Forage And Feast Course - Harts Barn

This year for Christmas one of my presents from my mum was a days course at Harts Barn Cookery School. 

Amazing cooking facilities!

The course mum had booked was called "forage and feast" and she had booked it for this month because autumn is an abundant time of year, but mainly because she hates wild garlic and thought if we did it in the spring that would feature heavily.



I was really looking forward to this course, it was right up my street and a lovely way to spend the day with mum.

The day was split into two halves. The first where we went to forage the ingredients we'd be using in the cooking in the second half.

I'm terrible with things like this because I can't hide my passion for wild food or just food in general so I hope I wasn't annoying anyone who was on the course with us! The foraging was fun and I learnt a couple of new plants to look out for and teach the children. The foraging took place around the farm where it was based, it's always amazing how much food is about when you're looking for it.

Within an hour or so we had collected a good haul of wild food. Lots of wild greens, some herbs, a few nuts, apples, flowers, berries and hips.

The second part was where we got to turn that haul into some lovely dishes.

To make the feast the wild food is more of an accompaniment, the bulk of the calories would be coming from flour. Yvette (the cookery instructor) had a look at the ingredients and split the tasks to make the feast it between us, drawing recipes from her own knowledge and a few books she had with her.

Mum making flat bread

 Between us we cooked up quite a selection. I made some beautiful pasta with the foraged herbs and greens in the sheets of pasta and some lovely pesto. I don't really make pesto but I think I will be after this, especially as I've just got our first food processor (jumble sale bargain) to go with the "new" kitchen!

Mum cooked some incredible flat breads, a dead simple recipe that I'll be doing again as well, looked great with flecks of nettles and herbs through it. The other people on the course baked (between them) a frittata with nettles and wild greens, a wild green salad, nettle shortbread, nettle scones with a hawthorn berry and rose hip syrup and baked apples.

It all tasted amazing, unfortunately I didn't get a picture of all the food laid out on the table, just my own plate full! Some different flavours in there that we don't normally get to try. I like the fact that some of the stronger flavours can be mellowed by being paired with the milder leaves. The greens and herbs I put in the pesto you wouldn't go mad for separately but mixed together, with cheese, nuts, oil and salt they tasted incredible. Just right to dip into with freshly made flat bread!

A lovely lunch with so much goodness! 

A really enjoyable day, I already do a bit of foraging as it is but I'll try to bring more into the house and use them as ingredients more in my cooking and preserving. It was also a lovely to spend time with mum as well!