Category: Season’s Eatings

Here you’ll find inspiration for how to use each month’s best produce.

In Season: January

Chocolate tahini cupcakes // The Dinner BellIt’s a new year! It’s a new you! It’s time to give up sugar, and booze, and fun!

Just kidding. I took these chocolate tahini cupcakes into the office the first day back, then made a massive green smoothie – the kind of broken “balance” logic employed the rest of the year,  but with added glitter sprinkles for some pizzazz for 2017. Instead of resolutions that require an abrupt end to previous habits and tend to drop off after a month at best, I’ll go in favour of better balance, particular with this ace daily goal tracker.

We’re easing into slightly more exciting produce at this time of year too, with forced rhubarb coming in, and loads of green stuff, livened up with sweet potatoes – which are in the middle of their season – and the last of the beetroot until the summer.

Here goes! Continue reading →

In Season: December

Caramel spiced rum

Caramel spiced rum + hot chocolate mix = perfect gift

The tree’s up – the traditional red baubles and white lights, despite my attempt to trick the flatmates into allowing wonderfully tacky coloured lights and my lusting over the pink and white baubles from Junk and Glitter – the first glass(es) of mulled wine have been drunk, and the “What do you want for Christmas?” texts have both arrived and been sent. So naturally, it’s time to think about the food and drink. You’ll notice I say that as if “thinking about food” isn’t my permanent state.

An evening at Harrods, for the launch of their hampers, showed how decadent Christmas food can be – any present with big quantities of cheese and booze is good in my book, and there were plenty of options that weren’t more than my monthly income – and this month’s list is no different. Continue reading →

In Season: November

In the UK, we get pears in season for a good portion of the year – but winter is when it really kicks off, with varieties ranging beyond the faithful Conference. There are around 550 types in Britain, and a lot of them sound like something you’d expect to find in Care of Magical Creatures class, but the shelves are dominated by just four. As imported varieties typically test highly for pesticides, it’s worth making the most of the UK’s pear seasons while it’s here. So what do we make with them? Continue reading →

In Season: October

“GUYS. Look at all those apples. Bloody hell I love apple season, look at them all!”

It was October 1st and I was way too excited about apples, wandering around Borough Market with Sophie and Em as part of what Timehop shows to be an annual get-together, trying to spot a wild Delbard Estivale (apple type, not Pokémon). I’d blame being slightly delirious on the fact that I’d been stung by a huge wasp – unprovoked! – a couple of hours earlier*, but I feel like it’s justified – it’s a great month for English apples, meaning we can branch out beyond the supermarket standard breeds and the madness that is importing from New Zealand and the USA.

So for In Season this month, we’re looking at the classic early-autumn fruits, apple and blackberry. Continue reading →

In Season: September

Anyone who’s been through a school system that kicks off in September knows this: it’s the real new year. As we dodge kids in too-big jumpers on the pavements, it’s hard not to get nostalgic about new bags and catching up with all your mates after some time apart and trying some “new year, new me” magic via the medium of shoes*. And for those of us who throughout the summer crave wool tights and cosy corners, crunchy leaves and steaming mugs of hot chocolate, the type that fit perfectly into the curves of your hand, it’s 30 days of hope and promise.

September, in food too, is the great month of overlaps, its bounty made obvious by a glance at the seasonal calendar**. It’s our last chance for several months to grab short-season gems like plums and blueberries, but our first chance to get in on some sweet butternut squash lovin’. It’s very nearly soup season. Today, we’re focusing on plum, courgette, and the sweet and jammy fig.  Continue reading →

In Season: August

I’ve hit peak seasonal eating. All of my colleagues and friends have been bored to tears with it, me gesticulating wildly as I talk with way too much enthusiasm about brassicas and their buddies, but last week I did a very exciting grocery shop and have a lot of new flavours and ideas to play with. I’ve just finished up using every last scrap of a bunch of beetroot: burgers with the root; pesto with the leaves; and extra bulk for this week’s lunches provided by blitzed stems. It’s good to get back in the kitchen after a busy few weeks.

Those late crops we’ve had, delayed thanks to our bizarre climate, have hit the shops now, and this month we’re casting the spotlight on raspberries and broad beans.  Time to check out some cracking recipes.
Continue reading →

In Season: July

H

appy July! *Looks out of the window*– it’s July, yeah? ‘Cause I’m wearing a long sleeved roll neck at the moment. Ah, home sweet (overcast) home.

The seasons are getting confused this year, not just for us (she says, as she coils a scarf around her neck) but for produce, too. Traditional seasons have been delayed, and, quite bizarrely, we now grow pak choi in Lancashire.

Just like asparagus, cherries in the UK this year have been slowed right down by the weather, meaning they’re unlikely to hit the shelves until late July. But that just means we can get ready for them now, right? Right.

As always, you can find a full rundown of what’s in season each month here! Continue reading →

In Season: June

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H

oney, I’m hooooome! May was quite the month, with Work Stuff being bonkers, Saturdays being taken up by a course, and a nice trip away for my brother’s wedding, but now we’re back in business.

It’s a good month to be getting back proper food – I’m eating meals that take more than 10 minutes to make! – because we’re finally out of the cabbage months. I try to practice what I preach and eat British seasonal produce, which makes the winter months preeetty dull. I cave every now and then, but try to stick to “not if it’s flown further than I have”.

You might have noticed (who am I kidding?) that the shops, after St George’s Day, the traditional kick-off date for the British asparagus season, were full of Peruvian asparagus. It took a few weeks to catch up with the usual season thanks to the wrong weather this spring, and I spent longer than is normal trying to find a workaround, but I’ve not been to Peru. So I waited – and the home grown stuff tastes all the better for it.

But really, that’s not the exciting thing about June. The best bit is that we can once again walk through a market and be hit by waves of the scent of fresh strawberries.

What a welcome back.

Continue reading →

In Season: April

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onger daylight hours, no more excuses to live on chocolate, and aaaaaall the green veg in season: April has landed!

The other new thing, as if it being light at 6pm wasn’t enough, is a handy little month-by-month index at The Dinner Bell. You can find the page, which, as the name suggests, lists what’s in season each month with clickable links for exploring, here, or via “season’s eatings” in the menu. Continue reading →