Finnish Style Cabbage Bake – Recipe

Some of the heads of cabbage in the garden are too big to use all at once. We cut a head of the white winter cabbage today, I was messing around with it when I brought into the kitchen, It was bigger than my head! Somehow from that Hanna was inspired to make a cabbageContinue reading “Finnish Style Cabbage Bake – Recipe”

I fought the root and the root won…. cooking burdock roots

The story goes, George de Mestral took his dog for a walk and then invented Velcro. The Swiss inventor took his canine for a stroll one day sometime in the 1940s and upon arriving home he noticed that his dog has in this fur the spiky seed heads of Actium minus otherwise known as Burdock.Continue reading “I fought the root and the root won…. cooking burdock roots”

Eating hogweed shoots- Heracleum sphodylium, collecting and cooking.

Hogweed, not the giant one grows in our garden, close to where the spruce trees tower and cast shade over the dwarf rhododendrons, dwarf Podocarpus and assorted conifers in what we refer to as the office garden. My view from the computer desk looks out on to this area, well part of it, the hogweedsContinue reading “Eating hogweed shoots- Heracleum sphodylium, collecting and cooking.”

Pickled Elder Flower Buds – Recipe

Pickled Elder Flower Buds Elder flowers open in succession, so even now while there are flowers in full bloom there are further flowers still to open. The flower heads when harvested at the green bud stage are delicious pickled, a bit like a substitute for capers. Collecting the flower heads Snap off unopened flower heads.Continue reading “Pickled Elder Flower Buds – Recipe”

Nasturtium Pesto – Lower Food Miles Version- Recipe

We have The Garden School at BLOOM this year situated in the “Budding Bloomers” area. We are hoping to inspire future generations of gardeners by teaching children (and many adults) how to make plant pots from newspaper and then sow a nasturtium seed into peat free compost. Nasturtiums are ornamental and edible. The simplest wayContinue reading “Nasturtium Pesto – Lower Food Miles Version- Recipe”

Stuffed Red Mustard Leaves – Recipe

Last year we sowed red mustard leaves, Brassica juncea ‘Osaka Purple’, in neat rows in our salad bed in the vegetable garden. This year it is coming up all over the vegetable gardens and beyond. The large floppy red leaves are mottled green and the flowers are yellow and typical of the cabbage family. ItContinue reading “Stuffed Red Mustard Leaves – Recipe”

Spruce Shoot Jam – Recipe

Spruce trees are a common site in the west of Ireland, not just as part of the alien forestry that covers much of the land, but also you see groups of old trees close to houses, derelict old cottages and lived in houses like ours. That is exactly what we have close to our house,Continue reading “Spruce Shoot Jam – Recipe”