Lorna of ‘Love Food’s’ Meringue Ghosts with a Blood Dip Recipe

Friday, 1:00 pm, October 30th, 2009

This week I want to introduce a truly amazing woman Lorna Knapman and her ‘Love Food’ festival. I came to hear about Lorna through a mutual friend and we’ve been following each other’s daily food musings since on our blogs and tweets. I was thrilled when Lorna agreed to provide us a recipe. With her son Ned [aged 4 ¾] they have devised a timely recipe for Halloween treats this weekend.

However I couldn’t just post the recipe without accompanying it with Lorna’s inspiring story of how her love of food came about and how she has turned this desire into something that many other people can now benefit from. Here is Lorna’s ‘story’ in her own words. I’m sure you will agree she should be very proud of herself ….

- Louise

I grew up loving food. I was very fortunate to have two grandmothers who lived on farms and ran traditional farmhouse kitchens. Feeding very large families they both were experts in traditional farmhouse cooking. The treats cooked up for us included huge ‘fry ups’ in the morning complete with crispy bacon from the farm, piles of hot buttered toast with butter [freshly made from Jersey milk]. Then there were the casseroles, stew and dumplings, huge roast dinners, lemon meringue pies, afternoon tea, drop scones … the list goes on.

Freshly picked vegetables and fruits from the gardens provided much of the produce as well as meat and eggs from the farm. The meals would be enjoyed sitting around a huge table with the whole family where we would talk, laugh and discuss the day’s work.

My primary school it seems were ahead of their time – or did we just forget for a while? There was a massive focus on nutrition and I knew the meaning of a healthy balanced diet from a very young age.

Although I had always hung onto my love of food it was not until my son Ned was born in 2005 I noticed the lack in community for the first time and began worrying about the sort of future my son was going to have living in Bristol. I live in a small house as a single parent, and I really started to yearn for the same family life I had enjoyed as a child.

It seemed tricky to recreate but I started by planting up my garden watched by a very young Ned and grew flowers and vegetables in the borders, he thrived outdoors watching me busily creating a beautiful display for him. My interest in food and nutrition had come alive again during my pregnancy where I was determined to eat as well as I possibly could for my unborn child. This continued throughout breastfeeding and then weaning – what fun! I made all of his food myself and we had a great time creating different colour purees, which he devoured.

I then started noticing the lack of good food, of basic simple nutritious food available particularly for children. In a world full of fast food it seemed impossible to buy anything ‘good’ for Ned whilst we were out and about. This discovery, with the help of The Princes Trust led to Bitesize – ‘Good Food For small people’. I served up fresh, tasty and fun food for children of all ages at festivals and events in the West country, it was a very well received idea which led onto me creating a festival Bitesize could really feel at home at and from this Love Food was born. A festival, which aims to bring the countryside to town.

The first Love Food took place on May 11^th 2008 and since then has gone from strength to strength, with a total of 8 festivals to date with more than 1,000 people attending each one, my dream has become a reality. Crowds of local people buying good quality food directly form the farmers and producers, sitting in the colourful picnic area on straw bales enjoying the music and a spot of lunch whilst getting to know other people from the community.

Children take part in workshops, learning to cook, grow vegetables and make crafts.

In November last year I won The Princes Trust Enterprise of the Year Award, other highlights have included cooking for and speaking with Rick Stein and recently meeting the Prime Minister at No. 10!

I intend to continue my work and take the festival to communities all over the country, I believe that food is the basis of everything, from shopping for or indeed growing it, through to cooking, understanding the goodness it provides, and how and with whom we eat. If everyone started buying locally, cooking from scratch and then eating together with friends and families, imagine the impact that would have on the economy, the environment and on society.

It really is so crucial that we make these changes in our everyday life and the time is definitely now, there is a lot of work to do I really believe that we can make a difference.

Spread the Love! Happy Halloween. Lorna x

Lorna’s Meringue Ghosts with ‘Blood’ Dip

Ingredients

…for the Meringue Ghosts

4 organic free range Egg Whites
225g Fairtrade Caster Sugar
Chocolate drops (eyes)

…for the ‘blood’

English Raspberries – hopefully frozen from the summer – it makes great sense to buy these goodies when they are in season and then freeze them in batches for the winter months.
Sprinkling of sugar
Scales
Mixing bowl
Whisk
Greaseproof Paper
Baking tray

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 110 degrees centigrade or gas mark 1/4

2. Separate the egg yolks from the whites. Use the egg shells, pour the yolk from one to the other letting the white run into the mixing bowl. Put the yolks into a separate bowl to use later.

3. When you have all 4 of the whites in your mixing bowl, start whisking, you need to keep going until they turn into stiff peaks.

4. Then add your sugar, whisk this until the mixture becomes glossy and stiff

5. Using a teaspoon and a clean finger shape the mixture into ghost shapes

6. Pop them into the oven

Now for the blood!

7. Pop the Raspberries into a heavy based saucepan with a sprinkling of sugar and heat on a low heat until they become gooey, give them a good stir, when they have turned into a sauce like consistency remove them from the heat, allow to cool and then blitz them with a hand blender.

To check if the meringues are done (about an hour) remove them from the oven and allow to cool for a couple of minutes. Gently lift one from the paper and pat the bottom of it. If it is done it will sound hollow. They should be crisp to the touch and slightly gooey in the middle. The degree of gooiness can be altered by slightly less or more time in the oven… for little fingers they should be a little drier to avoid them collapsing when grabbed!

Allow them to cool and then finish them by adding the chocolate drop eyes, these can be secured with a drop of melted chocolate.

Serve with the blood dip, and enjoy. Yummy x