Recipe | Sticky Sloe and Nut Clusters

These snacks are gooey, sweet, sticky, crunchy… and hard not to finish all in one sitting.

We were inspired to some sweet and slow cooking by the sloe recipes in our feature Let it Sloe in our November issue. It included Sloe Syrup, Sloe Gin Chocolate Cake and a Sloe Treacle Tart. But these munchy Sticky Sloe and Nut Clusters were too good not to share. Find the rest of the recipes in our November issue…

Makes 36

40ml rapeseed oil
140g demerara or soft brown sugar
200g sticky sloes, pitted
70g plain flour
1 heaped tsp cornflour
150g almonds or hazelnuts, roughly chopped

1 Preheat the oven to 200C/Fan 180C/Gas 6 and line a large baking tray (30 x 40cm) with baking paper.

2 In a bowl, mix the oil and sugar, plus 1 teaspoon of water and the sticky sloes. Stir, then add the flour, cornflour and nuts and stir well to combine.

3 Make the clusters by distributing heaped teaspoons of the mixture evenly across the baking tray, with enough space between them for the mixture to spread out a little.

4 Bake for approximately 12 mins, or until the clusters are bubbling and dark brown at the edges. Remove from the oven immediately and leave for 5 mins before gently transferring from the tray to a cooling rack.

Cook’s note: These can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 week.

Taken from Wild and Sweet by Rachel Lambert (Hoxton Mini Press) Photography: Elliott White

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Nature | Seaweed Weather Forecasting

When there’s little else to forage, seaweed is still plentiful. But as well as being good to eat, did you know it can also act as your very own Wincey Willis? 

Hang some seaweed outside and if it feels dry to the touch the weather should be fine, whereas if it feels damp rain be on its way. It’s not a completely failsafe forecast, being based only on the fact that if there’s moisture in the air it may indicate rain soon to come. If it’s VERY wet, it may simply be that it’s actually raining already. But it’s a bit of fun. 

Here are a few more ways you can tell the weather without switching on the radio or TV.

• Have a look at the dandelions. If they’re closed it will be clouding over. 

• See if you can spot any bees. They don’t tend to leave the hive when rain is on the way. 

• Notice what leaves are doing. Those with soft stems will go a little limp when there’s stormy or blustery weather on the way to allow wind to blow them about without snapping them.

• Arrange a very elaborate picnic. Around 20 seconds after you’ve spread the blanket on the ground, it will almost certainly begin to rain.

Discover more about seaweed, how to forage it and eat it in our January issue with our feature A Winter’s Tale. It starts on page 36.

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Folklore | Blackberries

This beautiful blackberries image is from our August issue, where we’re celebrating the beginning of blackberrying season.

Make the most of them now, though; folklore has it that you shouldn’t eat blackberries after Michaelmas Day (September 29th).

When St Michael, for whom the day is named, battled Lucifer and kicked him out of heaven, Lucifer landed in hell, on a thorny blackberry bush. So angry was he, that he cursed the blackberry bush and ensured its berries would taste foul from St Michaelmas Day onwards.

We’re unsure why the poor blackberry bush suffered the blame for Lucifer’s thorny and sore behind rather than St Michael, but it sounds like a good reason to us to get picking your blackberries now. Don’t forget to freeze a few so you can make them into a blackberry pie for St Michaelmas Day and stick it to Lucifer with your delicious early autumn blackberries.

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Recipe | nettle soup

Serves 6

Knob of butter
1 onion, diced
2 celery sticks, diced
3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
2 bay leaves
2 large potatoes, peeled and sliced
1½ ltr vegetable stock
1 handful of spinach
3-4 handfuls of young nettles, well washed
Vegetable oil, for deep-frying
Crème fraîche, to serve
Toasted seeds, to serve

1 Melt the butter in a large saucepan, then add the onion, celery, garlic and bay leaves and sweat down for a couple of mins.

2 Add the potatoes and stock and simmer for 30 mins until the potatoes are cooked through.

3 Add the spinach and most of the nettles (saving a handful for deep frying later), then return the soup to the boil and remove from the heat. Allow to cool for a few mins before transferring to a blender. Whizz the soup until smooth, and season with salt and pepper to taste.

4 Pour a couple of centimetres of vegetable oil into a small, heavybased saucepan. Heat the oil over a medium heat until a small cube of bread dropped into it turns golden in about 15 secs (about 180C on a cooking thermometer). Deep-fry the reserved nettle leaves until they are dark green and just crisp, being careful to shield your eyes as the hot oil can spit with some ferocity.

5 Drain on kitchen paper, then drop into the soup with a drizzle of crème fraîche and some toasted seeds.

Taken from Giffords Circus Cookbook: Recipes & Stories from a Magical Circus Restaurant by Nell Gifford & Ols Halas (Quadrille). Photography: David Loftus

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Recipe | nettle soda bread

Now’s the time to gather treasures from the hedgerows. And then head home and into the kitchen to make this nettle soda bread.

Nettle Soda Bread

Good handful of young nettle leaves and/or wild garlic
½ pint buttermilk
6oz self raising flour (wholemeal or brown)
3oz plain flour
3oz seed & grain bread flour
½ tsp salt
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

Gather your nettle tips (with gloves on) before they flower. Strip off the stems until you have enough for one large handful of leaves.

Heat oven to 200C/Fan 180/400F

In a blender or large jug, add leaves and buttermilk. Blend until smooth.

Put flour, salt and soda into a mixing bowl. Form a well in the middle and pour in the nettle buttermilk. Quickly mix together with a fork until a soft dough is formed.

Turn out mixture onto a floured surface, lightly need for 2 minutes then form into a round shape.

Put on a floured baking tray. Flatten the top of the dough and score the top in a cross.

Cook for 30 minutes until the dough sounds hollow. Leave to cool on a wire rack.

N.B. You can substitute nettles for ramsons or crow garlic. For a seed top, before baking rub a little buttermilk over the top and add some sedge seeds (found in autumn) or sunflower seeds also work nicely.

 In this month’s Blossom issue, we have a beautiful feature we think you’ll love by Lia Leendertz, in which she looks at cooking and enjoying some of the season’s bounty. Nature’s Table is the first in a new series. Do tell us what you think! This soda bread recipe with photography by Kirstie Young, was first published in our March 2016 issue but it tastes just as good (if not better) four years on.

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Make your own | rosehip tea

Fancy a cuppa? We’ll just pop to the end of the garden and brew up

In our November issue, Lia Leendertz showed us how to forage rose hips and threw in a few delicious recipes, too. If you had a glut though, you might like to dry some to keep for rosehip tea, a delicately flavoured beverage that will warm you through the colder months. 

Here’s how to make rosehip tea, from hedgerow to armchair. 

1. Pick your rosehips. After the first frost is best but if they get too frozen they’ll be no good. Lia recommends you pick them whenever you spot them, frost or no, and pop them in the freezer for a few hours to create a fake first frost. You can cut them off with scissors or a knife or just pick them off. Gloves are a good idea.

2. Rose hips can be used whole, or you can trim either end if you prefer. You can also cut them in half and scoop out the seeds if you like. Again, not a must but the seeds are covered in tiny hairs which might spoil your tea. It depends how ‘rough’ you like your hip tea really. Give them a good wash and dry them on newspaper in the sun if you can, or just leave them to dry off indoors.

3. To fully dry them, either put them in a food dehydrator (not many people have one but they are rather fun for all sorts of projects like this) or simply put them in the oven on its lowest heat for about three and a half hours.

4. Once the hips are dried, pop them into a food processor and give them a quick whizz. You want the pieces to be fairly chunky still.

5. Put the blitzed hips into a sieve and shake through any tiny bits. If you didn’t remove the hairs earlier this should get rid of them.

6. Ta da! You have rosehip tea! Just put your tea into an airtight jar.

7. To serve, put one teaspoon of the tea in a loose-leaf infuser (we like the one Teapigs sells), put it in a mug and pour boiling water on top. Allow to steep for five minutes before removing. Enjoy with a blanket and half an hour to yourself with the November ‘Cosy’ issue of The Simple Things, which is in shops now. 

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Eat | Blackberry and goats' cheese flatbreads

Crumble certainly has its place but if you’re looking for something a little different for your blackberry glut, look no further than this simple September starter, side or light lunch to share

This combination straddles the sweet and savoury worlds and is all the better for it. Sweet and sharp blackberries pair well with creamy goat’s cheese, thinly sliced onions tip it towards savoury while the final drizzle of honey pulls it back to a harmonious and very seasonal whole.

Makes 4

500g strong white flour
2 tsp salt
1 tsp instant yeast
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
½ red onion, finely sliced
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
150g soft goat’s cheese, cut into discs
400g blackberries, gently crushed with a fork
1 tbsp fresh or dried thyme
2 tbsp runny honey

1 Put the flour, salt and yeast in a large bowl. Pour over 325ml warm water and the olive oil, and mix to a soft dough. Tip out onto a floured surface and knead for 10 mins, then transfer to a clean bowl, cover with a tea towel and set aside to rise for about 2 hours, or until doubled in size.

2 Meanwhile, put the red onion in a small bowl with the vinegar, mix together and leave to marinate.

3 Once the dough has risen, set a baking tray upside down on a high shelf in the oven and preheat to 240C/Fan 220C/Gas 9.

4 Sprinkle a handful of flour on your work surface and roll out a quarter of the dough as thinly as you can. Sprinkle another handful of flour on the heated baking tray, transfer the dough to the tray and bake for 6 mins.

5 Drain the onion and pat dry with kitchen roll. Remove the flatbread from the oven and scatter over a quarter of the cheese, a quarter of the blackberries, a quarter of the onion and a quarter of the thyme. Return to the oven for about 7 mins.

6 Drizzle the flatbread with a little honey and eat immediately. Repeat with the remaining dough and ingredients to make four flatbreads. Cook’s note: If you have a special pizza oven or a pizza stone, you may be able to put the topping onto the raw dough and cook it all together, but most standard ovens won’t get hot enough to make flatbreads without soggy bottoms unless you cook the base a little first.

This recipe is by Lia Leendertz and is part of our Finders Keepers series on foraging. You can find the rest of the recipes for blackberries and elderberries in our September issue. We’ve got everything from elderberry lemonade to roast blackberry fool!

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Cook | Mackerel and samphire fishcakes

Samphire is summer on a plate. Try these with a vibrant Green Goddess sauce

These delicious fishcakes can be made with foraged samphire, which is all over mudflats and estuaries at this time of year. But feel free to buy it from Waitrose or fishmongers if you had a less active lunch in mind. You can also buy samphire plants to grow from specialist nurseries. Plant next year in April or May for a crop in summer. Make the Green Goddess sauce before you go if you’re off foraging and keep it in a tightly sealed jar.

300g new potatoes

2 tbsp soured cream

A couple of knobs of butter

250g smoked mackerel fillets

A handful of samphire, washed and chopped

A few tbsp plain flour

Lemon to squeeze over for the dressing

2 anchovies

1 clove crushed garlic

5 tbsp mayonnaise

5 tbsp sour cream

A handful of parsley leaves

handful of tarragon leaves

A bunch of chives

2 tbsp lemon juice

1 Cook the potatoes in boiling salted water until tender. Drain, add the soured cream, a knob of butter and a few grinds of black pepper and mash roughly, so there are still plenty of bigger chunks. Set aside to cool.

2 Flake the mackerel fillets into the potatoes, again leaving plenty of larger pieces, and add the samphire. Form into little patties and transfer to the fridge to firm up.

3 Meanwhile make the dressing. Put all the ingredients in a blender and blitz until smooth and green. Taste and season as required. The dressing will keep in a jar in the fridge for up to one week.

4 Put the flour on a plate, then roll the chilled fishcakes in the flour. Heat a knob of butter in a frying pan and fry the fishcakes until nicely browned on both sides. Serve hot with lemon and the green goddess dressing.

This recipe is from Lia Leendertz’s foraging feature in our June issue, which has lots more samphire recipes in it from a light lunch idea to a fresh sea vegetable and seafood dashi, as well as information on where to find samphire and how to cook it.

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Get to know hedgerows

They’re the stitches in the green and brown patchwork quilt of the English countryside; we should all get to know hedgerows a little better…

Hedgerows are among the most diverse habitats in Britain, sheltering 125 of our most threatened species. They also are a visual historical timeline, showing us where boundaries were made, lost, fought for and farmed over millennia. Yep. The humble hedge is Great British phenomenon. In homage to hedges (hom-edge, perhaps?), here are few quite interesting facts about hedges you may not know…

1. The word ‘hedge’ comes from the Anglo Saxon word ‘haeg’, meaning ‘enclosure.

2. Bats use hedges to navigate by, like natural sat-nav.

3. You’ll notice that in fields, the corners of hedges are usually a steady curve, rather than a sharp right angle; this was to allow space for a team of oxen and a plough to turn.

4. The most common hedgerow plant is hawthorn, by quite a long chalk. No one is absolutely sure why but it could be because the Celts had a tradition of planting hawthorn around their sacred places.

5. Some parishes in England and Wales still practise the Roman tradition of ‘beating the bounds’. On Ascension Day, locals would gather to march around the boundary hedgerows of the area, beating the stone walls and hedges with sticks.

6. You can work out the age of a hedge by picking a 30-metre length, counting the number of different species of trees and shrubs in it and mulitplying that number by two. So if you spot five different species, you can reckon on the hedge being around 500 years old.

In our May issue, which is in shops now, foraging guru Lia Leendertz has lots of tips for foraging in hedgerows and recipes for your hedgerow treasure, from hawthorn and basil mayonnaise to elderflower champagne. Find it on p6.

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Recipe: Wild garlic soup

Ramsons, or wild garlic, makes for easy foraging. Around now, damp woodland becomes carpeted in bright green leaves, the air heavy with its savoury aroma. If you can’t find any wild garlic, you can replace it with watercress, young nettles (wear gloves when harvesting – the sting will go when cooked!), spinach, kale or chard. 

Wild garlic soup

25g butter
2 potatoes, diced
1 onion, chopped
1 litre chicken or vegetable stock
2 large handfuls of wild garlic leaves, washed and roughly chopped
110ml regular or double cream
Crusty bread, to serve

1 Melt the butter in a large saucepan over a medium heat. When foaming, add the potatoes and onion, and toss in the butter until well coated, then season with salt and pepper. Turn the heat down, cover the pan and cook for 10 mins or until vegetables are soft, stirring regularly so that the vegetables don’t stick and burn.
2 Next, add stock and bring to a rolling boil, then add the wild garlic leaves and cook for 2 mins or until the leaves have wilted. Don’t overcook or it will lose its fresh green colour and flavour.
3 Immediately pour into a blender and blitz until smooth, then return to the clean pan, stir in the cream and taste for seasoning.
4 Serve hot with crusty bread.

COOK’S NOTE: Harvest garlic leaves between March and May before the plant flowers. Be mindful and pick a little here and there. Wild garlic looks similar to the poisonous lily of the valley so always crush the leaves and check for the smell of garlic before picking.

Recipe from Recipes From My Mother by Rachel Allen (Harper Collins). 

If you’ve got a lust for something green and pungent after that you won’t want to miss the start of our new foraging series, Finders Keepers, by Lia Leendertz (first part in our April issue, in shops now). Foraged crops are free, abundant and flavourful. All you need do is get yourself to a good spot at the right time, basket and secateurs in hand, and you have some of the best crops available. Through the foraging seasons of spring, summer and autumn, we’ll show you where to find these crops, how to pick them, and ways to turn them into delicious dishes. This month’s pages include a fabulous recipe for wild garlic, nettle and broad bean frittata that has already gone in our best recipes notebook.

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More from the April issue:

More wild garlic recipes:

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View the sampler here

Recipe: Rosehip syrup and Sloe gin

Transform your autumn walks into an altogether more productive and entertaining outing by foraging for ingredients to use in your own beers, wines and spirits.

This month, says wild food expert and brewer Andy Hamilton, is the ideal time to find fruits and plants among the hedgerows and use them to create home brews.

“In October, rosehips* are plentiful and they’re great in cocktails,” says Andy. “Simply boil a handful in 550ml water, strain, and then stir in 500g sugar until fully dissolved. Allow to cool, add a splash of vodka (which acts as a preservative) and refrigerate.” (Straining twice will ensure that none of the fine hairs inside the hips remain.)

Perhaps one of the easiest fruits to identify is sloes. “If you stumble upon some sloes, fill a jar with them, cover with the strongest vodka you can get hold of and seal. To make a sloe gin like no other, leave for six months, strain, then leave for another two years. Just try it without sugar, you’ll be pleasantly surprised,” Andy promises.  

* Rosehips look like small red berries. They have a distinctive shape and are only found growing on rose bushes. They are not to be confused with other small red berries, which may be poisonous. Try to pick wild hips away from roads as they will be less likely to have been exposed to exhaust or other pollutants. If you pick from your own garden, make sure they are from plants that haven't been sprayed with pesticides.

Read more:

From the October issue

More foraged fruit recipes

Recipe: Saffron G&Ts

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Natural Christmas

Make your table worthy of your Christmas feast by creating one of these last minute decorations using pickings from your garden, window box or hedgerows – simply gorgeous. Vases of larch cones, crab apples and winter berries are quick and easy to do

What you'll need: Jars; ribbon; natural decorations from the garden and hedgerows

1. Keep hold of empty jars in the run-up to Christmas as they can be

recycled into vases.

2. Tie some ribbon around the necks to add a festive touch and fill

with pickings from the garden and hedgerows. Evergreen herbs

such as rosemary and bay work well, providing a lovely aroma.

3. Add a few stems of hawthorn berries or pyracantha for a shot of

Christmassy colour.

4. Even more simple is to fill a few jars with larch cones and crab

apples. On crowded Christmas tables smaller decorations like this

work much more effectively, taking up less space, allowing guests

to chat without being obscured by plant material.

Plenty more festive ideas for gifts, food and fun in December's issue of The Simple Things - buy, download or subscribe now. 

Escape: Go foraging PLUS natural festive decoration/gift ideas

Carols and hymns are wound through with references to holly and ivy, and the tradition of collecting these intensely green reminders that life does continue year round stretches way back to pre-Christian times. A foraging walk requires a sturdy bag and secateurs and will make decorating your home or creating a wreath an easy job.

Both holly and ivy are easy to find growing wild in Britain – ivy is an important autumn source of pollen for bees and other pollinators, while holly berries, although toxic to humans, are enjoyed by birds and other wildlife. You’ll need to track down a cluster of holly bushes, since only the female produces berries, but both sexes need to be nearby!

Mistletoe also has its parasitic roots in pre-Christian times, but these days gathering some for a cheeky doorway ornament doesn’t require the use of a golden sickle on the sixth day of the moon’s cycle, just good local air quality and a keen eye. Though as the orchards in which it is most often found are now rare and localised you are more likely to find it at a market.

Cone and fir garland

When you’re out on a woodland walk keep your eyes peeled for cones, berries, twigs and leaves to make into homemade decorations. You don’t have to spend a fortune on decorations, there are plenty of things to forage for free that add seasonal sparkle. No need to stick to a natural, Shaker-style Christmas either – use paint, glitter and colourful ribbon to help them work with your chosen colour scheme. It’s a good idea to keep a plastic bag in your pocket so you’re always ready to collect mother nature’s winter bounty.

• Collect 20 cones and several fir tree twigs, needles still attached. Cut the twigs into 5cm lengths and strip needles from one end, exposing about 1cm of bare stem.

• Cut a 1m length of garden string (or ribbon, or twine).

• To make the garland, simply alternate between cones and fir sprigs, tying them onto the string at 2cm intervals. Leave enough string at either end to attach to the tree, mantelpiece or spot of your choice.

A foraged hamper

Been foraging all year to make delicious goodies? Use these to make a foraged hamper of treats - it's a thoughtful, handmade gift idea. 

Follow the instructions over on Wolves in London blog where you'll find recipes, ideas and inspiration for homegrown, foraged and seasonal food, perfect for a foraged Christmas hamper.

Turn to page 66 of December's The Simple Things for more on the walks that make Christmas. Buy, download or subscribe now.

Fruits of the hedgerow

Go foraging this month and find out what you can make with the fruits of the hedgerow.

More than mere borders, our hedgerows host amazing biodiversity. Here's a little of what they hold.

Turn to page 127 of September's The Simple Things for a guide to hedgerow berries, and try these ideas for using them in the kitchen.

Rosehip

Jekyll and Hyde of a species. Rich in vitamin C, delicious in wine and jam. Just avoid the fine hairs - a key ingredient in itching powder.

Try: Rosehip syrup

Damson

Higher in sugars than its kin in the plum family, and the go-to ingredient for a flavoursome home-pimped vodka. Peak harvest time is right about now.

Try: Damson cheese

Rowan

Too sharp in taste to enjoy solo, but a piquant addition to many a conserve. Try with roast meat. Note to bee lovers: its scent is catnip to pollinators.

Try: Rowan and rosemary jelly

Hawthorn

Staple hedging material. Fruit good for syrups, magnificent for brandy. Beware pedants insisting that, botanically, they're not berries, but pomes.

Try: Hawthorn berry ketchup

Sloe

A foraging favourite, the fruit of the blackthorn tree is among the last around before winter. Pick from now until early November, bottle with gin and sugar.

Try: Salted sloes

For the rest of our Fruits of the Hedgerow identifier, turn to page 127 of September's The Simple Things. Buy or download now.