The Botanical Kitchen
Recipes, travel and the occasional rant
We’ve gone a bit bonkers with the bean planting on the allotment this year. I have some runner beans of the firestorm variety which yield the vibrant red edible flowers which I am looking forward to almost more than the beans. I have various varieties of dwarf beans because I’ve discovered they grow quite happily in […]
I felt a little sad this weekend as I emptied my freezer of the last bag of this summer’s courgettes. I was getting sick of the sight of them in August but on this cold, wet and windy weekend I was nostalgic for our excitement as the seedlings popped through the soil. I wanted to […]
After my epic summer of courgette production, I froze a lot in a grated a chunk form to use over the autumn and winter months in soups and curries. This dish took just half an hour with the courgette and mussels thrown in direct from frozen. This recipe serves four hungry adults. You’ll need 150g […]
I’ve had a glut of courgettes this summer and so it’s been great experimenting with them vs simply chargrilling which is what I usually do. They are lovely on their own with sea salt, fresh herbs and olive oil but I rather love this easy soup because the colour on a grey, rainy day is […]
These are virtuous and easy to make. You would never know these have courgettes in them. They are chocolately and you feel no guilt in eating them. If you don’t fancy the frosting, you can serve these with warm baobab and blueberry sauce. I’ve given a recipe for this below too. You’ll need 3 […]
When we first got our allotment, we thought the wisest thing to do would be to grow a little at a time. Let’s not over exert and plant every bit of land. Let’s sit back, learn and take things easy. At the beginning of the summer we looked upon our allotment after yet another afternoon […]
We planted radishes in our allotment just before the start of the school holidays and within weeks we had a lovely crop. We bought a cheap packer of multi-coloured radish and each colour seemed to vary in taste It was also interesting to experiment with the development of that spicy taste these little fireballs are […]
I cannot believe how tasty nasturtium leaves are. I’ve had them in salad before and rather love the peppery taste but in this simple pesto they have an intense flavour that reminds me of mild watercress. You’ll need 100g nasturtium leaves 3 large garlic cloves 70g Parmesan cheese 70g almonds – roughly chopped 160ml extra […]
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 […]
Have I ever told you the story of how I became an allotment owner? It was about 3 years ago that I was thinking about a birthday present for my husband. It was the summer before his next birthday and there was a programme on the BBC fronted by Ainsley Harriot. He’d been cooking in […]
It was my birthday yesterday and I wanted to celebrate but also do something completely different. Friends suggested various bars and restaurants but to be honest I really didn’t want a big night out. I thought about the theatre but there isn’t anything that I feel compelled to see. This year I just wanted a […]
We’ve had our blueberry plants for a few years now. They were some of the first we ever grew from seeds. Such a labour of love growing the seedlings on the windowsill, transplanting them into bigger and bigger pots and then finally seeing the fruit. They didn’t yield much fruit at all for a couple of […]