Legacies

 

"I am a divine mosaic of everyone who has ever touched my heart." - Tumblr user drowhsy

When I was growing up, my Nanna and Granddad lived in the house next door to us. Nanna was a great cook, and every week she produced a selection of cakes for both households - including her famous fruitcake. To Nanna's eternal chagrin, it always sunk in the middle. She tried tweaking the recipe - adjusting the proportions of ingredients, experimenting with oven temperatures and trying 'hacks' such as tossing the dried fruit in flour before stirring it into the cake mix. Nothing worked - the fruitcakes continued to sink in the middle no matter what she did. But perversely, it was precisely this characteristic that made her fruitcake so beloved by everyone who tried it - the sunken middle made the cake scrumptiously moist and more-ish.  Isn't it strange that it's often the perceived imperfections which make a person or a thing so unique and beloved?      

Since I've been doing a lot more baking recently, I decided I'd like to make one of Nanna's fruitcakes myself and asked Mum for the recipe. She has lent me two books full of handwritten recipes, one which she began keeping when she married my Dad in 1960, and one that belonged to my Grandmother. I am so enjoying leafing through the pages re-discovering favourite recipes from my childhood. I particularly love the pages with lots of splashes and smudges - clearly the most popular, frequently made dishes. I pass my fingers over the familiar handwriting, imagining the family gatherings, dinner parties, birthdays and anniversaries - and the accumulated hours of peeling, chopping, stirring, mixing and baking that went into creating them. I think of the love for us all that was that was poured into each dish. What powerful magic!

Family recipes are just one of the many small but precious legacies that we receive from our loved ones - and that we ourselves can think about passing on to those who will follow on after us. Food, songs, stories, arts, crafts, lore, skills, culture, knowledge. What precious legacies have you inherited?  And what treasures do you have to pass on?

Winter Blessings and Beauties, Day 81: Crumpets!

 

"Mary Poppins sniffed. "Then why not say so at once!" she said snappily. She crossed to the window and waved her hand to summon the Crumpet Man.

  Downstairs the front gate opened quickly with its usual noisy squeak. The Crumpet Man ran up the path and knocked at the Back Door. He was sure of an order from Number Seventeen for all the Banks family were partial to crumpets."

- P.L. Travers, 'Mary Poppins Opens the Door'

We are drawing towards the close of Winter now, there are only a couple more weeks before Imbolc and I have just realised that I've thus far neglected to mention one of the great Winter delicacies - crumpets! Hot, buttered crumpets consumed by a cosy log fire are the very essence of hygge - and a favourite of Mary Poppins, to boot.  

Crumpets - for those not familiar with them - are a kind of soft, unsweetened griddle cake made from a batter containing yeast. They are best toasted and eaten hot, spread with plenty of butter - their spongy, open texture soaks up the butter as it melts. Delicious!

Winter Blessings and Beauties: Day 81

Crumpets!

While the Winter weather justifies it, treat yourself to some hot, toasted crumpets! Ready-made crumpets are easily available in the shops here in the UK, but if you fancy making your own, there are plenty of recipes to be found online, such as here.    

Winter Blessings and Beauties, Day 71: Marmalade Season

 

Seville oranges appear in the shops for a few short weeks starting in January, and that means it's marmalade season! Marmalade can be made from any of the citrus fruits, but the bitter Seville orange is the classic ingredient. 

I first became a fan of marmalade many years ago when I worked as a children's nanny. I found a slice of toast and marmalade was a far more 'portable' breakfast than a bowl of cereal - one that I could eat standing, sitting or running after my small charges! Since then I have found other ways to enjoy it - I particularly like it spread on slices of toasted brioche, where the bittersweet citrus of the marmalade contrasts beautifully with the slightly caramelised sweetness of the toasted brioche. Or I use it to add a twist to bread and butter pudding by spreading the slices of bread and butter with marmalade before assembling the dish. It also makes a fine ingredient for marinades and glazes for meat or vegetarian proteins like tofu or Quorn. Or how about a marmalade cake? Paddington would be proud of me. 

Winter Blessings and Beauties: Day 71

Marmalade Season

If you are able to find Seville oranges, make yourself some marmalade. Home made marmalade is a revelation if you are only used to the store-bought kind! If you can't find Sevilles, you can use sweet oranges, lemons, limes, grapefruit, clementines... or a combination. There are lots of recipes both for making marmalade and using it here, if you need some inspiration. Enjoy!

Winter Blessings and Beauties, Day 43: Warming Winter Breakfasts

I love breakfast - I often say that if I could only have one meal a day I would choose breakfast! This morning, as I wasn't working I made myself a warming breakfast of porridge with golden syrup, a glass of freshly-squeezed orange juice, and hazelnut coffee. It was a perfect start to a cold Winter day. It started me thinking about hot breakfasts and how they are among my favourite Winter pleasures.

One of the things I love about breakfast is its versatility - you can eat sweet things, savoury things, or a combination of both. You can have hot breakfasts, cold breakfasts, cooked breakfasts, cereals, toast, pastries, fruit smoothies, eggs, pancakes... 

Although I love breakfast I'm not especially keen on a full cooked breakfast - bacon, eggs, sausages, fried bread etc. The only times I eat that kind of breakfast is when I'm camping - or for lunch. It always makes me feel like a bit of a weirdo when  staying in a hotel or a B&B because I'm usually the only person who doesn't ask for a full cooked breakfast! It's most people's favourite kind of breakfast (although as it's a bit time-consuming to prepare in the morning it's usually reserved for weekends and holidays). But there's no denying that it's a great, warming start to the day in winter.

My personal choice is usually cereal of some kind, and as well as porridge there are other cereals that can be consumed with hot milk in Winter, such as Weetabix or Ready Brek. You can ring the changes by adding berries or dried fruit and nuts, sweeten if necessary with honey, maple or golden syrup, and add a little luxury with some cream. Or how about hot buttered toast with honey or marmalade, or croissants or pain au chocolat straight from the oven all deliciously hot and flaky? Then there are pancakes or banana pancakes, omelettes and boiled eggs. Another of my favourite warming breakfasts is apple and sultana compote, served hot with a swirl of Greek yogurt, a sprinkle of granola for crunch and an extra pinch of cinnamon for good measure.

For breakfast drinks - tea, coffee, juice, herbal tea, chai, hot chocolate?

Winter Blessings and Beauties: Day 43

Warming Winter Breakfasts

Set yourself up for the day by having breakfast each morning. Your body needs to be properly re-fuelled after a night's sleep. Make a list of warming Winter breakfasts that you enjoy, and use it for inspiration on those grey mornings when you're not quite sure what it is you fancy. Try different breakfast recipes to widen your repertoire and keep things interesting.

As you eat, think about how you are nourishing yourself and taking care of your body, and give thanks to the Earth for providing delicious food.       

Rosepetals, Radishes, Rain and Repose

June in lockdown. Life here at Halfway Up A Hill is slow-paced, quietly satisfying as we work in the garden and enjoy the unaccustomed luxury of plenty of time together. Just us, the cats, the chickens, the earth and sky. As you can see from the picture above, Mandrake has been fully embracing the tranquility. 

The garden is gloriously full of flowers, the air deliciously sweetened by roses and elderflowers, honeysuckle and meadowsweet. Everything is growing abundantly, nurtured by sun and rain.

Ah yes, the rain... it has been very enthusiastic at times. But we have had plenty of warm sunshine too, so our crops in the vegetable patch are coming along beautifully. I'm pretty sure I can see them growing by the minute.

Last night we ate this delicious salad of lettuce and mixed salad leaves, spring onions, radishes, snap peas and mangetouts. All home grown.

Mandrake reckons we're pretty lucky. I'd have to agree.

Further Adventures in Edibles

I have to admit it, I'm not the biggest fan of radishes. As a homegrown crop they do have their advantages though - mostly that they are about the quickest thing from which you can get a harvest (usually about 4 weeks from sowing to eating). For this reason they are great for introducing newcomers (and children) to the thrill of harvesting your own veggies, and I personally find them useful sown as a 'catch crop' between rows of slower growing plants to make the most use of the available space. 

Luckily for me, IB is a big radish fan who is happy to eat as many radishes as we can grow, so it all works out. He's so keen he even asked me whether we could add the leaves to a salad as well as the roots, but the coarseness and hairiness of the leaves is frankly pretty off-putting from a 'mouthfeel' perspective. As with nettles, cooking will take care of the prickly hairs, so you could eat them as a cooked vegetable or in soup. But the solution I found is so tasty that so far we haven't cooked a single radish leaf. Instead we have been eating Radish Leaf Pesto - absolutely delicious with a slice of IB's home made bread, still warm from the oven.

If you Google Radish Leaf Pesto, you will find many recipes. But here is my extremely adaptable 'whatever you have in the store cupboard' version.

Moonroot's Radish Leaf Pesto

Ingredients:

1-2 handfuls of radish leaves*

1 garlic clove

A handful of toasted nuts (almonds, cashews, pistachios etc) or seeds (pumpkin, sunflower etc) 

30g grated Parmesan or Grana Padano cheese**

Olive oil (or vegetable oil of your choice - it might be interesting to try a nutty-flavoured oil like sesame)

Generous squeeze of lemon juice

Pinch of salt

Method

Place radish leaves, garlic, nuts/seeds and cheese in bowl of food processor and whizz them together. Trickle in some olive oil and whizz the machine again. You'll probably need to keep stopping to scrape the mixture down towards the blades from the sides of the bowl. Add more oil if necessary to get the right consistency - but remember it's easy to add more if you need it but impossible to take it out if you add too much, so add a little at a time. When it's nearly there, squeeze in some lemon juice, and add salt to taste. Give it a final whizz and there you are. 

Enjoy with fresh bread, on toast or crackers, with vegetable crudites, on pasta...

According to all the Radish Leaf Pesto recipes online, it freezes really well. But I wouldn't know, it never lasts long enough round here to get frozen!

* If I don't have enough leaves from that day's radish harvest I keep them with their cut ends in a jar of water until I have harvested some more a couple of days later. And at times I have supplemented the radish leaves with any salad leaves that are starting to bolt - rocket, mizuna etc (in fact if you don't have any radish leaves you could use just salad leaves, as in Jack Monroe's excellent 'Salad Bag Pesto' recipe). Or you can adjust the quantities of the other ingredients too and just end up with a smaller amount of pesto!

** As IB is strictly vegetarian, Parmesan or Grana Padano are off the menu for us (both contain animal rennet). We use a vegetarian version of Parmesan when we have it (usually labelled something like 'vegetarian hard cheese' in supermarkets). During lockdown, as we didn't have any vegetarian Parmesan available I experimented by using a strong mature Cheddar instead. This is no doubt absolute heresy in foodie circles, but... it tasted fine. Different but fine. 

Adventures in Edibles

I'm finding one unexpected side-effect of being on lock-down is that my cooking is getting more adventurous. I think there are a variety of reasons for this. Firstly for once I have the time to experiment and try out new recipes. Secondly, we are trying to keep to a once-a-week shopping trip, and we are using smaller local shops rather than big supermarkets (as we assume the bigger shops will inevitably have higher footfall and hence more chance of coming into contact with the Coronavirus). The downside of this is that the smaller shops have a correspondingly smaller choice available, so I have to be inventive. We're also using a local supplier who obligingly delivers our fresh fruit & veg. Although I usually try to eat seasonally, shopping from someone offering mostly seasonal produce has made me realise how often I bend my own rules when confronted with a wider choice! Finally, the restrictions to what we are able to buy are leading to me digging out some of the more esoteric items lurking at the back of the larder. I am finally getting around to using the mushroom ketchup, bottled Datterini tomatoes and tinned jackfruit! In fact I highly recommend this recipe that I made from a tin of jackfruit the other night, it was delicious and will be definitely going on my 'make this again!' list. 

We've been foraging too of course, and have enjoyed a lot of nettles (in soup and other guises, including Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's Nettle Risotto with Sorrel), and Spring Herb Salad. I'm planning to gather and dry plenty of nettles while they're still young and tasty so that we can add them to soups and stews later in the year (we're also planning ahead by whipping the vegetable patch back into shape and planting lots of veggies to keep us well-fed in the coming months).

The other thing we've found is that with a restricted choice of food available it has become more important than ever to not waste anything, using every last bit of food. Here are a couple of my favourite 'use every last bit' recipes that I've been employing recently. In fact I had the first for breakfast this morning.

Banana Pancakes

I don't know about you, but I'm not fond of over-ripe bananas. But luckily they do make great cakes, or even simpler, banana pancakes. Luckily because of the chickens we always have fresh eggs, so this is my favourite easy way to use up past-it bananas. Most recipes say to use a ratio of 1 banana to 2 eggs, but to be honest because both bananas and eggs vary in size there is wiggle room here. This morning I made them with 1 banana to 1 egg, which yielded two pancakes. 

Ingredients  
Banana(s)
Egg(s)
Butter
Cooking oil
Cinnamon (optional)

Method
Peel the bananas and mash them together with the eggs. In a non-stick frying pan melt a knob of butter and a little oil (I like the flavour of the butter and if you use a little oil too it raises the smoking point of the butter and avoids a burnt flavour. But you could use just oil if you prefer). When the pan is hot, add a small ladle-full of the banana/egg mixture. It's better to cook it in small amounts as this makes turning the pancakes easier. After a minute or two when the pancake has firmed a bit, lift the edge with a spatula or fish slice to check if it's browned. If it has, and it's firm enough, slide your spatula underneath and turn it over to cook the other side. Slide onto a serving plate, sprinkle with a little ground cinnamon (if liked) and enjoy hot, while the next pancake is cooking. You could experiment by adding ingredients like chocolate chips or raisins to the mixture or serve with a smear of Nutella or a drizzle of maple syrup. 

Marinated Broccoli Stems
I love broccoli and will happily cook and eat the stems too, but IB isn't keen on them so I have started using them up this way, which I discovered in a vegetarian cookery book by Martha Rose Shulman way back in the 80's. 

Ingredients
Broccoli stems
Salt
Balsamic Vinegar
Olive Oil
Garlic

Method
Trim and peel the broccoli stems (this will get rid of any stringy bits) and slice them into rounds about ½cm thick. Put into a lidded container (I use an old jam jar) and sprinkle with salt. Put the lid on, shake well and put into the fridge overnight, or for at least a couple of hours. The next morning, drain off the brine that will have accumulated and rinse under the tap. Return to the jar and add 1tbspn olive oil, 1tbspn balsamic vinegar and a crushed garlic clove. Shake the jar well again and leave to marinate for at least a couple of hours before serving. They're a great addition to a salad or as something to nibble. 

I'll post more gourmet left-over ideas as I think of them!



   

Snarling Lions and Stinging Nettles

"If March comes in like a lion, it will go out like a lamb" - traditional weather prediction

March this year has definitely come in like a lion. With Storm Freya snarling outside, we are content to cwtch up at home today. Snug in my cosy sheepskin boots and an oversized slouchy jumper, I've been pottering around the house catching up on chores and making soup. Yes, it's definitely a soup kind of day - but it's not just the weather that inspired me. As spring arrives, so do the first new nettles of the year and soup is a great way to make use of them.

Nettles have a long association with people. The plants tend to prefer nitrogen-rich soils, so often thrive where human activities have enriched the soil. They appear in such folk tales as The Twelve Wild Swans, where the heroine has to make shirts from nettle fibres to release her brothers from an enchantment. The story reflects the fact that nettle fibres were often used to make a linen-like fabric in the past. They have long been an important food source, and to this day are a great free food for foragers, being a plentiful weed in most locations. They're also full of vitamins and minerals (including beta carotene, vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin K, calcium, iron, phosphorus and potassium) and were traditionally eaten as a spring tonic. 

If you haven't cooked with nettles before, rest assured that cooking them completely removes their sting. You will need gloves to pick and prepare them though - I usually wear rubber gloves and use a pair of scissors. Choose nettles from a spot away from traffic, and concentrate on picking tender young tops as the stalks can be stringy. Rinse them thoroughly in cold water before use. Like spinach, they will reduce right down in volume once they're cooked.

If you fancy giving it a try, here's my nettle soup recipe:

Ingredients:

1 onion, finely chopped

2 potatoes cut into small dice

1 carrot, chopped

1 small leek, chopped (optional)

a colander-full of young nettle tops

vegetable stock

single cream 

1 tbspn olive oil

a knob of butter

fresh parsley, chopped

salt and black pepper to season

Method:

Gently fry the onion in the oil and butter until soft and translucent. Add the potatoes, carrot, nettles and leek if you're using it. Stir well and cover with the vegetable stock. Bring to the boil and then reduce to a simmer, stirring occasionally until the vegetables are tender. Add the parsley towards the end of cooking. Remove the soup from the heat and using a blender, reduce it to a smooth consistency. Check the seasoning and adjust if necessary, and swirl through the cream before serving.

Serve with crusty bread - enjoy! 

January Tree of Life

There was no December issue of Pagan Pages e-magazine due to technical problems, but the January issue is now online. You can read my latest 'Tree of Life' column for Pagan Pages here.

Contentment

Lazy lie-in, snuggled with IB and a bed full of purring cats.

Warm brioche rolls and a steaming mug of coffee.

A long, luxurious soak in the bath.

Out into a mild spring day full of birdsong and gentle breezes.

A day of simple pleasures.

A Tale of Two Turnovers

Driving home from work today, I was ravenous, not having had time for lunch. On a whim, I stopped by the local shop. I had an insistent, out of the blue craving for a fresh cream apple turnover.

More than 25 years ago, I was backpacking around New Zealand. I had spent a few days in Rotorua, sightseeing the geysers and thermal pools. My trip - which had already taken me to Hong Kong, Malaysia and Australia - was nearing its end and money was becoming tight. Waiting for the bus to take me back towards Auckland, I hadn't eaten any breakfast and was starving. There was a bakery just by the bus stop, and through the window I glimpsed a tray of fresh cream apple turnovers. My stomach growled and my resolve to save money by not eating  until lunchtime crumbled. I bought one, and stood at the bus stop enjoying every glorious mouthful. It is amazing how much better food tastes when you are really, really hungry. It was just a simple pastry, but the memory of that turnover has stayed in my mind when memories of other, far grander meals have long since faded into oblivion.

I was musing on this today as I made my way to the chiller cabinet, where rows of eclairs, doughnuts and cream slices were displayed. And one - just one - fresh cream apple turnover. I had heard it calling my name!

I carried my prize back to the car. There, in the sunny car park, unembarrassed by the glances of other shoppers, I savoured every last bite. It's quite impossible to eat a fresh cream apple turnover without making a mess. Icing sugar powdering my nose, flakes of pastry on my shirt, sticky fingered, I licked my lips, enjoying it every bit as much as that other treat, long ago and far, far away. Different, but the same. Simple, but so, so delicious.

Sometimes the small pleasures in life achieve true greatness. This was just such an occasion.

ThriftWitch: Summer in Winter

Summer is slipping away. Already the days are shorter and there is a tinge of autumn in the air. Wouldn't you love to be able to capture and bottle the essence of summer to be kept for a cheering treat in the midst of the darkest winter days? Well, you can. Summer has not deserted us yet, and there is still time to capture some of her magic...

My first suggestion is to make and freeze some batches of a fresh tomato sauce. The taste of this sauce is like preserved summer sunshine. The tart sweetness of tomatoes, the fragrance of herbs - yum! It's so much better than anything you can produce with tinned tomatoes. Hopefully, you will have some homegrown tomatoes you can use, or failing that you could chat up a gardening friend, seek out a roadside 'honesty' stall, visit your local farmer's market, or even try your plain old ordinary market at the end of the day where you may be lucky to pick up a crateful of ripe tomatoes on the cheap. If all else fails, there's the supermarket!

Fresh Tomato Sauce

Ingredients:

• Fresh tomatoes
• A few cloves of garlic
• A splash of olive oil
• A knob of butter
• Herbs - preferably fresh. You can choose the herbs you like for this, but personally I go for basil, thyme and a bay leaf or two. And possibly some oregano.

Method:

Skin the tomatoes by placing them whole in a large bowl and pouring boiling water over them. Leave for a couple of minutes, during which you can fry up the minced garlic over a low heat in the oil and butter. Meanwhile the boiling water should have started to split the skins of the tomatoes, and they should be easy to peel. Peel them and plop them in with the frying garlic, turning the heat up a little. They should gradually start to break down (you can help the process along with a potato masher or wooden spoon if you like). Chop the herbs and add to the pan and leave the whole lot to simmer for a while until it's reduced and thickened a bit. At this stage you could be stirring in some wishes and blessings for the coming winter if you like. And you're done! You can add seasoning if you want, but quite honestly I find this recipe so tasty I don't think it needs it.

Freeze the sauce in batches. It is delicious just as it is, over pasta with a grating of Parmesan or the cheese of your choice. Or you can dilute it with a little stock, whizz it through the food processor to make it really smooth, add a dollop of cream and make a tasty soup to serve with garlic bread. Or use it as a base for all sorts of other recipes like chili or ratatouille, or add it to the mince of a shepherd's pie for extra zip. But for a real taste of summer in winter, trust me: as it is, over pasta, with a little cheese. You will be transported back to mid-August as if by magic!

Another magical recipe to transport you back to summer is my Strawberry Crumble. Although it seems a crime to freeze strawberries rather than just enjoying them fresh, trust me on this: in the middle of winter you'll be glad you showed some restraint and put a few by. Actually, if you grow strawberries or go to a Pick Your Own for them, you will know there are always some imperfect strawberries - too hard, just under ripe or over ripe, weird shapes or whatever. Those are perfect to freeze - and they'll taste fabulous in this recipe no matter what they looked like originally! And by the way, rose water brings out the flavour of strawberries beautifully in any dish. Try it.

Moonroot's Strawberry Crumble

Ingredients:

• 225g strawberries, fresh or frozen
• 3 tspn sugar
• 1 tbspn rose water
• 65g flour
• 30g sugar
• 35g butter
• 2 tspn ground almonds
• 1 tspn vanilla essence

 Method:

Mix together the strawberries, 3 tspn sugar and the rosewater in an ovenproof dish.

Mix together the flour & 30g sugar and rub in the butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the ground almonds and vanilla essence.

Sprinkle the crumble mixture over the berries and cook at 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 for 20-30 mins (until berries are cooked and topping is browned). Serve with cream or vanilla custard.

I think this would be a great Valentine's Day dish - strawberries, rose water, vanilla would all be perfect offerings to Aphrodite (if you can bear to leave a little in a dish for Her!).

Of course there are many other ways of preserving summer into winter - perhaps I'll post about making fruit liqueurs in the near future. There are plenty of damsons, sloes and blackberries coming along in the garden and I have great plans...

ThriftWitch: The Pleasures of Foraging - Spring Herb Salad

What could be more pleasurable on a mild spring day than wandering out in the garden to find something yummy to eat? The veggie patch may not yet have much to offer this early in the year, but it is still possible to put together a delicious salad by foraging for ingredients not only in the vegetable beds but also the herb garden, flower beds and the wild places.

Today's lunch consisted of mushroom, onion & cheese omelette (home produced eggs and onions) and a foraged Spring Herb Salad. The ingredients of this salad change every time I make it, because it all depends on what I can find. Today it consisted mostly of lamb's lettuce (aka corn salad) from the veggie patch, supplemented with tender young garlic mustard leaves (wild foraged), primrose and lungwort flowers (flower beds) and tender young sprigs of oregano, lemon balm and lemon thyme (herb garden). Other excellent ingredients used in previous salads have included chickweed, hairy bittercress (much nicer than it sounds - a bit like rocket), violet flowers and leaves, oriental salad leaves, fennel leaves, blanched dandelion leaves, cowslip flowers, ramsons, sorrel leaves - you get the picture. Of course later in the year, Summer Herb Salads have a far greater range of ingredients available, and it is lovely to experiment with flowers like day lilies, nasturtiums and calendula.

If you are sure of your plant knowledge, go ahead and experiment! If you are a little uncertain, a good book is Richard Mabey's classic 'Food for Free' which is enough to inspire even novice foragers with confidence, or Ken Fern's adventurous 'Plants for a Future'.

The key to a great Herb Salad is to ensure the bulk of the salad is composed of the milder flavoured leaves like lambs lettuce, chickweed, and violet leaves, and the stronger flavours like fennel, oregano, lemon balm and sorrel are used sparingly. Most flowers are bland in taste, but they do make it look pretty!

You can either serve the salad as is or add your favourite dressing. This is my favourite salad dressing:

Moonroot's Sesame and Garlic Salad Dressing
Mix 2 tbspn sesame oil with 1 tbspn balsamic vinegar. Add a pinch of sugar, a dash of soy sauce, a finely minced garlic clove and about quarter of a teaspoon of your favourite mustard. Stir until the mixture has emulsified, spoon it over your salad leaves and toss them in the mixture. Serve immediately.
Yum.

Good foraging!

ThriftWitch: The Magic of Soup

Following my last post, my friend Harlequin asked if I would be writing about the magical uses of soup. I hadn't planned to, but his question got me thinking...

The first thought that sprang to mind was the choice of ingredients. You could choose the ingredients of your soup according to the energies you wish to induce in yourself and your fellow diners. You could for example choose earthy, grounding ingredients like root vegetables and tubers - carrots, turnips, swede, parsnips, potatoes, beetroot or Jerusalem artichokes (though you may wish to take Jafion's advice from the comments on my last post if you choose these!) - to make a 'grounding' soup. This could be a useful dish following a very trance-y ritual or demanding pathworking or spellworking. On the other hand, a light, spicy soup featuring ginger, chili, paprika etc could be used to increase energy levels. Or how about a healing soup, rich in fresh green veggies, garlic and herbs?

Your choice of herbs could be made according to their magical properties. For example thyme is ruled by Venus, so you may wish to include it as an ingredient for the soup you'll eat with your lover, or as part of your Valentine's Day meal.

You could also tailor ingredients according to what is being celebrated at the time of year. I think a creamy, pale coloured soup like curried parsnip or leek and potato would be ideal for Imbolc, and your Lammas soup could contain seasonal ingredients like tomatoes, along with barley and a sprinkling of poppy seeds to celebrate the grain harvest. It goes without saying that the obvious dish for Samhain is pumpkin soup!

There is also the intent that goes into creating the soup. Chop and prepare the ingredients mindfully, giving thanks for the abundance that feeds you. Meditate on that which you wish to increase or bring into your life whilst stirring the pot deosil (clockwise, the direction of the sun in the sky - in the Northern Hemisphere anyway - the direction of growth), or stir widdershins (anticlockwise) whilst meditating on that which you wish to banish (say, illness - or excess weight!). Say a few words of thanks - silent or aloud - before eating.

In my family, we all used to take turns stirring our wishes into the Christmas Pudding during its preparation. This idea works with many dishes, including soup! So if the soup is to be made for a group gathering or celebration, each person could take a turn stirring the pot and adding a few words of blessing for the group over it. That would be a potent brew!

For me, one of the 'magical' aspects of cooking is the way ingredients come together synergistically, creating something which is more than the sum of its parts. I kind of touched on that idea in this post. Soup is an especially good metaphor for this kind of magic given the diversity of ingredients and the way they blend together (particularly in a cream soup).

Finally, when you have finished your magical meal, what about a spot of divination? It was Reya who first taught me soup bowl divination - thank you Reya! After your meal, gaze into your soup bowl. Rather like reading the tea leaves, you should find that the patterns left behind by the interaction of spoon and soup dregs (with a little squinting) resolve themselves into symbols that can be interpreted as you see fit. Like most forms of divination, it's often easier to read for another than for yourself. And of course, it goes without saying that deliberate manipulation of soup dregs is cheating!

Happy soup making!

ThriftWitch: In Praise of Soup

My reluctance to throw away anything potentially useful extends to leftover food. Yesterday's leftover mashed potato can become the topping for today's shepherd's pie, or the basis for bubble and squeak. Leftover baked beans get chucked into a chilli. Bruised or over-ripe bananas make a great cake. When the local council finally got around to providing us with a 'food waste' bin to put leftover food in for recycling, I was at a bit of a loss. I wanted to support the recycling initiative, but the fact is, I don't have any food waste. Between re-using leftovers myself, the compost heap, the cats, the chickens and the bird table, there is nothing left for the council to recycle. At the moment, the bin sits forlornly outside the back door with a pot of herbs perched on it. I expect sooner or later I'll find a use for it...

In the meantime, one of my favourite uses for food leftovers is soup. Ah, soup! Thrifty, warming, soothing, comforting! The perfect cold weather food. Here is my basic ThriftWitch soup recipe which can be adapted to which ever leftovers you have to hand.

Fry up some chopped onions and garlic in a little olive oil and butter until they are soft. For a spicy soup (optional), throw in your spices of choice (e.g. cumin [ground or seeds], curry powder, chilli, paprika, turmeric - whatever you like the taste of) and fry briefly. Put in your leftover veggies and/or meat, stir well and cover in stock (I use vegetable stock as IB is vegetarian and I'm not a big fan of meat in soups, but your choice of stock is up to you). You can use stock cubes for convenience, or make your own stock*. You can add additional veggies at this stage - carrots, celery, leeks, turnips etc are good additions. Add extra potatoes if you like a thick, hearty soup. Or lentils, or barley, or any other pulses you may have to hand. Soup is a great way to use up pumpkin-inners after your carving efforts at Samhain (I like to make a spicy pumpkin and tomato soup with warming spices like cumin, chilli and ginger as I find pumpkin a bit bland)! You can experiment at this stage with herbs too**. Bring to the boil and then simmer until all is tender and you're hungry. Taste and adjust seasoning - salt, pepper, spices. At this stage I often blend the soup in the food processor, as I prefer a smooth, creamy textured soup. As a final touch, you can swirl in some cream or a dollop of yoghurt. And voila. It really is that easy. And cheap. And it will taste way better than any soup out of a tin.

* Basic vegetable stock recipe - simmer onions, garlic (if liked), carrots, celery, leeks and a bay leaf or two in water. Season. Strain. Use immediately or freeze in batches for future use. If you want a meaty stock you can add the leftovers of your roast chicken (including the bones), or a ham bone, or whatever.

** As a rough guide, basil, thyme, oregano, marjoram etc go well with Mediterranean type ingredients (tomatoes, peppers, aubergines). I like curry spices (including garam masala) with creamy parsnip soup. Rosemary and garlic would be nice with a chicken soup. Fennel is traditionally used with fish. Thai spices (red curry paste, lemongrass, coriander etc) would be good with a light vegetable and noodle consomme. Savory is traditionally used with beans. But don't forget to experiment - that's half the fun. The key is to add a little first, stir and taste. Then you can add more if necessary. It is easier to add flavours than to take them away!


Troubleshooting soup tips:
If it's too salty, add a chopped potato or two. As they cook, they'll absorb some of the salt. You can also add extra water.
If it's too spicy, add some creamed coconut or some yoghurt, milk or cream.
If it seems to lack 'oomph' or tastes a bit bland, some good extra additions include a splash of soy sauce, or tabasco, or wine, or a squirt of tomato puree. Or maybe an extra stock cube (though this will increase the saltiness too).
Try not to overdo it with strong tasting ingredients such as parsnips, unless you want them to be the main flavour - if you're aiming for a mixed vegetable soup, too many parsnips could overwhelm more subtle flavours.
If you plan to add cream or yoghurt, wait until the end of cooking when the soup has been taken off the heat, or it may curdle.

Strawberries and Cream

My head said, "You can't eat strawberries and cream for breakfast!" as I searched the fridge for inspiration this morning. "Be sensible. You always eat something low fat, high fibre, low sugar for breakfast."

***

My head said, "You can't start a new relationship. You're just on the rebound. You aren't even properly divorced yet."

and few weeks later,

"You can't be in love. It's too soon. It's not safe. You're too old. It's too late."

***

I smiled.

Sometimes my head doesn't know the whole story. Or even the half of it.

But my heart does.

***

This morning I ate strawberries and cream for breakfast.

They were sweet and juicy and delicious, and my head had to admit that sometimes my heart knows best.

***

One Sweet Blog Award

And my final blog catch-up...

Thank you so much to Lee at Solstice Dreamer for nominating me for this award. I'm late picking up on it but hugely grateful!

I have to list seven things in a number of different categories.

7 things to do before I die

1. Watch a tennis match at Wimbledon
2. See the Rubinoos live
3. Learn to crochet
4. Get Herbert to let me stroke him (he now comes in the house to visit but is still too wary to let me get close enough to touch)
5. Visit the amazing Goddess temples in Malta
6. Write and publish a book
7. Plant more trees

7 things I do now

1. Sing along with the radio
2. Luxuriate in the bath
3. Make jam
4. Blow a kiss to the New Moon when I first see Her
5. Make my own compost
6. Make soup
7. Enjoy Sudoku

7 things I can't do

1. Play a musical instrument
2. Tango
3. Make a souffle
4. Abide Jeremy Clarkson
5. Ice skate
6. Sneeze quietly
7. Understand cricket

7 things I find attractive in the opposite sex

1. Kindness
2. Nice eyes
3. A sense of humour
4. Intelligence
5. A social conscience
6. A nice smile
7. Honesty

7 things I say most often

1. "S***!"
2. "C'mon girls!" (to the cats)
3. "Take care!" (when parting from someone or finishing up a telephone call)
4. A vast selection of expletives other than "s***!" - I am someone who does believe in swearing
5. "D'you know what I mean?"
6. "Brilliant!!!!"
7. "Hiya!"

7 celebs I most admire

1. Joss Whedon
2. Bruce Springsteen
3. Maya Angelou
4. Stephen Fry
5. Susan Sarandon
6. Errr....

7 favourite foods

1. Prawns
2. Spaghetti & home made tomato sauce
3. Cashew Nuts
4. Moules Mariniere with crusty bread
5. Chocolate
6. Hot Bakewell Tart & Cream at the Owl & the Pussycat Tearooms in Laugharne, Carmarthenshire
7. Lemon tart or my Mum's Lemon Flummery (like a tangy lemon mousse - to die for!)

As I've already done a lot of nominating in the last couple of posts, for this one I'm going to just say I nominate everyone on my 'Family, Friends and Favourites' blog roll, and if you read this and would like to join in - well, consider yourself nominated too!

Yum!

The elderflowers are now in full (if rather late) bloom, and yesterday I picked plenty to make elderflower cordial (recipe here). I was especially pleased that our little potted lemon trees had some lemons that I could use. When I told T what I was doing, he begged me to make some elderflower champagne too, which he'd seen Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall making recently on the latest River Cottage TV series. I'm a little wary of elderflower champagne as it has a reputation for resuming fermentation once bottled with explosive results (one recipe I consulted rather worryingly advised 'always put bottles which contain sparkling wine in cardboard boxes so as to minimise the danger of flying glass'). Still, Hugh F-W's recipe (scroll down - it's almost at the bottom of the page) seems to indicate it can be drunk pretty quickly after bottling, unlike most home-made wines. And with my birthday coming soon and visitors due to help celebrate, hopefully it won't be in the bottles long enough for any catastrophic eruptions.

The kitchen now smells deliciously of blossoms and citrus. As we seem to have a bumper crop of flowers this year, perhaps I could devise an elderflower and lemon pot pourri too?

Raindrops on Roses and Whiskers on Kittens...

Although I'm a girl of simple tastes, once in a while isn't it nice to enjoy a little luxury?


The thing I've come to realise over the years is that the key to a true luxury is keeping it a special once in a while thing. For example, every Christmas Eve, T and I enjoy what we call our 'feast'. We prepare a spread of special luxury foods that we rarely eat the rest of the year round (and certainly not all at once!) - smoked salmon, caviar, avocado & king prawn salad, crusty french bread, oysters (fresh & smoked) etc., all washed down with champagne and followed by a wickedly tempting dessert. We have maintained this tradition for 22 years now, ever since our first Christmas together. As far as I remember, we haven't missed a year - but it has been a strictly once a year thing. And for that reason it has stayed special, something we can look forward to and really enjoy without it becoming stale or boring. Dining on these foods all the time would rob the event of its magic - as well as being prohibitively expensive!


Recently I've been thinking about the little luxuries I enjoy and how keeping them as luxuries really makes them that much more enjoyable. Because of this, they never fail to put a smile in my heart. Here, in no particular order, are a few of my favourite things:

• My subscription to 'Sagewoman' magazine. Sagewoman is an American magazine which is hard to find here in the UK. So I have a subscription and once every quarter a lovely thick, glossy new copy plops through the letter box and I find some me time to sit and enjoy every last delicious morsel of it.
• My special coffee mug. This is a mug I found in a charity shop and just fell in love with. It's a handmade earthenware one, and whilst this gives it a rustic solidity, at the same time its graceful curves and pretty speckled glaze lend it an air of delicacy. This is my special mug, not used for day to day cups of tea and instant coffee. No, this is the mug I use when I have time to make proper coffee (sometimes vanilla coffee, or hazelnut coffee if I'm feeling really decadent!), with plenty of boiled milk - homemade latte, I suppose. Yum!
• Although I can't often justify the time or the amount of hot water involved, I simply adore a long bath scented with something gorgeous from Lush. I often say I haven't yet found one of their products I don't like, so any of their bath bombs, bath melts or bubble bars fits the bill.
• A bag of Whittard's chocolate covered cappuccino coffee beans - bitter, sweet, crunchy - scrummy!
• 'Nest therapy'. This is the term I coined for some serious relaxation, when I'm absolutely exhausted and need to self-nurture. I simply pile up every pillow, cushion, blanket, duvet and eiderdown I can find, grab a stack of favourite reading material and a drink (perhaps cocoa if it's cold or home made lemonade if it's hot), and snuggle into my 'nest'.* I read if I want to, or snooze if even that's too much trouble! Nest therapy is cosy in winter and simply divine under a shady tree on the lawn in the middle of summer.

What are a few of your favourite things, your magical little luxuries? Do leave a comment letting me know!

* White peacocks are, of course, optional.

Giles London

If, like me, you find most newspaper restaurant reviews both pretentious and London-centric, then I recommend you check out this hilarious new blog: http://gileslondon.blogspot.com/.

I suggested a venue for Giles to check out for his blog and he has done a magnificent job of reviewing it. Bravo, sir!