2018

Yesterday, the eve of the new year, Alex and I went for a walk along the road to see the swollen brook and consider how likely it might be to flood- it is looking alarmingly high! 

What I was not expecting to see was our neighbours farm-gate stall stocked with eggs! I haven't been able to buy their eggs since August. And yet, here in the bleak midwinter on the cusp of a new year, sat a dozen brown speckled eggs for purchase. 

Not much is growing in the hedgerows at the moment, as you'd expect, so I snapped this pic with a piece of broken pottery that I unearthed in our garden when I was planting out bulbs in the autumn. 

You can see the farm fresh eggs I've managed to buy throughout 2017 HERE and HERE. They became a sort of seasonal study as the months went by and the seasons unfurled all their treasures.

Happy and bountiful New Year blessings.

Kate  x

Foraged woodland garlic

Before spring really got underway, I had been impatiently anticipating the appearance of woodland garlic, or ramsons. It is not something we have in Australia, but I had seen photos of beautiful and vast carpets of wild garlic in flower in woodland undergrowth. I couldn't wait to see, smell and pick it for myself. The day we moved into the cottage I could smell the subtle scent of garlic on the breeze. It wasn't hard to identify the fresh leaves of wild garlic shooting up from the sodden earth. I crouched down, plucked a leaf and crushed it between my fingers. It is unmistakeable. Our village is surrounded by it, in the woods, by the roadsides and on the banks of the brook. 

Although the leaves have been pushing up for well over a month now, the white flower heads are just beginning to open en masse. It won't be long before that woodland undergrowth is a sea of white.

Wild garlic is vibrant, lush and glossy, and such a welcome sight after the depths of winter. The most wonderful thing about wild garlic though, is that it is an abundant and delicious wild food, perfect for harvesting and using in everyday cooking. I am losing count of the ways I have been incorporating it in our meals. 

I've chopped the leaves up and stirred them through scrambled eggs. I've spiked mayonnaise with it for using in homemade sushi. We've used our food processor to turn pocketfuls of leaves into pesto. That pesto has served as a dip with crackers, has been spooned over jacket potatoes with sour cream, and been stirred through pea risotto. I am yet to have it on pizza or pasta, but I am sure it will happen soon enough. It is really very versatile. Imagination is the only limitation.

I am planning to make a few batches of pesto in the coming weeks. It freezes very well, and I'd like to have a supply of it to use in cooking come the autumn and next winter.

Wild Garlic Pesto

wild garlic leaves

toasted pine nuts

olive oil

parmesan cheese

Use a food processor to mix these ingredients in quantities to suit your taste and achieve your own desired consistency. Be sure that you are harvesting wild garlic though. The leaves are quite similar to those of lily of the valley- which is poisonous to humans.

Kate  x

January citrus and antique markets

For my birthday I planned a trip to the ICAF antiques fair in Shepton Mallet. One of the things I was most excited about our move to the UK was all the antiques and vintage homewares that I'd be able to buy. So, I eagerly anticipated this particular birthday treat. I had visions of baskets, French dough bowls, milk glass vases, plant stands, kitchenalia and all manner of curiosities coming home with me. In other words I expected to be parted with cash, and be happy about it. After all, I'd heard good things about ICAF fairs HERE and HERE.

Although I did make a purchase- or should I say Alex made the purchase, being the one to haggle the price while I pretended not to know him and look busy on another stall... But, I didn't come away with a car load of beautiful-but-maybe-not-practical wares like I had imagined I would.

My sole purchase was some beautiful Edwardian era transfer ware.  I'm hopeless when it comes to resisting blue and white ceramics. And I have long admired the Asiatic Pheasants design first released in 1862 by Burleigh.

This is a lovely pie dish which I promptly filled with the season's best clemetines.

Accompanying the pie dish is this small platter plate, shown here with my grapefruit breakfast.

They weren't bargains per se (Alex did negotiate 7 pounds off the total) but they make me happy, and I am sure I couldn't have bought them back home in Australia at the same price.

I'll just have to keep looking for more treasures.

Kate  x

Winter pears

The apple tree that we usually pick raid from each autumn was almost entirely bare this year, so I am embracing pears in a big way to make up for it. A healthy addition to the fruit bowl, but also easy to turn into a sweet dessert.

They're beautifully photogenic. These are the Corella variety. The prettiest of all the pear varieties in my opinion. They lend themselves to a still life composition so nicely.

Ever since I read A Garden in the Hills by Christine McCabe (one of my favourite books of the last 18 months) I have thought about trying her apple fritters recipe. Now I am wondering if I should try it with these pears.

Recipe from A Garden in the Hills, page 307

To make the fritters, sift together 1 and a 1/2 cups of plain flour, 1 and 1/3 tsp of baking powder and a pinch of salt. To this add 1/2 a cup of brown sugar, 2/3 of a cup of milk and 2 well beaten free range eggs. (Preferably Claudette's. Of all the hen's eggs hers are the loveliest- brown shells, saffron yolks. We know they are hers for so resolutely independent is she that Claudette commands her own nest, frequently escaping the confines of the large chicken run to rummage among my vegetables.)

Mix well and add the apples, peeled, cored and cut into thin slices, or grated if you're in a hurry. Drop tablespoons of the batter into hot oil (Mum used fat or dripping) and cook until golden. Dust with icing sugar and serve immediately with great, fat dollops of cream.

I think this would work well as a sort of pancake/pikelet recipe too. 

Maybe for brunch this weekend.

Kate  x