Well, that was 2011

What a year! Despite serious health issues, redundancy and new jobs we still managed to keep this blog going.  Thank you for visiting!

This blog was viewed about 2,500 times in 2011.  Most visitors were from the UK, but there were also visitors from USA, Australia, Asia and South America!

The busiest day of the year was 2nd October. The most popular post that day was Helping to save the Loggerhead turtle.

In 2011, there were 36 new posts, with 338 pictures uploaded – that’s about 7 pictures per week.

Please ‘sign up’ for all our posts in 2012 when we hope to feature more fabulous days out and holidays in the UK and abroad.

In 2011, we loved working with/for the following clients:

Anthony Hartley (Furniture designer)

UltraMarine Magazine

Marine Habitat

On: Yorkshire Magazine

Earth, Sea and Sky (Turtle conservation charity)

Biteback (Shark Conservation Charity)

The Deep (Hull)

Swaledale House, Swaledale, Yorkshire

Agra Cottage,  Nidderdale, Yorkshire

Tea & Cake Cafe (Almondbury)

National Federation of Women’s Institutes

Tea & Tarts WI (Huddersfield)

Cafe Nouveau

Birkby Lodge Dining Club

Yo Yo’s Restaurant (Shipley)

Bettakultcha (Leeds)

Culture Vulture

What’s on up North

Smallholder Magazine

Yorkshire Evening Post

If you have accommodation you’d like to see reviewed here, please contact us.

Likewise, if you have places, products or food to be photographed, please drop us a line.

If you’d like to buy canvas or framed prints, please visit our galleries: www.aspinallink.co.uk

Forager’s Kitchen: Dandelion salad

 

Photo by Angie Aspinall

There is hardly a more recognised, nor maligned plant than the Dandelion.  Resented for its appearance in the lawn and cursed for its seemingly miraculous ability to push through freshly laid tarmac, the Dandelion is a great survivor.  It sets its seed with ease, grows rapidly once germinated and is equally at home in the town amongst the pavement cracks as it is within the pastures of the country.  Yet, despite our age and generally negative disposition to this plant, we can all perhaps remember the simple joy of a dandelion clock from our younger years? And do we not now all take a grudging delight in the brilliant yellow of an early dandelion amidst the gloomy, early spring weather?

 

Photo by Angie Aspinall

 

The name Dandelion comes from the French ‘dent de lion’ and refers to the Dandelion’s deeply serrated leaves with their tooth-like points, that sit amidst a low growing rosette of leaves that defies the lawnmower so excellently.  The French have their own name for the Dandelion – ‘piss en lit’, or as we once called it Wet-the-Bed; as the sap of the Dandelion does indeed contain a diuretic, that was noted by many folks when picking the plant for salad greens or the flower heads for making country wine.

I remember as a child that we were tasked by our teachers to pick Dandelion leaves for the school rabbit, but never did we consider these clearly tender, and if the rabbit’s liking for them was to be believed, apparently tasty leaves.

For this delightful salad, I would recommend several good handfuls of fresh new leaves, washed and dried and torn or chopped roughly.  To this I would add some Hearts of Romaine or Cos lettuce to bulk it out and perhaps challenge the bitterness of older leaves.  Then, I would add a dressing of fresh lemon juice and olive oil – and that would be that: simple and delicious.   You could of course add grated carrot or beetroot, or serve with anchovy fillets or even add the leaves to a warm salad based around bacon and black pudding.  Indeed there is a classic French dish of small pieces of crispy fried bacon served on a bed of fresh leaves, the two ingredients in perfect contrast to each other.

I suppose what I am suggesting is that the Dandelion could easily become a regular addition to our salads and meals and we might even learn to like them, and cultivate them, instead of raining down upon them our fury and our chemicals.  A few leaves added to a cheese sandwich might not challenge the world of the gastronomes, nor lift you to the dizzying heights of culinary greatness, but it is a simple and very real pleasure to gather food from around us and be it picking blackberries for a pie or chomping down on a few leaves, we are taking part in an activity that has been far more normal to our species, over the expanse of pre history, than any shop, restaurant or supermarket.

By Richard Aspinall