Seasonal local food recipe No 126: Celeriac and Lancashire Cheese Bread

Thanks to Bridget for this recipe from Delia’s Vegetarian Collection. A tasty loaf – no yeast required.

Makes 1 loaf (serves 4-6)

Preparation: 15-20 minutes
Cooking: 45-50 minutes

Ingredients
175g celeriac (peeled weight)
110g Lancashire cheese, roughly crumbled into 1cm pieces
175g self-raising flour, plus a little extra for the top of the loaf
4 spring onions, finely chopped (including the green parts)
pinch cayenne pepper
1 tsp salt
1 large egg
2 tbsp milk
You’ll also need a small baking tray, very well greased.

Ingredients
Preheat oven to 190C/gas mark 5.
Sift the flour into a large mixing bowl , add the spring onions, two-thirds of the crumble cheese, the cayenne pepper and the salt. Then, using the coarse side of a grater, grate in the celeriac. Give everything a really good mix. Beat the egg and milk together and, using a palette know to mix, gradually add it all to the mixture until you have a loose, rough dough.

Transfer the dough to the baking tray and, still keeping the rough texture, shape it into a round with your hands. Net, lightly press the rest of the cheese over the surface, sprinkle with a little flour and bake the bread on the middle shelf of the oven for 45-50 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack and eat as fresh as possible. This is lovely served warm, and if you have any left over, it’s really good toasted.

Seasonal local veg in the boxes this week

This week everyone will have:
potatoes (Burlerrow Farm, St Mabyn)
* onions (Camel CSA)
* salad bag (Camel CSA)
* sprout stalk (Camel CSA) – do use the tasty top too!
* carrots (Camel CSA)
* leeks (Camel CSA)
* turnip bunch (Camel CSA)

Standard boxes will have extra potatoes plus
* parsley (Camel CSA)
* purple sprouting broccoli/swiss chard (Camel CSA)
* beetroot bunch (Camel CSA)

* = grown to organic principles

Local and seasonal – the contents of this week’s boxes

This week everyone will have:
potatoes ((Burlerrow Farm, St Mabyn)
* garlic (Camel CSA)
* onions (Camel CSA)
* salad bag (Camel CSA)
* carrots (Camel CSA)
* celeriac (Camel CSA)
* swiss chard (Camel CSA)
* squash (Camel CSA)

Standard boxes will have extra potatoes plus:
* swede (Camel CSA)
* parsnips (Camel CSA)
* purple sprouting broccoli or red cabbage (Camel CSA)

* = grown to organic principles

Seasonal local food recipe No 120: Caramelised carrots with gremolata

From Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s new River Cottage Veg Everyday cookbook. ‘The contrast of sweet, caramelised carrots and zesty gremolata is brilliant – and it looks good too,’ he says. Good with young, small carrots but fine with bigger ones if you cut them into long, thin batons.

Serves 4

Preparation: 5 minutes
Cooking: about an hour

Ingredients
1 tbsp rapeseed or olive oil
30g butter
500g young carrots, larger ones halved lengthways
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the gremolata:
½ garlic clove
small bunch of flat-leaf parsley, leaves only
finely grated zest of 1 lemon

Method
Preheat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4. Put the oil and butter in a large roasting dish and place in the oven until the butter melts. Add the carrots, season generously with salt and pepper and toss well. Cover with foil and roast in the oven for 30-40 minutes, until the carrots are tender.

Take the dish out of the oven, remove the foil and give the carrots a stir. Roast, uncovered, for 20-30 minutes, until they start to brown and caramelise.

While the carrots are in the oven, make the gremolata. Roughly chop the garlic on a large board, then add the parsley and lemon zest. Use a large, sharp knife to chop and mix the three ingredients together until very fine and well mixed.

As soon as the carrots are ready, toss them with the gremolata and serve straight away.

Hallowe’en pumpkins in this week’s bumper veg boxes

This week everyone will have:
potatoes (Burlerrow Farm, St Mabyn)
* pumpkin (Mark Norman)
* onions (Camel CSA)
* salad leaves (Camel CSA)
* tomatoes (Camel CSA)
* sweetcorn (Camel CSA)
* chillies (Camel CSA)
* calabrese/purple sprouting broccoli (Camel CSA)
* fennel bulb (Camel CSA)
* carrots (Camel CSA)
* kale (Camel CSA)

Standard boxes will also have:
* cauliflower (Camel CSA)
* radicchio (Camel CSA)
* turnips (Camel CSA)
* leeks (Camel CSA)

* = grown to organic principles

Community supported agriculture must shout much louder to make local food work

Thousands of people in England are improving their overall quality of life by getting involved in community supported agriculture.

But a lack of public awareness means that many more are missing out, according to new research from the Soil Association. 

“Community supported agriculture is an exciting, dynamic, growing movement. It’s all about sharing and giving people proper access to local produce. It’s making a real difference to people’s lives,” Josiah Meldrum of Provenance told the Soil Association’s CSA conference in Bristol.

Indeed, the pace of expansion is impressive. Of the 76 fully-fledged CSA schemes in England, 66 of these got going in the last three years.  Another 120 are in the process of setting up. 

Public understanding  is lacking, however. Two thirds of 1,000 shoppers who took part in a survey had never heard of community supported agriculture schemes like ours in Cornwall. 

The Soil Association commissioned Provenance researchers Nick Saltmarsh and Josiah Meldrum to judge the impact of CSAs in England. They concluded there are enormous social, environmental and economic benefits for members and the wider community.

More than 70 per cent of of CSA members feel their overall quality of life has improved. Almost half believe they’re having a significant impact on the community by bringing people together.

At least three quarters are involved because they want access to healthy, high-quality, sustainably-produced food. Two thirds of them find that the vegetables provided supply nearly all their needs.

Remarks included: 

Food has become interesting again…

I feel involved in the production of the food I eat and have become more connected to the land…

I feel part of something that is truly pioneering, that I am contributing in some way to different more sustainable way of living…

It makes me feel happy – at quite a deep level – that I’m playing a small part in helping such an excellent scheme to thrive…

You can have a more detailed look at the main findings on the Soil Association’s resources pages: –

• Key features and benefits
• Lessons for enterprises
• Introduction for farmers, growers and landowners.

The full report will be published in October.

An artistic image of Camel CSA’s community veg plot

This illustration of Camel Community Supported Agriculture’s grow-our-own veg plot in Cornwall is by the very talented artist Antonina Szram Brown.

Antonina and her husband Jeremy run St Kew Harvest Farm Shop, specialising in good food and fresh produce that includes their own homemade artisan bread. They’re both deeply committed to making local food work in our part of north Cornwall.

Camel CSA rent two acres of land from the Brown family at St Kew Highway near Wadebridge. Jeremy is one of the local growers who supplies top-quality produce for our weekly veg box scheme.

Seasonal local food recipe No 102: Blackcurrant and almond cake

From Sarah Raven’s Garden Cookbook. It makes a good pudding, she says, served warm with cream, crème fraîche or Greek yoghurt. You can make it in advance and reheat it gently, covered with a piece of foil.

Preparation and cooking: about 45 minutes

Serves 6-8

Ingredients
200g butter, plus a little more for the flan tin
200g caster sugar
3 eggs
200g ground almonds
1 tsp vanilla extract
200g blackcurrants, topped and tailed
icing sugar

Method
Preheat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4. Butter a 25cm loose-bottomed flan tin and line the base with a circle of baking parchment.

Cream the butter and sugar in a food processor or with a hand beater until the mixture is pale. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well and, after each addition, fold in some of the ground almonds and a few drops of vanilla extract. Put the mixture in the flan tin and scatter over the blackcurrants. Their flavour is intense, so don’t be tempted to use more fruit.

Cook for 30 minutes until golden and just firm and, before serving, sieve over some icing sugar.

Watch this video: How Camel Community Supported Agriculture is helping make local food work

Camel CSA’s contribution in Cornwall to Making Local Food Work is featured in a new YouTube video commissioned by the Plunkett Foundation, made by eclips film.

We turned our grow-your-own dream into reality with the support and guidance of the Soil Association via Making Local Food Work. We have £60,000 funding from the Big Lottery’s Local  Food programme and the East Cornwall Local Action Group (part of the South West Regional Development Agency).

Watch all Camel CSA videos

Read all the stories behind Camel CSA’s latest videos

All our own! Seasonal local veg in this week’s boxes

The contents of this week’s boxes come from Camel CSA’s own plot at St Kew Highway and from our own expert grower Mark Norman’s smallholding on the outskirts of Bodmin.

We’ve all sharing a bumper French bean harvest. This early crop is growing really well in our first polytunnel.

Everyone will have:
* French beans (Camel CSA)
* round cabbage (Camel CSA)
* salad bags (Camel CSA)
* new potatoes (Mark Norman)
* carrots (Mark)
* gooseberries (Mark)

Standard boxes will have extra potatoes as well as:
* turnips (Camel CSA)
* kale (Camel CSA)
* calabrese (Mark)

* = grown to organic principles