Category: Forest Garden

  • 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…

  • Apple, almond & date cake recipe

    This cake is so simple and stunningly satisfying. It has a crunchy top and moist inside. The flavours are pleasingly complex with spicy sweet/tart apples contrasting with rich toffee-like roasted dates. The spelt flour and almonds give the cake a substantial nutty body. It tastes great warm straight from the oven or cool later on.…

  • Llyn first frosts

    We woke up this morning to some hard frosts after a very clear night. The sunrise over Cardigan Bay was glorious. The red light shone in the trees and they glowed with a warmth absent form the air. Snowdon rises magestically into the clear air.

  • The Sloe Trilogy II: How to make sloe wine, vodka, jam

    This is the second part of the Sloe Trilogy where you use the same batch of sloes to make wine, vodka and fridge jam. In the first part I showed you how to make the wine, here are the instructions for the vodka. When you have strained the sloes off the wine ‘must‘ you can…

  • The Sloe Trilogy I: How to make sloe wine, vodka, jam

    I like making the most of a harvest. Especially when the harvest is as hard won as picking sloes. So I wanted to work out a way of getting multiple products from the same batch of produce. I don’t mean dividing the produce and making three different things, I mean using the product sequentially for…

  • Fermenting Revolution 2 – Apple cider vinegar

    It’s apple harvesting time. You may be wondering what else you can do with nature’s bounty after the pies, chutneys, jellies and the like. While going through Sandor Katz’s book I mentioned in Fermenting Revolution 1 I saw home made vinegars. And I’ve found that making vinegar really is very simple and the result is…

  • Blackberry Apple & Chilli Chutney Recipe

    This produces a chutney that has a rich, intense and complex flavour: blackberry plus. And the colour is a deep vermilion that is striking on the plate. I first used it as a condiment with a cheese platter and the sweet-sour-chilli flavours complemented the cheese and sourdough bread spectacularly. I next used it to deglaze…

  • Nettle & Hazlenut Tart Recipe

    I’m developing a bit of a ‘thing’ about using nettles. I love it that I’m not putting money in the supermarket bosses’ pockets. I love it that they effectively cultivate themselves. I love it that they are so nutritious: high in vitamins A & C, contain essential minerals and have one of the highest protein…