Category Archives: Blogroll

There has been an outbreak of E. coli in Germany, believed to be linked to raw cucumbers from two producers in Southern Spain. We do not work with either of these producers (and there is no way that E. coli can travel through the air to other farms).

We are now coming into the UK cucumber season, so all our cucumbers will be homegrown. As a precautionary measure, we test our crops regularly for the presence of bacteria, to make sure the agricultural safeguards we have in place are working effectively

For some of the year we sell Spanish cucumbers grown by Paco Sanchez. Paco fertilizes his crops with sterilised organic chicken manure pellets and the crops are irrigated with a drip feed at ground level to prevent any contamination.

We will continue to monitor the situation, but you can be confident buying from Riverford: we have direct relationships with our growers, we visit them often and are familiar with their cropping systems. We also have our own transport system, so Riverford veg does not get mixed up with produce from other farms. As always, it’s worth remembering that you should wash all fruit and veg thoroughly before eating it.

When we started the box scheme it was obvious that, much as our customers aspired to eat seasonal veg, many needed practical help to make it a reality. As the years passed I realised we needed to think beyond the nearest hedge; our fate lies half in what we grow and how, and half in what you all do with it in the kitchen. First there were intermittent monthly newsletters; over time they became weekly and I found myself almost as obsessed with cooking as with growing. In 2005 Jane Baxter, the pro with a pedigree, joined us and we opened the Riverford Field Kitchen restaurant. In 2008, spurred on by rave restaurant reviews and requests from customers, we published the Riverford Farm Cook Book with recipes (mostly from Jane) and rants (mostly from me). It has now gone to its third print run and has won Best First Book and Best Work on British Food at the Guild of Food Writers Awards. We are both very proud of it.

Over the last year we have written another: Everyday and Sunday – Recipes from Riverford Farm. Fewer rants (I seem to have become worryingly placid) and more recipes this time. The “everyday” bit is the simple food you might cook in a hurry for the family on a weekday; the “Sunday” is the more time consuming stuff we would serve in the Field Kitchen. It is organised seasonally by month, with intros from me and most recipes by Jane, with a few from our growing band of Riverford Cooks. Everyday and Sunday is out on 2nd May, as a £24.99 hardback or £18.99 paperback (the paperback is only available through us).

Guy Watson from Riverford in Devon

Watch Jane cook a recipe from the book here.

You may have read that consumer group Which? has suggested that there appears to be little or no nutritional or taste benefits to growing food organically. You can read about it here.

It is very hard to make a sensible comment without knowing how the vegetables were grown, the size of the trial or whether it was replicated as would normally be expected. I would never claim that being organic necessarily guarantees better flavour or nutritional quality. In our experience, flavour and (probably) nutritional quality are a result of:

1. variety

2. soil type

3. growing conditions

4. stage of ripeness or maturity at harvest

5. freshness (time from harvest and post harvest treatment)

I can’t speak for our other growers, but at Riverford we work hard to combine all these factors to give the best flavour. A poor variety grown quickly on Fenland peat with excessive nitrogen can be organic but it can also be disappointing to eat.

On the whole organic growers tend to be more interested in getting these things right, so organic veg is usually better; but it doesn’t have to be. There are of course many other reasons for buying organic, including environmental, animal welfare and absence of pesticide residues.

Guy Watson

Throughout December, we’re posting tips, ideas, downloads and recipes on our Facebook page (our version of an advent calendar). Today we’ve got a couple of recipes for alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks from Heron Valley (who supply us with juices and cider) and one for sloe gin and orange from The Telegraph.

dangerous winter party recipe

ingredients
2 ltrs heron valley cider – order from Riverford
2 bags mulling spices – order from Riverford
2 large cups sugar
½ lemon – order from Riverford

Warm the Heron Valley cider in a large pan with the mulling spice bags, some sugar to taste and half a lemon and allow to infuse for 10 minutes. 

safe winter party recipe

ingredients
2 bottles heron valley sweet apple juice – order from Riverford
2 bags mulling spices – order from Riverford

Warm the Heron Valley organic sweet apple juice in a large pan with the 2 spice bags and allow to infuse for 10 minutes.  

For an alcoholic version of the above add a shot of rum, sloe gin or winter Pimms™ to the mulled apple juice

sloe gin & orange

This Angela Hartnett cocktail appeared in The Telegraph on 14th March 2007. You can order sloe gin from Riverford.

ingredients
ice cubes
7fl oz/200ml sloe gin – order from Riverford
3½fl oz/100ml dry vermouth
1 pint 2fl oz/500ml blood orange juice, preferably fresh
sanguinello
2 limes - order from Riverford

Put a couple of handfuls of ice in the bottom of a large jug. Pour the sloe gin, vermouth, blood orange juice and the juice from one of the limes over them. Mix well. Put a few ice cubes in a cocktail glass and pour in the cocktail.

Order alcoholic or soft drinks from Riverford.

These look great on the Christmas tree and are easy to make.

You will need:
cloves
a cocktail stick
a citrus fruit – order from Riverford
ribbon

Use the cocktail stick to make holes all over the fruit and push a clove into each hole. Then, put the fruit in an airing cupboard and leave it for two weeks to dry and go hard or to speed it up, put it in the bottom of a cooling oven. As the fruit dries, it will start to feel lighter and smell stronger.

Once it’s dried out, wrap a ribbon round it and tie the ends into a bow.

If you want your pomander to smell even more Christmassy, dust some spices over it. Cinnamon and ginger work well.