What a week

Lymm Produce Show
It has been the most amazing week.  Last Sunday we hosted another successful Lymm Produce Show at Oughtrington Community Orchard (http://www.oughtrington.co.uk/orchard/).  I felt it was a significant show this year.  The previous shows have been great: people who make or grow food and drink locally getting together to celebrate their efforts.  This year was different in that it had an even bigger feel-good factor than normal.  Everyone registering in the morning 9-11 slot was incredibly enthusiastic about their entries even if they had a go at a loaf of bread for the first time that morning.  In the afternoon, we saw lots more community groups gathered in gazebos on the field.  All that additional zeal gladdens the heart, but my favourite part of the day is seeing people walking home with the produce they have bid for in the auction chatting about what they will make for tea with it.

A revelation!
We were lucky to host a stall with Farmstart produce at the Produce Show.  Regular readers of the blog will have seen mentions of their wonderful work growing organic produce a couple of miles from Lymm.  I brought home a goody bag of their great veg.  I'm such a veggie lover (not a bonefide veggie, but just love great vegetables) that when I find great veg, I just buy a selection and then have fun googling what to do with it all when I return home.  I also love to buy a random item which I haven't experienced.  This time the random item was radicchio.  What a revelation that has been!  I braised it on top of flaky pastry (I didn't get to eat any as the kids wolfed the lot!!).  I have simmered it then added to a vegetable pasta dish, and lastly my son added it to his school food technology recipe for vegetable soup.  It is also good as a salad leaf.  Overall, I found it to be quite bitter, but if used with sweeter vegetables or finely chopped in salads it is great.  The braising would have been better if I'd tossed in some oil, I feel.

Runner Beans in a Thali
The last picture is the Indian thali meal we created to use up a mountain of runner beans harvested from my allotment.  We use Madhur Jaffrey's spicy green bean recipe (http://dinnercoop.cs.cmu.edu/dinnercoop/Recipes/sanjiv/MasaledarSem.html) with anything like beans or okra.  On this occasion, the beans were quite big so we simmered them until quite soft.  Delicious.  The chicken was cooked up using Pattak's tikka paste.  I used Hugh's dhal recipe for the puy lentils(http://www.welovethisbook.com/features/hugh-fearnley-whittingstalls-dahl), just cooking them for longer than the recipe, which uses red lentils. 

A big thank you to all those that supported the 2014 Produce Show.  Not least Lymm.me who wrote a lovely article (http://www.lymm.me/grown-lymm/) in support of our efforts.

Lisa Reid