Tea and Sunshine at the Farmers’ Market

This weekend we enjoyed a trip out to another local farmers’ market. There were stalls selling fruit and vegetables, local apple juice, free range chickens, rare breed pork, cold pressed rapeseed oil, homemade chilli chutneys, organic dog biscuits and more! The sun shone, the stallholders were cheery and friendly and we had a lovely time. We especially enjoyed sitting down and enjoying a cup of loose leaf organic chai tea, brewed in a proper teapot and served in bone china cups. Wonderful! We also indulged ourselves in gluten free brownies from a lovely lady whose entire range of cakes were gluten and dairy free. Check out her website.

The boys are now up to the summer months on their produce calendars and enjoying the promise of lots more colours!

Here are Waif’s:

And Gman is up to October with his:

Nourishing Books and Foods

Check out my new books!! I had some money given to me for my birthday this month, and this is what I chose to buy. All three books are excellent, but I particularly love Nourishing Traditions. Yes, it does live up to the hype! It is a wonderful mixture of information, recipes, history, and general instruction. Definitely a book to be treasured.

The Gut and Psychology Syndrome book certainly sheds a lot of light on some of the digestive difficulties that many children with autistic spectrum disorders (amongst other things) suffer from. Although I don’t think Gman’s symptoms warrant the strictness of this diet, it has certainly given us a lot to think about with regards to reducing our intake of grains and other starchy carbohydrates together with increasing the amounts of healthy fats and probiotic foods we eat.

Full Moon Feast I haven’t looked at in depth yet, but looks to be fascinating reading with some super recipes. I will report back when I’ve read more of it!

This weekend, we paid our first visit to a farmer’s market not too far from home – on the Sandringham Estate. It was well worth the trip! We came back with venison mince and burgers, pheasant breast and fresh prawns.

In case you think it’s all about the meat , I did get armfuls of veggies as well, including some magnificent red curly kale:

Kale has been quite a revelation to me since getting my Excalibur dehydrator. It makes the most wonderful snack food – tossed in a mixture of olive oil, honey and chilli then dehydrated until it’s crispy. Nomnomnom.

In other food news, I had my first go at making stock this weekend, something emphasised as important in both the GAPS and Nourishing Traditions book. For some reason, I’d always thought making stock was way beyond my skill set, but it was EASY and so worth it. Yesterday I used the stock in a scrumptious home made venison chilli, and today used it to make gravy. And there’s more left to use tomorrow and more in the freezer! And basically all I had to do was cover a chicken with water, throw in a few chopped veg and a little cider vinegar and simmer it for hours – which of course filled the house with delicious aromas – wonderful

I am linking this post up to Kelly the Kitchen Kop’s Real Food Wednesday and Food Renegades Fight Back Friday.