Borscht with No-Dig Gardener Charles Dowding

In this episode of The 5 O' Clock Apron Podcast, Claire cooks with champion gardener Charles Dowding. From a farming family in rural Somerset, Charles’ focus as a gardener and author has always been to grow healthy and health-giving food. Through his teaching on gardening courses around the world and also on his sizeable social media platform, Charles is keen to promote an awareness of nutrition and its links to food production. Charles has accumulated a considerable following for his No – Dig philosophy on soil management and gardening. Cooking with Charles is like visiting Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, with Charles producing delicious, homegrown ingredients to use in the borscht that we make together. With the pot bubbling away on the stove top, Charles and I take a turn around his beautiful garden, I get to meet his worms, check out the shed where he stores a bounty of fruit and veg all winter long, and all the while, as we walk along, we stop and munch on various vegetables from bed to bed. Eat More Soil (a peck in a lifetime for optimum gut health he tells us) is a maxim I take away from my day cooking with this legend of the gardening world. Thank you Charles, I’ll be back in the summer when the borlotti beans you gave me to sow have grown. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Om Podcasten

Chef and food writer Claire Thomson invites you to join her as she steps out of her kitchen to discover what's cooking in the home kitchens of Britain and beyond. Claire is renowned for her authentic take on home cooking and loved for her inspirational and no nonsense approach to food and cookery. In this podcast, Claire is on a mission to discover and cook other people's favourite, tried and tested home recipes.Travelling across the country, each episode drops you into the heart of a new kitchen. Cooking shoulder to shoulder with guests from every profession other than her own, aprons on, ingredients out and pans bubbling. Expect to hear much laughter as together they rummage through cutlery drawers, nose through spice racks and fling open fridge doors, chopping and chatting to get food on the table.Guests for Series 1 include an academic, Ellen Hughes baking her No Recipe Apple Cake, broadcaster Cerys Matthews making a Cawl, No - Dig Gardener Charles Dowding using his home grown beets for a Borscht, comedian Amy Mason whips up a Leek Pasta and the CEO of Childline Rebecca Wilcox cooks Carbonara. With more guests in the pipeline, tuck in for some tasty kitchen companionship. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.