Clare Winfield – Rosemary Infused Honey With Blood Oranges

Rosemary Infused Honey With Blood Oranges. 

Ingredients:

Ripe blood oranges or normal oranges if out of season
Local honey
Fresh rosemary

Peel oranges/orange and segment (take peel off and remove pith)
arrange beautifully on a plate.

Add honey to a saucepan.

Warm honey through gently, adding the rosemary and stir. Leave honey long enough for it to take in the rosemary flavour. Remove sprigs of rosemary from saucepan, just leaving the warm honey. Pour warm infused honey over the orange segments. Use some fresh pieces of rosemary to decorate.

• Whilst researching for portfolio projects Clare came across a lady who keeps bee hives down in Whyteleafe, surrey. She was really suprised to find someone that close to home selling great local produce. She sells all sorts of different honey. Clare went down there a few weeks ago and took some photographs. This weeks recipe is inspired by that. The recipe was put together by her friend Maud who is a food stylist, we work together on photographs for our portfolios.

This is not really a foraged food recipe but it is making good use of great local produce.

Website for honey - eastsurreybees.co.uk

Foraged Foods – Clare Winfield

‘It is easy to forget, as one stands before the modern supermarket shelf, that every single one of the worlds vegetable foods was once a wild plant. To some extent, we have become conditioned by the shrink-wrapped, perfectly shaped produce we find in our supermarkets, and we are reluctant to venture out into woods and marshland in search for food’ (Richard Mabey, Food for Free)

Foraged Food – Nettle Soup – Clare Winfield

Nettle Soup!

I have already tryed this and it is delicious.

ingredients:

1 lb potatoes
½ lb young nettles
2 oz butter
1½ pts chicken or vegetable stock
sea salt & black pepper
4 tablespoons sour cream

Method:

Cook the peeled, chopped potatoes for 10 mins in salted water. Drain.

Wash & chop coarsely the nettles (Only pick the new, young tops,using gloves!)

Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the nettles and stew gently for a few minutes. Add the potatoes and heated stock, bring to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes or until tender.

When all is soft, cool slightly & purée in a blender, adding seasoning and the sour cream.

Clare Winfield

Foraged Food – Wild Garlic Pesto -Clare Winfield

Ingredients

80 g wild garlic leaves
50 g parmesan (or similar hard) cheese
50 g pine nuts
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
100 ml olive oil + some more for topping up the jar

Method

1. Wash the wild garlic leaves and dry them carefully (a salad spinner is a great help!)
2. Grate the cheese (I use my MagiMix food processor for this)
3. Grind the pine nuts in a food processor and add cheese, salt and pepper
4. Add about 1/2 of the wild garlic leaves and blend
5. Repeat with the remaining leaves
6. Add the olive oil and blend
7. Put in sterilised jar and top up with oil so that the pesto is covered and close lid.

This recipe is so easy. I did it a few weeks ago and it was one of the most delicious things i have ever eaten. It is so much better than the pesto you buy in the shops as it is so fresh. Clare Winfield