The Botanical Kitchen
Recipes, travel and the occasional rant
I love travelling. Especially travelling on holiday. But the problem with holidays is that you have to leave behind important everyday chores. I know what you;re thinking. “That’s the whole point of a holiday!”. I know. I know. But when you are away during quite possibly the hottest couple of weeks in the UK for […]
I ate the last of my squashes this weekend. The little baby ones that have been so pretty as decorations. The ones that didn’t get stolen for Halloween. I was inspired to keep them whole by this recipe by Emma at The Food Gatherer. I then remembered seeing something similar in one of Diana Henry‘s […]
I am still harvesting my holey kale at the allotment but am also loving all the curly kale around locally. Usually I find this too tough and bitter but lately our vegetable bag scheme has provide some sweet tasting leaves which barely need blanching to cook. Here are a few ways I’ve been using the […]
Since getting our allotment I have had runner bean envy of my neighbour’s runner beans. They are pristine. not a black fly, white fly or any fly for that matter on them. Each variety could have been entered into countless competitions and won. I was determined to grow my own this year but I wanted […]
Last year I planted a three different varieties of beetroot. This year I chose just ‘Beetroot Boltardy’ but with lessons learned, I thinned and replanted my little beets so I’d get nice, fat ones for roasting. There’s no space in my fridge for pickles this year with all the lemon and elderflower marmalade! I must admit it has […]
I have had a bottle of Maille’s ubiquitous Dijon mustard on my shelf for as long as I can remember. It goes into salad dressings and that’s about it. I had never really thought about using it in anything else. And then I went to the Maille boutique in Paris (a little sidetracking from my […]
Every now and then you come across a recipe which you know you’ll make time and time again. This is one of those recipes. I’ve never had twice baked soufflés before. In fact I’ve not had many soufflés at all before as I always choose something cake based for dessert in restaurants. Also soufflés have […]
This was the first tagine I ever made. I learned the recipe from Muna at a wonderful cookery school in Essaouira called L’Atelier Madada. It is much easier than I thought and I use this as a base for so many different types of tagines now. It takes just half an hour to prepare […]
Last weekend I had a lot of vegetables in the veg basket but not quite enough of one in particular to turn into a dish. Does that ever happen to you? This easy bake is the answer. Super nutritious and comforting too. There are not many measurements in the recipe below. Just use what you […]
This is a super quick recipe that I invented today when I was in a bish-bash-bosh kinda mood! We had this with some plain boiled rice and wilted spinach. You’ll need 1 small cod fillet 1 teaspoon brown rice miso – I used the Clearspring brand readily available in Sainsbury’s 1 spring onion 1 tsp […]