For all those who spent part of their weekend grubbing up yet more ground elder from some of the darker recesses of the garden here is an opportunity to get some revenge.

1 heaped colander of ground elder leaves
2 oz butter
similar amount of flour
2/3 pints of good stock
A small onion, chopped
Half a pint of milk
Salt and pepper

Wash the leaves well, the younger ones will be best, and then cook in a little boiling, salted water. Drain well.

Melt the butter at the bottom of a good sized saucepan and add the onion. Cook gently for a few minutes until it starts to soften. Stir in the flour and cook for a couple more minutes. Add the stock and slowly bring to the boil, stirring continuously so that it thickens smoothly.  Season and add the ground elder leaves and simmer for 15 minutes. Put the soup through a food mill or sieve (see previous post). Pour the milk through the food mill or sieve to rub through as much of the puree as possible Reheat and eat with chunks of good bread ideally sat outside in the full knowledge that the pernicious weed will still be there in the garden long after you have hung up your gardening tools.

The recipe is taken from a book called All Good Things Around Us by Pamela Michael, a guide to the recognition and uses of over 90 wild plants and hebs. The copy I have was published in 1980 and was bought in a second hand bookshop in Bath. In the entry on ground elder she quotes from a 17th century writer, Gerard, who noted that ground elder “is so fruitful in his increase that where it hath once taken roote, it will be hardly  be gotten out again, spoiling and getting every yeere more ground, to the annoying of better herbes”. Don’t we know.

Two bags of Spanish tomatoes from K & N, the grocers on Oxton Road. 99p each, there is about a kilo in each bag. Take a large pan and sweat down a couple of finely chopped onions in olive oil. Add some garlic and about half a finely sliced chilli. Chop an aubergine into 1 inch cubes and add these to the pan, turning up the heat. Cook for a few minutes then add a teaspoon of freshly ground cumin and half a teaspoon of smoked paprika. Whilst that continues to cook chop each of the tomatoes in half and then add all these to the pan. Season with some salt & pepper then put on a lid and leave to cook down for an hour or so. The tomatoes will slowly give off their juices and turn to a mush. Give it a stir every so often with a wooden spoon squashing the tomatoes as you go. There are then a couple of options depending on how thick you like your soup. If you want a thin soup strain it through a fine sieve or chinoise, using the back of the wooden spoon to squeeze out every last drop of juice. I have a very old French mouli food mill that I picked up for a couple of Euros last year in Schull. This is very efficient but the holes are too big and some of the seeds are able to get through – but it makes for a thicker more sustaining soup and there is something very satisfying about turning the wooden handle which still has some traces of the original red paint and watching the mess of tomatoes subside into the bowl below. However you do it pour the soup back into the pan and check for seasoning. Serve with chunks of good bread. The gubbins in the bottom of the sieve or mouli can go into the compost bin.

Cooked whilst listening to the new Rumer CD – not very rock’n’roll but suited the mood on a grey morning.

The Sheep’s Head Food Company is an idea I had a few years ago for a cheese shop in Birkenhead selling, amongst other things, the cheese, sausages and smoked fish they make in such abundant good quantities in West Cork and which we eat for the few weeks we spend every summer by the sea on the Sheep’s Head Peninsula. Look on a map of Ireland and it is the second tongue of land that sticks out from the bottom left hand corner nestling between the Mizen and the bulk of the Beara. It is the smallest of the three only a few miles wide at its widest and about 30 miles long. We spend our time in a cottage by the village of Ahakista which is on the south shore about 20 miles from the tip. The cottage is on the sea and for the few weeks we are there we eat mackerel straight from the sea, prawns from our pot and lobster and crab from the local fishermen. Other food is largely made up of the cheese, sausages and other food we get from the markets and shops.   My idea was to import the cheeses and meats to Birkenhead where I would sell them from a small shop in the centre of Oxton, which is an urban village that forms part of Birkenhead. The idea got as far as looking at potential premises and putting some figures down on paper before realising that selling a few cheeses and sausage was not going to generate the income needed to pay the pay the mortgage and enable me to continue the good work that I do keeping HMV and any number of other record shops in business. So the idea of the shop went onto the backshelf for a few years and this is perhaps a way to get there through the backdoor – jottings about food and cooking and the music I listen to whilst stood in my kitchen wielding a sharp knife at the onions.