Eat the Seasons

seasons eat the

Keeping you in the know as to what is coming into season each month is NEIL MORTIMER from Lovejoys Wholesale...

July is a great month for salads and summer vegetables. The supermarkets now demand everything 12 months of the year, meaning we all start to expect everything to be available all year

round without stopping to notice how far it has travelled to reach our plates. At Lovejoys we always recommend waiting for the English season produce to start as it always has a better taste (and to be fair our growing season is now longer because of milder winters). Food miles should also be on people’s minds with so much traffic on our roads. It is important that we all look at where the produce we are eating has been grown or produced.

I can’t believe how beetroot has become so popular over the last few years, especially with the introduction of the heritage varieties. It is all about colour and taste on a plate! I really enjoy talking to my passionate chefs who tell me about their amazing recipes. With

Instgram and Twitter you can see the enthusiasm they have and they definitely don’t mind sharing with their peers in the food world.

Beetroot has long been used as a dye. Anyone who has worn a white shirt and spilt some beetroot will know this well! The ancient Greeks cultivated beetroot around 300BC, they did not use the roots but ate the leaves. Why not try pickling some eggs using white vinegar and some red beetroot juice, they come out a lovely colour. Our grandchildren love to roll the eggs gently to de-shell them, they are very patient, much better at it than me! They pop them in a kilner jar with some white or malt vinegar and away they go in a dark cupboard for a few weeks (Or until someone is desperate for a pickled egg!).

For those of you with space to grow your own, it is not too late to grow some fast growing crops like radish and carrot. If growing with little ones I find they love to plant seeds the come up quickly, some will show within a week. Always plant things that they can eat straight away, it keeps their interest, the winners in our family are the carrots - pulled straight from the ground, rinsed and eaten raw, and the new potatoes - every child should dig for their own potatoes at least once. If you don’t have a garden, a small outside space and a large deep bucket will work.

Email me with any questions or queries as usual and I will do my best to help. Have a good growing month!

“I can’t believe how beetroot has become so popular over the last few years, especially with the introduction of the heritage varieties. ”

Neil neil@lovejoyswholesale.com

@lovejoysuk @lovejoysuk • lovejoyswholesale.com