Seasonal Specials - January

January.  Not my favourite month, but one that we must get out of the way in order to crack properly into my favourite season - spring.  Technically January is only the second month of winter, how can this be so?  It feels like winter gets longer every year and the other seasons have to shrink to compensate. But this does mean good things for food on our tables.  Thank goodness for the silver lining!

So here are my January fruit and veg favourites and some ideas I have for them...

Brussels Sprouts - Sprouts for me demand to be steamed, severed with bacon, black pepper and butter.  Don't over cook them, don't boil them, don't be mean to them!  And don't make anyone who really hates the taste eat them , it's not their fault that they are genetically predispose

Brussels Tops - these are a new addition to my list of tasty things, but I have found them so hard to come across.  Once you get them they're lovely simply pan sautéed with onions and a little butter.

Cabbages - I love cabbage.  I can eat it raw and it's exceptionally marvellous with onions, and carrots in a slaw of sorts.  Grate it in the food processor and give it a happy dose of mayonnaise, salad cream, black pepper and lemon juice and I'm yours.

Celery - you might have noticed, but I sneak this into everything.  It goes in stews, in sauces, in soup, in anything you can think of really!  I do not however like it raw, not at all.  No thank you.

Leeks - This is another food that I love and I think I love it most done simply, wither roasted in with my chicken parcels, in risotto or in a good old fashioned leek and potato soup.  Delicious and warming - perfect for this weather!

Onions - I'm not sure what I'd do without onions.  I am very glad that they are abundant all year around!  The uses for an onion are limiltess - there will be a Top Five coming on them in the near future.

Parsnips - Tasty, but slightly odd in texture parsnips make a lovely addition to mask if you take the woody stalk out, and they are delicious roast in the oven with honey and parmesan cheese (par boil them first so the cheese doesn't burn away to nothing in the time they take to roast).

Pears - A fruit!  Finally!  I am not the biggest fan of pears as they can be so inconvenient.  If bought from the supermarket I find that they are rock solid for days then all of a sudden they are perfect for one single day. This is good argument to buy them on a more one by one basis in the green grocers, or to peel and cook them all and eat them with rice pudding.  Immediately.

Potatoes - Tatties are one of those vegetables that keep so well there is no reason not to have good ones all year round, and to that effect I think they also merit their own Top Five.  Keep your (potato) eyes peeled.

Rhubarb -  Here we have one of my favourite things.  I love it.  Stewed with ginger and brown sugar and served in porridge, rice pudding, custard, yoghurt or a spoon and all is well with the world.  It's also an easy way to make a crumble happen, or a cobbler, or a pie..

Turnips - Neeps.  Another thing I love but unlike celery I prefer neeps raw.  Peeled, mashed and added in with other root vegetables to make a 'companion mash' (there's an old phrase for you) it makes a few potatoes go a lot further, and if you're looking to cut down on your calories then reducing the potato to other veg ratio does your waist line a lot of favours.

And there we go, tasty things to do with tasty things!  I will add more as I come across amazing ideas, or things crawl out of by brain  - you never know!  Enjoy your January, if at all possible.

Not Just Fuel - A Project for 2014

This is a time of year that a lot of people decide that a new start is needed and this year I am one of them.  Like a most I always start with the best of intentions and by February it's all gone to hell, but this year I am resolute in my resolutions and this is a way of underpinning that.  

I am currently a beauty/lifestyle blogger over at Too Dull To Blog, but I feel that for me beauty blogging has run it's course and it's time to take my writing experiences, my loves and my interests and move them on a pace.  So here we are and Not Just Fuel is a thing.  

Not Just Fuel is the much better and more eloquent title for a project that started out life called 'food, it's not just shit you put in your face that you output as shit'.  Crass and crude, I know, but I think it's a pretty accurate representation of how a lot of people, including myself view food... let me give you a bit if background.  

I grew up in a world where food was seasonal, it came out of the ground, or out of the cow, chicken and such. I knew how it grew, how it smelled when it came out of the ground, how to steal it out of the garden and eat it instantly...  I knew a lot of the animals I ate and I was lucky enough to get the experience of being around and on farms a lot, having farmers in my immediate family and having farmer friends too.  Then I lost it, and I'm not sure how or when but food became fuel, comfort and it had to be easy, quick and mainly cheap. I would eat anything, if I wanted it then I'd have it.  I have never been anything less than a bit on the heavy side and I never really cared enough do do anything about it,  I put on and lost weight like a yo yo, never finding a 'diet' that I could actually stick to.

Then I found out I wasn't very well at all and food became a big part of how I manage my illness. For years I had trouble with my digestive system and I was told by the medics to get plenty of fibre, to eat my fruit, my grains and my nuts and seeds.  Then in August 2012 I was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease and I was told to throw out all of those rules and cut down on fibre, cut out all fruits (and slowly reintroduce them), and eliminate nuts, seeds and anything that I found I 'passed' without processing or that made me not want to leave the bathroom.  (I promise I will stop talking about output and get on to input pretty damn soon.)  The upshot of this is that I have finally admitted to myself that I need to do something about the food I put in my body... so here we are.

My resolution for this year is to eat, not just better, but best - to fuel my body, my mind and my creativity with food to the best of my ability.  I want to eat seasonally and shop locally, to cook with passion, to buy ingredients and not meals (what I mean by that is that I want to buy fish and potatoes, not fish cakes, if you see what I mean) and to feed my family, friends and most importantly myself and my husband, Brian, with love, not just fuel.  

So this is my way to document it, to share the wisdom I glean along the way and to write my very own little cookbook food book.  Wish me luck and come along for the journey if you fancy it, you never know what we'll learn along the way!