Category: Foraging

  • Fermenting fruit vinegars at home

      Once you know how to make your own vinegar you can experiment with different flavours. Last year I showed you how to make your own apple cider vinegar. This year, I experimented to see if I could use the same principles to make some blackberry and apple vinegar. I’ve also got into using Kombucha.…

  • Wild garlic mash, warm chickweed salad & seafood

    This meal started off as one of those: “What do I do with these?” scenarios. Debs had made a gorgeous parsnip, cinnamon and lemon cake with some of our over-wintered parsnips. It was delicious. I had one parsnip left that Debs had not been able to use. And I had cleared a space in our…

  • First nettles of 2012

    The first nettles of the 2012 season for us. While the spaghetti cooks, gently fry garlic & anchovies in extra virgin olive oil. Then add nettles to the pan and cover till they wilt. Season with salt, ground black pepper and lemon juice. Mix through lightly drained spaghetti with a good handful of finely grated…

  • Stick blender Mayonnaise – Salad dressings No. 2

    I promised some more salad dressings when I wrote the Vinaigrette recipe the other day. I really looked forward to doing this post because mayonnaise this way is so simple and so spectacular. You’ll have great mayo in less than a minute. I hope once you have made this the first time, you will not…

  • Winter Panzanella Recipe – Bread Salad

    If you make or use much good bread, you’ll have bits left over that are a shame to waste. Sourdough is great for this because it lasts without going mouldy much longer than yeasted bread. So you can collect a little stash. The bread needs to be a few days old and dry or drying.…

  • Nettle & brocciu pasties

    This week’s Short and Tweet Challenge was a dream recipe for me. That’s because it gave me the chance to use so much home produced or foraged ingredients. The recipe was for Dan’s Spinach and Ricotta Pasties. A gorgeous ricotta/mushroom/spinach/garlic/chilli/oregano filling is encased in a tomato & cheese dough. I changed the dough recipe slightly…

  • Cider vinegar muffins, egg & salad

    I was very keen to have a go at this week’s ShortandTweet Challenge as one of the recipes was for these muffins. And that meant I could use our hens’ eggs in the recipe and the cider vinegar I had made earlier in the year. A bonus was the chance to incorporate some foraged salad…

  • Chickweed recipes: pakora & hot dressed salad

    I picked a load of chickweed (stellaria media) after I took all the pictures for this post on the 52 Week Salad Challenge. It’s a very versatile ingredient. When at its peak like this it can be easily eaten raw and is also great cooked. As the plant gets older it can get a bit…

  • 52 Week Salad Challenge – January pickings

    Michelle over at Veg Plotting suggested on twitter the other day a challenge to grow or forage some salad every week of the year. It’s a great idea and so I’m joining in. I thought it would be fun to see what was available at this time of the year. We’ve had a very mild…