Wild Garlic Pesto for 70

I have just returned from a camp with 78 people of all ages from 7 months to 70 years. The camp was in a beautiful oak wood with bluebells and large patches of wild garlic.

I carefully picked a large carrier bag full of leaves and flowers, taking care to pick clean and undamaged leaves, taking only a few from each plant.

I washed everything in clean water with six tablespoons of salt, leaving it to soak for 15 minutes, I was told this was Kosher Washing, but it seems that that involves soap.

I was told by Julie Gritten that my plan to use stalks and flowers in the pesto was a bad one, as they are very fibrous, she was right.

We set to separating the leaves from stalks and flowers, much thanks to Morgan who carried on even when it started to rain.

We rough chopped the leaves.

Put the stalks and flowers to one side.

The camp caterer had a Zyliss Pull vegetable chopper with insanely sharp blades.

A succession of children pulled the cord while I held the lid on with oil covered hands.

After the first chop we added sunflower oil (olive oil is sour when emulsified), a tablespoon of salt, 300 grams of toasted sliced almonds, juice of one lemon, a little ground pepper, and whizzed it again.

Served with a flower decoration.

The stalks were cooked separately, they were very stringy and should have been cut into 1 inch lengths.

On the last day I picked a smaller bunch, from a ride where they were at the limit of their range, and brought it home.

Cleaning and separating leaves from stalks is still hard work, even in a kitchen.

My beloved Coffret was not really up to the task. I added four tablespoons of powdered almonds.

Served with fresh pasta, steak and mushrooms.

I kept the stalks and flowers in the fridge overnight and used a soup blender to completely pulverise them with rapeseed oil, salt, lemon and walnuts.

The result was three jars of white pesto paste. I gave two away as it needs to be eaten fresh. I kept a small number of bulbs to plant in the garden.

We even microwaved a few stems.

Whilst there was a lot of preparation work the result was really good, both on camp with almonds and at home with walnuts.

It was lovely to prepare such good food from scratch for so many people.

Fallow Venison Rump

A 0.39kg rump of wild Chiltern fallow from Sandy Lane Farm.

This was a pyrex and microwave triumph.

In largst pyrex season with salt (half teaspoon), pepper, sage, rosemary and marjoram, (forgot thyme), two crushed cloves of garlic and three tablespoons of virgin olive oil, juice of half a lemon. Marinated for an hour. Meat already defrosted and at room temperature.

Boiled nice potatoes, decanted to pyrex and added butter.

Microwaved chestnut mushrooms with butter.

Sear joint in hot sunflower oil.

Next time put pyrex into oven at this point.

Put seared joint into pyrex, with lid on, at 200°C for 20 minutes.

Microwaved chopped carrots with butter.

Microwaved half a conical cabbage, cur longitudinally into three sixths.

Microwaved sweet stemmed broccoli with butter.

Ensure everything is hot by reheating as necessary.

Easter Half Shoulder of Lamb

Like last year we went to Sandy Lane Farm, sadly I mismanaged my phone and did not photgraph the Oxford Sandy and Black young pigs with white forelocks, or the lambs in the back barn, though I thought I had.

Flora is in France with Varsity and Ellie is recovering from Caving Camp so we have invited Hannah and Becca over.

1.175kg

Marinade

Without really thinking about it I added two tablespoons of my own chili oil, this is pretty string and, pretty much a mistake, so I was thinking of sacrificial marinade: rub on and then wipe off.

1. Marjoram, thyme, chives, rosemary, bay
2. Half a teaspoon garlic powder
3. Half a teaspoon of paprika
4. Three cloves of garlic

Ruth felt this was going far too far towards the middle east and away from the simple English lamb she envisaged. After two hours the marinade should have worked, so I wiped it off.

Flash cook

The idea is to cook the meat hard for 20 minutes, then move to a new pot and roast more slowly on the vegetables. Due to the oven being in use, and an idea that it might be more economical and efffectie I decided to roast hard in a cast iron pot on the inducton hob.

Induction pot roast and oven pot roast are pretty much identical: the pot gets hot and the meat is cooked in steam. Where it differs is that itis easy to brown off the top in an oven by removing the pot lid. In both methods you have to be careful of the bottom of the pan, in this case I used bay leaves and lemon slices to keep the meat out of contact with the pan. Later I added the clean potato peelings, as it always feels like a waste to throw them away.

Prepared the pumpkin.

Removed potato and cleaned pot

Put in onion and a fresh bouquet garnis at 4:00pm.

Removed meat and made gravy with the caramelised onions.

Served with spring greens, carrots, roast potatoes and parsnips.

The flavour was very good.

Baked Field Mushroom and Goat's Cheese

A return to an old favourite.

Using only half a cheese per mushroom works well.

Two mushrooms per person is too much.

I added half a cup of white wine, which went well.

I used shallots not red onions, no discernable difference.