Frittering Time Away

In the world of retail, your annual calendar can go quite awry. January trade shows are full of
Christmas stock, we're about to take a trip to Copenhagen to buy spring and summer stock from Rice, and this week on Monday we put up a tree, had a feast and took it all down again in one day for a magazine photo shoot I was asked to help style with props from the shop.

In the here and now it is, of course, harvest time and whilst I was chatting to Kirstie, the photographer, and Lia, the journalist, on this photo shoot we discussed school harvest festivals. Apparently canned goods ready to be donated to food banks are "trending" at harvest festivals - a great charitable idea but canned goods rather misses the point of harvesting things to me. Harvest festivals are about the time of food abundance we get now as crops are bought in from the fields - about being in touch with the seasons; how food is produced, stored, shared and celebrated. All those things and, of course, making loaves which look like sheaves of wheat with mice climbing up them. And squashes. Lots of squashes.

But Kirstie, it turns out, isn't at all keen on the eating of squashes, claiming they taste of nothing whilst she does concede they look quite snazzy in an Autumnal picture. So in an attempt to convince her, I have written a recipe designed to make you want to eat those beauties as well as look at them. After they've adorned the harvest table at school, try taking them home and doing this to them. We'll skip over the fact that this recipe is designed to make them taste of mint and feta, rather than of themselves. And don't worry - if you go squash crazy and buy more than you can stomach - if the beauty of these beasts overcomes you and you strip the greengrocer clean of them - you can always spray paint them silver, tie a red bow on top and shove it on the Christmas table when we get there. You can't deny they look good.
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By Mark Fletcher

Squash and Feta Fritters

For the Batter

100g plain flour
Pinch of Salt
2 eggs
200ml semi-skimmed milk

For the Filling

500g squash, grated
125g feta, crumbled
25g mint, chopped
2 shallots, finely diced
1 tbsp sunflower oil or vegetable, plus extra for frying

For the sauce

200g Greek yoghurt
25g mint, chopped
juice 1 lemon
1 clove garlic, crushed.

Make the batter first as it's best left to rest for 30 minutes. Put the flour in a bowl. Whisk the eggs with half of the milk. Make a well in the centre of the flour and pour in the egg / milk mix. With a balloon whisk or fork slowly pull the flour into the egg mix as you whisk so it forms a smooth batter. Add the rest of the milk to thin the batter.

Next make the sauce by simply mixing all the ingredients together.

Finally, add the filling ingredients to the batter and mix through. Heat the oil in a pan over a medium heat until it starts to smoke. Then add three or four table spoons of mix to separate corners or the pan to form the fritters. Fry for 2 minutes then turn and fry for a further 2 minutes. Put the fritters in a low oven to keep warm as your fry the next batch.

The Blog Launch

The Blog Launch

We love what we do at fig1.co.uk and we do what we love. As a small business engaged with finding the best designed unusual and quirky lifestyle goodies we come across all sorts of creative ideas. We have a diverse and raggle taggle bunch of creatives linked to the business, from illustrators to jewellery makers, gardners to cabinet makers, cooks, graphics experts, computer geeks, musicians ... oh, and sometimes we run a shop and internet business.

The shop was always set up to support a local creative community in Bristol, but as the business has grown we have developed links with all sorts of people and want to share some of the best ideas we have come across along the way.

We want this blog to be more than just a list of products we have discovered - we want it to be a collection of ideas.

-Mark Fletcher, Director fig1.co.uk

Roast Winter Squash Salad

At this time of year with the nights drawing rapidly in I find my thoughts turning more and more to comfort food, luckily comfort food for me doesn't need to be unhealthy. I grew up in a family that owned local restaurants and, Mum in particular, was always great at working with whatever was seasonal to create meals and menus. With any meal I always start with the vegetables. Since I work from home a lot of the time, doing marketing for fig1.co.uk, I find recipes like this winter squash one really good: it is the sort of thing which doesn't take too long to prepare (approx 15mins) and which will happily cook itself in the oven while I work.

Ingredients

1 large winter squash
1 bag of shallots
Sprigs of winter herbs such as rosemary and thyme
1 lemon
A handful of pumpkin seeds
Half a pack of feta

Preheat your oven to 180 centigrade / gas mark 4

Cut the squash into 1-2 centimetre thick slices.  Pop in a roasting dish with the lemon cut in half, the shallots peeled and halved if they are large or left whole if not, the olive oil and the herbs, plus a little salt and pepper to season. Toss the ingredients together so the seasoning and oil is on all the vegetables.

Roast for an hour or until the squash is soft. Next pop some pumpkin seeds on top of the dish and up the temperature to 220c or gas mark 6 for 10 minutes  to brown the squash and the seeds.  Once it is out of the oven leave to cool for 10 minutes, then squeeze the lemon over the squash and discard the shells and pull out the biggest lumps of rosemary / thyme stalks.

Crumble over half a pack of feta and serve with some crusty bread.

Vary the recipe as you like - carrots with cumin and feta work well as an alternative. Or mix into cous cous with olives for a salad for your lunch box.