The Botanical Kitchen
Recipes, travel and the occasional rant
I tried my hand at growing broccoli last year. I ordered some seeds and put them in the propagator. Nada. Not even one little sprout. So as I was a little late to the party now, I planted some rather limp looking plants from the garden centre – six to be precise. I watered. I weeded and […]
There is a beast on my allotment. Something that’s nibbling at the few plants we have in the ground. This is what it’s done to our wonderful kale which is all but gone. With sowing season now fully underway, I decided to pull out the final scraps and rework the bed for something new. Rainbow chard […]
I first went to Boulogne as a teenager with secondary school. We travelled in a hot and stuffy coach to Dover, then on an ugly ferry into an equally ugly concrete port. I barely spoke enough English back then let alone French but I remember vividly asking an elderly lady for directions, understanding them and then giggling hysterically when […]
There is no doubt that foraged food is on trend again in the UK. I’m seeing wild garlic ideas all over social media and the young nettle crop is proving popular too. But how readily available is it, how easy is it to find if you’re not an expert and is it really worth it? I […]
I’m not normally a gadget person in the kitchen. Sure I like to save time like everyone else but rather than some whizzy gizmo for peeling garlic for example, I prefer to get stuck in and peel it with my fingers. Having said that I do use a few machines to help get big jobs […]
Pancakes. They have become a Sunday ritual. It’s a weekend so porridge or cereal aren’t special enough. Somehow the Sunday breakfast deserves more attention. Deserves more time. But the warm bed, Sunday papers and my stack of new cookery books are calling and they deserve equal amounts of attention too after a long week. So the […]
My youngest daughter seems very excited about Valentine’s Day. She’s been talking about it all week. To her it’s all about ‘famgether’. This is a silly word our family made up one holiday. It means ‘family together’. Silly I know but it creeps into conversations when we haven’t seen each other consistently for a while. […]
As you have no doubt guessed by my last post, I am a fan of the warmer climate. I tolerate the cold because it’s a necessary season to get to the spring but holidays to anywhere North of England are few and far between. Never actually until a few weeks ago. I was randomly searching for ‘holidays’ […]
It’s been almost Spring like today. I woke up before the sun and sat with a cup of tea watching it come up over the garden. A rare opportunity with children in the house. I’ve been distracted by the sky ever since. It’s been so vividly blue I couldn’t help stopping and staring out into […]
As I grow older I find myself getting more and more irritated at New Year’s resolutions. I tend to review and set myself goals monthly because things move on so quickly so I find waiting once a year to kick start something is a little late. But that being said, all the detox hype in the […]
January is a time to be virtuous after the excesses of Christmas. I’m drawn to vibrant, ‘green’ food to cheer myself up from the dreary drizzle outside. Thankfully my baby spinach has survived the weather in my garden. The leaves may be a little smaller and the bugs may have nibbled here and there but […]
Hasn’t Christmas come around so quickly this year? I know all the advertising kicks off as soon as the summer sales have finished but I cannot believe we have just this weekend left to buy gifts. Our list always includes edibles – some shop bought and some home made. Here is some inspiration if you’re […]