Bibliocook - All About Food

Award-winning blog of Irish food writer and broadcaster Caroline Hennessy.

Tagged: Norfolk

Lavender Spelt Shortbread 6

Bake

Lavender Spelt Shortbread

Inspired by my perusal of Heidi Swanson‘s superb cookbook Super Natural Cooking, I’ve been motivated to start baking with more esoteric – to me, at least – grains and foods. I’m all stocked up on my favourite quinoa to try out some of her recipes (you’ll find plenty more online at 101 Cookbooks), millet, amaranth, linseed and – in the move – rediscovered some Letheringsett Watermill Organic Spelt Flour from our trip to Norfolk. Subtitled “Five Delicious Ways to Incorporate Whole and Natural Ingredients into your Cooking”, it’s a perfect read if you’re interested in cooking with whole foods and wanting to learn more about what is available and what can be done with it. And, unlike the educational but boring-looking Fresh and Wild Cookbook, it looks amazing.

Moving time 3

Do / Storecupboard Specials

Moving time

The Old Convent - this weekend's promised destination!It’s moving week so there’s not much cooking and baking going on, apart from me making loaves of brown bread to try and use up some of the six – yes, count them, SIX! (and that’s not mentioning the few that are down at the cottage, ahem…) – bags of flour that I have sitting on my shelves. The flat that we are moving into in Dublin is much smaller and doesn’t have a freezer so for a while there was a mad race to finish up all the frozen foodstuffs at our current place. Then we made a quick trip to DID Electrical so we now have a new under-counter freezer and the pressure is off. It still leaves me scratching my head at some of the things that I have in there though. Who knows why I froze a brioche loaf or what kinds of curry are in all those little plastic containers that I use for lunches? Certainly not the person who should have been labelling them!

9

Cook / Grow

Rabbit success: Ballyvoddy Rabbit Stew with Herb Dumplings

Ballyvoddy Rabbit Stew with Herb Dumplings It’s been a long time – and two rabbit traps, one from Norfolk and one from New Zealand – coming but this weekend the Boyfriend finally managed to catch a rabbit. When he announced that there was a rabbit in a trap at the back of the garden on Sunday morning I didn’t initially believe him but when fresh back steaks and legs arrived in the kitchen there was no doubting. That’s one rabbit down – probably about 9999 left to go, judging by their attacks on our newly planted beech trees.

2

Do / Travel

Eating our way through Norfolk

Letheringsett Watermill - the only working watermill in Norfolk Last weekend’s (unexpectedly extended) stay in England included a trip to the best farm shop I’ve ever visited, the HFG Farm Shop at Beeston, Norfolk. We were in Norwich visiting the Engineering Couple and my kinswoman, their beloved Irish terrier, Bridie, who, knowing my love of food, brought us there after a morning spent tramping and on the river in their Canadian canoe. Outside the shop were long stems of brussels sprouts and sparkly Christmas wreaths but the real treasure was inside. Tables were piled with home baking – hungry from our morning’s activities, Paradise Slices, Flapjacks, Shortbread and Date Slices immediately caught our eye – while groaning shelves of jams, jellies, oils, vinegars and chocolate lined the walls. A freezer was stocked with a multi-coloured selection of loose frozen fruits and baskets of locally grown vegetables were stacked high at the end of the room. The food available was more than tempting and, although I did resist, I still managed to walk out of the shop heavily laden with the aforementioned baking, brown paper bags of spelt and wholewheat flour from Letheringsett Watermill, a warty celeriac, a selection of nobbly Jerusalem artichokes and, because I never can resist something gingery, a bottle of Great Uncle Cornelius’ Finest Spiced Ginger Non-Alcoholic Apertif.