Jerusalem Fartichokes

Have you noticed?

Unlike asparagus and strawberries now these are truly seasonal and grow like weeds. I dug these up before the ground got too hard and made a delicious lunch with a grating of Lincolnshire Poacher cheddar on top. Mmmm…

and Mulberry crumble for dessert…

…but made this at home with mulberries from the freezer because the puddings are never this good.

Four Horseshoes – big lunch

Went for a walk around Thornham and popped into the Four Horseshoes – a Greene King pub -mid-afternoon to find their carvery still in full swing. It runs all day and is £10 for a plate enough to keep my teenage son happy.  Good choice of nice veg but we are starting to spot the obvious but fatal flaw in a Carvery – how do you keep the meat moist and juicy?   We have to keep choosing the fatty Pork Belly (which was quite tasty) as everything else looked a bit dry…

Dhal for lunch

So easy, so delicious, so nutritious, so warming and so cheap. A sweet potato and lentil dhal with naan bread – didn’t make the bread but I did use coriander seeds out of the garden.

Tomato mini pizza

So many tomatoes at the moment that I have had every recipe I can think of and made soup, pasta sauce, ratatouille and lots of others.  But this was simple and delicious and used up a bit of old ciabatta at the same time. So easy I’m not going to put it in Recipes - just spread pesto (from a jar not home made) on the bread, halved cherry tomatoes and a shaving of parmesan, then grill until brown. If you teach your children this they can make it after school, and it works really well on half a muffin too, just call it mini pizza.

Blue Hubbard soup

Aka a pumpkin (or squash) I bought from a side of the road, kindly labelled by the grower as I wouldn’t have known what a Blue Hubbard was. A tiny bit under-ripe I thought, but very tasty nonetheless. See Recipes for how to do it.

A foodie anniversary – Caribbean style

Suffolk foodie is one year old today. Celebrate by going to Lidl for my utter favourite  bar of dark chocolate with nuts in, and find Caribbean meat patties! Expecting them to taste awful but they are surprisingly authentic (well, they are made in Birmingham) with just the right amount of heat from scotch bonnet peppers. Although home made ones would have more filling it’s not bad for Stowmarket!

Harveys Garden Plants

 Lovely food. I had their version of Welsh Rarebit with salad and the most delicious piece of lemon cake filled with home made lemon curd with greek yoghurt on the side. Mum had a bacon sandwich in ciabatta-type bread and a piece of plum and orange cake. They say they use their own produce and it shows  in the moist yellow cake made with their own eggs. We both had their own fresh apple juice. And they  have some really nice plants too. Not your usual garden centre.   www.harveysgardenplants.co.uk is their web site but it doesn’t seem to want to connect on my computer… Harvey?

Needham tea room

Such a quaint little tea rooom of the kind you think have long gone. Full of teapots on display and a reasonable menu of snacks and main meals. I had a cheese and ham toastie which was two slices of toast full of nice home cooked ham. They have a couple of nice foodie shops here in Needham, a good butchers and one of the best charity shops ever.

Alder Carr Farm with the Telegraph air hair lair

My friend Joe and I are at Alder Carr drooling over the cheese counter when we hear that so is the food critic from the Telegraph. I am not quick enough to give her my suffolkfoodie card but I understand food critics don’t like food bloggers much so maybe it’s for the best. Great Ploughmans though – big chunk of Suffolk Gold and a home made scotch egg. And a special hello to the nice man buying  cheeses beginning with g for his dinner party - we want to come!

www.aldercarrfarm.co.uk