Tag: organic food

and the winner is…

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Big congratulations to one of our FB friends Alethea Mifsud! Your name was first out of the woolly hat and you’ve bagged yourself a copy of our new cookbook, ‘Superfood Breakfasts’. Yay!

Thanks to everyone for your lovely comments and don’t fret if you didn’t win – the book is now available in bookshops and online, plus I’ll be sharing a few sneaky-peek recipes on my blog over the next few weeks, like these Avocado, Nori & Nut Cream Toasts on homemade Quinoa Superseed Loaf! I hope you find some breakfast inspiration to kickstart your days… xx

Chickpea & Celeriac Fish Pie

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A very tasty and simple fish pie with a difference! We’ve swapped traditional potato mash for a healthier and infinitely more colourful combination of celeriac, sweet potato and carrots. Adding chickpeas ups the protein and gives you the chance to make a gluten-free béchamel sauce! For a speedy meal, you could prepare the pie in advance and simply bung it in the oven when you get home. Perfect…

Fish is such a simple way to load up on essential nutrients and omega oils, but make sure it’s responsibly sourced. We use our local fishmonger and completely trust that everything they sell is top-notch in taste, freshness and ethics, which means we enjoy our fish pie even more. Yum!

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‘G’ is for Garlic

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We love garlic and use it pretty much every day in the kitchen, so ‘G’ just had to be garlic in our ‘Allotment A-Z’. Last year we had great success with some very tasty garlic called Spanish Roja (an over-winter hardneck variety that packs a huge flavour punch), so we decided to grow it again this year!

We saved some bulbs and planted out the biggest cloves last autumn and now, here we are in spring, and the garlic is looking good. I’m loving the great circle of life…

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Apple & Beetroot Porridge

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I love beetroots! They’re so easy to grow and are a totally gorgeous colour. We’ve been experimenting with beetroot in our breakfast porridge and this is the result. ‘Ta da’… delicious pink porridge!

I used organic beetroot powder for this one, but have also made it with fresh beetroot juice and both work really well. We all skipped out the door this morning. Yum…

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‘F’ is for French Bean

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french bean creature

Not only do they taste great, French Beans also make a brilliant fruit & veg ‘creature’ for the local village show! They were one of the first things we grew on our allotment and remain one of our superstar favourites – there really was no competition when it came to choosing ‘F’ for our ‘Allotment A-Z’. We love French Beans!

There are loads of fabulous ways to use these beans in your kitchen –  delicious raw in a salad or dipped in houmous, lightly steamed on the side, baked in a slow-cooked stew or juiced for breakfast, the versatile french bean is also a doddle to grow. We’ve grown green ones, yellow ones, mottled ones and a gorgeous purple one that looks amazing, tastes great and stores well. Can’t ask for more than that!

‘F’ is for the fantastically flavoursome French Bean…

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Raw Tropical ‘Cheesecake’

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raw tropical cheesecake

A friend asked me to create a banana-free ‘cheesecake’ for those that don’t do bananas… so here it is! Just as yummy and just as good for you with a little tropical twist and not a banana in sight. Dairy free, gluten free and with no refined sugars, this is the perfect guilt-free pud that won’t give you or the children a sugar-rush before bed. Yay!

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‘E’ is for Elder

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Creative Commons Photo Credit: Jean Mottershead

I hope you don’t think I’m cheating by including something in our ‘Allotment A-Z’ that doesn’t actually grow on our allotment, although it does grow just beside our allotment fence! I thought about ‘eggplant’ (aubergine here in the UK) and endive, but I honestly find our elder tree more useful than both those crops, so here we are…

The elder tree or shrub is one of my absolute foraging favourites and can be found growing pretty much anywhere in the UK. It has distinctive frothy ‘sprays’ of creamy-white flowerheads in spring and bunches of dark purple-black berries in autumn. Both the flowers and the berries are brilliantly useful in the kitchen.

‘E’ is most definitely for Elder…

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Cashew & Banana Oatmeal

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This breakfast certainly put an extra spring in our step this morning! A little bowl of creamy yumminess with a big nutrient boost – oats will keep you feeling fuller for longer, blueberries are packed with antioxidants, banana has loads of potassium, cashews and nut milk for protein and cacao nibs for extra crunch and ‘zing’! Yay…

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‘D’ is for Dill

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This was a tricky one! We don’t grow damsons, daikon or dragonfruit on our allotment. We grow lots of daisies, docks and dandelions and seriously considered ‘D for dandelion’ (so tasty in spring salads), but in the end it was the dainty and delicious dill that got the honour of being included in our A-Z of favourite allotment fruit and veg. Hooray!

We grow dill as a companion plant and edible herb – its fresh, zesty flavour and versatile seeds make it a brilliant addition to salads, soups and chutneys and an excellent defence against caterpillars! It’s well worth saving a space in your garden for a lovely little patch of dill…

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The Smokery

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Last week was school half-term and an opportunity to get stuck into some really fun projects with the children, like making this smoke-box for our cheese! I’ve always loved the taste of a good smoked cheese, so it was exciting to see how this turned out.

We got some beautiful cheeses from our local organic farm shop – a mild cheddar, a vintage cheddar and an amazing halloumi cheese, all made with raw milk from the farms own herd. They’re already delicious, but we were interested to see what the smoke-box would do!

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Raw Energy Balls

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A brilliant little mix & match guide for making raw energy balls, from our new cookbook ‘Energy Bites’. These were the first type of energy balls that I ever made and they’re still my favourite snack! Incredibly quick and easy to make, really good for you and very tasty too. Yay!

This guide will get you started on a simple dried fruit and nut version. Choose one ingredient (or a combination of ingredients) from each column and whizz in a food processor until sticky. Shape into balls and roll in yummy stuff like chia seeds, cacao powder, bee pollen or crushed nuts. Firm up in the fridge for 1 hour (if you can wait that long!) and then eat. They freeze really well too. Simple…

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‘C’ is for Cabbage

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Such an underrated veg, the plain old cabbage is anything but plain, especially in colour! I love growing this ‘Red Drumhead’ variety because it looks fantastic and makes the prettiest coleslaw (as well as an awesome natural electric-blue dye!).

Easy to grow and simple to cook, cabbages come in loads of different shapes, sizes and colours and can be grown all year round, so you need never go without a tasty homegrown cabbage in your kitchen! Definitely worthy of their place in the ‘Allotment A-Z’.

‘C’ is for cabbage! Yay…

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Marinated Halloumi & Beetroot Salad

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This is one of our favourite meals for eating al fresco down at the allotment garden. We marinate our halloumi, get the little allotment stove going, pull up a couple of fresh beets and away we go. Really simple, really good for you and really tasty. Yay!

Fantastic served on the side or as a main, the herbs and spices bring out the amazing earthy flavours, the nuts and seeds add protein and extra crunch, whilst the cheeses are deliciously creamy… and it’s a spectacular colour too!

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Apple and Almond Pudding

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Oh my golly gosh! Delicious. A really simple, seasonal dessert using local apples, that won’t give you or your children a frenzied sugar rush before bed! Woohoo. Dairy free, gluten free and free of refined sugars, this is a traditional pud with a healthy twist!

Very tasty with apples, but works equally well with other fruits – try an autumnal version with pears and plums or a tropical one with mango and peach. Sometimes, you’ve just got to eat cake…

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Gardening with children

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A gardening post – hooray! There have been a lot of food posts lately with the release of our new book ‘Energy Bites’, but we’re still getting our hands dirty in the garden and on the allotment, if only to feed the chickens!

It’s mid-winter, pretty soggy and definitely cold out there – the perfect time to plan for the growing season to come. It’s also got me thinking about gardening in general and what I love about it…

There is a lot to love about gardening, but gardening with children has to be a huge highlight. Our gardens at home and on the allotment are a family affair, with everyone mucking in, tending their ‘patch’, digging, weeding and growing.

Being outside is always a pleasure and getting your hands dirty is definitely fun, but watching a seed turn into something that you can eat is absolutely magical!

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‘Energy Bites’ – Tropical Immune Boosters

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Another pre-publication sneak preview recipe of one of our favourite sweet ‘bites’ from our upcoming book ‘Energy Bites’, which is due out tomorrow! Don’t forget that you can win a  copy of the book by simply leaving a comment on the ‘Giveaway’ blog post.

These little balls of sunshine are packed with natural anti-inflamatory turmeric and masses of vitamin C-rich mango, goji berries, lime juice, rosehip and baobab, plus nut protein for vitality. Don’t worry if you can’t lay your hands on any baobab or rosehip powders – they’re a great source of Vitamin-C, but the recipe works just as well without them.

A perfect snack to help ward off the winter blues … in fact they’re a delicious tropical-tasting treat at any time of year! We had such fun creating them and hope you’ll love them as much as we do…

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Free Range Children

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Footloose and fancy free….

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‘Free range’ children? What ARE they? I put this question to a group of parents, who said it conjured up images of children running around in the fresh air, nature, fun and laughter. And yes, I wholeheartedly agree. I think being a free range child is about fresh air, connecting with nature, rain, sun, mud and water, but I think there’s more to it than that. For me, free range also means FREEDOM. Freedom for children to think for themselves, freedom to be themselves, freedom to discover themselves and their place in this complicated world and, crucially, freedom from the concerns and worries of adulthood. So how can we as parents support and encourage this type of freedom?

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