Raising Children

Sweet Chestnuts foraging

Sweet chestnuts with prickly cases and tails

October is the perfect time to forage for sweet chestnut in your local woods. They are tasty for savory or sweet dishes and highly nutritious for growing children. 

Collecting Sweet Chestnuts

Conkers are mildly poisonous, therefore the last thing we want is to get horse chestnuts and sweet chestnuts mixed up. You tend to find fallen horse chestnuts starting in August through September, whilst chestnuts usually start falling towards the end of September. The key to identifying their difference is to look at their cases. Sweet chestnuts look green sea urchin while on the tree and usually turn brown by the time they fall. They are prickly and sharp to touch and always have a tail at the end of each nut.

Horse chestnuts with thorny cases and no tails.

Conkers have only short thorny cases, they are usually quite large and with no tails. It's not difficult to differentiate between the two when you know what to look for.

It really is a fun day out in autumn and the kids get to understand where food comes from. I normally grab a load of them and freeze them for use throughout winter. I will be sharing some recipes using my own foraged chestnuts too.

Raising Children with Fun and Love

Seafood foraging

Playing with iphones and ipads just aren't the way I want to raise my children. Going to the seaside during summer to forage for food is a great way to get your children out of the comfort zone of their home.

Southend-on-sea

Great opportunity for children to learn where food come from.

We visit Southend-on-sea whenever the weather is nice enough. Remember to check the tidal times beforehand,. https://www.tidetimes.org.uk/southend-on-sea-tide-times. Plan your trip so you can visit the beach during low tides and collect oysters, mussels, winkles, cockles, even crabs if you look under the rocks.

This end of the coastlines has gigantic oysters.

Oyster bigger than my palm.

Oyster as big as my palm.

I like eating oysters raw and fresh from the sea, medium size oysters are actually tastier if eaten raw. The big ones are also delicious if cooked over a good old barbecue.

Just opened.

Creamy inside during summer.

If you are not a big fan in raw seafood or shucking oysters, cooking them will allow them to pop open on their own.

Cooking on my DIY barbecue.

cooked meat over barbecue

You can also collect crabs, mussels and winkles at the other end of the coastline of Southend-on-sea closer to Chalkwell Beach.

mussels, cockles and clams

crabs if you look under the rocks