May 19
Ground elder is growing profusely in our garden at the moment. It is quite an invasive plant and can be very hard to get rid of once it takes hold. I only recently discovered that the leaves are edible. They taste a little like parsley but with the bite and consistency of spinach. Rather than bemoan the fact that my garden was full of weeds I decided to get inventive and use this natural bounty to make some tasty meals. Read more
I tend to divide vegetables into three broad categories – those I love, those I can’t abide and functional vegetables that I’m nonplussed about in their own right but which are essential flavour builders, such as carrots and celery. I guess I’m quite lucky in that there aren’t too many vegetables I don’t like. Swede (rutabaga), or turnip as we always called it when we were kids, is one of them. Boiled onions (especially if swimming in a white béchamel sauce) and puréed carrots will both send me running. But for the most part I love vegetables and I try to eat as wide a variety as possible. Read more
In our village almost every house has a small greenhouse. Sometimes they are sturdy constructions made with metal frames and glass or hard plastic windows, but mostly they are hand-built with frames made from either off-cuts of wood or PE piping, covered with a sheet of thick, clear plastic. Read more
I’m starting to get excited. It’s been a strange winter here in Lithuania as global warming takes its toll on the weather. We missed out on deep snow and crisp, clear blue skies and instead had only a sprinkling of snow and almost perpetual greyness. While the gloomy skies have done nothing for my mood, the change in the weather does mean I can get started earlier than expected on my spring planting. Read more
It’s feast or famine with this self-sufficiency malarkey. For months on end you produce hardly any food at all, then come the end of August you have fruit and veg coming at you from all angles. There are wild mushrooms to be foraged, apples and damsons to be picked and vegetables to be harvested. Read more
There is something incredibly autumnal about the smell of cooking apples. The sweet, caramel smell is as comforting as the blanket you might throw over your knees now that the evenings are getting a little chilly. It is a smell that immediately transports me back to my youth, when stealing apples from an orchard near our house was an autumn tradition. We had plenty of apple trees at home, but somehow the stolen apples were far more enticing. Read more
Ok, so I’m knackered. My muscles ache, my leg is bruised, my fingernails are filthy and my hair is inexplicable. I really need to spend half an hour standing under a steady stream of hot water. Alas, our shower does not allow for such luxuries. For a start, it takes about three hours to heat the water. You then get about five minutes at a soft trickle before the water starts to run cold. Unless you move at lightning speed you will still be covered in suds by the time the hot water runs out, leaving you to dance about the bath as you do the final rinse with cold water. Read more
I absolutely love garlic as an ingredient. I use tons of the stuff – pretty much every savoury dish I prepare contains at least one clove of garlic, probably more. Garlic seems to add so much to a dish – rich aroma, warmth, luxury, a touch of heat and a depth of flavour that seems to linger on the palate long after you’ve finished eating. For me, no other seasoning comes close to garlic. Read more
My Food Odyssey 