There is no better way to celebrate Christmas leftovers than with a creamy pie with a thick, crumbly pastry. We like to serve this with jars of wholegrain mustard.
-
Millet Risotto with Asparagus
Vibrant, bright and full of the flavours of spring, this quick risotto is made with nourishing ancient grains and plenty of greens.
-
Lamb Shoulder with Hasselback Potatoes & Herbed Jus
Though it may look as though this recipe requires a number of steps, it is incredibly easy and provides a fresh approach to the Sunday roast.
-
Herbed Salad of Jersey Royals, Asparagus & Pancetta
When it comes to the garden’s ingredients, spring is the most uplifting time of year with the arrival of asparagus and Jersey Royals.
-
Winter Root Vegetable Salad
This recipe from the Tutors at our Cookery School is a celebration of the vegetables and salad leaves from our Market Garden that offer the most flavour and texture during the colder months. The recipe uses a number of different techniques, but you can make a pared down version if you prefer, or make larger batches of things like the pickled beetroot and crisp kale, so it's easier to assemble the salad next time.
-
Butter Roasted Asparagus, Poached Egg & Wild Garlic Hollandaise
A delicous seasonal alternative to classic eggs benedict.
In cookery, hollandaise is a ‘mother’ sauce and has many variants which will add to your repertoire, while knowing how to poach an egg is a key skill.
Discover more seasonal recipes and cooking skills at our Cookery School.
-
Beetroot, Tahini & Almond Brownies – a Guest Recipe by Kathy Slack
Recipe from From the Veg Patch by Kathy Slack.
“When I worked at Daylesford Organic Farm, the bakery made chocolate brownies that were out of this world. They were dark, fudgy and flecked with nuggets of white chocolate. I would buy one at the end of my shift in the kitchen garden, unable to resist tucking in straight away despite my mud-engrained fingers. They have been my brownie benchmark ever since, and so when I came to this recipe (beetroot and chocolate, after all, being a classic combination I could not omit), I knew mine too must be broodingly dark and have those signature morsels of solid chocolate hidden within. The result is a grown-up brownie, almost savoury, thanks to the beetroot and tahini. Good for dessert with a dollop of sour crème fraîche as contrast.”
-
Barbecued Côte de Boeuf
We believe that our organic approach produces beef that is exceptional to eat, ours is dry-aged for a minimum of 28 days for optimal flavour.
We are immensely proud of the organic beef that we rear on our farms in Staffordshire and the Cotswolds. High welfare standards and a dedication to rearing our animals slowly at pasture are central to our ethos. We firmly believe that our organic approach produces beef that is exceptional to eat, and ours is dry-aged for a minimum of 28 days for optimal flavour. It is when dishes such a this are presented at the table that our farmers can truly take great pride in what they do.
-
Courgette, Cumin & Lime Fritters – a guest recipe by Kathy Slack
Recipe from From the Veg Patch by Kathy Slack.
"For a tasty, fuss-free supper, you really can’t beat a fritter. Here, cumin, coriander and lime embellish an otherwise straightforward batter good for any grated veg, but do experiment with other flavourings – basil and lemon or smoked paprika and chilli – or leave out altogether. Our heroes are courgettes this time, but they could just as easily be grated carrot, beetroot, parsnips or cauliflower another day. And after you’ve made them for supper, try them cold for a packed lunch, or cook them small and serve as pre-dinner nibbles. Endlessly versatile, this is a real workhorse recipe.”
-
Homemade Elderflower Cordial
"There is little more refreshing in the summer months than the cool clinking of ice cubes in a jugful of homemade elderflower cordial."
-
Beetroot, Apple & Ginger Chutney
There is therefore no better time than the harvest season to dig out the preserving pan to make this delicious beetroot chutney.
-
Farmhouse Chicken Thighs with Fennel, Tarragon & Thyme
Here, a marinade of aromatic herbs, lemon, garlic and white wine or sherry transforms juicy thighs into a wonderfully flavourful dish.
-
Cauliflower & Spiced Toasted Grains Salad
With lemon, pistachio and spiced fruit.
-
Smashed Broad Beans, Peas & Mint
This side dish makes the most of fresh, seasonal flavours. It is particularly good with lamb and makes a good addition to summer barbecues
-
Ancient Grain Bread
An unleavened, gluten free loaf with aromatic toasty flavours, this bread is packed with energy and nutritional value.
-
New Potato Salad with Green Herb & Miso Dressing
Dressed while still warm, the tiny new potatoes in this salad absorb masses of flavour from the herbs and miso in the bright green dressing.
-
English Garden Cocktail With Elderflower & Lemon
This English Garden cocktail is a true favourite. Bright and fresh with the addition of English elderflower cordial and garden mint.
-
Honey Parfait with Poached Pears & Honeycomb
This delicious honey parfait recipe comes from our founder Carole Bamford’s new book NURTURE.
-
Chocolate Dipped Easter Shortbread Biscuits
This Easter shortbread recipe is simple to follow and brilliant for children to get involved rolling, cutting and dipping.
-
Traditional Soda Bread with Homemade Butter
Quick and simple, with no kneading or proving required, soda bread is the perfect loaf for those just beginning on a bread making journey.
Prepare and bake if you are suddenly out of bread in the house, serve in hearty chunks with warm soup, or alongside smoked mackerel pâté, fresh salad leaves and pickled cucumber as a rustic starter. But without fail, the very best way to serve this delicious loaf is warm from the oven with generous layers of homemade butter – just as we do on our Artisan Bread Making courses at our Cookery School.
-
Clementine Custard Tarts – a guest recipe by Wild by Tart
Portuguese-style custard tarts with festive clementine curd.
Inspired by places and people they love, Jemima Jones and Lucy Carr-Ellison, founders of Tart London and Wild by Tart, cook food with big flavours and seasonal ingredients, sustainably sourced where possible.
“We cook food that excites us, using ingredients we know work well together. We look to work with suppliers who have unique stories of sustainability or craftsmanship. Portuguese tarts are just so delicious. The traditional recipe is quite laborious, so we love this cheat recipe and were thrilled by the addition of the clementine curd which worked really well – a perfect festive treat.”
-
Rhubarb & Blood Orange Breakfast Crumble
This recipe is one that we like to enjoy warm, while it is also delicious cold from the fridge with yoghurt when in a hurry.
-
Seville Orange Marmalade
There is something so lovely at this time of year about buying a big box of fragrant citrus fruit to make into marmalade.
-
Gingerbread Decorations
This recipe makes biscuits that are perfect for hanging decorations or gingerbread houses.
-
Golden Almond Milk with Turmeric & Gentle Spices
This golden almond milk is an ancient, natural way to enjoy turmeric and all its health-giving properties.
-
Gluten Free Soda Bread – a guest recipe by Natasha Corrett
Light and fluffy and with a wonderfully thick crust.
Recipe from Honestly Healthy In A Hurry.
-
Winter Tea Infusion with Ginger, Cinnamon Sticks & Clementine
This simple winter tea infusion is warming and cleansing, gently easing digestion and providing plenty of comfort over colder winter months.
-
Hot Cross Cinnamon Twist
Brew a pot of your favourite tea, place the loaf in the middle of the table and let everyone pull it apart and share the soft, spiced bun.
-
Christmas Granola with Orange & Cranberries
Make a big batch and package into jars or paper bags tied up with string for a wonderfully simple homemade gift.
-
Instant Tomato & Cannellini Bean Soup – a guest recipe by Amelia Freer
Recipe from Simply Good For You by Amelia Freer.
"This is an ‘instant’ soup. Simply blend the raw ingredients together in a decent blender, and it’s ready. No cooking required."
-
Bubble & Squeak with Christmas Leftovers
The abundance of the festive period can lead to unnecessary waste, so mastering the art of making leftovers sing is a worthwhile skill.
-
Peanut Butter Cookies – A Guest Recipe from Amelia Freer
Recipe from Simply Good For You by Amelia Freer.
"I have a bit of a thing for biscuits and so tend to avoid buying them otherwise I’d easily eat a whole packet in one go. But going to the effort of making these (admittedly they don’t really require much effort) does slow me down as I want to savour them.
I use coconut sugar as I love the flavour and it has slightly heathier properties than refined white sugar, but use whatever sugar you wish. I make these when I have lots of mouths to feed and there are never any left over."
-
Baked plums with honey and juniper
We like to serve these baked plums with organic yoghurt and local honey for breakfast or a light dessert. They also make a delicious accompaniment to lean venison or seasonal game – spoon the juices through rich gravy for a little sweetness and colour.
Try alongside our recipe for Loin of Venison with Celeriac Purée.
-
Pan Seared Mackerel With Pickled Rhubarb & Land Cress
This piquant rhubarb pickle is the perfect complement to rich, oily mackerel. It is also lovely served alongside creamy soft cheese or smoked fish and will keep happily for a week or so in your fridge. Quick to make and pleasing to the eye, this is a dish The Cookery School often teaches on their Seasonal Dinner Party courses.
-
Rhubarb Polenta Cake – a guest recipe by Tait Miller
Discover Tait's top tips for wild cooking in our journal here.
-
Lamb Chops with Juniper & Fennel Seeds – a guest recipe by Tait Miller
Discover Tait's top tips for wild cooking in our journal here.
-
Rhubarb & Cheddar Tart - A Guest Recipe by Skye McAlpine
It’s the Valentine’s sugar-pink of the rhubarb, blushing under a blanket of melted Cheddar, that makes this feel like romantic food for me; though it’s the flavour – rhubarb’s intense earthy sourness counterbalanced by rich buttery pastry and melting cheese – that makes me long to eat it. As much as you might associate rhubarb with puddings and nursery fare, don’t be fooled: this is very much a savoury business and also very much a ‘grown-up’ dish. I’ll be honest: the portions here are more than generous for two, but to make half a tart seems mean, and this is one of those dishes that everyone always eats more of than seems sensible, so I prefer to err on the side of plenty. And while it really does taste its very best warm straight from the oven, the cheese melting in your mouth, I nonetheless always look forward to leftovers.
To go with it, you only need a salad: I can’t resist pairing this with a similarly pastel- hued salad of blush-pink radicchio rosa or dark red bitter chicory. Too much? Or just enough? One warning: this works best with long, thin, furiously pink rhubarb stems rather than the fatter ones, which take longer to cook and can taste a little too sharp.
A Table Full of Love by Skye McAlpine is published by Bloomsbury, £26.
Photography by Skye McAlpine
Skye is hosting a supper club upstairs at Daylesford in Pimlico on Thursday 29th June 2023. Spaces are limited and booking is essential; last few places remaining. Find out more.
-
Creamed Brussels Sprouts
This is a really indulgent recipe, perfect for Christmas Day and warming suppers on cold winter evenings. It’s also great for entertaining because you can prepare it in advance and simply popping in the oven to finish when your guests arrive.
-
Garlic & Thyme Mushrooms on Toast
Simple to make and delicious to eat, our Garlic & Thyme Mushrooms on Toast recipe is the perfect warming, speedy supper for autumn evenings.
-
One Pot Roast Chicken with Fennel, New Potatoes & Pesto
This is a dish that can be enjoyed year-round. Quick to make, it creates minimal need for washing up and delivers on flavour.
-
Butternut Squash, Honey & Sage Soup
Another award-winning soup. John Hardwick - ‘fantastically smooth and silky, with a great colour and just the right element of sweetness.’
-
Blueberry Porridge – a guest recipe by 26 Grains
Recipe by Alex Hely Hutchinson, founder of 26 GRAINS.
-
Raw Kale, Turkey, Cranberry & Candied Chestnut Salad
A light way to use up leftover turkey in the days after Christmas, a lovely combination of winter ingredients, it’s one of our favourites.
-
Roast Salmon with Peas, Bacon & Braised Little Gem
“Wild salmon comes into season at the start of the summer, so this dish is based around pairing it with other seasonal ingredients. The accompaniment is a twist on the classic French dish, ‘petit pois à la française’, something I’m quite partial to, in which peas and lettuce are braised in stock and butter. My husband likes the addition of the bacon, but you could happily leave it out to make it a meat-free dish.”
Carole Bamford
-
Baked Eggs With Greens, Yoghurt & Chilli Oil
We love it as a weekend dish, cooked for brunch and served with delicious fresh cold-pressed juices.
-
Warm Panzanella Salad with Daylesford Heritage Tomatoes
A quick, filling and thoroughly easy dish for a vegetarian summer supper or as part of a delicious lunch, celebrating our heritage tomatoes. We grow over 40 varieties of tomato in our organic Market Garden and every year we are in awe of their colours, texture and unrivalled sweetness. Most of the time we tend to enjoy them raw but every now and then a glut calls for a little variation and this quick cooking technique brings out their wonderful flavour.
-
Slow-cooked Lamb Shoulder with White Beans & Salsa Verde Mayonnaise
This is a favourite of head chef Gaven Fuller: “A lovely, rustic, slow-cooked and warming stew that really showcases the lamb."
-
Creamed Gratin of Cavolo Nero
Ideal as a side or main dish, this versatile gratin is packed with flavour and can be prepared in advance. Simply omit the pancetta to make a vegetarian version.
-
Carrot & Ginger Soup
This is one of the first dishes we served when Daylesford first opened 20 years ago. The recipe is so popular we also sell pouches of carrot and ginger soup in our farmshops and online. Made in small batches on the farm with organic ingredients, the pouches are ready for customers to take home and gently heat through – easy, convenient and delicious.
-
Winter Sprout Slaw
This slaw is a wonderful way to make use of seasonal winter vegetables, turning them into a colourful raw salad that is packed with nutritional value. We love to serve this as an accompaniment to festive platters of cold meat and baked potatoes. It is also a fantastic recipe to have up your sleeve when entertaining guests over Christmas as you can prepare it completely in advance.
If you can’t find candy or golden beetroot, traditional ruby red will work beautifully and do add your own favourite raw vegetables such as carrots or cabbage to make the recipe your own.
-
Pasta with Asparagus & Wild Garlic
A recipe to celebrate the quintessential taste of spring: British asparagus. The perfect, fresh and seasonal supper from our Cookery School.
-
Chargrilled Asparagus with Crispy Hen’s Eggs & Herb Dressing
A Cookery School favourite, we love to serve this as a protein-rich breakfast, a first course at a dinner party or as a light spring lunch.
-
Raw & Roasted Asparagus With Sauce Gribiche
A great dinner party dish that combines different textures of raw and butter roasted asparagus with sauce gribiche, a classic French sauce that is both rich and sharp.
Discover more seasonal recipes and cooking skills at our Cookery School.