Food & Drink

Say goodbye to winter . . . hopefully!

With KATY BEAUCHAMP

Welcome to March – winter is on the way out and the evenings are getting lighter… but it can still remain cold outside. This month I’ve created some dishes to keep you toasty: a creamy, peppery sauce you can use in all sorts of ways; a hearty baked potato pie and a scrumptious vegan peanut butter cake.

BAKED POTATO PIE

This is everything you

INGREDIENTS (serves 5-6) 4 large baking potatoes 200g of grated cheese or use a batch of the pepper cheese sauce from the want from a baked potato, loaded with cheese, and a warming pork chilli. Made this way you can easily serve large and small portions. previous recipe 400g minced pork 1 diced onion 2 grated carrots 1 tin chopped tomatoes Heaped tsp each of mixed herbs, ground coriander, cumin, garlic granules and smoked paprika Tortilla chips Tomatoes Gaucamole METHOD Bake potatoes until soft (I do mine in the microwave for ten minutes and then finish off in the oven). Meanwhile, fry the mince, onions and carrots for ten mins., then add all the other ingredients and cook for a further 20 minutes. To assemble the pie, slice up the potatoes and layer up (like a lasagne)in an oven proof dish, starting off with a bed of potatoes. Spread a layer of mince then a layer of sauce or grated cheese, or both. Sprinkle some cheese on the top and bake in the oven until hot and bubbly! Decorate with tortilla chips, tomatoes and guacamole.

CREAMY PEPPER CHEESE SAUCE

A versatile sauce which can also be used as a dip

INGREDIENTS For the sauce: 1 red pepper, deseeded and cut into chunks 150g hard cheese (I used Red Leicester) 150ml double cream 2 tsp cornflour 1 tsp garlic granules

For the courgette fritters: 200gr grated courgette 1 tsp garlic granules 1 tsp tarragon 2 eggs 75g self-raising flour

PEANUT BUTTER CAKE

This cake can easily be made vegan, if you use a plant-based milk.

METHOD Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl and pour into a lined 2lb loaf tin and bake for 45 minutes to an hour at 160ºC. Leave to cool.

Melt chocolate and peanut butter together and pour over the top. This cake is best eaten on the same day but will taste gorgeous the next spread with peanut butter or chocolate spread and chopped nuts. This a lovely versatile sauce that could be served over pasta, gnocchi or used as a dip for crudités. I made some courgette fritters to accompany mine.

METHOD For the sauce, blend the raw pepper, cheese, cream and garlic and then cook over a low heat for 15 minutes. Mix the cornflour with a little water and stir into the sauce to thicken, season with salt and pepper pepper and it’s ready to serve!

For the fritters, squeeze the excess water from the grated courgettes and mix together with all the other ingredients, then gently fry spoonfuls of the mixture in olive oil for three minutes each side.

INGREDIENTS 300g self-raising flour 150g sugar 400ml milk/vegan substitute 200g peanut butter, crunchy or smooth Teaspoon of salt Topping 100g chocolate (vegan) 80g peanut butter Chopped nuts (of choice)

North Widcombe, West Harptree, Bristol BS40 6HW

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Getting stuck on the coast

COASTAL areas make for good foraging, a fact that we only seem to have recently ignored in favour of a trip to the shops. Now, one can hardly be blamed for this as with so many things from the wild there is usually a price to pay, either in the form of With ADRIAN BOOTS travelling a long distance to find your prize, finding it’s not ripe yet, then someone or something else beats you to it, too hot, too cold and or just plain old bad weather etc.

In this case, the price to be paid is being stuck by some of the biggest thorns ever invented. The prize is the astonishing bright orange berries and the wonderful if sharp (in more ways than one) juice they contain.

Did I mention the over-powering smell of malic acid (also found in apples), and when it gets into those thorn punctures and cuts...?

Sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides) is common all around the British coast with the exception of some parts of Wales and Scotland. They prefer shrubby coastal areas and of course sand dunes. The bright orange berries are hard to miss and can be found from July, are ripe in September, but can be seen right through the winter. Be warned, collecting these berries is a very sticky business as they easily burst. They provide an astonishing amount of beta-carotene, vitamins C, A, B2 and E, potassium, iron, boron, manganese, and they also have antiinflammatory, anti-oxidant, anti-viral and anti-tumour properties. Apparently, it’s even anti-x-ray!

As a result they are used extensively to treat many medical conditions. They are extremely popular in the East, Scandinavia, Finland, Russia and the Ukraine but can be strongly purgative, so take it easy on quantities.

You can make a number of really fun things with sea buckthorn berries including jams, sorbets or a cordial.

But the best way to enjoy your efforts and go some way to mitigate the time spent removing sharp bits of shrub from one’s fingers is to add the juice to sparkling wine for a sea buckthorn bellini or as a replacement for your usual fruit juice in a cocktail. Certainly makes braving all those thorns worthwhile.

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.

Love of carrots

WE had a good harvest of carrots for storage over the winter and we’re just getting through the last of them now. They were much damaged by carrot fly but are very sweet and tender – they just take a bit more peeling! We sow With JAKE WHITSON from spring through to around midsummer and pull up the last of the roots as we head into late autumn.

Next year we will try covering some beds with a fine mesh to exclude the carrot flies, which seem to be the main pest. Another method which we haven’t tried yet is to build a 2ft high polythene screen around the carrot beds – this apparently excludes the low-flying female flies.

I can think of no other produce that has become so uniformly insipid in the supermarkets than carrots. Bred for high production and above all else resilience in transport, the modern carrot has, to my mind at least, lost all vestiges of carrot flavour, leaving behind only a crunchy, watery and slightly sweet stick.

I often think it is no wonder so many people decline to eat many vegetables when that is what is on offer. Pretty much any home-grown carrot, by comparison, has an incredible head-filling aroma, balanced sweetness, slight bitter notes near to the tops and a substantial, satisfying texture.

I love carrots like this raw, either on their own (often while I cook dinner), with hummus, or – a new favourite of mine – dipped in olive oil and sprinkled with dukkah.

This Egyptian and Middle Eastern nut/spice dip is fantastic with raw vegetable and really easy to make. Simply toast 50g blanched hazelnuts and a tablespoon each of cumin, fennel, coriander, black peppercorns and sesame seeds in a hot oven until the hazelnuts are light brown.

Then crush to a coarse, chunky powder in a food processor or pestle and mortar and add salt to taste.

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

The veg boxes with added value –social purpose!

MEET Wally Dean and Charlie Walker –just two reasons why buying a veg box from Root Connections can make a huge difference to the lives of people facing challenges in their lives.

Root Connections, based at Manor Farm at Stratton-on-the-Fosse, is a Community Interest Company with a real hands-on social purpose as it works directly with the homeless or people recovering from alcohol or drug dependency.

Both Wally – a nickname – and Charlie are in their 50s and are getting back on their feet through gardening and horticulture, helping to grow the produce that goes into the veg boxes delivered on a one-off, weekly or fortnightly basis.

The market gardens and polytunnels at Manor Farm are springing into life with fresh, seasonal salads and vegetables –spring flowers will soon be available also. As well as the home delivery service, Root Connections are regular visitors to farmers markets in Castle Cary and Midsomer Norton.

Wally is a resident at the Dairy House next door to Manor Farm. Working with the Elim Connect Centre in Wells, it offers safe accommodation to a number of residents. Wally used to live in Glastonbury until the pandemic and turned back to alcohol.

Now, one of the highlights of his week is making soup from the freshly-picked vegetables for the Friday communal lunch at the Dairy House; he’s also a keen poet and has written one especially about how life on the land has transformed him.

Charlie is another “success story”. He has passed the first stage of a City and Guilds horticulture course at Root Connections – run in conjunction with Bridgwater College – and has just found a job two days a week doing gardening and maintenance at a luxury campsite near Cheddar.

Charlie said: “I’ve always tried to stay positive even when things were going badly for me. You just have to be persistent.” l Root Connections was the beneficiary of a charity concert at nearby Downside School, featuring young musicians. Project founders Sue and Rob Addicott were guest speakers.

Wally with his poem dedicated to Root Connections

Root Connections CIC 11537595

Delivering veg boxes with a social purpose!

Fresh Spring flowers coming soon!

Funding programme open for farmers in the Mendip Hills AONB

IF this were an episode of Dr. Who, and I stepped back in time to an Iron Age Mendip, I like to think that I would still recognise many of the features of the landscape that make it such a special place to be.

There would be sunny (foggy and cloudy?) limestone grasslands on the dramatic southern slopes, deep combes and gorges with beautiful exposed rock faces jutting out through the woodland trees, and at the heart of Mendip, farming communities pasturing hardy sheep, goats, and cattle to feed their families and trade with neighbouring communities.

Archaeological studies have shown that a diverse Neolithic economy powered by farming and lead mining created a mosaic of habitats – which successive generations have shaped into our distinctive landscape, designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), one of England’s finest landscapes.

Farming is an essential element of the Mendip Hills landscape. As well as delicious British products, farmers here can also supply public goods such as healthy soils, clean water, abundant biodiversity, and preserve beautiful landscapes for everyone to enjoy.

Supporting the delivery of public good is likely to form a strong component of upcoming schemes in the new farm payment system Agricultural Transition Plan, and farmers and land managers within the AONB can get a head start through the Farming in Protected Landscapes programme.

Running until 2024, Defra’s Farming in Protected Landscapes programme works alongside new and existing countryside management schemes to give farmers and land managers (including from the private, public, and charity sector) extra support to help protect the Mendip Hills AONB. Funding is available for projects which deliver benefits under one or more of these four categories: l Nature – supporting nature recovery, increasing biodiversity, improving connectivity between habitats, and enhancing management of existing habitats l Climate – sequestering carbon, reducing flood risk, ensuring the landscape is more resilient to climate change, and helping local communities adapt to the effects l People – actively engaging and educating the public in land management, and providing more opportunities for existing and new audiences to explore and enjoy the landscape l Place – enhancing the character of the landscape, protecting/enhancing/interpreting local cultural heritage features, and supporting the local rural economy The Mendip Hills AONB unit coordinate the programme, alongside an independent local assessment panel who review applications. We are keen to support as many farmers as possible to deliver public goods through this programme, putting farming at the heart of nature recovery and public engagement in the Mendip Hills. Since August 2021, projects we have funded through this programme include: l 6,000 trees planted in over 850m of new hedgeline near Charterhouse l Ongoing rebuilding of a dilapidated drystone wall near Charterhouse l Restorative works of a traditional Somerset orchard, drystone wall repairs, and wildlife surveys to advise on pond restoration near West Harptree l The creation of a wildlife pond near Westbury-sub-Mendip l 200m of drystone walling to be undertaken this summer near Priddy l The purchase of a tractor-mounted bale unroller to prevent soil damage around round feeders on sensitive grasslands near Ebbor Gorge l The creation of a new permissive, multiuser access route linking Priddy and Ubley Warren l Laying of 150m of historic hawthorn hedge near Ubley l A contribution towards the start-up costs of a new outdoor education charity near Churchill l Provision of a water supply to allow grazing of a SSSI near Westbury l Funding for a demonstration of regenerative agriculture practices near Compton Martin l A contribution towards the costs of an event celebrating natural fibres and farming, to be held at the end of March near Compton Martin l A project including hedge-laying, tree planting, and the removal of marginal land from production near Hinton Blewett

And more applications are coming in all the time…

If you farm within the AONB and have projects you have been considering, or if you would like to receive a free advice visit to discuss potential ideas and check you are eligible, contact the Mendip Hills AONB Unit by email (mendip@mendiphillsaonb.org.uk) or telephone (01761 462338) and ask for Megan. There is more information on our website (mendiphillsaonb.org.uk).

50th anniversary

Fifty years ago, on February 14th, 1972, the announcement was made that the Mendip Hills would be designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), and signed by the Secretary of State on December 1st, 1972. The AONB team are planning a series of exciting activities throughout the year to help people share their love for the area in recognition of the 50th anniversary.

Megan Godley Farming Engagement Officer Farming in Protected Landscapes Mendip Hills AONB Charterhouse Centre, BS40 7XR Office telephone: 01761 462338 Email: megan@mendiphillsaonb.org.uk www.mendiphillsaonb.org.uk

Westbury gets planting

THEWestbury-sub-Mendip Community Tree Group has been busy planning 2,500 trees, thanks to the hard work of a score or so volunteers from the village, from neighbouring Easton, from Strawberry Line supporters and –especially – from a bunch of cheerful, hardworking Mendip AONB Young Rangers.

The half-mile hedge has been planted alongside a new fence that has been provided by Greenways and the Strawberry Line and, once complete, will form a good new chunk of the cycling/pedestrian route from Cheddar to Wells.

The whole project was given an added excitement by the donation and planting of two fine young trees donated by the Tree Council as part of its 50th birthday celebration. One of these was helped into the ground by chairman of Westbury Parish Council, Sue Isherwood, and the other by leader of Mendip District Council Ros Wyke, and Westbury Community Tree Group leader, Buffy Fletcher.

With a little more work and the repair of a style or two, local residents can now look forward to enjoying a new circular walk. Looking even further ahead it’s hoped this path will form an important chunk of the planned extension to the Strawberry Line cycle route from Cheddar to Wells.

Buffy Fletcher said: “This has been a fantastic pooling of resources and manpower from a whole variety of interested groups. Our local Community Tree Group provided some manpower (age range three to 75) and over 100 of the young trees.

“The Strawberry Line and Greenways provided the stock fencing and Mendip District Council awarded the grant for the purchase of the remaining plants (through its Community Fund). Last but not least, Mendip AONB provided advice and support, two beautiful trees and a wonderful band of willing and hard-working Young Rangers.”

The Westbury-sub-Mendip Community Tree Group was set up in late 2020. Since then it has created a tree nursery in the village and propagated some 1000 young trees from locally-sourced seed, planted a new woodland to the west of the village, assisted with the re-stocking of Lynchcombe Wood which is badly affected by ash dieback disease and given advice and practical assistance to various other tree planting projects in the parish.

Buffy said: “It’s all about community spirit, and answering the need to plant trees for a whole variety of reasons. Our aim always is use locally sourced stock, and to put the right tree in the right place.”

Pictured (l to r) Ros Wyke, leader Mendip DC, Lewis Morrison, Tree Council, Tim Haselden, AONB, Buffy Fletcher, Community Tree Group Volunteers in action

Steering group seeks more members One of Chew Valley's mighty oaks

CHEWValley Plants Trees is looking for six new members to increase their steering group in line with the growing interest in their organisation.

The group was set up to help address the climate and ecological emergency at a grassroots level, aiming to support the doubling of tree cover in the Chew Valley between 2020 and 2030, providing carbon capture, enhanced ecosystems for biodiversity and promoting sustainable food production.

They promise to engage in expertadvised conversation to find the right tree for the right place and to ensure that landowners wishing to plant trees felt supported in doing so.

One of the founding members, Jackie Head, said: “We are looking for people with an interest in developing our social media presence, in helping with our site visits to farmers and landowners, in helping with funding applications and in staffing our stall when we are out and about.

“Being a member would mean attending a Zoom meeting once a month and perhaps offering a couple more hours a month engaging with other tasks.

“We can tailor your contribution towards your skills and interests and the amount of time you can offer.”