nasturtium pesto

nasturtium pesto

My neighbourhood was a riot of colourful nasturtiums, that have self-seeded in any nook and cranny they can find. It was a bright spot in what is normally a somewhat grey patch of inner city London.

wild leek, lemongrass and chilli paste

wild leek, lemongrass and chilli paste

The old adage that my mother used to drum in to me was "Rachel, don't play with your food!" In those far off days I probably heeded her eventually, little angel that I pretended to be. But these days I try to play with my food whenever possible. With the foraged food from my garden, I can experiment and take a few risks with this season's rampant wild leeks.

langoustines with creamy wild leek and chilli dipping sauce

langoustines with creamy wild leek and chilli dipping sauce.

Their bodies are fiddly to peel and I see their beady eyes glaring reproachfully at me in my sleep, but their flesh is so sweet and juicy that the langoustine really is worth the effort (and even a few nightmares!)

A lucky dip in my freezer picked out a bag of frozen cooked langoustines (nephrops norvegicus) but what to do with them?

green again! wild leek soup

wild leek soup

I'm feeling a little bit green again, It is partly to do with the fact that I have been doing a bit of less-than-intrepid foraging in my back garden for the past month or so, but also because of the unseasonably damp weather conditions here in England.

I mean to say - a hail storm in May? Monsoon conditions in London again? Just like last year, it has started to rain; this does not bode well for the summer. But at least I can take my mind off things and ease my sustainable conscience (as well as reducing food miles), by making a thrifty soup from a deliciously dark home-made and very wobbly chicken stock (made from last Sunday's roast chicken carcass) and my foraged wild leeks. 

nature's bounty: wild leek and chilli sauce

wild leek and chilli sauce

In harvesting my back garden of a non-native invader, I am ridding the neighbourhood of something that some of my neighbours regard as an annoying little pest and I have a rather lovely mild garlic taste of spring to enjoy. I am talking about the wild three-cornered leeks (allium triquetrum) that have covered a swathe of my garden yet again (this was despite digging them up last spring, although admittedly my attempts were a little half-hearted).

I have already made a wild leek pesto this year. But I wanted to have something that was simpler, without cheese that I could use to marinade meat and fish. A simple combination of merely wild leek leaves, chillies and chillies was something of a winner.

the best things in life are free . . . wild leek potato cakes

wild leek potato cakes

I don't know if Bing, Satchmo, Billie, Tony, Doris, June or my favourite Mills Brothers were much into their food or even foraging but when they sang "the best things in life are absolutely free . . ." Perhaps the writers of Pennies from Heaven, Arthur Johnston and Johnny Burke had something else on their mind. But for me it really sums up foraging in my back garden for the dreaded invasive wild leeks which can be quickly turned into a delicious meal, whether it is the main ingredient in pesto, stirred through pasta or in a meaty stew or roasted with the Sunday joint.

a real taste of an English summer: rose petal jam

rose petal jam

There are certain words that I find rather beguiling, from Samarkand and damask to honey and pomegranate. Some words are synonymous with their colours. They seem to glow and are full of vibrancy, such as poppy or hyacinth.

There are other words that as I read them I am aware of their scent, a sort of faint aromatic memory. Lavender and rosemary have a strong effect and obviously coffee. But one of the headiest of all is the scent of rose petals.

pasta with wild leeks and roasted tomatoes

spaghetti with wild leeks and roasted tomatoes

The cupboard was a bit bare but with store cupboard ingredients including dried pasta, garlic and mi cuit tomatoes and handfuls of fresh herbs including my latest discovery of wild leeks, which are very similar to wild garlic, I had supper ready in minutes.

better than fairies at the bottom of the garden: wild garlic pesto

wild leek pesto

While some people delight at the fairies at the bottom of the garden, I am entranced by the swathes of what has turned out to be "three-cornered leeks" or allium triquetrum, (which is also a form of wild garlic). This invader from the south western Mediterranean has acclimatised over the past hundred years or so, often found on verges in southern England. It is very pretty, very like a white bluebell. Unfortunately, when it gets out of hand it does have a slight tendency to overwhelm anything around it, although it does die back by late spring, so it isn't necessarily competing with native fauna. Fortunately the bottom of my garden is a wild area (fairies not withstanding) and I am enthralled by a free supply of wild garlic flavoured leaves. 

elderberry cordial - great tasting anti-flu in a mug

My guest blogger, Heathcliffe's second blog post.

elderberry cordial

So. It's Elderberry season. And Flu season. Luckily, in a game of rock-scissors-paper-elderberry-flu; Elderberry beats flu.  
 
In essence: when you get flu, the viruses invade your cells, hijack the mechanics and turn the cells in to virus making machines . . . cranking out copies of the virus faster than your body can deal with them. The neuraminidase inhibiting chemicals in elderberries are one of the few things clinically proven to slow down their spread.