Today has dawned sunny AND warm, and as it’s been so cold of late – it’s the perfect opportunity to find a nice spot and have a picnic. Our family loves picnics and has been known, very optimistically,  to get out the cool bag in March. We find adding a flask of hot soup makes all the difference when you can see your breath.

Our picnics tend to be very simple affairs and our two young ones  like rather pedestrian sandwiches of the plain cheese/plain ham variety but they are also rather partial to cream cheese blended with a little shredded Clare Island smoked salmon. Finely shredding the salmon and blending it with the cream cheese makes a little go a long way – delicious for a special occasion.  For the adults in the party – a favourite of ours is old-school egg mayonnaise with watercress or rocket on wholemeal rolls.

To accompany the sandwiches a tub of crudites (carrot, cucumber, pepper and cherry tomatoes) to drip into some fantastic San Amrovsia Humous is hard to beat – it is probably the best humous in the world. A few crisps/breadsticks make for good dipping too or a falafel or two!

Some juice or water to drink, then onto chopped up fresh fruit – I can’t wait for summer fruit to arrive in all its fragrant glory – some strawberries, luscious peaches, cherries – whatever is at its best.

Finally, our picnics wouldn’t be complete with a little sweet treat – something home-made like refrigerator cake or muffins or banana bread. Then hopefully the little ones will run off and explore a little whilst we lie back and relax in the sun. (the reality is, they then spend the next half an hour climbing on top of us before we pack up and head off on a post-lunch stroll!).

Quick to assemble and easy to eat! Click here for some picnic ideas available online at Garlands Organic.

We’ve been selling raw cacao nibs for some time now but a wide range of raw products are growing in popularity as witnessed by the sheer number of raw product launches at the recent Natural and Organic Show.  In this piece we are focusing on raw chocolate but we’ll be adding a number of other snack products to our range in the near future.

What is raw chocolate?  It’s the bean, or nib of the bean, in its natural state – not cooked, over-processed or mixed with a vat of cheap filler ingredients. It’s also known as cacao and is being fused with coconut butter or agave syrup, as well as berries and nuts, to create confectionary. No vegetable fat, milk or sugar goes near it and, importantly, it isn’t heated above 42C, the point at which nutrients start to die.

Indeed, cacao is a very complex foodstuff with more than 300 chemically identifiable compounds. It is said to be significantly richer in antioxidant flavanols than green tea, red wine or acai, and contains protein, fats, calcium, iron, carotene, thiamine and riboflavine.

As with many of the  ’superfoods’, it doesn’t come cheap but a little goes a long way! We’ll be adding more raw products to our range but we have some fantastic bars to kick off with.

Click here to buy online at Garlands Organic.

For some time now we’ve been searching for some new organic juices for our chilled section and at last we’ve found something that fits the bill.

RDA Organic have launched Pip – a new organic juice available in the following varieties : Cloudy Apple, Apple and Mango and Apple and Cherry.  We put the following questions to Lauren Baker, of RDA Organic, who we met at the recent Natural and Organic show (pictured below with the long hair and jolly smile).

Questions:

1) How did Pip come about?

We wanted to launch a great-tasting, quality organic juice range, but with an affordable price tag. Our mission is to make organic available to everyone, get more people eating organic, and lose the stigma that organic produce always has to be more expensive.

2) Where do you source your organic fruit for Pip?

Pip apples (and the cherries from our Apple with Cherry flavour) are all grown on the German side of Lake Constance which also has Austrian and Swiss shorelines. This land is one of the biggest areas for cultivation of pomaceous fruit in Germany, mainly of the apple variety. Aside to this it has also long been an area for practising organic farming techniques and as recent as 2006, the number of registered organic farmers in this area far outweighed the rest of Germany.  Our  Alphonso mangoes are from India , often known as the King of Mangos for their excellent quality, depth of colour and intense flavour. (Definitely the Garlands favourite variety of mango, by a long way)

3) What’s the trickiest thing about producing good quality juice?

As a fresh range of products we are under constant pressure to retain the great tasting freshness of pure organic fruit, right from farmer to end consumer. It means huge demands on our supply chain and detailed chilled logistics. We are not able to put stock in the back room for a couple of months which means little room for mistakes.  We think the award winning quality and taste of our range speaks for itself so we reckon it’s all worth it in the end!

4) What attracted you to working for a juice company?

I have always been really passionate about health and wellbeing, and about the different properties and functionality of fruit and vegetables. I spent many hours in my kitchen making my own healthy juices and smoothies, so what better place to work than where I can help spread the love for tasty organic juices and smoothies to more people !

5) What’s the best thing about working for RDA?

We are a small team, and so work very closely together and get involved in lots of different areas of the business. Everyone is very helpful and passionate about what they do.

6) If you were stranded on a desert island, what three things could you not be without?

My ipod, an ice cream van and …sun cream (this one is boring but essential for a fair skinned English girl in the desert, my fun would be ruined without it!)

7) What’s the best compliment you’ve received for your juice?

“Wow, this is the BEST juice I have EVER tasted, can I have these everyday please mum!!!” (Harry, aged 6)

Thank you to Lauren, for answering our questions!    Click here to buy Pip Juices online at Garlands Organic.

We often have bananas that are too ripe to sell and too many to eat, so last week I offered some to our neighbour. She very kindly returned the favour by dropping off a few slices of fabulous banana bread.  I was so impressed, I asked for the recipe – it is from the Hummingbird Bakery cook book and I’ve adapted it slightly, so here’s my version below. I think the dark sugar and the ginger produce the most delicious moreish flavour, and it tastes even better after a day or two especially when spread with a little butter.

So don’t bin those sad browning bananas that are often found languishing in the fruit bowl, give this recipe a go.

Banana Bread

Makes 8-10 slices

Ingredients

170g golden caster sugar

100g dark muscovado sugar

2 eggs

200g peeled bananas, mashed

280g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

140g unsalted butter, melted

A 23 x 13-cm loaf tin, greased and dusted with flour

Preheat the oven to 170oC/325oF/Gas 3.

Put the sugar and eggs in a freestanding electric mixer with a paddle attachment and beat until well incorporated. Beat in the mashed bananas.

Add the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon and ginger to the sugar mixture. Mix it thoroughly until all the dry ingredients have been incorporated into the egg mixture. Pour in the melted butter and beat until all the ingredients are well mixed.

Pour the mixture into the prepared loaf tin and smooth over with a palette knife. Bake in the preheated oven for about 1 hour, or until firm to the touch and a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Leave the cake to cool slightly in the tin before turning out onto a wire cooling rack to cool completely.

Research reveals that drinking a glass of cherry juice a day offers the same health benefits as eating 23 portions of fruit and vegetables and that a 250ml glass  of the juice contained more antioxidants than five portions of peas, tomatoes, water melon, carrots and banana.

Previous research has shown that antioxidants – which target harmful molecules in the body called free radicals – can help prevent cancer, heart disease and stroke. Cherries also contain melatonin that can regulate sleep, reduce jet lag, prevent memory loss and even delay the ageing process.

The research, led by Dr Robert Verkerk and published in Nutritional Practitioner, compared the Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity – the levels of anti-oxidant in food – of 25ml of diluted cherry juice concentrate with various food and vegetables.

It found the ORAC level of cherry juice was 8,260, compared with 1,790 for fruit and vegetables.

Patrick Holford, a leading nutritionist, said: ‘A recent BBC2 Horizon documentary showed the longest-living people in the world all achieve a very high intake of antioxidants, measured as over 6,000 ORAC units a day.’

However, the study also revealed eating cherries may not offer the same protection. The scientists tested juice made from the Montmorency tart cherry, which is grown in the U.S.

To buy Cherrygood Super Cherry Juice Drink online at Garlands Organic, click here

Have you ever bought a pack of peeled potato, chopped carrot or diced onion?  Recent statistics suggest more of us are buying ready-to-use fruit and vegetables.

According to Waitrose,  which has a varied range of ‘lazy food’, there has been a 17% rise in sales across all prepared vegetables. Specifically, the upmarket chain has experienced a 40% rise in sales of peeled potatoes compared with a year ago. Diced onions are up 14%. and butternut squash/sweet potato mix has seen a 29% increase.

Of course, it’s not all about laziness, some people live alone and don’t want to eat their way through a whole butternut squash, some older people have arthritis and can no longer wield a potato peeler without pain but on the whole, the typical purchaser is a young or middle-aged professional looking to save some time.

Arguments against prepared food include the additional packaging required, the deterioration in freshness and possibly vitamin content and a  further undermining of awareness about food – where it comes from and how it is produced.

For those that love food and cooking, part of the enjoyment lies in preparing raw ingredients and creating the end product from scratch.

It’s ironic that whilst many of us are happy to spend an hour watching Jamie/Nigella/Delia trying their hardest to demystify cooking and show how quick and easy it can be to produce tasty, nutritious and good value dishes, some of us still can’t find the time to peel an onion.

Read more at the BBC  click here.

You may have noticed Rainbow Carrots in the shops and wondered if they were some new genetically-modified aberration. We love their vibrant deep purple, red, orange, yellow and even white hues and their fantastic flavour, but did you know that all carrots once looked like this?

The reason why most of the carrots we buy today are orange dates from the 17th century, when the House of Orange decided that the orange carrot was a great emblem and symbolic of the struggle for Dutch independence – and it became the carrot of choice amongst Dutch breeders.

As a result orange carrots ended up dominating in West, but other colours are still popular in other parts of the world.

Some rainbow carrot facts:

- The yellow ones get their colour from the pigment xanthophylls, found in spinach, which has been linked with good eye health.

- Varieties of red carrots contain lycopene, a pigment also found in tomatoes. This acts as a powerful antioxidant and is particularly effective against prostate cancer. In older people, lycopene could reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke.

- The purple vegetables owe their colour to anthocyanins, a pigment rich in vitamins C and E that feed the brain and are a powerful antioxidant. They have already been sold in Britain.

-White carrots lack pigment but contain other health-promoting substances called phytochemicals, which can reduce the risk of prostate cancer.

- Orange carrots get their colour from beta carotene with some alpha carotene, a pigment the body turns into vitamin A. This is essential for healthy skin and vision in dim light. They also contain tiny traces of xanthophylls, lycopene and anthocyanins.

So don’t be suspicious, give these lovely colourful carrots a try, they truly are a treat.

Fairtrade Fortnight begins today and this year the Fairtrade Foundation have come up with a novel yet very simple way to get involved.

 All we need to do is swap a conventional product for a fairtrade one and since the range is now fairly broad from nuts and grains, through tea and coffee to biscuits and fruit – it’s a really easy way to make a difference to the lives of people living in some of the poorest countries in the world.

A huge two billion people, a third of the world’s population, survive on just $2 a day. By choosing fairtrade products we can make a difference,  through ensuring farmers and producers in developing countries get a fair price for what they produce.

The aim is to achieve one million and one swaps during the next fortnight, so make the right choice and register your swap at http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/thebigswap/.

Click here to see some of the wonderful fairtrade products available to buy online at Garlands Organic.

Pancake Day is Tuesday 16th February – just a few days to go, but I think pancakes should be eaten more often.  The light American style pancakes are perfect for breakfast with blueberries or crispy bacon and maple syrup. For a more substantial meal,  the traditional English pancake can be filled with all sorts of delicious savoury or sweet  fillings. It’s also hard to beat a simple squeeze of fresh lemon and sprinkle of sugar.

Here is my favourite traditional pancake recipe which never lets me down, although I’ve never worked out why the first pancake in any batch (regardless of the recipe) just never turns out right?  Naturally, I think the best-tasting results come from using organic ingredients, in particular the eggs and milk.

In a large bowl, whisk together two medium eggs, 450ml of milk and 75g of melted butter. Whisk in 125g plain flour and when that has been well incorporated, add another 125g and whisk until completely smooth. (For savoury pancakes add 1 teaspoon salt, for sweet pancakes you can add some sugar, but I don’t bother as the sweet fillings tend to be sweet enough)

To lightly oil a frying pan, I dip some kitchen towel in a little melted butter and just wipe this around the pan (ideally 16cm diameter). Once the pan is hot, I tend to turn the heat down to a medium heat and add one ladle (about 2 tablespoons) of mixture, swirling  the batter round to coast the base evenly.

Cook for 40-50 seconds until golden – check by lifting an edge with a palette knife and then flip it over and cook the other side for 10-15 seconds. Pancakes are best eaten straight away, so rather than try and keep them warm I serve each pancake as it’s done to whoever is most in need!  This mixture makes about 15 pancakes.