A look back on January and what's coming up next

Is it just me or did January go really quickly? 

I thought I'd have a look back at what All Food Matters has been up to!

Veg of the Week

I've been keeping going with the #vegoftheweek promoting a different seasonal vegetable each week to promote seasonal vegetables and encourage everyone to cook with them more.Check my Pinterest account for lots of seasonal recipes.

First up was the potato. I've been trying to get out to local farm shops this month and I got mine from Maydown Farm shop just a  short drive away. They made lovely mash but I also made a 'cheesy' sauce with them for a vegan macaroni cheese and made potato cakes stuffed with mushrooms and spinach.

Next up was Kale..already a favourite in our house. We had it plain steamed, cooked in a creamy sauce with muchrooms and made kale crisps..the second attempt were less burnt!

The third veg of the week for January was the carrot! We made carrot cake overnight oats which were lovely. Then we made carrot cake bites and finally roasted carrot and chickpea soup.

Finally this week..the swede.This has been my least favourite. I do like Swede but there were very few inspiring recipes and I find it such a pain in the bum to chop it up! Nevertheless We had it mashed with carrot for our vegan Burns Night supper and made swede gnocchi.The last bit of I spiralised and added to a salad.

It was also my birthday and I had a complete day off cooking altogether!

Shopping Local

I took a drive down to Letterkenny -about half an hour away-to the Artisan market there where I picked up my swede from Ballyholey Farm shop and some smoked sea salt from Jordan's Atlantic Foods. It s a good spot but it was a bit quiet-probably to be expected in January. I also took a run down to the market that happens every Saturday at Harry's Restaurant at Bridgend. Unfortunately there were no veggies at all but I did pick up some lovely locally produced sourdough bread from Scarpedillo &Co.

So my visits out had varying success in terms of buying more local veggies. I'll be continuing to get out and about and see where else I can buy them but it got me thinking about how we can buy local but from the supermarkets if we can't always get to farm shops. So I'm doing a bit of an experiment. This week I did my shopping as normal and then looked at where my fruit and veg came from.I didn't do too well on buying local-only my potatoes and mushrooms were Northern Irish. the worst offenders were plums from South Africa and Bananas from Colombia! Next week when I go shopping I'm going to try and increase the local produce in my trolley. I'm hoping some of you will join in!

Danielle x