Seed Pantry Blog

Here at Seed Pantry, we believe it’s really important to teach children about food from an early age and a family day out to a food festival is a great place to start!

Here’s a round up of some of the best child-friendly food festival taking place in the UK in the next few weeks:

The Big Feastival – 29^th to 31^st August

The Cotswolds

Organised by Jamie Oliver and Alex James, this event promises to be a real family festival frenzy with music, food and fun! There’s a Little Dude’s Den, cookery demos in the Big Kitchen, village fete games, a vintage fun fair, face painting, storytelling, dance lessons and CBeebies legends Mr Bloom and Mr Tumble (Justin Fletcher) will be making an appearance. You can go for the day or camp in the Glamping Village and the whole event will raise money for the Jamie Oliver Food Foundation. Visit the website for more details: http://www.jamieoliver.com/thebigfeastival/

Woking Food and Drink Festival – 4^th to 6^th September

Woking

This free festival in Woking shopping centre features chef demos by the Tante Marie Culinary Academy, children’s cookery classes, a kid’s food laboratory workshop, a Bake Off competition, BBQ cookalongs, celebrity book signings and live entertainment. For the full schedule, visit http://www.wokingfoodanddrinkfestival.co.uk.

Rutland Day Food and Drink Festival – 12^th September

East Anglia

With its picturesque setting on the edge of Rutland Water, this free festival is a great family day out. There are cookery demonstrations, mouthwatering local foods to sample and purchase, locally brewed beers, live music and children’s activities. Find out more on the website: http://www.discover-rutland.co.uk/whats-on/rutland-day-food-and-drink-festival-p260121

Ludlow Food Festival – 11^th to 13^th September

Shropshire

This small Shropshire town has a huge reputation for good food and drink and the festival takes place inside Ludlow Castle! There will be the Ludlow Sausage Trail, the Ale Trail and the Festival Loaf Trail as well as demonstrations, markets, stalls, pudding demonstrations and much more. Kids can get involved with a Grow Cook Learn workshop, Circus Skills and meet farmers at the NFU stand. And children get a free activity bag to enjoy as they go around the festival. Tickets are available now via the website: http://www.foodfestival.co.uk/index.php

Abergavenny Food Festival – 18^th to 20^th September

Monmouthshire

Kids can take part in a mushroom foraging expedition, enjoy the entertainment at the castle, get stuck into interactive workshops and join in the Children’s Food Academy. With a full schedule of family activities, including food and wine tutored tastings, celebrity chef presentations, parties at the castle, fireworks displays, and Rude Health Rants, the festival promises to be a fun-filled weekend for food fans of all ages. The full programme and tickets are available on the website: http://www.abergavennyfoodfestival.com.

Closer to home, why not get the kids and the whole family growing their own vegetables, salads and herbs? You don’t need a big garden or outdoor space, you can grow them indoors, or on a balcony or patio. We’ve got some great grow your own starter kits so have a look around our website for growing inspiration.

With the summer season upon us, now is a great time enjoy fresh leafy greens, crunchy salads and tasty herbs.

We add it to sandwiches and salads every day but did you know there are hundreds of varieties of lettuce leaves! Iceberg, Cos and round lettuce will be familiar but have you tried butterhead, raddichio, lollo rosso, red chard, escarole, mizuna or tatsoi?

Fun facts about lovely lettuce

• Lettuce was first cultivated by the Egyptians who turned it from a weed into a food plant. It later spread to the Greeks and Romans, then into the rest of Europe and to the Americas with Christopher Columbus
• All lettuce varieties are packed with essential nutrients, vitamins A, B, C, K and are naturally low in calories
• Lettuce is about 95% water so is refreshing and rehydrating
• Raw lettuce is great in salads, wraps, spring rolls, burgers and sandwiches, while Chinese varieties are perfect for adding to stir-fries and noodles
• If you are growing your own lettuce or other leafy greens, now is the perfect time to plant your seeds. March to September is the best time for sowing and you should have some leaves ready to eat in about four weeks

 

If you’re looking to add herbs to your summer dishes, then growing your own is a great way to ensure you have a constant supply of fresh, flavoursome herbs. French flat leaf parsley, basil, dill, chives and coriander are easy to grow and can be added to a variety of dishes so why not get the whole family involved in planting and harvesting this season.

 

We’ve got some great grow your own starter kits so have a look around our website for growing inspiration.

As we settle into 2015, we’re setting a resolution to know our food better, how far does that bag of salad travel, where does all the wonky veg go!?

At Seed Pantry we like to know that we’re eating good food, knowing where it comes from and what gets done to it before we eat it, here are 4 top tips to #knowfoodbetter in 2015!

 

• An ugly carrot tastes just as good as a perfectly shaped one! A staggering 20-40 per cent of produce is rejected because it doesn’t look quite right and goes to landfill. Ugly or wonky veg should be coming to a supermarket near you soon, so keep an eye out as they are likely to be 30% cheaper – Asda are selling ‘un-loved’ produce currently…

 

• If you subtract 28 days from an Eggs best before date, you can work out when it was laid. Fresh is best for flavour at under week old, normally these would come from the farm shop.

 

• During winter, most salads and tomatoes come by lorry from Spain or Holland, where they are grown in big greenhouses. Salad leaves and spinach are washed in chlorine and then stored in ‘modified atmosphere’ packaging, slowing the rate at which the fresh leaves rot. It takes around 4 days to get to the shop.  These leaves are fine but to get the ultimate fresh tasty nutritious leaves you can grow them quickly, year round, in the kitchen or as micro veg in as little as 4 days!

 

• We’re buying British this month and reading the labels in supermarkets to see what’s seasonal. Vegetables like winter crops of cabbage, leeks, Brussels sprouts are all fresh from UK farms at the moment…

 

In our kitchen and small spaces at home we are growing the perfect and not so perfect nutritious food to eat, so for fresh ideas keep visiting this blog! or find us on our Facebook and Twitter pages

Happy New Year to all our #knowfoodbetter friends!