The Botanical Kitchen
Recipes, travel and the occasional rant
We gave each of our girls £3 to choose seeds for their little plots on our allotment. My eldest daughter didn’t want to grow vegetables. She wanted ‘pretty flowers to pick and put in her room’. With her coins she found a packet of nasturtiums and a packet of sunflowers. The sunflowers came to nothing […]
One of the reasons I started growing strawberries was because over the last few years, strawberries no longer taste like strawberries. They look like strawberries. They smell like strawberries but they don’t taste of anything. Bland watery popsicles. Often not even juicy and indeed sometimes crunchy. Worst of all, they’re not grown in the UK […]
Strawberries are one of those fruits which work exceptionally well in savoury dishes. This flavour combination is one I first came across at The East India Company. I’ve gone for a very peppery finish but you can play around with the right balance for you by simply grinding a little pepper and then adding more […]
Parsley is too often overlooked as an ingredient in its own right and considered a garnish for many. This is a practice that dates back to Ancient Greece where parsley was sacred and used to adorn winners of sporting tournaments and decorate tombs of the dead. It might also be because parsley is a […]
This is a five minute recipe that you’ll be able to use in lots of different ways – simply stirred into pasta, as a dip with tortilla chips or pretzels or mushed into a jacket potato with some tomatoes on top. I use this with sunflower seeds as pine nuts are rather expensive. I’ve also […]
It’s Halloween. We cannot miss it in England It’s almost as big as Christmas as a ‘festival’. My children used to want to go trick or treating as witches but today, they’ve gone out as a Vampire Witch and a Vampire Cat. If you say the word ‘vampire’ to their generation and anyone born after the […]
This is a perfect and simple to make store cupboard ingredient. I use it in soups, dhals, chutneys, tossed through pasta or simply on toast. The garlic flavour mellows as it keeps so leave it a couple of weeks before you eat it unless it’s Halloween and you need to ward off those evil spirits! […]
Cranberries are in season for only a short time in the UK which is such a shame because they are soooo good for you. This tiny little fruit packs a massive punch in the antioxidant department meaning that it helps keep your heart healthy and is also good for your liver. On top of that cranberries […]
I love cranberries but the season is so short. I wanted to literally “bottle” the flavour for a bit longer. This curd is so simple and I used the egg whites left over for macaroons. It’s also lovely as the base of a Bakewell Tart instead of jam. The measures below make enough for a […]
Lemon Curd is fantastic but I have often wondered if it would work just as well with other tart fruits like Blackberry. I found this recipe on the Waitrose website for blackcurrants so I thought I’d give it a go with blackberries. I had a few blackcurrants in the freezer so threw them in too. […]
This was my first ever attempt at making a preserve and now I am hooked! It was very easy and I didn’t use any thermometers, strainers or some of the other complex things you see in some recipes. It’s not quick to make but as long as you are close by to give it a […]