As soon as the first asparagus appears I jump on it and consume as much as possible during the short 8 week season. It’s partly the delicate flavour which I find slightly addictive, partly the firm texture and the way it goes SO well with ingredients like ham, egg and cheese – but I’m sure my fascination owes a lot to novelty. I know that once the season is over, I can’t eat these delicious spears again until next year. Have you ever tried out of season, imported aspragus? It’s a load of rubbish. Asparagus from Peru? What?!

I’ve been lovingly gazing at the new quiche dish since I bought it, patiently waiting for the asparagus to appear. I bought the dish a few weeks ago in a charity shop, for a few pounds. Bargain. I buy a lot of my dishes in charity shops actually – you have to be in the mood though, it’s quite a skill rummaging through all the stuff you (really) don’t want just to find that diamond in the rough. I have the whole process down to a fine art now. It’s akin to the Londoner travelling mentality, which, if you are not familiar, involves every man and woman for themselves. Well, we’re not all like that of course, but there is an element of it in every Londoner – you know it’s true! It’s just that some of us can still manage to turn the corners of our mouths upwards into a SMILE and others have fogotten the art. Some of us can also manage to be polite and considerate, but now I’m sounding preachy so I’m going to stop.

So, quiche. I used pancetta in this one, together with some melting Gruyere, sautéed shallots and vibrant radish and pea shoots. Everything is held together with an unctuous dairy mix and finished with a fine grating of fabulous pecorino, a gift from a friend recently back from Italy. This pecorino is strong and studded with peppercorns.
I wanted something to cut through the richness of the quiche and thought this might be a good time to make my entry for Pixie and Rosie’s new event, ‘Putting Up‘. My entry is basically a variation on a previous pickle recipe that I loved so much I couldn’t wait to make again. I’ve just adapted it to the season. So, here we have a courgette, radish and kohlrabi pickle. It’s slightly mustardy and sweet-sour with cider vinegar and a touch of sugar. Its like a variation on Italian pickled veggies. It gave me an excuse to break out the Kilner jars again after last years chutney and pickled onions. I also used a good pinch of the ‘long peppers’ I bought at The Real Food Festival, crushed in the pestle and mortar but you can easily leave them out.

They have a sour taste and are quite different to a regular black peppercorn, fragrant and strong. I’ve mentioned before that they are catkins, isn’t that cool? The pickle will keep for months in the fridge – at least I think it will but I don’t anticipate it lasting that long.

Courgette, Radish and Kohlrabi Pickle

600ml cider vinegar
100g sugar
1 tablespoon wholegrain mustard
1.5 teaspoons black mustard seeds
1.5 tablespoons salt

20 red radishes
3 medium courgettes
2 small kohlrabi
1 very small onion
1 small sprig of dill, finely chopped

2 regular kilner-type jars or alternatives, sterilised (to sterilise your jars, wash them in hot soapy water and then rinse under very hot water. Put into a preheated oven (140C/275F/Gas 1 – minus any rubber seals – for 10 minutes).

- Cut all the vegetables into strips by hand, with a julienne peeler or using a grater.
- Put the veg in a large bowl, add the salt and cover with cold water. Stir to dissolve the salt and leave for around an hour or so. Drain the veg and pat them dry.
- Put the dill, vinegar, sugar, mustard and mustard seed into a saucepan and gently heat to a simmer. Let simmer for a few minutes and then cool until warm.
- Pour the liquid over the vegetables then decant everything into jars. Refrigerate.

Spring Quiche

Short crust pastry (I used ready-rolled, shocking! And I can’t remember how much I used, it was enough to line a 10″ quiche dish – sorry)
150g pancetta, cubed
13 asparagus spears, trimmed (hold at each end, bend gently until they snap, discard the woody end)
2 largeish shallots, finely sliced
1 clove garlic, crushed
A small handful of radish shoots and the same of pea shoots. You could substitute any leafy shoots here, or peas.
A small handful of chives, chopped
150ml milk
150ml double cream
3 large eggs
100g Gruyere cheese, grated
A grating of parmesan (optional)

A 10″ quiche or flan dish

Preheat oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4

- Roll out the pastry to cover the dish and carefully line it, patching up any holes, even the smallest, really well.
- Line the pastry with baking paper or foil and fill with baking beans, uncooked pulses or uncooked rice.
- Cook, middle shelf for 15 minutes. Remove, take out the paper and baking beans and prick all over the bottom with a fork. Cook 10 minutes more and allow to cool while you make the filling. turn the oven up to 190C/375F/Gas 5.
- Fry the shallots with the pancetta in a dry pan for a few minutes. Add the garlic for 30 seconds or so to soften, be careful not to burn.
- Mix the milk, cream, eggs and chives together with some black pepper (no salt, the pancetta is salty).
- Add the pancetta and shallot mixture to the pastry case and spread evenly. Sprinkle the shoots on top and then the cheese. Pour over the egg mix and arrange the asparagus on top, pushing down slightly to nestle them in. Grate some parmesan over if using.
- Cook, middle shelf for 30-35 minutes until golden brown and just set in the centre.

When a celeriac crossed my path this week I immediately thought about this bread recipe. Whatever you think about Delia, she has given us some great recipes and this is one of them. Her celeriac and Lancashire cheese bread is so easy to make and so delicious that it just doesn’t make any sense. You mix everything together in a bowl, then fashion it as roughly as you like into a sort of ‘splodge’, bake it for a while and when you open the oven something magical has happened.

We are moving house soon and baking fresh bread seems such a treat when we are so busy. An assembly job is the order of the day and we come up with this uber-ploughman’s. Chris headed off to the local deli where he picked up some Stilton, cooked ham and some Cornish Yarg, which we used in the bread in place of the Lancashire cheese that Delia suggests.

The Yarg is really beautiful to look at with the nettles encasing the rind and the taste is mild and creamy at first with a tanginess at the end. We crumbled the cheese into the bread mixture, nettles and all, and it was perfect. A word of warning though, don’t be tempted to increase the amount of celeriac even a little bit, as this makes the dough too wet and the bread will not cook properly.

We started the day with a double bacon and egg sandwich; a full day of British eating, in honour of our dreams (now shattered!) of rugby world cup victory. We even opened the first jar of fruity chutney that I made a couple of weeks back (recipe here). I made the chutney exactly as described except I needed to simmer mine for an extra hour to get the right consistency. The chutney is quite sweet but nicely so and is really improved after a couple of weeks sitting in the cupboard, becoming much richer and spicier.

We assembled everything on my virgin chopping board (from the Cheltenham Kitchener, possibly my favourite shop in my hometown) along with some oak leaf lettuce dressed in a mustard vinaigrette and some pickles (I like Garner’s).

I have made a batch of pickled onions this year (a present for my Dad) but I’m a little worried about the results as I found I needed twice as much vinegar as the guidelines called for. I’ve never made them before and I had no idea of the commitment involved. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the process (apart from the peeling), I just wasn’t expecting it. Let me warn you now, the smell of onions is very difficult to remove from your hands, even several days later! It is also important to know that the boiling vinegar not only produces an aggressive, soporific odour, it actually removes oxygen from the air and so you need to make sure the kitchen is well ventilated. Don’t get me wrong, you won’t be collapsing on the floor, clutching your throat and coughing, but you do need to open the windows.

In the excitement, we forgot to add the last of the summer tomatoes that have been ripening (very slowly) on the windowsill for the past few weeks. Some steamed or roasted beetroot would also have been perfect. I think the Ploughman’s lunch may actually be one of my favourite all time meals, an English version of an antipasti, meze or even tapas. It just seems more of an event. We actually managed to polish off all the food you see on that board, washing everything down with a glass or three of cider.