This recipe is the fourth in a series of four that was written in partnership with Wyevale Garden Centres who sponsored this post. (Read more about sponsored content on Eat Like a Girl). See my first post on How to Plant an Edible Garden, my second post on Courgette Flowers and a Recipe for Courgette Flower Egg Menemen and my third post on growing aubergines and a lovely recipe for Japanese favourite BBQ Nasu Dengaku.

So it is hard to get your paws on edible flowers, isn’t it? Not so. Did you know that cauliflower is a flower (well, that makes sense, look at the name), and broccoli too? Edible flowers are just for decoration also, right? Not so. The best of them have excellent flavour and where you will find them will surprise you too.

This post was sponsored by The Ritz-Carlton, and as always was authored by me. A little window into the background of what I do, and what drives me. Enjoy!

Thinking back to my old desk job days, where I knew I was in the wrong job and ached for change, I was always frustrated. I had lots of ambition but nowhere to put it. I felt misdirected, everything felt disconnected, especially me.

On then to Toledo. A walled city surrounded by a rushing river. It looks very magical, and it is easy to imagine the rich history that Toledo has. There is much to see, Toledo is a rare place where historically Christians, Muslims and Jews lived in harmony alongside each other. There are ancient mosques, synagogues and an impressive gothic cathedral too.

Can you believe that summer is almost over? My garden is wild and enthusiastic, my small harvest looms, and my tomatoes are finally turning a glorious red. Autumn is almost here. The sun is bolstered with crisp air, and the evenings are drawing in. The leaves have started to fall off the trees in my garden.

This recipe is the third in a series of four that was written in partnership with Wyevale Garden Centres who sponsored this post. (Read more about sponsored content on Eat Like a Girl). See my first post on How to Plant an Edible Garden and my second post on Courgette Flowers and a Recipe for Courgette Flower Egg Menemen.

How does my garden grow? Very well. Too well, sometimes. Some plants just don’t know when to reign it in. YES: I am looking at you sprawling tomatoes, and why all so green?! I see one that looks like it might blush soon.

Menorca is a small island with a big heart. Not just a big heart but a serious heritage. It is clearly Spanish but all a little different, from the stone house structures that look prehistoric and like the many UNESCO heritage sites scattered throughout the island. These are relatively modern and are used to house animals in farm fields. They add to Menorca’s sense of wildness and natural beauty. There is little modern here to interfere. 

Some things are just good. Some surprising things. Cucumber has never been a veg that I have rushed out to buy. It has its place in pickles and raita and other lovely things, but cucumber has never been a shining star for me. Cucumber has been a soothing calming addition to other dishes.

This post is a carefully selected sponsored post sponsored by Craved London, who asked me if I would explore their offering and share the results with you. I loved it. Craft have gathered the best craft food and drink produce from the UK and will deliver it to your door. Would you like 20% off with which to try it? Just use the code LOVENIAMH on the Craved website – http://cravedlondon.com/ – and enjoy! 

I love craft. From cooking to pom poms, my life has been steeped in it since I was a small girl. It is that passion for craft that led me to start this blog. Craft cooking and shining a light on the most interesting people, places and producers that I find.

Courgette flowers continue to be a joy. Cheering my mornings with their generous wide open petals reaching for the sky with happy abundance. Greeting bees and then once the bees have had their turn, they come into the kitchen for me. Such a versatile ingredient, cooked until wilted just so and still retaining texture, they taste a little of courgette and mostly of themselves.

La Mancha will surprise you. Inland and south of Madrid, La Mancha is home to fields of bright saffron crocuses (and their gorgeous stamens, aka saffron), windmills atop hills surfing waves of wild rocket, each tender stem reaching for the stars and proud with rocket flowers. There are beautiful rural towns with ancient buildings and theatres. Country squares full of locals dancing, painting, enjoying local festivals. Don Quixote was set here and you can see it everywhere. 

Gojuchang Meatballs on Tortillas with a Fried Egg. Because, JOY. 

Fusion for many is a dirty word, because it is often done so badly. But most days are a fusion day for me as I combine my favourite ingredients to make breakfast, brunch or dinner. 

This recipe is the second in a series of four that was written in partnership with Wyevale Garden Centres who sponsored this post. Come back for more detail on planting courgettes, an edible flower garden and a herb garden, with lots of recipes too. I am posting daily updates on snapchat also, where you can also follow Game of Slugs (aka SLUG WARS). All editorial is mine, as always. (Read more about sponsored content on Eat Like a Girl). If you are just starting, see my first post on How to Plant an Edible Garden.

Courgette flowers were a key reason for my fierce desire to plant a kitchen garden. They were always so unavailable and expensive, when I found them they would never last very long. Many times I would trundle home from the farmers market with a tiny expensive clutch of them, only to discover them wilted and sad the next day when I went to cook with them. 

Galicia loves seafood. The scallop shell is an emblem of their pilgrim walk, the camino de Santiago. I saw a church covered entirely (and beautifully) in scallop shells and many pilgrims with a scallop shell painted with the camino emblem attached to their backpack or their wooden walking stick.

Razor clams are a favourite, as are clams, more pedestrian (but still fabulous) mussels and gnarly percebes, plucked from the cliffs before the waves crash in by expert brave fishermen. If you have been to Spain you will have noticed the percebes, it is hard to imagine that you can eat them that first time they take you by surprise. Black and pointed, looking like a velociraptor talon, not something tender, saline and delicious. Harvested in Galicia and popular in Spain, they are cooked by plunging them briefly in boiling salted water for just a couple of minutes. Pinching them to remove the outer leathery carcass reveals a delicate addictive interior, juicy and bright.

There is a tired and jaded notion that cooking over fire is the preserve of the male, and that women are neither interested in or inclined to BBQ, preferring instead to be at the stove indoors. This is nonsense, of course. There are people who love to cook, indoors and out, and it is in no way gender specific. Why are people so obsessed with gender when it comes to cooking, anyway? We all eat, it is the one thing that unites us, and so many of us love to cook too. Why be divisive?*

When I was in Dublin last week I cooked with Lily Ramirez-Foran. I have known Lily for years online and met her at Electric Picnic, an Irish music festival with a fun food stage, the Theatre of Food. Lily is Mexican, from Monterrey, but based in Ireland with her Irish husband whom she met in Japan. Ireland is very lucky to have her and her gorgeous Mexican shop and kitchen Picado, in Portabello in Dublin. It is a joyful place where Lily serves the best Mexican produce (food and other bits like handmade Mexican pinatas!). She also has supper clubs and cooking classes there on a weekly basis. 

My friend Luiz is a terrific cook. He is also a blogger and food writer, that is how we are friends. He runs a wonderful supper club in his house (one of the best in London and in the most beautiful space). Last year his first cookbook was published, on Nikkei cuisine called Nikkei, Japanese Food the South American Way.

I remember when I first had prawn toast from a Chinese takeaway and I was mesmerised. Just how do they make this, and how do they get the prawns to stick to the toast? Very much a guilty pleasure, I can’t actually order it as the supermarket bread used turns my guts into knots (real bread is no problem, as for most!), so I turned to my stove as I always do, and figured it out. 

I try with bananas. I buy them and then I leave them there and next thing I know they are brown. Very brown. Almost oozing out of the skin. Collapsing with sweetness. Bananas in the supermarket are never ripe, so you have to wait and then, kabam, too late they are gone! No longer great for eating but nectar sweet and perfect for pancakes and baking.

After my breakfast with Guy Savoy, I made my way to the 14th arrondissement to meet Didier Lavry at Le Petit Mitron, a baker who had just been awarded the second prize in le Meilleur Croissant au Beurre d’Isigny AOP. That would be the best croissant competition in France, Paris section, then. Don’t you just love France for that?

As I walked up the stairs of the Monnaie de Paris on a quiet Friday morning, I wondered what awaited me at the top. I was in France’s oldest institution, the national mint in the centre of Paris overlooking the tree lined Seine. It was early, and the staff at the door were surprised to see me arrive as they don’t open until lunchtime. I am here to have breakfast with Guy Savoy, I announced gently in clumsy French, with some trepidation.