Raise a glass to local brewing

Ever thought about putting cucumber into beer? Nope? Well you're a step behind the inventive brewers at Thornbridge then. 

In a state-of-the-art room in a Derbyshire warehouse that looks more like a science lab than a brewery, a team of creative young brewers are pushing the beer boundaries with new flavours and exciting international collaborations.

I enjoy a beer at the brewery

Neil and I took a tour of Thornbridge Brewery yesterday as part of Neil's birthday treat (well he's 32 now so it's time to pull on an anorak and get a bit spoddy!) and our guide James was keen to show us the room where the ever-changing selection of beers is conceived. Admittedly the cucumber beer was, in James' words, "like Marmite" and its love-hate relationship with drinkers meant it was only available for a short time. 

But the brewery produces an impressively diverse range - from it's best known and award-winning Jaipur Indian pale ale to German-style weisse beer, Russian stout and American amber ale. And, according to James, its brewing team are always striving to come up with new concepts, including collaborating with brewers from America and Australia.

In our drive to avoid the supermarkets and find out more about where our food (and in this case drink) comes from, Neil's birthday treat allowed me to kill two birds with one stone.

When it comes to booze, once again supermarkets have the monopoly, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who has been guilty (in the past now, of course!) of picking up bottles of wine or beer from Tesco rather than our local off licence simply because of the low prices.

In fact, towards the end of last year the supermarkets came under fire for selling cheap, strong booze in some instances at a lower price than bottled water - meaning that many revellers now "preload" before a night out on the town, drinking at home rather than in pubs and bars.

This shift in our drinking habits has been blamed for many a pub going out of business - not to mention problems in our town centres on Friday and Saturday nights as people who have downed cheap supermarket booze in a hurry at home then spill out onto the streets. 

The European way of drinking slowly and with greater appreciation, often with a meal, is lauded as a better and safer attitude to alcohol. But if we want to move towards this way of drinking then surely it makes sense to think more carefully about where our booze comes from, how much we pay for it and what we are paying for?

Derbyshire and South Yorkshire are both well known for their breweries and pubs, and Derby was named the Lonely Planet Guide's real ale capital of Britain last year - a title previously held by Sheffield. 

Thornbridge beers are a well-known sight behind the pumps in Sheffield and Chesterfield so it was great to take a look behind the scenes at how some of our favourite ales are made.

Surrounded by brewing technology

The Thornbridge story began in 2005 at Thornbridge Hall - a private stately home set in more than 100 acres of Peak District parkland. Owners Emma and Jim Harrison set up a 10-barrel microbrewery in the grounds and the Thornbridge label was born.

By the end of the year the beer was already winning awards and by 2009 a state-of-the-art second brewery with 30 barrels and bottling line was built at Bakewell to keep up with the ever-increasing demand for the beers.

During our visit to this second brewery we were impressed by the technology, which James explained was vital to the production of consistently good beer. Massive stainless steel vats turn just a handful of ingredients - including hops and plain old Derbyshire tap water - into a variety of beers using centuries-old methods helped along by modern technology.

Potted meat - Thornbridge style!

I'm sure you can tell by the above paragraph that I'm no beer expert, but the brewery was an impressive sight, the smell inside the warehouse was mouth-wateringly rich and the science behind the techniques that allow for the inclusion of flavours as varied as chocolate, spices and yes, even cucumber, was fascinating.

We left Thornbridge clutching a collection of its beers and also a couple of pots of Jaipur Jelly, a potted beef with beer that Neil enjoyed spreading onto some crusty bread while watching the football last night. 

Although some Thornbridge beers are available in supermarkets, I think the best way to really savor them is in a comfortable boozer, next to a roaring fire, surrounded by friends. And of course, this will do wonders for your local economy too.

The beers we brought home

RECIPE: (sort of) Lorraine's breakfast cup

Okay okay, this isn't technically a recipe - it's more of an assembly of parts and doesn't involve any cooking. But I thought I'd share it as it's a great way to use the sort of produce normally found in a farm shop to make a really nutritious breakfast.

It's inspired by a lady called Lorraine, who runs gorgeous Cumbria B&B Hawksdale Lodge with her husband Martyn. The couple bought their 19th century manor house in a bid to escape the rat race and Lorraine is a wicked cook and mean baker, so I think they'd be pleased to hear of our efforts to escape the rat race by going supermarket-free. 

This breakfast cup heralded the beginning of the most delicious full English Neil and I have ever tasted, and I think Lorraine assembled it a lot more carefully than my recipe below, without using muesli as a cheat. But my version takes literally a minute to pull together, making it perfect for when you're on your way to work.

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 cup muesli (or more if you're hungry!)
1/2 apple, grated (put the other half in the fridge for tomorrow!)
1/2 glass apple juice
1 small pot of any flavour yogurt you like (or a spoonful from a large pot)
Small portion of one other fruit (Lorraine used blueberries but anything goes - I find half a chopped banana works well)



                                                                               

METHOD:

In a small bowl mix together the muesli and fruit. Then spoon the mixture into a drinking glass and pour the apple juice over the top. Lorraine allowed her mixture to stand for a while so the apple juice soaked into the muesli, but I find it works just as well to eat it straight away when you're in a rush. Finally spoon the yogurt over the top.

That's it! Breakfast is served. It's easier to eat it with a long-handled spoon.

A trip to London

I used to live in London so I've just returned from a long weekend in the city catching up with old friends. Everyone was keen to talk about my blog (they've all been reading so it's apparently not just my mum's friends on here!) and it got me wondering how easy it would be to avoid supermarkets if you're living in the capital.

Of course, one of the things you notice when you're walking around the various districts and neighbourhoods is that there are smaller branches of the main supermarkets, such as Tesco Express and Sainsbury's Local, everywhere. But there are also quite a lot of other options, such as independently-run convenience stores, greengrocers and markets. But do my friends use them? The responses I got where mixed.

One friend, who lives with her partner just a five minute walk from a large Sainsbury's near Vauxhall, said that she always uses the supermarket. It's close, it's easy, the prices and good and its one of the only places she can find her favourite Laughing Cow cheese. This lovely lady has been filling the fridge with these cheesy triangles since were lived together at university and she treated me to some Laughing Cow on toast this weekend for old time's sake.

Another friend was keen to avoid the supermarkets but not quite sure how to fit it into her busy working day. And as much as she dislikes supermarket veg, she made the excellent point that most of the independent greengrocers in London display their wares on the streets outside their shops, and who wants to eat vegetables that have been exposed to the notoriously poor quality city air, traffic fumes and smog, all day? She was keen to try having an organic vegetable box delivered but worried that if it arrived during the day, while she was at work, there would be nowhere secure to leave it outside her flat.

Of course living in a village on the outskirts of Chesterfield this simply isn't an issue for me - we have a garden and our veg box is left behind the back gate.

However, the two friends mentioned above did take me to visit a lovely little food market snuggled into some back streets just behind Waterloo station. I was amazed to find that just minutes away from the South Bank, where crowds of tourists were talking photos and queuing to go on the London Eye, market traders were selling hot snacks, vegetables and cheeses. I stopped at a Greek stall for a halloumi wrap and the stallholder immediately recognised my Sheffield accent, having once worked at a steel plant in the city. We got chatting and he loved the idea of spending a year avoiding the supermarkets.

But despite these little oases of food heaven, the overwhelming conclusion from my London friends seemed to be that balancing life's demands is even harder in the city and more often than not convenience is king. At one point I was gathered with a group of old university pals for a meal and one of them had bought a Sainsbury's cheesecake for dessert. She explained that while avoiding the supermarkets was a wonderful idea in theory, there was just no way that shopping local would fit in with the demands of her career and motherhood.

What is very clear is that if we, as a society, want other options besides the supermarkets then we need to address the issue of convenience. And unfortunately, at the moment, it's very much a vicious circle. Local shops need our custom to survive, and if they are busy and bustling it then makes good business sense to extend opening hours and expand product ranges. But while ever they are not convenient (in terms of opening hours or stock) many busy folk will feel they have no choice but to go elsewhere - and this is normally to the one-stop-shops, open all hours, yep you've guessed it, the supermarkets....

My lovely London friends dig into their Sainsbury's cheesecake

RECIPE: Grandma L's ginger cake

I'm really lucky to have reached the age of 30 and still have two grandmas living, but sadly my Grandma L - my mum's mum - now has advanced Alzheimer's and lives in a care home.

Before Alzheimer's struck my Grandma L was a generous, caring lady who would do anything for her family. She was a prolific baker and I grew up enjoying her cakes and scones. When I was about 11-years-old I decided to write some of her recipes into a book. I can remember it being a frustrating experience trying to get my subject to describe her cooking methods - my grandma was very much a "bit of this" and "dash of that" kind of a girl so she repeatedly looked at me blankly when I asked for weights and measures. 

Nevertheless, a cook book was produced and I've still got the  'first edition' copy today (sadly not signed by the chef who inspired it!), for which I'm hugely thankful because it means her recipes have not been lost with her memory. Below is the recipe for her ginger cake, which was a family favourite, and I'll put some more on this blog throughout the year. 

The original cook book in my 11-year-old handwriting, complete with spelling mistakes!

GRANDMA L'S GINGER CAKE

INGREDIENTS:
2 heaped cups of self raising flour
1 cup of sugar (grandma didn't specify what type so I've used soft brown)
2 tsp of ground ginger
1 flat tsp of bicarb of soda
4oz margarine or butter cut into small pieces
1 cup of boiling water
1 egg
2 tbsps golden syrup
Plus one square baking tin


METHOD: (Transcribed exactly)
"Put flour into basin. Add sugar, ginger and bicarb of soda. Mix together then make a hole in the centre of the mixture. Put marge and syrup into the hole. Add cup of boiling water into the centre and crack the egg into the middle without breaking the yolk. Mix everything together from both hole and mixture with a spoon and pour into greased tin. Bake on gas 4 for 20 minutes.

"Test with a knitting needle - stick it into the cake. If it comes out with half the cake stuck to it then it's not quite done."

DISCLAIMER: (From me, now!) 
A knife works as well as a knitting needle and is probably cleaner! We have a fan-assisted oven so I tried the cake at 180C for 20 minutes and it was still raw inside. Definitely not quite done! I ended up cooking it for about 40 minutes.

....and after

Mixture before mixing....

The finished cake is lovely and moist

Tastes fab with ice cream!

My veggie views

Although not strictly on the topic of avoiding supermarkets, I think it might be time I explained my vegetarian standpoint. I've written several posts on this blog so far supporting local butchers and livestock farmers, and I intend to write more. This has provoked some readers to ask how this sits alongside my own meat-free diet.


Proof veggies and meat-eaters can be friends!

I became a vegetarian when I was 13-years-old, after lobbying my parents for years to be allowed to do so. I've always been a massive animal lover and I think I was inclined towards vegetarianism long before I was fully aware of the health and environmental benefits. I'd never been a big fan of meat and was primarily concerned with animal welfare. Plus as a child and teenager I wasn't able to make any decisions on where my meat came from.

These days I do have to power to make my own decisions as a consumer, but meat will never be back on the menu for me. The idea of it turns my stomach and quite frankly I can't understand the appeal at all. Meat eating friends tell me it tastes fantastic - but so does my own diet so I don't feel I'm missing out. 

And of course now I'm aware of the health and environmental benefits too. I believe that a meat-free diet lowers the risk of certain illnesses like some cancers and heart disease. I also believe that the processes involved in the production of vegetables and grains are much less taxing for the planet than rearing animals - in terms of the use of energy, water, land and other resources, and the creation of waste. Put very very simply, it's better to grow a field of grain to feed humans than to grow a field of grain to feed animals that are then used to feed humans.

However, while I think that in the long term a vegetarian society would be better for the planet, animals and human health, in the short term it would completely destabilise agriculture in the UK, potentially resulting in job losses, damage to the countryside and huge animal welfare issues.

Instead I think a good starting point would be simply to get people to evaluate the meat that they eat. If more people could embrace some meat-free meals and cut their meat intake it would benefit their health and the environment, and they would then be able to afford to make more ethical choices, spending a bit more money on the meat they buy, supporting farm shops and butchers, free-range and organic producers, which in turn would have a really positive impact on animal welfare and the lives of farmers.

I'm well aware that this stance might be viewed as too moderate by some die-hard vegetarians. But sometimes the way to make small, positive changes is to try to see more than one point of view, rather than jumping onto your soap box which tends to make a lot of people just tune out. Giving people ammunition to pigeonhole you as a "crazy veggie" just gives them an excuse not to listen.

In my household, my partner eats meat. But he doesn't eat a lot of it and he cooks wonderful vegetarian food that we both enjoy. I don't question his right to enjoy a steak when he chooses, and in return this puts me in a stronger position to ensure that the meat that comes into our house is of the more ethical variety. Even before we started this challenge we never bought the supermarkets' cheapest meat - we always went paid a bit more for organic, free-range and British.

We're a long way away from a perfect world, but in the meantime I feel the best way forward is to support the farmers, shops and suppliers who are putting animal welfare and health at the heart of what they do, while at the same time advocating a shift towards a more omnivorous diet where meat doesn't have to factor into every meal by showcasing some of the wonderful vegetarian choices available.

And to bring this back to the topic of this blog, which is of course avoiding supermarkets, I feel that local shops and butchers to a much better job of telling customers where their meat comes from - and where their fruit and veg is sourced, for that matter - which helps shoppers make much more informed decisions about what they're chosing to spend their money on and put into their bodies.

Forget the Easter Bunny...

Not-Roger's eggs - and yes I've already eaten one!

When it comes to folklore figures leaving little surprises you can forget Father Christmas, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny. In my house we get visits from Not-Roger The Egg Man.

Like Santa, Not-Roger comes at a regular time. In Santa’s case it’s Christmas Eve and in Not-Roger’s case it’s Thursday evenings.

Like Santa, we leave a little offering out when we know he’s coming. In Santa’s case it’s a mince pie and carrot for Rudolph, and in Not-Roger’s case it’s £1.25 and an empty egg box.




We always get something in return. In Santa’s case, a bite is taken from the mince pie and presents are left under the tree. In Not-Roger’s case the money is spirited away and a box of fresh free-range eggs is left on our doorstep.

And like Santa, we have never actually met Not-Roger. With the first, we strain to catch the faint jingling of bells or a festive "ho ho ho", and with the second we might hear the sound of footsteps or an engine starting in the road outside.

This arrangement is, admittedly, a little bit odd. And made odder still by the fact that we don’t even know the egg man’s name. Hence Not-Roger, because we know he’s definitely not called Roger.

It came about when we first moved into our house a year ago and met our neighbours, who were keen to tell us about a local farmer who delivered free range eggs to the neighbourhood. They gave us a flier, which we promptly lost (hey - we’d just moved house!), but not before noting down the mobile phone number.

Like children writing to Father Christmas we sent a text to the farmer asking if we could please have some eggs (we’ve been very good this year). And we opened the message with a cheery "hi Roger" because we thought that was the name on the flier.

On Thursday night the eggs magically appeared, and these were good eggs – huge with bright orange yolks. They tasted amazing.

Then on Friday our neighbour popped round to say she’d had a worried call from the egg man, who had been confused by the random request from strangers addressing him as Roger (which was, in fact, not his name).

She explained to him that we’d just moved in and she told us his name. Which, of course, we promptly forgot.

Again.

So now we’ve settled into this routine – every Wednesday we send Not-Roger a text (being careful to open it simply with "hi" rather than using a name) telling him whether we’d like six or twelve eggs.

At £1.25 for half a dozen and £2.50 for a dozen they leave egg on the face of all the major supermarkets.And on Thursday night they magically appear on the doorstep.

Whether you like them boiled or fried, if you get them free range from a local farmer you’re bound to be satisfied. Not-Roger’s eggs are always big and colourful and super-fresh for poaching, and if you put them to the taste test then supermarket eggs pale in comparison.

Sometimes I wonder whether we’ll ever meet Not-Roger – or learn his real name. Part of me wants to hide by the door one night, like a kid hoping to get a glimpse of Santa. But the other part of me thinks our quirky arrangement just makes the whole thing that little bit more fun.

After all, if you actually met Santa, would he still be quite as magical?

When the cat's away....

You know what they say.... when the cat’s away the mice will play.... and in this case I think they’ll be playing poker and sneaking into Tesco.

I’m heading to London this weekend to visit some friends, meaning my other half Neil is home alone. Clearly I’m leaving him with strict instructions NOT to forget to feed the animals, NOT to break anything and NOT to mess the house up.

He’s having the boys round for a poker night so points two and three might get overlooked a bit, but as long as it’s all cleared by the time I get home I can live with that.

Head Chef Neil wishes I'd just hurry up and go to London!

However, it seems a bit much to tell him to NOT go near a supermarket. After all, he’s been fairly cheerfully trailing me around farm shops and going without his favourite Robinsons squash (which I can’t seem to find anywhere) for the past four weeks.

Now there’s a glint in his eye that tells me he’s going to be making a dash for Tesco, the Co-op or Sainsbury’s, or maybe even all three, as soon as I walk out of the door.

So I asked him last night if there's anything he's missed about the supermarkets so far....

And do you know what, he actually swore blind that he's not missed anything. In fact, he was keen to wax lyrical about all the lovely meat I've been tracking down for him... huge chicken breasts and steaks from Bill the butcher at Dunston Farm Shop (and what man doesn't like huge breasts?!) and sausages from Highfield House Farm Shop.

He said all the meat had tasted better than supermarket meat - the cuts have been bigger and the sausages in particular have been juicier and meatier. And bear in mind that we never bought cheap supermarket meat - we always went for the more expensive, organic or free-range British stuff.

His lows have been a portion of roast ham that went off too quickly and my inability to track down cured meat anywhere. 

He didn't have much else to say, but when pressed admitted that the less glamorous bog roll and scourers have also been to his liking. God bless Wilkos.

I'm heartened by these replies. I had thought he might be harder to convince. However, when I asked him if he planned to go in any supermarkets this weekend he couldn't look me in the eye and his response was non-committal.

Oh well, a reasonable verdict to say we've only been at it four weeks - I've got another 11 months to make a complete convert of him...!

A cuckoo in the nest?

Does anybody know what this could be?

The mystery seedling

Anybody?



















The reason I ask is that it seems to have sprouted in the middle of my tray of onion seeds, and even I know that it’s not an onion. Or at least, I don’t think it’s an onion - is it?

You see, I told you I was crap with plants. And I’m very sorry to those people who sent me supportive messages in response to my post about planting the onion seeds. I think I may be about to surpass even your worst expectations of how terrible a person can be at gardening.

To recap, a couple of weeks ago I planted two pots of parsley and a tray of onion seeds, in a bid to grow my own as another way of providing for myself without going into a supermarket.

Now I have some sprouting seedlings to show you.....

Parsley

I reckon the parsley looks a bit stringy, but at least it’s growing. I’ve given it a bit more water and I’m crossing my fingers for it.













The onion seeds are less promising, there’s only about three little shoots popping up, and not even I would make the mistake of calling them healthy-looking. And then there’s this imposter, whoever he is, growing and flourishing in the middle of the tray like a cuckoo chick taking over the nest of another bird.

The onion seedlings, complete with mystery sprouter on the right

So does anyone have any idea what this little seedling could be? And where on earth has he come from? Should I let him live (he might be the only survivor judging by the stringiness of the onion seedlings) or ruthlessly pluck him out?

Uproot him or leave him?

My mum without supermarkets

My mum burst my little blogging bubble last night in that way that only a well-meaning parent can.

I thought I'd been doing well and had been really chuffed to see the numbers of people who have been logging on to take a look, until my mother informed me that a decent portion of my readers are actually her friends. Not award-winning documentary makers, cabinet ministers or members of the UN.

So I'd like to take this opportunity to say hello and thank you to all my mum's friends. And this post is going to be about my mum and a little bit of non-supermarket shopping I've been doing today on her behalf.

Now, my mum is pretty much like every other grown-up's mum - often I look at her and think "my god, she's been right all these years......." and then she ruins the effect by saying something completely random.

Last night's telephone call was no exception. We'd been having a perfectly sensible conversation about various things, including a friend's baby and our plans to meet on Thursday, when suddenly the subject turned to this....

Mum: "Do you know about tofu?"

Me: "Yes. Why? Do you know about tofu?"

Mum: "No, but I need to know about tofu. What is tofu?"

Me: "That's like asking what is cheese - there are loads of different types. But it's basically a bean curd. What kind of tofu are you thinking of?"

Mum: "I don't know. What kind of tofu should I be thinking of?"

Me: "I don't know, you're the one thinking of it! Why are you asking about tofu?"

Mum: "I read about it. I need to be eating it."

Me: "Okay, what kind of meals are you thinking of?"

Mum: "I don't know. What's tofu like?"

Me (starting to get exasperated): "There are different types, like cheese, some soft and some hard."

Mum: "Mmmmmmmmmmm" (For readers not friends with my mum, she has a special way of saying “mmmmmmmm” that means she either doesn’t have any idea what you’re talking about or doesn't think you have any idea what you're talking about.)

Mum: "Is tofu hot or cold?"

Me: "It can be either. You can have it hot with a stir fry or cold with a salad."

Mum (perking up considerably): "Oooooh yes, I'll have it with salad. Where can I buy cold tofu?"

Me: "Tell you what, why don't you let me buy you a packet of a nice kind of tofu?"

Mum (clearly relieved that I'm taking control of the difficult tofu situation): "Oh yes please, that would be lovely. You get me some tofu." 

So this lunchtime I set out on a mission to find some mum-friendly tofu - not an easy task considering that it can be something of an acquired taste. I can picture vividly the look of disgust and disappointment on my mum's face if I get this wrong, which to be honest is highly likely. I'm just not sure that my mum's a tofu kind of girl, but I'm willing to give it a shot.

(And mum, if you're reading this, it was snowing heavily and I still went walking into town for you in my work skirt and high heels - that's got to be worth some Brownie points!)

However at least my challenge gave me a bit of a head start, in that if you want decent tofu you don’t want to be in a supermarket, where there is usually only one type available - if any. Independent shops, wholefood shops and health food shops are the places to go for good tofu.

Predictably I ended up in my favourite wholefood shop SoundBites, in Derby, which as I've said before, is brilliant. But I think my tofu questions may have left the staff in a state of bafflement.

To set the scene, this place is staffed by some pretty hardcore-looking vegan eco-warrior types who are probably more accustomed to debating the merits of fair trade vs food miles than helping to pinpoint a type of tofu that won't be too offensive to a customer's very mainstream mum.

My opening gambit of “do you have any tofu that my mum might like?” drew black stares from the staff, so I decided to attempt a joke...

“You know, some tofu that a meat-eater might like?”

Silence. And slightly distasteful looks. The joke bombed.

In the end we agreed that the basil tofu (my own personal favourite) is nice and flavourful for someone not used to it, while the smoked tofu is probably as close as vegan food gets to “meaty”, so I bought one of each.

So mum, the world (or at least a collection of your friends and possibly a couple of cabinet ministers) waits with baited breath to find out what you think of tofu.....

I don't know why this is side-on - I've tried three times to move it and now given up!

Yogurty ramblings

Since beginning this challenge just over three weeks ago, things have been surpisingly hairy with dairy. It might be cool for cats, but it's turning out to be hard to track down outside of the supermarkets.

I expected to run into trouble finding things like loo roll and kitchen cleaner (which actually have turned out to be easy thanks to the amazing hardware heaven that is Wilkos) but I never gave dairy products a thought.

Admittedly you can find a pint of milk almost anywhere (although it may not be as simple to find out where that milk has come from) and cheese is also easy thanks to the number of delis, farm shops, market stalls and cheesemongers that I know of. But when you start looking for things like yogurt and sour cream it gets curdlingly hard.

Creme freiche, I discovered last week, is the holy grail of the supermarket-free dairy product - pretty near impossible to find. It took me two lunch hours of power-walking around Derby, asking puzzled market stall holders and shopkeepers for help in an increasingly panicked voice, and sending my hair into frizz-overdrive by repeatedly pulling my bobble hat off and on as I dashed in and out of shops, before I eventually hit the jackpot in Jack Rabbits. And even then, they'd not got any in stock and it took a phonecall to the amazingly helpful co-owner Julie to secure a pot for the following day.

Then I hit an even bigger hump trying to find my favourite yogurt. You see, I love a pot of Rachel's Choice organic yogurt (the ginger and rhubarb flavours in particular) and used to make special trips to Sainsbury's to buy it, but that just won't wash any more.

I tried tweeting the company to ask if they knew of any independent stockists and they promised to get back to me. But I've not heard a peep since so I'm assuming that's a no!

So time to consider other yogurty options....

I found some promising-looking pots in Hasland Fruit and Flowers, the greengrocer just round the corner from our house. They even had rhubarb and orange flavours, which sent me into such a flurry of excitement that I tried to stack too many pots in my arms at once, then became further inflamed at the sight of cottage cheese by the same company, and ended up loosing my personal yogurt-Jenga game and dropping a pot on my way to the counter, splattering the shopkeeper in the process.

Of course I insisted on paying for the dropped pot as well as the pots I took home. My clumsiness is becoming something of a theme on this blog. Apparently I'm pretty useless without a nice metal shopping trolly to hang onto!

The yogurts I didn't drop!

Once I got home I decided to Google the yogurt-producers, Longley Farm, to see if I could find out where my yogurts had come from. I was delighted to see that the firm is in fact an independent, family-run dairy based at Holmefirth, not too far away in Yorkshire. But there wasn't much more information online so I decided to email the firm to find out more.

The response I received, from a lady called Rachel Liles, less than a day later, is proof that actually it's pretty easy to find out more about your food if you simply take the trouble to ask a few questions.

Rachel told me that the Longley Farm website was currently undergoing an upgrade to make it more informative, but in the meantime she was happy to answer my questions.

She explained that all the firm's "black and white milk" (from black and white cows) was sourced from farms within 15 miles of the dairy, saying "we deal directly with the farmer and given them one of the best milk prices".

And she went on to explain that many of Longley Farm's products are made with milk from Jersey cows, and that the firm pays the farmers the "top price in the country for this niche market".

So it's nice to know Longley Farm is giving farmers a fair deal, but what about the magnificent ladies who make the milk?

Rachel explained that the cows have "a summer field-based system and housing through the winter".

She wrote: "I personally visit all our farmers at least once per year and have constant telephone contact, all our farms are Red Tractor Farm Assured and I can honestly say that all the animals, in many cases, are better looked after than their kids!

"Our own Jersey farm is based in Barnsley and we currently milk 300 Jersey cows, with the young female cows spending the summer grazing at Longley Farm. We are a family run company and operate as one extended family, staff turnover is very low and the majority of our staff have at least 10 years service."

So it all sounds pretty good and I'm very glad I asked the questions. I can now enjoy my yogurts and cottage cheese, bought from an independent shop just two minutes away from my house and sourced from a decent dairy farm.

RECIPE: Neil's scrummy veggie lasagne

NEIL'S VEGGIE LASAGNE


Brrrrrrrrrrrr! It's too cold to stay outside for very long, so we spent some the day yesterday in the kitchen and we've got a lovely hearty homemade lasagne to show for it. Head Chef Neil used a load of fantastic ingredients from local farmers and producers to make a one of our favourite dishes which is always a crowd-pleaser with family and friends.


INGREDIENTS (serves at least six)

Ingredients (with me blogging in the background!)

FOR THE FILLING....
1 large white onion, diced into 2cm pieces
3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 whole green chili, scored
Handful of fresh basil, finely chopped
3 400g tins peeled plum tomatoes
1 tbsp tomato puree
2 large bell peppers, diced into 2cm pieces
250g fresh mushrooms, chopped
350g veggie mince
Henderson's Relish, salt and pepper to taste
1 tbsp olive oil 

FOR THE CHEESE SAUCE...
20g butter
40g plain flour
450ml semi skimmed milk (we like Our Cow Molly milk)
1 tsp mustard powder
200g strong white cheese, grated (today we've used Vintage Lincolnshire Poacher)

PLUS...
2 boxes (or therabouts) dried lasagne sheets
2 balls mozzarella balls, sliced or torn up

CARNIVOROUS ALTERNATIVE:
You can make a meat version of this dish by frying 300g minced beef and 150g minced pork, and then adding this to the filling in the place of the veggie mince.


METHOD:

To make the filling, heat the olive oil in heavy-bottomed pan. Add the onion, garlic, chili and basil, and saute for a few minutes or until the garlic is sticky. Next add the tinned tomatoes and then swill the empty tins with a little water and add to the pan so all the lovely juices make it into your sauce. Simmer this mixture for 20-25 minutes. Then use a potato masher to mash up the tomatoes and add the puree and Hendo's, stir through, then add the pepper and mushrooms, and cook for five minutes. Finally add the veggie mince, cook for five minutes and then take off the heat.

To make the cheese sauce, melt the butter in a pan, sift the plain flour and mustard powder onto the butter and stir until combined to make a roux. Then add the milk a dash at a time, stirring constantly to ensure you don't get any lumps. Bring close to the boil but not quite to boiling point until the sauce thickens, then turn the heat off, add the cheese and stir it in. Add black pepper to taste and more Hendo's.

To assemble, take the whole chili out of the filling and then layer the pasta sheets, filling and sauce into a lasagne dish. We usually use two layers of each and then finish with a third layer of pasta, a final coating of cheese sauce and top with the mozzarella.

Bake on 200C (or 180C for fan assisted ovens) for about 30 minutes, or until topping is golden brown.

Ta-dah!

Down on the farm

At this time of year Sylvia Prince becomes the "paediatric nurse" at Highfield House Farm. 

The snowy view from Highfield House Farm this morning

Even though the snow is lying thick on the ground, Sylvia, her husband David and son Matthew are facing one of their busiest times of year as lambing begins and it's testament to the determination and tenacity of farmers that despite the pressures of the season they are still successfully juggling the demands of their thriving farm shop on site.

Neil and I visited the shop this morning, having previously been completely unaware of it's existence. Proving how easy it is to avoid the supermarkets - we simply typed "farm shop" and "Chesterfield" into Google and found Highfield House Farm Shop on one of the roads out of town. It's about a seven minute drive away from our house - which is coincidentally about the same amount of time it would have taken us to get to Tesco. Plus, like the supermarkets, the shop opens on a Sunday.

There is an amazing selection of local foods (more about that below) and we are surprised to find that despite the bad weather Sylvia and David are entertaining a steady stream of customers.

Selection at the shop

The family bought the farm in 1986 and set about creating flocks of several different breeds of sheep - pedigree Suffolks, which have characteristic black legs and face, Texels, a breed which originated from Holland, and Beltex, which they first began breeding in 2006 when they brought six ewes (lady sheep) to the farm. As well as helping to keep the shop well-stocked with meat, some of these sheep have been earning the Prince family rosettes in the show ring. And the woolly women are currently giving David sleepless nights as he waits for about 130 of them to lamb (give birth).

The farmer admits that he's been awake since 3.30am this morning checking the sheep, who are currently housed in huge barns away from the worst of the elements. And lambing is very much a family affair, with David and Mathew taking the day shift and a member of staff keeping an eye on the sheep overnight, plus Sylvia's nursing duties of course.

"Sylvia is our paediatric nurse," David jokes. "She's the one who bottle feeds any lamb that needs it."

The family opened their farm shop in 1996 and then in 2004 used a development grant to turn it into a much bigger concern, selling lamb, beef, pork, poultry, game, exotic meat, cheese, honey, bread, pickles, pies, honey, dairy products and much more. It's clearly popular and the pair appear to know the majority of their customers - with Sylvia ducking under the counter to produce a box of lollipops as a couple walk in with a little girl, togged up in a pink snowsuit, who is clearly expecting a treat.

They are obviously passionate about local food and farming, and as soon as I explain my challenge to avoid the supermarkets Sylvia hands me a leaflet which outlines where the meat not reared onsite comes from. Inspired by this enthusiasm for the produce, I'd like to conclude this blog entry by showing you some of the things we bought, with a bit of detail about where they come from. And perhaps as the year goes on we'll get to meet some of these other producers too...

ROSEMARY'S RASPBERRY PAVLOVA ICE CREAM made by Hope Valley Ice Cream, in Hathersage, Derbyshire. The label on this pot explains that it's made by the Marsden family, who treat every cow, chicken and sheep on their farm "as an individual" and work hard to protect their local landscape. The ice cream is made "with milk from our happy cows and egg-yolks from local free-range eggs". This particular flavour is named after Rosemary, one of the farm's "sweetest cows" who is "always affectionate and never any trouble".

Altogether now.... Ahhhhhhhhh!

DERBYSHIRE HONEY made by a beekeeper in Chesterfield. There's not much information on the jar or online about this producer, but the farm shop's own website explains that the beekeeper has 20 hives at two local sites and it's 100% pure honey that has not been processed or heat treated.

The bees get their nectar from surrounding gardens, fields and farms, which is important for those who use honey to tackle allergies.





MUESLI from Maud Foster Mill, in Lincolnshire. Admittedly this mill isn't really local but I've found some information about it online and it sounds brilliant. The mill itself looks spectacular, and is apparently one of the tallest windmills in the UK with a seven floor brick tower. There is also a shop selling organic flour, oats and muesli, and there's even a holiday cottage onsite so you can stay there and lend a hand with the traditional milling process. It looks like it's definitely worth a day trip at some point to see it in action.




SAUSAGES AND STEAK which I've not photographed because they're all bagged up, but the leaflet Sylvia has given us tells me that the shop's beef comes from farms in Ashover, Bakewell and Baslow (all local Derbyshire villages) and is slaughtered in Chesterfield, then allowed to mature on the bone for 21-28 days to help the flavour develop. Bet you're impressed that a vegetarian can write that eh?! And all the pork sold in the shop is free range.

So there you go, food for thought. Just look at how exciting shopping local can be. Look at this lovely picture of me outside the shop (below). How excited do I look?! Okay, okay, I do look a bit dorky and stupid in my silly hat and wellies, but shopping at Highfield House Farm was a genuinely fun 20 minutes and now we're excited about all the lovely food we've brought home to try.

Vanity has made me shrink this photo so you can't see what a daft face I'm pulling!

Panic buying... Hendo's!

Apparently supermarket shelves up and down the country have been stripped bare over the past few days due to wallies panic buying bread, milk and soup (sorry but unless you live in the Shetland Islands or somewhere equally remote, panic buying at the hint of snow makes you a wally). 

Neil and I have been doing some panic buying of a different sort after getting up this morning to discover we'd nearly run out of Hendo's.

The hallowed sauce

Now, to anyone from South Yorkshire, this represents a very serious emergency. In fact, when we win the Lottery and get round to designing our fantasy kitchen we may well install a big red panic button that when depressed activates a siren, flashing red lights and a speaker that blasts out "WARNING, WARNING, HENDO'S LEVEL CRITICAL" in a computerised female monotone. 

For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, Henderson's Relish is a bit like Worcestershire sauce, but ten million billion squillion trillion zillion times tastier. There is quite literally nothing edible in this world that cannot be improved with a liberal splash of Hendo's. And unlike other sauces which have fish bits in them (yuk) Hendo's is veggie and vegan friendly too.

Henry Henderson first began making his relish in Sheffield in the late 19th century at 35 Broad Lane. Today it's still produced within half a mile of the site where the first bottle was filled, in a tiny factory near the city's university.

Over the years Hendo's has achieved cult-like status, no doubt partly because it's still hard to obtain outside South Yorkshire or North Derbyshire unless you order online. The company's website is full of poems and celebrity endorsements, tales of people taking their treasured bottle of the good stuff to exotic locations and even using it in their wedding cake.

Sheffield sons Sean Bean and David Blunkett like a splash on their fish'n'chips and Peter Stringfellow is reportedly a fan, although it might be best not to think about where he likes to put it! It's even been imortalised in a song by Sheffield band The Everly Pregnant Brothers. The chorus lyrics are at the bottom of this blog - not to be read if you're of a sensitive disposition.

Growing up in the area, we always had a bottle of Hendo's in the cupboard or on the table. The other "W" relish variety was a dirty word in my household. 

Venturing out into the world I usually took a bottle of Hendo's with me and made it my business to spread the legend. I spent a year working in Edinburgh at Deadline Scotland and used to take it back up north for my colleagues after every home visit. On one memorable journey I sent 18 bottles of limited edition Sheffield Wednesday Hendo's bouncing down an escalator at Manchester Airport when a carrier bag split.

I currently supply a handful of people in the Derby Telegraph office because it's easily obtainable in Chesterfield but not quite so easy 30 miles further south. When friends say "bring a bottle" they're not necessarily talking about wine!

Use the sauce!

And Neil and I have a modest shrine to the relish in our kitchen - a graphic print by Sheffield artist Jim Connolly with the mantra "use the sauce".

Things get very tense when we get to the bottom of the bottle. It's actually stocked in most major supermarkets in our area so we used to get it with our weekly shop. But this morning we ventured on in the snow to the row of shops round the corner from our house and were delighted to find it at Hasland Fruit and Flowers. 

Phew, crisis averted. We can spice up any store cupboard basics with a splash of Hendo's, so let it snow!













Hendo's by The Everly Pregnant Brothers (to be sung to the tune of Coldplay's Yellow):

F*** Worcester sauce, that s***'s no good for you...
It tastes like f***ing glue...
And it's just not Hendo's