You know you have a good job, part two...

...when your students give you cake:





This is actually a rather late Easter posting - the pic is of a traditional Spanish Easter cake that I was given by the student I give a private lesson to three times a week. He owns a café and makes some rather tasty pastries to which Sue is particularly partial. Going in for a nibble every now and again is getting to be embarassing affair though since it always ends up on the house. It's a hard life we English teachers lead.

Mixed skies

It's the time of year the weather often does this, or worse.



Although it's not always that bleak.


Blue skies in February. Normally, by this time of year everything is convered in snow. The neighbour's mimosa adds a welcome dash of colour whatever. As does the minature version on this side of the fence.



Vegetable planting has been started. In December a packet of chilli seeds arrived in the post, sent by a friend in the UK. Each of five friends has a packet and we're going to see who can grow the best chillies.



According to the bumf that came with the packet, you're not supposed to plant them until February. I cheated and sowed them about four weeks ago. They're currently in a propagator on a sunny window ledge, looking very happy.

And this is what I should hopefully have come summer.



The variety is called Twilight, I'm very enamoured with the colours, especially the purple. Almost too good to eat.

Cooking Today

I've been meaning to write this for ages, inspired as I was by a post by Lorenzo in, oops, July - I have been lax in my blogging, most recently due to running around after electricians and builders. No matter, here it is at long last:

We bought our house here fully furnished. What we didn't expect to find amongst all the furnishings were all sorts of bits 'n' bobs left behind. A lot of it was rubbish that we spent ages sorting through before eventually throwing most of it out (we were lucky, we know an English woman who lives round the hillside from us who was left a full chamber pot as a welcome gift).

However, the odd little gem did appear. My favourite of which is an old cookery book - La Cocina de Hoy or 'Cooking Today'. It's a third edition, published in 1960, although the recipes and advice contained therein can't have changed much, if at all, from the first edition. It's full of traditional Spanish recipes and all sorts of alimentary information ranging from calorific values and consumption - a 17 year old boy should eat between 2800 to 4,000 calories a day, and a girl of the same age between 2,500-2,800 - to breast feeding: " According to Doctor Casares the mother should first offer her breast to the baby twelve hours after birth, and from then on at intervals of six hours on the first day..."  I can't imagine Delia waxing lyrical on this subject, although she'd probably still sell by the millions if she did.

There's also a great section on the medicinal properties of food. Cauliflower is recommended to lower blood pressure and combat insomnia and asparagus to stimulate the nervous system. Young peas should be eaten by those suffering from tuberculosis, and young beans by those with diabetes and those who wish to "purify the intestines". Does anyone suffer from worms? Well, eat garlic, figs, spring onions and thyme on an empty stomach and you should soon feel better. The solution for gout is lots of fruit and anyone looking for a laxative should be eating prunes, grapes, cucumber, young beans and oats.

My favourite part of the book is entitled "Warnings to the housewife" and details all sorts of information on cleaning (another idea for Delia if she wished to branch out), use of the pressure cooker - "don't clean it with sand...use a pan scrubber"  - and electric whisk; losing weight - "in general, don't eat bread or salt with meals"; laying the table - "at lunchtime use tablecloths of a refined and discreet colour"; preparing menus - for a christening you should serve canapes, sandwiches and small cakes, cold meats, coffee or tea, cigars and brandy, champagne, sherry and Madeira wine; and service - "without the noise of plates or cutlery and with great skill. First, the lady with greatest social standing should be served, she will be sat to the right of the owner of the house, then serve the lady to the left of the owner and so on, finishing with the lady of the house, followed by any old people and young girls."

Got that everyone? Right let's carry on.

The best bit of the entire book is in a section entitled "Fellow Diners", the whole of which I would love to quote to you, but I shall try and restrict myself to the juiciest parts. " First, the oldest ladies should be sat at the table, then the young ladies and finally the gentlemen...The gentlemen will pull out the chair for the lady who is next to him to allow her to sit down and then put the chair back in position. At all times should one should be respectful of and gallant with the ladies....Although at times we would like a second helping we should never take it, nor fill our plate to overflowing. Neither should we eat our food quickly, or tip the plate to collect the last drop of food with a spoon....before and after drinking one should wipe ones lips with a serviette...Spinach or bones can be removed from the mouth with a fork, or with ones fingers, discreetly placing them on the edge of the plate. For fruit stones, discreetly raise a teaspoon to the mouth...At the table one should not make fussy movements such as touching one's hair, especially not with a comb, scratching oneself, fiddling with one's face, cleaning one's nails, etc...When one needs to blow one's nose at the table one will do it with the greatest dissimulation and never with strident and exaggerated noise which is bad manners in any place."

So there we have it. Would anyone like to come round for dinner (black tie optional)?

Drying chillies

Look at the size of my pumpkins!

Last Sunday I decided it was time to harvest our largest pumpkins. Matt had been letting them grow to see how big they could get - I think this is a rather macho thing to do, correct me if I'm wrong, although I did enjoy driving up the hill in the preceeding weeks and being able to spot three orange splodges from a fair distance away, and it must have got the neighbours talking (though that's easily done).

Slumbering giants

With careful manouevring - Matt rolling and me spotting - we managed to move all three across our finca and onto the terrace where Matt had earmarked sites for the largest two.


Pumpkin pixie

Sentinels. All pumpkins in place

I then got out my carving equipment and proceded to prepare the smallest, but still impressive one, for the academia. I'd never carved a pumpkin before - we did turnips one Halloween when I was in the girl guides, which I found quite pathetic, this was much more exciting.

Being sensible and marking where I wanted to cut the lid.

Success!

During the hollowing process - a spoon works best, as I discovered after almost slicing my finger off a couple of times.

The hollowed pumpkin - after much scraping and building up of arm muscles. All ready for the fun part:

Ta daa! The finshed item. Not bad for a first effort I thought.

Not only did I end up with a great, if I may say so, pumpkin lantern, but also with several kilos of flesh that I proceeded to turn into soup and curry, resulting in a very full freezer, and full tummies that evening.

Even after it'd been hollowed out it was still a hefty brute. After some difficulties, I managed to get it down to the academia on Monday morning where I set it up opposite the front door for all to see.

How to earn brownie points from the boss.

Pumpkins here are smaller and green/yellow in colour so my splendid example was remarked upon by all and sundry who passed through the door. In one fell swoop I gained publicity for the academia, was granted status of 'cool teacher' by my pupils, toned my arms and garnered enough food to keep us going for a week or so. Not bad for an afternoon's work.

Things that make me happy about living in Spain, part IV

OK, this is specifically an Asturias related one, but I say it still counts:

I'm sitting at my computer and gazing out of the window at the back of the house, I can see clear blue skies. I know that if I could be bothered to get up right now and look out of the windows at the front or side I would see the mountains, clear and looming in the distance, so clear that you can make out individual ridges despite the 20/30/40+ km away that they are.

It's apple-picking time here, and the trees are laden with hundreds of red and green fruit, soon to be picked for cider production. The countryside is covered with the green of these trees with spashes of colour on their branches. Some types of tree will remain green all winter, others are now turning and colour abounds. Oak trees are a particular favourite as their leaves change to a firey orange-red colour before they fall.

We have sweet-chestnut collecting planned for this afternoon, and despite always getting pricked fingers from the protective outer shells, the eating of roast chestnuts from our fire on a cool autumn evening, snug indoors, always more than makes up for it. This is also the time of year when the cats change their habits - giving up the nocturnal life for dozing on the sofa or by the fire in the evening and diurnal explorations when the sun appears; they keep us company more often now, in the house or garden.

Tomorrow we intend to pick our biggest pumpkins. We have three monsters growing in the vegetable patch, with stakes strategically placed to prevent them from rolling down the slope of the garden - I currently often daydream of a James and the Giant Peach incident where one breaks loose from its restraints to proudly roll and bounce its way down the hill to the town and then into the river whereupon it floats, magestically, to the sea. Matt has plans for the two biggest ones, but I shall enjoy carving the third to take down to the academia next week in time for Halloween.

Mushrooms are starting to appear, in all shapes, colours and sizes - pleasing to the eye if not to the stomach - and soon we'll be able to pick and feast upon large field mushrooms, delicious cooked with butter and garlic.

And, even though this isn 't specific to Asturias, or even Spain, the clocks go back tonight and I get an extra hour to enjoy all of the above (or an extra hour in bed depending on how I'm feeling).

Given all that, how could I not put Autumn in Rural Asturias onto my list?

How to enjoy a day off

Eager to take advantage of the glorious weather we are currently enjoying and my one proper day off, we decided yesterday to venture further afield than the land above the house. With this in mind we donned walking boots and set off to the Parque Natural de Redes, which, as I must have mentioned before, we are fortunate enough to have just half an hour down the hill and up the valley from us.

Hillside town of Collado, perched above the Tanes reservoir

Since I'd had rather a hectic week we decided on a gentle walk rather than a mountain yomp and, having checked the map, settled on a path that followed the river from the village of Orlé to Pendones. The departure point of the walk from the village wasn't clear and we wandered, confused, for a while before we found a map on the edge of the village which showed the route leaving from the right-hand bank of the river.

A nosey donkey on the way up the mountain


After half an hour of steep uphill walking it became apparent that we'd probably taken the wrong route. Never one to be deterred, Matt declared he wasn't going to turn back after all the effort taken so far and we carried on. Up and up went the path, (and cough and pant went I) twisting along the mountain side and bordered by trees boasting mixed foliage of reds, oranges, greens and yellows. It wasn't what we'd come for, but I couldn't complain about the views.

After much huffing and puffing the trees began to clear and we realised we were getting near the brow of the slope. Camera at the ready, I eagerly awaited the views from the top, until we rounded the last corner and were presented by the sight of a fence and gate barring the path and with no way around. Foiled at the last! We were more than slightly miffed but had no other option but to turn around and plod back downhill.

Never one to say no to free (vegetarian) food, and always ready to make the best of a not-what-we-planned situation, I greedily stuffed my pockets full of sweet chestnuts on the way back. Chestnuts are big business in Asturias, and the trees are ubiquitous in rural areas. Come this time of year, roads and paths are covered with prickly green casings and the shiny fruits they hold. We enjoying roasting them in the ash tray of our wood burner, or I'll make a chestnut and mushroom roast. It's even tastier if we find wild field mushrooms, a perfect combination, and one to make me even happier as I get all the main ingredients for nothing!

We wandered through the village on the way on the way back to the car, trying to find out where we went wrong, and not succeeding. This is rather strange in Redes as most walks are very well signed. I happened to ask a villager, who was standing outside his house, where the route started - for future reference - and we ended up being sat down while he went in search of his own map to show us and came back bearing beers for us too. His map turned out to be no clearer than our own, but I enjoyed the beer and the chat and learning more about the village. Ángel, as he was called, even took our photo, and we are now welcome back at his house any time we happen to be in Orlé. This is one of the things I love about Spain, the openness of its people and their willingness to share whatever they have with you, be it, food, drink, time or knowledge. Unfortunately, you don't find it quite so often any more, so coming across it on occasion make it even more special.

On the way home we went took a quick detour in search of a place which some neighbours had told us was good for a swim in hot weather, on the banks of the Nalón river. A handy site to know if we ever can't be bothered to drive the 50 minutes to the beach in summer. We got a pleasant surprise, as what they hadn't told us was that this rather splendid, medieval bridge (13th/14th century) was right next to the bathing area - and only 15 minutes up the valley from us. What was even more surprising is that it's still in use, and not just for pedestrians but for cars as well. It stopped and made me think - I wonder how many 20th/21st century structures will be around and still in use in 500 years time?

After reaching home, most of yesterday evening was spent on the sofa groaning and moaning about my aching legs. Although I did feel rather smug and pleased with myself for surviving so much exercise.

Fruity

Bar my poor hammock trees, all the old ones left in the garden that have been spared culling are now producing lots of tasty fruit. We mostly have apples and pears. Out of all of them, this little fellow has been most prolific.

It's the smallest of our old trees and hasn't seemed to grow at all the the three summers we've been here. Every year, though, it drips with juicy pears.

Nice pear!

We think our apples trees were planted with cider production in mind - a safe presumption to make around here. Even so, they're very tasty as eating apples, although they go very mushy and lose their flavour if you try to cook with them. (We have a cooking apple tree on our garden shopping list for the winter.)

It was discovered yesterday that an old, ivy covered tree at the bottom of the garden is in fact a plum tree, possibly a wild one. Either it's not produced any fruit for a couple of years, or we're extremely unobservant because this year it's covered in small, sweet red plums, unfotuantely we've left it a bit too late for picking - they're so ripe that as soon as you catch hold of a branch most of them fall off into the undergrowth in the field next door. Next year I shall be prepared, a nice plum jam would go down very well methinks.

On my afternoon tour of the garden (now in full sun, hurray!) I also noticed lots of these cute little fellows. Despite the best efforts of our three cats our lizard population is still going strong, not really surprising as the young ones move incredibly fast. This one tried his best not to be photographed and it seemed he turned his head in disgust upon hearing the click when I took it.


Oh yes, I picked three courgettes today too and am currently succeeding in my objective of avoiding marrows, thanks to daily vigilance. I resorted to making a courgette and blue cheese soup with all of our previous harvest a couple of days ago, it was that wet and miserable. Now I shall have to conjure up something summery with this tasty triumvirate.

Pickled

What does a girl do on a rainy day? Well, she sorts out her onions, of course.

It was a poor crop this year due to all the spring/early-summer rain. Anything I couldn't string up went in a jar with some red wine vinegar (you can't get the malted stuff out here), dried chillies and peppercorns. Now we just have a three month wait until we can enjoy them. I shall have to keep an eye on Matt as I know he's liable to sneak a few earlier to go on his cheese butties, especially now we know where to get hold of a good cheddar.

Aaand we're off

It's official. The annual race to keep up with the courgette plants has begun.

And as you can see we're off to a bad start already - it was only the size of my little finger a couple of days ago. We shall obviously have to inspect more frequently as I really don't want any of the behemoths we had last year. They're much tastier when smaller and I run out of things to do with marrows. Any tasty courgette recipes are welcome, please post them here.

I'm off to pick runner beans now, they're threatening to overwhelm us too. I suspect the majority will end up in the freezer just so we can keep up with the courgettes without distraction. I learnt from Matt's dad this weekend that the correct way to cut a runner bean for the freezer is in the opposite direction to which its fibres run (if you look at a bean lengthways there'll be diagonal fibres running across its width, apparently), otherwise they just get soggy when you defrost them (as we learnt last year). Hands up who knew that one.

The weekend: Saturday

We had a lovely day on Saturday when we went to visit Matt´s dad and Carolina. I enjoy visits to Nava as Carolina always makes us lots of tasty food. This time it was avocado vinaigrette, followed by courgette flan, potato and beetroot mash and French beans (all of the main course came from their garden), and for desert a piece of cooling melon, which was perfect as it had turned into a very hot day from a cloudy start. We also had something very interesting to drink which was some posh lemonade by Minute Maid (part of the Coca-cola company, unfortunately), made with lemon juice and pulp, sugar - no nasty sweeteners - does everybody know where aspartame comes from? No? Well I´m going to go off on a tangent here, so sit down, make yourself comfortable and I´ll tell you story:

Once upon a time some very clever scientists in the United States were developing a pesticide to kill all those horrible bugs that live on our fresh fruit and vegetables. One day, one of the clever scientists was going about his work and accidentally tasted the pesticide. Well, wasn't he surprised to discover that is was very sweet and tasted just lovely. So, the clever scientist got together with all the other clever scientists and decided that it would be a very good idea if they could sell the pesticide, which they decided to call aspartame, to drinks and food companies as an artificial sweetener. However, first of all, they had to ask the government for permission to do this. Now, the nasty government said "hang on a minute, you want to let people eat and drink a pesticide? We don´t think that this is a very good idea." So the poor scientists carried on their work with pesticides and put the aspartame plan to the back of their minds, but did not forget it. They were waiting for the opportune moment. A few years later this moment came. The people had decided that they didn't want the nasty old government any more but that an old film star was a much better idea for a president. The clever scientists were very excited about this as they had some friends who were friends with the film star. So they went to the government with their brilliant aspartame plan and this time the government thought it was an excellent idea and said "Well done, you clever scientists you. Of course you can sell aspartame as a sweetener and make yourselves and our companies a disgusting amount of money. Did someone mention cancer? No, I didn't think so". And so the clever scientists were given permission to sell their wonderful product, nobody got fat or lost their teeth any more, and everyone made a fortune and lived happily ever after.


And that, dear reader is the story of how aspartame came to our dinner table.


Anyway, to get back to this delicious lemonade. What made it extra special - apart from the lack of aspartame - was a the tiniest touch of spearmint. It was scrummy, and next time I have a spare few minutes I shall try and make some myself, although getting hold of spearmint might be difficult. I wonder if the peppermint from our garden would work instead?


So, we had a very tasty lunch and then went to a ´Medieval Market´being held in a village down the road. It was the usual fare, although I would've liked to have had my camera with me as there were people spinning wool and making silk and others in traditional dress doing Asturian dancing. There were lots of stalls with hand-carved wood and a mirror took my fancy until I saw the price. So we satisfied ourselves with a loaf of bread and some rather fine home-made, wood-smoked cheese which we had for dinner along with other bits and bobs, including Matt's own red tomato and ginger chutney, when we finally got home. We downed it all with (what I later discovered was) almost a full bottle of Lidl´s finest fino (a bargain at €1.49).


Saturday's dinner

Coming soon - 'The weekend: Sunday - John Mayall and The Bluesbrakers'

Say 'cheese!'

I made a most exciting discovery today. I visited a new supermarket, which, as anyone who knows me will tell you is excitement enough in itself. However, the highlight of the trip was the cheese section, where I found, wonder of wonders, some mature Irish Cheddar cheese.

We've found Cheddar here before, but normally of the mild and plasticky variety that's no good for anything, really, why do they bother making it? This is the real thing. Sheer bliss. I would have put a photo on here of the exalted item, but we ripped off the wrapper and grated it onto our lunchtime pasta faster than you can say 'queso de cheddar'. Now all we need is some Stilton. I think that one's going to be slightly trickier.

The 2007 Great Pea Haul

And this is just the first half, which is now in the freezer. The rest should just about be ready for picking now.

I've discovered that when picking that it's best to use the 'Indiana Jones' method. Named so after the scene in the Holy Grail film where Indy has to cross a deep chasm with no bridge in sight, although he knows it's there somewhere. When the camera adjusts its viewpoint the previously invisible bridge swings into view. This is exactly what you have to do when picking peas. Just when you could swear you've had them all off one plant you move slighty to the left or right, or look at it from below - this latter position works very well! - and numerous more pods appear.

What's for dinner?

This week it's peas, and more peas. Peas with mash and omelette, peas in a stir fry, pea and mushroom risotto... If they weren't so tasty I might get bored. We have so many pods on our pea bushes I'm seeing them in my sleep. You have to be very thorough when picking them as the plants are so bushy the pods are often well-hidden. It's very annoying when you come across a hidden pod full of of old, dry peas as they're much tastier when young and sweet.

I've been taking them into work for me for my merienda (afternoon snack to keep you going until dinner at 9/10pm) and absolutely everybody thinks I'm ever-so-slightly loopy for eating raw peas. I've made them all try them - apart from a couple of five-year olds nobody spat them out and the verdict was generally positive. However, I doubt I'll change their pea-eating habits, Spaniards can be very set in their ways when it comes to culinary matters.

A quick garden update

Exploring the garden on Monday I was ever so excited to discover that we have cauliflower. It's a little thing, yet it's made me very happy. We've never grown it before, but I bought some plants off the market last autumn, along with some cabbages.



The current cauliflower situation.

What I was told were the cauliflowers were the cabbages, and vice-versa, so I'd been prowling the garden cursing what were the cabbages for not producing cauliflower heads - sorry cabbages! It's been dry for a while, but has started to rain today so hopefully the cauliflowers will start swelling, and the peas too. We have pods on then now and when the sun shines you can just about make out very tiny peas inside. We planted extra peas this year as only half of last year's crop made it to the table - it was just too tempting to pull off a pod or two for nibbling as you walked by, and while shelling them just as many made it into my mouth as the bowl - freshly picked peas just can't be beaten.
Matt planted the runner beans about ten days ago and they're off already. We put this down to Matt's 'mini-greenhouse' method (see below) which just means we  cover them with a five-litre water bottle with the bottom cut off.

Things I don't like about living in Spain, part I

On the whole I love living here in Spain. Asturias is a beautiful region, I enjoy my job, I like our house and I'm very happy here with Matt and the cats. However, there are certain aspects of life here that I wish I could change.

My particular gripe today is mushrooms of the shop-bought variety. We made a pizza last night. It was topped with aubergine, green pepper, and mushrooms. We make our own dough (in the bread machine) and tomato sauce and slice all our own toppings. The whole process takes a while but it's worth it - the finished product is always very tasty. However, preparing mushrooms here is, to be frank, a pain in the arse. I don't know what exactly what they're grown in, but it's gritty, and it clings to the mushrooms for dear life. I know you're not supposed to wash mushrooms in order to clean them as they have a sponge-like structure and soak in the water, thus imparing the flavour- instead you're supposed to wipe them with a damp cloth/piece of kitchen towel. Obviously the person who invented this cleaning method did not live in Spain. To begin with I wasted a significant amount of time trying to clean them with kitchen towel only to find dinner still grinding between my teeth when I nibbled a piece of mushroom. Now I've resorted to washing them under the tap and then drying them off in the salad spinner. Not ideal, but at least our dinners are now grit free.

Herbs

On the menu today was herb planting. We use handfuls of parsley in our cooking at a time and another huge favourite is coriander - Matt makes a tasty salsa with finely chopped tomatoes, red onion,green chilli and coriander with lime juice - so it's much cheaper to grow our own.

I've read in several places that coriander is a pain to grow. I myself have no inkling where that idea came from - it's the easiest one I know of - just pop them in an earth filled pot, cover lightly with soil and wait. Even if it's too cold for the seeds to germinate, they won't be killed off by the cold but will patiently wait and pop their heads up come warmer weather. And it's ever so easy to collect the seed off them for further planting.

Parsley, on the other hand, is a bit trickier, but worth the effort as its so versatile and also the plants grow for two years, unlike other herbs that need sowing annually. When I first attempted it I failed miserably, but now I think I've got the knack of it. I soak the seeds for twenty-four hours before sowing into small pots. They need keeping indoors until they germinate and have at least two full leaves. I've been planting out our parsley today, into larger pots on the terrace. And I mean the flat-leafed variety, which is much, much tastier than it's curly counterpart. Fresh herbs in general make such a difference when you cook and I find the price of them in the supermarkets ridiculous when its so easy to grow your own.

On a different note, I'm very grateful to my mum who just called and casually mentionned the clocks going forward last night. Had she not done this I would've been very unpopular at work tomorrow when I arrivied an hour late.

Digging for gold

Ouch! I spent yesterday afternoon digging part of our new potato patch and am suffering for it today. It's the first proper lot of digging I've done this year and doesn't my body know it. I had steeled myself for more today but it's just started raining so I have a brief reprieve.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy working in the garden and growing your own veg is full of its own rewards, it's just the annual getting going after the snow that does for me every year. Still, I'm looking forward to our own potatoes this year. There's nothing so tasty, and I love the excitement of digging them up. It's like digging for gold - you expectantly, but carefully, plunge your fork into the ground and the more golden tubers your lift from each plant the more exciting it gets. The eating, of course, is the best part. Supermarket tatties have nothing on home grown ones. You can't beat freshly-dug new potatoes, lightly boiled then mixed with a knob of butter and sprinkled with with some black pepper and a pinch of salt. Simple but, well, perfect.

It'll be our first proper crop since we've been here. We didn't have much room for them in the first year as we arrived in January and were short of time to prepare. Last year we were supposed to dig the bed and then disaster stuck: our sewerage pipe broke/blocked completely, flooding the bathroom in the process. To make matters much worse, as we have our own water supply we're also responsible for our drainage. Matt had a couple of friends visiting at the time and it turned into a busman's holiday for them - they haven't been back since. Matt had to dig up the terrace and then dig a 15 metre trench down the garden for the new pipes. We were stuck without a proper toilet for a considerable amount of time. Not pleasant. So in brief, you don't really want more details, that was why we didn't dig the potato patch last year, although on the plus side I did learn the Spanish for 'manhole cover'. Given the circumstances in which it was learnt I don't think I'm ever likely to forget it.


On a more fragrant note, this is where we were planning on going today, had it not been raining. We're incredibly lucky to have this huge expanse of land only half an hour's walk away above our house. There are spectacular views - you can just about see the 30 or so kilometres to Gijon on the coast on a clear day and there are mountains in the other directions. It's normally so peaceful up there, we quite often take a picnic and just sit and stare at the view. You can walk for hours, and we still haven't explored fully. It's often where we go on a hot summer's day as it's much cooler up there with a fresh breeze. This year we discovered large amounts of mushrooms and toadstools all over the place - so many different colourful and strangely-shaped varieties. We picked the field mushrooms, some almost as large a dinner plates, but left the rest as we weren't sure if they were edible or not. Our picked ones went into a risotto with some butter, garlic, onion, white wine and Greek yoghurt. It was my first experience at 'pick your own' shrooms but one I'll be repeating, mmm.