Adventures in Food

I brought camera on sunday and got some pics for you: A woolly blanket for the baby herbs, keeps down the competition and the slugs hate fur too: Nettle roots will be used to dye the rest of the fleece: Lepista sordida growing among nettles - and Alexander seedlings in the foreground: and at home waiting to be cooked: with red onions and butter: giving a simple meal with a beetroot and Alexander salad in the background:

I went down the notment a couple of days ago as its the change of season and its time to check up. I found all the little herbs I planted doing well under their woolly blanket, and the big dominating original plants that were so enormous in the summer, dying back and shrivelling. The Alexanders were fallen, rotting already, but there were masses of baby ones coming which is perfect for harvesting so I got a good crop of those as well as some very lush and think dandelion leaves for a nice salad. The Alexanders are rather strong flavoured to eat in quantity but they were excellent chopped up small with a beetroot salad. As I cleared away the burdock, getting burrs all over my woollens, and the nettles, and the big Alexanders (fallen), I found a big collection of purpley-brown mushrooms. They smelt heavenly, a very strong mushroomy smell like oyster mushrooms and at first I thought that's what they were. Really the scent made me want to eat them right there and then, its was very...

It was chestnut season a week or two ago and now they are over but I still have the pics. Being from the Kew Road, they are probably full of horrible pollutants but they were very sweet and delicious after a bit of roasting.  They went down well in this house and you can see the before and after in the pics. I also put some into a potato mash with Kew Road Walnuts as well. It went very well with the pheasant that Dad gave us from the Richmond Market game stall, roasted and stewed with beetroots and loads of gorgeous veg. Chestnuts come in a prickly casing which you stamp on to pop the nut out so you don't have to get your fingers scratched. The walnuts make a great and very durable dye but I haven't used it because we were moving back into the flat after the New Kitchen and all that, so I didn't have time to do all the processing. I have bought some wool carders however, and will spend the winter processing the fleeces I collected in the summer. The white wool will...