Recipe | Home made fish and chips | Fresh haddock in organic beer batter and twice cooked chips

Yesterday I cooked fish and chips – from scratch – for the first time. It was surprisingly easy – Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall helped a lot.

There are a lot of recipes and videos advising on how to make the perfect batter. Some use fizzy water, some use beer, some neither. I wanted beer in my batter so after looking around for a while, this video came in very handy before I got to work. It seems apt that the video was from Hugh as he is currently actively involved in campaigning with The Big Fish Fight.

I halved the quantities Hugh recommended. So instead of eight tablespoons of plain flour, I used four, and a half bottle of Organic beer (the other half I disposed of sensibly – in my stomach).

British Asparagus Season in FoodieClaire’s World…

As we near the end of British Asparagus Season, it feels only right to let you know how much I just LOVE this vegetable. I love all vegetables (there isn’t a single vegetable I don’t eat) but I have particular love for this one because it’s only ethically with us for 2 months a year.

Asparagus Season starts in April and ends around mid June

Firstly I must say that two years ago prompted by my boss Louise, I decided that I was to never buy a bunch of asparagus in a shop out of season ever again. If you eat a bunch of asparagus from Peru and some from the UK, you will certainly taste the difference. Not to mention the awful carbon footprint. Now I’m not going to turn into a martyr and say that everything I buy in this world is made in the UK. But this desperate need to be able to consume asparagus all year round should really stop. Everyone seems content to only eat strawberries during Wimbledon season so why can’t asparagus be the same?

Chelsea Flower Show 2010 | Beautiful Vegetables

It’s almost a month later and therefore I’m ashamed that it’s taken me so long to report that I attended the Chelsea Flower Show on 27th May 2010 as a guest of the designer fashion site BrandAlley.

As my first experience I was not sure what to expect however the highlight of the day for me (apart from endless jugs of Pimms and their amazing hospitality tent with champagne) was the array of fruit and vegetables, styled and placed in the most eye-opening positions. I just kept saying “are those real?” Onions, carrots, celery – grown to a size one can’t imagine. I wonder what happened to all the veg after the event! I hope they went to a good home (and stomach).