Had a little wander round the shops while my son played football and bought a whole chicken from this butchers. I've shown him how to joint it and make coq u vin with some of it, saving the rest for another meal. It was £6 - way more than a supermarket but we could certainly taste the difference. Grow my own veg but the sign on the shop opposite was tempting too as have just been on an apple hunt with my sister. Found lovely sweet wild ones that were just like Gala - apart from the holes.
Been out for blackberries after reading that there are about 140 different types out there. The writer lived in London, recommended only picking above waist height (!) and suggested you buy sweeter varieties from a supermarket as the wild ones have to be cooked to be sweet - lol...
Suffolk foodie is one year old today. Celebrate by going to Lidl for my utter favourite bar of dark chocolate with nuts in, and find Caribbean meat patties! Expecting them to taste awful but they are surprisingly authentic (well, they are made in Birmingham) with just the right amount of heat from scotch bonnet peppers. Although home made ones would have more filling it's not bad for Stowmarket!
We should really have a competition for the best produce displayed at the end of a garden.
Aka a pumpkin (or squash) I bought from a side of the road, kindly labelled by the grower as I wouldn't have known what a Blue Hubbard was. A tiny bit under-ripe I thought, but very tasty as a roast vegetable, cooked and mashed into a fritter or made into a slightly curried soup.
So many tomatoes at the moment that I have had every recipe I can think of and made soup, pasta sauce, ratatouille and lots of others. But this was simple and delicious and used up a bit of old ciabatta at the same time. So easy I'm not going to put it in Recipes - just spread pesto (from a jar not home made) on the bread, halved cherry tomatoes and a shaving of parmesan, then grill until brown. If you teach your children this they can make it after school, and it works really well on half a muffin too, just call it mini pizza.
Here is my sad looking vegetable patch now that we are heading into the colder weather. A few swede and some celeriac for later, one row of carrots for the odd stew and some chard left. Everything else has gone - but at least I haven't had to buy any vegetables for the whole summer.
A chance to taste those varieties that supermarkets don't stock and may be even buy a tree. I have a Pitmaston Pineapple in my garden, from Crown Nursery Apple Day two years ago. It has small but definitely pineapple-tasting sweet yellow russet apples. On Saturday I stopped at my favourite community cafe for a few pounds of theirs on their Apple Day, and a bottle of juice...and two great big slabs of apple cake which I should have made myself! www.crown-nursery.co.uk is near Woodbridge.