The stew described below is one I have cooked for our family from time to time. I usually use about 1 kilo of beef but the recipe scales without problem. Tomorrow we have visitors so I have made it today with double quantities. As with most stews the quantities are not sensitive.

Accompaniments

I particularly like this stew with either couscous or Spätzle (a southern German noodle which is hard to buy here) but it goes well with mashed or new potatoes too. We normally serve one or two boiled vegetables such as red cabbage, green beans (this is the background to my earlier posting) or peas with the stew.

We were doing our weekly shopping and going to the only surviving greengrocer in our town. We try to buy fruit and veg that is in season but with supermarkets trying to provide the same offering 12 months of the year it is sometimes easy to forget what is actually in season.

For me runner beans or the finer (French) green beans are a summer vegetable - my neighbour grows runner beans. So I would thought it would be easy to find UK-grown green beans to go with our beef stew. My wife and I realised about 6 months ago that we had been inadventently been buying vegetables from arid countries in Africa such as Morocco. This seemed really bad as the scarce water there ought to be used to help feed the local population and not to grow vegetables flown at great environmental cost to the UK.

We thought we had found what we were looking at - the label said "Evesham" which is an hour north of here. Unfortunately when I got home I read the entire label which also had the entry "country of origin Kenya"

When will we learn?

There is quite a good overview of kitchen herbs on Kevin Ashton's blog.

http://wannabetvchef.blog.co.uk/2006/08/20/kevin_ashton_s_guide_to_spices_aamp_herb~1055331

My herb patch was established after visiting the Eden Centre in Cornwall. Outside the tropical biome they had very attractive stripes of Cornish vegetables and shrubs running up the slope. I thought it would be fun to grow stripes with different sorts of chives. Although not strictly an organic gardner I like the choice offered by the Organic Gardening Catalogue (http://www.organiccatalog.com/catalog/) partly because of featuring more exotic variants of herb and vegetable seeds than most garden centres.

After looking at chives I was intrigued to find "Welsh onions" in the herb section. I had never heard of them before. They looked vaguely like spring onions and seemed to have a decent season length so I bought a packet of seeds just for a laugh. As can be seen in the foreground of the picture below they have thrived. There are garlic chives (with white flowers) and ordinary chives (purple flowers) behind them.

                  
As the catalogue said they grow just like chives so I have harvested them just like chives. They are bigger than spring onions but the tubular leaves have a finer texture - they are giant chive leaves - but have a very similar taste to spring onions. You can cut the tubes at the base and chop them finely for say a salad - as an alternative to spring onions - however it is important not to let the tubes grow too long. We usually cut them at roughly 30-40 cm long; beyond that the leaves develop yellow spots, become coarser and keel over.

As can be seen below the Welsh onion is like a big brother to a spring onion which will typically grow to about 25 cm (the one below from a supermarket has had its roots and leaf tips chopped). The maximum height is about 50 cm.

   
From time to time Welsh onions have been a useful insurance policy for when we have run out of normal onions for something like a stir fry. Of couse they need to be added very late as they cook in no time at all. Just chop up a number of tubes and you will get your onion taste from the leaves.Last but not least the neat thing is that - like chives - once they are chopped they just keep growing again. In not many weeks you can cut your next crop.

A few years ago I visited a Portuguese restaurant in a Cornish village. I had only once been to Portugal on a short business trip and certainly am not familiar with their cuisine. I chose a delicious but simple dish that seemed to be a combination of roast potatoes, onions and peppers with chorizo and olive oil flavoured with chilli.

I have tried to do something similar at home or even on a campsite. My kids normally have had no problem demolishing the dish and have often complained that the portions were not big enough. The following recipe is just an outline that I have frequently varied depending on mood and circumstance. Note that – like most things I make – the results are not super-sensitive to the quantities. You do not have to worry about the last gram!

Serves 4

Ingredients

800 g potatoes suitable for roasting

150-200g chorizo – use the soft “cooking” chorizo rather than hard dry chorizo

1 large onion or 2 medium onions

1 green pepper (yellow or red if you prefer!)

3 decent sized cloves of garlic

500 ml passata

Salt and pepper seasoning

Olive oil

(Optional) Either a few red chilis or chilli powder to taste

Method

1. Set your oven to 200℃. Peel and cut your potatoes for roasting. Use your favourite method for roasting potatoes for example parboil then roast for 30 min or roast from raw over 60 min. Alternatively…

1. (a) If roasting takes too long slice your spuds into 1 cm thick slices and deep fat fry.

1. (b) If say you are camping shallow fry Lidl potato wedges!

2. Chop the chorizo into cubes roughly 5 mm each side.

3. Roughly 20 min before the roast potatoes are ready fry the chorizo in 2 tbsp oil on a low heat in a frying pan or wok.

4. The fat should melt and release spices into the oil.

5. If you want a hotter tasting dish add the chillies or chilli powder

6. After 5 min chop the onion(s) and garlic finely and add to the chorizo. Ensure that the frying is gentle to avoid drying out the chorizo.

7. After 5 min chop the pepper (wait longer if yellow or red pepper).

8. After 5 min add the passata and let the mixture simmer

9. Serve the potatoes with the chorizo/vegetables/passata on top.