There is a particularly noisy bird standing on the top of a huge pine tree opposite, as I sit here and write, giving his speech of almost Churchillian proportions to the unimpressed masses below. But no one could doubt his sincerity. He claims that Summer is here, and it's true: bursting from every hedgerow, dripping from every hawthorn tree, this abundance of flower and blossom.
Summer has come for me too, at last. Like swallows migrating north for the Summer, my little birds have come back home. First my daughter Hannah, from eighteen months in China and East Asia, followed swiftly by my second son, Chris and his fiancee Beatriz, from Germany (where they have been living these past few years). My third little swallow will be my first grandchild, due to arrive at the end of June, dropped by a stork.
Suddenly there is life and laughter and an abundance of all that is good in this world. Day by day the rhubarb patch is getting out of control as it sucks the richness out of the earth. I like to deal with it outside, partly because the large leaves are unwieldy in my tiny kitchen, but mainly because it is too nice to be stuck indoors in the kitchen. It is time for the kitchen to come outside to play. There is something therapeutic about sticking your hands in a bowl of ice cold water to rub any lingering soil from the pink and green striped chunks. This first lot is to be bagged and off to the freezer for future crumbles and fools.
I have a mind to start a Children's cookery book - of real food, not just endless sweet cakes - and a willing cook to test it out for me. Sophie has already spied the rhubarb, lurking behind the oil tank, and staked her claim. I will look out my pie dish and give her free rein in the kitchen. Children love to cook; most of them. I never met a child who didn't want to cook something that they particularly wanted to eat. And maybe that is the answer. I am particularly uninspired by the kind of children's cookbooks (usually with overly-vivid photographs of sweets pretending to be food) of the kind my children usually receive at Christmas. And I want to take my little cooks out into the garden and show them how it grows, and when it is just right to harvest, and have them see it as part of nature and of the season and cycle of the year. I want them to taste the onion in a chive blade as they throw it in a simple omelet before the pretty purple flowers make the blades woody and inedible. And down in the woods, where the ransomes grow, I want them to smell the dankness and picture the white flower heads about to carpet the hillside like an over-exuberant Axminster.
It is salad season here. Nearly every day I am tempted to 'do the healthy thing' and plate up with a huge mound of salad to go with whatever we are eating. I have taken to experimenting with making different salad dressings to see which I prefer and with what. These are simple things to make and take minutes to prepare.
My two current favourites are a traditional french walnut oil dressing with balsamic vinegar and a cider vinegar and olive oil one with shallots in it. The cider vinegar one is sharper and cuts through things, and the walnut oil one is thicker and richer and more subtle, and I can't seem to get enough of it. Walnut oil is also incredibly good for you, with its antioxidants, omega 3, melatonin to promote a good night's sleep and seems to promote weight loss (although probably not in the amounts I'm anointing my salads with!)
Walnut Oil Vinaigrette
6 tblsp. Walnut Oil
2 tblsp. Balsamic vinegar
2 tsp. Dijon mustard
1/2 tsp. salt
Method:
Simply add all the ingredients to a screw top jar and shake well. Or add to a mixing jug and stir with a small whisk until the mixture thickens and 'comes together'.
Cider vinegar and shallot dressing
80 ml Olive oil (need I say extra-virgin these days?)
60 ml Cider vinegar
2 tsp Honey
2 tsp Dijon mustard
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1 shallot (finely chopped)
Method:
Add all the ingredients to a mixing jug and stir well. Pour carefully into an empty dressing bottle.
(Don't use a funnel, as I did, as the chopped shallot just gets stuck, and don't attempt to make this in the salad dressing bottle as the Dijon mustard just gets all over the place and sticks to the side of the bottle instead of combining.)
I have been using an organic raw and unfiltered cider vinegar which rather poetically claims to 'contain(s) the mother'. The health benefits of cider vinegar are huge, including lowering blood pressure and cholesterol, but I have been taking it daily for some years to help with arthritis. I'm not going to lay any extravagant claims for it here, but all I can say is that the daily pain I was experiencing in my hands has now completely gone. So who's to know?
I am always happy when I can get two different meals out of something. I made this Goats Cheese, Tomato and Basil Tart the other day to serve warm with the lovely new Jersey potatoes that are around at the moment; and then served it cold as part of a picnic another day. It works well under either guise, and is solid-enough to transport wrapped in foil.
Goats Cheese, Tomato and Basil Tart
Pastry:
200g Strong flour
100g Butter, cubed
1 egg
1/2 tsp salt
1 tblsp water
Filling:
2 eggs
100g Greek yogurt
100g Goats Cheese
1 tsp Baking powder
50g plain flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
2 tblsp finely chopped fresh basil
Topping:
400g Cherry Tomatoes
50g Goats Cheese
Olive Oil, to drizzle
A few Basil leaves.
Method:
1. Put the flour, butter, egg and salt in a processor and blitz until it forms a ball.
2. Roll out and line a greased 23cm fluted flan tin.
3. Place in the fridge for 20 mins.
4. Place all the filling ingredients in a mixing bowl and stir well until thoroughly combined and a soft consistency.
5. Spoon the mixture into the tart shell and spread evenly.
6. Cut the cherry tomatoes in half cross ways and arrange cut side up over the filling.
7. Scatter the remaining goats cheese, crumbled, over the filling and drizzle with olive oil and scatter over the remaining basil leaves.
8. Bake at 170 degrees centigrade for 30 minutes.
There is something rather lovely about serving up something a little out of the ordinary for a picnic on a day out. My childhood was spent growing up in the Lake District, and every weekend, week in, week out, whatever the weather, we spent picnicking in Wasdale or Ennerdale or one of our favourite hidden 'family' spots, amongst the jungle of bracken.
My mum had an old washing hamper that my dad's mum had given them, which she filled with tiny blue Tupperware boxes with circles on their transparent lids - hundreds of them, it seemed - and our greatest joy was to unpack them all and peel back the little lids to discover the little treasures held inside. A few slices of hard-boiled egg with cress and mayonnaise or a piece of gingerbread was like Christmas all over again to a starving child with icy wet legs from clambering in the stream in towelling shorts and soaking wet plimsolls.
Love Martha x
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