To help us understand the current picture about local food in the Dorchester area, we're running a short and anonymous survey. Can you spare us five minutes?

This is a recipe that the Dorset Echo Saturday Supplement published a couple of years ago. They got it from Upwey Wishing Well Teahouse. We’ve modified it very slightly just to make it simpler - and, believe me, it can’t be simpler. When at our Food Group meetings it lasts about 5 minutes!

You need :-

For the base

6 oz (150g) self raising flour

4 oz (100g) butter or margarine - NOT the lite stuff, but butter is prefered

4 oz (100g) Caster sugar

2 medium or large eggs - depending on how rich you want it

A pinch of salt

A splash of milk.

For the middle

3 cooking apples - peeled, cored and chopped into 1½ cm (ish) chunks

1 teaspoon of cinnamon powder - or not if you prefer.

For the Crumble Top

6 oz (150g) self raising flour

3 oz (75g) butter or margarine. (See note above)

3 oz (75g) Caster sugar

Mix all the base ingredients together in a bowl and beat well adding just enough milk to get a thick consistency. With no milk the mix is just a bit too stiff.

Pour into a lined cake tin of approx 8 inch (20 cm) diameter.

Rub together the Crumble top ingredients until you have a sort of breadcrumb mix, then stop! DO NOT overdo this otherwise the topping will become hard. Try adding a handful of rolled oats for a different texture.

Powder the Apple pieces with the cinnamon then drop the them onto the mix as evenly as you can. You don’t need to press them in.

Sprinkle the crumble mix over the apples as evenly as possible. DO NOT pat down otherwise the topping will become hard. Sprinkle a spoonful of sugar over this.

Place in the middle of a pre-heated oven at Gas mark 4 (that’s about 150 deg. centigrade) for about ½ hour or until cooked. Check by stabbing the middle with a knife. If it comes out clean it’s done. If it has mix residue on it give it another 5-10 minutes and check again - and again - and ……………………………. Until cooked.

Best served warm with ice cream or fresh cream.

You could try ringing the changes. These 3 work “coz we tried ‘em”.

Use wholemeal flour instead of white. Just add the appropriate amount of baking powder.

Throw in a slack handful of raisins with the apples.

Throw in a slack handful of rolled oats in the crumble mix.

Enjoy

The first meeting of the Farm crowd took place last night, with more than twenty people showing up for a pint and a chat about what we might do. While lots of things are still up in the air, one thing was decided very quickly; the social aspect of the project will be crucial, and absolutely central to its success.

With that firmly in mind, we're going to have a picnic event on Sunday 15th August, from 12.30 to 3pm at the site - there'll be some publicity between now and then, but put it in your diary and bring along anyone you can think of who would be interested!

We formed ad hoc groups to think about plans for

• growing areas including raised beds, fruit cage etc
• a wildlife pond
• livestock (chickens, bees, pigs etc)
• structures such as polytunnel, straw bale building
  
• social areas, such as picnic/BBQ zone, kids garden
• drawing up a first draft of the site's PLAN
  

And we identified the need for

• A 'steering group' (small number of people who keep tabs on the project as a whole)
• An official scrounger (one or maybe two people to badger local businesses and organisations for donations, materials, organic waste etc
• A funding finder, who can identify and apply for grants etc as the project develops
• A liason person, who can forge links with other local projects and organisations and act as a point of contact for them (may be part of scrounger job!)

The Next Step

Nobody likes waiting, so we need to get an outline plan done as soon as possible so that we can get the spades out. Next Tuesday (20th) we'll be meeting at the Dorset County Museum at 7pm sharp. The first hour is for the interest groups (the top list) to get together again and come up with a wish list of what they'd like to do, with some idea of the space needed. At the end of that hour a representative* from each group will talk to the planning group, and by 9pm we should have a first list of the elements that the Farm will include.

After the meeting the planning group will spend a couple of weeks (probably) putting a draft plan together - then we'll all get together and argue about it for a bit. Once that's out of the way we can agree a timeline for turning our scrubby field into somthing we can all be proud of!


*Everyone's welcome to stay, of course - the reps thing is just to keep things as short as possible!

7pm Tues 13th July, the Skittle Alley, Borough Arms (Goldies)

It's official! Transition Town Dorchester has secured a first plot of land for the Community Farm project, and the Farm & Garden is ready to move from paper to plot. There was a lot of interest on site at the Open Day, and 13th July will be the event where it all kicks off.

Lots of people will have something to say, and by the end of it there'll be a knot of folk ready to nurse the Farm into being: twelve months from now they'll all be old friends, and the Farm will be in the papers as the summer harvest comes in. There'll be quite a buzz. Why not be part of it?

The land, a two-acre plot at Parkway Farm (to the South of Weymouth College Construction Centre at Poundbury) will be used to establish a community garden and farm for Dorchester residents. The Duchy of Cornwall has been most helpful in making all this possible in a comparatively short time, and has given us some tremendously flexible and sensible guidelines for developing the plans. Making this happen is going to be great fun!

From this...

For more details, mail the project leader Ian at farm@transitiontowndorchester.org.

Nearly a year ago, I wrote a post about how Pat at the wonderful Ourganics in Litton Cheney was having to tackle the Council's Planning Department to get consent to keep doing what she was doing. Well not only was she successful, but now she has permission to change her shed into a multi-purpose barn - which will allow her to plan properly for future years. Pat has a really vital role in opening people's eyes to the possibilities of sustainable living in Dorset - you can read the original post here.

This weekend is probably our last chance to get out and make use of the elderflowers, so here are a couple of easy recipes to whet your appetite. First off, it's my personal favourite - elderflower champagne. This drink is one of the joys of summer, and it's a doddle to make with no special equipment at all. Simply take...

...well, one elderflower tree really. That's a picture of one, you can't miss it. In fact, if you have a sense of smell you can't miss the blossoms either because they have a strong floral scent - I'm tempted to say they smell "green" but shall refrain. Synesthesia is such a personal thing. Anyhoo, you only need 5 or 6 "heads" of flowers to make a gallon of champagne, so what are you waiting for?

Pick nice young flower heads, where the flowers have not yet started to drop petals or turn brown. Don't leave them sitting around for hours, or the smell will change and your poor cat will be thrown out into the garden, accused of incontinence*. You'll get pollen on you, but don't worry. It doesn't stain. Boil a gallon (4.5 litres) of water in a large pan and leave it to cool, then throw in the elderflower heads (having shaken any bugs off them first) and a couple of sliced lemons. Put the lid on, and leave it for a 24 to 36 hours before straining it through a clean cloth or a sieve (if you don't mind a few petals and the occasional thunderbug). Add one and a half pounds (750g) of sugar and two tablespoons of cider vinegar, and stir until all the sugar has dissolved. Pour into bottles that will stand pressure - champagne bottles if you're posh, but to be honest I prefer lemonade bottles.

You're finished with the messy stuff now. Put the tops on to keep fruit flies out, but don't screw them on tight yet because the wild yeasts on the flowers go to work on the sugar - just stand the bottles in a corner and keep an eye on them until they don't seem to be fizzing any more - 7 to 14 days of fermentation depending on the weather. Then screw the lids down, and put them somewhere without expensive carpet (in case they, you know. Explode). Give them another week or two to generate enough gas to carbonate themselves, and you're set - just refrigerate the bottle before you need it, and serve over ice with lemon. The drink is light and green floral, sort of like lemonade but with a beautiful flowery kick to it. Oh, and just a bit alcoholic. Try it once, and I defy you not to make it every year.

I much prefer fizzy drinks bottles for elderflower champagne, because knowing when to screw the top on tightly is a black art. If you get it wrong with a glass bottle with a cork in it, you've got a sticky mess to clean up, possibly with broken glass in it. If you get it wrong with a plastic fizzy bottle, the "crimp" at the bottom pops out and the bottle may fall over. If this happens within the first day or so, you've jumped the gun so you need to let some of the pressure off daily until things slow down a bit. Most forgiving.

The second recipe is Cheryl's - elderflower cordial. A single quantity makes about three litres, enough for four standard (75cl) wine bottles. Screw tops are best. The cordial keeps for four to six weeks in the fridge, but if you freeze it (leave the tops loose and don't fill the bottles right up!) it keeps for a whole year.

Put 30 elderflower heads into a large plastic bowl or bucket, along with 2kg of sugar and 50g citric acid (you can get this from any chemist, or from Face Value in South Street). Cut two lemons in half, juice them, and then throw both the juice and the skins into the bucket with everything else. Pour over two litres of boiling water, stir until all the sugar has dissolved, and then cover lightly with a lid or a clean tea towel.

Leave for three days to infuse, stirring well once a day, and then fish out the fruit and flowers. Pour through a seive (or if you want to be really posh, a straining bag to remove all the odds and sods), and then pour into wine bottles that have been heated up in the oven and then left to cool to sterilize them. And that's it - what, twenty minutes work? And the kitchen smells wonderful afterwards!

If you've got any favourite elderflower recipes, post them - enquiring minds want to know!





*Sorry, Treefrog. I haven't forgotten.