Month: July 2009

Bonjour!

Well, I am back from the French field trip and full of meat, meat, meat! That is mainly what I’ve been eating for the last two weeks; well, that and bread, bread, bread!! I have been craving vegan food a bit, which does not sit well with English Food.

I’ve just about come round from the trip though and am ready to cook some nice summery dishes. The problem is that this month is very busy indeed and I doubt I’m going to have time to cook much. I seem to remember having a similar problem this time last year. I will simply have to freeze everything and eat my summer pudding in January or something.

One thing I did notice whilst on a wee walk around Chorlton Meadows with Butters was the amount of freebie food – blackberries, raspberries, apples, pears, elderberries and sloes all spotted in a single trip! So later on in the summer we should have lots of nice stuff (whether there are recipes in the book or not, I shall report on them – too good an opportunity to miss).

July food

Probably the most exciting food month – all my favorite fruits are here in abundance. It’s also my birthday this month so I expect many gifts. I accept all major credit cards.

I managed to get quite a few seasonal ingredients last month, so hopefully I will do this month – it shouldn’t be too difficult as I’m spoiled for choice, plus I’ve got my fruit, veg and herbs growing away in my garden. Again not all of these are in the book:

Vegetables: globe artichokes, beetroot, broad beans, carrots, cauliflower, courgettes, french beans, garlic, kohlrabi, lamb’s lettuce, onions, pak choi, peas, potatoes, purslane, radishes, rocket, samphire, sorrel, spinach, tomatoes and watercress.

Fruit: apricots, blackcurrants, blueberries, cherries, gooseberries, raspberries, red and whitecurrants, rhubarb, strawberries and worcesterberries (whatever they are).

Wild greens and herbs: horseradish, marsh samphire and wild fennel.

Wild flowers and fruits: elderflowers and wild strawberries (loads of these in France!).

Fungi and nuts: chanterelles, chicken of the woods, pignuts and summer truffles.

Fish and shellfish: black bream, crab (brown, hen and spider), signal crayfish, cuttlefish, pollack, scallops, sea bass, sea trout and river tout.

Game: rabbit and wood pigeon.