed cheese, similar to Edam, but yellow not red and not quite as rich. Then there is their star performer as far as i'm concerned, which is the Cote Hill Blue....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=146146I love strawberry picking. It's one of those quintessential childhood memories – piling into the car with family and friends, tumbling out in a screeching gaggle, excited to see row after row after row of beautiful strawberry plants, scalloped green leaves revealing lush, red berries… spreading out across a few rows, mums together, kids finding their own corner… everyone laughing, chatting, giggling and picking fruit… competing over who's picking the biggest berries or who is the fastest to fill their punnet… and later, smeared in sticky juices, making our tired but happy way back home again clutching our precious baskets of fruit. And then, over the next day or two, helping my mum make the most delicious strawberry jam from the fruits of our fun. (I couldn't bring myself to call it a labour!) At university too, there was a pick-your-own farm just down the road from the campus. Better still, they had an honesty system – when you took your strawberries to the till to be weighed and paid for, a small note asked you to make a guestimate and contribute towards the berries you'd eaten whilst you picked. I loved that, as it meant I didn't feel guilty about popping berries as I picked … I'd even be willing to bet that most pickers over- rather than under-estimated their consumption. I have picked strawberries now and again, in the intervening years, but must confess that back, hip and knee problems make crouching and crab-walking along the ground difficult to manage for more than a few minutes at a time. Last year, just too late for the strawberry season, I came across a recommendation for Parkside Farm in Enfield. Mention of their table-top strawberry system appealed hugely and I bookmarked the site, checking on it regularly these last few weeks, waiting impatiently for the strawberry season to arrive. Finally, on the last Saturday in June, off we went… me bubbling with excitement, just as I had when I was a child. The farm was busy; families with kids of all ages playing hide and seek between the rows, an elderly couple taking their time to select only the most perfect fruits, four middle aged friends striding purposefully from the entrance, people of all ages, speaking many different languages but sharing the delight of picking one's own… So, what about the table-top system? What can I tell you? I'm an absolute convert!...http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=144144You may have gathered by now that I like my food local, seasonal, close to its natural state and MOST of important as delicious as possible.  In practice this means supporting small producers and farmers and preferably buying direct to cut out the middleman and pay these hard-working individuals the money they deserve. This is why I have a box of organic vegetables delivered, shop from the butcher and fishmonger at the farmer’s market and limit my supermarket trips to dry goods runs. So, you might presume I am the least lazy person around when it comes to seeking out good food (I admit I do trek half way across London for a good piece of cheese) and you are more or less right, but – like the next person with small children who have to be dragged fidgeting behind me as I shop – the thought of having something I really like DELIVERED to my door is a godsend. Which brings me to my new milk round. The quaint image of the milkman delivering his wares in his humming electric-powered float (not so quaint when you’re stuck behind one on a narrow road) is one of the few local-seeming businesses that persist; particularly if you like that old-fashioned glass bottle standing outside the front door idea.  Sadly, although the milkman himself may be a local, the milk is likely to be from large commercial dairies, and possibly from a mixture of herds trucked miles across the country. My new milk delivery service couldn’t be further from this. The cows at Grove Farm at Hollesley in Suffolk are Jersey lovelies, giving the richest, creamiest milk you could ever wish to drink. The 150-strong herd roams free on coastal meadow pastures, meander up to the gate at milking time (just twice daily), are spared the routine hormone and antibiotic treatments so common in large dairies and once deemed no longer fit for milking are allowed to live out their natural lives.  Happy cows if ever you saw them. And they are now delivering their untreated and unsurpassed in taste, milk to London postcodes. If you are interested in joining Grove Farm’s delivery round email them here for delivery schedules, prices etc. And if you want to see more about Grove Farm and the happy cows living life in the slow lane click on this short BBC clip here . (For the eagle-eyed they are showing pasteurised equipment but the milk is very much raw and unhomogenised.) I like milk. I drink milk. I cook with milk....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=143143So my time in Leeds is coming to an end, I’ve about 4 weeks left up North as the Lady and I are relocating to London town. There’s a lot I’ll miss, but near the top of the list is definitely the food. With limited time left we’ve decided to try and make the most of it and had a bit of a wander out to Otley to pick up some provisions for the coming weeks. Otley was one of the first places I visited when I got to Yorkshire and it helped break me into the way of life in the Dales. It holds good memories for me; the pub I moved up North to work at is not far from here. I can remember the first time I drove through town wondering what the hell I’d got myself into; it was snowy, freezing cold and unbelievably bleak. Its charms soon wore me down as I fell in love with the pubs serving beer better than I’d ever tasted before and it’s great butchers as well. Don’t get me wrong there’s plenty of bad memories as well, I’d need to take my socks off to help me count the number of times I’ve almost been beaten up in glamorous places like Korks for chatting up the wrong girl or for just being Southern… well maybe for being cocky as well. Otley has 2 of my long time favourite butchers. Both are fantastic but for different things. Weegmans for me is the best place to get Pork Pies in the whole of Yorkshire, served warm literally straight from the oven being produced in the shop they are fantastic. Sweet, salty and sexy I’d easily choose the Pork Pie as my desert island food. It’s all good though, you can get ridiculously great hot roast pork sandwiches, crackling, savoury ducks and scotch eggs as well. On the other side of the square we have what a lot would consider some heavy weight competition in the form of Geo Middlemiss. This is where I’d like to get my meat from forever really. It is the picture perfect butchers shop. I picked up some Tomato sausages, some great looking Middle Bacon and Duck Eggs as well. We had friends over for the weekend, so a Sunday fry-up was definitely in order. The texture and flavour of these sausages is fantastic, deeply meaty and savoury perfect for breakfast and helping to bring you back to life after a long night drinking Champagne and playing monopoly… It’s just how we roll. Otley is definitely a great little place to get your food shopping done and will be sorely missed....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=142142It's a long time since I did a city farm. When I lived in London with just one child to amuse, I would spend most days seeking out a bit of nature. Regent's Park was just down the road and the need for dog walks meant that picnics on Hampstead Heath were almost part of the daily routine. But when I discovered city farms, all my boxes were ticked - although the dog had to stay at home. Small Child could stroke the goats and coo at the giant rabbits while I gazed at the free range chickens and dreamed of a life in the country. Well, now we have the life in the country. But, even if Dave and Vicky's indestructible cockerel struts around their small-holding with his wife pecking idly at the basil and thyme while the stymied fox prowls the perimetre waiting for his moment, I know that chickens wouldn't last a day in our place. With ratting terriers and a faithful beater of a Springer Spaniel guarding our patch, one of them is bound to misinterpret her role and bring us some supper in return for a bit of leftovers. So yesterday it was with the understanding of the city girl gone country that  I watched the chickens at Freightliner's Farm off Holloway Rd pretend that their life was a fox free zone. Clearly they didn't read the newspapers; Hackney and its child-mauling fox family isn't that far away. They had clearly been schmoozed by the tanned and handsome king of the veg box, Guy Watson who was in town with his Travelling Field Kitchen Roadshow to spread the organic word that grilled courgette, tomato and bean salad with basil dressing is so much nicer than a £2 chicken from Tesco. (Mind you, had Freightiner's own hens had a chat with the bleating lambs next door, they might not have been so frisky with him; Watson's vision is certainly no vegetarian dream). The Riverford staff had already erected a yurt on the farm, connected by struts carved from his own ash trees in Devon and filled with tables and benches from the same eco-sound materials. Packed with Islington's most holy, including the very lovely and jolly eco-pioneer, Jill Barker and her Green Baby gang, the yurt felt like a wedding marquee as the food came and came and came....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=141141I would have never expected that living in the countryside will make me feel so happy. Mind you – this is unusual countryside, different from most of those I have seen before. It is situated in the heart of Yorkshire Dales National Park . One day I will write about it, but today I want to take you for a journey to the Yorkshire coast. What can be better than great company, picnic basket full of yummy food and beautiful surroundings? This time we have decided to go to the Robin Hood’s Bay, which is located few miles south of Whitby on the east coast in North Yorkshire Moors National Park . The origin of the name is uncertain, and it is doubtful if Robin Hood ever visited bay. According to legend the bay may be called Robin Hood's Bay because he went out in his fishing trip and he encountered pirates, got them to surrender and returned the goods that the pirates had robbed during the plundering of the northeast coast of England to the poor people. There is not a scrap of evidence to suggest that this legend is true. The town surrounded by moors has a tradition of smuggling. Certainly a maze of tiny streets and labyrinths helped smugglers and there is reputed to be a network of underground passageways linking the houses. Today prices of the properties in the town are extremely high. On Monday the cloudy sky welcomed us to the bay, and sun was only coming out for few minutes to highlight the spectacular cliffs. We have climbed a green bank and sat there enjoying feta & sundried tomatoes muffins, onion & salami flatbreads and spiced rhubarb cake. Rather cheap Merlot in a small bottle never tasted better. Today I look bit like one of the garden dwarfs with red cheeks and nose. My face did not feel any sunburn due to the cold, refreshing sea breeze. On our way back we stopped in Whitby which is an absolute “must see” when visiting Yorkshire cost, next to Scarborough. It is very commercial place and you can find there lovely old town, pier, sandy beach, ruins St. Hilda’s abbey and ancient cemetery as well as candyfloss, amusement arcade, rough people dressed in track suits and golden chains. Most importantly from culinary point of view you can also find the best fish & chips that we ever had in England. It is just behind the best fish & chips in whole UK, which we had on Orkney, in Kirkwall....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=139139It’s just the time of year for rhubarb. Allotments, gardens, farm shops and organic box schemes are all proudly glowing red and green with strong, proud stalks of this vegetable we treat as a fruit. Yes, rather like the tomato (a fruit we confusingly call a vegetable) rhubarb is the opposite. It is of course a vegetable – pretty obvious if you think about the long root we eat and the leaves we discard – sensibly it turns out as they are toxic. In fact the whole plant is relatively high in oxalic acid, leading some to shun it, including my mother who says it aggravates her arthritic toe! There is some truth in this claim but I write relatively for good reason; few foodstuffs have enough oxalic acid in them to do us real harm – the only downside is that the compound can bind with minerals such as calcium and magnesium leaving us deprived to some degree of essential nutrients. Not enough to forgo this seasonal delicacy however. Rhubarb is something we British take national pride in. Despite the childhood trauma of the off-putting slimy pond-sludge substance served as part of thousands of school dinners (and the reason so many refuse point blank to eat the stuff) patriots still get excited by rhubarb, both growing it and eating it. Which brings me to the early, forced versus late rhubarb debate (yes, some people do get heated over this). I am fickle on this point. I love the robust taste of the current crop but I confess I do find some of the large stalks you buy or harvest this time of the year can be a little mealy if not treated properly – and over-cooking tends to end badly with a rather greenish-pink slime. It’s more a texture thing for me – I prefer the taste of the late stuff, but the crisper texture, less tendency to turn to gloop, and pretty pink colour of the February forced rhubarb has me cheering every year (it’s sometimes so juicily tart you can eat it raw, just dipped in the sugar bowl in passing).  Mainly people love forced rhubarb because it is the first local ‘fruit’ we have seen for months and we’re desperate! Anyway, by now, rhubarb is abundant and fans of seasonal, local food will find it hard to avoid. It is very useful in the kitchen working well in both main courses and puddings....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=138138I can't believe I've never actually cooked a crab before. It's one of my favourite sea foods, such a wondrous thing. I order it often in restaurants. And the one occasion every decade that my dad cooks, he cooks a hot and spicy Bengali crab curry . I even buy dressed crab now and again when I just want it plain and unadorned. So when my friend (and recent ox cheek supplier) MarkyMarket told me about the fresh live crabs he could get his hands on, I couldn't resist. Mark duly turned up one fine Friday morning with an enormous live crab which had been swimming free in the sea only the afternoon before. He also kindly gave me instructions on how to store it in the fridge until the next day, how to kill it and how to cook it. That bit was all easy enough (thankfully, spending the night in my fridge, wrapped in a teatowel, had put my crab into a virtual coma) but oh my goodness, it took me almost 2 hours (and a heck of an aching back) to get all the meat out! That (large, deep) pasta bowl, below, shows the half way point once I'd emptied legs/ claws but before I even begun on the main body. There was so much meat in that baby, I couldn't believe it! I only wish I'd weighed it, all the better to delight in my bounty! I had it the first night with fresh white bread and some (rather too strong) home-made aioli (thanks Rachel , for aioli advice, I'll get it right next time). And there was still a huge mountain of it left for the night after. Happy days. Live crab Cooked crab Picking out the meat Nothing beats the taste of fresh, local produce from land and sea! If you've been hesitating about tackling a crab yourself, hesitate no longer!http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=136136I love burgers , big thick juicy burgers , I even requested them for my birthday last year , lovingly BBQd the longsuffering Nick at 8pm at night. In the montly regional farmers market in Nottingham City Centre ( Every 3rd Fri/Sat of the month),  there are two stalls selling rare breed beef , Lincoln Red  ( from Thorpe Latimer Farm) and Longhorn Beef (from Blackbrook Farm) both do a roaring trade selling not only fresh meat ( beef , lamb and pork),  drawing the punters in with freshly cooked burgers.  I am not too ashamed to admit that I once ate a burger from each stall in the space of half a hour. Since my visit to the market was too early to justify a crafty burger,  I though it might be nice to make some homemade burgers on Saturday night . I picked up a packet of mince from both stalls and  Lincolnshire Poacher cheese, I do like a little cheese melting on my burger. I labelled the burgers so that we could tell which beef we were eating and provide sensible views on the different qualities of the beef , the best laid plans were completely scuppered by our own gluttony, the anticipation from the BBQ meant a happily satiated mouth full of burger was not capable of coherent comments I think burgers are so popular because of how easy they are to eat ( with vendors its probably their economical use of  odd cuts of meat) . Though meaty , a steak needs a knife ,  hard to eat in a sandwich without some powerful incisors. With a burger you get the full hit of the meat , both chargrilled and for me pink in the middle , sweet and savory all at the same time ....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=135135Seasonal eating is all about using simple, fresh ingredients to create mouth watering dishes and that is what I hoped to achieve when making my Chicken, Watercress and Baby Leaf Spinach Salad .  Here, the ingredients stand alone; with minimal preparation and little fuss, their flavours burst through to create a wonderfully succulent and colourful meal for you and a loved one to feast on. In years past, eating in line with the natural cycles of the year was our only option.  These were the years before supermarkets stocked every variety of fruit, vegetables and meats, regardless of their heritage and their seasonality.  Eating with the seasons can do more for us – in terms of health, cost and flavour – than we ever imagined.  Seasonal fruits and vegetables are fresher, taste superior and are better for you, not least because they are at their nutritional peak.  Not only are seasonal fruit and veg packed with vitamins and minerals, but also the micronutrients that give ripe crops their delicious flavour and aroma are at their best.  As anyone who has ever caught an apple straight from the tree, or picked strawberries from laden, syrupy fields will know; food that has been picked both locally and recently casts a weighty shadow over fruit and vegetables that have been sprayed, varnished, packed in transit for weeks and flown half way around the world in a giant fridge container, obviously....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=134134I'll be right up front and tell you now . . . my mother makes the best potato salad on the planet. Full of flavour and texture, and not over loaded with cloying mayonnaise. I have to admit my regular potato salad does come a close second, if I don't say so myself, but even so . . . it never quite tastes as good to me as hers does . . . or maybe it is the memory of the taste of her's that makes it an unachievable goal . . . somehow reality never does quite live up to the memories of things does it?? Mom always started her potato salad the day before she was going to serve it. She would boil a big pot of potatoes, in the skins of course, to help retain all that lovely potato flavour and vitamins. I can still see her patiently standing at the counter peeling them once they were cooked and then cooled. Once peeled, she would cube them into precise little cubes . . . along with peeled cucumber in the same size, chopped celery and hard boiled egg . . . with perhaps a tiny bit of grated onion, depending on the mood she was in. A bit of salt and pepper and some Kraft Salad Dressing and it was done. Simple, and yet oh so good for supper on a warm Sunday afternoon . . . We often had it in the summer, with a dollop of cold tinned salmon fixed on the side of the plate, some sliced ripe juicy tomatoes and crisp cucumbers . . . and her famous coleslaw, that we could never get enough of . . . sigh . . . summer on a plate. I find that over here the potato salad is always always drenched to the hilt in mayonnaise or creme fraiche, and has decidedly almost no flavour at all. The potatoes hard and dull . . . and severely lacking in seasoning. Where is the tang? Where is that earthiness that potatoes should taste like? I make my own regular potato salad much in the same way as my mother did, and it is far better than anything I have tasted here. Sorry England, but your potato salad does not quite cut the mustard! I don't always want a mayonnaise based potato salad though . . . sometimes I long for a vinaigrette dressed potato salad, done in the fabric of the French Tradition of my father's side of the family . . . The potatoes fork tender and pre-dressed with a bit of stock and wine while they are still warm . . . so that they absorb that lovely salty tang. A final simple vinaigrette dressing of herbs . . . spring onions, dill, parsley and basil . . ....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=133133The last two posts I did were verging on negative and hrmph. I’m not a negative person and I need to perk me up! And what better way to perk one self up than to indulge in a luxurious dessert of fat on fat on fat. Yes, you heard me right. Take a luscious chocolate brownie, top it with cheesecake and cover the whole thing in raspberry cream. Oh yes, I have arrived. Y’all can thank Panu for the creation of this heavenly delight (or monstrosity, depending on how you view “fat on fat on fat”). Last weekend whilst the man was hard at work, I offered to bake him something scrumptious for when he got home. Undecided between brownies and a cheesecake, he left me to deal with my own wicked creativity and look what I came up with! A raspberry cheesecake brownie! YUM. Ok pause. Before I get sued and all that ugly legal jazz, I better own up to the fact that I didn’t actually come up with this magnificent creation. My [lack of ] creativity took me as far as hauling the ridiculously heavy “Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Encyclopaedia of Body Building” off of my Hummingbird Bakery cookbook so that I could be inspired… and lo’ and behold… Beauty like my eyes had never seen. I mean really, it is a purrrty dessert isn’t it? There is really little one can make complaint about when faced with a rich layer of chocolate brownie, the exquisite creaminess of the cheesecake, all topped with a sweet yet tart cream, made with fresh raspberries. In fact, this is one of my favourites that I’ve created and my friend Melissa said she’d like totally pay money for it. Compliment PLUS. Anyway, eating all of this fat on fat on fat (with a healthy side of fruit) had me thinking about the exponential growth of my behind. But there’s one thing I gotta share with you guys. Big can be fabulous. Check out this (old-ish but awesomely good-ish) video of Katy Brand doing Beyonce’s Single Women. Ain’t she fabulous? Curvy and ALL WOMAN....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=130130Having dined a few days earlier at celebrated chef, Tom Aikens' new Terrace restaurant, it was an interesting contrast to be cooked for by some up-and-coming culinary stars. The Residence pop-up restaurant temporarily takes over City College's Gallery restaurant (where the college's students learn their craft by cooking for paying customers) as part of the Brighton Fringe Festival. The unusual twist with this pop-up, as well as using student chefs and waiting staff, is that at every lunch and dinner service, a different artist in residence will create a piece of artwork while you dine. As a customer you may even make it into one of the pieces, one table of diners a few days ago were unknowingly depicted naked from the waist down! As they are produced, artworks will be displayed in the restaurant and will be auctioned off at the end with proceeds going to Age Concern. I had previously attended a tasting session of the proposed menu a fortnight before and to be honest some of the dishes required a bit of work. On returning for dinner, I wasn't really prepared for 1. the transformation of the space and 2. the finished dishes and their quality. I'd go so far as to say I was amazed actually. At £12.50 for lunch and £16.50 for a 3 course dinner of this caliber, it is a total, utter steal. The menu is nothing innovative, remaining quite classic with a French influence. I chose to book dinner as the artist in residence for the session was the very talented illustrator, Will Scobie. Appetites were whetted with Pear Bellini's (£4) which were glugged with no complaints. My potted Hot-Smoked Salmon served with Pickled Cucumber was divine. My only issue was the lack of bread or anything to spread the salmon on but no matter, this was the nicest salmon dish I have had in ages. The pickled cucumber was a classic and ideal accompaniment to the soft, creamy salmon. Mr Graphic Foodie chose the Ham Hock Terrine, Rabbit Rillettes, Piccalilli & Cornichons, again this was executed beautifully, chunky succulent meats with fantastic flavours throughout. The one dish that stood out for me at the tasting was the pan fried Smoked Pork Loin, Sage Butter, Sauté potatoes & Leeks. The smoked pork (local I believe) packed a serious flavour punch. I do regret having come home from the tasting raving about this dish as Mr. GF beat me to ordering it....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=123123A long long time ago in a galaxy far away there was a cook book, a simple, plain & basic cook book by today’s standards but for my mind it was the benchmark for everything that the likes of Jamie, Hugh, Nigel or Nigella have ever done since. It was in essence (and still is as far I’m concerned as I am in possession of my original copy) a family cookbook, everyday meals, from everyday ingredients, midweek meals for the busy family and weekend treats. First published in 1970 as far as I can determine, although my copy is dated 1983, I guess it covered the ground that the new young working family required, fast, tasty, healthy meals that a working mum (and dad) could easily cook, sustaining their offspring and friends whilst keeping them interested at the table and avoiding such delights as Birds Eye ‘boil-in-the-bag’ or Cadbury’s Smash, Fray Bentos steak pies, in a tin! (My maternal grandmother was rather partial to one of those though) or god-forbid Findus crispy (un)savoury pancakes! Not only do I remember these meals with fond affection, I remember that as a family we loved them, they were served for suppers, lunches, dinner parties and I still cook some of them today, I might have adapted them slightly, but mostly I cook them just how they were written. Sweet & sour ribs, the recipe for red cabbage is unchanged, chicken liver pate, barbecued beef (sweet and delicious with celery and green peppers) and of course baked cheesecake. It was the book that got my brothers and I interested in food and ultimately got us cooking. My 1983 copy coincided with moving into my first flat and became a constant feature in my first kitchen. The book was written by a long time friend of my mothers’,Elaine Hallgarten and co-authored by her long time friend Dorothy Brown, then came a string of other books, Mince Matters, Cooking with Yoghurt and The Jaffa Cookbook, but this book was called Cookery Do. I will and have already, in a spiritual sense, pass this book on to my friends and children and hope they’ll continue to cook these simple tasty recipes for as long as I have. Back to cheesecake, cheese, being the operative word here. There are many recipes for cheesecake, some baked, some not, some set with gelatine others with eggs. The key thing here for me is the cheese. I have always favoured the traditional Jewish baked cheesecake....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=122122Asparagus season - yipee! This is my favourite way to serve it. Printable Recipe Ingredients: Bunch of Asparagus tips Handful of Breadcrumbs Handful of grated Parmesan Salt and Pepper Method: Step 1: Mix together the breadcrumbs and parmesan, salt and pepper in a bowl and set aside. Step 2: Bring a pan of salted water to the boil, put the asparagus in an boil for 2-3 minutes. Drain then refresh in cold water. Step 3: Switch grill on, arrange asparagus onto serving plate and top with the breadcrumbs. Grill for 3 minutes....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=120120To Low Sizergh Barn first and some biltong - made in Cumbria, not South Africa. This particular version of the famous dried meat strips comes courtesy of Barry Shaw at Carlisle who also makes Low Sizergh's range of salamis (£2.60 each) and chorizo (£3.99 each). It seems that the biltong (£3.90 per strip) has replaced Kendal mintcake as a high protein food source for walkers because of its portability and energy-boosting abilities. Still with unusual international ingredients ... thanks to Jamie Oliver's new television series for Channel 4 which sees him 'doing' various countries, including Morocco, preserved lemons are very much in demand at Baba Ganoush in Kendal. A staple in all North African dishes, the lemons are especially good in lamb tagines and with chicken (£5.99 per 680g jar). Alternatively, if 'Greek passion' is more your bag, Greenlands Farm Village at Tewittfield is doing chicken breasts stuffed with Sandhams Tasty Lancashire cheese, Greek passion sauce, and wrapped in smoked bacon (£2.99 each). For something different on the fish front, Kendal Fisheries has wild grey mullet (caught off the Isle of Man) which fshmonger Nik Stirzaker says you can either barbecue (we live in hope!) or bake in the oven with white wine, shallots, and garlic. Each fish weighs an average one kilo plus, and costg £5.99. And talking of barbecues ... butcher Stuart Higginson from Grange-over-Sands recommends two cuts of 'all weather' beef skirt - the thin end to casserole in the oven or a slow cooker if its raining (£7.99 per kilo); or the much thicker, larder-trimmed end of the skirt, the award-winning steak onglet, to cook on the barbie, on special offer at £12.99 per kilo. Simply drizzle with olive oil and lots of freshly ground black pepper prior to cooking (great for the George Formby as well as the bbq!). Three other great meat special offers this week come courtesy of butcher Brian Jackson from Templand Farm at Allithwaite who is doing Aberdeen Angus sirloin steaks at two for a fiver (its Brian's own beef); and Peter Hutchinson from Greenodd who is selling whole legs of his own-raised Suffolk cross lambs for £8.50 per kilo. Peter will cut the whole legs as you want - for example, boned and rolled they will make two super joints; or cut to give two joints and four leg steaks off the chump....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=118118Chicken with asparagus, smoked bacon and tomatoes - delish!   I didn't have any pancetta but wanted to make it straight away, so I used smoked streaky bacon. Print this Recipe To serve 2 you will need: 2 skinless chicken breasts Sea Salt & freshly ground black pepper Olive Oil 8 slices smoked streaky bacon, or pancetta 18 asparagus tips 16 cherry tomatoes - halved 8 olives a small handfull of fresh basil leaves a knob or two of butter - unsalted a splash of white wine How to do it: If you're using streaky bacon, put the rashers between cling film and roll with a rolling pin to make the sliced thinner. Slice the chicken into three fingers, but ensure that you keep it as one piece, so it looks like fingers. This will help to cook the chicken much faster.  Season with pepper and a little salt. Heat a large frying pan, add some oil, and brown the chicken on all sides. Put the bacon or pancetta on top of the chicken and the asparagus around it. Let everything get cooking and then move the bacon or pancetta to the bottom of the pan to crisp up. Turn the chicken over to cook.  Turn up the heat, throw in the halved tomatoes, olives, basil, and a good knob of butter. Take off the heat once the butter has melted and add a splash of wine to make a sauce.   Serve some tomatoes as they come out of the pan, but be sure to squish a few into the sauce to finish it off....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=116116I spotted the first of the English asparagus in Waitrose yesterday so eagerly grabbed some without giving much thought to what I was going to use it for. It seemed too early for asparagus but looking back at last year’s posts, we had the first of the season on the same week of the year . These were fairly large so I decided to chop them up and use them in a risotto, following our basic recipe . I’m glad I did because these were quite tough and a little bitter, unlike the sweet spears found later in the year. Some chicken also went into the risotto, as well as some pheasant stock we made up a while ago. The pheasant stock worked well with the chicken and added a deeper, rounder note than the usual chicken stock. There was also some thyme but it got a bit lost amongst the bigger flavour of the stock. I would have liked some more sweetness too, the shallots I used didn’t provide as much as I thought they would....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=115115These cakes are moist, chocolatey and incredibly moreish so in an attempt at restraint they are individually sized to avoid any temptation to eat too much!  Although they are definitely healthier than your average type of chocolate cake, you still don't want to overindulge in them too often.  They are delicious either served at coffee or afternoon tea time and gooey enough to also be served as a dessert. The cakes themselves contain rice flour and ground almonds instead of flour making them gluten free and the sweetness comes from either Sweet Freedom or agave nectar, both healthier and natural alternatives to sugar.  Olive oil is used instead of butter which sounds strange but the fruitiness of the oil adds depth to the flavour without being discernible as olive oil in the actual cakes. To make the cakes dairy free, the recipe uses almond milk in place of milk and cream.  Quite often when you make nut milks you are left with the nut pulp but in this recipe it is incorporated into the cakes themselves.  Soaking the ground almonds first, has the advantage of giving the cakes added moistness as does the addition of a little almond milk. The topping is similar to ganache, made from dark chocolate, almond milk and also a handful of chopped toasted almonds which adds a crunchy element to the creamy topping. Piped chocolate decorations make the cakes look even more special, perfect for your Easter celebrations.  Decorate them with whatever chocolate shapes you like.  I've made flowers for these cakes but swirls, scrolls, hearts or leaves would look equally as attractive.  If you are serving them for Easter, some mini eggs on top would also look lovely. Happy Easter!...http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=114114A perfect weekend away with the girls in Norfolk, a trip to Aldeburgh on the way home to pick up some ‘caught that morning’ fish, then home to the OH to combine it with beer batter and home-cooked chips with mushy peas. And despite the batter not sticking that well to the fish, any tips on how to correct this greatly received, it was delicious!               I couldn’t find a Jamie recipe in my books, but when I looked through ‘The River Cottage Year’, there, in March, was a beer-batter recipe with ideas for mush peas and tartare sauce as well. I used cod as it looked lovely in the sheds on the beach, and my only other change was to flour the fish before coating in the batter, and yes, I know this may be the reason the batter didn’t stick! Batter Recipe – to serve 4-6 (although I halved the recipe and it made enough to coat at least 3 large pieces of fish!) Sift 200g plain flour with salt and pepper in a bowl and combine with 2 tbs. olive oil. Beat in 250ml good beer – leave to rest. Meanwhile, cut your fillets of white fish and coat in salt, leaving for 15 minutes. Wash the salt off with cold water after this time and pat dry. Season with pepper and leave to sit. Heat a good depth of oil in a heavy-based pan and heat until a cube of bread goes a golden brown in 2-3 minutes. If the batter needs loosening, add another splash of beer, then whisk 2 egg whites to the soft peak stage and carefully fold them into the batter mixture. Coat the fish in the mixture and fry each piece individually for 4-5 minutes. Place onto kitchen paper to ‘dry’ then pop into a warm oven until the other pieces are ready! Chips Peel and ‘chip’ your potatoes, I used Maris Piper, then rinse several times in cold water. Drain and dry on kitchen paper. Ensure the oil is hot, as above, and carefully tip your potatoes in. Leave on hot for a few seconds, then lower the heat until the potatoes are cooked through. Turn the heat up again to brown. Remove chips onto kitchen paper to remove grease and season. Mushy Peas – the quick version! I used frozen garden peas and simply boiled them for a few minutes until squishy. When cooked, pop them in a blender with a knob of butter, some of the cooking liquid and seasoning. Blitz until smooth with a spoonful of mint sauce if you fancy it!...http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=113113Keeping loosely to the retro cookbook theme, I spied “Tony & Giorgio” on the shelf, and decided to have a flick. The “Giorgio” mentioned is non other than Giorgio Locatelli   the renowned Italian, Michelin starred chef. “Tony,” perhaps less well known,  but a real dynamo in the restaurant world responsible for “The Bank,” “Fish” restaurants and the establishment of “ Cutty’s ,” one of Britain’s most respected seafood wholesalers. On the back of the cookbook Tony states “I love English food – chicken tikka masala , hummous , and spaghetti Bolognese. ” Now I guess we can give Tony chicken tikka masala as a British bastardisation, maybe spaghetti Bolognese, but surely not hummous ! With the parents coming for the weekend and memories of eating oxtail as a child, I decided to give ”Oxtail Braised in Red Wine” a whirl. There is something very comforting about oxtail, the way it falls effortlessly off the bone and the simple pleasure of adding a dollop of mashed potato to the awaiting sauce. Ingredients (serves 4) 1 large oxtail, cut into 5cm/2in pieces 4 tbs olive oil 4 sprigs of thyme Small bunch of flat-leaf parsley, chopped 2 tbs plain flour 1.2l beef stock 125g bacon lardons 175g button onions,peeled 2 tbs sugar Salt & pepper For the marina de : 1 bottle of decent red wine 1 large onion, roughly chopped 1 leek, roughly chopped 2 carrots, roughly chopped 2 celery stalks, roughly chopped 6 black peppercorns Place the oxtail in a casserole dish, pour over the wine and add all the other marinade ingredients. Cover and leave in the fridge to marinate overnight. The next day, drain the oxtail, keeping the marina de . Dry off the oxtail with kitchen paper and then brown the meat in half the olive oil until almost caramelised. Strain the vegetables from the marina de keeping the liquid. Place the browned oxtail in a casserole dish and add the marina de vegetables, thyme and parsley. Stir in the flour and gradually add the strained marina de liquid and stock. Cover tightly and leave to simmer for 5 hours, until the oxtail is tender. Remove from the heat and transfer the oxtail into another dish (keep warm)....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=111111Returning from a windswept and, quite frankly, freezing cold walk along the beach yesterday, my boyfriend and I were left with cold bones, red noses, and a serious appetite for something sweet.  Usually in this situation I would make up a batch of flapjacks; their gooey, oat dense flavour gives you all the energy support you may need after a long day at the coast.  But, having recently discovered a recipe for Ginger Batch Cake, I was inspired to make a version of my own and so was borne the Apricot Spice Sticky Cake Slice. I have grown rather fond of the use of the word sticky in my pudding and sweet things repertoire.  Being more of a savoury person by nature, I think I just feel that if something is going to be sweet and sugary, it really ought to be sticky as well!  In this instance, the sticky part is due to the combination of the sugar syrup made with the sugar, butter replacement and apricots, plus the ground almonds that make up the body of the cake; while the agave syrup glaze adds a gloss and extra gooeyness to the whole affair. I have to warn you, this dish is not a light bite and you may need to work up an appetite before you tuck in to a slice, but it makes for a wonderfully intense and gooey cake that works delightfully as a pudding, if served warm with a pouring of oat cream.  Alternatively, leave the cake to cool completely, cut into squares and serve with a cup of tea after a blustery day on the beach.  Although lovely when served on the day of its making it also lends itself to being stored (in an airtight container) and will taste equally good up to three days later....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=109109I’m going to blog as I go along with this one! The main method of making today’s dinner is by smoking the fish, something which I’ve never done before and am quite excited about! It also serves to fulfil one of the ‘ 20 Great Foods You Aren’t Eating, according to The Times ’ posts I promised a few weeks ago as I shall be using Green Tea to smoke the salmon. I found a very simple recipe from Waitrose , which I shall be following in order to undertake the smoking, and I shall take their serving suggestion of crème fraiche and chilli jam, but I already have my own jam so shall use that instead. I’m also going to cook some new potatoes and spinach on which to serve the fish as this is dinner, our main meal, rather than a light lunch. The OH has also just gone to Swimming for Triathlon training and will be starving by the time he returns, so something more substantial is required. OK, to start I’ve prepared everything: the sugars and tea is mixed nad sitting on a foil layer in the bottom of the wok (I’m using an electric wok as it’s the only one I’ve got with a lid, so my fingers are crossed that it works as well); New potatoes are in the pan ready to boil and crush; the spinach is sitting on top in a colander so it can gently steam; chilli jam and crème fraiche are out, ready for dolloping! Now all I need to do is wait until 5 to 8 to put the potatoes on. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… Wok is on, along with potatoes, although don’t think that lifting the lid to see if there’s smoke will help the process! Because it’s an electric wok, the heat didn’t get going as quickly as the recipe said, so I ended up leaving them for about 35 minutes. (Of course, it could also have been something to do with peeping in several times out of curiosity!) The potatoes, I boiled then crushed with butter, salt and pepper. The spinach I steamed over the potatoes, and served it all with a dollop of crème fraiche and sweet chilli jam, as per the original recipe. And as for the flavour? Well, I was expecting not to be able to taste anything, but the flavour of the tea really came through. Smoky and delicate, with the fish shining through. And so easy: equal quantities of sugar and tea leaves, left to smoke without interruption…well, nearly!...http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=107107I am a competent cook, but I have never had the skill or patience to make pastry. The only times I have made it, it has strunk, cracked and crumbled (I was clearly destined for life with gluten free pastry) and to be honest I blame my hot hands. I think there is a real art to pastry making and when I was in Paris before Christmas I gazed in admiration at the Patisserie windows brimming with thin, delicate buttery pastry. It is a skill that I lack. But it is also a skill I no longer need. Living on a gluten free diet I wholeheartedly embrace the essential skill of problem solving to navigate my foodie desires. It has to be said that there are times when I crave a little pastry case enveloping a thick chocolate ganache, especially the case in Paris. But the time I crave pastry most is at Christmas. I know this is the most unseasonal of blog posts, however I had such fun using up all my Christmas-y leftovers and such a result with the pastry that I wanted to share it with you now. After all, you can eat pastry all year, especially as quiches which I love and this savoury almost cheesy (without any cheese in) recipe can be found in a new eagerly awaited recipe book in the Coeliac world. To be honest, I wasn’t waiting for this one. I have one very good gluten free book, but find much more inspiration in my growing and varied normal collection . However having been on the telly with him, and tasted not one but two of the recipes in the book on live tv (thanks for the warning Fern – not!) I thought it would make a nice little memento. To be honest, I was also curious as to what it would contain as he told me on the show how he’d been working on it for more than two years. So my lovely mother bought it for me for  Christmas. But Christmas came and went and the leftover icing and mincemeat glared at me every time I entered the kitchen waiting to be made into something delicious... mince pies. I no longer get the chance to overindulge in mince pies at Christmas since the gluten free ones are so expensive. But this easy to make pastry provided the flaky base and was perfect for my hot hands and lack of pastry skills. You don’t even have to roll it out... just bash it into the tin....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=106106Always on the lookout for new foodie treats, my Dad found this recipe for Sweet Soy Pork Hocks in the Waitrose Magazine . So armed with the recipe, and two small children, I headed off to Elliotts our local butchers. I have to say that I wasn’t really sure what part of the pig the hock was, other than vaguely around the knee. It’s actually the tarsal joint. So I boldly walked into Elliotts  and asked for two large pork hocks. Luckily there was no sniggering and off Bob went to find some hocks. He then appeared with a whole pig brandishing a bloody snout and floppy, hairy ears. The hocks then duly came off. In the process Bob cut off the trotters and offered them to my five year old daughter. She didn’t seem unduly concerned, but the lady next to me announced  “that’s a sure way to turn them in to vegetarians.” Luckily they’re made of sterner stuff and the thought of a pork sausage or a piece of crispy, smoked, back bacon will keep them from the clutches of vegetarianism for a while yet. Ingredients (Serves 4) 2 large pork hocks (about 850g each) 3tbsp soft brown sugar 100ml light soy (use reduced-sodium if preferred) 200ml rice wine (could use dry sherry or white wine instead) 200ml pork or chicken stock 50g fresh root ginger, sliced into coins 3 garlic cloves, bruised 2 star anise (taste throughout & if star anise flavour becomes too strong then take out) 1 red chilli, slit but left whole with seeds  Cooking Preheat the oven to 150c/gas 2. Place all the ingredients in a sturdy roasting tin and cover with a double layer of foil. I used a Le Creuset cast iron dish with a lid. Roast for 2 ½ hours, turning the pork hocks halfway, then remove the foil or lid and cook for another 1 ½ hours, basting with the juices and turning the pork every 30 minutes or so. To serve, break the pork into large pieces (discard the skin and most of the fat) and pour the brasing liquid over. To Drink I served with shredded greens and rice. The pork is very succulent, tasty and perfect for a cold winters evening giving a hint of Eastern promise....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=104104One thing that grew particularly well in the Cabbage Patch this year was the garlic. So much so, in fact, that I planted about 30 this year, so I’m thinking if we eat 0.58 of a bulb / head a week, it’ll last all year! That’s the theory behind it anyway, so I was very upset to notice that although my onions are doing particularly well, despite their crushing by the snow, the garlic shoots weren’t even up. Until, that was, James Martin commented on the fact that the garlic shoot season is just beginning, and, sure enough, when I ran up the garden to see, the tiny little purple shoots had just poked their heads up above ground! From The Cabbage Patch You might ask why I’m so excited by this? Well, it’s the fact that it’s such a versatile and tasty ingredient: You can roast it, whole or in cloves, with or without skin; it can be finely chopped and added to taste in pasta sauces, cottage pies, etc; or be the main ingredient itself, as in aioli. After trawling my blog for recipes including garlic, I found over 23 entries, and that’s not including the ones before I learnt that adding tags was a good idea! From The Cabbage Patch Gino D’Acampo uses garlic or onion, but never both, in fact, it’s his fourth rule, learnt from his teacher at catering school who said to him, “The secret of a good dish is respecting the ingredients that you use.” Once Gino understood the “unique flavours” of the two separately, he never cooked them together again. Now, I sort of see his point: they are both distinct flavours with their own individuality, but why those can’t be combined, I’m not sure. When you flick through or search for my recipes that include garlic, more than not, you’ll find they also include onions, (unless it’s a Gino one, like the Gnocchi Pomodoro !), and they taste good, on the whole. So, as for using it alongside onions, you’ll have to make your own decision. As for Garlic’s use as a main ingredient, or even to add a little something extra, you’ll find no substitute. Gino D’Acampo quote taken from ‘Fantastico!’, Gino D’Acampo, Kyle Cathie Ltd, 2007....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=103103With a glut of oranges (read over flowing fruit bowl) and a rapidly depleting store of marmalade I felt the urgent need to get preserving. I love preserving, it’s a very cathartic, soothing activity. Regular readers will have come to understand just how much I love preserving but for those of you who would like a reminder or are new readers have a look here . Preserving isn’t an activity all that easy with an almost 9 week old Italian Spinone puppy by the name of Maximus running around your feet, nosing into everything and generally being a cheeky little pup, requiring you to have eyes in the back of your head. Sure he looks innocent and sweet enough but let food be smelt and the jumping and yodelling (yes yodelling not typical barking) will commence. Certainly not soothing I’m sure you’ll agree, and then the whole kitchen activity becomes fraught and wracked with anxiety. I settled on a marmalade that requires no cooking. No cook marmalade? How can that be so? Doesn’t marmalade need time, effort and hot pans to be slaved over? All those thoughts went through my head when I noticed @aforkful over on Twitter discussing her latest marmalade, a no cook version which you can read about here . For conventional marmalade yes, preserving pans and thermometers galore are required, not that is in any way a bad thing, but for this gem of a recipe from Darina Allen, (of the esteemed  Ballymaloe cookery school in Cork, and author of many excellent books; including  Ballymaloe Cookery Course , from which this recipe comes) you need nothing more than a sharp knife, blender or food processor and a few sterilised jam jars. Whether this is truly a ‘marmalade’ or not is a matter of debate. I feel it should be named a citrus spread rather than a marmalade. Why? Well the word marmalade derives from the Portuguese word marmelada which actually was a cooked down quince paste; and hence I feel marmalade refers to a cooked product, but hey, whatever it is called, the result is the same – a gorgeous spread. Conventional marmalades can have a rather bitter edge to them, whereas this one doesn’t. It is bursting with citrus tang with an almost sherbet sweet edge, a real winner. Find out you’ve run out of marmalade of a morning to have with your toast, well you could have this rustled up in a jiffy, go on trust me....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=101101T.S. Eliot was wrong. February is the cruellest month. With the day:night ratio still brutally weighted towards darkness and the good intentions of January ending in frustration or failure there is little to cheer come month number two. What’s more, financially imposed restraint withers the bud of any frivolous relief: one must pay for midwinter exuberance at some point and that is usually about 30 days into the year. There shall be no steaks or fine wines in February. But it presents the enthusiastic cook with a challenge. With budgets slashed more brutally than an American teenager in a bad horror movie, the cogs of invention begin to splutter and whirr into gear in an attempt to answer the age-old question: how does one eat well – cheaply? I found the answer in the 1980s. When we moved in together, the GF and I inevitably meshed media collections. This explains why Destiny’s Child now cosy up to The Dears and how Badly Drawn Boy ended up in such close proximity to Band of Horses (the alphabetisation is all me, sadly). The cookbook collection was also enriched by this collision. In addition to the Nigels and Nigellas were some fabulous items from the mid 1980s which 20-some years on have managed to recapture their appeal, if only for kitsch value. The Austrialian Women’s Weekly Dinner Party Cookbook No.2 , its cover adorned with a domed fruit jelly, whipped cream piped around the perimeter, is a particular favourite. How to Make Good Curries is another I adore, chiefly because of the modest ambitions of its title. The good folks at the Aussie Women’s Weekly are also responsible for The Barbecue Cookbook including – I kid you not – a section on a barbecued wedding breakfast. But our favourite discovery, and one that caused much mirth when we were going through our new collection is a small undated pamphlet issued by the British Sausage Bureau entitled A Month of Sausages. I think that warrants some thought. Firstly, it is both commendable and highly amusing that such an organisation existed given that it sounds like something dreamt up by Edmund Blackadder or the writers of The Thick Of It . An entire (government funded) organisation dedicated solely to the advancement of the sausage. Magnificent....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=100100With Christmas well and truly behind us (I admit it, I am finding it hard to let go!) and the New Year ushering in a fresh start, it is tempting to think that the spring, and all the lightness of spirit and flavour that it entails, is imminent.  Yet the weather outside my window every morning is a harsh reminder that the cold chill of winter is still upon us; while the bite of the evening’s cold still makes me crave for the warmth and comfort of hearty, wintery fare. One of the many things I love about winter are the aromas that it brings: the cool, clean fizz of freshly fallen snow, the heady smoke of roaring wood fires and rich, slow roasting meats, the mellow waft of cinnamon and spice, and the sprightly, citrus smell of oranges and satsumas – pierced with a fingernail, peeled or poked with cloves; their heady perfume can fill a room with a fresh waft of wintery warmth.  I simply adore those scents and they led me to want to make a dish that was both rich with winter flavour but had the fresh, renewing taste of citrus and that makes a small, if hesitant, nod towards those warmer months to come - and so was born my roasted Chicken with Orange, Fennel and Olives .  I love the combination of orange and olives: they seem made for one another and revel in the flavours of their sun-baked, Mediterranean roots.  Not very wintery you may think, but there is something about the combination of orange, olive and fennel that echoes the essence of those seasonal spices, and anyway, details aside this dish is just delicious to eat whatever the season and a total breeze to make – perfect for when you come in from the cold and want to create something simple and delicious to warm you through. I recommend serving it with a big pile of steamed white basmati rice, all the better to absorb the wonderful orange and olive oil juices that pool around the roasted chicken and fennel.  I think the flavours of the chicken and its juices give a perfect balance and so like to keep it simple and serve alongside a green herb salad, although it works equally well with some wilted spinach with perhaps a little splash of garlic oil....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=9999There's nothing nicer on a cold winter's day than a bowl of warming stew, top it with tasty dumplings and you have a real treat! Last week I recommended serving colourful vegetables to liven up stews and casseroles and this is another way of making stew more visually exciting.  The different shapes, textures and colours of the dumplings, artichokes and olives all create interest on the surface breaking up the monotony of the gravy covered chunks of meat, which as delicious as they are, aren't the most interesting thing to look at.     Traditionally dumplings are made with flour and beef suet, but these healthier dumplings are instead made with grated pumpkin, ground almonds and rice flour and flavoured with dried thyme.  Unfortunately you can't cook them in the stew as you would do normally as they dissolve into the liquid and start to disintegrate.  So to get around that slight problem you need to bake them in the oven before adding them to the stew just before serving.  This has the added bonus that you can cook several batches at once and freeze any surplus to use at a later date. I've used carrots to thicken the stew which eliminates the need for any flour and is also a good way of incorporating more vegetables.  Keep the chunks of carrot quite large because you need to be able to fish them out when the stew is cooked.  After blending with some of the liquid from the stew, the soupy carrot puree is then stirred back into the meat which thickens the sauce....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=9898It was Kerri’s birthday today, which was very exciting. We went out to Chez Bruce last night and had a wonderful dinner there, so decided to stay at home today and cook something ourselves. Roast pork it was, which we bought from a local butcher, Parsons Nose , which we were hoping would be open on Sunday and luckily was! We had to wait a while, because just as we arrived the butcher was boning and tying a pork loin for another customer. That customer ended up buying just over half of it, then we took just over half of what was left and the butcher looked at the remaining piece and said “I think I’ll have that for my dinner this evening”. So a whole loin prepared, portioned up and put to good use in a short space of time. Excellent. The pork was lovely free range pork from Dorset and was delicious, but that wasn’t the end of it. We also managed to cook really good roast potatoes for the first time in a while (it seems that buying potatoes from Waitrose rather than Sainsbury’s was the key here as they were the same variety – Desiree – and cooked in much the same way) and the crackling was brilliant, so much so that it deserves its own picture: One of the birthday presents that I had bought Kerri was a spotty jug from Emma Bridgewater, which is what we used to serve our gravy: So two good roast dinners two weekends in a row now, which will make it all the more difficult to start on the being-sensible-and-not-eating-too-much regime which starts tomorrow....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=9797This week, we’re eating up everything in the freezer in the hopes of saving a bit of money after Christmas. Tonight, it looks like pasta bake with tomatoes and homemade root vegetable soup for starters. Having said that, until it’s defrosted and I can actually get into it, it could be mince and home-made stock! The excitement is becoming too much to bear! As for this meal, all it really consists of is a ‘bottom of the fridge’ combination: one of my specialities! Other recipes include Spanish Omelette and Mediterranean Chicken .  It was one I knocked together last week from the many Christmas leftover vegetables. Ingredients: Any meat – I used chopped bacon Any veg. – I used shallots, new potatoes, carrots, parsnips, sprouts and leeks Chicken stock White wine Plain flour salt and pepper Pour a little olive oil into a pan and fry off the meat until browned but not cooked through (unless it’s bacon, in which case, fry until crispy!) Remove from the pan. Use the meat residue to fry off the chopped vegetables. Return meat to the pan and season well. Pour over a large glass of white wine and let sizzle. Stir in a tablespoon of flour to coat everything and add the stock. Let it bubble away until the meat is cooked through, I put a dampened cartouche on top to stop the juices evaporating, and serve in large bowls with dumplings. It certainly did the trick of warming us up on these cold winter evenings and, having never made it before, would certainly make it again. A quick an easy tea-time treat, especially if you use Aunt Bessie's ‘in the freezer’ dumplings instead of making your own!...http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=9595Talking about cooking last night’s fish dish with Indian spices led me to Madhur Jaffrey’s ‘Indian Cooking’ when looking for something to cook tonight. This dish seemed reasonably light (we’re trying not to over-indulge too much during the week as we have a lot of food-heavy weekends coming up) and quick, making it a good option after a busy day. It was indeed quick to cook but I still haven’t got used to the writing style which meant I lost my way a little when trying to follow the method. I should have weighed and measured everything before I started too but I was trying to save time, as usual. Consequently, my coriander isn’t as finely chopped as it should be and some stalks found their way in to the final dish but it didn’t matter too much. For a relatively light dish, this had plenty of flavour with a medium heat. As we’ve found with everything we’ve cooked so far from this book, none of our dishes have borne any resemblance to the pictures shown in the book. I’m not claiming we’re excellent cooks or fabulous photographers but, if a picture is shown, there is usually a similarity in our finished dish. This looks particularly unappetising so I can understand why the food stylist may have wanted to take some liberties but I find it somewhat sneaky when there’s no resemblance at all. Lemon Chicken with Coriander Serves Two 1 inch ginger 2 tablespoons plus 75ml water Vegetable oil 2 chicken legs and 2 chicken thighs 3 cloves garlic, crushed 100g fresh coriander, chopped 1 small green chilli, finely chopped 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper 1 teaspoon ground cumin 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander 1/4 teaspoon turmeric 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 tablespoon lemon juice Blend the ginger with two tablespoons water. Brown the chicken, remove and set aside. In the same pan the chicken was cooked in, fry the garlic until it just starts to brown. Pour in the ginger water and fry for one minute. Add the coriander, chilli, cayenne pepper, cumin, ground coriander, turmeric and salt. Stir and cook for one minute. Return the chicken to the pan, add 75ml of water and the lemon juice, stir and bring to the boil. Cover and cook for 15 minutes. Turn the chicken and cook for a further 10-15 minutes until tender.http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=9494There are lots types of edible wild mushroom found on grassland and open fields, below are listed some of the common ones: - Field Mushroom (Psalliota campestris) - Horse Mushroom (Psalliota arvensis) - St George's Mushroom (Tricholoma gambosum) - Shaggy Ink Cap (Coprinus comatus) - Weeping Widow (Lacrymaria lacrymabunda) - Parasol Mushroom (Leucocoprinus procerus) - Meadow Waxcap (Hygrocybe pratensis) - Field Blewit (Lepista saeva) - Fairy Ring Champignon (Marasmius oreades) - Giant Puffball (Langermannia gigantea) Soil conditions  and climate will dictate what grows near you. In Cornwall, you will find lots of Giant Puffballs whereas you will see very few in North Hampshire. This is largely due to the upper South Downs in North Hampshire are quite sandy whereas the fields in Cornwall are generally grazed by cattle and have rich soil. A feature the Giant Puffball likes. You have to be very careful of big round mushrooms found in a field as many people will consider any big, "portabello looking" mushroom as a Field Mushroom - this is a mistake as there are several large wild mushrooms that are poisonous that look very similar to the Filed Mushroom. below are some poisonous look alikes: - Yellow Staining Mushroom. This one can be identified as it has an unpleasant "ink" like smell and when you cut the flesh it turns pale yellow. - Red Staining Inocybe. This can be distinguished as you woudl imagine, it stains red when cut. It smells of rotting fruit and is VERY poisonous. - Leucoagaricus leucothites. WIll give a tummy upset - hard to tell between Field Mushrooms except gills remain white or pale pink. Quite rare in UK. - Destroyiong Angel. ##DEADLEY## Grows from a volva bag - major identification feature. QUite white all over with white gills. More common in Scotland. How to Identify  Field Mushrooms Young ones have crowded bright pink gills enclosed in a white veil. When they are older the gills are free and chocolate brown. The stem has a transient ring and when you cut the stem, it turns slightly pink. It lives almost exclusively on grass kept short by grazing or mowing. It is very common and often grows in big fairy rings. You will find the Field Mushroom from early summer to late autumn - especially after periods of wet. When you cut the stem, it will stain slightly pinkish and the mushroom will smell wonderfully mushroomy....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=9292Definitely an all time classic and something I make many times a year as it's so easy and so scrummy every time! It's one of those recipes you can adapt and play with as you like, but mine goes something like this... Ingredients: lean steak mince onions - cut as you wish carrots - diced small beef stock cube red wine brown sauce (HP, not Daddies!) seasoning mash First, fry off the mince until browned. Remove from the pan and use the juices to fry off the onions and carrots until just tender. Return the mince to the pan, crumble in a stock cube, pour over a good glug of red wine, add a splodge of HP and stir. Let simmer until the meat is cooked through and a thick gravy has formed. If necessary, add a little more wine or water. Put mixture into a large oven-proof dish and dollop mash over the top. cover with cheese and heat til hot and the cheese bubbles and browns. Serve with crusty bread to mop up the sauce!...http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=8989These are mince pies in a different and simpler form and are great for anyone who doesn't want to make pastry, you can also get away with offering them to people who 'don't do mince pies'. While they are baking they make the whole house smell cosy. Here is the recipe: Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 4/ 180° standard electric or 160° fan or 350F 8 inch square cake tin, lined I either use square paper cake tin liners or baking sheets cut to size. 200g/ 70z butter (from fridge so its chilled) 200g/ 70z soft brown sugar 200g/ 7oz plain flour 1 level tsp bicarbonate soda 100g/ 4 oz porridge oats 450g/1lb mincemeat (mine has added glacé cherries to it) a good slug of chocolate liqueur (it is almost Christmas after all) Take the butter straight from the fridge and grate it right into the bowl, then add the sugar, flour, bicarb and oats and mix by hand, the mixture will look dry and like it won't come together at this stage but it just like shortbread and as soon as you push it into the tin it will mould together beautifully. Halve the oaty mix and tip into the tin, push down with fingertips, making sure you get into the corners. Pour in the mincemeat and spread over the oaty mix with the back of a dessert spoon so that it is nice and even. Finally pour over the rest of the oaty mix over and push down again with the tips of your fingers until all of the mincemeat is covered. Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for 35 - 40 mins. Allow to cool completely before removing from the tin and cutting into bar shapes, otherwise it will do this as I have absolutely no patience....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=8888A while ago I wrote a brief manifesto centred on making the world a better place through the introduction of mandatory elevenses. Should I ever be appointed ‘Food Tsar’ in order to help see the successful passage of this essential legislation, the Eccles Cake would almost certainly be the official flagship treat. The finest example of this Lancastrian delicacy can be found not in their hometown of Eccles but at Restaurant St. John close to the City of London. Tightly packed with spiced currants and served warm, with a cup of tea on the side, I can think of no better way to ward off winter ills than taking 15 minutes out of your day to have your cake and eat it. These are loosely based on the St. John recipe and should make six decent sized cakes. Be sure to slightly overfill each one and pack it in tightly to full appreciate the glory of these delightful wonders. NB - If you want to make a smaller or larger quantity just use the ratio one part butter to two parts sugar to four parts currants. Half a block of ready-made puff pastry (oh, how convenient ) 250g currants 60g unsalted butter 120g golden caster sugar Nutmeg Allspice One egg white Extra caster sugar, for dusting. Heat the sugar until it starts to melt and colour slightly then remove from the heat and add the butter. Allow to melt then add the currants. Stir well so each is coated with some of the caramel. Flavour with allspice and nutmeg – keep tasting it until it is slightly Christmassy and comfortingly warming – then leave to cool. Roll out the pastry to about half a centimetre’s thickness then using a 9cm cutter press out as many discs as you can. Re-roll the leftover pastry and repeat until you have 12-14 discs. Top each with a spoonful of the filling and sandwich them together, making sure to press the sides together tightly. (You can make the circles larger and fold the pastry together underneath. Either way works fine) Turn them over and neaten them up with your palms. Flatten the top and cut three times with a sharp knife (supposedly to symbolise the holy trinity). Brush with egg white and dip into caster sugar. Bake for 20-25 minutes until they are an inviting colour and the filling is oozing out of the top....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=8585my friends from maui have exactly one more day in london before they head home for the holidays, so i thought i’d take them to one of my favourite spots in london: borough market . it has become somewhat of a special occasion to venture over there, since i used to go much more often while working at an office nearby. and now that i’ve had a taste again, i’m determined to go back more and more – i could totally do my weekly grocery shopping there, right? it probably wasn’t the best idea to go there at 12.30 on a friday (lineslinespeoplelinescrowdsqueuesetcetcetc) but we found a quiet corner and a (GASP!) table to sit and eat our lunch on. before we could get very far when we arrived, my nose took me to get a cup of “hot mulled apple” (aka hot apple cider to americans). it tasted like wintry america. after wandering around the whole market, sampling the goods, we were on the hunt for some delicious lunch to silence our grumbling tummies. i remembered a great veggie burger stall that i was determined to find again for elisa and i, while gabe was in a more carnivorous mood (he was eying up the bratwurst at the next stall over). the veggie burgers came from a company called the veggie table and are absolutely delightful. in the summer, you can enjoy one of their two burgers in a box of mixed salads for a fiver. in the winter, however, the burgers are served either in a bun or a hearty cabbage leaf with your choice of sauces. i opted for the all-vegan, gluten-free “super veg” burger in a leaf with some hummus and tomato & chili chutney. elisa tried the “heavenly halloumi” burger with pesto and hummus. they were pretty messy to eat (thank goodness we found that table) but perfectly scrumptious. i grabbed a brownie for phil on our way out of the market and made mental notes of which stalls i want to peruse on my next visit to borough. maybe when it’s a little less crowded. there are some wonderful sights and smells at the market, so it’s worth going just for the sensory overload. and while i was able to find some decent vegetarian food for lunch today, carnivores will find themselves in meat paradise ....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=8484This is a Delia twist on an old favourite and is absolutely delicious. I never use venison sausages, but whichever I fancy that particular day. It's the juniper berries and redcurrant jelly that make it though - the sweet and sour 'bite' and sauce with bacon is just scrummy! The idea is that you brown off the sausages, fry off bacon, onions and mushrooms with some crushed juniper berries, and braise the lot in red wine. I just steamed some broccoli in the microwave to go alongside, and because my mum still always asks what greens I'm having with my tea: sometimes I even make it up, but, being my mum, she always knows!...http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=8383Its so hard to find good produce these days, at the right price and the right quality. But I have just made a trip to Royal Hill in Greenwich SE10, I found this great fish, a nice big pile of spanking fresh mackerel at the little shop just round the corner from www.drings.co.uk the best place for miles to sell organic and free range meat. The Fish shop is just off Royal Hill down a little side street. Just there on the right is a brick and slate fish monger, displaying some excellent fish. I bought these mackerel which I cured some with a sweet cure, and potted the rest. I also purchased some outstanding Hake, cut into thick chunky steaks, I serve it heavily peppered as in the classic French bistro dish Steak au poivre. Fried in butter and finished off this time with a little reduction of sherry vinegar, chicken stock and butter. On the side I had a little flurry of fresh samphire, and some pureed new potatoes with olive oil, instead of the usual suspects of cream and butter. Now i have had fish from every source in Britain and i would say that was right up there with the freshest ever....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=8282They say that good things come in small packages and I guess this says to me that a small amount of something great can often be enough - or rather should be enough. Modern life is filled with adverts that urge us to consume more than we need - never mind the quality because more is better, yes? Cars must feel roomier and go faster - even though the speed limit remains the same. Chocolate bars come in kingsize portions - or even yardages! Can I supersize that for you? Pumpkins are a great reminder that bigger is not always better because the larger they grow, the blander and more watery they become. A pub near us holds a competition each year in which participants vie to outdo each other on the size of their grotesque pumpkins. No points are given for flavour, texture or even appearance - size is all. The pumpkins sit patiently whilst folk marvel at their enormity, waiting for the ritual weighing, a bloated celebration of excess. When I asked what would become of these lovingly tended sumo pumpkins, the answer - given with a shrug, was that they were no good for anything and would be tossed on the compost. Ok, not tossed - heaved. When Heather of Life Gluten Free chose Pumpkin Treats as her October theme I thought about all the lovely sweet treats that pumpkin and squash can lend their natural sweetness and velvety texture to - a classic pumpkin pie for instance. But when I saw some tiny pumpkins at the grocers and learnt they were called, 'munchkin' I was compelled to buy them and work out what to do with them later. I have baked creamy soup in a medium sized pumpkin and served it with a carefully scooped portion of orange flesh in each bowl, but these tiny squash were too small even for that. They demanded to be stuffed with something tasty that complemented the sweet starchy interior, so I chose minced lamb shoulder, spiced with cinnamon, cardamom and nutmeg that are also natural partners for squash. You could easily adapt the recipe to fill one medium sized squash and slice it into moon shaped portions if you aren't lucky enough to find some tiny pumpkins. Just don't be tempted to supersize this dish.... If you have any stuffing left over it's delicious in a pitta bread with some salad, fresh coriander, toasted pinenuts and a spoonful of thick yogurt. To see the round up of this month's entries for Go Ahead Honey it's Gluten Free, pop over to Life Gluten Free at the end of the month....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=8181Now here's a wonderful vegetable that you don't often see in markets or ever ( do correct me) in a supermarket, yet it's easy to grow and practically indesctructible. My plant is twelve years old now and seems to think it's a shrub. If it bolts --which it invariably does-- just pull of the bolted bits and you're still in business. If you've never grown any sorrel, set some seeds next Spring. Use some of the smallest leaves raw in a salad and the bigger leaves in cooked dishes: it's like spinach with an addictive lemon bite to it. This time of year, there are plenty of big leaves left on my sorrel plant. I will be making soup tonight. Beg, borrow or steal some or, if you do see a last crop, snap it up. Sorrel makes a lovely filling for an omelette, an excellent sauce for fish and a delicate soup. Proceed as follows. Sweat about 40 g of washed and shredded sorrel and three finely chopped cloves of garlic in a large pan in some butter. Stir carefully and constantly until you have a soft green puree. Now add four finely chopped peeled potatoes, mix them into the mixture and add 1 litre of chicken stock. Alternatively, you could make this soup with plain water or milk. If you are using milk, be careful that it does  ot curdle with the sharpness of the sorrel. Raise the heat and then simmer carefully for about fifteen minutes. At this point, add about 100 ml of double cream. Stir carefully, check the seasoning -- you will need to salt fairly generously -- and serve with some croutons or just good bread and butter. The soup with be creamy with a satsisfying smack of acidity....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=7979Today I have been to the farmers market in Ludlow, this is run on a regular basis and you are always guaranteed to find something that extra bit special. One of the stall holders today was a man called Talfryn who runs a lovely local company called Fareground he makes the most amazing pepperdew's I've ever tasted they are stuffed with soft cheese and soaked in olive oil, I also picked up some beautiful little onions that were marinated in balsamic vinegar and some freshly made harissa. From another stall I got lovely yellow courgettes and yellow tomatoes, yellow tomatoes are my favourite and lets face it any tomato that has been chilled and flown x amount of miles is never going to come close to anything like these which were picked this morning and then sold to me a few hours later, I've already eaten half of them while pottering about in the kitchen I like eating them just like an apple, delicious! Using most of what I bought, here is what I made for dinner: Harissa Baked Chicken 1 chicken breast per person 1 heaped teaspoon harissa rapeseed oil 1 teaspoon local honey (mine is obviously from Shropshire, so use what is local to you) You will also need a lidded oven proof dish. With a sharp knife (this is a joke in my house as my husband uses my best knifes for DIY jobs when I'm not looking) Cut slits across the top of the chicken breast, this is so the harissa will soak deep into the chicken while its marinating. Next, in a small bowl mix the harissa with the honey and stir well. Add a little rapeseed oil to the baking dish and rub around the bottom and sides, add the chicken breasts to the dish and then rub each one thoroughly with the harissa that was mixed with the honey trying to ensure each one is well covered. leave in the fridge to work its magic for at least two hours. Remove the dish from the fridge an hour before you plan to start cooking, while this is happening I prepared my potatoes and courgettes. The courgettes were topped and tailed and then sliced into thin discs before being cooked in a little rapeseed and butter on a slow heat with a lid on....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=7777A whole meal in one dish, even down the the gravy - Marvelous! Remember a while back I was sent a fantastic Cookbook from 'Abel and Cole' Well yesterday I fancied making this. In the book it is c alled Beef and Pointed Cabbage Pie. Pointed or sweetheart are the same type of cabbage - I fancy you can use any cabbage you like the l ook of. You will need: 2 glugs of olive oil 500g minced beef - good quality - low fat 1 large onion - small dice 3 fat garlic cloves - chopped 1/2 of a pointed or sweetheart cabbage - washed and sliced 1 x 400g tin tomatoes 2 tab lespoons of tomato puree make up 200ml of beef stock from a Knorr stock cube 75ml red wine a good few splashes of Worcestershire sauce a good splash of Tobasco sauce salt and freshly ground black p epper a good handful of grated cheddar cheese How to do it: Preheat your oven to 220C/425F/Gas7 Make enough mashed potato to cover the dish you will be using and set a side - although I make mine while everything else is happening. Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan. Add the beef, onion and garlic and fry until the onion is translucent and soft. You don't want the onion browned only the beef. Now add the shredded cabbage and stir for a few minutes until it wilts down. Throw in the tomatoes including the juice, the tomato puree, 100ml of the beef stock and the wine . **Please note: if you don't want to add any wine then you wil need 175ml of stock instead. Stir it trough and bring to a simmer. Season with s alt and pepper and add the Worcestershire sauce and the Tobasco . Simmer for about 15 minutes. Give it a taste to be sure you don;t want anything else you fancy in the way of seasoning. You shouldn't need to thicken it but if you must then use a teeny bit of of cornflour. Remember this dish is everything you need including the gravy! Tip the lot into a suitable size baking dish and top with the mashed potato and then the grated cheese. Bake un covered in your preheated over for about 25 minutes until the top is golden and it is heate d trough . You can put it under the grill for a few minutes if you want the topping extra crispy. Nothing else needed - just a big plate a nd of course, a knife and fork.http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=7575Glut is such a wonderful word. Glut. Its harsh consonants give it the feel of one of the more abrasive swear words but it also has an inherent softness that makes it warm and cosy – a small cuddle of a word that presents ample opportunity for elaboration. Glut. Glutton. Gluttony. Gluttonous. Gluttonously. Words that speak of the decadently indecent. The garden is, finally, offering up its bounty. Potatoes were dug up a fortnight ago, the maize stems are starting to bulge at the halfway point suggesting that sweetcorn is not far off. The tomatoes are barely threatening to turn from acidic green to sweet red and the courgettes? The courgettes are taking over. For each that we pick, two more seem to grow in their place overnight. They are like the mythical Hydra and I am failing in my Herculean task. As a result we have them lined up in the kitchen, a rag tag bunch of all shapes and sizes. The Usual Suspects as re-imagined by a vegan pacifist. They’ve made their way into most things. Last night’s lasagne had a layer of them, thinly sliced, in between the ragu, pasta and béchamel. Diced and fried with a little garlic added at the last minute, they make an excellent addition to pasta. Those that hid deftly under the expansive leaves and transformed into marrows have their insides scooped out and replaced with a tasty filling before being roasted. I’m well aware that I am not alone. Courgettes seem to be as ubiquitous as Simon Cowell this summer so here is a ten point plan for what to do with them. You might guess that by the end, I was struggling. But that might be because I used up all the good ideas above… One – Courgette Fries I first had these crispy little bites of wonder at Italian restaurant l’Anima. Finely sliced and dipped in a light batter, deep fried courgettes are a joy and the perfect vehicle for some rich aioli. Two – Courgette Bread Grated and added to a sweetened bread mix in place of – or in addition to – banana, courgette adds a welcome moisture to this cake . Three – Baked Courgette and Tomato Layer thinly sliced courgette into a roasting dish, season and cover with a rich tomato sauce. Add another layer of courgette, more sauce and then cover liberally with cheese. Bake for 25 minutes and eat straight from the dish. Plates not necessary....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=7373When my mum moved to be closer to her daughters, she had a big clear-out and I became the owner of some old pieces of kitchen equipment that she no longer wanted. One item was a round flan tin for baking sponge cakes, with an indent in the middle for the filling. I had good intentions of using it but ended up shoving it into the back of a deep cupboard. The other day I fished out that tin and used it for the first time. I buttered and floured the tin and crossed my fingers (and toes) that the mixture wouldn't stick, it's not the kind of tin that you can line with your best friend, non-stick baking parchment. The cake looked good when it came out of the oven, although it didn't pop out when I turned it over. Leaving it to cool in the pan, I tried again and with a bang on the kitchen work surface it gracefully plopped out in ONE WHOLE, beautiful piece. YAY! Thank you sponge cake tin, and thank you mum! The tin will NOT be going back into the cupboard of doomed kitchenware, it's been fast tracked to the drawer next to the oven, where it will be lovingly and frequently used. Strawberry and Lemon Cream Sponge Cake For the sponge cake: 100g/4oz unsalted butter, softened 100g/ 4oz vanilla caster sugar 2 large eggs 100g/4oz self raising flour 1 teaspoon vanilla extract Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF. Grease and flour a 20cm/8" flan tin. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy - I use an electric hand whisk. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, adding a little flour with each egg. Beat in the vanilla extract. Fold in the rest of the flour with a large spoon. Spoon into prepared tin and bake for 20-30 minutes until springy to the touch and a cake tester comes out clean. Remove from tins and cool on a wire rack. For the lemon cream: Lemon curd to your taste, I used about 1 cup - you can use store bought or make your own, I use Delia Smith's recipe . 300ml pot double cream Whip the double cream to soft peaks and fold in the lemon curd. For the topping: Any fruit in season of your choice To assemble: spread the lemon cream onto the sponge base and pile the fruit on top. Note: next time I make this, I am going to brush the sponge with a strawberry/raspberry syrup mixture....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=7272At supermarkets today we can get most fruits and vegetables all-year round no matter what the season. Convenient, yes, but what are we really getting when we choose to buy out-of-season fruit and veg? Buying produce that would normally be out of season in our country means that it has either been imported from another country or grown in heated greenhouses. Both processes create carbon emissions, which is bad news for the environment. Extra Food Miles In the 1990s the term ‘Food Miles’ was coined by Dr Tim Lang, Professor of Food Policy at London’s City University. Food Miles refers to the distance a foodstuff has travelled from the farm to our plate, which is then calculated in terms of impact on the environment. Food Miles don’t take in to account all the energy and materials used in growing, processing and packaging the food, but it does give us environmental food for thought. For example, planes that import food generate 177 times more emissions than ships, but whichever way food arrives in our country it is then transported by HGV to the depot and then to the store. The final trip is the one you take to and from the supermarket. In the UK, the transportation of food alone is responsible for 25% of the distance clocked up by HGVs. Buying food grown in your local are can cut this down dramatically, however this may not always be the case if you buy your local food from a supermarket. Even food grown down the road from you may have had to travel to the supermarket’s central distribution depot before it comes back again to be put on the shelves in your store. I am only scratching the surface of the environmental impact of out-of-season foods here, but if you want to know more, the article ‘Food Miles’ by Caroline Stacey on the BBCs Food pages expands on the issue. Ever-Decreasing Nutrients Other factors of importing fruit and veg, are the time it takes and the handling and storage that is involved. These can all affect the nutritional content of the food. From the moment fruit and vegetables are harvested they begin to lose nutrients and taste. You’ll know this yourself if you’ve ever ‘grown your own’. A carrot eaten minutes after being pulled from the ground is vibrant in colour, smells amazing, is crisp, juicy and full of taste....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=7070Full many a glorious morning I have seen Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye. Kissing with golden face the meadows green, Gliding pale streams with heavenly pork pie William Shakespeare, Sonnet 33 We are a nation of pie lovers. That is undeniable. From steaming hot meat and potato pies that grace chip suppers across the north to the crescent shaped Cornish pasty of the south, if it’s a scorching filling wrapped in artery clogging pastry, we adore it. Legislative affirmation of this fact came just last month when the legendary Melton Mowbray pork pie was finally granted Protected Geographical indication by the EU. It now stands proudly alongside such luminaries as Parmesan Cheese and Champagne. Only pork pies from Melton Mowbray can be labelled as such. Anything else is a mere pretender. But pretenders aren’t necessarily a bad thing when they originate in your own kitchen. Recent dispatches from New York saw me trying to re-create some of the tasty food that was consumed there. It was great fun, making pizzas and bagels and hot dogs and cheeseburgers . So much so that it got me thinking – why not try it more often, with things that originate closer to home. Why not try to create in the home kitchen those foodie treats we know and love: doner kebabs, pink wafer biscuits, custard creams, marshmallows. By using excellent ingredients and leaving out all the unnecessary bits and bobs it should be possible to cook versions of these treats to rival anything that can be found on the shelves. Artifice by more natural means. Before I get started on the big things, I wanted to start small. Keep it simple. If my girlfriend and I are ever out and attacked by hunger pangs it inevitably falls not to a chocolate bar to quell the cravings but to a pork pie. There is something so satisfying about the combination of heavily seasoned meat housed in a crunchy yet melting pastry that just makes us smile. It is a rare treat, but a treat nonetheless. We’ve been hunting for the perfect pie for a while. One whose meat:pastry ratio is spot on and where the jelly doesn’t overwhelm you with its strangely appealing yet vaguely disgusting texture. It’s a fine pie tight rope to tread and some get it right. Others fail miserably. Hopefully now that the pork pie has some certification it will mark an end to any disappointments....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=6969Honey is a pale yellow liquid, sweet, viscid and edible, collected and processed by bees from the nectar of flowers. The word honey comes from the Arabic hon which became in old English honig degenerating gradually to honey. The German word is still honeg. Honey has been found in the tombs of ancient Egypt, where a jar of still edible honey was discovered in the Tomb of Queen Tyi’s parents. It was thought to be 3300 years old. Evidence has been found of honey being used by the Egyptian, soaked on bandages to form a ‘plaster cast’ for broken bones. Considered by the Ancient Greeks to be sacred, and by the Hindus as a miracle food. Honey has been used as a sweetener in our diet long before the discovery of sugar. When the ancient Phoenician traders came to Britain for lead and tin they found the population consuming great quantities of honey and called Britain the Isles of Honey. Honey is also hygroscopic, antibacterial, and is antiseptic. It is claimed to have medical and cosmetic properties, but beyond dispute is the unique and special flavour it adds to cooking. Honey is of course produced by bees, and we must act to save our honey bees. A third of UK bee colonies have been lost over the last two years. There is strong evidence that neonicotinoids – a class of pesticide first used in agriculture in the mid 1990s at exactly the time when mass bee disappearances started occurring – are involved in the deaths. The evidence against these chemicals is strong enough that they have been banned or suspended in France, Germany, Italy and Slovenia – but unfortunately not yet in the UK. Neonicotinoids work as an insecticide by blocking specific neural pathways in the central nervous systems. The chemicals impair communication, homing and foraging ability, flight activity, ability to discriminate by smell, learning, and immune systems – all of which have an impact on bees ability to survive. It seems bees genetic make up makes them particularly vulnerable to neonicotinoids. Recent mapping of the bee genome has revealed that bees capacity to detoxify chemicals is much lower than other insects. Instead bees have two strategies to protect themselves....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=6868Courgette season means that it's time to get out the spiraliser !  The beauty of making vegetable noodles and linguine with courgettes is their neutral flavour and flexible texture - pretty much the same attributes as 'normal' pasta and noodles except that courgettes are by far the healthier option. As well as the usual courgette linguine with pesto and other pasta type dishes, this year oriental style noodles have also crept into the repetoire.  Partly because of the lush row of coriander growing next to the courgette bed in the vegetable garden which is just begging to be used!   The noodles and sauce are both uncooked retaining the vibrancy and freshness of the ingredients and the sauce is thickened with ripe avocado which along with the coconut milk contributes to its creamy texture.   Although you could easily make this recipe with rice or wheat noodles, part of its appeal is in the unconventional and unexpected use of the courgettes, making it altogether more enticing.   Courgette Noodles with Prawns & Green Beans Serves 4 Ingredients 400g  Courgette Noodles (for preparation instructions click on the link) 25g Lemon Grass, finely chopped 10g Fresh Ginger, finely chopped 1 Lime, juice & zest 25g Fresh Coriander, roughly chopped 25g Spring Onion Tops, chopped 1/2 Tsp Agave Nectar Fresh Green Chilli, to taste ( optional ) 200ml Coconut Milk 1/2 Ripe Avocado Sea Salt & Black Pepper 200g French Beans, quartered lengthways & cut into long strips 350g Cooked Peeled Prawns 25g Spring Onions, finely sliced A handful of Coriander, roughly chopped   Blend together the lemongrass, ginger, lime zest & juice, coriander, spring onion tops, chilli if using, agave and coconut milk until it forms a smooth green sauce. Add the avocado and blend again. Season to taste. Briefly cook the sliced beans in salted boiling water and then drain and refresh in cold water.  Drain well when cold. Mix together the sauce and courgette noodles. Stir the green beans, spring onions, prawns and chopped coriander through the noodles. Adjust the seasoning if necessary....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=6666As soon as this sign appears in our village, you know that the cherry season is with us. Even though the season is short, we try to make the most of the cherries, and this year they are really big and juicy. Some left-over chocolate cake can be made into a simple Black Forest trifle, no recipe as it's one of those things you just throw together. In the bottom of a serving glass, or dish, I spooned a little chocolate ganache (chocolate sauce would be just as good), on top of that I put some chocolate sponge. I then added some halved and stoned cherries that had been marinated in a few tablespoons of kirsch (pour the juice and liqueur over the sponge). Top with some lightly whipped double cream and some grated chocolate....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=6565Lettuce – like the radish – is another one of those vegetables that people associate with salad and salad only. And even though the lettuce has got a lot going for it (especially if you’re a rabbit) it doesn’t inspire too much creativity in the kitchen. Lettuce deserves a make-over, and that’s what we will give it, right here, right now! Here are ten tasty lettuce recipes to try: (And here’s a handy link for converting cup measurements) 1• Lettuce soups: Lettuce and Garlic, Chive Soup or Watercress and Lettuce Soup or Gordon Ramsay’s Pea, Mint and Lettuce Soup with Parma Ham Fresh, full of flavour and nutrients – and surprisingly filling (especially with a lovely crusty bread roll). 2• Jamie Oliver’s Favourite Winter Salad A much tastier twist on your normal lettuce-based salad, including anchovies, lemon, watercress, halloumi and pomegranate. I can see why it’s a ‘favourite’. 3• Asian-style lettuce: Asian Lettuce Wraps or Chinese Chicken and Mushroom Lettuce Cups Use your lettuce leaves Asian style and fill them with beef or chicken, and a bit of Asian spice. 4• Caramalised Pork Over Lettuce A sweet pork dish with a hint of aromatic cinnamon. Can be served with rice. 5• Lettuce Wedges with Creamy Dressing Soooo simple. Sooo refreshing. A great vegetarian starter or side dish. The dressing can be made up to 3 days in advance. 6• Lettuce, Carrot and Cucumber Juice This will refresh you on a hot day and give you a great nutrient boost on any day! It’s alkaline, so good for inflammation, and reviving, making it the perfect drink for those ‘tired out’ days. 7• Strawberry, Pecan, Lettuce Salad Yes, OK, it’s lettuce in a salad . . . but it *is* a strawberry and pecan salad. Strawberries and pecans!! Mmm mmmmm! 8• Lettuce Boats with an assortment of fillings An alternative to the lettuce wrap . . . lettuce boats! Fill them with all sorts of chicken, tuna or prawn mixes. Great ideas for starters. Most can be served warm or cold. 9• Tangy Lettuce Slaw You’ve heard of coleslaw . . . well this is the lettuce version! Choose your favourite lettuce and add Dijon mustard, lemon, mayonnaise, cucumber, celery and salt. 10• Pickled Lettuce – Sweet and Sour (Parve) A gentle version of sauerkraut. Great as a side dish or in a sandwich....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=6363I've made a couple of purchases in the last couple of days that were not strictly frugal but they weren't extravagant either. One was two very small punnets of raspberries (from a farm called Pixley Berries which makes fruit cordials) which I bought from our local greengrocer. I didn't weigh them but I would doubt if they were more than 125g each which at 99p a punnet wasn't cheap. But they had auch a fabulously intense flavour you could eat them on their own so no need for cream or even sugar. Worth every penny. I also picked up four packs of back bacon at the Bristol Wine & Food Fair for £10 (plus a very fetching pink hessian bag). I have to say I was seduced by the name - spoiltpig - but in fact it was produced by a company called Denhay whose bacon I've been buying for years. Spoiltpig is a very clever rebranding which underlines the fact that their bacon is reared humanely (it's Freedom Food endorsed). It's also extremely tasty - dry and savoury without that awful milky goo that oozes out of cheap bacon when you fry it. I had a brilliant bacon butty yesterday made with 2 rashers instead of 3 so reckon I didn't spend any more than I would normally have done. (You can apparently buy it in Morrisons and larger branches of Budgens) It reminded me that one solution to cutting back your food budget is simply to eat less. Easier said than done, I know, if you have hulking great teenage boys or alpha males in your family but for the rest of us cutting back a bit is no bad thing. And it still remains possible to treat yourself to the foods you enjoy and support small producers who need your custom in the process. Do you have any particular weaknesses when it comes to pricier ingredients?...http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=6262One of the surprises which emerged from the Observer Food Monthly awards back in March was the award for 'Best Ethical contribution' which went to an obscure local food experiment labelled 'The Fife Diet'. The essence of this 'diet' was that participants would volunteer to eat exclusively local food (in this case produced in Fife) for one year. This is not quite as ascetic as it might appear - products which have no local seasonal equivalent are perfectly acceptable e.g. Coffee, oranges, spices etc. Needless to say this diet aroused a great deal of humorous comment implying that that the real Fife diet consisted of 20 B&H, a pint of heavy and deep fried Mars bar. Since then the experiment has grown from strength to strength, with support and praise from many surprising places, not least being Michelle Obama. New campaigns have sprung up in places as diverse as Cornwall, Munster and Strathclyde. If you are interested, you can go to http://fifediet.co.uk to find out more. At Local Food Advisor, We think that Mike and Karen Small's inspirational experiment deserves support in the London area. We are now asking our visitors to let us know what they think of the idea of an 'M25diet'. This is based on exactly the same idea as the Fife diet, however volunteers would try, for one year, to eat produce from inside the M25. This motorway encompasses a population of 10 million people and for the overwhelming majority any producer in the M25 area would be within 25-30 miles of their home, by any definition 'local'. Within the M25 catchment area there is an excellent choice of high quality producers, not least in Kent, the garden of England. At Konstam, the London Restaurant, Oliver Rowe has demonstrated the wonderful quality possible from eating produce from a much smaller area - within the London tube area. What's the point of such a diet? - According to Mike Small 'It's a celebration of local goodness, not an exercise in self denial'. Buying local, growing your own, avoiding waste and reducing food miles can be incredibly enjoyable and rewarding. As well as helping local producers it means a fresh, healthy and traceable diet. If you are interested in commenting on or supporting this idea, please post below. If you would like to sign up for this diet, email us at info@localfoodadvisor.com ....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=6060The beautiful English Raspberries are in season right now and not everyone wants to turn them into pots of jam so this really simple ice cream recipe is perfect and every spoonful tastes like summer. 600 ml 1 pint double cream 200g evaporated milk (small tin) 1/2 vanilla pod 450g fresh raspberries 250g caster sugar warm the sugar, double cream and vanilla pod in a pan over a low to medium heat, just until the sugar melts, do not boil. Remove the pan from the heat then add the evaporated milk and raspberries. Add the mixture to a blender and blitz until smooth, if you don't have a blender mash the raspberries with a potato masher until they give ooze the fuchsia coloured juice into the cream. Pass the whole mixture though a wide netted sieve then pour into an icecream maker and churn for 45 mins, then pour into a tub and freeze until required. If you don't have an ice cream maker pour into a plastic tub and remove every hour and stir until set to break up any ice particles. This is also lovely on meringue nests....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=5858Wild rabbit starter for two I suffer from a disposition that I call ‘geographical disorientation’, an affliction which I liken to not ‘knowing’ where something is. It usually strikes when I am trying to remember where I have last parked my car, and most inconveniently when I am in a desperate hurry to go somewhere. I usually can’t remember, a debate ensues, which ultimately results in me having to guess. Living smack bang in the middle of my street, there is roughly a 50/50 chance that I have parked the car either to the left, or to the right of my flat. But it is not unheard of for me to occasionally guess wrong, which means that I invariably have to walk back on myself. Sigh - what to do? The situation wasn’t particularly different when, over coffee the other day, I was trying to tell a foodie friend of mine, D, that the next restaurant on my agenda was the Harwood Arms in Shepherd’s Bush. ‘Oh no, it’s in Fulham’, she said. ‘No, I’m pretty sure it’s in Shepherd’s Bush’, I insisted, and so it went. But now that I have actually been to the Harwood Arms, the consequence of which was that I had to drive to, umm, Fulham, and not Shepherd’s Bush (and this was after finally locating my car), I now have no option but to swallow my words and admit to D that she was correct. Sigh, what to do? For months, I have been hearing all the murmurs from other foodies about how good the Harwood Arms is. One needs to look no further than then the men who are behind this venture to understand why: Brett Graham, chef of the wonderfully delicious one Michelin starred Ledbury; Mike Robinson from Pot Kiln, a gastropub in Berkshire; and Edwin Vaux of Vaux brewery. Stir into the mix head Chef Stephen Williams, whose CV reads of the Ledbury and the big hitting gastropub, Anchor & Hope, and a tantalising concoction was bound to ensue. One of the key features of the food at the Harwood Arms is provenance - meat direct from the wild – and so it’s hardly surprising that game has pride of place on the menu. Take the venison – it’s shot by Mike himself in Berkshire, and he is a man who knows his game, having been shooting and cooking it since his early teens. So game it was to be. As we scrutinised the menu, we ordered a venison scotch egg (£2.50) from the bar menu (not listed on the regular menu) to nibble on while we decided what to have....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=5757Texture Matters   One way of making food more interesting is by creating contrasts .  This may be by using contrasting colours, shapes, flavours or textures .   Why does this making eating more enjoyable? We enjoy variety far more than monotony and eating a plate of food where all the textures are similar can be quite dull and unsatisfying. There was a fascinating programme about weight loss on BBC1 this week, 10 Things You Need to Know About Losing Weight .  One of the things that the health journalist, Michael Mosely explained was that we are genetically programmed  to seek out variety .  The very same programming that ensured that our hunter-gatherer ancestors sought out a varied diet is still prominent today.  This explains why we often eat far more than we should at parties when there are lots of different dishes to choose from! Michael tried an experiment where people were offered two different bowls of sweets.  One bowl contained a single colour and the other contained a variety of colours.  The sweets in both bowls were identical except for the colours but the majority of people opted for the different coloured sweets.     The following salad recipe combines the meltingly soft texture of the salmon with slightly floury chickpeas and crisp juicy asparagus.  Sorrel ribbons and a lemony dressing are added to bring the whole dish together. The salad tastes best either warm or at room temperature, so if you make it in advance don't serve it straight from the fridge.       Salmon, Asparagus & Chickpea Salad   2 Generous Servings Ingredients   350g Salmon Fillet 250g Asparagus, trimmed weight 215g Tin of Chickpeas (drained weight 130g) 1/2 Lemon, zest & juice 1 Tsp Honey 1/2 Tsp Dijon Mustard 1-2 Tbsp Rapeseed or Olive Oil A good handful of Baby Sorrel or Spinach Leaves Sea Salt & Black Pepper     To cook the salmon & asparagus Pre-heat the oven to 200 º C/Fan 180 ºC . Loosely wrap the salmon in a foil parcel and place on a baking tray....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=5454This was our third attempt at perfecting our hamburger recipe and by jove, I think we have it.  What was important to us was a burger that retained its meaty flavour but had just the right amount of other flavours to complement it.  Once the basics are there then we can play around with the toppings which tonight were lettuce, pickles, cheese, fried onions and a selection of mustards.  The meaty burgers stood up to this myriad of toppings very well which confirmed that we’ve cracked it. 500g minced chuck steak Salt and pepper 1tsp Dijon mustard 1tsp English mustard 1tsp wholegrain mustard several dashes Tabasco sauce 1tbsp parsley 1/2 medium onion, grated Mix all ingredients together, form into patties and then chill until needed.  Grill over direct (but not too hot) heat for four minutes per side, with the lid on.  This will produce medium-rare burgers. Now we just have to work on a hamburger bun that is big enough and firm enough to carry a  burger as fine as this....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=5353For years and years I’ve had my eye on the Sullivan Street Bakery recipe for no knead bread , and the other weekend I finally got round to baking it! Thank you Coby for finally giving me the inspiration to do it. Oh how did I put it off for so long? How could I do that? The only semi rational reason I can think of is the time factor, but even that should not have been enough … note to myself (and all of you) do not let anything put you off making this bread, it is to die for. What is there not to like? A crisp, lightly golden exterior yielding a chewy, flavoursome interior that just makes you want to rip the bread apart with your bear hands and devour with no added extras.  If you can find the inner strength though do try it dipped in lovely olive oil or spread with a good butter ( home-made always goes down well). I can assure you that Jim Lahey (of Sullivan Street Bakery) is one very clever baker, to come up with such a simple recipe for a bread this good he must be. The concept is a bread which is not kneaded at all, and develops it’s texture, gluten and flavour through an incredibly long rise. (12-18 hours.- but the longer time the better.) It is baked at a high temperature in a heavy, covered, roomy pot, which is preheated which mimics the effect of a real bakers oven. My choice here was a  Chasseur Cast Iron Round Casserole Blue 22cm  which was roomy enough to let the bread rise sufficiently in baking, a slightly smaller pot would work also. I scattered the bread dough with cornmeal before baking which helped add to the crusts fabulous texture and slightly nutty flavour. I went on to serve slices of this gorgeous bread with a lovely Spanish inspired salad, with an array of produce from the fabulous online store Delicioso . Delicioso sell a lovely variety of both Spanish food, drink, kitchen equipment and skin-care produce, all of which is of a great quality and not unreasonable prices, but the key thing that makes me go back to them time and time again is their stunning level of customer service; for example on my last order one of the items I chose was going to be unavailable for a few days so to speed up delivery (it came the following day) Delicioso provided me with a superior (and more expensive) product at no extra cost So what did I use in my salad?...http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=5252Tea for 2 I love the odd spot of afternoon tea. There’s something so quintessentially English about this culinary art form, working your way through the sandwiches, the scones (with all that gorgeous clotted cream) and then the cakes, all washed down with tea. I remember up to about four or five years ago, some of the 5 star hotels in London would serve an opulent all-you-can-eat affair of unlimited quantities of sandwiches, scones and cakes. This doesn’t seem to be the norm anymore, which is probably better for my waist line, but is being sorely missed by my greedy little foodie disposition. Having eaten at Sketch before, at both The Lecture Room and Library (the one star Michelin restaurant), and The Gallery (the less formal dining room), I thought it might be time to try out The Parlour, the third of the dining areas at Sketch. The patisserie on display look delectable, and there is a long list of amazing sounding concoctions on their cake menu such as the ‘Gariguette Tartlet’, (strawberry and black pepper cream tartlet, strawberry and tomato tartare, loukoum-rose water and strawberry icing); the ‘Red Pepper and Manjari Tart’, (manjari ganache with a flourless chocolate biscuit filled with preserved red peppers on a sweet dough base); and the ‘Hojicha éclair’ (pâte à choux filled with hojicha cream, hojicha fondant). All of these are priced at £5 each. We decided to order the traditional afternoon tea for £24 (there is also a champagne option with Pommery Brut Royal for £35). Sandwiches of ham and mustard, smoked salmon, cucumber and egg and mayonnaise were simple, but very pleasant. It isn’t policy at The Parlour to provide second helpings, but when we asked, the waiter kindly brought us out some more sandwiches. Sandwiches The fruit scones (two each) were lovely (with clotted cream of course). The accompanying jam was a home made raspberry one. I would have preferred a greater choice of jams for more variety, but it was evident the jam was of the highest quality. It was not particularly sugary, but made sweet not from too much added sugar, but rather, from the natural sweetness of the fruit itself which had been intensely reduced. Fruit scones Pastries included a madeleine, a vanilla custard éclair with violet icing, a fruit tart, a chocolate ganache with chocolate mousse, a gingerbread cake and a pineapple stick....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=5151This is the first article in an occasional series about the farmers' markets in my area, also highlighting the Local Food Advisor . Local Food Advisor is a wonderful website with a wealth of information on finding local food in your area of the UK. Just type in your postcode to find your nearest farmer's market, or look for award winning producers, local food restaurants and even vegetable box schemes. Horsmonden Farmers' Market, Kent is a bi-weekly market that is held on the village green in the spring and summer. During the winter months, the market can be found in the newly renovated village hall. It was started by three local mums and is now in it's 3rd year. There are around 25 stalls selling local produce, with occasional and seasonal stallholders popping in at various times of the year. There is a great range of produce, including breads, meats, fish and vegetables - there is even a refreshment stand operated by a different local charity every fortnight. All the produce on the stalls is set on ice to keep it fresh and cool. For more information on Horsmonden Farmers' Market, visit their website or the Local Food Advisor website . Here are some of the stalls that I visited and their produce. I've put the stallholders websites where I can, but some stalls haven't got theirs up and running yet. First stop was the Birchden Farm asparagus stall. Just a week or two left in the British asparagus season so I made the most of it and bought a large bunch of the thin stemmed asparagus. Free range organic eggs. Of course the tea isn't locally grown, but the Revolution Tea company is just in the next county of E. Sussex. The tea bags are re-useable, made from 100% biodegradable infuser bag, filled with full-leaf teas. You can get 3-4 cups of organic tea from them. I bought a box of the green tea. Fresh fruit and vegetables from Market Gardener A selection of Mediterranean olives, consisting of garlic with herbs and chilli, semi-dried tomatoes, artichokes, antipasto, smoked chilli jelly, rose harissa and pesto, from Milbank Olives . Traditional top quality beef, lamb and pork from Farmer Palmer's Products ....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=5050I am conscious that many of the visitors to Vegging Out are from the United States, so for this post I wanted to focus on finding local fruit and vegetable suppliers in the US . I’ve been searching the internet high and low and here are the best three websites that I’ve found so far. Find Places Where You Can ‘Pick Your Own’ in the US PickYourOwn.org helps you find farms in your area where you can pick your own fruits and vegetables. The site also gives you picking tips, plus instructions on how to preserve your fruits and veg, as well as recipes for jams, soups, sauces, ice cream and more. To find a Pick Your Own farm near you, click on your state then narrow the search to your local area using their maps and links. I worked in the United States for a year, so I chose the place I worked in Pennsylvania for my test. I located a strawberry farm and a blueberry farm, which also sold homemade pies, cakes, muffins, jams and jellies. Search For Local Farmers Markets in the US The United States Department of Agriculture’s website for Agricultural Marketing Services, provides a service called the ‘Farmers Market Search’ . They aim to maintain a current listing of farmers markets throughout the US. Simply use the search fields to find markets in your area. Again, I used my Pennsylvanian example to see how the site worked and found the Wayne County Farmers Market in Honesdale, which is open from May to October from 9am to 1pm. Full addresses and phone numbers are also supplied. Discover Farms and Other Food Producers in Your State Local Harvest is a community style website with lots to offer, including a ‘Food/Farm Event’ calendar, a regular newsletter and a forum. In the ‘Farms’ tab I searched for Honesdale in Pennsylvania and found 16 entries, which included growers of a range of fruits, vegetables, nuts and mushrooms, plus a wheatgrass grower, an alpaca farm and a flower market....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=4949[Project ‘ Recreate New York Food ’ to commence shortly. This is just shameless filler whilst body clocks return to normal and things like mountains of washing get done]. Forget everything you think you know about the rules of the kitchen. For just a few minutes. This is just plain wrong. It shouldn’t work. Nearly every bodily fibre was screaming, shouting, balling at me to stop and obey the bloody rules. This method flies in the face of conventional cooking methods and tickles the scrotum of classical cuisine before running away and hanging out with the cool kids. There are some cuts of meat that are user-friendly. They are fast, boneless and easy. The chicken breast. The fillet steak. The pork loin. A sprinkling of seasoning and a quick searing over a high heat and you have a tasty morsel ready for consumption. Then there are those that need a little more care and attention. And time. Lots and lots of time. In general these are the cuts that I cherish (secretly I think most cooks do, at least those that really love their food). They are the ones that are left on the bone, that need to be braised in liquid (wine is good. Always) until they are meltingly tender and rich, delicious and unctuous. Or roasted s.l.o.w.l.y. But they are winter meats. Now that the sun is here why would you want a hearty stew or daube Provençal? As such, I thought the short ribs I have would have to remain in the freezer until the clouds roll in, the temperature drops and the desire for rich sauces and mashed potatoes returns once more. Not so. I picked up a copy of Gourmet magazine at JFK airport (‘The Grill Issue'). In it was a wonderful photo essay about a Mexican barbecue supper complete with recipes for a multitude of tasty treats. But one in particular stood out because it made me scratch my noggin and mutter: ‘There’s no way that could work. It goes against everything I know and cheekily tickles the scrotum of classical cuisine.’ Beef short ribs. Unmarinated. Unbraised. Unadorned. Just seasoned with salt and pepper then cooked over hot coals and torn apart by enthusiastic teeth. How could you not want to try that? One of the best things about barbecue cookery is the purity of it. It’s as close most of us get to recreating the ancestral methods that live on in the collective memory....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=4747The sun is shining and everything in the garden is looking good. Veggies are planted and various fruits have been spotted. I'm really excited as our mirabelle tree is absolutely loaded this year, compared to last year when we could count them on one hand. As soon as they ripen I'm going to be out there picking the ones I can reach, before the birds enjoy their feast. Hoping these mirabelles don't get eaten by the birds Tiny apples appearing One of 24 chilli plants that we have growing The British asparagus season is here, so for a few short weeks we are enjoying the delicious spring spears. I like to throw a few onto the bbq, then brush with a little butter and seasoning before eating - delicious! Er, how did a lone roasted potato get onto the barbie? Lol, not from me!...http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=4343I finally got to post about the two old cookbooks I picked up for a song in Topsham the other day. Do I need them? Absolutely not - the shelves are already bulging with cookbooks but for less than the price of two glossy magazines, how could I resist? The first - for which I paid a princely £3.50 - is Len Deighton's quirky and original 'Où est le Garlic' first published by Penguin in 1965 (this is the '67 edition). Deighton was a successful thriller writer who turned his hand to cookery writing. The appeal is equally though in the charming comic strip illustrations (below), done not by Deighton but a team of designers The diagrammatic treatment of the families of French sauces and how they relate to each other are particularly good. I love the sound of the improbably named Sauce Mohammed - a variation on tartare sauce flavoured with chopped eggs, anchovies, capers, celery, cucumber and chopped onion. There's a useful chart on Measuring Heat and Bulk which tells you what temperature milk boils at (196°, less than salt water at 224°) and that butter burns at much lower temerature (278°) than beef suet (356°) Heston Blumenthal would approve. There are diagrams showing how to julienne vegetables, make quenelles and create a Chaud Froid, a type of aspic used to glaze boiled chicken (One forgets how in thrall England still was to French cooking in the '60s. Did Observer readers, for whom Deighton wrote, really make such things?) The writing is also wonderfully lucid. "The most difficult thing to explain in a cookery book is the amount of moisture that should be added to flour mixtures" Deighton writes. "Batter mixtures are like cream; they can be poured. A cake mixture is wet and will almost pour; it will drop from a spoon. Yeast mixtures are moist and plastic like modelling clay" Perfectly put. Who needs photographs, or even videos? There are forgotten, frugal recipes for making brawn or stuffing a cabbage, all of which would take hours. Even bombes which Deighton says "date from the time when men in long beards with 'ski' at the end of their names hid these gadgets, still, smoking, beneath ankle-length cloaks." As you can see, a great book to dip into....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=4242“"Well," said Pooh, "what I like best -- " and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know what it was called” When you eat SCD, honey is one of those little things that make life more than just a bit sweeter. Honey can be light and clear, drizzled from a spoon over a slice of fresh pear, it might be dark and syrupy, falling in caramel ribbons over a bowl of Greek yogurt, sometimes it is thick and creamy, melting on the tongue like summer scented fudge or spread generously over cool creamy butter on a piece of hot toast. Good honey is always a distillation of the many flowers and plants visited by bees as they tirelessly harvest and carry, pollinating as they go. Their place in the great eco system of plant reproduction is as immovable as the plants themselves. Even after a rather painful and unexpected sting on the jaw the other day, when I saw the heather humming with bees I gave thanks for the part they play in the food we eat, the richly oxygenated air we breathe and the plants that clothe all the bits we haven't smothered in concrete yet. Thanks guys! we owe you one. Honey can taste of pure sweetness, or it can take the flavour of a particular pollen. My very favourite is sunflower honey , deeply yellow, thick and creamy with a round buttery flavour and summery scent. But I also have a place in my heart for  clover  (mild and light),  orange blossom  (delicately perfumed with the slightest hint of bitter orange),  heather  (dark, rich and caramel flavoured) and on the odd occasion  lavender honey  with a deep floral tone that sings in a china cup of chamomile tea. Buying local honey can be a great way to support local business, reduce food miles, avoid sugar produced on the other side of the world and even reduce pollen induced hayfever. By buying from small producers who look after their hives (flocks? swarms?...) you can do your bit towards preserving the bee stocks that may become increasingly endangered as they struggle to cope with our changing environment. You'll also be tasting a little bit of the land where you live, your honey will taste of something - it may taste of clover or sweet chestnut, or simply of wild flowers....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=4141Isn’t it funny how when you are running late, there is always a problem on the London Underground? Or maybe there are almost always problems on the Tube, but it’s just that such delays are much more noticeable when you’re in a rush. I was in a hurry to get to lunch, and readers who have read my Viet Noodle Bar post will know that when food is on the cards, I like to try and be on time, although admittedly only with varying degrees of success. Therefore, I started to fret as the train was held up first at one station, and then again at the next. “Lunch is waiting for me. Is my entire journey going to be like this?” I thought, gritting my teeth. But somehow, I managed to arrive at Liverpool Street exactly 3 minutes before my lunch reservation at 1901 at Andaz. Wow, how about that for miraculous timing! I rounded the corner out of the station and saw my lunch companion (1) head into the restaurant, and (2) then come straight back out. It seems that from a distance he had spotted me and decided to wait for me outside instead. Later he would tell me he saw me out of the corner of his eye and that he recognised me from a distance by my ‘walk’. My ‘walk?’ I know a supermodel I resemble not, so what about my walk could be so memorable? Did it resemble a waddle, like the side to side action of a penguin in motion? But I did not ask. I didn’t want to. Some things in life you are just better not knowing. 1901 replaced the Aurora Restaurant (which I really liked) when the hotel (formerly known as the Great Eastern) was taken over by the Hyatt Group and re-launched as the Andaz Hotel. The Grade-II listed interior of the building dates back to 1884. The restaurant is stunning with high ceilings and is spaciously laid out to accommodate 143 covers. It exudes an exalted blend of the contemporary with the historic: marble floors, neo-classical pillars, and a dazzling stained-glass dome set into the ceiling. Much was made in the press of its multi-million pound refurbishment and opening late last year. Depending on your point of view, it was either the bravest opening of its kind or the worst timed - right at the outbreak of the recession and smack bang in the centre of the Square Mile. The menu sings of Britishness. The sourcing of the key ingredients is clearly stated next to each dish, and all are British....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=3939  Salmon with Watercress Pesto ~ Simple Saucing Techniques to Liven Up Healthy Food   We all know that eating nutritious food is fundamental for a healthy life, yet more often than not, the food that is good for us somehow doesn't seem as tempting as the rich, calorie laden options.   Carrot, Orange & Mint Salad ~ Creative Techniques for Preparing Healthy Food   What would make healthy eating more enjoyable?   The quality of the ingredients and the flavour of the food is undoubtedly  a crucial factor in whether food is enjoyable however this is only part of the equation.   Rhubarb & Almond Creams ~ Creative Techniques for Preparing Healthy Food The phrase 'you eat with your eyes' really is true as the visual appearance of food is one of the first mental stimuli received before the flavour of the food is even tasted.   Sweet Potato Linguine with a Bacon, Tomato & Artichoke Sauce ~ Creative Techniques for Preparing Healthy Food   Most of us are attracted to aesthetically beautiful things and food is no exception.  So, by making nutritious food look appealing and exciting it becomes more tempting and desirable.  If it tastes as delicious as it looks then it will be more enjoyable to eat.   Purple Sprouting Broccoli with a Satay Dipping Sauce ~ Appreciating the Natural Beauty of Fruits & Vegetables   Creative food presentation isn't just for chefs and food stylists.  There are numerous quick and simple ideas and techniques that can be used by anybody who wants to add some pizazz to their food, not just for special occasions, but for everyday dishes that can so easily become dull and repetitive.  It's these everyday dishes that are the backbone of a healthy lifestyle, so it's essential to find a way of making healthy eating a pleasurable experience.   Asparagus & Almond Mousse ~ Artistic Plating Techniques   Thinking creatively about the visual appeal of the food is also more fun for the person preparing the meals!   Coconut Chicken with Mango ~ Creating the Illusion of Volume   How can Essentially Healthy Food help you to create more enjoyable healthy food?...http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=3838Dr Peter J D'Adamo's, Blood Type Diet has been a bit of an inspiration to me over the years. The principle of the diet is that our digestion is affected by our blood type, because our blood types evolved over thousands of years in response to climate and lifestyle. Our digestion, immune systems and physical types followed suit. D'Adamo identifies the types according to their traits. 'O' is the Hunter, 'A' the Cultivator, 'B' the Nomad and 'AB' the Enigma. Each type has food that acts as medicine and food that is harmful, alongside differing stress triggers and beneficial exercises to help recreate conditions that shaped each blood type. I've used it with myself and my patients, rather loosely, as most people find it quite hard to follow, but always with great success. However, with my SCD journey so freshly minted, I had rather forgotten about blood type principles for myself. Yet I had found recently that Fin seemed to be having diarrhoea more often and I had the occasional day when I couldn't explain why I was bloated or had woken up feeling sluggish and cross. Like anything bubbling into consciousness, it took a while for me to connect the dots and realise that as we had progressed with SCD we had introduced more foods that were contra-indicated for our blood type. As 'O' blood types we are not suited to dairy and yet we were eating cheddar cheese daily and I had switched to making our yogurt with cows milk. We are unsuited to coconut, peanuts, brazils and cashews and I had gradually bought all of these back into our diets (bar peanuts and cashews for me, which I can't digest at all!). We gaily ate unsuitable ham and chorizo - even though I often found it left me feeling a little bilious. Finally, we kept trying to introduce pulses and beans but found that we would be doubled up in pain with the windows thrown open for relief - 'O' types don't do well on pulses . I decided to cross reference the two diets and start following an 'O' type SCD diet to see if mine and Fin's mood, stools and energy would follow a more consistent path. So this is the start of a little mini series - SCD meets the Blood Type Diet . I'll let you know how I get on and provide information about how the other blood types affect SCD. If you don't know your blood type you can get a little kit from the chemists that just involves a little prick on the end of your finger....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=3535Perfectly cooked cauliflower in a cheesy, tangy sauce. You really want a strong cheddar cheese for this and don't leave out the Dijon mustard! Preheat your oven to 200C/400F or Gas6 You will need: 1 cauliflower - cut into florets, rinsed and dried 70g butter 65g of plain flour 450ml whole milk 2 good teaspoons of Dijon mustard 180g strong matured cheddar - grated plus salt and pepper to taste a little cayenne pepper to sprinkle on top How to do it: Get your cauliflower cooking in plenty of boiling, salted water and partly cover with the saucepan lid. It will take about 12 -15 minutes. Cook until you can easily insert a knife into it so you know it’s cooked. You don’t want mush though so be careful not to over cook. Drain well and put the cauliflower into a buttered ovenproof dish. Now get the cheese sauce on the go: Melt the butter and add the flour and cook for a couple of minutes over a low heat, otherwise the sauce will taste floury. While still on the heat, whisk in the milk in about 3 goes and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat and stir in the mustard and two thirds of the cheese into the sauce and season with salt and pepper to your taste. Pour the cheese sauce on top of the cauliflower, then sprinkle the remaining cheese on top along with a little cayenne pepper - not too much just a sprinkling will do. Bake in a preheated oven for about 20 - 25 minutes until golden brown and bubbling. I'm sorry I haven't been good at posting recently but I seem to have been a right little busy bee lately - here there and everywhere but not at the PC very much. Also, I wont be able to post for the next week as we are going camping! Yes, we must be quite mental. We're going to be braving the wonderful English weather and are going to stay near Sherwood forest , Nottingham....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=3434I love going to markets. I love independent producers who passionately pour their heart into their stock. In a world of mass-market consumerism with pre-packaged food manufactured with questionable methods; food is the last thing you want homogenised. Last weekend, I paid a visit to the ‘award-winning’ ( closer to opinion winning) Borough Market in the London Bridge area. They are widely regarded as fine food producer central, even surpassing the famed portebello market in recent years. The market’s board of trustees believe that everyone has the right to eat well. Sounds like my kind of guys. The unusual suspects I managed to drag Yenni out to this trip with me. The weather was looking ok albeit alittle cold. Borough market sells all kinds of food from fresh veges, poultry & meat to cooked food and even spirits & wines. I’ve been wanting to check out borough market for a long time coming and now I’ve got the chance to do it. I’ve done this post photo essay style. Ready to take a walk around the market buddy? Custards of Portugal We started our trip early (11 am on a sunday!) and on an empty stomach. One of the first stalls we passed did pastry. Specifically, portuguese egg tarts (the ones on the left) , ‘pastel de nata’. These are a portuguese favourite and is a type of egg custard with sprinklings of cinnamon over them. I used to live with a housemate who hailed from Macau and absolutely adored these delights. Im told that these egg tarts are quite popular in Macau as well. Yenni bought me one and I scoffed it in seconds. No joke, I really can eat fast when Im hungry. Melt my cheese There are lots of cheese stalls in Borough market, all kinds too. This one in particular, filled the market with its stink from miles away. Note the guy cutting the cheese. That hot cutter melts cheese and then it is served with gherkins. They also make these hot flat cheese sandwiches which you can see stacked up in the background. I didn’t try this, but the smell was really great (or stinky depending on your stance on cheese) and I will definitely have to come back for this. Apologies because I forgot the name of the cheese, anybody tried this and loved it please do leave a comment. How to get a baker to smile See the lady in the green apron selling the breads? I took about ten shots and this is the only one where I got her smiling....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=3232We discussed a variety of options when deciding on something particularly English to cook as a St George’s day celebration. Roast beef is always pretty high on the list in these sorts of situations, and as the weather was forecast to be good, we decided to cook it on the barbecue instead of doing a traditional Sunday roast. We bought ourselves an impressive-looking air dried rib from our local butcher that had been aged for 21 days - we’ve used this partcular cut a couple of times before and always been pleased with the results but don’t remember having one that looked quite so dark from the ageing process. The clouds came and went and the wind was a little chilly when the sun was obscured, but overall it was good barbecuing weather especially for this time of year. Having put a couple of foil-wrapped potatoes in amongst the coals for about an hour or so, we finally seasoned the beef with salt and pepper, rubbed it with a little oil and laid it onto the barbecue. Dripping fat caused numerous flare-ups, so we moved the coals to the sides and put the lid onto the barbecue so that the meat wasn’t over a direct heat. This worked well and meant the meat was well seared on the outside and cooked evenly. The initial high heat meant that a brilliant crust formed on the outside of the rib and the smoky flavour from the barbecuing ran all the way through the meat which was tender and sliced like butter. The air drying and aging provided a really deep, beefy flavour which meant it didn’t take us long to devour what was on our plates and go back for seconds. Served with the aforementioned potatoes, mixed salad, some left-over salsa verde and of course mustard, both English and Dijon: Foolishly, we forgot to buy any English wine so made do with some interesting England’s Gold ale from Badger instead....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=3030I know the idea of eating rabbit may not appeal to lots of people but not only is it cheap and available all year round, it's very low in fat too. What better way to celebrate St George's Day than with a Great British Feast! Everything in this recipe is local and in season. If you are wondering where to obtain a rabbit then the best place is a local butcher who has a licence to sell game, most of them will skin and portion it out for you. One rabbit will serve two people generously. Here is the recipe: Serves 2 (this can easily be doubled up for 4 people) 1 rabbit skinned, gutted and cut into portions 1 pot buttermilk 2 large cooking onions (chopped into slices) 1 stick celery (roughly chopped) 1 clove garlic (minced) Rapeseed oil 2 bay leaves 4 juniper berries 1 teaspoon dried oregano 1 teaspoon dried parsley handful wild garlic leaves, finely chopped 1 tablespoon Lea and Perrins Worcester sauce 1 teaspoon tomato purée 2 pints chicken stock 1 tablespoon cornflour (optional) Salt and pepper to taste Prepare the rabbit 24 hours before you plan to cook it, for which you will need a big dish that will fit inside your fridge, add the rabbit and coat in the whole pot of buttermilk, give it a stir to make sure all the rabbit is coated in the buttermilk, wrap the dish in clingfilm and leave to marinade overnight. Add about a tablespoon of rapeseed oil to a big pot and allow to warm on a medium heat, Throw in the onions and stir well, leave to cook until the onions are just starting to brown then throw in the celery and minced garlic and stir again allowing another five minutes for the garlic to cook before adding the rabbit into the pot. Finally add the bay leaves, pepper, juniper berries, dried herbs, tomato purée and chicken stock and a generous shake of Worcester sauce, bring to the boil over a high heat and once it starts to firmly bubble away, clamp a secure lid on the pot and turn down to a low heat so that the liquid simmers away gently for two hours or until the rabbit falls off the bone. Do not add the salt until the rabbit is cooked otherwise it tends to make the rabbit a bit tough. Once cooked sieve the stock into a new pan (a fine mesh sieve is best for this as it will catch everything) then pick the rabbit from its bones....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=2828” … no one is so busy they can’t take time to make a decent cup of tea and if you are that busy you don’t deserve a decent cup of tea for what is it all about anyway? Are we put into this world to be busy or to chat over a nice cup of tea?”  Angela McCourt in‘Tis by Frank McCourt The above cake is a boiled fruit cake, now commonly known as Jessie Tweedle’s Tea Loaf  Now all I know is that Jessie Tweedle was a woman known to the lovely Brenda’s mother, and that she gave her the recipe for the above boiled fruit loaf. Apparently Brenda’s mother was always saying “You’ll be having a piece of Jessie Tweddles tea loaf” if anyone came round visiting; the cake is so good I can see why she always had a loaf on hand and I reckon I’ll be saying something very similar from now on. Now, don’t be fooled into thinking the name tea loaf is because it’s a cake to drink with tea, it is of course good with a cup of tea, but the cake actually contains tea. Quite a common practice in Irish cakes and breads, not unsurprising though considering the Irish have the highest per capita consumption of tea in the world, averaging six cups per day; now that’s a massive 3.2kg in a year! Ireland’s close ties to tea have their roots in the country’s history as a part of the British Empire. When it was first imported to Ireland in 1835 it was quite expensive and only within the reach of the most affluent. Eventually the price came down, though, and the drink’s popularity spread. Tea houses opened around Ireland and loose tea was sold in local grocery stores as it became the fashionable drink for all occasions. Irish companies continued to purchase most of their tea through British suppliers until the time of World War II. At the outbreak of the war the British rationed tea to all hands based on purchase rates prior to the outbreak of the war. When Ireland declared neutrality, however, the British retaliated by reducing their rations almost entirely. The Irish government responded by establishing a private company, Tea Importers (Eire) Ltd. to act as an importer but had initial difficulties because there was not native Irish merchant fleet. After the War, legislation was passed that required Irish tea companies to import tea directly from the country of origin....http://www.localfoodadvisor.com/Blog/Index.aspx?fdArticleId=2727I know there must be a million versions of this pie out there but this is my version made with a local beer and local beef and double onions, its not the kind of food you make when you are short of time or tired, it takes time to make but it really is worth it and if you make a big enough batch then you can freeze it in portions ready for a midweek meal. The beer I have used is a local one made in a little brewery in Bridgnorth, its made with love and not mass produced in a huge factory, here is the link for the brewery its behind a beautiful old pub in the town where you can enjoy a pint of this and the other beers they produce. My Hubby thought it was awful to put such a good ale into a pie until he tried the finished result and then he changed his mind and went back for seconds. You will need: You can easily halve or quarter these amounts, I always do extra to stash away. Serves 8 6 large cooking onions (roughly chopped) 3lb good quality braising steak (tossed in seasoned flour) 2 garlic cloves (squashed) 6 large carrots (peeled and chopped) 2 handfuls of fresh mushrooms (whichever sort you prefer) 1/2 stick celery (chopped) 1 pint beef stock 2 fresh tomatoes(skinned and chopped) or small tin of chopped ones 1 bottle Bridgnorth Best Bitter Worcester sauce salt and pepper Olive oil 1 packet of puff pastry or the same weight of home made (I make mine using a rough puff pastry) Place a large lidded pot on the cooker and allow to heat without any oil, once warm add a drizzle of olive oil and about half of the chopped onions stir around replace the lid and leave for 10 mins, this will cooking and brown the onions without burning them but it will create a lovely flavour and the lid will keep the juices in and the onions moist. Add the carrots, tomatoes, mushrooms, celery and the remaining onions stir again, then add the meat and a generous splash of Worcester sauce, Beer and the beef stock, stir well and plonk the lid back on. Cook on a low heat for about 2-3 just so you have a slow simmer. Once cooked, i.e. the meat is very tender to the touch, transfer to a baking dish, roll out the pastry and cover the pie, brush the pastry with a beaten egg before cooking on the middle shelf of the oven at 180°/gas mark4/350f until the pastry is well risen and golden on top. Serve either on its own or with vegetables of your choice.nonadult