​So, now that the preamble is all cleared up, may I have the pleasure of introducing the Uchiki Kuri, also known as Onion Squash? It's conveniently easy to grow, usefully sized for an average meal portion, doesn't require a power tool to penetrate, stores well (easily for three or more months), cooks quickly and tastes completely delicious. How marvellous! And better still, I have discovered a totally delectable thing to do with it! Though I would never advise anything other than a simple roasting was necessary to enjoy this sumptuous squash, it happens to scramble really well with tofu. ​

You'll need:

• 1 average sized Onion Squash
• 1 pack of smoked tofu (Plain is fine, smoked is tastier!) 
• A knob (or three!) of plant butter (I use Flora) 
• Unsweetened soya milk (oat would probably be OK) 
• Salt (sulphurous Himalayan black salt gives an extra eggy hint if you want that) 
• Freshly ground black pepper
• ​Chopped parsley (or whatever fresh herb you have!)

It has not escaped me that since launching a small baking start-up, I've had no time to share any recipes! Oh, the irony! When I first started writing this blog at the beginning of the year I was having to pace myself a bit and hold back from posting something or other from the kitchen pretty much everyday. Still, the sabbatical is over and I always knew that once the Earth Heart project was underway there would have to be a shift of priorities!

Seasonal is as important to us as homegrown organic, though of course the two go hand in hand. You might think baking is all about sugar, flour and butter (or plant based alternative, of course!) but happily even cakes can enjoy a seasonal home grown twist. Fruit might be a fairly obvious bed fellow of sweet teatime treats and perhaps carrot cake is a relatively well known example of how vegetables can get in on the picture but it needn't stop there!

• 125g Self Raising flour (gluten free is an option but reduce the liquid a bit, e.g. less liquid beetroot)
• 40g Ground 100% Organic Cacao
• 1 tsp Nutmeg
• 140g Raw Organic Beetroot, (grated and boiled down until you have about 200g mushy mixture)
• 100g Demerara Sugar
• 100 ml Maple Syrup
• 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
• Pinch of sea salt​

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It's not been uncommon in our kitchen over the last few weeks for Nik to appear at the door with a bundle of freshly picked broad beans to shell and stir into pretty much whatever I'm preparing, from salad to soup, kedgeree to curry. It's been a delicious trickle of home grown gorgeousness on our plates but it was time for the broad beans to move on and make way for the leeks, ready and waiting to take the stage. Now, the broad beans haven't enjoyed the wet spring and the cool start to summer any more than the rest of us and they've pretty variable in size from what you might expect to smaller than your average pea, but they've been no less tasty for their inconsistent stature even if they've been a little fiddly to get out of the pod at times! It was a pretty full morning of picking and shelling, towards the end of which Nik headed over to the other veg patch to fetch in some beetroot, a handful of small parsnips and a few baby fennel bulbs. Well, all that fresh produce kept me fully occupied while he got on with weeding the freed up bed and companion planting some brussel sprout seedlings around the lettuces. The Marvel and Little Gem lettuces are also starting to be past their best, though they've been as abundant as they've been succulent over the last month or so and I shall miss them when they're gone!

So what did I whip up in the kitchen, you may be wondering!? I'd already decided that when the time came I'd fall back on the trusty houmous template to celebrate all the joy of the broad beans and since beetroot and parsnip always speak to me of a big tray of herbed roast veg, that magical playmate of houmous, that was that pretty much sussed! I'm sure you don't need me to tell you how to roast veg but here's a quick rundown on the broad bean prep!

Hooray, the radishes are here! Though it's been a strange, cold, wet, spring, we're finally enjoying some dry, warm, sunny weather here in the Tanat Valley and the first bites of Nik's carefully cultivated crops are also beginning to make their way to our plates. We're had some lettuce, some cultivate sorrel, some pea shoots... and now we've got radishes! These delightfully cheery, rosy, crispy, peppery little roots are delicious in salads, eaten as soon as possible after you've plucked them from their little beds, but I also really enjoy pickled radish. I think I first discovered it when I was in Japan, it's often served as a little side dish with meals or as a snack. You might think pickling is a long, slow process and for sure, it can be... but I'm here to introduce you to the wonder of the quick pickle, otherwise known as 'quickle'!

I've occasionally indulged in cooking that takes a full day in the kitchen but quite frankly, though I love cooking and I especially love cooking nourishing, tasty food for people I care about; I also love doing a whole heap of other things so these days I like to keep my kitchen time to a respectable minimum required for a non-processed, balanced diet.

Happily, I've found all sorts of ways to make good food, fairly quickly; and this is one of them! To make radish quickle, simply pick (preferably from your garden but maybe from the shop!) an average bunch of radishes, that's fifteen to twenty medium sized. Give them a good wash, top and tail them and slice them as thinly as you can. If you're brave enough, the slicing side of a box grater will do well, but mind your fingers! Simply pop your sliced radish into a jar with cider vinegar, warm water, sugar and salt (see gallery images for my notes on quantity). I also like to add some dried dill and a bit of fresh ground black pepper. Some recipes will suggest you can leave it for an hour and that will be your quick pickle, but for my very own Radish Quickle I like to leave it 2 to 3 hours. It's still quick enough that you can make it after breakfast in time for lunch but all those lovely flavours just get a tickle longer to do their thing. Never the less, if you're in a hurry, an hour will do and you'll find the vinegar solution turns a gorgeous pink colour as the radishes become gradually pickled. Serve it with salads and sandwiches, or simply as a tasty little side-snack, and enjoy it while it lasts!

I realised recently that I may have given the impression foraging is all green and, well, soupy. So, to remedy that, here's a celebratory May Day post of a sugary, purple nature! May Day, or Beltane, is usually celebrated on the 1st of the month, though this year lunar Beltane was actually just over a week ago on the April full moon. It's a joyous festival of fertility and new life, and I often like to mark it by gathering little wildflowers for a nature shrine to give thanks for the new growth, the coming summer, and set intentions for all that will be fruitful in the next seasons. It's traditionally the festival of maypole dancing and leaping over bonfires but I'm contenting myself with something a little more sober this year and since the may blossom (hawthorn) is coming out ever so tentatively in this cold spring, that seems entirely appropriate! Thankfully, the local wild violets are in business despite the chilled start to the year and we enjoyed gathering them on our morning walk. ​

You might have encountered palma violets; little sugary tablet like sweets, pale purple, in a roll. They always remind me of my gran! If you've ever had them, you'll remember the subtle, floral flavour. I'm not going to pretend homemade candied violets will taste quite like that and the scent of the wild flowers can be a bit hit and miss. If you've got cultivated sweet violets in your garden, you're more likely to get scent and flavour but for me the main charm of these delicate dainties is their beauty. What a delightful way to celebrate the spring! I try and avoid refined sugar as a rule and most of my biscuit and cake making is the 'healthy' kind that relies on things like date syrup and coconut sugar. I did actually use golden granulated for these little lovelies, however; I'm pretty confident they'd work well with an alternative sweetener, as long as it was a crystallised kind. I also used plant based aquafaba (water from chickpeas or beans) instead of the traditional egg white. If you've not discovered the wonders of this miraculous liquid, I'd highly recommend an adventure in vegan mousse making... But please don't spend silly money on the marketed cartons of the stuff, just spend 60p on a tin of chickpeas and have yourself some garlic mustard houmous at the same time!​

Pick your violets, not forgetting to appreciate how sublimely beautiful they are as you do so! Give thanks to the plant, silently or aloud, however you'd like. I'm sure it makes them taste better if you give the plant a little appreciation as you take the flowers! Do be sure you're actually picking violets. I've noticed quite a bit of ground ivy and speedwell about at the moment, both of which have small, purple or blue flowers so take your spotters guide if you're at all unsure what violets look like!

Lightly wash the flowers and prepare your work space as they dry a little (they don't have to be completely dry, that bit comes later!). You'll need some fine sugar crystals (icing sugar is too fine, I used golden granulated sugar that I ground a bit in a pestle and motar. If you've already got caster sugar, that's would probably do it!

Drain the juice from a can of chickpeas (don't worry, your candied violets won't have a chickpea flavour!) into a small bowl and lightly whisk it with a fork until it's a bit fluffy, it doesn't take long. Remove the violets from their stems and holding the flower at the base, dab the fluffy aquafaba onto the front and back of the petals using a small paint brush. (note to self: invest in a brush for culinary purposes!) now, using a small spoon, sprinkle a little of the sugar on to the wet petals and place the flower onto a sheet of baking parchment. Don't be tempted to speed things up by dunking the flower into either the aquafaba or the sugar; you'll smother the flower in too much of the substance and it'll turn into a sticky mess! Repeat the paint and sprinkle process for each flower then set them aside in a warm dry place for 24 hours to crystallise. You could move this step on a little faster if you have a dehydrator, or by putting them in an oven that's been heated to no more than 100°c and then turned off!

When they're completely dried, you can gently peel them off the paper and store them in an air tight box. They should keep quite well but they're so tasty, I'd recommend enjoying them as soon as possible, as an offering to the (slightly late) spirits of spring and the (hopefully not too delayed) goddess of summer! ​

* Sorrel can also have the same effect on your tummy as cabbage... you have been warned! ;-) xx

There are few things more wholesome than cooking a genuinely delicious meal from vegetables you've grown, from seed perhaps, in your own garden. But I have to say that cooking a delicious meal from food you've weeded out of your garden to make way for said veggies is possibly even better. My 'to do' list yesterday morning included 'weed herb bed' and 'make packed lunch'... That I managed to do both of those things  in (sort of) one go was incredibly satisfying!

Ground Elder is an absolute scourge here, despite Nik's attempts to smother it into submission with acres of cardboard. It would be a losing battle before I even started to think I could make a dent in it across the whole garden but at the moment I've got a particular interest in keeping the herb bed free of the things that would threaten the optimum development of my poor little newly rooted cuttings. They're already at such a disadvantage thanks to the unseasonably dull, wet weather we seem to have been receiving across the country of late, so it's a good place to start!

​Give the leaves a good wash, pick out any bits of grass (or just decide it probably won't do you any harm) and set aside to drain. If you're organised (I wasn't) you'll have soaked some almonds overnight but you can speed things up by using boiling water to blanch them. They pop out of their skins in a surprisingly pleasing way, once they've cooled down a little. Chuck a really good glug of olive oil in the container you're using to blend, then add two or three large handfuls of ground elder along with your nuts (I used the aforementioned blanched almonds as well as some hemp seeds), some salt and a bit of pepper. Blend away!

With my quantities and blender, I found it needed just a tiny more liquid but I didn't want to add more oil so I used the juice of half a lime, which I thought also added some serendipitous flavour! Finally, I chucked in a little nutritional yeast as a nod to the traditional parmesan; and that was that!

​Use as you would any pesto, in pasta or maybe with bruschetta. I stirred mine into some wholemeal penne (with some chickpeas for extra protein, which made an excellent pasta salad for my packed lunch yesterday and left enough for us to have today as well, though I added some green peas to that for a flavoursome boost and stirred in a little unsweetened soya milk to stop it sticking.