Igenlode Wordsmith

I made a Nettle Porridge from an old handwritten recipe that I don't think my mother ever actually used; it's a page of different ways of taking revenge upon the nettles in your garden, starting with Creamed Nettles and ending with the slowest and most complicated of all, Nettle Porridge! This is actually a steamed barley-and-nettle-pudding with a lot of other foraged leaves in the ingredients( Read more... )

( Kulebyaka )

( Chocolate Beetroot cake )

Inspired by sallymn, I decided to concoct a mess of pottage for my evening meal :-)

I stewed half the beef 'soup bones' I got from the butcher's stall on Saturday (at £4 a bag, I suspect they were more expensive than offal -- gone are the days when people gave that sort of thing away for free), 'seething' them with 'herbs' (half an onion, half a carrot and half a stick of celery, a bay leaf, some thyme and some sage leaves), then added split peas and barley to the broth, along with peppercorns and some entirely inauthentic Worcestershire sauce! (Apparently the peasants used to use plenty of herbs to compensate for a lack of salt, but I'm afraid after tasting the result I added a good half-teaspoon or so of salt as well.)( Read more... )