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Featuring our beautiful restaurant, garden and flavoursome veg. Recipes, events, veg revolution and more.

Head gardener @pennyhemming has a lot of harvestin

Head gardener @pennyhemming has a lot of harvesting to do which also means there's an abundance of veg heading towards the kitchen for the chefs.

This week Penny had; "lots of fat juicy green lettuce and some red fancy lettuce, puntarelles, broad beans, beetroot, parsley, basil lime, Rosie and Greek particularly, elephant garlic, thyme, french tarragon, small amount of summer savoury. Some tree spinach."

If you're coming for lunch or supper this week, look out for them on the menu.

You can find the carrot top pesto recipe that Penny mentions on the @riverford website or link in our bio 🥕🥕🥕

Grilled spring onions and romesco.

This recipe takes inspiration from the Spanish who have a tradition of cooking young onions over open fires. They eat them whole, dragged through a red pepper sauce and accompanied by free-flowing red wine.

You need to do nothing more than lightly brush them with oil and season with salt and pepper. Throw them straight onto the bars; they’ll take anywhere between 5-8 mins to cook, depending on their size. Turn them often and don’t worry if they look too burnt on the outside; you can always discard the outer layer before serving. You know they are ready when they feel noticeably softer.

W I N 🥕 W I N 🥕 W I N
To celebrate the veg new year and to help you make the most of @riverford seasonal veg, we are giving away three copies of Sophie Gordon’s first cookbook The Whole Vegetable.

The book is a beautiful compendium of seasonal recipes to celebrate our most versatile, vibrant and sustainable ingredient – the vegetable.

There are over 130 creative, delicious, eco-conscious recipes put vegetables at the very centre of the table, making them the star of the show and embracing often-discarded parts such as leaves, stalks, tops, flowers, seeds and even peelings.

From Cauliflower Carbonara, Broccoli Pesto and Chunky Pumpkin Tacos, to Cherry Breakfast Crumble, Maple-Roasted Pears and Apple and Walnut Danish Buns, The Whole Vegetable is packed with thoughtful recipes for every season, to ensure that nothing in your kitchen goes to waste.

Sophie is a plant-based chef and recipe developer, caterer, sustainability campaigner and entrepreneur. She runs the South East London Supper Club and the newly launched Whole Vegetable supper club, creating vegan dishes for a variety of attendees, and also hosts and caters for regular plant-based retreats across the globe. Follow her on Instagram @Soph_Gordon

To enter:
Like this post, and tag in a friend who you would enjoy cooking, or eating recipes from this book.

We will pick a winner at random on Thursday 9th June at 4pm.

Good luck!

The Veg New Year is here and well and truly pickin

The Veg New Year is here and well and truly picking up speed now. Some of the highlights of the season we're already seeing are:

Asparagus
Bunched radishes
Globe artichokes
New potatoes
Strawberries
Rhubarb
Little gem
Pak choi

And very soon to come:
Broad beans
Kohlrabi
Samphire
Tomatoes
Mini cucumbers
Raspberries
Cherries

Which are you looking forward to most?

#Livelifeontheveg

The Field Kitchen Garden has turned a wonderful sh

The Field Kitchen Garden has turned a wonderful shade of green over the last month.

It's always astonishing to see how quickly the landscape changes. The chives, lettuces and broad beans are always the first sign of longer and warmer days. As you walk past the small tomato plants in the polytunnel,.you can just start to smell that fresh tomato scent and can see the first yellow flowers opening up.

They've nearly finished planting tomatoes and cucumbers in the Riverford polytunnels and will be ready to harvest mid July and mid June respectively. their crop target this year is 53 tonnes of tomatoes and 370,000 mini cucumbers!

Penny has planted over 20 varieties of tomatoes in our polytunnel this year. Definitely not 53 tonnes worth but we always have an abundant harvest and encourage guests to pick a few to take home when they visit.

We are so excited to announce our third guest in t

We are so excited to announce our third guest in the Wicked Leeks live interview series, hearing from leading female voices in food and sustainability.

Ixta Belfrage, recently named as one of the most influential women in food by Code, and co-author of bestselling FLAVOUR with Ottolenghi will be joining us to celebrate her first solo book, Mezcla.

Ixta’s style of cooking draws inspiration from three countries she grew up traveling to, eating in and obsessing over; Brazil (where her mum is from), Italy (where she lived as a child) and Mexico (where her grandad lived). Her new book is a collection of eclectic recipes from different cuisines and cultures, and appropriately named Mezcla, which is ‘mix’ in Spanish.

Nina Pullman, editor of Wicked Leeks, will be chatting to Ixta about the inspiration behind her new book and how her mixed heritage and upbringing has shaped the person that she is today and how that, and her experience working with Ottolenghi, has ultimately influenced the way she cooks.

“‘Ottolenghi’ is synonymous with food that is full of flavour, bursting with herbs, spices, chilli and citrus. It’s vegetable-heavy and is often just as much of a joy to look at as it is to eat. It is considered but not fussy. Rustic but not slapdash. It takes inspiration from all over the world.”

The evening will be set within the beautiful backdrop of The Riverford Field Kitchen and served alongside a delicious and 100 per cent organic feast full of tasty recipes from Mezcla.

Link to book in bio or on website:
www.theriverfordfieldkitchen.co.uk

Join us for a Wicked Leeks Live event with two far

Join us for a Wicked Leeks Live event with two farming revolutionaries, Simon Fairlie and Guy Singh-Watson, for a timely and inspiring discussion alongside an evening of delicious food.

Hear from two revolutionaries who have fought and farmed to make the world a better place. Alongside a delicious organic feast at the Riverford Field Kitchen, we will hear from Simon Fairlie, landworker, farmer and founding editor of The Land magazine, as he reflects on his new ‘counterculture’ memoir and his career in environmental activism and radical food production.

He’ll be joined by founder of Riverford Guy Singh-Watson, whose case against GM field crops went to trial in the 90s after protests gathered pace, in a discussion chaired by Wicked Leeks editor Nina Pullman. Part of the Wicked Leeks magazine series of events, we will ask how activism is still closely connected to food and the future of farming and where the opportunities lie for hope and progressive change.

In a time of mounting urgency around the climate crisis, clampdowns on our right to protest and the efforts of Extinction Rebellion to keep activism alive, this will be a timely and inspiring discussion alongside an evening of delicious food.

Link to book in bio or on website:
www.theriverfordfieldkitchen.co.uk

We can't wait to welcome Marianna Leivaditaki to T

We can't wait to welcome Marianna Leivaditaki to The Riverford Field Kitchen for a Mediterranean feast featuring recipes from her book Aegean.

Marianna was previously head chef at Moro, London where her bold Mediterranean flavours were an instant hit. Her culinary story began in Crete where she grew up; her father was a fisherman and her mother ran the family’s seafood restaurant. Her unique style of cooking embraces traditional flavours from Crete and has influences from the Eastern Mediterranean creating a marriage of cultures and traditions from the Aegean.

“The way I cook is the way I think; lots of things are happening at the same time. When I think of new dishes my inspiration comes from people, travelling and imagining new combinations while learning about the old and traditional to create something new and different.”

A skilled storyteller, in her cookbook Aegean, Marianna's love for the food of her heritage flows off every page. Her recipes derive from the SEA, the LAND and the MOUNTAINS, celebrating seasonal, fresh food that you can take time to enjoy with friends and family. It’s a stunningly beautiful book that celebrates the simplicity and integrity of Cretan cooking with authentic recipes such as watermelon, charred feta and bread salad with mint, and oven-baked aubergines with chickpeas, spicy tomatoes and sheep’s cheese.

“This book is so much more than a cookbook, it's a love song to a very special place and we are lucky to have the brilliant Marianna as our guide.” Itamar Srulovich, co-founder of Honey & Co.

The evening will be set within the beautiful backdrop of The Riverford Field Kitchen and served alongside a delicious and 100 per cent organic feast full of delicious recipes from Aegean.

Link in bio for tickets or visit our website:
www.theriverfordfieldkitchen.co.uk

Hurry as 50% sold already!

Apple, celery, watercress, walnut and goats cheese

Apple, celery, watercress, walnut and goats cheese.

Glorious, peppery organic watercress, grown in gravel beds and fed by spring water. These freshly picked leaves add vibrant crunch to a salad and they’re a good garnish for strong meat and fish.

To fall in love with it entirely, blend watercress with mayonnaise and a touch of mustard and eat with poached salmon or chicken and buttery new potatoes.

We're celebrating the short English asparagus seas

We're celebrating the short English asparagus season at the moment.

Delicate, tender, and bursting with spring sweetness - the flavour of asparagus just can't be beaten. It's the ultimate challenge for an organic grower, but this veg delicacy is worth the trouble.

Asparagus only needs the lightest touch to make it irresistible. We love to BBQ it and serve with a simple garlic aioli or hollandaise sauce. Here we've served it on top of white beans and a generous sprinkling of parmesan.

To celebrate @melissa.hemsley joining us at The Ri

To celebrate @melissa.hemsley joining us at The Riverford Field Kitchen next week, we are giving away three copies of her delicious new book, Feel Good.

To enter, just make sure you are following us and tag a friend below who you'd cook a Feel Good recipe for.

Winner will be chosen at random in Monday 23rd May.

Good luck!

Swipe to see one of the recipes from the book; roasted white beans with Caesar-style tahini dressing

Extracted from Feel Good by Melissa Hemsley
(Ebury Press, £22).

Feel Good Photography by Lizzie Mayson

Big broccoli and spinach salad with carrot - ginge

Big broccoli and spinach salad with carrot - ginger dressing
Extracted from Feel Good by Melissa Hemsley
(Ebury Press, £22)

Feeds 2.

1 large handful of bite-sized broccoli florets, stems sliced thinly
100g baby spinach
400g tin of chickpeas, drained, rinsed and dried
1 handful of cherry tomatoes (I like a mix of colours), halved
About 150g cooked quinoa or brown rice
1 handful of seeds (such as pumpkin or sunflower), toasted to serve

Dressing makes extra
2 medium carrots, scrubbed (about 200g)
2 tbsp chopped fresh ginger
3 ½ tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 tbsp toasted sesame oil
½ small white onion or 3 spring onions
3 tbsp rice vinegar or apple cider vinegar
2 ½ tbsp white miso paste
Sea salt

Steam the broccoli for 4–5 minutes in a small pan until just tender. You can do this by putting a small amount of water with a little pinch of salt in a pan so that it covers the bottom by about half an inch, and cooking the broccoli in it with a lid on the pan.

Place all the ingredients for the dressing – except the salt – in a high-powered blender or a food processor and blend until smooth, then season with salt to taste. If your blender isn’t high-powered, roughly grate the carrots and ginger first before adding them to the blender

With the rest of the ingredients. Add about 4 tablespoons of water to the dressing to make it drizzly; it is a thick dressing, but add more water to thin it out further if you fancy.

Toss all the salad ingredients together, drizzle over about half of the dressing and scatter over the seeds. Serve any extra dressing on the side and keep the rest in a clean screw-top jar in the fridge.

Feel Good Photography by Lizzie Mayson.
Author picture credit: Stuart Simpson

We are delighted to welcome @melissa.hemsley back

We are delighted to welcome @melissa.hemsley back to the Riverford Field Kitchen, as our second guest in the Wicked Leeks intimate, 'in conversation with' interview series with women in food and sustainability.

Melissa will be chatting to Nina Pullman, editor of @wickedleeksmag about the inspiration behind her latest book and how what you eat can impact on everything from your relationships and sleep to your productivity and happiness.

All within the beautiful backdrop of The Riverford Field Kitchen and served alongside a flavoursome, organic feast of tasty recipes from Feel Good, Melissa’s new book.

To celebrate the sold out event, we will be sharing two recipes from Feel Good over the next couple of days.

Feel Good is available to buy now. Published by Ebury Press. £22.

Author picture credit: Stuart Simpson
Feel Good photography: Lizzie Mayson

R H U B A R B T R I F L E Possibly the finest wa

R H U B A R B T R I F L E

Possibly the finest way to finish off a Sunday. This silky, comforting combination of custard, cream and rhubarb should convert even those who are on the fence about rhubarb.

Here's another way to eat the perfect duo, baked rhubarb and custard:

Ingredients
for the baked custard
1 litre whole milk
½ tsp vanilla extract
6 eggs and 2 egg yolks
150g caster sugar
¼ tsp nutmeg, grated

for the rhubarb
500g rhubarb, cut into 4-5cm lengths
120g caster sugar
100ml water
zest of 1 and juice of 2 oranges

Method
Preheat oven to 200°C/Gas 6. Fold a clean tea towel over a couple of times and put in the base of a roasting pan. Place a 1.5 litre ovenproof dish on top, making sure it sits flat.

To make the custard, gently heat the milk in a saucepan until it's steaming, not boiling. Put the eggs, egg yolks and sugar in a large heatproof bowl. Stir gently together. Try not to form too many air bubbles. Take the milk off the heat and stir in the vanilla.

Gradually pour the milk onto the egg mixture, stirring gently. Strain the mixture through a sieve into the ovenproof dish. Scatter the nutmeg over the top.

Boil a kettle of water. Put the roasting tray with the ovenproof dish in on the middle shelf of your oven. Pour the boiled water into the roasting pan to reach halfway up the sides of the dish and form a water bath. Reduce the oven temperature to 160°C/Gas 3 (don't worry about the tea towel - it has water covering it, so won't be a fire hazard!).

Bake for 45-50 minutes, or until just set but with a wobble. The custard will carry on cooking when you take it out of the oven, so don't let it overcook.

Carefully remove the ovenproof dish from the water. Leave to cool slightly while the rhubarb is cooking, or make in advance, leave to cool to room temperature, then chill in the fridge for a firmer texture.

Once the custard has cooked, turn the heat up to 200°C/Gas 6. Put all the ingredients in a baking dish, one that can fit the rhubarb in a single layer if possible. Cover with foil and bake for about 15 minutes, or slightly longer if the rhubarb stalks are very thick. Halfway through, remove and toss to make sure the rhubarb cooks evenly.

We love growing rhubarb; it's a refreshing change

We love growing rhubarb; it's a refreshing change from winter roots, and grows vigorously at a time when English fields are otherwise quite bare. The variety is Timperley Early, with tender, juicy stalks and tart flavour. Unlike the bright pink ‘forced’ rhubarb you’ll find in most supermarkets, our rhubarb is field-grown, its blush-pink stalks tinged with green.

One of the reasons we love rhubarb is you can do so much with it. It's familiar to most once sweetened and stewed and served with custard or as the base for a crumble. However, it's a truly versatile veg with its unique tang working as a foil when used as a sauce or preserve for fatty meats, oily fish or cheese. Its sharpness is its charm.

We will be sharing our favourite recipes over the next week so keep an eye out. Today, we're going to share our poaching recipe.

Ingredients
500g rhubarb
4 tbsp light brown sugar
2 oranges
2 thin slices of beetroot – optional (the beetroot will add a great pink colour to your rhubarb, without bringing any strong flavour to the pan)

Trim the rhubarb and cut it into 3cm pieces. Split any wide pieces in half, lengthways, so that all the pieces are a roughly even size.

Pull the zest from the oranges into long strips with a potato peeler. Juice the oranges too.

Place the zest, juice and sugar into a large wide-based saucepan or casserole. Add the rhubarb and beetroot slices (if using), spreading them out so you have an even covering in the pan. Cover and bring to a gentle simmer. Cook gently for 5-6 minutes, until the rhubarb is starting to soften but still holds its shape. Remove from the heat and leave it to cool with the lid on.

Chefs notes: You can add a little spice into the pan too if you fancy. A few slices of fresh ginger will add a little warmth, or try a little cinnamon, start anise, cardamom, or even black pepper if it seems fitting.

When cool the rhubarb should be tender but still holding its shape. If it is still a little undercooked, pop it back on the heat for a few minutes to nudge it over the line. If the rhubarb is a bit too sharp for your tastes, you can always add a little more sugar.

This will store well in the fridge for 3-4 days.

Get your bake on! If you haven't already learnt h

Get your bake on!

If you haven't already learnt how to bake bread then it's time to do it. You will never want to buy from a shop again.

We have a few spaces left on our breadmaking and sourdough courses next week. Book on our website:
www.theriverfordfieldkitchen.co.uk

Our master of bread, Andy Tyrrell, has a life-long passion for baking, and a particular passion for bread and sourdough. Andy cut his teeth working in a patisserie, before climbing the ranks and becoming head chef at River Cottage HQ and the eponymous Lyme Bay Cafe & Bar.

He also makes the best roast cauliflower cheese burger but you'll have to visit his restaurant @wearesoulshine in Bridport for one of those.

We couldn't let #nationalgardeningweek end without

We couldn't let #nationalgardeningweek end without mentioning our own queen bee, @pennyhemming

Penny, is the head gardener at Riverford HQ and chief grower for the Riverford Field Kitchen. She tends to the grounds all around Wash Farm, making it a wonderful working environment for the co-owners and a haven for wildlife.

She can usually be found in 'Penny's Polytunnel', an Aladdin's Cave of unusual veg and herbs, used to supply the Field Kitchen restaurant. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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There isn't much Penny doesn't know about growing carrots, beetroot, salanova lettuce or tomatoes - on an average year she will grow 29 varieties of tomatoes in the polytunnel! ⠀⠀⠀
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She's also pretty skilled at growing flower gardens and adorning the restaurant walls with her dried flowers.

Penny runs guided tours and farm walks, takes workshops and is a fount of knowledge about the history of Riverford and its land. Her current workshops include Grow Your Own Field Kitchen Garden, Grow Your Own Flowers, Wreath Making workshops and Floral Arrangements.

Never seen without a ginger beer nearby, you can often hear the sound of the Archers coming from the radio before you can see her as she's camouflaged by the hanging, giant tromboncino!

Courgette, peas, ricotta and mint. From pod to po

Courgette, peas, ricotta and mint.

From pod to pot to plate in minutes, these super-sweet organic garden peas are just the ticket for perking up grey days.

Pop them from their pods (quite a meditative task if you’re in the right mood) and enjoy them in all sorts of summery risottos and pasta dishes, or briefly boil as a simple side of greens.

They’re sweet enough that we even like to eat them raw, straight from the pods! The season is brief, just two months so we make the most of them whilst we can.

Guy Singh-Watson grew these peas for us on his own farm just next door: Baddaford, a 150-acre farm, nestled in a steep-sided valley.

Cauliflower, Summer savoury, pinenut and sumac. T

Cauliflower, Summer savoury, pinenut and sumac.

This recipe takes roasted cauliflower to a whole new level. A fine example of how using herbs and spices can transform the ordinary into the extraordinary.

Sumac is a dark red Middle Eastern spice, with a wonderful taste of both paprika and citrus and vitually no aroma. Fruity-tart sumac powder is made from grinding the dried berries of the sumac bush. Using sumac instead of lemon juice or zest immediately enhances dishes, giving a fascinating and exotic twist.

Summer savory has a hot, peppery flavour with notes of marjoram, thyme, and mint. Summer savory is the kind of herb that’s compatible with a wide array dishes, in fact it's one of the main ingredients in the herb blend, herbs de Provence.

How do you roast yours?

N O D I G E V E N T S With Charles Dowding. We

N O D I G E V E N T S
With Charles Dowding.

We are very excited to be welcoming Charles to the Field Kitchen.

With twelve best-selling books, appearances on BBC Gardener’s World, and a successful YouTube channel with over 51 million views, Charles is on a mission to get the no dig message more known and understood.

If you’re a gardening novice and want to start off on the right foot, or already a bit of an expert but want to know new methods then these events are the perfect opportunity to ask questions and learn from THE no dig guru.

Charles will also dispel some gardening myths along the way and demonstrate that with simple techniques, growing vegetables can be accessible and fun for all.

Link to book events in bio, or on our website:
www.theriverfordfieldkitchen.co.uk

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