Leeks need harvesting

 Today we were blessed with a lovely sunny day, after a wet and window week. 

Miho arrived and Kota was still asleep, so we decided to go straight to the allotment to get the ingredients for our vegetarian sausages, (*) mashed potatoes, caramelised apple and leek and potato soup.

(*) we used chickpeas rather than butter beans.

Then we went home and prepped the vegetables, picked herbs from the garden and made the leek and potato soup.

 

Straight from the land onto the plate

 Today was a real from spade to plate session. First we went to pick raspberries for the raspberry fool

We then walked to the allotment to harvest peppers, (red, green and orange) some new potatoes, oregano, butternut squash and a pumpkin.

 

When we arrived home we made this 'Greek new potato, courgette and pepper one pan recipe which turned out very well. So well that we voted to put it in our next cookery book. The only thing we changed was to parboil the potatoes before frying them and adding some roasted pine nuts at the end.

 

The butternut was turned into a simple and quick 5 spice butternut soup. We peeled the butternut, chopped into little cubes, boiled in stock until tender, then handblended it and added 5 spice to taste. Topped with some roasted pumpkin seeds, delicious!

Leek, Kale and loads of raspberries

Today we harvested some leeks and kale from the allotment to turn into a gorgeous risotto. 

Whilst there, we picked some sunflowers to take home.

The tomato, basil and mozarello kebabs were made by Manami and Keiko and went well with risotto.

and the raspberries were turned into a sauce to go over our waffles. Lovely to see everyone back again.

Apple pressing and Courgette spiralising

 Today we had another lovely day outside with Lailei, Emi, June and Carmen.

  

We did the last of this season apple pressing and with the huge courgette/marrow we spiralised it and made a lovely lunch.

 

Last week we picked apples from an orchard just outside Cambridge, the apples needed pressing as some they are starting to go rotten, so out came the crew who, chopped, sorted, pressed and tasted the nectar. 

       

 

At the end of the session we went to the allotment to pick some sunflowers to take home and brighten our houses.