Happy Trails

Having not had a proper 'get away from the house and go somewhere else' holiday for a couple of years we were chuffed to be invited to stay at Dingle farmhouse, an isolated house owned by a good mate. We'd heard so much about this magical place over the years, so we were very excited to be going there. This amazing place is owned jointly by our mate Jim and his extended family of siblings, cousins, nieces and nephews. Located at the end of a long (very long!) and remote track and nestled near the local marshes and a shingle beach, the farmhouse has not been changed or modified in a great many years, except for some discrete solar panels allowing a water pump to function and enabling a small fridge and a couple of plug points for recharging mobiles to work.

 Blissfully free of tellies, computers, landlines, we spent 6 relaxing days swimming, cooking, chatting, cooking vast communal meals,drinking beer and wine, playing endless amounts of cards and celebrating a significant birthday with a varied crew of Jim's other friends who rolled up during the time we were there. At one point there were 40+ assorted adults, kids and teenagers lounging around the garden, loafing off to the beach or running wild in the wood.

The house is situated just off a patch of marshland and the scenery has an almost 'bleak' beauty about it. 

In late marsh Summer the marsh was covered with wild flowers and humming with insect life, whilst marsh birds, invisible amongst the reeds, sang all day long. It's an extraordinary place that lives long in the memory and was a complete contrast to our usual environment of hills, hills and more hills. 

It was a joy to photograph and a delight to have spent an idyllic few days with good friends. After all, that's what a good holiday is all about.

Ramsoned by Nature

Well, it's that time of year again when the ramsons or wild garlic are in abundance in the glen. Every year we have a large patch opposite the house on the other side of the sheep field and we tend to go a bit daft, adding wild garlic to just about everything. This year is no exception. Free, delicious and bountiful - what's not to like!

Ramsons or Allium ursinum AKA wild garlic, buckrams or bear's garlic

The Bold Foragers - that's me and our Effie - headed off earlier in the week with some plastic bags for a toddle round and half an hour of gathering the delicious leaves. 

Bold Forager Effie

Getting stuck in!

A Bold Forager heads home

Then home, where we washed the first lot, patted them dry and made some wild garlic pesto - this was served up later, swirled in some creme fraiche, with pan fried mushrooms on a bed of spaghetti.  In addition we quickly concocted some home-made garlic and ramsons bread - baked for 10 minutes in the oven, I have to say this was the best garlic bread I have ever eaten.

Washed, dried and ready to be made into Pesto

Last night saw prawns cooked in olive oil with shallots and minced wild garlic and chillies served with creamy mash that had some more chopped ramsons stirred through it and a baby leaf salad. See what I mean - mad for it!


Tonight, Spanish Tortilla with wild garlic and shallots, Feta, Wensleydale and Gran Padano cheeses served with baby leaf, spinach and wild garlic salad.


And so it will continue, adding it to fish dishes, baked new potatoes, soups, salads, whatever springs to mind; until we have run out of ramsons or gotten so sick of them that we give up! I reckon on the latter.

Delicious and free, straight from the field!

Ain't nature grand!

So, it all started when I went to the fridge to get a jar of ready-made pesto from a well known Supermarket. It looked like this, despite not being opened that long:

Yes, "We're not eating that" our Bobby rightly pointed out.

Ah, what to do - Mum's staple teatime dish, kaput - until I looked across the sheep field to the trees beyond and 'Voila', there was the answer to my problem - a big patch of Wild Garlic! So arming myself with Tupperware I yomped down the track, over to the trees and picked a big bunch of this delicious smelling and very tasty plant (is it a plant, dunno!). I headed back, and had the good fortune to have the rest of the ingredients I needed, otherwise the kids would have been eating pasta with blanched ramsons leaves cut into wee bits. Googling 'Wild Garlic Pesto' I found this recipe and adapted it to my own needs (pinenuts as no walnuts, but walnuts would be delicious! / no garlic / lots of pepper / didn't blanch the leaves as couldn't be arsed, just washed and pressed dry then shredded into the blender with all the other ingredients and walloped it all up together!!)

So from this

To this

And finally this!

all in the whizz of mini food blender and the shake of a local lambs tail! It was truly delicious, subtle and tasty. In fact it was so good, me and the Old Bugger had some for our dinner as well. I'll be making some more - we got through the first batch in two days and there is a truly huge patch of Wild Garlic to get through - Woop!

But it all goes to show, when the chips are down, it's Mother Nature that is the necessity of invention - especially when the nearest shop is a three mile drive away at 5.00pm teatime!

Y-U-M!!