Tabula Rasa

Tomato – San Marzano

What do you think of when you think of Italy? For me it is holiday memories, fields and fields of sunflowers, sitting on the edge of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Pompeii and Herculaneum and the most memorable part of the whole day (I’m almost embarrassed to say) was eating lunch in what I think was little more than a small garage with a wood fired pizza oven in the back which served the most amazing pizza Napolitano

Falafels

Falafel can easily be bought from the supermarket and you seem to be able to buy them in an increasing array of flavours from sweet potato to beetroot. Interesting as they may be, nothing beat the taste of freshly cooked hand-made falafel.

Slow cooked BBQ pork belly

Kung Hei Fat Choi everybody! Today is Chinese New Year. This year is the year of the pig so it is an ideal time to do a BBQ pork recipe.

Traveling around China and Vietnam we’ve eaten many pork related dishes. One of my favourites in Char Sui Bao which are a sweet steamed bun filled with char Sui pork. In Suzhou outside the “Humble Administrators” Garden we found some piggy shaped buns (helpful when you don’t speak the language) alongside some apples grown in the shape of Buddha.

Squash Marina Di Chioggia

Fans of this squash of a poetic nature will wax lyrical about its origins. After all who doesn’t find the idea of growing an heirloom variety, dating from the 1600’s from a small italian coastal fishing village on the Venice lagoon somewhat romantic?

Sweetcorn fritters with mango salsa

You may have heard of “Stoptober” and “Movember” but the buzz word this month is “Veganuary” where many people are become vegan for a month as a New Years resolution. I’m not a vegan or a vegetarian but I am trying to eat a mainly plant-based diet for most of the week, partly because I…

Cherokee Trail of Tears

I love growing heritage seeds, especially those which have a great history behind them and Cherokee Trail of Tears sure has a history behind it, although not one that you could call “great”. In the 1830’s, the US government forecebly marched over 40,000 Native Americans from their traditional homelands in the south east of the…

Cumin and Pumpkin Soda bread

Unless you have a large family if you are cooking a large pumpkin like Crown prince you will have a lot of left overs. A wonderful way to use them up is in baking and if you’ve cooked the squash for dinner the night before this soda bread recipe is quick enough to be served fresh with some butter the next morning for breakfast.

Roasted Pumpkin and Chorizo Soup

The weather is definitely on the turn. We had our first hard frost a few days ago and I’m typing this up in front of a roaring fire. On nights like this there is nothing as warming to body and soul as soup and crusty bread with lashings of butter.

Now is the season for British squashes and the allotment supplies plenty which are slowly ripening in the cool shed to be used over the next few months so Autumn and winter is an ideal time to use this seasonal vegatble.

King Oyster Mushrooms

As autumn takes hold, the nights draw in and the leaves start to fall from the tree, as if by magic, mushrooms small and large start to emerge, often what seems overnight. Find out how to grow the exquisite King Oyster Mushroom.

Singapore Noodles With Crispy Tofu

Over the last few months the chef Jamie Oliver has been the centre of a “cultural appropriation” twitter storm over his Jerk Rice. Slammed, firstly because the spices he uses are not traditional jerk seasoning and secondly no one in Jamaica would consider jerking rice at all. But Jamie is not the first.

Singapore noodles, spicy stir fried rice noodles, available in nearly every Chinese restaurant and take away in the UK Singaporeans would regard you with horror if you even suggested it.

Tomato Amish Paste

When compared to our continental cousins such as the French and Italians, American food often has a poor reputation in Europe, fairing even less well than my homeland of Britain. From chlorine washed chicken and genetically modified crops (both of which are banned in Europe) to the Macdonaldalisation of the world to the “Supersized” generation. However Amish paste is one supersized American import that is seriously worth looking at.

Garlic – Solent Wight

A long time ago the British were highly sceptical of garlic and very few would eat it, let alone grow it and you could buy olive oil but only in pharmacies for the treatment of ear problems. Then along came the cookery writer Elizabeth David

Chilli and Lime Sweetcorn

In August and September the fields around here are filled with maize. It’s perfectly possible to get disoriented walking through the giant stalks of ripening maize, rustling in the breeze. On the allotment you can’t get lost in my sweetcorn patch but the ripening sweetcorn is stunningly sweet, better than any you will buy in the shop and if you use it in this recipe you will find it a-maize-ing!

Tabbouleh

There aren’t many children in the UK lucky enough to grow up with quality Lebanese/Armenian food on their doorstep. I was one of the lucky ones and there are numerous stories of me as a small child refusing to eat something that my long suffering mother had cooked and instead “running away” to my best…

Hong Kong Omelet

I was made one of these omelets for the first time staying in a friends apartment in Hong Kong. I’m not always the humble eggs biggest fan, boiled egg yes, fried egg no. Poached maybe, cheese omelet no no no no no.

Garlic – Printanor

I find having to peel tiny garlic bulbs intensely frustrating and because our Midlands climate is not idea growing conditions for garlic, mine have a tendency to be on the small side. Therefore am always on the look out for a garlic bulb that produces large cloves despite our sometimes gloomy English climate.

Cucumber Granita

One of the joys of summer is Pimms or gin and tonic with slices of cucumber and limes. The cucumbers are doing really well in the allotment, so much so that I’ve been wondering what to do with the excess. so I began to play around with the idea of cucumber as a drink or…

Broad Bean – Field Bean Wizard

Field beans are usually sown by farmers as a winter green manure crop to provide stability for the soil and be a source of nitrogen and organic matter for the year ahead. They aren’t normally thought of for their culinary ability but this little beans might surprise you. If left to mature, field bean Wizard…

Grow Your Own Tea – Camellia Sinensis

What do you picture if someone asked you where tea grows? Is if the warm, humid hillsides of India where bushes are picked by women in brightly coloured Sari’s? Is it the misty hillsides of China where tea was probably first drunk. Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com Is it Cornwall or Scotland or in your…

Strawberry Manille

A strawberry that has Mara Des Bois and Gariguette, both highly reputed for flavour, in its heritage has a lot to live up to. Unfortunately for Manille, despite what the catalogues will tell you it is simply not in the same league. It lacks the intense flavour of both and on the sharp side if picked…

Roasted Vegetable Chilli

I first started playing around with a recipie for vegetable chilli when I found a tin of jackfruit in our local supermarket. Jackfruit is all the rage at the moment as a meat substitute as it has a texture similar to pulled pork and a mild taste so cit an be used in vegan pulled…

Tapas Padron Peppers

We first tried padron peppers over twenty years ago in a small restaurant on a keyside in Mallorca. I still remember my mothers excitement the first time she saw the peppers for sale in the UK nearly fifteen years later which goes to show just how much this very simple dish had stuck in our…

RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2018

Many of you will be watching the week long coverage of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show on the BBC all this week. This year was the first year I decided to brave the crowds to see it for myself and see how it compares to the other large flower shows around the country. The first…

Asparagus with hollandaise

“Most cookbooks assume that if the reader follows the recipe to the letter, they’ll get a dish right first time. This is so wrong. If you’re making hollandaise for the first time, you will, of course, screw it up” Or so said Anthony Bourdain who was Gordon Ramsey before Gordon Ramsey and much much worse. Making…

Asparagus

For most vegetable varieties grown by amateurs, choosing the wrong variety or growing them incorrectly causes only short term annoyance, easily remedied and a lesson learned for next year.

Not so with asparagus. If I were to say to you that building an asparagus bed takes as much effort as a planning a wedding I wouldn’t be far wrong.

Gigantes Plaki

Brits reading this site will remember the famous slogan “Beans means Heinz” and for over a hundred years we’ve been sitting down to baked beans on toast for breakfast or lunch, so much so we seem to have almost forgotten that baked beans are an American introduction.

Gigantes

My memories of Greek and Turkish holidays often revolve around foods that we ate. Especially wonderful were the meze, small plates of tasty bites to share.

Nộm Bò Khô – Dried Beef Salad

We first had this sitting on kindergarten sized chairs in a small street cafe in Hanoi old quarter with wail of mopeds horns buzzing by echoing in our ears. The place was so tiny that the owned produced only a handful of dishes, completely fresh, zingy and alongside the street bustle a wonderful assault on the senses.

Massamam Curry of Squash

Thai food is one of the most fragrant and vibrant cuisines. However most of the pastes and sauces that you can buy from supermarkets fall far short of the mark. Making Thai food from scratch produces something that will make you jump up and down with sheer delight with it’s aromatic, vivid and punchy flavours….

Mujaddara

I’ve seen almost as many ways to spell this dish as recipes. Mujaddara is a middle eastern grain and lentil dish with fried onions. It is an ancient dish dating back to at least 1,226 although folk law says that this is the dish that Jacob used to buy Esau’s birth right in Genesis.

Bánh xèo

I first made these in Hoian in a local cookery school where we made modest little pancakes which you wrapped with salad in rice papers. Imagine my surprise when ordering the same in Saigon and a supersized crepe the size of a small baby arrived.

Orange and White Tea

I started writing this post sitting in a wooden homestead by the side of the Mekong Delta in Vietnam surrounded by coconut groves.

Squash – Tromboncino

Opinion is divided about James Wong the Kew trained botanist, writer and broadcaster. James is famous for books covering how to grow unusual or extraordinary things or how to grow every day things in a slightly different way using cutting edge research.

Turnip – Purple Top Milan

Purple Top Milan is a heritage vegetable seed first developed in the 1880’s and still extremely popular. It has a slightly squat appearance but a wonderful pinky purple top fading to cream. It also has a good flavour.

Salad – Red Salad Bowl

Red Salad Bowl is an attractive loose leaved lettuce that you can cut and come again. It holds an AGM at the time of publishing.

Parsnip Gladiator F1

This is an absolute beast of a parsnip that lives up to it’s name. An RHS award winning parsnip at the time of publishing the roots when mature can get to a good 10 cm across and might win you a prize in the biggest parsnip competition.

Potato Mayan Gold

Sometimes a trendy vegetable comes along that everyone is talking about but often when you try it you are left a little bemused as to what all the fuss is about. This is not the case with Mayan Gold potatoes. These potatoes are a recent introduction bred from the Peruvian Phureja potatoes.

Pea – Alderman

Many years ago the cutting of pea sticks to provide support for tall growing peas was common place. The world wars, where labour was short and modern farming techniques has pretty much put paid to the growing of large pea varieties except for the home gardener.

Kale – Red Russian

Kale was one of a very few fresh vegetables available in the winter months. Perhaps for this reason, alongside the fact that many kales can be pretty tough and bitter once vegetables could be imported it fell heavily out of fashion.

Chop Suey Greens / Shungiku

If you are a keen gardener you are likely to come across James Wong. James is famous (notorious?) for introducing unusual vegetables to British gardens and kitchens. One of the plants he recommends is Shungiku, a tall and if you let it flower, quite a cheery Chrysanthemum.