Weekend Herb Blogging, the round-up: 45 wonderful entries

I've had the most fun this week, hosting Weekend Herb Blogging for Kalyn ... the entries just kept pouring into my inbox, some from old friends, many from blogs I hadn't yet discovered. I've got masses of new feeds in my reader, a new clutch of clipped recipes, and a renewed respect for the friendly knowledgeable wonderful food blogging community. Thanks, all of you, for taking part, for sharing your ideas and photographs ....

I've checked and double-checked that I haven't left anyone out, but email me if I have. And I haven't yet checked all the links, so let me know if any don't work ... I'm going to have a cup of coffee in the garden while the sun's shining, but I will come back later to make sure. And then I'll reply to some of the emails that have gone unanswered as the week got more and more hectic.

PS Tuesday: make that 48 - two late entries, and HUGELY EMBARRASSINGLY I forgot Kalyn's entry ... so here they are, at the top!










Kalyn planted dill in her garden earlier this year, and now she's picking and eating it - this time for a salad made with some leftover salmon, a little celery, some yoghurt. You'll find it at Kalyn's Kitchen.












The Chocolate Lady was inspired by her visit to New Orleans, and when she got back to Greenwich Village she made a vegan jambalaya - a base of red beans and tomatoes, with scapes, mushrooms, radish greens, flavourings.










Anna at Morsels and Musings in Australia has made the quintessential Malaysian dish Kangkung Belacan - a lovely stir-fry with water spinach / Ipomoea aquatica / ong choy. There's lots of information about this popular vegetable, to encourage you to find it in your neighbourhood Chinese shop.









Victoria at Feed Yourself in Seattle bought tomatoes before hearing about the salmonella scare, so she cooked them up into a quick and creamy pasta sauce.













Dhanggit in Aix-en-Provence also made pasta at Dhanggit's Kitchen, this time Cannelloni Diablo, which she says is really really spicy! It looks wonderful, although I'm wimpish enough to want to leave out a little of the chilli pepper.










Maria from Organically Cooked in Crete has cooked something just up my street, a self-crusting carrot and courgette quiche. She says that in Crete carrots are thought of as a herb rather than a vegetable, and gives lots of links to other ideas for using carrots.









Katerina at Daily Unadventures in Cooking says her kitchen is a disaster and she doesn't feel like cooking, so she's made a simple grilled eggplant dip. Looks like cooking to me, delicious too. Mmm









Glenna at A Fridge Full of Food in Springfield, Missouri has made Broiled Orange Seafood over Brown Rice Pilaf. She calls this eating out at home - a way to avoid the extra fat and calories that seem to come as an automatic side to any restaurant meal.










Over at Intoxicated Zodiac, Gwen made a honeysuckle sour - with a Piscean twist, of course.










Over at Je le vous dirais Maggie's a semi-vegetarian living in Mountain View, Ca - she's opted for chunky herbed mashed potato made with fingerlings from her CSA box - they're a delicate French variety with red skin, and she's paired them with rosemary and oregano, and used soy milk for a vegan touch.










In Siri's Corner, you get a fable and a fabulous recipe. The story concerns a king, a peasant, and a large stone; the recipe is for tofu butter masala.










Cheryl from Alexandria, Va cooks Gluten Free Goodness - this week she's been picking alliums from her garden, only she hadn't labelled them, so there was confusion. Once she sorted that out, she roasted spring onions ... mmm













Syrie at Taste Buddies is doing penance for some calorific profiteroles - she need the simplicity of carrot and kale soup, flavoured with ginger and coriander ... actually I'm not sure I'd call that penance ;)










Sue at Coffee & Cornbread in Southwestern Virginia, USA says she's in a herbal rut, as it's the second time she's blogged about parsley in a week. She threw some parsley into her low fat ham crepes.










Ricki at Diet, Dessert and Dogs gives lots of nutritional information on avocados, and then she passes on the recipe for The Perfect Guacamole (heavy on the cilantro) ... she rinses the onion to remove its pungency.
















When Manitoban Fiddlehead Ferns Met Indonesian Kecap Manis is the title of Pepy's intriguing post from Winnipeg, MB, Canada. Check it out at The Art and Science of Food - true to its title, you'll learn about fiddlehead ferns (I'd never heard of them before this summer), and how to cook them.













Cherry and almond sour cream scones are on the menu at Fun and Food - Mansi in California made hers with fresh cherries, but says you can just as easily make them with dried cherries which you've soaked. She also gives ways to vary these scones, using different nuts and fruits.










Chriesi from Almond Corner had the idea of giving a king prawn one last swim - and so created her prawn in chilled canteloupe soup. There's lots of information about melons, too.










Wandering Chopstick's Bun Bo Hue - Vietnamese Hue-Style Beef Noodle Soup - has lemongrass and lots of it. The soup originates in central Vietnam, Hue, but was made in California, and the post shows step-by-step photographs of all the processes, as well as an informative bit about the differences between bun bo hue and pho.











In the Backyard Pizzeria, it's time for "waste not want not" chestnut soup. If, like Pam (who lives in Victoria, Australia), you're in the southern hemisphere, now's the perfect moment to make this. In the northern hemisphere, we'll have to bookmark this recipe for autumn. By the way, Pam mentions that chestnuts are really a vegetable ...










Y has a ginger treat for us at Lemonpi ... Michael Bras's Pain aux épices: a quiet pleasure, a relaxation, a special moment, with a taste of spices that carry you away to a sunny land. Y says it's wonderfully spicy and not very sweet.










You'll find loads of veggies at A Delightful Delicacy in Elizabeth's chunky chicken cacciatore ... she's moving house, so she wanted to use up what's in the pantry, and - understandably - she played safe with tinned tomatoes because of the US tomato scare. It's Elizabeth's first-ever food blog event ... you chose well - mine was also Weekend Herb Blogging ;)










Dish of the week at Cooking 4 All Seasons is palak moong dal - spinach in mung beans. For Srivalli this is the dance of the youth all remembered again - she hasn't made this dish since her marriage because her husband prefers other foods (I've been there too!). Simple, wholesome, and with spinach from her garden, too.








Phool Makhani Curry (Puffed Lotus Seeds Cooked in a Spiced and Creamy Coconut Gravy)
is something I've never dreamt of making, but Sia's clear instructions at Monsoon Spice make it look easy. First you pop the lotus seeds, then you make the curry sauce. Mmm










Sherra's returning to WHB after a long gap, and she's chosen to make a sweet-savoury spin off of the Filipino favourite turon, a banana spring roll. You'll find it at A Taste of Our Life











Gretchen in Lima, Peru, was walking by the river when she found some breadfruit, and her friend Mayra showed her how to boil the seeds - find out more about this exotic cooking at Canela and Comino













Diane and Todd made little mini tangerine and carrot cupcakes for their party, using tangerines and carrots from their garden - you'll find the recipe at White on Rice Couple










At Kits Chow you'll find three ways to cook asparagus, South Beach-friendly and delicious - Christine's also got a nifty little bamboo steamer from the Chinese shop that's made me green with envy, it folds down to almost nothing when you're not using it.










Kevin's Thai lemon shrimp has kaffir lime leaves which he says are hard to track down - but he also says that they keep well in the freezer. There's cilantro in this, too, mmm, and you'll find it at Closet Cooking












The Foodie's dish has the longest name ever: Cheese Ravioli with Butternut Squash and Portabella Mushrooms, in a Sage-Brown Butter Sauce ... which tells you most of what you need to know!













Zorra in Andalucia, Spain, has marinaded a jar of olives with herbs from her garden ... such a useful recipe for those times when you find the olives you've bought don't quite live up to expectations. Parsley, thyme, rosemary, oregano - find it at Kochtopf








Pam says the herb that spells summer for her is basil, so she's made a basil sauce for chicken using supplies from her garden - as she says, it's easy to grow, and expensive to buy in those little plastic packs. Find it at Sidewalk Shoes










Elizabeth's paired halloumi with sweet marjoram, and gives lots of information and links about this Mediterranean herb - you'll find it at Blog from Our Kitchen








Laura's Vegetable Curry with Coconut Milk and Yogurt comes from south western India and so is not as familiar as many of the curries found in restaurants around the world. It's full of vegetable goodness, and includes garlic scapes, an early-summer ingredient here. You'll find it at The Spiced Life










Victoria gives us a taste of Morocco with her instructions for making ras-el-hanout using many spices - even rosebuds if you can find them. Check it out at her blog, Flavors of the Sun










There's a feast for the eyes - flowers at Heart and Hearth - not sure if you can eat them, though.













Tomatoes with a twist are on the menu at A Lifetime of Cooking - they're semi-dried and flavoured with pomegranate syrup ...










Martha Stewart gougeres with lots of chives and rosemary are on the menu at I'll Eat You - lovely for a party.










There's a mixed tomato couscous salad over at Living in the Kitchen with Puppies, inspired by a visit to the farmers' market, where Natashya found yellow orange and red tomatoes ground in the micro-climate at Niagara. Mmm











Crash-hot potatoes with rosemary and thyme are the side-dish at Technicolor Kitchen - Patricia says they're easy, they look delicious.










Kate at Thyme for Cooking is house-hunting in France, and has funny/good tips for anyone thinking of buying a house there - and a dish which starts out as a quinoa pilaf, then the leftovers morph into a quinoa and lentil salad, both with vegetables and herbs. Just my kind of cooking.













More of the food I love at Palachinka - grilled Atlantic mackerel with parsley garlic oil and lemon ... what could be better?














Check out this beautiful apple and celeriac salad at The Well-Seasoned Cook - Susan says this is quick and bracing, with autumn flavours that work for summer. Seems to me it's a great new twist on a Waldorf salad.









When he got back from holiday, Jerry's thoughts turned to grilled chicken with lemon and thyme, served with orzo salad and asparagus. Yum! Find it at Jerry's Thoughts, Musings and Rants













More celeriac at Cook Almost Anything - this time in a more conventional Waldorf salad. Haalo gives full dietary information on celeriac, as well as beautiful photographs of her lovely salad.










At Do You Like To Cook we've got a grated courgette salad made with produce fresh out of the CSA box ... I love how the restricted choices of the seasonal veg box are making cooks all over the world so inventive.









How about asparagus the Japanese way? You'll find it at Apple Pie, Patis and Paté, dressed in a mustard sauce.










Those of you who know Susan at Farmgirl Fare won't be surprised to hear that her entry was the last to hit my inbox because she was working and moving the sheep all afternoon. But she still had time to make a wholewheat cookie recipe:
Yip Yap Organic Banana Snaps with Chocolate Chips, Raisins, & Nuts. Susan always urges people to buy organic - check out her post on what happens to non-organic bananas, you'll never buy them again.


That's it, 45 entries ... and I've only just realised that I haven't posted one myself! You can find everything you need to know about Kalyn's fabulous event Weekend Herb Blogging here - and next week, Kalyn's hosting.

Roses for midsummer

Here, before I lose it, is Sarah Raven's list of the 10 best roses for cutting:

1. Princess Alexandra - long-stemmed, magenta, scented, nearly thornless, lasts at least a week in a vase

2. White Gold - a newish Harkness rose, ivory with a tint of green buds opening to white-gold with a pinkish tinge. Scented. Long flowering season, lasts in a vase.

3. William Shakespeare 2000 - dark crimson David Austin rose, well scented. Other reds worth growing are the shrub rose Isabella (almost black, good in a vase but unhappy in the rain), and Big Purple (an HT which needs hard pruning in winter).

4. Golden Celebration - good fragrance, good vase life. Orange/apricot-yellow

5. Graham Thomas - clearer and lighter yellow than (4). Flowers both early and late. Either shrub or climber.

6. Susan - continuous flowering, good scent, lasts better in the vase than any other white rose

7. Winchester Cathedral - delicate white with dark golden stamens, similar to Margaret Merril, but with a longer flowering season, better disease resistance and stronger scent. David Austin

8. Gertrude Jekyll - true clear pink. Repeat flowers until October, the cut flowers last for days. Strongly scented. Very prickly shrub rose

9. Buttercup - another David Austin rose, semi-double flowers in a rich deep yellow with a strong tea scent

10. Louise Odier - a classic French rose (climbing or shrub) producing sprays of lightly-scented pink flowers through to autumn


Sarah recommends cutting roses on short stems to improve vase life, particularly those which tend to a short vase life (Mme Isaac Pereire and Mme Grégoire Staechelin), unless they have good strong stems (Princess Alexandra).

It's striking how many of these are David Austin roses. I'm sorry she left out Pat Austin, a very striking and lovely rose. Also The Pilgrim. And Noble Anthony. But now I'm starting on my own top 10 ...


One Hour Later:

I've just turned the page in last Saturday's Telegraph (not yesterday's - it takes me at least eight days to catch up with the papers), and found more rose recommendations, this time from Michael Marriott, who is a key man at David Austen Roses (and a very good lecturer). Here's his list:

1. A Shropshire Lad - peachy pink 6ft climber, thornless

2. Harlow Carr - strong pink, very healthy

3. Teasing Georgia - healthy, strong tea fragrance, yellow

4. Lady Emma Hamilton - tangerine flowers, one of the most delicious of all varieties for fragrance

5. Queen of Denmark - soft pink, tough, strong fragrance (happy growing under a large birch tree in MM's garden)

6. Celsiana - single flowers, soft pink paling with age, very reliable

7. R forrestiana - one of the best of the species roses, with deep, dusky crimson flowers that are very attractive to bees, followed by shiny crimson hips

8. R Californica plena - semi-double, almost a species rose, free-flowering and well scented

9. Cécile Brunner - covered in pale pink flowers

10. Adelaide d'Orléans - pure white semi-double flowers arching down, good for a pergola

Marriott also makes some suggestions: choose Mortimer Sackler instead of disease-prone Zéphirine Drouhin; Crown Princess and Teasing Georgia over "not so reliable and leggy" Gloire de Dijon (how COULD he??); The Generous Gardener over Mme Alfred Carriere; and Snow Goose over Blush Noisette. Sensible suggestions, I'm sure, but not advice I'd feel inclined to take in three out of the four - but then, I'm perfectly capable of ignoring the weeds or the blackspot and looking with pleasure straight at the lovely flower.

The last list in this Telegraph special on the 30 best roses is a rather depressing list of "top 10 disease-resistant roses" - a depressing list of mainly HT, "ground cover" and "patio" roses.

Tom Stoppard on living in the moment

Early this morning, I came across this speech from Tom Stoppard's trilogy The Coast of Utopia (which I have neither seen nor read). Herzen is talking about the death of his son:

His life was what it was. Because children grow up, we think a child's purpose is to grow up. But a child's purpose is to be a child. Nature doesn't disdain what lives only for a day. It pours the whole of itself into each moment. We don't value the lily less for not being made of flint and built to last. Life's bounty is in its flow, later is too late. Where is the song when it's been sung? The dance when it's been danced?

A couple of hours later, I read a moving piece in the Guardian about Jane Wilson-Howarth's decision to spare her seriously sick infant son the agonies of a medicalised life. Instead she and her husband took him to Nepal, where they were working, so that David could enjoy the life that he had. And he did - the piece was full of baby laughter and smiles, a world away from his traumatised terror whilst in hospital. He died aged three, and is buried in the British cemetery in Kathmandu among 19th-century diplomats, surgeon majors, babies taken by smallpox and Gurkhas. His five-year-old older brother Alex decided David would be reincarnated as crown prince to Shiva, the god of destruction and recreation; he imagined him with a new body and laughing as always, flying around the heavens in a celestial chariot. Here we could savour our times with David, talk about him and even think of our bereavement as a period of good grief - a time that strengthened our family bonds through all the highs and lows we had experienced together.


I profoundly hope that I never have to make such a life-or-death decision. I know from the experience of a close friend how appallingly difficult it is, how much unnecessary guilt there is in the mixture. Some of this is addressed in Stephen Venables' book about his autistic son Ollie, who died of leukaemia. The thought of Ollie's funeral, still brings tears to my eyes - it was a cold, bleak autumn day, the only glimmer of hope coming from the distant sound of children's laughter which echoed round the hillside as the beautiful wooden coffin was lowered into the ground.

How clever of Tom Stoppard to have articulated this simple yet profound truth:

Life's bounty is in its flow, later is too late.

One Local Summer: week two

After last week's success in finding good local cold-pressed oil, this week hasn't been great. I didn't manage one single meal that was entirely local, although most were mostly local (75%+). What stopped me succeeding was a queasy feeling that too much driving round looking for suppliers wasn't the best way forward.

This was the week I intended to find local meat. Horatio arrived home unexpectedly for vegetarian supper, and announced: A meal without meat is a wasted opportunity. Next year he's living in a student flat with four other young men, and I wonder how long he'll continue with that attitude will last once he sees how far his money will go.

There's a farm shop at the other end of the village, the sort that's in a barn: several people have recommended it to me. Huge disappointment - the vegetables are all bought in from all over the world, there are loose frozen veggies to help yourself to from a freezer, the meat counter didn't look appetising, and definitely wasn't local, and although the eggs were marked "from our farm" there wasn't a single chicken to be seen. So I left empty-handed.

My usual butcher supplies good meat, and mostly from the UK, but he's not a locavore. The monthly farmers' market in Henley is next week, so I should have better luck then - I didn't feel it was helpful to drive over to Reading specially.

Fish is similarly tricky, as we're a little way from the coast. But there are rivers near here. And fish farms. And the school holidays are about to start, so there'll be time to catch fish ourselves.

Instead, this week, all our vegetables, without exception, came from our box, so were grown less than an hour's drive way, or from the garden (especially herbs). The bread was all made with local flour, oil and honey. The milk - delivered with my veg box - comes from a farm near Marlborough, just over an hour's drive away. Not quite local, but better than the supermarket's offering, lower in food miles too. And I know where it came from, will try to take a photograph when I'm over that way next week. I'll also try to source some closer milk - sadly, the milk that's produced in this village at Lucy's Farm is all taken away by a huge tanker which holds up the through traffic which clogs up our tiny lanes ... but isn't there something mad about a farmer producing good milk which he can't sell to his neighbours, as practised by the whole of humankind for millennia???

Here are links to the international section of One Local Summer:

Amberism, week one - salmon patties
Amberism, week two - cheese omelette on home-made rye
Garlic Breath, week two - pork ribs, artichokes, grilled pointed cabbage
Rural Aspirations - lentil burgers, home-made buns, salad
Diario, week two - toad in the hole, sorbet

Links to related posts

One local summer, week one round-up
OLS, Saturday lunch in the garden
OLS, first thoughts
Introducing OLS

Useful links for locavores in the South of England

Rapeseed oil from Gloucestershire
Wessex Mill

My challenge to YOU

DO think about joining us in this project, even for one week - registration has closed for a whole summer of one local meal a week, but I'm inviting all bloggers to the challenge of producing one whole local meal this summer, and I'll include you in the weekly round-up of the main challenge. I've found - and I know I'm not alone - that the first meal sparked off a lot of thought about the food we eat here, where it comes from, how it gets here, who produces it and how much they are paid for that work. There's a bonus for you - so far, the food has all been delicious!

Wholegrain challenge: millet loaf

Thanks to everyone for making suggestions for the wholegrain challenge. There's wholewheat pasta in the larder, waiting to be cooked, and Olive Oyl sent me this recipe for a terrific millet loaf, really delicious for lunch today, and very easy to make. More than anything, I feel confident now that I can rise to this challenge (even if I don't manage every meal!)

Millet loaf

200g millet
400g water
2 grated carrots
2-3 grated courgettes
1 chopped onion
1 crushed clove of garlic
1 tbsp sesame seeds
1 tbsp sunflower seeds
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp coriander
1 tbsp soy sauce

Dry roast the millet until it's smoking and just beginning to turn brown, then add the water and bring to the boil. Simmer for 20 minutes, adding more water if necessary. Leave to cool for 15 minutes. You want to end up with a sticky texture which will hold everything together.

Gently fry the onions, then add the spices, garlic, carrots and courgettes. Cook down for 10 minutes or so, then add the seeds.

Mix the millet and vegetables together, and add the soy sauce. Press this into a greased loaf or cake tin. I used a lovely Le Creuset paté form I was given decades ago, but I could just as easily have used a smallish cake tin. Press it down firmly, and bake for 25 minutes at 200C. As you can see, it turned out perfectly - I left it for about half an hour, so that it was lukewarm when we ate it.


















This is delicious with tahini sauce. Olive Oyl says salsa works too, and I will try that tomorrow, as there's some left over.

Tahini sauce

Put a couple of spoons of tahini in a bowl. Add the juice of a lemon and stir. At first, it will become alarmingly stiff, but loosen it with a little water, until you get the consistency you like. Add a little crushed garlic if you'd like.


Links to related posts

Whole grains challenge
Ballymaloe brown bread
Poached barley with herbs
Quick oat loaf
Oatmeal bread
Stuffed butternut
Oatcakes (with smoked trout paté)
A plain spelt loaf
"Instant" spelt loaf from Gilchesters farm, Northumberland


Links to people who've helped with this challenge

Meg Wolff at Becoming Whole has written a really useful post on whole and cracked grains ... and thanks to Charlotte at Great Big Veg Challenge for the link, and also for this tip: quesadillas made with whole grain tortilla have a better texture than the white flour tortillas.

Olive Oyl doesn't have a blog, so I can't make you a link, but here's the whole of her really useful comment on my wholegrain challenge post:

I too shared your dread about wholemeal pasta but I PROMISE that once you start you will consider white pasta the equivalent of Mothers' Pride bread. Wholewheat pasta can take really strong flavours, lots of garlic, anchovy, strong tomato sauces, your lentil sauce. A good compromise is "semi-whole" which is good for much lighter sauces or salads.

Tabbouleh (bulgar) is very easy, fab with fish and a good salad to keep for a few days in the fridge. Millet, super grain, good as porridge, also makes a good "loaf" or burger.

Another book recommendation!...."Healing with Whole Foods" - Paul Pritchford, a HUGE tome, the recipes can be a little austere and the eastern medicine bent may not be your thing but, it is the most fantastic reference book if you interested in food, nutrition and health.


Links to the whole grain challenge

Culinate - where it all began
How to eat more whole grains - also at Culinate

Whole grains challenge

I've just joined the whole grains challenge:

To spend the month of June practising eating more whole grains. To eat whole grains at every meal. To choose whole grains over refined, processed grains.

Not sure I'm going to manage this exactly as stated (whole grains at every meal?), but I'm going to try to improve the range of wholegrains in my/our diet, and I'm going to try to eat whole grains daily.

Have you any favourite recipes you'd like to share? I'm definitely going to need a bit of help here. Oh yes, and does anyone have any tips they'd like to share about wholemeal pasta (which is an idea that fills me with gloom, not to say dread)?


Links to related posts

Ballymaloe brown bread
Poached barley with herbs
Quick oat loaf
Oatmeal bread
Stuffed butternut
Oatcakes (with smoked trout paté)
A plain spelt loaf
"Instant" spelt loaf from Gilchesters farm, Northumberland


Links to the whole grain challenge

Culinate - where it all began
How to eat more whole grains - also at Culinate

Happy birthday H

It's our elder son's 20th birthday today. His final teenage act was to telephone at 3am to ask if he could bring a few friends to lunch.

He was born on a sunny Sunday morning at home in our old four-poster. Out of the window I could see the laburnum tree in full flower - ever since I've had a soft spot for it, even though I don't really care for that bright bright yellow. These photographs were taken last week; the flowers are over now, summer starts earlier these days.

Happy birthday!

Broad beans

I've just podded a couple of handfuls of broad beans, for the first time in years. And the beans are all different sizes. Which makes me wonder: what do frozen food processors do with the rejects when they package broad beans, because they're always all the same size??? Does anyone know the answer?

New chicks

This time last year, we had a pair of buff Orpington broody hens sitting on a clutch of eggs. They hatched, and these were pictures of their first outing. Within 24 hours, the fox came. We were left with the cockerel and one chick, who turned out to be another cockerel. The two bachelors co-exist happily.

We've been incubating eggs this spring. The first batch failed because the thermometer on the incubator didn't work. The second batch - well, look for yourself, the first chick has hatched. I'll keep you posted!

One Local Summer: Week 1 round up

Was there an international section last year? This year, we've got one experienced locavore, and the rest of us are groping about making a start, with varying degrees of success.

Sally in Bristol UK made egg and chips with mayonnaise and peppery rocket ... it all came from the farm shop near Frome that's close to her work. Maybe she's been working too hard, because she fell asleep and the chips burnt in the oven. Find her posts at Diario

In France, Riana at Garlic Breath took it all in her stride, she's a long-standing locavore, one I've found inspiring over the months since she began her year of not shopping. Her meal this week was from weeds - yes, that's right, weeds - and flowers. Did you know you could eat hollyhocks? Me neither

Mariah at Rural Aspirations is nervous, she's only just started on this journey, but she's decided to go for it. Just not this week, there were problems, so she's made some cheese, and has great recommendations for local cheeses for locavores around Vancouver.

Amber says she was too scared to take part last summer, but now - with a newborn as well as a toddler - she's giving it a go.

One of the problems several of us have had is in deciding what local actually means. I've decided to start with a loose definition, trying each time to choose the most local. I amazed myself by finding local cold-pressed oil - something I never thought I'd find in the UK, and a great relief as my husband doesn't do saturated fats following a heart attack. Our meal was delicious but frugal - the result of lack of forward planning; find it at Joanna's Food

At Karen's Home on the Blog in Ayr, Canada they ate bacon and eggs ... she's going to post about her definition of local - but it already includes produce from her garden.


Because the international section is so small at the moment, I've invited bloggers to join us for one week, or whatever they can manage ...

Wendy at A Wee Bit of Cooking made gnocchi with nettles from her weed patch. All the other ingredients are from her native Scotland. I can't wait to try it on mine.


You can find the dozens of others taking part in the One Local Summer challenge at Farm to Philly

One Local Summer: Saturday lunch in the garden

The challenge to produce one entirely local meal a week is harder than you first think. It concentrates the mind, even if you are already committed to local-ish food. What about cooking fats? Where did those potatoes come from? Does 100 miles away count as local? Partial success. Virtually everything was very local, even the spice, but the artichokes were tough tough tough - not sure if I should have cooked them for longer or picked them last week, because that method is usually foolproof. Otherwise good.

My big discovery this week was cold pressed rapeseed oil from Gloucestershire, the next county, absolutely delicious. I bought it at a local market, but later found that it was on sale in Waitrose. The flour for the bread was grown six or seven miles away Battle Farm at Benson, which we pass frequently; I'm going that way later today, so if I've got time, I'll stop to take a photograph. The flour for the fougasse* was milled at the other end of the county, and I bought it in a shop a couple of villages away. The yeast was sweetened with honey from Wargrave, just the other side of the Thames from here (now that I come to think of it, I should be making sourdough bread with yeast captured from our air, rather than the dried yeast I buy). The tomatoes came from Hampshire via my vegetable box. The artichokes and all the herbs came from the garden. I used English mustard seed to pep up the green sauce, also Maldon salt from Essex. My only cheat was wine vinegar ... but as there are wine growers close by, I think I can solve that problem sooner rather than later.


















English green sauce

The green sauce was based on my usual salsa verde. I used mint, oregano, marjoram, a little parsley, and lots of sorrel and lemon balm because I couldn't use lemon juice. That worked well. I blitzed the herbs with R-Oil, a little red wine vinegar, Maldon salt and several pinches of Colman's mustard powder (I kept tasting until it was good).


DO think about joining us in this project - registration has closed for a whole summer of one local meal a week, but I'm inviting all bloggers to the challenge of producing one whole local meal this summer, and I'll include you in the weekly round-up of the main challenge - my first will be on Tuesday. I've found - and I know I'm not alone - that the first meal has sparked off a lot of thought about the food we eat here, where it comes from, how it gets here, who produces it and how much they are paid for that work. Besides: today's lunch in the sunshine was delicious.

Related posts

Introducing One Local Summer
One Local Summer, first thoughts








































* I was in a hurry, so I used dough made in my machine, rather than the full-on Bertinet recipe

Mottisfont Abbey

Yesterday Amy and I went to the wonderful rose garden designed by Graham Stuart Thomas at Mottisfont Abbey ... at their peak for the next couple of weeks: beautiful, scented, a magical place in the Test Valley, peaceful and timeless. Sorry for all the clichés ... they fit with the planting - all paeonies, pinks and white foxgloves mingled with shrub roses against the ancient brick walls.

Lunch was a Mottisfont tradition: egg and watercress sandwiches, with ginger beer. Mmm
























Without trying, I found the rose we will plant as a hedge beneath our pergola of climbing roses .. Mrs Anthony Waterer, a serious improvement on the plain pink rugosa rose I was planning to use until yesterday morning. This rose was developed in 1898 by Waterers, the now-defunct world-famous nursery a couple of villages from here, R rugosa x Général Jacqueminot, described by Peter Beales as semi-double, shapely, rich deep crimson flowers, freely produced on a vigorous, broad, thorny bush with dark green foliage, well scented. What more could you ask? So bright it almost hurts your eyes, and the colour doesn't fade to nothing as the flowers go over. The photograph does it no justice.


















Oh, and I came home with a pretty French rose, de Meaux, one of those ancient plants marked as pre-1789 because their origins were lost during the upheavals of the revolution. It seems to me that it will be both lovely and trouble-free for people to have gone to the trouble of preserving it through those terrible times. It has a mass of tiny pink flowers, and is scented.

Here is one of Mottisfont's three ancient sweet chestnuts, the bark alone makes me want to plant one. And you may just spot a fat old trout swimming against the current ...

Nigella's rich icing for chocolate birthday cakes

This is the time of year when there are a lot of birthdays, and I have to make a lot of cake. For years, I turned to my mother-in-law's recipe for very rich chocolate refrigerator cake, a great favourite, especially when there's a crowd. Four years ago Nigella's dense chocolate loaf took over - I can be precise because I write notes on my recipe books ... here it says, amongst other things: delicious, although all over the oven.

Yesterday, I thought I'd try something new, and Nigella's always a good place to start when you're thinking of making a chocolate cake. So I chose the chocolate fudge cake from Nigella Bites.

Big mistake. I mean, it was absolutely delicious, but it also took up the whole day, AND made me late for the dinner at which it was to be served. And the usual chocolate loaf would have been just as good. Especially if I'd put the buttercream icing on it. Or the delicious chocolate brownies from How to be a Domestic Goddess that Tom's mum made for cricket teas on Saturday - I only rejected them as I thought it was a little casual for a once-a-year treat.


















Part of the problem was that the cakes rose up spectacularly in the middle: all that baking powder and bicarb. I thought at the time there was rather a lot, but I'm always a little reluctant to mess with recipes for baking. But also there was a staggering amount of fuss - I felt like a Daring Baker having an off day. And I found myself thinking that the rich are different because they have people to wash up after them - it's a long time since I've used quite so many different bowls and pans.

But the icing is worth keeping - for very special occasions, as it's solid saturated fat ... yesterday we were celebrating Lettice's 18th birthday, which seemed like a moment to throw caution to the winds.

Nigella's fudge icing

This is enough to fill and totally cover a pair of 20cm chocolate sandwich cakes. Half would comfortably cover the top of a cake.

175g dark chocolate (I used 85%)
250g butter, at room temperature
275g icing sugar, sifted
1 tbsp vanilla extract

Melt the chocolate in a pan over water, or using a microwave. Beat the butter until it is creamy. Add the icing sugar. Beat more. Add the melted chocolate and vanilla.

After the rain

In our garden now.

The Portfolio Diet

The Portfolio Diet is the latest in cholesterol-lowering eating. Put a group of superfoods together in a portfolio, and eventually you can throw away your statins ... have you noticed how all nutritionists cover themselves by saying you shouldn't do their diet without consulting your GP: do people really do that?

The problem with the portfolio is that in order to consume the required 2g of plant sterols a day, you have to buy Benecol margerine, or those diddly little plastic pots of probiotic drinking yoghurt. Not my scene. I find myself wondering who paid for the research into this diet, which I hope isn't unduly cynical. I'm buoyed by the thought that even the smallest amounts of soluble fibre are good. And by the news that even those who weren't following this diet to the letter were found to have improvements.

The portfolio arises from research at Toronto University led by Dr David Jenkins to see how these new processed foodstuffs fit in to a heart-healthy diet. They found that if you followed the diet for a month, it had positive effects.

Fundamentally, you need to follow the usual heart-healthy eating plan: reduce overall fats, cut right down on saturated fats, increase fruit and vegetables, also fibre. And then you add almonds, soya, soluble fibre, & plant sterols.

If you're following a heart-healthy diet, you're probably eating quite a lot of this portfolio stuff already. It seems to me that there are two problems with this portfolio: one is that you turn into a faddish eater, going against the sensible advice of Michael Pollan to Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. And the second problem is that by being prescriptive (almonds are better than, say, walnuts), you are reducing the variety of foods you eat. And variety is good, because it exposes you more micro-nutrients, without your having to worry about them.

But, anyway, here's a precis of the portfolio diet instructions given by Heart UK for quantities based on a diet of 2,000 calories per day:

ALMONDS: 30g daily. This is about 23 nuts

SOYA PROTEIN: 50g a day - we're talking soya milk, soya mince, soyabeans, soya yoghurt, soya burgers, tofu and tempeh. Stuff I never buy (Another Michael Pollan rule is useful here: Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food. My grandmother would have trouble with this list, although I accept that this would not be so if we were Japanese)

SOLUBLE FIBRE: 20g daily. Here we are talking about some of my favourites, the food I would least willingly give up - oats, barley, beans, pulses, fruit.

PLANT STEROLS: 2g daily. They are naturally found in plant foods such as soyabean, corn, squash, vegetable oils and grains. In other words, a varied and balanced diet could take care of this at lower levels, no need to go to the food manufacturers for peculiar yoghurts, special margerines, orange juice with added who-knows-what. Because I find myself wondering whether there aren't side effects if you take them in quantities unavailable except by industrial process. But, these days, this seems to be a minority view. And certainly the supermarkets are full of so-called functional foods.



Links to related posts

Our basic rules
Affordable superfoods
Pyramid plan for healthy eating
80/20 rule
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's sensible slimming diet

Useful links

Heart UK, the cholesterol charity
Heart UK on the Portfolio Approach
Heart UK's healthy eating sheets download page
Amanda Ursell on the portfolio approach - she's a media nutritionist, tv and press

One Local Summer: first thoughts

This is the week I've got to produce the first all-local meal of the summer. So first I've got to decide on a working definition of local. Harder than you'd think. I've been having nightmares that the only thing to eat will be dandelion leaves plucked from the lawn before we mow.

My first idea was to buy only produce from Oxfordshire. But Harpsden is right on the edge of the county, and produce from Berkshire or Buckinghamshire will often be more local than food from Oxfordshire. All three counties? Perhaps. Not much scope for fish, unless we catch it ourselves in the Thames, which seems a shame when I'm blogging from one of the great maritime nations.


My photograph shows Alfred out fishing on a backwater of the Thames with Dick in Jupiter, the lovely old dinghy he restored in our workshop. It was taken a couple of years ago, and they didn't catch a thing. I'm not sure they ever have. Certainly nothing has ever reached my kitchen.

The 100-mile diet is a tempting idea, although I fret that the scale is too big, too American for this small island: it would take us north to Leicestershire, which feels a long way from here, west right up to the Welsh border, but it would comfortably allow fish from the coast about 50 miles due south (although I wouldn't be able to buy fish from the Brixham fisherman who comes to Henley market each week, as Devon is a couple of hundred miles from here). On the other hand 100 miles makes sense because overcrowding, particularly here in the south, means that farming land has been squeezed, both for development and by hobby "farmers" who produce nothing at all (many of whom, indeed, treat their fields like extensions of their gardens) (don't get me started).

I think I'm going to oscillate between the two, and you're going to have to trust me to source produce as close to home as I can manage. Actually, that's pretty much a given, because I don't want to be driving around looking for things to eat - much of what we eat is delivered by organic box suppliers, on the grounds that the least eco-friendly part of the food chain is the bit where I get in the car and buy a bag of shopping. (Also on the grounds that someone else puts the shopping on my kitchen table, and the value of that is not to be underestimated.)

We are going to have one massive problem, one that's only just crossed my mind: my blog began because my husband had a heart attack, and I used the blog to keep track of the changes we were making to our diet. Thankfully, a lot of that dark time has receded to a haze, but one thing that still rings in my ears is the last part of the dietician's orders: blah blah blah, blah blah blah, butter - never! So we use oil instead, no butter substitutes, although I do use soft margerine for (very occasional) baking. Our locally-produced fat is butter. There's a bit of vibrant yellow oilseed rape, but I imagine it gets sold to the big producers ... you know that there will be rejoicing on the day I discover a local oil producer, cold-pressing the fruits of south Oxfordshire.


My challenge to you - for one week only, any week you choose:

One Local Summer is largely an American initiative, and registration has closed. I'll be posting the (small) International section every Tuesday for the next three months. I'd really like to increase non-American participation, so that next year it would be worth separating Europe from Canada, and involving other parts of the world too. So have a go, just for one week, send me your link, and I'll include you in the round-up. This is what you do:


The challenge will begin on Sunday, June 1 and run until Sunday, August 31. Your challenge: prepare one meal using only locally-grown ingredients - the exceptions are oil, salt and pepper, and spices. Send me the link to your post, and I'll include you in my round-up.














Useful links for One Local Summer

The Thames Valley Farmers' Market Co-operative - they'll email you with reminders; I signed up this morning
Big British Food Map - this is a Channel 4 initiative, I was asked to contribute some ideas a couple of months ago, but I'm not sure how it's going. Later (I can't do that crossing out thing): Food bloggers' Britain (starting with my recommendations - thanks Andrew!)
The Fife Diet - a lively local food experiment
Local food web - this link is set to Oxon, but you can search for local produce outlets all over the UK
Slow Food UK
Slow Food Oxon ... this week's task: join this group

Links to related posts

Nettle soup
Nettle tea
Nettle beer
Ground elder salad
Elderflower syrup, plus a note on citric v tartaric acid in syrups
Elderflower champagne
Machine bread, local flour, from Wessex Mills

International participants in One Local Summer

Amberism
Rural Aspirations
Garlic Breath ... the only blogger in this group that I already know: Riana is inspirational, and her example played a big part in my decision to get involved in this project
Sally at Diario

AND two other Canadians who may or may not have a blog - whatever, I don't yet have their details.

Seven of us. 133 in total. Please try to rise to this challenge, even once.