Grow, cook, win

This lovely competition idea on wegrowourown.co.uk requires entrants to produce a dish from seasonal ingredients then submit photographic proof of their efforts along with the recipe, in order to win as-yet-unnamed food prizes. If I wasn’t travelling, I’d so be entering because it’s such a lovely idea and free food is always good, but sadly there are only two days left to get cooking so I won’t be able to this time.

Should you want to enter, this month’s options include rhubarb, asparagus, spring onions, swiss chard or purple sprouting. One of my favourite accidental creations was Rhubarb and Cointreau Eton Mess. I intended to make rhubarb mousse but it didn’t set in time, so I added grated orange zest and Cointreau to the cream, sugar and poached rhubarb mix, then folded in about three crumbled M&S meringues that I found in the back of the cupboard. I’d strongly recommend trying it if you’re a rhubarb fan because it’s lovely (and no doubt even lovelier if you make your own extra-gooey meringues). The leftovers  – there were only two of us and it was a huge bowl – were turned into ice-cream by chucking it in the freezer and beating it every so often until it was the right texture, and tasted even nicer than the Eton Mess. (Feel free to make either of these dishes, photograph them and win un-named prizes in the wegrowourown.co.uk competition  should you have time to enter the comp and be short of inspiration yourself. Recipes are for sharing, after all.)