Summer meals at the allotment and a refreshing radish, cucumber and fennel salad

We’ve eaten quite a few dinners at the allotment over the past week, much like our anniversary meal they’ve been utterly blissful.

Before we left I made a quinoa salad with cucumber, radish and dill, which was then finished off at the allotment with grilled fennel – I’d seen the recipe here and it was delicious, very refreshing which is just what you need in this weather.

Mr Rigg grilled some sausages and chicken, and we ate simply but well.

We drank sparkling elderflower from enamel mugs…

April and May on our plates

It has been a while since I shared any pictures of what we’ve been cooking and eating at home recently, so I thought I would look back through my albums and share some with you all.  Following on from my post about cutting out cheese temporarily for health reasons, this has now been extended to a lot more things, specifically wheat, sugar, and yeast.  It has been a challenge recently, but I hope I will get to the point where I am happy to share more with you.

So here’s some of the food we’ve been making and eating during April and May…

Sorrel, fresh garlic and white asparagus frittata

This was inspired by watching an episode of Two Greedy Italians where they met an elderly lady who knew all the wild herbs and plants growing around her mountain home.  She picked some wild greens and made a kind of frittata, popping the cooked greens through a mouli first to remove the tough bits.

I don’t think my sorrel had many tough bits, but being rather short in both supply and knowledge of wild greens, I wanted to try out the idea anyway.  It was great fun mouli-ing the sorrel and then mixing into my beaten eggs.

We’d not tried white asparagus before, but it was available in our organic grocery – I sliced peeled the outside, sliced them in half, blanched them and then laid them on top of my fritttata.  Topped with a dollop of raw basil pesto (this stuff is amazing and I live off it at the moment) it was pretty tasty.

Lemony garlic baked chicken with rice, asparagus and leftover aioli

Our first wedding anniversary dinner with a blanket and barbeque at the allotment

Yesterday was our first wedding anniversary, and having spent the previous 24 hours tucked away in bliss at the Inn at Whitewell, and with the gorgeous warm weather, we decided last minute to have dinner at the allotment.

We boiled up some new potatoes, got a barbeque going to cook the sausages and burgers, and Mr Rigg watered the vegetables.

It reminded me of how much I enjoy cooking outside with the challenge of limited gadgets and gismos to help you prepare your meal.  It reminded me of sunny evenings cooking market ingredients in the Loire Valley.

Spending time on our allotment in May

We have finally found some time to spend in our garden and on our allotment.  Being there is one of the most peaceful times, I find myself with an empty, calm mind and it’s blissful.

We are trying to do little by little at the moment rather than our usual tendency to over-exert ourselves one day and not come back for weeks.  We have got some bark chippings down to mark out four beds and have started to plant in some seedlings.

These peas I’ve grown from seed – I’m just hoping the bunnies or slugs don’t munch on them.