Food & Drink

St. Valentine’s Day isn’t just about romance!

With KATY BEAUCHAMP

For some, romance will be in the air; but everyone can celebrate St. Valentine’s Day by cooking and sharing some lovely dishes with friends and family.

BROCCOLI AND CHEESE “FALAFELS”

An authentic taste of the Middle East –with a twist!

SOMERSET CIDER MUSSELS

Who says the French are the only romantics – these mussels are cooked with love in Somerset cider!

INGREDIENTS (serves 2 as a main meal or four as a sharing plate) 1 kilo mussels 4 chopped shallots 20gm butter 1 crushed garlic clove 150mls cider 100mls double cream Salt and pepper To serve Chopped chives Bread Mussels are a great sharing dish, they are cheap (£3 per kilo of the finest ones) and taste lovely served with some delicious bread to mop up the juices.

METHOD If any of the mussels are open before they are cooked, give them a tap on the counter and they should shut (discard any that don’t).

Fry the shallots in the butter for a few minutes, then add garlic and salt and pepper, give it a stir, tip in the mussels and pour in the cider and cook on a high heat for 5-7 minutes, (until the mussels have opened).

Turn the heat off and stir in the cream. Tip in to a shallow dish and sprinkle over the chives and serve with some lovely bread! These aren’t authentic falafel as they don’t contain chickpeas - but they do taste delicious and share some of those aromatic Middle Eastern flavours!

METHOD Cook the broccoli until tender, blitz with a handheld blender or in a food processor whilst hot and add the remaining ingredients. It needs to be like a stiff dough consistency. If you are using stuffing mix you may need to add some more boiling water.

With wet hands, shape the mixture into 15 walnut-sized balls. Place them on a baking tray lined with foil and bake at 160°C for 25mins.

Serve warm in the split pitta bread, spoon in some dip, and add salad. Enjoy!

INGREDIENTS (for 15 balls, three per serving) 300g broccoli 100g herby breadcrumbs (or a packet of stuffing mix) 10g grated Parmesan Juice and zest of 1 lemon Small bunch of coriander finely chopped I tsp each dried cumin, coriander, and garlic To serve Pitta bread Salad Garlic and onion readymade dip

CHOCOLATE ORANGE SHORTBREAD HEARTS

This recipe makes 20 biscuits. They are delicious plain, but I decorated mine with pink butter icing, white chocolate, sprinkles and nuts. Just do what you fancy!

METHOD Mix everything together, adding the orange juice last, as you may not need it all. You should have a stiff but pliable dough. Roll out the dough and cut out whatever shape biscuits you want. Bake at 160°C for 25 mins, then leave to cool completely before you decorate them. INGREDIENTS 140g butter 70g icing sugar I heaped tablespoon cocoa powder 200g plain flour Zest and juice of one orange

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Farmers markets back in action

Louise Hall, from Somerset Farmers Markets (left), with new market co-ordinator Jodie Standerwick

FEBRUARY sees the return of monthly Somerset Farmers Markets to Axbridge, Burnham-on-Sea, Keynsham, Frome and Midsomer Norton.

Meanwhile, the Nailsea farmers market and The Frome Independent market will restart in March, being much larger events.

It’s now 23 years since SFM established its first market in Somerset and its remit remain as strong – if not stronger – as ever: the not-for-profit organisation’s support for small, family-run farms and enterprises who embrace welfare-friendly and environmentally-sound principles continues to grow as it provides sales outlets for around 100 local farmers, growers, beekeepers, cheesemakers, bakers, foragers, cidermakers, vineyards and craftspeople.

The Axbridge and Burnham events also have a new markets co-ordinator who is no stranger to running stalls there herself. Jodie Standerwick, who lives in Portishead, runs her own micro-greens business called Leafy Greens Micro Farm, and also trades at Keynsham and Nailsea. Jodie’s role is not only to attract and support stallholders but also to encourage more shoppers to visit regularly.

For details and to sign up to the SFM e-newsletter for each market, visit: www.somersetfarmersmarkets.co.uk

Visit www.somersetfarmersmarkets.co.uk for dates

Regular Monthly Markets

1st Saturday: Axbridge & Midsomer Norton 1st Sunday: The Frome Independent 2nd Saturday: Keynsham & The Frome Cheese & Grain 3rd Saturday: Nailsea & Crewkerne Last Friday of the month: Burnham-on-Sea

WILD FOOD A different kind of rush

With ADRIAN BOOTS

NOWthe Christmas and New Year rush is over, it’s time to work off some of the excesses of the holiday season and try a different kind of rush. Watercourses are a great place to look for wild food but be careful – standing in wet, cold, muddy and usually rather odorous abodes comes with a health warning. Not least when it overtops your wellies – you just can’t get rid of that

smell.

I’m not sure I’m selling this too well which is probably a good thing given the dangers of falling in or leaving beloved footwear behind.

Still, winter is a tricky time to find any wild food yet reedmace (aka bulrush) provides much-needed starchy carbohydrates and in huge quantity at that. Find them along rivers, streams and ditches etc (you’ll need landowner permission of course) and domestic ponds. If you don’t have a pond of your own why not try a friend’s, just remember to ask first otherwise you might be left wondering why you are no longer getting invitations to dinner parties. Sorry Dave. Great reedmace or bulrush (Typha latifolia) is a tall erect perennial grass up to 2.5m in height. The leaves are in two rows with the stem enclosed in leaves. The stem is completely round in cross section up to 4cm thick.

It’s found in watercourses and damp, wet areas. Technically it’s not a bulrush at all, but it is now accepted as an alternative common name.

For the forager, the large erect maces or cat-tails waving in the wind give away its location, making finding them that much easier. Cut the young shoots in spring, pull up roots in winter –it tastes good eaten raw or cooked. Chop into chunks and roast with your favourite veg or have it stir fried as a replacement for bamboo shoots.

It can also be baked dry and pulverised to make flour which can be added to soups and stews. When collecting from very slow moving/still watercourses it’s best not to tempt fate, so it is crucially important to peel off the outer layers and wash well in fresh potable water before consumption.

Otherwise the only rush you will be concerned with will be the one to the smallest room in the house.

Adrian Boots is a Landscape Ecologist, Wild Food Forager and Adventure Activity provider. You can visit his website: www.gowildactivities.co.uk to learn more about wild food foraging and activities you can do with him on the Mendip Hills.

GARDEN FOOD Red cabbage

THEvegetable garden is getting a bit sparser now as we head towards the hungry gap. Luckily our red cabbages have done really well this year, making nice tight heads, and we'll still be harvesting them for a while yet – it With JAKE WHITSON seems that red cabbages are generally regarded to keep better than their white relatives, perhaps because of the protective anthocyanins which give them their colour.

The same seeds will produce different coloured cabbages depending on the PH of the soil – with acidic soils producing redder cabbages, neutral soils purple and alkaline soils white or green cabbages. In fact the juice of a red cabbage can be used as a PH indicator, giving the same colour variations when dropped into acid, neutral or alkaline liquids.

I really love veg like this that is actually alive in the winter rather than preserved or frozen. The heads hold a great deal of sweetness and are fantastically crunchy, great both raw and cooked. Most commonly I'll throw some chunks of cabbage through the grating attachment on our food processor, toss the grated cabbage with salt and cider vinegar, let it sit for a minute to soften and enjoy it as a salady side with bread and cheese. When I've got a bit more time on my hands, I really enjoy making Kåldolmar, which are the Swedish version of cabbage rolls. To make it, first carefully remove as many outer leaves from a cabbage as you'd like finished rolls – I usually make about 20.

Then blanch them in salted water for a few minutes until soft and drain them. As they are cooling remove stems from the leaves and chop them small (leaving the leaves whole with a v shaped piece removed). Finely chop an onion, and sweat this down in a little butter, until soft and golden, along with the chopped cabbage.

Let this mixture cool, then mix it with a handful of breadcrumbs, an egg and about 500g mince (ideally a 50/50 mixture of beef and pork, but either will do on its own). Lay out the cabbage leaves one by one and add a tic-tac shaped handful of filling onto each before rolling them up into little packages like dolmades.

Brush them with a little melted butter and roast in a hot oven for 20-30 minutes until cooked through and a little crispy. Lovely served with mashed potatoes and gravy.

Jacob Whitson is a chef, food writer and smallholder –he divides his time between the Mendips and Pembrokeshire.

A number that’s lucky for some

TUESDAY, March 1st marks the 13th year since Dawn and Mike Corp and their family took over the Waggon and Horses at Doulting Beacon and they can’t thank their good fortune enough!

Not only is it an historic coaching inn on Mendip, but the freehouse is also the family home.

Having battled through lockdown and Dawn suffering an unrelated illness before Christmas, the family decided to reduce the Waggon’s opening hours. But, from early February, the inn will once again be open every lunchtime and from Wednesdays to Saturdays in the evening.

Dawn said: “We thought it was time to start to get back to normal and February seemed like a good month when spring is on the horizon.”

When spring does arrive, the Waggon boasts a splendid and secure walled garden – a real suntrap – and Dawn and Mike will soon reopen their caravan park behind the inn.

There are plans for an anniversary celebration at some point in the coming months – in aid of charity – and its popular motorbike and classic car meets will also return.

The Waggon is the meeting venue for the East Somerset Riding Club and local companies such as Mendip Tippers have been there for a get-together – reunions, whether school or business, are something which Dawn and Mike are keen to encourage.

AfreehouseattheheartofMendip

Dawn,Mikeandthe teamwelcomeyouto theirfriendlyfreehouse ontheMendips

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Old Frome Road, Doulting Beacon, Shepton Mallet, Somerset BA4 4LA Tel: 01749 880302 • E-mail: waggon.horses09@gmail.com www.waggon-horses-pub.business.site

Paw-fect news for food festival

FOOD and drink festival organisers eat:Festivals are celebrating after hearing that they are finalists in the Dog Friendly Business of the Year category at the 2022 Bristol, Bath & Bev and Sarah Somerset Tourism Awards. Sarah Milner Simonds, from the Burnham-on-Sea not-for-profit social enterprise, said: "We think this is a paw-fect start to the new year and really wag-ficient news. We work really hard to make our one-day food and drink festivals welcoming for the whole family and that includes four-legged members too."

Co-organiser Bev Milner Simonds added: "We have always made sure we are dog friendly but this year we enhanced experience by having a dog ‘concierge’ on hand to welcome pets, publishing local dog walks, working in partnership with local dog businesses to increase our number of water bowl spots and having Pooch Paws-Points dotted throughout the festival with seating for owners to take a breather." eat:Festivals find out if they have won gold, silver or bronze on Thursday, February 17th. Meanwhile, they are working hard on their plans for the 2022 season of events.