kitchen - The Bridge Cottage

Make Your Own Fermented Hot Chilli Sauce

October 17, 2022/0 Comments/in The Bridge Cottage Kitchen/by Sue Reed

Ring of Fire Chillies

Are you a fan of hot chilli sauce? Do you grow chillies? Here at Bridge Cottage we make our own fermented hot chilli sauce which has no nasty additives, is sugar-free, great for your gut health and very easy to make. If that wasn’t enough, you’ll be producing food at home, without lining the coffers of the big food corporations who push their plastic-wrapped, shipped foods full of additives, preservatives and goodness knows what. Sure, it takes a bit of time and effort, but isn’t that worth it in the grand scheme of things?

There are other ways to preserve chillies: they freeze well, and a bag of frozen chillies will keep well all year round, ready to pluck from the freezer when a recipe calls for a whole chilli. Dried chillies are great too, chopped finely for chilli flakes, and keep well in a jar in the spice cupboard, but by far the most popular method of using chillies here at Bridge Cottage is by making fermented chilli sauce.

saving chilli seeds

It’s early autumn now and the chillies have ripened in the greenhouse. Time to pick them and freeze a few but use most of them for a handy hot chilli sauce which is incredibly easy to make. (Don’t forget to split open a couple of your favourites, dry and save the seeds for next year).

Bridge Cottage Fermented Hot Chilli Sauce

You will need:

A large glass jar with a screw top lid

A circle of plastic cut from the lid of a plastic tub

Water

Salt

Chillies

Ginger

Garlic

Fermented hot chilli sauce

Wash them and pack your jar with whole chillies, a couple of cloves of garlic and a couple of chunks of root ginger.

Add water so the chillies are all covered.

Pour out the water into a jug and add 4% salt – weigh the empty jug first, then weigh the water and add 4% of the water’s weight in salt. Dissolve the salt then our back over the chillies.

Fermented hot chilli sauce

Place a disc of plastic over the chillies – this is important and is to ensure all the chillies are kept submerged. This is anaerobic fermentation, meaning starved of oxygen. Alcohol and pickles are made this way and the airtight condition creates ethanol and lactic acid. The addition of salt is important as it raises the acidity and to cut a long story short, prevents you from catching botulism.

Place the lid on the jar and leave somewhere reasonably warm.

Your chillies will soon start to ferment, so once bubbles appear, it is important to ‘burp’ them every day to release the gas. You don’t want an exploding jar of chillies up your wall. This is done by carefully unscrewing the lid and allowing the gas to escape. There’s nowt worse than trapped wind!

Screw the lid back on, and burp daily til the bubbles stop. You can leave them like this for as long as you want. Some people leave them for months. We tend to wait til they have stopped fizzing and then move on to the next stage and make the sauce.

Strain the contents, making sure to reserve some of the liquid.

Put into a food processor and blitz.

BE CAREFUL – YOU NOW HAVE THE EQUIVALENT OF PEPPER SPRAY.

If it is too thick, add a dash of the reserved liquid, and pour it into sterilised screw-top glass bottles.

Here is a timely reminder to never throw glass bottles away. We like to bottle our chilli sauce in small bottles and give some away as gifts.

It is important to remember with fermented sauces that they are live. You will need to loosen the lids from time to time to let the gas escape.

Fermented Chilli Sauce

Once opened, we keep a bottle in the fridge and add a dash to soups, stews and curries. A Sunday morning breakfast of smashed avocado on toast with grated lime zest and a dash of chilli sauce is divine. Non-vegans can add a poached egg.

I’ll be writing more on fermenting foods in due course, but in the meantime if you want to find out more and get some fabulous recipes, look no further than the River Cottage Handbook No. 18. Fermentation by Rachel de Thample.

It’s October as I write this, and we’re saving seeds for planting out next year, chillies being the first crop that gets sown in the greenhouse in the New Year.

Growing chillies

This old photo did make me laugh! How earnest did I look? It was taken for the old Bridge Cottage Way blog I first started on BlogSpot over ten years ago when I left teaching, (but it no longer exists) and harks back to my Woolly Pedlar days when I make clothing from recycled knitwear. I also dyed my hair back then, but now embrace the grey, having ditched the need to try and look younger. I’ll make sure there’s a post on growing chillies in good time for the new growing season over in the Bridge Cottage Garden section of this new website.

October in the veggie garden

I’d better get this article finished and published, and go and join Tim, who is outside in the veggie plot planting out winter kale and getting sections ready for garlic and onions which can go in any day now.

The seasons are rolling on, and there’s always something to do here at Bridge Cottage.

We still haven’t finished making apple juice, chutney or jams jellies.

Autumn’s Bounty: Apples.

As ever, we’d love you to share your thoughts, either by leaving a comment here or on our social media pages, where this article will be shared.

You can find the Bridge Cottage Way on Facebook Twitter and Instagram.

You might enjoy some of the writing and ideas in other sections of this website, as we look towards leading more sustainable lives by growing our own food and creating dishes in line with seasonal eating, or head to our handy ‘Month by Month’ guides to find out what we have been doing here at Bridge Cottage as the months go by:

Many thanks for reading.

With Facebook and Instagram algorithms being fickle friends at times, be sure to get all new posts from The Bridge Cottage Way by signing up for the mailing list by this link:

Newsletter sign-up form link.

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Pickled Wild Garlic, Ransom and Chive Buds

April 2, 2021/0 Comments/in Foraging for Free Food, The Bridge Cottage Kitchen/by Sue Reed

Wild Garlic. Foraging & Cooking Food for Free

Have you, like us, been enjoying the tender young leaves of the wild garlic, Allium Ursinum? We shared information on recognising and how to forage responsibly for this pungent plant, plus some of our favourite recipes for using these delicious leaves in a previous post back in March: Wild Garlic, foraging and cooking.

Now April is upon us, and the wild garlic is sending up its buds, soon to burst into beautiful white flowers. There is a window in early Spring when the buds can be harvested to make a deliciously simple pickle. I noticed too that the chives that are growing in a bucket in the greenhouse are also showing signs of buds. Both ransoms, aka wild garlic, and chive buds are delicious pickled. You might also like to try other buds, such as sage? Pep up your salads and add them to sauces for an extra layer of flavour. It’s only a ten-minute job, so why not give it a go?

Pickled Wild Garlic Buds

Ingredients:

Handful wild garlic or chive buds

50g cider vinegar

50g sugar

50g water

Pinch pink peppercorns

Pinch salt

Method:

Begin by making the pickling liquid.

Put vinegar, sugar and water in a pan and heat until sugar is dissolved. Leave to cool.

Once cooled, place wild garlic or chive buds in a sterilised jar and pour over pickling liquid. Place in fridge & leave to pickle for three days before using.

Lasts for up to six months in the fridge.

Chive Blossom Vinegar

See also the post on making floral vinegars for when the flowers burst open!

We do hope you enjoy foraging for or picking wild garlic, but please remember to forage responsibly, leaving plenty for others and for wildlife.

If you have a shady spot in your garden, you might like to consider growing your own wild garlic. We have! A quick google and I see it can be bought in the green or by seed. Here’s one such site, from garden supply direct.

Anyone close to us, do pop over and I’ll give you a clump of ours!

Wild Garlic. Foraging & Cooking Food for Free

As ever, we’d love you to share your thoughts, either by leaving a comment here or on our social media pages, where this article will be shared.

You can find the Bridge Cottage Way on Facebook Twitter and Instagram.

You might enjoy some of the writing and ideas in other sections of this website, as we look towards leading more sustainable lives by growing our own food and creating dishes in line with seasonal eating, or head to our handy ‘Month by Month’ guides to find out what we have been doing here at Bridge Cottage as the months go by:

Many thanks for reading.

With Facebook and Instagram algorithms being fickle friends at times, be sure to get all new posts from The Bridge Cottage Way by signing up for the mailing list here. This will go our four times a year, with the seasons in Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. We, of course, will not share your details with third parties, and you have the right to unsubscribe at any time.

Tim & Sue in the Bridge Cottage Way garden

Nasturtium – 4 Delicious Ways to Use This Edible Flower

August 11, 2020/0 Comments/in The Bridge Cottage Kitchen/by Sue Reed

Nasturtium: 4 Delicious Ways to Use This Edible Flower

Nasturtium

Do you grow nasturtium in your garden? It’s a quick-growing, easy plant, that will grow well in containers and hanging baskets as well as in the veggie patch or flower borders. It will creep and climb and loves a trellis or wall to cover with its colourful trumpet-shapes flowers and saucer-like leaves. Head down to the Bridge Cottage garden to read more about:

Growing Nasturtiums

In this post, we’ve come inside to the kitchen, and are going to look at three ways to use nasturtium as a free, nutritious food source. Nasturtiums, using both leaves and petals, are high in vitamin C, and will improve the immune system. They will help to treat sore throats, coughs and cold, and fight a bacterial or fungal infection. Studies have shown that the leaves have antibiotic properties and are most effective prior to flowering.

Nasturtium is used in traditional medicine, for a wide range of illnesses and is said to help with hair loss. I’d better do and make Tim a nasturtium cap for his lack of hair then! Maybe not, I’m rather fond of his bald head.

Come on in, let’s go into the kitchen:

Nasturtium in salad

Nasturtium in Salads

Nasturtium leaves have a mildly peppery taste and will add flavour and colour to your salads, used with the flowers. Choose young leaves, and open flowers, wash any creepy crawlies away or leave on a piece of paper, and the bugs will crawl off to find pastures new. Add to salad leaves such as rocket, lettuce, young spinach or beetroot leaves, and add fresh herbs for an interesting salad

If you are making salads, don’t forget about the floral vinegars we made back in the late spring. You might have some in the cupboard to use for salad dressing.

Nasturtium Pesto

Ingredients for nasturtium pesto

Nasturtium pesto favourite discovery this year and is inspired by the Garden Pesto by Pam Corbin from the wonderful book of Preserves in the River Cottage series. Being still in partial lockdown, I didn’t have all the ingredients to hand that Pam suggests but made a delicious pesto with these ingredients. We had a chicken, roasted in the outside oven, and a dollop of delicious nasturtium pesto was the perfect accompaniment.

Nasturtium pesto

Makes 2x 225 jars

50g nasturtium leaves

Handful of mint leaves

2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

6 or so nasturtium pods

50 g pine nuts (I used cashews)

75g mature, hard cheese (I used a Northumberland equivalent of parmesan)

Juice ½ lemon (50ml)

150ml hemp, rapeseed or olive oil, plus extra to seal

Petals from 2 calendula (marigold) flowers

Salt to taste

Bung all the ingredients apart from the calendula petals & salt in a food processor and whizz until soft and well mixed. Remove and fold in the petals and salt.
Place in small, sterilised jars and pour a little oil over the surface to exclude any air and seal.

Either store in the fridge and use within four weeks or put into portions in small bags or an ice cube tray and freeze for use later in the year. You’ll be glad you did in January!

Nasturtium Seeds

Poor Man’s Capers

Again, I’ve used the recipe from Pam’s book – do get yourself a copy, it’s stuffed full of amazing recipes for preserves.

Makes 2 x 115g jars

15g salt

100g Nasturtium seed pods

A few peppercorns (optional)

Fresh herbs (eg dill or tarragon)

200ml white wine vinegar

Make a light brine by dissolving the salt in 300ml water. Put nasturtium seeds in a bowl and cover with cold brine. Leave for 24 hours.

Drain the seed pods and dry well. Pack them into small, sterilised jars (see p 29) with, if you like, a few peppercorns and some herbs. Leave room for 1cm vinegar at the top. Cover the seeds with vinegar and cover with vinegar proof lids. Store in a cool, dark place before eating and use within a year.

I’m making some of these for Christmas stocking fillers!

Pam recommends using these to make a tartare sauce, by mixing 100g mayonnaise with 2-3 finely chopped spring onions or the white part of a leek, I tbsp chopped nasturtium capers, I heaped tbsp finely chopped parsley, a squeeze of lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste.
Serve with white fish, fish and chips, hot or cold salmon or trout, or a salad of freshly cooked baby beetroot with young broad beans and rocket or other leaves.

Socially distanced cup of tea

Do you have any other suggestions for using nasturtium flowers and or leaves? I’ve just seen a recipe for Wild Hot Sauce over on Pinterest, and this is my fourth suggestion. I haven’t yet made it, but my friend, Ceri from Oakwood Soaperie, who came for a socially distanced cup of tea today in the Bridge Cottage Garden recommends it. I’ll make a Bridge Cottage version with our Ring of Fire Chillies and post this when it’s been tried and tested bu our youngest son John, who is the hot sauce expert. …….more about chillies coming up later.

As ever, we’d love you to share your thoughts, either by leaving a comment here or on our social media pages, where this article will be shared.

You can find the Bridge Cottage Way on Facebook Twitter and Instagram.

You might enjoy some of the writing and ideas in other sections of this website, as we look towards leading more sustainable lives by growing our own food and creating dishes in line with seasonal eating, or head to our handy ‘Month by Month’ guides to find out what we have been doing here at Bridge Cottage as the months go by:

Many thanks for reading.

With Facebook and Instagram algorithms being fickle friends at times, be sure to get all new posts from The Bridge Cottage Way by signing up for the mailing list below. This will go out four times a year, with the seasons in Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. We, of course, will not share your details with third parties, and you have the right to unsubscribe at any time.

Sign up for Quarterly Substack Mailing List here.

Make Your Own Jam and Jelly

July 29, 2020/0 Comments/in The Bridge Cottage Kitchen/by Sue Reed

Soft Fruit for Making Jam and Jellies

Both my Nans made their own jam and jellies. Nanny Gwen would buy punnets of fruit from the greengrocer and make tiny batches of jam in paste pots. She would serve little homemade drop scones with a paste pot of raspberry jam on plates with doilies and serve tea from a delicate rose bloom bone china tea set. My other Nan, Nanny Dora, grew her own fruit, and a loganberry will always make me think of her. She was more of a Woolworth’s girl, with serviceable seventies pottery and thick, heavy scones with raspberry jam and a tin of sterilised cream. I can see the packet of ready-cut greaseproof paper circles, elastic bands and cellophane tops that she bought and kept in the pantry.

Nanny Dora

My own kids, now grown up and left home, love to come back and raid the homemade jam cupboard. I had a look in the store cupboard the other day and saw we have plenty of chutney left, but no jam whatsoever. It is July, the fruit bushes are dripping and the jam-making is beginning in earnest. this year, from 25 July to 2 August, it is National Preserving Awareness Week, encouraging those who make their own preserves to help those who are new to the game. How great that jam making and preserving is having a revival. My Nans would be very pleased.

Preserving is yet another way to lead a more sustainable lifestyle – recycling jars, using homegrown produce, and reducing the need for transportation and factory-produced food. You will also know exactly what has gone into your jars, with sugar and vinegar being the only preservatives; no colourings or nasty additives. Once you have mastered a few basic skills, preserving is relatively easy and the rewards numerous. A well-stocked pantry cupboard is a delight and will see you through the colder months with reminders of summer.

Jam and Jelly Making Equipment

preserving pan for jam making

Jam Pan – you will need a good, solid bottomed jam pan – a heavy-bottomed saucepan will work, but if you are looking to drop hints for Christmas presents, a jam pan is a great investment. It allows the ‘rolling boil’ and stops the bottom getting burnt. It will also have a handle and some come with a handy pouring dint at the top.

Jam Jars – collect these all year round – don’t throw any jars away. If you are going to be living a sustainable lifestyle, making preserves, drying herbs, making herbal teas, then jam jars are invaluable. Go to the effort of soaking and scrubbing off the labels (we use a wire scrubber and some washing up liquid), and store, lids off, in a cupboard or box til needed.

Jam Thermometer – not vital, but very useful. The setting point of jams is 104.5°C and this can be done using a cold plate and your finger (see below), but a thermometer will save you the hassle. We have one with a probe that is used to test the temperature of all sorts of cooking.

Wooden Spoon – use a long handled wooden spoon – this will become stained and jammy over time. I’m fine with that, but you may want to keep one just for preserves.

jelly bag

Jelly bag and stand, or (muslin and string!) – you can buy jelly bags and stands from Lakeland or other shops, but I use a piece of muslin or double cheesecloth, or a clean tea towel, and hand it from a cupboard handle, letting the jelly drip over-night.

Kitchen Scales

Jam Setting Point

As long as you have got your proportions right, your jam or jelly should set once it is sufficiently cooked. Here are two methods, one without a thermometer and one with:

Crinkle Test – when you start your jam making, pop a small plate or saucer in the fridge and leave it there to chill. Once you think setting point is reached, pop a teaspoon in the plate. Give it a few seconds, then gently push your finger over the jam. If setting point has been reached, a skin will have formed which crinkles when you push your finger over.

Temperature Test – place a preserving thermometer or probe thermometer into the jam when it has reached a rolling boil. When it reads 104.5°C it is done. Pectin rich fruits will set a degree or two, lower.

fruit picking for jam making

That’s all you need, so let’s get fruit picking and jam making. I’ll start with an easy one, Raspberry Fridge Jam.

Preserves by Pam Corbin and River Cottage

One recommendation I do have is to get yourself a copy of Pam Corbin’s excellent book from The River Cottage Series, ‘Preserves’. It has lots of great recipes, some traditional and some fantastic ideas, such as making fruit leather for sweeties, or nasturtium pesto – who knew, this was a thing? Tim’s favourite is Pontak Sauce, made from elderberries, which takes seven years to fully mature.

I’m off out to pick some raspberries and will get recipes up on the website as and when I make them.

Happy jam and jelly making!

Homemade Jam and Jelly

As ever, we’d love you to share your thoughts, either by leaving a comment here or on our social media pages, where this article will be shared.

You can find the Bridge Cottage Way on Facebook Twitter and Instagram.

You might enjoy some of the writing and ideas in other section of this website, as we look towards leading more sustainable lives by growing our own food and creating dishes in line with seasonal eating, or head to our handy ‘Month by Month’ guides to find out what is seasonal and on topic:

Many thanks for reading.

With Facebook and Instagram algorithms being fickle friends at times, be sure to get all new posts from The Bridge Cottage Way by signing up for the mailing list here. This will go our four times a year, around the Summer and Winter Solstices, and the Spring and Autumn Equinox. We, of course, will not share your details with third parties, and you have the right to unsubscribe at any time.

Thanks for reading. Best wishes, Tim and Sue Reed

Make Your Own Solstice Salt

July 10, 2020/0 Comments/in The Bridge Cottage Kitchen/by Sue Reed

Make you own herb salt

Herbs are in abundance in summer, and they can be used fresh, when full of flavour in cooking. However, winter will be here before we know it, and we like to preserve the taste of summer in herb salt. I discovered this easy method of making herb salt over on Instagram and now use in much of my cooking. I keep a jar next to the stove, and a pestle and mortar handy for grinding it.

Homegrown herbs

It’s just a simple matter of taking fresh herbs – you can see from this photo I have used rosemary, thyme, sage and oregano, and chopping it finely with a knife. I’ve added some pretty blue borage flowers here, and a chive flowerhead for colour.

Add this to rock salt, or salt flakes and leave to dry out in a bowl overnight. The next day, simply pop into a clean jam jar and label. You will have herb salt for use in your cooking throughout the year.

It’s a ten-minute job, why not give it a go?

Solstice Salt

I made this pot of herb salt at the Summer Solstice this year, hence the label!

Read about growing herbs and some suggestions for their uses in:

Growing Herbs

Make Your Own Herb & Floral Vinegars

July 4, 2020/0 Comments/in Uncategorized/by Sue Reed

Capture the flavour and scent of summer in a jar by making your own herb and floral vinegars.

This is so simple to do, and a few minute’s work will reward you with delicious vinegar you can use in cooking and to make salad dressings with wonderfully complex flavours.

Elderflower blossom

Pick your blooms on a sunny day so the flowers are open and dry and leave on a piece of white paper for a while for the creep-crawlies to crawl off and find somewhere else to inhabit.

It’s then just a simple job of popping the flower heads in a sterilised jar and topping up with either rice, white wine or cider vinegar.

After a couple of weeks of infusing, drain the liquid from the flowers and keep in a clean bottle. I do have friends who leave the flowers in, it’s up to you!

Chive Blossom Vinegar

We have made beautiful pink vinegar with chive blossoms and rice wine vinegar.

Elderflower vinegar can be made at the same time as elderflower cordial, and is a welcome treat for salads long after summer and it’s flowers have faded.

Sage Flower Vinegar

I spotted these pretty purple sage flowers and thought I’d give them a go. Why not experiment and see what you come up with? I’ve seen this work very well with deep pink rose petals.

A jar of homemade floral vinegar would make a beautiful gift for a friend or family member.

Find out about growing herbs and some suggestions for their uses in Growing Herbs.

Garden & Kitchen News from Bridge Cottage June 2020

June 28, 2020/0 Comments/in Uncategorized/by Sue Reed

Glastonbury 1985

It’s June 2020 and as I write this, the wind is howling and the rain is lashing down, It’s proper Glastonbury weather. It would have been Glastonbury’s 50th anniversary, but due to Coronavirus, it’s been cancelled. I last went in 1985 – it was a sea of mud, and I can’t remember who I saw. Now I’m happy to leave the thronging crowds to the youngsters, and spend the summer months in the garden.

Mangetout and Broad Bean Tips

June is a busy month in the garden, and welcome crops have been making themselves known in the Bridge Cottage kitchen. We’ve had our first tastes of mangetout, with a fabulous purple variety this year, Mangetout Snow Pea, Purple Shiraz as well as the more usual green variety. In the trug in this photo, you can also see the tops of broad beans which have been pinched out to deter blackfly.

Both mangetout and broad bean tips only need to be steamed for a couple of minutes of added to a stir fry and cooked lightly to be enjoyed.

Garlic bulbs drying under the eaves of the roundhouse

Our garlic crop has been harvested and is now hanging under the eaves of the sauna to dry. It got rust right at the end, but doesn’t seem to have suffered too badly for it. Soon the onions will be following suit – not with rust, but by being harvested.

Organic Comfrey Feed

The black liquid of our organic comfrey feed is starting to drip into the container beneath the compost bucket and this rich feed will now be added to water and be fed to my tomatoes and other fruiting crops. The hanging baskets, dahlias and sunflowers.

Making Organic Comfrey Feed

Growing Food in The Bridge Cottage Garden

It’s time now to think ahead to the winter and make sure you have winter veg sown. It’s not too late to set seed away for next Spelderflowerring’s Purple Sprouting Broccoli or kale and cabbages for over winter.

Salad crops too can be sown every month to ensure you have a regular supply of lettuces and not a glut all at once, and then a barren time. It’s too hot in the greenhouse now to grow rocket, but we’re having good success with rocket and cut and come again lettuce grown in containers on the patio.

Growing Food in The Bridge Cottage Garden

The potatoes are growing well and Tim has been earthing these up to allow as many potatoes to grow as possible.

The chard and spinach are both wonderful, and over on The Bridge Cottage Kitchen page, I’ve written out a recipe for using chard. We have kale ready for eating, and I’ll be getting some tonight to go with our Sunday dinner.

It’s strawberry time now, but we have lost our crop to the blackbirds. They were new plants in this year, and we should have thrown a net over them to protect them from the birds. Oh well, the birds are welcome to them. We have plenty to eat with rhubarb still going strong, and the gooseberries ripening nicely.

Gooseberry and elderflower ice cream

I thought I’d better use up the soft fruit that is still in the freezer from last year and made a delicious gooseberry and elderflower ice-cream, which you can try for yourselves.

Talking of elderflowers, now is the time to gather them, not forgetting to thank tree and bough. I’ve made elderflower vinegar, and will be mixing this with olive oil for a delicious summery salad dressing.

Elderflower cordial

Of course, elderflower cordial is a must, and can be frozen in small plastic bottles for use throughout the year. I only take a few blooms from each tree, saving plenty to turn into elderberries, which we’ll come to again in the autumn.

Elderflower recipes

The front of Bridge Cottage is laden with pink roses, and I thank whoever it was who was here before us and planted them. I’ve been drying rose petals to use in herbal teas. Now is a fabulous time to dry herbs, petals and leaves for use in the kitchen and for making tea, and this can see you right through the winter.

Roses on Bridge Cottage

Elderflower and mint tea

See my post over on the Bridge Cottage Kitchen page on using summer herbs for cooking and for teas. In June, I’ve been able to dry mint, lemon balm, sage, elderflower, rose, and rosebay willowherb. I’ve also made a couple of jars of herb salt, which will add delicious seasoning to our cooking.

The big news this June, has been the finishing of the pizza oven, and we’re enjoying lots of alfresco dining. If you’d like to see the movie we made about the build, head over to YouTube by following this link: the Bridge Cottage Pizza Oven Build. Tim’s worked really hard on this, and we’re very proud of him.

This is just a snapshot of some of the goings-on at Bridge Cottage this June. Head over to the other pages to get more in-depth writing about:

As ever, we’d love you to share your thoughts, either by leaving a comment here or one our social media pages, where this article will be shared.

You can find the Bridge Cottage Way on Facebook Twitter and Instagram. and sign up to our mailing list.

Welcome to the Bridge Cottage Kitchen & Seasonal Eating.

June 28, 2020/0 Comments/in The Bridge Cottage Kitchen/by Sue Reed

Welcome to the Bridge Cottage Kitchen and our introduction to Seasonal Eating. 🙂

Welcome Bridge Cottage kitchen

In this section of the website, we will look at seasonal eating to help you understand when different fruit and vegetables are ripe and ready. It is offered as a complement to the page, The Bridge Cottage garden, where we hold your hand as you plant and grow your crops. We will offer tried and tested recipes to enjoy home-cooked food when it is at its best, fresh and locally produced. We will also look at pickling and preserving to help your precious produce last into the winter months.

There is much food to be gathered from the hedgerows, foraged for free. We will discuss the ethics behind foraging, and how to gather food from the wild without impacting on wildlife.

Tomatoes ripening on the vine

Supermarkets with their year-round array of fruit and vegetables have taken seasonal eating out of many folks’ consciousness, and with it, the taste. I don’t want to eat tomatoes in January that have been ground under plastic in Almeria in Spain, neither do I want to eat asparagus that has come from Peru. I want to eat English asparagus in the small window that it is available in June, and will wait for my tomatoes to be ripe and ready before I eat them. I guarantee they will taste like a different vegetable to the one that has sat on the supermarket shelf, wrapped in plastic, after having been shipping halfway around the world.

homemade jam

Do you have memories of your grandparents pickling and preserving fruit and vegetables? Both my grandmothers made jam, one with a shelf in the fridge door of strawberry jam, and the other who filled tiny paste posts with homemade raspberry jam. Mine were from the wartime generation who had to learn to make the most of what they had, and I believe we need to take a leaf out of their books and go back to those days. I wrote over in the Sustainable Living section of this website about how the bubble had burst. I strongly believe we need to reduce our spending, reduce plastic waste, and for the sake of the planet, reduce our carbon footprints. If I can keep out of the supermarkets I will. Never has it been more important to try and grow and cook as much of our own food as we can, and eat seasonally.

Gooseberry and elderflower ice cream

Over the year we will be making jam, jellies and chutneys together, drying herbs and making herbal teas, freezing summer fruit, churning ice-cream and making out own cheese and yoghurt. When Christmas comes, we’ll look at ways to keep it simple and homemade. So get saving your jam jars, don’t throw any containers or bags away. You’ll be needing them for in the coming months.

As ever, we’d love you to share your thoughts, either by leaving a comment here or one our social media pages, where this article will be shared.

You can find the Bridge Cottage Way on Facebook Twitter and Instagram.

You might enjoy some of the writing and ideas in other section of this website, as we look towards leading more sustainable lives by growing our own food and creating dishes in line with seasonal eating, or head to our handy ‘Month by Month’ guides to find out what is seasonal and on topic:

Many thanks for reading.

With Facebook and Instagram algorithms being fickle friends at times, be sure to get all new posts from The Bridge Cottage Way by signing up for the mailing list here. This will go our four times a year, around the Summer and Winter Solstices, and the Spring and Autumn Equinox. We of course will not share your details with third parties, and you have the right to unsubscribe at any time.

Tag Archive for: kitchen