Summer fruit pudding season has been the longest time coming. The cravings came mid-winter, just before I wrote a post half about out-of-season berries, and stuck around until my twice-weekly supermarket check for those red and blue and purple gems bore, er, fruit.
There’s satisfaction in the fact that the recipe saves a little food waste – I don’t keep bread in the house so I bought a loaf from the reduced section in the supermarket, but for the average person it means using up those past-best slices, and the crusts can be whizzed up into breadcrumbs for meatballs or a savoury crumble. Between that and all the vitamins you’ll be getting, it’s pretty much a virtuous pudding. Continue reading →
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 →
There are two topics when it comes to desserts that I’ve found will split people: the ideal dessert menu (up to two chocolate options, at least one lemon option, and a soft choice for brace/denture wearers – anything after that is inconsequential) and the perfect crumble.
It’s a surprisingly divisive dessert, when you get down to it: you can’t deviate much when it comes to a pie, but when it comes to this particularly British pudding, “crumble” can be both its name and what happens to your relationship with your best friend when you realise they’re devoted to some white sugar based sandy monstrosity. Don’t even get me started on a mushy apple filling.
Why yes, I do have strong feelings on this. How could you tell?
Any crumble is a marriage of flavours. The fruit layer, the one that diminishes any (badly placed) feeling of guilt over the butter, will inform the nuances of the crumble itself: the sugars; the spices; the nuts.
That layer of virtuousness, for me, is a vehicle – an excuse – for a thick layer of lightly spiced topping, made up equally of crumbs, oats, and little balls of what is essentially shortbread. Continue reading →
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.
Today, we’re nearly halfway through the Idiot Challenge for Idiot People. Set and voted upon by a group of university friends, the challenge forces us (the idiots) to work out in some way every day for the month of April. It’s less stupid, now, than it otherwise might have been – we’ve negotiated “lighter” exercise, like yoga, in, in an effort to give our bodies a little rest. Two weeks in, and a few people have dropped days, but thanks to a refusal to give in, most of us are going strong, despite aches and the necessity to wake up before the sun to squeeze things in. We’re all exercising more, and better, for it – I guess it’s the way we support each other. This is what I left university with: one degree, and several stubborn, idiot friends.
And then, sticky dancefloors and counting coins in the half-dark. Bubbles up my nose and a too-strong fruit taste. Half-carrying my friend’s dad back to his house after too many “mystery strength” Somerset varieties. These are my memories of most ciders.
It was university, of course, that did that too. May we never drink cider and black again.
Quite understandably, I shy away from cider a little these days, lest I get caught out by something overly sweet and too full of bubbles; still, when given the opportunity to try the new ciders from Aspall, I leapt at it because, well, I have faith in Aspall.
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 →