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

Abbey Leys Farmers Market

We've mentioned Farmstart a couple of times in this blog, but last weekend at the Abbey Leys Farmers Market was the first time I had seen their stall: and what a bountiful supply of locally grown veg it was. They had some beautiful disc shaped courgettes, beans, tomatoes, onions and peppers - along with everything else you can see on the picture. The stall looked so fresh and appealing!

I picked up quite a bit, including some of the long finger shaped peppers - which I took home and stuffed with a variety of things, including cheese, before roasting off in the oven.

All the fruit and veg that they sell is grown on local farms by local people, and I felt the prices were really cheap when compared to the supermarkets. Everything was priced in pence not pounds - so it was pleasing to only have to hand over a couple of quid for a bag full of veg.

You can also pick up amazing pies, cakes, chocolate, natural juices, meat - in fact you could easily do a weekly food shop there....

Abbey Leys Farmers Market is the first sunday of the month, so the next one is 5th October. Why don't you take 20 mins out of your day to pop down and have a look at the stalls? Let us know what your favourite buy was!

Just showing off?

2014 Produce Show
It's here at last: this year's Lymm Produce Show is on Sunday!  Do you remember last year how fabulously funky the orchard looked decked out in the Guerilla knitting?  Well here is a picture of it hanging up after I had washed it.  There were metres and metres of it.  The other picture is of the 3rd Lymm Scouts helping maintain the orchard in July.  The cubs and scouts needed a temporary meeting space while their hut was being rebuilt.  They offered to help at the orchard in exchange for us hosting them for a couple of meetings.  It was a win-win situation!  They did a great job cutting the hedge and creating some new habitats for bugs.  The craftwork they also did will be on display in the orchard on Sunday.  I hope it will be as eye-catching as the knitting was, and it will be a relief not to have to wash it afterwards!

Why not enter?
The show is run by a team of volunteers from the Oughtrington Community Orchard.  While there are rules and classes to ensure everything is run fairly, it is a relaxed day which celebrates all that is great about growing or making your own produce.  I enjoy marvelling at the monster vegetables which appear in the bigger county shows, but growing a metre long carrot isn't really my thing.  Even if you haven't got a garden, there are some categories such as baking which you can have a go at, and some great categories just for children.  Click on this link to browse the categories: http://www.oughtrington.co.uk/orchard/produce_show_2014.html

Or just come down and eat cake?
If you don't fancy entering, then pop down between 2-4pm when there will be all sorts going on.  There are all the usual favourites such as 'Ask the Expert', but new activities too, such as the Farmstart project selling their locally grown produce.

I hope to see you there...I'll be the one struggling in with a 2 metre tall sunflower!

Lisa Reid