How to eat more than 10 a day, in March

Growing your own really helps to make meals more delicious and exciting, offering an ever changing repertoire of amazing fresh veggies, fruit, herbs and other edibles to eat. For our no dig gardening courses at Homeacres I make lunches using, as much as we possibly can, only food we have grown. There is such variety! Even when there are several courses in a month, the choice of available plants to harvest is never the same from one course to the next.

We love sharing fresh homegrown food and hopefully inspiring people to grow as much as possible and experiment with their harvests.

To make the most use of what we grow, all of my dishes are entirely plant based, showcasing the incredible range of colours, flavours, textures and possibilities of the food we grow. People are always commenting on the colourfulness of the food and even the most enthusiastic omnivore leaves the table feeling full and happy.

In addition to freshly harvested vegetables, herbs, etc I use home stored ingredients including squashes, onions, garlic, chillies, beetroot, dehydrated tomatoes, some home dried herbs and spices and dried beans, especially Czar (a white runner bean) and Borlotti. From the larder, I use olive and sunflower oil, vinegars, spices we can’t grow (ginger, cinnamon), oranges and lemons. We have some homemade cider vinegar and our own homemade infused oils and vinegars too.

Seasonal salads, February

Seasonal salads, March

Every meal in the winter and spring includes a seasonal soup, homemade sourdough rye bread (made with freshly ground organic rye grain, bought locally) and Homeacres salad leaves.

This month, the range of plants we can harvest include parsnips, leeks, cabbage, purple sprouting broccoli, different kinds of kale, herbs (including parsley, mint, chervil, coriander, French tarragon, chives, sage, thyme), spinach and sprouts. Homeacres is much bigger than my garden, but I also grow all of this – and more – in my own polytunnel, home garden and allotment. It is possible to grow a wide range of plants through the winter to eat in gardens and allotment – with good planning and crop protection! We can also forage for new nettle tops and the wild garlic is just about ready to harvest.

Although I usually have a few ideas for what I will make, the menu isn’t created until I see what we have in the kitchen.

winter veg

fresh kale

some of the veg for the meals

Salad leaves

Timperley early rhubarb

I make raw and cooked dishes, often experimenting with different ways of using the same vegetable.

roasted squash salad with roasted pumpkin seeds

raw grated root salad

roasted beetroot and orange salad

finely grated lemon zest for a dressing

potato salad – the dressing is made with cashew nuts and herbs

grated carrots and apple

massaged kale

sliced roasted golden beetroot

Borlotti bean salad

And also bake cakes or muffins to go with afternoon tea. The experimental vegan beetroot and spinach muffins were extremely yummy – richly flavoured, just the right gooeyness – but I made them in a rush without weighing all of the ingredients, so can’t share the recipe until I have made them again 🙂

apple tray bake

beetroot muffins

apple, parsnip and carrot muffins

apple, parsnip and carrot muffin mixture

apple, parsnip and carrot muffins

rhubarb muffins

The roasted squash hummus is always really popular; I’ll be blogging the recipe here very soon, so look out for it! Many of these recipes will be in our new book, out very soon!