seasonal eating - The Bridge Cottage

Seasonal Eating with Warming Winter Soup

January 10, 2023/0 Comments/in The Bridge Cottage Kitchen/by Sue Reed

I have been thinking over the past week and chatting with followers on The Bridge Cottage Way’s social media pages about our favourite warming winter soup and wondering which recipe to share with you. However, I wonder if we could think first about the basics of soup making to give you the confidence to experiment with what is to hand? I hardly ever use a recipe but look at what is in season in my local market, what vegetables are locally produced, what ingredients are lying lonely in the fridge and need finishing up or have been reduced in the shops and can be put to good use.

Looking at Leeks: Growing and Eating

The Bridge Cottage Way is all about reducing the drain on our planet’s precious resources, so we want to encourage folk to eat with the seasons, to eat food that has been locally produced where possible and not grown under plastic thousands of miles away, shipped over here by boat or plane and wrapped in single-use plastic. We talk about this a lot, and instead of thinking of it as a limiting practice, try reframing it to bring seasonal delight and variety to your diet.

It is midwinter here in the UK, and the only crops we have in the veg plot to use are leeks, kale and if the shrews have left us any, some Jerusalem artichokes (though beware of the latter – my mother-in-law calls it arty farty soup for good reason. The wind can be crippling!). In the local market, there are leeks, cauliflowers, carrots and parsnips: all perfect for winter soup.

The Basics of Soup Making.

Clean, chop and sweat vegetables.

Place a small amount of olive oil or a knob of butter in the base of a heavy pan on very low heat then add chopped vegetables. Place the lid on and sweat for five to ten minutes. This draws out the flavour.

Add stock.

We keep a jar of homemade fermented vegetable stock in the fridge. Or you could make a batch of vegetable stock and freeze in ready-to-use portions. You could try this vegetable stock recipe from our friends at River Cottage: River Cottage Vegetable Stock. (I see I need to add stock-making to the list of posts to write this year.) Or use a stock cube or spoon of Bouillon powder. Add enough stock to cover the vegetables and bring to a boil. You can always add more hot water if needed.

Meat eaters may also have stock in the freezer from boiling a chicken carcass or keeping the stock from boiling ham or cooking up lamb bones with water.

Cook & Blitz

Cook your vegetables until soft – meaning a sharp knife point will go in easily, then blitz with a hand blender if you like smooth soups. To blitz or not to blitz, that is the question and a bone of contention in this house. Tim likes chunky soups and I like smooth. Or you may not own a hand blender ( a potato masher will break up big chunks). When the kids were small all soup had to be blended within an inch of its life or our daughter would not touch it. The grandkids are just the same. It’s also a cheeky way of getting veg into them unawares. Though to this day, our daughter can sniff out a pepper at a mile.

So that’s the basics, now I will give you a recipe. Doing a shop in a local supermarket, I saw chestnuts had been reduced post-Christmas, so grabbed a few packs to put in the store cupboard. They marry so well with parsnips in soup, or with leeks in risotto.

Warming Winter Soup. Parsnip and Chestnut.

Parsnip and Chestnut Soup.

1 kg parsnips

Knob of butter or 1tbsp veg or olive oil

180g bag whole chestnuts, rough chopped

1 pint veg or chicken stock

1 pint milk – oat or dairy.

Peel and chop parsnips then sweat in a tablespoon of oil or knob of butter with a lid on for five mins. Add stock and cook for fifteen minutes. Add chestnuts and continue to cook until the parsnips are soft.

Add milk and bring back to simmer.

Blitz and serve!

An alternative to chestnuts might be ginger – parsnip and ginger is another winning combination and most definitely warming for these cold January days. OR maybe bung in some carrots? There really are no rules. Meat eaters might like to start with finely chopped streaky bacon at the beginning, reserving some for croutons on the top as I have done in this photo.

I’m off to the fridge now where I know there is a sad-looking cauliflower and some Stilton left over from Christmas. I may add a leek and a few chopped potatoes for body too. Go experiment with your soup-making, but please, keep it seasonal, and do let us know how you get on!

Sue and Tim from The Bridge Cottage Way

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.

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Plums: Picking, Cooking & Preserving Late Summer’s Bounty

August 30, 2022/2 Comments/in The Bridge Cottage Kitchen/by Sue Reed

Plums

Plums always remind me of a good friend who, when wincing on a hospital bed after a vasectomy gone wrong was bought a pair of plums in a brown paper bag by his visiting mate.

A pair of plums

Enough! Sorry. Are your plums dripping this year? Last year we had four, whereas this year we have four thousand, or thereabouts. It’s a great year for plums!

It’s been a great year for plums!

The tree is so overladen, that one of the boughs has snapped and we have made a mental note that we must do better with the pruning next Spring. I’ll make sure I put a post over in The Bridge Cottage Garden section in plenty of time next Spring with photos when we do ours.

Pruning Plums

Plum trees should be pruned in Spring or early summer to avoid the frost getting in through open wounds and causing silver leaf damage. It’s the usual pruning advice – take any growth that is crossing or growing inwards and cut back other branches by a third. You are aiming for a goblet shape. However, here’s a link from the good peeps at the RHS who will be far more expert at this than us.

Pruning Plum Trees from the RHS.

Picking Plums

Tim’s Plum Grabber

Watch out for wasps! Tim’s made a handy grabber using a recycled milk carton with ‘monster’ teeth cut in and stuck it on a pole. Heath Robinson would be proud. Who was Heath Robinson you ask? It’s a saying, isn’t it, and a quick look down the Google tube and The History Press tells me, ‘ William Heath Robinson remains one of Britain’s best-loved illustrators and has embedded himself into English vernacular, inspiring the phrase ‘it’s all a bit Heath Robinson’ to describe any precarious or unnecessarily complex contraption.’ But it worked! I also made it a reel on Instagram – how cool am I?

Cooking and Preserving Plums

Nanny’s Shop

So, what to do with all these plums? This year we’ve had so many, that we’ve simply halved and stoned several bagfuls and popped them straight in the freezer to be dealt with later. We’ve popped a table out front, and my granddaughter is very excited to be helping with ‘Nanny’s Shop’. Takes me right back to my childhood when I’d help my grandmother sell her spare garden produce and bedding out plants. ,

Plum Jam

There’s jam of course, and plum jam is a favourite, spread on crumpets or hot buttered toast, taking me back to my mother’s Victoria plum jam of my childhood. I’ve made a double batch using 4kg plums and 4kg sugar. I followed the Good Food Recipe. However, I see from Pam Corbin’s new book of Preserves that there is a lower sugar version with her plum spread. I’ve been a fan of Pam Corbin’s original book of Preserves for years, and love this new edition, with lots of lower sugar and up-to-date recipes.

Plum Compote or Stewed Plums

Plum compote is a must, or what my mum would call stewed plums in a more down-to-earth manner. We have homemade yoghurt right through the year with cooked fruit and I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again, you’ll be so glad you went to the effort of cooking and freezing bags of fruit in February when the winds are whistling through the cracks in the door and the snow is piling high outside. We like to add star anise and or cinnamon to our cooked fruit but be careful to pick out the star anise before you munch. I think it has a taste of the dentist about it if you crunch a piece.

Plums can be baked whole in the oven, making it very easy to plop out the stone. Or you can halve them, remove the stones and cook in a pan. It’s up to you, but I do like the flavour gained from roasting.

Picking, Cooking & Preserving, Late Summer’s Plums

Plum chutney is a lovely alternative to mango chutney with curry and we have two recipes we use. This year, we’ve made Mrs Portly’s Plum and Ginger Chutney. Linda Duffin aka Mrs Portly’s Kitchen is a wonderful source of inspiration for seasonal recipes and eating. Do check her out – she’s on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Nigel Slater is another favourite chef in this house, and his plum chutney and Chinese Plum Sauce are both delicious. Our daughter particularly likes the plum sauce – great in a stir fry. Nigel Slater – Plum Recipes

The Bridge Cottage Way Amaretto and Plum Crumble

I asked a question over on Twitter this week from the domestic goddess that is Nigella Lawson (if I ever met her, I would have a total fan girl moment) after I was experimenting with plums and a bottle of Amaretto. I asked if she would put meringue or crumble atop of cooked plums? ‘I’m old school’ she replied and went for crumble. Another follower suggested a frangipane, and that’s this afternoon’s job – to make a plum frangipane cake. If you follow me on social media, I’ll share the result.

So, here’s my plum crumble recipe. It’s a favourite and any leftovers can be had for breakfast with yoghurt. My question to you would be, custard, cream or ice cream? My father would just say, yes, please!

The Bridge Cottage Way Amaretto Plum Crumble.

Half kg ripe plums

1 tbsp soft brown sugar

4 tbsp Amaretto liqueur (optional – 1 tsp cinnamon would be an alternative)

150 g plain flour

75g butter

2 tbsp soft brown sugar

Preheat oven to 180 deg/160 deg fan/ gas mark 4

Wash then halve plums, removing stones. Toss in a bowl with Amaretto and sugar, then place in an oven proof dish in the oven while you prepare the top.

Rub the flour and butter together until it resembles breadcrumbs using your fingers, and then stir in the sugar.

Gently spread over the plums and bake for a further 15-20 mins or until golden brown on the top.

Serve with natural yoghurt, cream, ice cream or custard!

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.

Raspberry Vinegar. Season: July and August.

July 14, 2022/0 Comments/in The Bridge Cottage Kitchen/by Sue Reed

Have you ever made your own raspberry vinegar? What a wonderful year for raspberries 2022 is! We’re picking around a kilo every day here in the Bridge Cottage Garden. Do you grow raspberries? They are very easy to grow and here in the northeast of England they are very well suited to our climate.

Growing Raspberries

Raspberries in the Bridge Cottage Garden in July

Raspberry picking takes me back to a summer job I once had, travelling by train from Worthing to Inverness as a seventeen-year-old to work on a fruit farm in Inverness picking raspberries. It was hard graft, with a double bucketed punnet tied around our necks. The boss would rattle out tents, and we’d emerge, hungover from a night at the local pub, The Bogroy, and traipse into the raspberry fields. We were a mixed bag, and I’d joined the party element – we shocked the straighter students by holding a naked raspberry picking day, wearing nothing but our wellies!

Raspberry vinegar

But enough of naked raspberry picking. What to do with all these raspberries? Jam making and ice cream spring immediately to mind, and I’ve already written pieces on that, which you’ll find along with lots of other seasonal recipes in the Bridge Cottage Kitchen.

Summer fruit ice cream

Raspberry Jam

Health Benefits of Raspberry Vinegar

However, that’s quite enough of naked raspberry picking. Time to get back on track. Today’s writing concerns the making of raspberry vinegar. Not only is it delicious, but it’s healthy too. Raspberry vinegar is an age-old remedy for sore throats, coughs and colds, did you know? It contains ellagic acid, a known cancer fighter and has antioxidants by the bucketload. Pam Corbin, in the River Cottage Series No. 2. Preserves, ( a kitchen bible in this house) writes: ‘During the nineteenth century, raspberry vinegar, in particular, was recommended as a refreshing tonic to overcome weariness.’

Culinary Uses

Nigel Slater advises us to pour it over ice cream and use it to deglaze the roasting tins of lamb or liver, giving a ‘fruity depth to the caramelised juices in the pan’. My husband, Tim, drinks it with fizzy water/soda and it goes equally well with tonic – very healthy. I love to make a fruity salad dressing mixing equal parts with olive oil. It is the perfect accompaniment to cheese, and delicious drizzled over a goat’s cheese and beetroot salad. (Thought Tim says beetroot is the food of the devil).

Method.

Raspberry vinegar

So here’s how, and it’s really easy!

Makes 1.5 litres

1kg raspberries

600ml cider vinegar or white wine vinegar

Granulated sugar

Put the raspberries in a bowl and crush them with the back of a wooden spoon. Add the vinegar. Cover and leave to steep for 4-5 days, stirring occasionally.

Pour the fruit and vinegar into a jelly bag, or piece of muslin suspended over a bowl. We use a piece of cheesecloth, tied at all four corners and hung off a kitchen cupboard door, with a large bowl underneath to catch the drips. Leave to drain overnight.

Measure the liquid then pour it into a saucepan.

It’s important you use a stainless-steel saucepan for this next bit and not aluminium as that would react with the vinegar. For every 600ml fruit vinegar, add 450g of sugar. Boil for 8-10 minutes, removing any scum as it gathers. Take off the heat and allow it to cool.

Bottle in sterilised glass bottles (we save these all year round for such times) Will keep for 12 months until it’s summer again and time to make some more.

Variations

We’ve made fruit vinegar with elderberries in autumn, gooseberries and blackcurrants and blackberries. All delicious!

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 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.

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The Great Courgette Glut. Season: July and August

August 15, 2021/0 Comments/in Uncategorized/by Sue Reed

Next year, when I’m sowing courgette seeds, will someone please remind me that eight courgette plants are far too many?

The great courgette glut

Someone over on The Bridge Cottage Way Facebook page suggested this week that courgette seeds be sold strictly in packets of three to avoid overplanting. I think they have a point.

We’ve had a few takers for homegrown courgettes and cucumbers from the table outside Bridge Cottage. We are dripping in them and it’s courgettes with everything at the moment.

August Harvest Minestone

We’re making minestrone and ratatouille for the freezer and adding courgettes to risotto and ragu. This week I make a courgette and chocolate traybake cake, which has gone down a treat. Our youngest son usually shuns courgettes but has gone back to his own house today with a box of courgette and chocolate cake tucked under his arm. Another hit was the courgette and cheddar soda loaf from BBC Good Food.

Courgettes are being added to risottos and curries – I love a prawn and courgette curry, and soups are being made to go in the freezer for the winter months. I’ve just shared a photo of courgette, tomato and basil soup bubbling away in the pan over on Twitter (@suereedwrites) and had a request for the recipe, so here it is:

Courgette, Lentil, Tomato and Basil Soup.

Courgette, Tomato, Lentil & Basil Soup

I onion, finely chopped.

1.5 pints veg stock

100 g red lentils

2 courgettes

400g tin chopped tomatoes

handful fresh basil

Gently fry the chopped onion in a tablespoon of olive oil until soft. Add veg stock, tomatoes and lentils, bring to a boil and cook for ten minutes. Add courgettes and chopped basil and cook for another 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper then blitz to a smooth soup.

Easy peasy! My friend Ann has been making potato, courgette, cheddar and fennel seed soup, so I must give that a whirl! Don’t be afraid to experiment with your soups, and do share your successes on our social media channels. I’ve shared the minestrone recipe in a separate post.

From the goddess of the kitchen, Nigella Lawson’s easy courgette pasta sauce is a family hit, and today I’ve made sweet potato and courgette bhajis for lunch. I thought I’d share the recipe for those with you here. It’s really very simple. I’ve added sweet potato, but you could add grated carrot or any other veg, or keep it simple and just use courgette.

Courgette Bhajis

Courgette Bhajis

serves 4

2 medium courgettes (or 1 courgette and half a sweet potato or small carrot)

1 medium onion

2 tsp each cumin, coriander, turmeric

half tsp chilli powder or half finely chopped chilli (optional)

3 tbsp gram flour

sparkling water to mix

4 tbsp vegetable oil

Courgette Bhajis

Grate the veg and chop the onion. Mix well with the spices and season with salt and pepper. mix in the flour and enough sparkling water to bind it all together – about 4 tbsp.

Heat some vegetable oil in a heavy-based frying pan and fry on each side til golden brown. Drain and serve with seasonal salad.

Harvest Time Minestrone.

August 1, 2021/0 Comments/in Uncategorized/by Sue Reed

August Harvest Minestone

Minestrone making is one of the joys of late summer’s harvest time. A seasonal recipe that freezes well, is a meal in a bowl and brings a welcome reminder of summer in the depths of winter. I first wrote this piece on the first of August and Lammas, the pagan celebration of the harvest. This bountiful collection of vegetables was gathered from the Bridge Cottage garden yesterday.

We’re just back from a trip away and we’ve come home to some courgettes of marrow proportion. Courgettes are still in their ‘glut’ season, and I’ve written a separate post giving some seasonal recipes for courgettes. Here, in minestrone, they can be added in chunks along with seasonal tomatoes. Both of these are covered in separate posts to give more inspiration for seasonal eating.

Our broad beans are past their best now, leathery in texture, so are shelled. It’s a bit of a phaff, but well worth it. Simply blanch for a couple of minutes in boiling water, then plunge into a bowl of cold water with ice. The skins will then be easy to squeeze and the tender insides squashed out.

I also like to skin the tomatoes – it’s up to you if you want to make a passata or keep them in chunks.

Here is our minestrone recipe, though feel free to adapt according to what you have ripe and ready, and vary the amounts if you don’t have as much veg ready and ripe. We like to cook in bulk and freeze, so this will make around ten generous portions:

August Harvest Minestrone

Bridge Cottage Minestrone

(Makes ten portions – enough to keep some in the fridge and freeze the rest for winter)

2 tbsp olive oil

1 large onion

4 cloves garlic

3 red peppers

Handful each of French, Runner, Borlotti beans, chopped.

Broad beans

1 kg ripe tomatoes

4 courgettes

Chopped fresh herbs eg oregano, parsley, basil.

2 litres stock (chicken or vegetable)

100g small pasta – we like little star-shaped Stellete but Orzo works well too.

Salt and pepper

Method

Shell the broad beans and remove skins by blanching for two minutes in boiling water, then plunging into a bowl of iced water. Squeeze to remove outer shells.

Prepare the tomatoes: Simply score with a sharp knife then put in a heatproof bowl, and cover with boiling water. Leave for a couple of minutes, then drain. Peel off the skins once cold enough to handle, and whizz them up in a blender to give a beautiful tomato sauce. If you don’t like the pips, then pass through a sieve. Alternately, skin then chop into rough chunks for a chunkier soup.

In a large saucepan, heat the olive oil and gently cook the onion, adding the tomatoes, peppers, beans, chopped herbs and stock. Bring everything to the boil and cook for five minutes before adding the chopped courgettes, crushed garlic and pasta. Cook for a further ten minutes or until the pasta is done. Season with salt and pepper.

Enjoy warm, then cool the rest for the freezer, putting in recycled plastic bags or tubs, and labelling with the date. You’ll be glad you went to the bother in darkest January!

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.

Cooking with Wild Garlic. Recipes and Tips

March 7, 2021/0 Comments/in The Bridge Cottage Kitchen/by Sue Reed

Wild Garlic. Foraging & Cooking Food for Free

The smell of wild garlic takes me back to the day we moved to Bridge Cottage. As we drove along with a car full of boxes, marvelling at the beauty of the Northumberland countryside, a pungent pong wafted through the car window. Wild garlic. It was growing in abundance along the roadside. Imagine our delight when we discovered it growing along the banks of the burn that runs through the garden. Food for free, and delicious at that.

Here in Northumberland, it is the beginning of March when the wild garlic is poking up, ready to pick. It may well be February if you are in warmer climes. The fresh young leaves can be picked and added to a salad. We planted some salad leaves in the greenhouse in the autumn, and are reaping the benefits now.

Not only is it tasty, but wild garlic is also good for you, proven to reduce blood pressure. Wild garlic has all manner of health benefits too.

Why wild garlic is good for you

I need to check the freezer. We made lots of wild garlic pesto last year. There may well be some packs lurking in the back. I’ll pop some recipes below, and add them to the Bridge Cottage Kitchen page.

wild garlic and nettles

By far the favourite recipe of last year was for wild garlic and blue cheese scones – delicious with a bowl of soup. – you can also add nettles to many of these recipes, but be careful to pick with gloves and take note that nettles will still sting until wilted or cooked. Don’t do what a friend of mine did, and use nettles in pesto without wilting first. She, unfortunately, tasted a spoon of nettle pesto and stung her mouth and throat. It could have been a lot nastier than it was. I’ll write more about nettles in a month or so, when they’re properly up.

Blue Cheese & Wild Garlic Scones

Blue cheese and wild garlic scones

Ingredients

225g plain or spelt flour

3 tsp baking powder

Pinch salt, half tsp English mustard powder

50g cold butter

125g blue cheese (or any strong cheese)

2 tbsp washed & chopped wild garlic (nettle tops and chives work well too)

60ml cold milk

1 beaten egg

Method

Scones are best handled as little as possible. I use a food processor, but mixing by hand is fine

Sift flour, baking powder, salt & mustard. Grate in the butter, cheese, & mix with wild garlic and nettles. Mix in egg & milk with a clawed hand, adjusting the amount of liquid to give a soft, slightly sticky dough. (Scones are better on the wet side rather than dry).

Tip onto a floured worktop and handling as little as possible, knead gently then press down into a flat shape about 3cm thick. Cut into shapes, top with a little cheese or egg & milk from the jug you used.

Bake at 220 deg (200 deg fan) Gas 7 for 12 minutes.

Serve with butter. Delicious with some wild garlic and nettle soup.

Pesto

Add a couple of good handfuls of wild garlic to about 200ml of olive oil, a handful of nuts (eg walnuts, cashew or pine nuts), 50g grated parmesan cheese, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp sugar, and blitz in a food processor.

Add your pesto to pasta for a simple but tasty lunch or rub onto chicken. Wild garlic and chicken go very well together.

I like to make several batches and freeze them in small bags. There is nothing better in the depths of winter than to go foraging in the freezer and finding little bags of spring wild garlic pesto to use for lunches.

Salads

Wild garlic leaves can be added whole to salads or chopped according to taste. Use instead of spring onions for a mild, oniony taste, but with the added zing of garlic. They make an interesting addition to a cheese sandwich married with a touch of mayonnaise.

Salad dressing can also be made more interesting with finely chopped wild garlic leaves or add to mayonnaise or butter.

Tomatoes

In his iconic foraging guide, Food for Free, written many moons ago, Richard Mabey tells us that wild garlic goes handsomely with tomatoes

Richard tells us to take advantage of their size and lay them criss-cross over sliced beefsteak tomatoes’. I like to chop them finely and add to chopped tinned tomatoes for a quick and tasty tomato sauce that can go with pasta, or as an accompaniment to fish cakes.

Alternatively, make simple tomato salsa, by chopping fresh tomatoes with finely chopped wild garlic, and fresh deseeded chilli, and a squeeze of lemon or lime juice.

wild garlic and nettle soup

Wild garlic can be used with young nettle tops for a healthy, delicious soup, or for the meat-eaters amongst us, simply add to chicken stock and blitz for a delicious wild garlic soup.

I’m off to pick some wild garlic to use tonight with simple mayonnaise to have with our chips.

Happy foraging, but remember to forage responsibly – leave plenty for others and for wildlife.

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.

Looking at Leeks: Growing and Eating.

February 7, 2021/0 Comments/in The Bridge Cottage Garden, The Bridge Cottage Kitchen/by Sue Reed

Looking at Leeks: Growing and Eating

Do you grow leeks? Would you like to grow leeks? They are a hardy crop, standing with patience and fortitude in the ground, month in, month out, waiting to be plucked. Tolerant of the cold and ice, they are a welcome treat in the depths of winter or as tender young things in the summer. I thought I’d share some tips I’ve learnt along the way, plus some tried and tested family recipes.

Looking at Leeks: Growing and Eating

It is February and thoughts are turning to this year’s growing season. My granddaughter and I have been sowing leeks this week. One of the earliest crops to get underway. They will grow in pots indoors or a propagator and then go into the greenhouse to grow on during early Spring.

Sow your leeks early in the season, Feb – April. Then sow again later in the year, to allow for a succession of crops. Read more about planting in succession here:

Succession Planting for Vegetables All Year Round

Looking at Leeks: Growing and Eating

Start your leeks off in a deep pot – they like to send their roots deep down. This will help strong plants to grow. Just sprinkle on top of seed compost, and then cover with a fine layer. Pop somewhere fairly warm: a propagator, warm windowsill or sunny greenhouse once winter’s chill is over.

Looking at Leeks: Growing and Eating

Don’t be tempted to put too many in the seed tray, or you’ll end up with far too many and they’ll be all choked up. We’ve been a bit heavy-handed with our seed sprinkling – you might want to give them a bit more breathing room than we have here!

Looking at Leeks: Growing and Eating

Once your seedlings are large enough to handle – you need a good bit of growth at the top, tease them gently apart, and plant out in the veggie plot using a dibber or stick to make deep holes (about 15-20 cm deep). Don’t you just love that word, dibber. It instantly conjures up memories of helping my grandad in his garden. I have my lovely son to thank for making me my dibber. If you don’t have a dibber, find a stout stick! Pop your seedling in the hole and fill with water from a watering can. Plant with enough space so you can get a hoe in between rows to keep the weeds down later on That’s all there is to it!

You will be rewarded with delicious, nutritious leeks to feed yourselves and your families.

Here are some tried and tested recipes the family have loved here at Bridge Cottage. They all serve a family of four, so scale down for smaller portions. We are meat eaters, so have included bacon in the Leek and Bacon pudding, but feel free to leave it out.

Top tip – when washing leeks, slit the tops with a deep cross and hold upside down under running water, teasing out layer to get all the soil out. Nowt worse than a crunch of grit when you munch!

Looking at Leeks: Growing and Eating

Cheesy Leek Gratin

Ingredients

4 large leeks

25g butter

½ tbsp plain flour

Approx. 1 pt milk

100g cheddar cheese

2 handfuls breadcrumbs*

Fresh parsley, finely chopped (optional)

*(whizz up some stale crusts in a food processor – top tip: keep a bag in the freezer so you never have to throw away stale bread)

Method

Wash the leeks well, and chop into chunks. Sauté in the butter for a couple of mins until just tender. Stir in the flour, and then add milk a little at a time until you have the consistency of double cream. Add grated cheddar and season with salt and pepper. Pour into an overproof dish.

Mix the breadcrumbs with chopped parsley, season and place on top of the leeks. Bake in a medium over for 10 minutes, or until breadcrumbs brown.

Leek & Bacon Pudding

Ingredients

125g / 5 oz wholewheat flour

1 ½ tsp baking powder

50g / 20z shredded suet

2 chopped leeks

3-4 rashers streaky bacon, chopped

1 tsp mixed fresh herbs or ½ tsp dried

I medium egg

Method

Mix together flour, baking powder, suet, leeks, bacon, herbs and season with salt and pepper.

Mix with egg, adding a little milk if necessary, to make a soft dropping consistency (so mixture drops off spoon when held aloft)

Grease a 600ml/1 pint pudding basin and put in a piece of greaseproof or parchment paper to just cover the bottom.

Put pudding mixture in basin. Cover with greaseproof paper and foil and tie with string.

Steam for 1 ½ hours. If you don’t have a steamer, place a saucer in the bottom of a large pan, and cover with boiling water. Place pudding on saucer and put lid on pan, topping up water when necessary.

Serve with parsley sauce.

Sue Reed writes for the Bridge Cottage Way

There are, of course, lots of other recipes for leeks – we love a leek risotto, or that old favourite, leek and potato soup.

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

Tomatoes – Late Summer Seasonal Eating

September 8, 2020/0 Comments/in The Bridge Cottage Kitchen/by Sue Reed

Tomatoes – late summer seasonal eating

It is September as I write, and the tomatoes will soon be gone for another year. Seasonal eating means that we embrace vegetables when the time comes, but then don’t eat them until the next season comes around. I wouldn’t thank you for a plastic tray of tomatoes, bought from a supermarket that has been grown in a plastic tent in miles from here. Once they’ve gone, we will wait until tomato season comes again for fresh tomatoes. We do, however, preserve our tomatoes in various ways, freezing passata, drying and pickling. I thought I’d share a few of our favourite recipes with you here. Feel free to add any more suggestions in the comments below.

homemade pizza

It has been a good year, with plenty of tomatoes in the greenhouse and growing outside along the south-facing wall of our conservatory. We grow a variety of tomatoes, some suited to specific purposes, like the San Marzano, which makes the best pizza sauce. If you’ve been following on social media, you’ll have heard about Tim’s fabulous pizza oven build, which was his lockdown project.

Portuguese tomatoes

These big plump tomatoes came from Portugal, where we were on holiday a couple of years ago. We’d stayed in an Air BnB in a village a few miles inland from the coast of the Algarve, and bought our veg from a lady in the local market. Her tomatoes were delicious. She told us she sold them, and her husband grew them on their smallholding. We spread some of the tomato seeds on a piece of kitchen roll and brought them home, dried. We may have been breaking import laws, I have no idea.

They’ve grown amazingly well up here in Northumberland, and have been great for making stuffed tomato recipes, of which I’ll now give you two: Evoke holiday memories of a Greek taverna with Greek Stuffed tomatoes and Lentil & Chorizo Stuffed Tomatoes.

Greek Rice-Stuffed Tomatoes (serves two as a main dish, or 4 as a starter)

Taken from Sainsbury’s Magazine

Greek Rice-Stuffed Tomatoes

Ingredients

4 Beef Tomatoes

3 tbsp olive oil

1 small onion, finely chopped,

150g long grain rice

1 tsp tomato pureé

2 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley

2 tbsp chopped dill

2 tbsp chopped mint leaves

Finely grated zest 1 lemon.

Method

Preheat the oven to 200°C, fan 180°C, gas 6. Cut the tops off the tomatoes and, using a teaspoon, carefully scoop out the soft pulp and seeds and transfer to a bowl. Put the tomato shells into a baking dish. Set aside the tops until ready to bake.
Heat 2 tbsps of the olive oil in a frying pan set over a low heat. Add the onion and fry for 10 minutes until softened, without allowing it to brown. Roughly chop any large pieces of tomato then add to the pan with the rice, tomato pureé and 100ml just-boiled water. Season with salt and pepper
Bring the mixture to the boil and continue to cook for 12 minutes, stirring often, until the rice is cooked, but still al dente. Remove from the heat and stir in the chopped flat-leaf parsley, dill, mint and grated lemon zest.
Fill the prepared tomato shells with the rice mixture and return the tops.
Drizzle with the remaining oil, cover with foil and bake in the preheated oven for 1 hour, until the rice is tender. Serve warm from the oven.

Chorizo and Lentil Stuffed Tomatoes (serves two as a main dish, or 4 as a starter)

Vegans leave off the mozzarella at the end, and omit the chorizo

Lentil and Chorizo Stuffed Tomatoes

Ingredients

4 Beef Tomatoes

3 tbsp olive oil

1 small onion, finely chopped,

75g chorizo, finely chopped,

125g puy, brown or green lentils, cooked and drained.

2tbsp flat-leaf parsley, chopped,

2 tbsp oregano, chopped

Method

Preheat the oven to 200°C, fan 180°C, gas 6. Cut the tops off the tomatoes and, using a teaspoon, carefully scoop out the soft pulp and seeds and transfer to a bowl. Put the tomato shells into a baking dish.
Heat 2 tbsps of the olive oil in a frying pan set over low heat. Add the onion and fry for 5 minutes then add the chorizo and fry for another 5 minutes.
Add the tomatoes, chopping any large lumps, lentils and herbs. Season with salt and pepper and cook for another 3-4 minutes.
Place tomato shells in an ovenproof dish and load the shells with the lentil stuffing.
Bake for 20 minutes or until the shells are soft with optional mozzarella on the top. If not using mozzarella, place the tops of the tomatoes cutaway in stage 1 to keep the moisture in.
Serve warm from the oven.

Homemade Passata

Chopped tomatoes, garlic, olive oil and oregano

A simple way of making bags of tomato sauce to freeze and use for pasta sauces, pizzas, or soups.

Simply cut tomatoes in half and place in a baking tray with cloves of garlic, seasonal herbs such as basil or oregano and give a good slug of olive oil . Mix everything with your hands, then bake in a moderate oven, around 180°C 350°F, gas mark 4 for around 20 mins, or until the edges of the skins are turning brown.

Cooked Tomatoes for Passata

Cool slightly then tip in a large jug or heatproof bowl and blend using a hand blender, taking care not to burn yourself.

If you want a totally smooth passata, without pips, then pass through a sieve, but we just blend everything to a fine pulp.

Once totally cool, bag up, and freeze. I find 4 ladlefuls is about the right amount in each bag. You’ll be so glad you went to the effort when winter comes, and it’s another thing less to have to buy from the supermarkets.

Oven-Dried Tomatoes

We’ve also attempted to make our own version of Sundried Tomatoes, and very delicious they are too! We simply laid halved cherry tomatoes on a wire rack and let them dry out slowly in a very cool oven overnight. Ours was the outdoor pizza oven after it had cooled right down. I guess if you were using a conventional oven, then you’d turn it on, heat it and then turn it off with the tomatoes still in – you’ll have to experiment!

Daisy helps Grandad make Cherry Tomato Bombs

Daisy has been helping Grandad to make ‘cherry tomato bombs’ (Rachel deThamples title, not mine – I’m a pacifist!!) – we got the book ‘Fermentation’ in the wonderful River Cottage series (you’ll hear me wax lyrical about this series on lots of occasions) and Tim has gone into overdrive on the fermentation front…..but I guess that’s a post for another time.

Saved tomato seed

Don’t forget to save your tomato seed for next year!

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.

Homemade Summer Fruit Ice-Cream

August 5, 2020/0 Comments/in The Bridge Cottage Kitchen/by Sue Reed

Homemade summer ice-cream

The taste of homemade summer ice-cream is amazing, and a firm favourite with our family. Making your own ice-cream is a great way to use your crops of soft fruit. There are no artificial additives, and you’ll be reducing your plastic consumption, and transport miles by making your own in a reusable tub.

We’ve pinched our daughter’s ice-cream maker and are hoping she won’t ask for it back. It’s a wonderful gadget, and once you get the hang of making your own ice-cream, using fresh fruit from the garden, there is no going back to the supermarket. There are plenty of recipes for ‘no-churn’ ice creams out there on the internet, so have a look down the Google tube if you don’t have an ice cream maker, or use this one from the people at Good Food, who suggest using condensed milk if you don’t have an ice-cream maker.

No Churn Vanilla Ice-Cream

The method we use here at Bridge Cottage is to make a basic vanilla ice-cream (see below), then pop it in the fridge overnight, along with a fruit purée, which can be strained through a sieve or not, depending on whether you want lumps or pips. In the morning, when both are chilly, take your ice-cream churn out of the freezer (I keep mine in there permanently, as it is so frustrating to go to make ice-cream and find the churning bowl is not frozen)

Vanilla Ice-Cream

284ml double cream

300ml whole milk

3 egg yolks

115g caster sugar

Bring the milk and cream just to the boil, then set aside.

Whisk the egg yolks and sugar until light in colour and fluffy.

Add a couple of tablespoons of the hot milk and cream to the egg mix to loosen, then pour it all back in the saucepan. Bring gently to the boil, stirring with a wooden spoon until it thickens and coats the back of the spoon. Take care not to over cook or your mixture will split.

If you are in a rush, cool rapidly by placing in a plastic jug, in a bowl of ice-cubes, but I prefer to put a plate over the top and pop it in the fridge overnight once cooled. You are then ready to add any flavourings or eat it just as it is. How about topping it with some Raspberry Fridge Jam?

Blackcurrant Swirl Ice-Cream

In the morning, or when you are ready to make your fruity ice-creams, churn the vanilla custard until thick, and then either pour in the fruit purée and let it all mix in, or swirl it once the vanilla ice cream is in the freezer container to make a ripple.

Freeze until solid, but the longest you leave it, you’ll find you may need to take it out of the freezer for ten mins before serving.

I’ll give specific recipes for three summer ice creams over on the recipes page:

Gooseberry and Elderflower Ice Cream

Raspberry Ice Cream

Blackcurrant Swirl Ice Cream

Homemade is definitely best, enjoy!

Raspberry Ice-Cream

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 below. 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.

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Grow Better Veg with Companion Planting

July 24, 2020/1 Comment/in The Bridge Cottage Garden, Uncategorized/by Sue Reed

Companion Planting – Courgette growing with calendula and borage.

Companion planting. Like us, plants have friends, and like us, they have are some they like more than others. For example, my potatoes love hanging out with horseradish but put the squashes right off their game.

Companion planting

We’ve known about companion planting for a while, and in the greenhouse, we take care to grow French Marigolds alongside the tomatoes. As well as looking very pretty, these attract the hoverflies, which much on aphids and other pests. Basil likes to be there too, but at a distance and prefers to stay in its pots.

Tomatoes and Marigolds. Companion Planting in the Greenhouse

We find it useful to start a few trays of calendulas, French marigold and nasturtiums off in the early spring, to pop in alongside beans, or in pots. Our courgettes are loving the companionship of borage and nasturtiums and are just coming into that prolific stage where you are scratching your head in the kitchen for some new inspiration with courgette recipes. The borage self-seeds from the year before – although strictly an annual, once you have borage in the garden, it won’t leave you.

Herb Society UK Companion Planting Poster

We follow the Herb Society UK on both Facebook and Instagram, and this year bought a very useful poster from them, which is pinned to the back of the potting shed door. It gives a long list of plants, their companions, and antagonists.

I’d been wondering why, out of six squashes planted, two had yellowing leaves and were failing to thrive….the answer may well be that potatoes are antagonists to squashes. It will be interesting to see if they pick up once the potatoes have been dug up. We could move them, but where to? The garden is full to bursting. We may well pop a borage plant in there, as I see from my poster that borage is a good companion plant to squash – goodness knows, the borage is doing really well, providing masses of edible blue flowers as well as material to go in the dustbin for making organic comfrey feed.

The onions are about to be lifted, and I see from our chart that carrots and beetroot both like onions, so it seems a good idea to pop in a few rows of late carrots and beetroot once they’ve been dug up. Although I’ll have to sneak in the beetroot – Tim thinks it’s the food of the devil – I disagree!

Next year, I’m looking forward to trialling the Three Sisters method of planting squash, beans and sweetcorn together – though whether there will be enough sun for sweetcorn in Northumberland remains to be seen.

I had a quick look on the internet for useful links and companion planting charts and have found a few, which I hope will be helpful to you.

Here are the links:

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

Tag Archive for: seasonal eating