Summer

4 ways with beetroot

The Chioggia & Golden Beetroot are both heritage varieties, the Chioggia is pink with concentric circles running through the middle. Pickled, grated raw, roasted, or in a soup, do give it a try.

For roasting, remove the leaves just above the base, (you can eat them, treat the same as chard or cavolo nero) wash the beetroot, cover with cold water and bring to the boil. Simmer for 10 minutes and drain; wearing rubber gloves rub away the skin. Cut into wedges and roast in a hot oven with olive oil, herbs and a couple of crushed cloves of garlic, turning a couple of times.

Great with an Etherley Farm free range chicken – usually available from the Food Float too.

Sweet-pickled beetroot

Ingredients

200g sugar
250ml water
250 ml white wine vinegar
2 cinnamon sticks
tsp cloves
tsp allspice
tsp black peppercorns

Method

Wash the beetroot and boil as you would a potato until just cooked retaining a little firmness.
Wearing rubber gloves and while still hot, carefully remove the skin.
In a clean pan bring all the other ingredients to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes.
If the beetroots are small keep them whole, otherwise cut into chunks and place in a sterilised Kilner jar.
Cover with the pickling liquid complete with the cinnamon and spices. Allow to cool, close the lid and pop in the fridge.

Bellissimi Borlotti

Borlotti Beans are firmly at the top of Tim’s list of favourite vegetables. Treated just like a runner bean they are a scrummy vegetable. John (who grows the beans) allows the beans to grow on until the end of August, when they are swollen in the pod. Not to be seen in the supermarket, they are completely different to the dried or tinned versions.

Method

Remove the beans from the pods, cover with plenty of cold water.

Add a stick of celery, a carrot and a leek all roughly chopped, a sprig of thyme a bay leaf and a few black peppercorns.

Bring to the boil and simmer until just softening – around 40 minutes.

Finely chop a red onion, a couple of cloves of garlic, a stick of celery and a carrot and soften in a little olive oil.

Add the drained cooked beans, freshly chopped parsley, a squeeze of lemon juice and season well.

You can now add a good glug of olive oil and serve

Or follow Tim’s lead and do enough good chicken stock to just cover and boil for a few minutes.

Use either of these as a base, topping with your choice of meat or fish – fantastic !

Broad Beans

From Secretts Farm (just the other side of Godalming), these tasty beans make
a lovely bright addition to meat or fish.

Blanch the beans after taking them out of the pod and remove the skins. Try them in a risotto, with some fresh peas and mint, or just sprinkled on your ‘John’s lettuce ‘as part of a salad – a lifetime’s experience of growing ensures the quality, food miles around 3!

Pan fried Etherley Farm chicken and Primo
cabbage slaw

Primo Cabbage is normally associated with the winter, but you can use it as a summer vegetable. Make a slaw and retain all its goodness. Let your imagination run riot by mixing your cabbage with any number of crispy raw vegetables.

For the slaw

Remove the outer leaves, cut into quarters and remove the core.

Shred really finely and add matchsticks of carrot, finely sliced red onion, cucumber, finely shredded red pepper, chopped ripe avocado or any other crunchy veg.

Mix with just enough mayonnaise and sweet chilli sauce to coat, add a squeeze of tomato ketchup and lemon juice and season.

For the wrap

Pan fry an Etherley Farm chicken breast in a little olive oil with garlic and rosemary.

Warm a wrap or pitta bread and lay plenty of slaw on the base.

Top with sliced warm chicken breast, sprinkle with a little sea salt and black pepper.

Purple carrots

Purple carrots are rich in antioxidants provided by the purple tinge, the same antioxidants as those found in blueberries. Apparently carrots were originally purple, the Dutch changing the colour to the now familiar orange.

Cut the tops off leaving a couple of centimetres and give them a scrub and dry, then:

Put them in a pan and barely cover with water and a splash of orange juice. Add half a teaspoon of sugar, a good pinch of sea salt and a knob of butter. Put a lid on, bring to the boil, simmer for 2 minutes, turn off the heat and allow to cool in the liquid. When you need them, reheat in a little of the liquid and serve with a twist of black pepper.
Or simply coat in a little olive oil and roast until just cooked with a little fresh thyme and seasoning.

A ‘superfood’ side: new season kale

Full of vitamins, minerals and fibre, kale is a great addition to your plate. New season Kale tastes very different to its winter cousin.

Strip it from the stalk, wash and blanch in plenty of boiling salted water for 3 or 4 minutes.

Refresh under the cold tap, drain and squeeze dry. At this stage you can keep it in the fridge until you need it. Melt a knob of butter in a dry pan and reheat the kale. Season and serve, trust me it is so good and full of vitamins.

3 ways with peas

Peas are for eating raw or just sprinkled on a salad.

Make a feature of them, in a risotto with fish or chicken,
Or with fresh pasta, smoked bacon, a splash of fresh cream and lots of chopped parsley.

Runner Beans with Tomato, Garlic and Chilli. Remove the string and cut into diamonds. Peel and slice 2 cloves of garlic, soften in a little olive oil. Add the beans, a pinch of chilli flakes, sea salt and pepper, cook for a further two minutes. Add enough chopped tinned tomato to just cover and simmer until the beans are cooked. Stir through some torn basil leaves before serving.

Summer salad

Salad ingredients like lettuce, tomato and radish are packed full of vitamins and antioxidants. Keep the lettuce’s freshness and delicate flavour, with the addition of a couple of your Plum Vine Tomatoes, maybe spiked with some thin slices of radish. Dress simply with a little oil and lemon juice, season with sea salt and black pepper and relish the taste of summer.

Gary’s Vine Tomatoes
Gary’s tomatoes continue to be the best Tim has ever tasted in 40 years of working with food. Don’t mess with them; enjoy them in their raw state cut into chunk
s and added to John’s lettuce and a handful of rocket, a simple dressing and a Chalk Hills Italian Stick from the Foodfloat. Job done!

Make a salad with our heritage tomatoes, and our local Halloumi , Greek olives and some garlicky croutons. That’s a taste of summer!

Delicious and nutritious: Abinger Watercress

Much of what we see in the supermarkets is land cress, grown in poly tunnels and bearing little resemblance to Watercress. A quote from the Guardian Newspaper entitled Eat More:
‘A study showed Watercress provides more nutrients per calorie than all the other ‘ superfoods’ to which it was compared. Eating a handful of watercress a day (roughly 70 gms) will exceed your vitamin K needs and provide almost half your daily vitamin C and vitamin A.’

So not only local, but good for you too !