Cornish Recipes For Holidays to St Ives

Why eat seasonally?
There’s an abundance of reasons to eat seasonal food, whether you’re enjoying fine dining at a restaurant or looking to get stuck in yourself. Eating seasonally means you are making the most of food that is grown and available at the time you’re eating it. For example, this autumn pumpkins are in season in Cornwall, so we’re going to make a delicious pumpkin soup and pie!

Environmental impact
Watching how our food miles impact the environment is something that has become increasingly more important and present in our thoughts. There is an endless list of things that we can all do to help the environment in our own little way and eating seasonal, local food, that has low mileage is a really great place to start. We all know that travelling on a plane is probably the worst way to get about for the environment and for that reason, many people travel different ways or stay closer to home. Now, imagine the food you’re eating travelling further on a plane for one meal, than you may travel for the whole year! Eating food that can be grown locally saves thousands of food miles.

It’s good for you!
Eating locally grown produce that hasn’t had to withstand days of travel, storage and display means not only do they taste so much better, the quality of the food is better for you. No preservatives and no to little travel trumps both taste and health benefits, so there’s no reason not to try it!

Cost
Eating seasonal food is a great way to become more cost effective. If you’re buying and eating food that is not able to be grown or sourced locally in normal conditions, there will be a huge cost involved. This cost can stem from either growing the produce in an artificial climate or transporting it half way across the world. These costs are reflected in the price and then picked up by us, the consumer. So, this autumn why not swap some imported strawberries for local blackberries? Small changes like this are sure to add up and start making a world of difference.

Inspiration
Picking something to cook everyday can sometimes leave you lacking inspiration and not looking forward to cooking at all! A great way to keep your meal plans exciting and changing throughout the seasons is having a look at what is readily available for you and plan some fun meals around seasonal ingredients.

Supports local business
This isn’t the first time and it certainly won’t be the last that we mention how important it is to support local businesses, especially in a small town such as St Ives. After numerous lockdowns, travel restrictions, limited capacities and the many more obstacles we have all had to overcome, spending your money in a local farm shop as opposed to a huge chain will make a world of difference to someone’s day!

If you’d like to see more about shopping local whilst in Cornwall, take a look at the following guides:

Where to shop when staying in St Ives

There is a special place for food in our hearts for many reasons, not just because we love eating it! These recipes are an autumn favourite. Pumpkins can be locally sourced here in Cornwall and cooking wonderful, warm, winter veggies over the stove on a cold day is something we love to do. These recipes really do hit the mark!

Another reason that we love this pumpkin soup and pumpkin pie recipe so much is because the whole process is fun, easy and a perfect way to enjoy an autumn day. Ever since we were younger, heading to a pumpkin patch to find the best looking pumpkin (not always the biggest!) has been nothing short of fun. It truly brings out the child in everyone and with these recipes, picking and using your own is one of the most important parts of the process.

…Now you’ve got the right pumpkins, we’ll get stuck in…

Ingredients

• 2 Small edible pumpkins
• 1 Carrot
• 1 Celery Stick
• 1 Onion
• 3 gloves of garlic
• 1.25L of vegetable stock
• 1 Chilli
• 2 Tbsp of vegetable oil
• A dash of single Cornish cream to serve
• Salt & pepper to taste

Method

1. Pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees
2. Cut your pumpkins in half and then into wedges and remove seeds
3. Put your pumpkin wedges in a large roasting dish, add a drizzle of oil and season with salt and pepper (mix with with your hands so they’re evenly covered)
4. Roast the pumpkin for 1 hour or until the edges turn brown and start to caramelise, mixing half way through
5. Meanwhile, finely dice your onion, carrot and celery then lightly fry in a large saucepan until they soften
6. Once softened, mince your garlic and chilli and add to the saucepan
7. When your pumpkin is ready, remove from the oven scoop out the flesh from the skins and add to the saucepan
8. Slowly add your stock and blend, you do not need to add all the stock if you enjoy a thicker consistency
9. Season with salt and pepper and add a dash of single cream and teaspoon of chilli flakes to garnish
10. Eat and enjoy!

Confession…we will not be making our own shortcrust pastry, we’re sorry!

Ingredients

• 850g of pumpkin that has been peeled, de-seeded and cubed
• 150g of caster sugar
• 1 tsp of nutmeg
• 1 tsp of cinnamon
• 1 tsp of vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp of salt
• 150ml of milk
• 2 beaten eggs
• 20g melted butter
• 325 g of shortcrust pastry
• Cornish clotted cream

Method

1. Pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees
2. Roll out your pastry out of a floured surface and then line your tin with it
3. Line the pastry with baking parchment and fill with baking beans
4. blind bake your pastry for 15 minutes and leave to partly cool on the side
5. Now for the pumpkin! Peel, de-seed and cut your pumpkin into chunks
6. Add to a pan of boiling water and cook for 15 minutes or until the pumpkin has softened completely
7. In the meantime, heat your oven up to 210 degrees
8. When your pumpkin is cooked, drain it and leave on the side to cool (don’t rush this part!)
9. Once cooled, push your pumpkin through a sieve to leave a smoother pumpkin puree
10. Add your caster sugar, vanilla, nutmeg, two beaten eggs, melted butter, salt, milk and your cinnamon to the pumpkin (that was a mouthful!)
11. Mix thoroughly until nice and smooth and pour into your pastry case
12. Bake for 10 minutes of 210 degrees then reduce to 180 degrees for 40 minutes
13. Take out of the oven and leave to cool (if you can!) and serve with a big scoop of Cornish Clotted Cream!

Where to source your local ingredients?

We’ve already established where to get you’re wonderfully Cornish pumpkin but we have another few hints and tips as to where to find your some more local ingredients for your pumpkin pie!

Milk – We know it is just a dash of milk used in this recipe but we would definitely encourage you to use Trink milk if you can. Trink Farm sits just between St Ives and Penzance and not only does this mean low food miles (if you’re in Cornwall), it tastes amazing and has won several ‘Taste of the West’ awards.

Butter – Trewithian Farm butter is a delicious Cornish butter that you can purchase locally in Cornish supermarkets or even better, your closest farm shop!

Eggs – St Ewe eggs are awarding winning, free-range eggs from here in Cornwall. The colour of their yolks are like nothing you would have seen before.

Clotted cream – For clotted cream, it has to be ‘Roddas Clotted Cream’. Roddas Clotted Cream has been a staple addition for Cornish cream teas and puddings for over 100 years and they certainly know what they’re doing! A spoonful of Roddas on any pudding, Cornish or not, is the only option for us.

Salt – Yes, you heard it right, we can even recommend Cornish sea salt from The Cornish Sea Salt Company. This company harvests salt from open waters that live alongside The Lizard and this area of natural outstanding beauty provides the unique high mineral content and taste.

Vegetables – When in Cornwall, you will be surrounded by country roads that host a great array of authentic Cornish farm shops. If you’re not sure what’s in season, whatever vegetable wonders are on display in the local farm shop is sure to tell you. By visiting a local farm shop you can always guarantee you’ll be purchasing the best local veg.

Fruit – Trevaskis Farm have an abundance of poly tunnels that are home to seasonal fruit throughout the year. In the height of summer you’ll find ripe strawberries and in the autumn there’s an abundance of the largest and sweetest blackberries you would have ever laid eyes on! The ‘pick your own’  poly tunnels are open to visitors all year round so wrap up warm, get your wellies on and enjoy gathering the fruit yourself. However, if you don’t want to face the elements, you can visit their farm shop too!

• 60ml of a fruity Tarquin’s gin of your choice, ours is either blackberry or rhubarb and raspberry
• 30ml lemon juice
• 30ml simple syrup
• Candied lemon peel (garnish)
• Sprig of rosemary (garnish)

1. Prepare your shaker with ice
2. Add to shaker 50ml of your gin, simple syrup and lemon juice to shaker
3. Shake HARD for 20 minutes
4. Prepare a short glass with crushed ice
5. Strain your mix over the glass
6. Drizzle your remaining 10ml of gin over the top
7. Add your lemon peel and rosemary garnish
8. Enjoy!

When staying in your holiday cottage in St Ives or one of our surrounding properties, you’ll be kitted out with all you need to cook up a few Cornish storms of your own.

Each of our cottages comes with a ‘fully equipped’ kitchen. Now, we have put fully equipped in quotation marks here as ‘fully equipped’ can sometimes be quite a subjective term from person to person, whether you’re an amateur cook to aspiring chef. However, in all of our properties you’ll have all of the necessities such as cutlery, plates, pots, pans, kitchen utensils, chopping boards… the list goes on, but we can assure you, you’ll have all your basic needs met.

If you’re looking for a more specific kitchen implement such as fish tweezers, a hand blender, milk frother or perhaps something even more obscure, all you need to do is get in touch with a member of the team and we can gladly check for you. Our contact details can be found below:

Email – holidays@orangeroofs.co.uk
Phone – 01736 806100

We’d love to see your takes on these recipes!

Whether you are looking to re-create these recipes whilst staying in one of our luxury cottages or back at home, we’d love to see what you make. You can find us on Facebook (Orange Roofs) and Instagram (orange_roofs). The best picture can be added on to our feed and will feature on our Instagram website page, take a look here!