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Showing posts with the label Food

Wonderfully Wild

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 Holidaymakers are swarming down to Cornwall, so we are enjoying a couple of days being homebased and it's finally warm and dry... instead of the cold, wet and windy weather we have had over the last weeks or is it months? We have much to do in the garden  jungle, and after being crazily busy for what seems like forever - we were dreaming of spending some quality time at home with the kitties, pottering about outside...and now we have exactly what we have been craving. Yesterday we visited our local farm shop and for the first time we bought some Green Wheat Freekeh from Palestinian company  Zaytoun  and we love it! We cooked up some spicy veggies and added the soaked Freekeh at the end and served on a bed of salad and topped with chopped coriander. We have also been experimenting and decided to have a go at making our own version of a vegan frittata using silken tofu and buckwheat - it was delicious! We'll make it again and share the recipe soon. The weekend wouldn't be co

And The Food Goes On...

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We like to keep our meals simple, preferably in one pot and do eat lots of stews, chilis and curries. We also never throw food away and any leftovers will get added to the next day's meal and so on... All our meals start life as a pan of freshly chopped veg. So far we have: 3 onions, 4 cloves of garlic, 1 sweet potato, 2 medium tomatoes, 1 large red pepper and 1 courgette with a good sprinkle of dried basil, oregano and smoked paprika. This is a tub of leftover stew from the weekend. If you follow us on Instagram @thesmithsontour you will see a post from Saturday regarding the ingredients, some of which is from the garden. The leftovers whizzed up and added to the mix as a thick stock. We also added a little water and stir-fried/simmered for around 20 minutes. Next up mushrooms. Sliced and chucked in for a further 5 minutes of simmering. Then added chopped kale from the garden... and lastly - we added beans (today we used Suma's tinned black beans) and juice of half a lemon. Co

Raw Porridge Recipe

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  After years of making big pans of porridge every morning we have discovered a new and improved way to eat our daily portion of oats. Ingredients 50g Oats (we use Mornflake Organic Oats) ½ tsp each of dried Turmeric, Cinnamon, Ginger and Rosehips 1 tbsp raisins or sultanas 1 tbsp ground seed mix - Flax (linseeds), Hemp and Pumpkin 1 tsp Blackstrap Molasses 1 heaped tsp peanut butter (Essential is our favourite) ½ chopped apple 1 tbsp berries (if in season) 1 small or ½ large chopped banana Boiling Water Plant Milk Sprinkle of Terra Nova Living Wellbeing Powder   Method Put all the dry ingredients into a breakfast bowl and mix well. Add Molasses, peanut butter and the chopped apple. Pour the boiling water over the mixture – we fill our bowls and leave for 5 mins. Mix well again. Top with the banana, berries, powder and milk.   Hope you enjoy it!   Love Kay and Sime xx

Miso, Orange and Ginger Vegetables

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Day 11 of World Vegan Month. For lunch today, we stir-fried onions, garlic, carrots, tomatoes, mushrooms and kale with soy sauce, fresh ginger, ground cumin and a good handful of peanuts. We cooked it up for around 15 minutes and added a heaped teaspoon of miso paste, juice of half an orange and a sprinkle of ground black pepper. Easy to make and a delicious combination of flavours! We served it with whole wheat spaghetti (which works well as noodles) and a green salad underneath. Sometimes we add peanut butter to the pasta/noodles, which is lovely too - if you like peanuts! Let us know if you try it and if so, what do you think? Night, night Love Kay and Sime xx

Back Home

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We have arrived home to a chilly and wet Cornwall, where our lovely Fleaby was waiting in the barn for us and has wanted lots of cuddles and fuss. We took a ferry from Roscoff in Brittany to Plymouth and for the first time, we experienced armed military police on board the ship...apparently for our security! As always, we take our picnic basket with us and enjoyed our usual feast of salad with rustic baguette and a vegan forest vegetable p âté. Last night, we were welcomed home with a supper of foraged food prepared by Sara at Cotna, which was delicious...unfortunately, we didn't get any photos. Today, we have cooked a simple stir-fry for Day 10 of World Vegan Month. We fried carrots with spring onions in soy sauce, ground turmeric and cumin... Then added chunky cloves of garlic, mushrooms and kale. Plus a Puy lentil and soya bean mix from France and some brown rice.  Finishing off with the juice of a whole lemon and some ground black pepper.

Spicy Black Bean and Pumpkin Stew

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Halloween and All Saint's Day (La Toussaint) is a big event here in France and it has been for a long time, probably as big as in North America. We remember being in Paris with our kidlets many years ago over Halloween and seeing lots of decorated places and kids dressed up, which we didn't really see much of in the UK at the time. Our hotel overlooked one of the city's large cemeteries and on November 1st, we woke up to an incredible sight - the cemetery was absolutely buzzing with people bearing flowers and gifts...it was fascinating for us all to see and experience.    At the moment, we are house and kitty sitting in the Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes region of France and there is much activity in the cemetery of this rural village this week, as families honour their dead loved ones. Today has been a quiet day for us, we are happy to stay away from the Halloween celebrations and instead just enjoy the peace of this lovely house, cuddle lots of kitties, feast and relax.

Travels With Porridge

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As lots of you will be aware...we eat porridge every day. When we go away, we take all our ingredients, pan and utensils so we can continue to eat it on the road. We have recently introduced various hosts to the benefits of eating a daily bowl of what we call superfood porridge and have gone through the recipe with them, but we did promise to make a video too, so here it is! It's funny, but we still get contacted by old blog followers and B&B guests from years ago asking us for a reminder of the recipe.  Simon made it back then and would beautifully hand write the recipe out for anyone who requested it. One guest wrote to say after using Simon's recipe for years, she went and knocked a cup of coffee over it and could no longer read it, so this spurred us on to create a copy on our laptop and now we just press a couple of buttons and off it goes attached to an email (yes, we realise this technology has been around for a while, but still - it's a cool id

Porridge Recipe

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As a lot of people know, we love our porridge and eat it every day. We are often asked for the recipe and have probably shared it on here many times, but as we do constantly seem to tweak the ingredients - we thought we would share it again, so here is our current recipe.  We use all organic ingredients too! 💚 Porridge  Recipe Serves 2 Place all the ingredients in a large saucepan. 100g/4oz oats   1 teaspoon ground rosehips 1 teaspoon ground turmeric 1 teaspoon ground dried seaweed (we use kelp) 2 heaped  tablespoon s of a ground   seed mix (we usually grind  1 tbsp linseeds and 1 tsp each hemp,  chia and pumpkin) 1 tablespoon dried fruit 2 tablespoons fresh berries (we use blueberries, blackberries  or blackcurrants)  1 or 2  chopped apples (with skin left on) 2 chopped bananas Approx  1 litre cold water 1 heaped tsp  blackstrap molasses  (add to the porridge before serving) Heat slowly,  adding half of the water  and  stirring ever

Making Organic Sourdough

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After many years of bread making, I have finally learned (thanks to Sara at Cotna Eco Retreat ) how to make sourdough this year - using a wonderful old starter made from organic rye flour and pure spring water. As usual, I've tweaked the original bread recipe just because I like to make things simple and we both prefer denser breads.  ♥ Scroll down for the recipe ♥ Feeding the starter. I keep the starter in the fridge until ready to use, then add organic rye flour and warm water. This is how it looks when mixed in... And this is after around 8 hours. The starter gets added to the other bread ingredients and forms the dough.  I use Shipton Mill organic flours and mix it up for variety. Our favourites are stoneground wholemeal, extra coarse wholemeal, wholemeal spelt, light malthouse and dark rye. This is how it looks after being left usually overnight. I line the banneton (proofing basket) I like to use polenta and sesame seeds, inst

How To Build Community

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It's been over 8 months since we moved to this fabulous place and we are continually amazed by the wonderful people who come along and share our space. We absolutely love the sense of community and being around such thoughtful, creative people. We've spent lots of time outside...  And helping to make shared meals... We have made many new friends...   Had the kidlets visit... And enjoyed time with all the furry friends... Flea and Lupe have settled in and got used to the other animals being around, though we doubt they'll ever make friends with any of them... Ziggy  Team Cotna Outdoor farm kitties. Life is good and we are so happy and grateful to be here. Kay and Sime xx