We are delighted to have a few more volunteers helping in Tideswell’s Kitchen Garden, and at the end of 2015 held two very productive ‘Friends of Taste Tideswell’ meetings. Friends of Taste Tideswell was set up to continue community garden work following the closure of Tideswell’s School of Food. The group successfully obtained a Health Development Fund grant from the Derbyshire Dales Council for Voluntary Service last year, to get it started, and is now looking at ways in which garden productivity and publicity might be improved. This includes strengthening links with Tideswell’s Food Festival, Wakes Week, Harvest and the village’s fortnightly Wednesday Luncheon Club.
Another garden meeting is being held at 15:00 in St John’s Church Institute on Saturday 30 January 2016, primarily to plan for the year ahead. If you are interested, please do come along! We welcome all help and/or ideas – age is no barrier, nor is the amount of time or expertise you might be able to offer. My knowledge of gardening is minimal, for instance (!), and I cannot spend a lot of time working, because of needing to look after my baby boy. But I have had a lot of fun, and the more people there are involved, the more the garden will really belong to the community.
For more news, join the ‘Tideswell Kitchen Garden’ group on Facebook. If you would prefer email correspondence, please contact Helen Grainger at wh.grainger@hotmail.co.uk; or you can call Judy Cooke on 01298 872408. Do also let us know if you have other requests as to how we might keep the village updated with garden news.
Recipe Idea of the Month
We’d like to start including recipe ideas each month, to celebrate seasonal produce. I say ‘ideas’, because cooking does not need to be an exact science, and is often most enjoyable when you can flex dishes to suit what you have available. Kale is my ingredient of choice this month – we still have a little patch that is going strong in the garden. This sturdy winter green is especially good in soups – a hearty minestrone for instance: cook onion together with smoked bacon, carrot and celery, then add some crushed garlic and chopped tomatoes and stock; simmer slowly – the longer the better – and add leek, kale and pasta for the last 30 minutes (to stop them going too mushy); finally stir in some tomato puree and parsley, season and serve with parmesan if you want extra indulgence! Kale is also excellent in white bean-based soups (e.g. cannellini or butter bean) – again, with carrot, celery, onion, garlic and tomatoes, but add a little potato, a bay leaf and perhaps some chilli and fennel seeds along with the beans.
Helen Grainger, ‘Friends of Taste Tideswell’ Secretary