Seasonal Eating Blog

After writing some seasonal eating blogs covering one week some readers expressed an interest in more information about how we eat seasonally. I won't fill in all meals, just the ones I feel are of interest, some days are missing and the formatting is a bit inconsistent but I'm hoping I will keep at it! I'm also hoping it will help me remember things I've cooked that worked well.

Friday 3rd May

Mushroom omelette

Yesterdays salad

Thursday 2nd May

Mushroom omelette.

Forgot my salad packed lunch, only remembered the cheese scone to go with it. Had just that and cake at my knitting group and didn't feel too great after.

Baked potatoes, chick pea stew with kale, yoghurt and grated cheese on top.

Wednesday 1st May

Christmas pudding and custard - now the Christmas pudding is gone

Cauliflower rice, sauerkraut, blue cheese, leftover new potatoes with tahini sauce - smaller portion than yesterday and a slice of wholemeal toast with butter (which was heaven)

Made chicken noodle soup as Eric has had a lingering cold for weeks. Homemade chicken stock, roast chicken leftovers, lots of fresh herbs from the garden.

Tuesday 30th April

Eggs with kale

Cauliflower rice, sauerkraut, blue cheese, leftover new potatoes with tahini sauce

Made "tofu" with chick peas, this recipe, it did not work. Broccoli and satay sauce with the "tofu" stirred into it. It was actually very nice and I might use it as a way to make thick sauces for curry, etc in the future. Brown rice.

Monday

Christmas pudding and custard for breakfast again, I was exhausted and needed some comfort

Cauliflower rice, sauerkraut and bacon with tahini sauce

Lentil soup from the freezer with polenta bread I made last week

Sunday - working at Wonderwool

Eggs with ground elder

One slice of leftover pizza for lunch

Eric cooked fish with lemon and nduja, new potatoes and leeks

Saturday - at Wonderwool

Museli

Amazing pierogi, the most carbolicious thing I've had in ages

Eric made pizza

Friday 26th April

Museli and banana

Lunch out - Tapas in Brecon

Dinner - crackers, nduja, cheese and pickles

Thursday 25th April

Mushroom omelette for breakfast

Broccoli salad with some sweet potato wedges and kale and carrot salad leftovers

I was invited to contribute a foraged food recipe for CoedNet, a network of Welsh woodland makers I'm part of. I wrote the recipe and tried it out tonight. Foraged Spring Greens Galette. I served it with cauliflower rice, sauerkraut and a mint, parsley and caper sauce. 

Foraged Spring Greens Galette

For the pastry:

120g flour

110g cold grated salted butter

Ice cold water

For the filling:

1 tbsp butter or coconut oil

I medium onion

Sea salt

2 cloves garlic finely chopped - can leave out if you have wild garlic instead

Medium basket of mixed foraged greens - dandelion leaves, ground elder, sorrel, lamb’s quarters, wild garlic, garlic hedge mustard, plantain, etc. washed and roughly chopped, big bits is fine

Large handful (be careful) of nettles

1 heaped teaspoon Za’atar (optional)

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

Around 150g of grated cheese or crumbly feta, whatever cheese you have to hand

Fresh garden herbs like rosemary, sage, thyme or a combination - about a tablespoon when finely chopped

Make the pastry: Pulse the flour and butter together in a food processor until it looks like fine crumbs then add the water slowly until the pastry starts to come together. (You can of course use your hands, cold grated butter will make it easier.) Remove from the food processor and knead briefly to create the dough. Shape into a disc, put in a plastic bag and into the fridge for at least one hour or up to two days.

The filling: Cook the onions in butter/coconut oil adding a generous pinch of salt until they are golden brown, adding the chopped garlic towards the end and giving them a stir when required. Tip into a bowl to cool. Pour a kettle full of boiling water over your nettles in a colander. Squeeze out the water and chop fairly small. Add all of your foraged greens including the nettles to the pan, season and stir until they are just wilted and coated with butter, add more if you need to. Add the za’atar if using. Allow to cool.

Assembly: Preheat the oven to 200°C. Roll out the pastry onto a floured surface, about 12-14 inches wide and put in onto a baking sheet. Don't worry if it hangs over the edge, you’ll be folding it over the filling. Spread the mustard over the dough leaving a gap around the edge of about 2 inches. Cover with 1/3 of the cheese. Add half of the greens then half the onions then another 1/3 of cheese. Add the remaining greens, the rest of the onions and the final 1/3 of cheese on top. Fold the edge of the pastry into the middle all the way around, leaving a gap of filling in the middle. Brush the pastry with a beaten egg or milk. Sprinkle the whole thing with finely chopped herbs.

Bake for 35-40 minutes or until golden.

Wednesday 24th

Mushroom omelette for breakfast

Broccoli salad from yesterday with some leftover pasta from the dinner as well

Some breaded chicken from the freezer - made before the new diet - sweet potato wedges and kale and carrot salad

Tuesday 23rd

Eggs and kale for breakfast

Another day another broccoli salad. Slightly different, made tahini sauce and added bacon, pickled nasturtium seeds and feta cheese

Wholemeal pasta and a jar of homemade ratatouille, grated cheese on top

Monday 22nd April

Christmas pudding and custard for breakfast. I'm on my period and it seemed like an excellent idea.

Lunch, as yesterday

Dinner was the leftover veg puree from last weekend with a colander full of blanched and chopped nettles. Made some polenta bread to go with it, added some wild garlic kimchi to the batter which made it more intertesting.

Sunday 21st April

Mushroom omelete

Working at the shop in hay so took a packed lunch: Cauliflower rice, sauerkraut, chicken, herb dressing, feta cheese

On the way home I was craving cake and remembered the second Christmas pudding I made so had some with hastily made instant custard.

Dinner was sausages and the French Onion farro bake leftovers in the freezer.

Saturday 20th April

Museli with banana and rhubarb

Mushrooms baked with butter, thyme and garlic, eggs and wholemeal sourdough

Eric made pizza

Friday 19th

Eggs, bacon and mushrooms for breakfast

Lunch - chicken, kale, sauerkraut, cottage cheese, pickled cucumber

Dinner - quinoa burgers, cauliflower rice, feta cheese and satay sauce

Thursday 18th

Eggs and kale for breakfast

Lunch - chicken salad with foraged and homegrown salad and sauerkraut. I got some reduced 20p organic cucumbers from the wholefood shop (I wouldn't normally buy them out of season) and did a quick pickle with some pickling liquid leftover from the pickled onions. 

Dinner - Baked sweet potato with quinoa chilli and feta cheese

Tuesday 16th April

Museli and banana for breakfast

Lunch at a friends house

Made a curry with the leftover meat from the cockerel. Used Panang curry paste (good to keep in the fridge for quick curries), added onion, coconut milk and at the end a large handful of chopped ground elder and a handful of blanched and chopped nettles. Served with cauliflower rice, yoghurt and fermented wild garlic which was really good, need to make another batch.

Monday 15th April

Eggs and kale for breakfast

Broccoli salad for lunch - I really need to branch out with some new high protein salads - also had homegrown salad leaves and some of the dressing from last night

Lentil soup with a slice of rye bread for dinner

Sunday 14th April

Eggs, bacon and mushrooms for breakfast

Broccoli salad for lunch

Was working at the wood all day so before I left I put the following in the slow cooker: Chunky pieces of carrot, celery, onion, potatoes, cooked bacon chopped, half a pint of cider, half a pint of chicken stock then one of our cockerels smeared with butter and seasoned on the top. Cooked for 6 hours and kept warm for 2 hours - too long, will cook for less next time. Served with a dressing made of ACV, Dijon mustard, capers, olive oil, parsley and mint from the garden, it was delicious. The cockerel tasted good, maybe a bit tough but possibly as I overcooked it. Maybe if it was covered in liquid it might be better. Stripped the carcas and froze the bones for stock, put the meat aside for later in the week. Put the leftover veg in the blender, added some stock and out in the freezer for soup.

13th April

Eggs with ground elder for breakfast 

Rye bread with peanut butter and banana

Eric made pizza for dinner

12th April

Cornish teacake for breakfast

Frittata and salad at a local cafe for lunch as I was volunteering in the shop

Courgette dal with brown rice

7th - 11th April in Cornwall on holiday, fish and chips and beers on the horizon...

Saturday 6th April

Breakfast as yesterday

Broccoli salad

Dinner - rump steak with homemade chips, kale and roasted carrots

Friday 5th April

Dutch pancake with the first rhubarb harvested from the garden and blackberries from the freezer, plus maple syrup

Broccoli salad with some grated cheese on top to make it more satisfying

Baked potato with cottage cheese, three types of sprouted seeds, sauerkraut and herb dressing

Thursday 4th April

Breakfast - Eggs and kale with garlic and some nutritional yeast

Made another batch of broccoli salad as before but had nutritional yeast instead of grated chedder, used no mayo and less dressing. It was nowhere near as nice, left me feeling hungry and unsatisfied so I ate a mini egg brownie... lesson learnt.

Quinoa chilli with cauliflower rice and feta cheese for dinner. Made a huge batch of the quinoa chilli yesterday when I was making the burgers so four portions go in the freezer.

Wednesday 3rd April

Museli and banana

Volunteering at the shop, had borlotti bean soup and a couple of stale crispbread things (I didn't realise they were stale until I ate them)

3 x brazil nuts

Quinoa and black bean burgers which were really good, salad leaves, tahini dressing, feta cheese and cauliflower rice.

Tuesday 2nd April

Museli and banana

Borlotti bean soup at the wood

3 x brazil nuts

PSB from the garden, slices of roast pork from the freezer, cauliflower rice and a satay sauce.

Monday 1st April

Mushroom and bacon omelete

Had a really late lunch, 3.30, at the pub, I had mushroom soup and didn't feel like eating again, just had a bit of Easter egg later

Sunday 31st March

Was working today so had museli with a banana

Lunch - Broccoli salad with leftover Cauliflower rice

3 x brazil nuts

Dinner was pork chops roasted with new potatoes and thyme, carrots roasted with mustard and honey

Saturday 30th March

Baked eggs with bacon

Lunch - Broccoli salad with leftover Cauliflower rice

3 x brazil nuts

Eric made pizza

Friday 29th March

Baked a wholemeal sourdough which actually looks great.

Breakfast - baked eggs with cooked mushrooms (I put some aside last night when cooking the dinner) and manchego cheese. One bite of wholemeal bread, I found the eggs were enough on their own. Maybe this won't be as hard as I think. 

Lunch - raw broccoli and bacon salad it was really good, made enough for two more days

3 x brazil nuts

Dinner - chilli and lime chicken kebabs from the butcher and cauliflower rice (got a nice organic cauliflower from the farmers market today) with salad. The cauliflower rice was a revelation, it was delicious. Actually managed to eat twice the protein to carbs today.

Thursday 28th March

I've been seeing a herbalist to regulate my cycle and had mineral analysis done. I now need to follow a high protein, low carb, low fat diet for 12 weeks to sort things out (decreased thyroid and adrenal function probably due to some extreme work stress over the past few years, ending up on anxiety medication and having therapy). Just a casual stroll through this diary will show that I eat a lot of sourdough, lentils, rice, potatoes, etc. I'm using Chronometer to track it all and it's clear that I am going to have to make some radical changes to eat more protein than carbs day to day, it's hard to imagine what that will look like and also annoying that I will have to buy in a lot of food to achieve this and not just eat from the larder, freezer and garden. In the summer it would be easier with plenty of lovely fresh food to eat. Anyway, despite being pretty down about it right now I realise that I'm massively privileged to be able to make changes and even have access to food. Made some mini egg brownies today as a futile act of defiance which I'll now feel very guilty about eating. 

Breakfast - Museli - full of carbs! - with full fat milk. Also just to say, I was lactose intolerant for years and recently found I no longer am so have been really enjoying full fat milk from a local farm in refilled glass bottles which I now have to cut down as part of this diet.

Lunch - One slice sourdough, two eggs

3 x brazil nuts - new daily addition to increase selenium levels. 

Dinner - Spelt and mushroom risotto - delicious, still loads of carbs but "packed with energising and immune-strengthening vitamins and minerals". Feel free to check in with this blog in 12 weeks, I'm boring myself already. 

Prepared a wholemeal sourdough to bake in the morning.

Wednesday 27th March

Porridge with blackberries

Lunch - two slices sourdough with peanut butter and banana

Dinner - Made this French onion baked lentils and farro dish after I saw it on Instagram, luckily had some farro from Hodmedods. It was amazing, four portions left over.

Tuesday 26th March

Porridge with blackberries

Snack - the last two stale jacobs cream crackers from the Christmas cracker selection with butter

Lunch - soup leftovers with cheese scones from the freezer

Dinner - leftover roast lamb baked in the oven with some date and tamarind sauce I got with some samosas I bought from an Indian cafe in Leicester (i.e. about 2 years old), it tasted great. Served with gigantic bean stew baked with some manchego cheese grated on the top. Kale from the garden cooked with garlic.

Monday 25th March

Porridge with blackberries

Lunch - used leftover mashed potato to make rostis with wild garlic and some cheese, cooked in the pan I cooked the pork in last night to use the fat, had with eggs and a slice of toast

Snack - brazil nuts

Dinner - Freezer grab soup. Browned onions, added garlic and chillies, celery and carrots a sachet of miso soup and curry powder then beef stock, pumpkin, courgette and the last cube of frozen wild garlic from the freezer. Added one tin tomatoes and 250g of green lentils from Hodmedod's Served with yoghurt, roasted pumpkin seeds and a slice of sourdough. Had 6 portions leftover.

Sunday 24th March

Mushrooms (I cook them in butter with thyme and mushroom relish added towards the end), eggs and sourdough for brunch

Chocolate cake with pecans and cherries from the freezer, made in January

Dinner - pork chops with mashed potatoes. Gravy and runner beans from the freezer

Saturday 23rd March

Brunch - sourdough with our PSB and poached eggs.

We killed and prepared two of our cockerels today for the first time. One of the hardest things I've ever done but necessary, we have 4 cockerels left. 

Dinner - Eric made pizza

Friday 22nd March

Porridge with banana and blackberries

Made breaded chicken escalopes and chips, should have had PSB with it but I didn't harvest enough, saved it for breakfast

Thursday 21st March

Baked bread

Lunch - last nights leftovers

Dinner - new potatoes. Galette with 4 different kales, blue cheese and cheddar cheese, homemade shortcrust pastry

20th March

Made bread to bake in the morning

Made sauerkraut with bought organic cabbage

Fermented some wild garlic

Lunch - kale and eggs on sourdough

Dinner - smoked quinoa with chickpeas and PSB with tahini dressing and wild garlic pesto. It was okay, needed more textures.

19th March

Chick pea stew from freezer with baked potatoes and cheese

18th March

Got blackberries from the freezer to make wine.

Soup from freezer - pumpkin, apple and mustard with sourdough croutons in the freezer

17th March

Brunch - mushrooms, eggs, bacon and toast

This recipe from Gill Mellers beautiful book, Time - https://www.instagram.com/p/C0QuXvjCBVE/. Used veal shin from Hafod Dairy Farm. Adapted to cook in the pressure cooker.

16th March

Lunch - leftover pots, squash

Dinner - pub

15th March

Late breakfast - sausage sandwich

Dinner - pizza with blue cheese and mushrooms

14th March

Lunch - leftover pots, squash

Dinner - sausages, herby yoghurt, baked potatoes, squash

13th March

Dinner from the freezer - Galette made with layers of mustard, cooked onions, cabbage and cheese, kale from garden, new potatoes 

12th March

Dahl and homegrown squash

11th March

Soup, borlotti beans, whole crop, tasted wonderful with homemade chicken stock, cooked courgette and squash from the freezer, onions, garlic, chilli, tin of tomatoes and curry powder.

10th March

Pressure cooker lamb, greek potatoes cooked with chicken stock, PSB

9th March

Eric made pizza

8th March

Chinese takeaway

Thurs 7th March

Pub lunch at Kilpeck

Pate for dinner

Tues 5th March

Dinner - Cheese and broccoli pasties with potatoes and PSB

Friday 1st March - 4th March - Away in Dartmoor

Thursday 29th Feb

Baked bread

Breakfast - Porridge as before

Lunch - toast with jam

Dinner - Enchiladas from the freezer

Wednesday 28th Feb

Breakfast - Porridge

Lunch - Sourdough with eggs

Dinner - Made a Gigantes bean stew with our whole crop of dried beans from last year (they were plated too late and went mouldy so the crop was small. Served with polenta made with 2/3 organic chicken stock cube and 1/3 whole milk which I hadn’t tried before. Yoghurt and grated cheese on top.

Tuesday 27th

Breakfast - Porridge with bottled apple, flax, mixed seeds and honey.

Lunch - crisp breads and cream cheese (leftovers from working away) and sauerkraut

Dinner - Our first PSB, steamed with poached eggs. I made a hollandaise which failed miserably, we ate it anyway. Eric forgot to pick up new potatoes on the way home so I made potato wedges.

Monday

Breakfast - Porridge with bottled apple, flax, mixed seeds and honey.

Lunch - leftover pizza

Dinner - Curried pumpkin soup with cheese and herb flatbread, made with pizza dough

Sunday 25th February

Bacon, eggs and sourdough (from a Cumbrian bakery) for breakfast. Came home to about 10 eggs! Lasagne from the freezer for dinner.

Saturday 24th February - home

Eric made pizza

Wednesday 14th

Breakfast - porridge with homemade mincemeat found at the back of the fridge

Drove to Cumbria - away till 24th Feb

Tuesday 13th

Breakfast - porridge with sliced dates, ground flax, seeds and honey

Lunch - leftover roast potatoes sliced and fried in the leftover butter from cooing the carrots, fresh eggs from the hens and sourdough toast

Dinner - Courgette dal, brown rice and yoghurt

Monday 12th Feb

Breakfast - porridge with blackberries from the freezer, ground flax, seeds and honey

Lunch - Salad of leftover potatoes, carrots and sauerkraut with herb dressing

Dinner - Lentil soup and sourdough

Sunday 11th Feb

Brunch - our eggs, local bacon and homemade sourdough

Afternoon - last of the Christmas cake!

Chicken pie from the freezer and batch cooked roast potatoes and carrots cooked in mustard, butter and our honey.

Saturday 10th February

Museli for breakfast

Toast for lunch

Out for dinner

Friday eve - mushroom carbonara

Friday 2nd February - Friday 9th February we had a visitor and were staying with them at their holiday accommodation. We cooked and ate together and it wasn’t particularly representative of what we would normally eat but very enjoyable all the same.

Thursday 1st February

Chick pea and tomato stew with oat topping - some biscuits that went wrong with coleslaw and potato salad

Wednesday 31st

Roasted beetroot with orange zest and thyme, new potato salad, coleslaw

Tuesday 30th

Out for lunch

Soup and bread and cheese

Monday 29th

Lunch - soup and bread

Cabbage, onion and cheese galette with baby potatoes

Sunday 28th

Brunch - toast with our eggs and some grated cheese on top

Did some food prep for the week

Made a random soup - onion, HG chilli, garlic, added the drained water from the re-freid beans made on Thursday, two cubes of frozen wild garlic, vegetable stock, HG pumpkin puree and courgette both from the freezer, some beetroot concentrate, curry powder, leftover brown rice from Thurs

Cubed some Hg beetroot for roasting later

Fried onion and HG cabbage for tomorrow’s galette

Dinner - leftover roast lamb, gravy and spiced red cabbage from the freezer, potatoes roasted with thyme

Saturday 27th Jan

Baked a loaf with rye flour, worked well, has a sweetness to it

Bacon sandwich with smoked bacon from the butcher and home made brown sauce

Made some pie dough, half went in the freezer, half in the fridge for a later date

Cooked the rest of the pumpkin in the pressure cooker, went in the freezer

Eric made pizza with sourdough discard

Friday 26th

Porridge with rhubarb

Lunch leftover brown rice, fried egg, za’tar and parmesan

Dinner - Carbonara with stored pumpkin - wrong one for that dish, too watery

Thursday 25th Jan

Porridge with blackberries and rhubarb from the freezer

Lunch - as yesterday

Dinner - Enchiladas from last week plus re-fried beans - https://www.wellplated.com/instant-pot-refried-beans/ and brown rice and wild garlic kimchi

Wednesday 24th Jan

Baked bread

Homemade museli - oat, wheat and barley flakes, homemade apple slices, dates, sultanas, pumpkin, sunflower and sesame seeds, pecan and hazel nuts, ground flax.

Lunch - blue cheese and chutney sandwiches

Dinner - dragon sausages from the butcher, lentils cooked with diced veg and herbs from the freezer and a beetroot, celeriac and potato gratin from the freezer. Fresh herb dressing - Winter savoury, sage, thyme, salad burnet, rosemary.

Tuesday 23rd Jan

Porridge with apple cooked with sultanas and cinnamon.

Lunch - leftover onion soup from last night

Christmas cake in the afternoon

Dinner - Tartiflette with reblochen cheese I bought in France and has been in the freezer for a year and 3 months, it looked perfectly fine. Bit of an extravagant mid week meal but should have had it lat week when the pipes were frozen. It was delicious!

Monday 22nd Jan

Porridge with apple cooked with sultanas and cinnamon.

Lunch - brown seeded rolls scavenged from the buffet at a family party with Roast plum and liquorice chutney and stilton cheese.

Dinner - Onion soup with apple and cheese on toast - Gill Mellor Time book

Weekend - away visiting family

Friday 19th Jan

Porridge with rhubarb

Lunch - Tomato soup from the freezer with gremolata

Dinner - Chicken enchiladas

Chicken mixture - freezer raid - leftover roast chicken, roast tomatoes, ratatouille, tin tomatoes, black eye beans from freezer. Added to onions, garlic and chilli. Thought it was super spicy but when we ate it it was barely spicy at all.

Couldn’t get organic flour tortillas, agonised over whether I should make my own, got a grip and got them from the coop.

Thurs 18th Jan

Toast with neighbours homemade lemon curd

Lunch - leftover curry cold from Tuesday night

Took cake to knitting cherry and pecan cake from Gais’s feasts

Dinner - kitchen pipes are frozen - fish and chips from the chippy

Wed 17th Jan

Porridge with rhubarb from the freezer

Lunch pumpkin soup from Monday with gremolata (delicious)

Gremolata basic recipe -

1 tbs salted butter and 1 tbs oil in a pan

Add 1/2 cup chopped pumpkin seeds - sunflower? Hazelnut? Any nuts?

1 garlic clove

1 tbs chopped rosemary

Cool

Add 1 cup finely chopped herbs

Zest of one orange/lemon/preserved lemon?

1/4 tsp sea salt

Dinner - Deep freezer retrieval game pie filling - didn’t realise, failed oat biscuits on the top - made it super dry. Celeriac, beetroot and potato gratin. All a bit dry but good to use up

Tues 16th Jan

Porridge with rhubarb and blackberries from the freezer

Lunch - Toast with ham cheese and egg

Dinner - Kale thoran, courgette dal and brown rice

15th Jan

Porridge made with organic whole milk, turmeric, apples cooked fresh with sultanas and cinnamon. Topped with ground flaxseed, sunflower seeds, pumpkin and sesame seeds, bee pollen and our honey.

Lunch - baked potatoes with cottage cheese and homemade sauerkraut

Dinner - Made soup - pumpkin, courgette from freezer, stock with stock veg inc. onion, chilli, garlic - in blender, yellow split peas and curry powder. With cheese scones

14th Jan

Croque monsieur - only one egg

Christmas cake

Lamb hotpot from the freezer and taunton dean kale from the wood

13th January

Breakfast - baked eggs with ham and perl wen cheese

Made beef stock in the pressure cooker

Baked bread

Eric made pizza, Shropshire blue and mozzarella. Wish we had a better supply of organic mozzarella

12th January 2024

Porridge with apples cooked fresh, hazelnuts and honey

Lunch at the Hop In

Dinner - chicken pie made with stock leftovers, braised red cabbage and roast potatoes