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Exactly how adventurous are you feeling? Nature’s Harvest and The Testicle Cookbook might challenge even the most daring diner.

There’s actually quite a few of these in our cupboards. Which is nice.

Yet more recipes for things from the garden.  This time some early beetroot, turned in to some rather tasty beetroot and feta soup.

What on earth do you do with 200 radishes? I now realise that although radishes and lettuces make perfect catch crops planting them willy nilly while waiting for other crops to come up is going to leave you with a glut. Right now I’ve got about 150 left from my original crop of 200. I’m palmed some off to others, I’ve eaten the rest. Neither Claire nor the kids like them. I’m on my own!

Recipes featuring radishes at:

• Vegbox recipes
• Fabulous foods (excuse the pop ups, keep your pop up blocker set to kill)
• UKTV Food
• BBC Food

None of them are exactly inspiring, are they? Here’s to another round of salads!

Oh, bless my poor liberal Guardian reading bleeding heart… Much as I approve of Jamie Oliver’s campaign to improve the lot of our domestic chickens I rather wish it didn’t mean that the supermarkets weren’t permanently sold out of the RSPCA approved chicken that we’ve been buying for the last few years.

Which, I guess, is a lesson in two things – being careful what you wish for and the power of television. Still, it does really gall that we’ve ended up having to buy exactly the chicken we’ve been avoiding for years because of the surge in popularity. Someone somewhere missed a trick – it’s not like Channel 4 haven’t been able to warn producers about the campaigns long in advance and, as Hugh and Jamie have been so eagerly telling us, it only takes 6 weeks to grow a chicken…

I’m not the only one to have noticed, either..

Surely, surely, the point of chillis is the heat?  Apparently not always.  Don’t you dare do this when cooking any of my curries.

My Father’s Olive Oil

Anyone close to my family will know that number one daughter has a very (and I mean very) limited dietary range… Alex Renton of the Observer has a similar problem.

I love Indian Food. Which British male does not, I wonder? Really weird ones, I reckon. Anyway. Like most men in their mid-thirties I have recently realised that I am a phenomenal cook. Who knew? My piece de resistance is indian food. Not only do I pillage at will from Madhur Jaffrey’s excellent Curry Bible but I’ve strayed as far afield as Floyd’s India (try the vindaloo recipe – once) and Hansa’s Gujarati Cookbook (some of the finest vegetarian food you will ever taste).

While Floyd is pragmatically English in his choice of ingredients both Madhur and Hansa use a huge variety of names for the ingredients, many of which are only available from Indian supermarkets (which we don’t have in York, because we don’t look beyond the city walls, thank you /very/ much). It is with this in mind that the Cook’s Thesaurus is absolutely invaluable. It means that you can actually find out what it is that you’re supposed to be buying, and what you can substitute it for if you can’t find it…

Today’s ingredient? From the fabulous Sailu’s Kitchen blog – JAGGERY.

jaggery Pronunciation: JAG-uh-ree

Notes: This is a tan, unrefined sugar that is common in India. It’s made from the sap of palm trees or sugar cane and is much more flavorful than granulated sugar. It’s often sold in solid cakes, but it should crumble when you squeeze it. Look for it in Indian markets.

Substitutes: Mix 1 C dark brown sugar + 2 teaspoons molasses OR palm sugar OR piloncillo OR brown sugar OR maple sugar OR date sugar

My Mum, gawd bless ‘er, hasn’t bought a lot of cookbooks recently. In fact, it’s fair to say, she hasn’t bought any new cookbooks in about 30 years. On the shelves in the kitchen are carefully arranged a set of Associated Book Club Cordon Bleu books (with covers remarkably like Antonia’s Marguerite Patten cards) that are still regularly thumbed. Not for her the delights of Jamie, Nigel or Gordon. Oh no!

She will, then, absolutely love oldcookbooks.com. An almost limitless mine of antique cookbooks.

The covers alone are enough for me, but I imagine the contents are just as delectable. Mmm mmm mmmmm!