Photography: © Anna Rubingh Recipes: Philippa Vine
The rain is pouring down as I drive the small Sussex country lanes to Philippa's farmhouse kitchen. In her Bluebell Farmhouse kitchen on their family farm cook and recipe writer Phillipa Vine runs her Bluebell Farmhouse Kitchen. The fire in the cook stove warms the cosy kitchen, build in the farm's old granary.
With autumn in full swing, it's time to cook up an autumnal feast in Philippa's kitchen. She slow cooks local beef into a hearty stew. Part of that home-cooked stew she turns into a comforting slow-cooked beef pie. Meanwhile, she roasts a whole pumpkin in the oven of one of the ranges in her kitchen. "Look how soft and delicious that flesh has become! You can turn that into a soup or a pumpkin mash, fantastic! Or put in some cheese in the whole roasted pumpkin and just scoop it out with some friends or family around the table, nothing better than sharing food."
Pumpkin and rose hips that she picked from the hedges the day before, she turns into a savoury upside-down tart. There are stews with home grown beans, dried for use in autumn and winter.
"And there is an apple and blackberry bakewell tart." She uses frozen blackberries she had picked from the hedges around their fields earlier that autumn, the apples came from a friends' orchard. "I want to cook as locally as possible," she explains, "and of course I use a lot of produce from the farm and neighbouring farms. The mutton comes from our own farm and I use vegetables from our own kitchen garden." The marmalade used for the steamed pudding is homemade by Michael, Philippa’s husband, using an old family recipe.
When all the cookery is done, we sit down and eat and talk while outside the rain is pouring down. The fire burning in the Esse keeps the kitchen nice and warm.
For this series Philippa cooked up her favourite seasonal warming dishes.
