The Jerusalem Artichoke was brought into England  back in 1617 and John Franqueville gave two small tubers to John Goodyear.   The original name for this tuber was  Girasol and then to Girasolem and onto Jerusalem Artichoke,  is actually from North America but grew so well that it is said John Goodyear stocked all of Hampshire, [...]

I have been trying out a few ideas over the holiday, savory crackers and sweet biscuits. It’s been such fun just to mess about with ingredients. The ‘fire’ in the crackers comes from chillies and ginger, a great combination with a touch of fresh coriander. The options though are limitless, so don’t hold back, check [...]

While I was away last Sunday ‘the apprentice’ took over the kitchen and made this lovely winter garden soup.

Fresh from the garden;
4 carrots
4 small winter radish
2 jerusalem artichokes
1 medium leek
4 bay leaves
1 small celery head
2 ‘Rooster’ potatoes
2 ‘Pink fir apple’ potatoes – both waxy so hold together well in soups.
Olive oil to sweat the vegetables
From [...]

What can I say, we have loads of squash and masses of apples and so when I saw this recipe I just had to try and the result was well… a surprise to say the least.  It has to be said, it is different but  this is part of its charm.  It also has the [...]

The carrots from the garden this year are simply delicious and really don’t need any enhancement but I was sent this recipe and although I have added a couple of things to the original recipe the credit  goes to Angelika Scneider at Deutsche Post,  AG – Zentrale, many thanks to you.
It is a truly lovely [...]

Celeriac is a root vegetable which tastes like mild celery. It can be used in many different ways,grated or chopped raw as a salad and it is really good in soup.
In this soup I have used it with the herb thyme as I love this combination, but it would be good with cumin too.  On [...]

This is a very simple soup as all the ingredients are fresh from the garden apart from the onion.
A few tips, when collecting the nettles or ’stingers’ as we call them for the very obvious reasons, wear gloves, cut only the very tips and it’s probably better to not use after the end of June [...]

This was thought up on the spur of the moment and the result was really good, its a thick and warming soup,  packed full of flavour that you could exchange the lentils for something like bulgur wheat. The lovage is my newest herb in the garden and is really worth growing,  it smells something like [...]

We have now dug up all the Jerusalem artichokes that were left in the ground as they are about to start growing again and as I had some fennel thought the two would make a lovely combination.  I added  some potato so as it doesn’t taste to ‘earthy’.  The  artichokes give the soup a beautiful [...]

This is a lovely rich, thick and warming soup. The spices can be adjusted to your own taste so if you like things hot and spicy add more hot paprika.
The tomatoes can also be of your choice, use either tinned tomatoes or fresh tomatoes and tomato puree, I used the fresh tomatoes and tomato puree.
We [...]