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This is an attempt to document my efforts to grow and eat locally around Melbourne, Derbyshire. My family own a nine acre smallholding on which we grow fruit and vegetables and keep bees, and chickens, but that won't feed us alone, so the idea is to get to know our local produce and to see how easy/hard it is to follow a diet that is local to within 30 miles. The fun part is also trying some new (easy) recipes that use home-grown and local produce. Feel free to comment, send in recipes, and share your experiences of buying and eating locally.

Monday, 7 May 2012

White loaves and flatbreads

I bought some flour from Scaddows Farm shop.  It's milled by Claybrooke Mill in Leicestershire and is also organic.  What I couldn't find out from their website though (or the packet) was where the wheat was grown, which was disappointing.  It's also stocked at Bread First at Staunton Harold.  Being a novice breadmaker I decided to make a white loaf, which used 50% strong white flour and 50% plain white flour, from a recipe by Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall in River Cottage Veg.  I doubled the quantity and made the flatbreads first, and then two white loaves, which have worked beautifully.  The unseasonally cold start to May meant that I had the woodburner on so was able to prove the loaves over it, but I have also made bread rolls in the past and proved them in the greenhouse on a warmer day.  The only problem with that was that one time I put them on the chair in the greenhouse, covered with a tea towel, and my young son thought it was a cushion and sat on the rolls!  They were still edible though.
Lunch today was leek and potato soup (all local) and the flatbreads, drizzled with home-made chilli oil which I made last autumn from our home-grown chillis, garlic and rosemary.  I've been using it over the winter on pizzas and topping it up with olive oil to keep the contents covered.  It's much nicer than the chilli oil served in Pizza Express.   The children went mad this morning making pancakes and "Eggy Bread" with our own eggs.   Tea tonight will be (local) bacon quiche, which is everyone's favourite quiche.  Having been away we are indulging the kids with their favourites out of a measure of guilt at not having taken them with us.

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