Foodie Penpals - The UK Version - My Scrummy Parcel

I heard through the blogging grapevine that Rock Salt was arranging a Foodie Penpals scheme, based on the idea of the US blogger The Lean Green Bean .

Each person is allocated a penpal and sends them a parcel of food based items to the value of about £10 and you get sent one from someone else.

My parcel randomly and bizarrely came from Chilli and Chai.  Now I have to declare an interest....Chilli and Chai is a Devon mate of mine anyway so I felt secretly pleased that she would know the kind of stuff I liked and my hopes were certainly fulfilled.

 What a whole heap of wickedly interesting, quirky and cool food from Devon and beyond she had amassed:

A pat of smoked goats milk butter, goats milk from Pitmans Farm, smoked by Country Wood Smoke

Homemade oatcakes (using the goats butter) - these were fantastic and I was really touched that she had made me something - and a combination of three different Devon foodies' creative endeavours.

Montezuma's chocolate - two bars!

A carton of totally weird soya milk stuff that looks like Ribena but obviously isn't,

Thai soup paste - that'll definitely come in handy

and probably my joint favourite (with the oatcakes) a jar of Bacon Jam - after reading Eat Like a Girl's recipe, I have been very keen to try some of this.

Plus a heap of wild garlic

and to fulfil her 'chilli and chai' legacy:

Some sachets of Pukka Chai tea (ones I hadn't tried before - hoorah)
Some mega scary 1 million scoville chillis - bit worried about them - will I just need one square millimetre for an entire curry?

What an amazing parcel of very thoughtful produce.  Thanks, to my lovely foodie penpal!

I sent this parcel of stuff to Cider with Sophie - I hope she liked it.  I enjoyed putting it together with some of my homemade chutney, lemon curd, muffins, my own blend of Ras-al-hanout spice blend, Lahloo tea, Devon fruit leather, a vinegar 'starter' and other random stuff.

This scheme is becoming a regular event, so go here if you fancy taking part, (whether you have a blog or not) and please leave a comment if you also received a parcel so I can visit and take a look.

Devon Book Review: A Taste of the Unexpected by Mark Diacono

Just a quick post to express how much pleasure I got from reading this wonderful book.  The experts on Gardener's Question Time on Radio 4 a few weeks ago were quick to dismiss people's desire to grow 'weird' vegetables - apparently white carrots are tasteless and some of the more extravagantly coloured vegetables often fail to thrive and are generally a waste of time.  So that's that, I thought, don't bother with all that fancy schmancy stuff in my veg patch.  Then...along comes this book by Mark Diacono.  He's one of Hugh's River Cottage experts, runs courses there and grows at Otter Farm near Honiton.

I unreservedly love this book because:

a) there aren't any pictures of the author posing artfully either with cleverly positioned 'mud' on knees or flour on cheek, or smiling winsomely at his prize veg with shabby chic decor in the background and old enamel mug

b) he actually took all the photos of the gardens and veg inside the book (repect!)

c) it also has recipes - some of which are a bit fancy, but some plain and easy

d) he really inspired me to experiment - hell, why not grow apricots, goji berries, szechuan pepper in our back gardens / window boxes

e) only one cute picture of child in a garden (I am really naffed off with cookery / lifestyle writers getting their kids involved in photoshoots)

f) loved his ethos of 'grow expensive/ unbuyable produce' rather than onions, potatoes, carrots type stuff

So, let's grow and eat day lilies - this was a fab bit of advice as I was sat outside next to my sprouting day lilies while I was reading this bit.  I reached over, snapped off a flower bud and it did indeed taste a bit like a French bean but with a slight chilli kick.  How naughty and lovely.  Eating flowers. Nasturtiums are budding so I shall be sprinkling them on my salads, deep frying  day lilies and planning how to fit an apricot into our full-the-brim garden.  And definitely some Egyptian Walking Onions (what a name!).  And possibly some Japanese wineberries just so I can make the delicious sounding Japanese Wineberry Trifle.

He's also got a really good blog.  I have a new foodie hero and, what's more, he's a Devon lad!

And this is our vege patch at the moment- not a gojiberry in sight.

And I had to include a picture of our Angelica (yes that green twiggy crystalline stuff that no-one has put on a cupcake even ironically since the 70s) which has turned into a beanstalk - it was 6ft tall until it keeled over in the wind.

Foraging for Free Food - The Joys of the Hedgerow

Whilst walking on part of the South West Coastal Path last week we came along a stretch near Dawlish that had a mass of hedgerow berries.  After the walk I consulted the fantastic River Cottage 'Preserves' book and decided to take the family foraging for some free food one warm Sunday afternoon.

For hedgerow jelly, you need a combination of blackberries, crab apples (or cooking apples), haws (from hawthorn), elderberries, rosehips (from wild roses),

sloes (look like hard blueberries with a bit of a bloom on them) and bullaces (a kind of wild plum.) It was a very social occasion as every passer by wanted to know what we were collecting and what we were going to use them for.  Several people turned out to be a mine of information about making sloe gin - seems to interest folks more than the hedgerow jelly....

On a quarter mile stretch of path, we found all that we needed (no bullaces - shame) and filled our pots. The children were fine about the blackberries and apples, but were seriously worried about the potentially poisonous rosehips, haws and sloes.  

I have to say that my natural inclination is that they are possibly inedible unless cooked to a high temperature - but people have been making rosehip cordial, sloe gin and other autumnal treats for years - I think it's part of that worrying tendency that we have in modern days to assume that plasticised shrink-wrapped supermarket food is 'good' for us, whereas there might be something wrong with the real thing that's growing on trees and bushes right under our noses.

Back at home I put 225g sloe berries in the freezer - to be turned into sloe gin or vodka at a later stage - apparently the berries work much more effectively after the first frost - or to improvise, you can just bung them in the freezer for as long as you want before use.

So onto the serious job of Hedgerow Jelly.  I used:
180g sloe,
75g elderberries,
160g rosehips,
90g haw berries
500g blackberries
1kg cooking apples.

I put them in a pan with a 1.2 litres of water and simmered them until tender.

We then rigged up a rather dodgy looking muslin cloth on upturned stool to allow the cooked fruit to drip through.  The following day, I measured the deep purple liquid and added 450g granulated sugar per 600ml liquid and boil it up together until it reaches setting point.....

So far so good...only the blinking jelly didn't set.  So, I emptied it all back in to the pan, washed the jam jars again, sterilised them again  and boiled it all again in a big pan until my thermometer read a definite 105 degrees - allegedly the 'setting point' for jams and jellies.  Doing this whole procedure once is enjoyable - the second time I was cursing.

The jelly still hasn't set; however the thick gloopy liquid is delicious, similar to blackberry and apple but with a more intense berry-ish flavour.  It spreads wonderfully on toast and is really good on vanilla ice cream.

I would love to know if anyone knows about the toxic qualities of haws, sloes and hips and also any advice on how to get jellies to set....

This blog post has been entered in the Simple and in Season Blogging Event: http://www.renbehan.com/2011/09/simple-and-in-season-september-blogging-event.html