White's Oats x The Edible Flower
At White’s we are passionate about harnessing the full potential of oats and we want to inspire everyone on a journey to health, sustainability and great tasting mealtimes. As part of our #TasteTheJourney campaign we have partnered with local growers and cooks Jo and Erin aka @theedibleflower to promote the versatility and nutritional benefits of oats as well as providing you with great tasting inspirational recipes that you can try at home.
Stay tuned to our social channels to see how Jo and Erin got on when they spent the morning with one of our local farmers and also for the opportunity to win a very special competition.
What is The Edible Flower?
The Edible Flower is a supper club, market garden and fledgling cooking & growing school based at Erin and Jo’s farmhouse, organic smallholding, and kitchen garden in County Down, Northern Ireland. The food they cook is inspired by the seasonal produce they grow, edible flowers, wild food from the shores and hedgerows and their travels in Ireland and all over the world.
They regularly create pop up food events in unusual locations; they run cooking, brewing and growing workshops and a Community Supported Agriculture vegetable box scheme called 'Farm & Feast'. Their mission is to enrich their lives and the lives of their customers through the joy of delicious, inspiring, surprising and sustainable food.
Meet the team
Jo
Jo is an organic gardener and teacher who is passionate about encouraging others to grow their own food. She grows vegetables and edible flowers commercially, both for the supper club business she co-owns with Erin, and for sale to the public.
She is a soil and compost fanatic and is interested in exploring various forms of sustainable food production and regenerative agriculture.
Jo has completed courses in organic fruit and vegetable growing and gained a distinction in RHS Level 2 Horticulture. Alongside vegetable growing and compost making, she loves cooking with fire, brewing beer and spreadsheets.
Erin
Erin is a cook, recipe developer, food stylist and edible flower enthusiast. She trained at Ballymaloe Cookery School and has been the co-owner and head chef at The Edible Flower for the last 4 years.
She spends her days developing menus, new recipes and leading a kitchen team to deliver all sorts of events and workshops.
Her food is fresh, unpretentious, beautiful, vegetable-focused and inspired by the seasonal produce that Jo grows in the kitchen garden.
Tell us a bit about the Edible Flower and how it came about?
The Edible Flower is based on a seven-acre organic small-holding and market garden in the drumlins of Co. Down. We run supper clubs, cooking and growing workshops, a thriving volunteer programme and a community supported agriculture vegetable box scheme called 'Farm & Feast'. It's run by me (Erin) and Jo (my wife).
I'm the cook and Jo is the grower. We founded The Edible Flower in 2016 after moving to Northern Ireland from London. Jo's originally from London and I grew up in County Down but moved to England for university.
We recently published our first book - The Edible Flower: A modern guide to growing, cooking and eating edible flowers.
What is your ethos around food?
Local, sustainable, seasonal, unpretentious and absolutely delicious! Food cooked with love and served with joy. We believe bringing people together over food is very powerful, it builds communities, creates friendships and brings so much happiness.
What's your new partnership with White's Oats about?
I was so delighted to be approached by White's Oats about working together. We are massive fans of oats! And we are very lucky to have a local mill here in Northern Ireland producing such high-quality oats.
Porridge is a go-to breakfast for us and our four-year-old twins have eaten porridge for breakfast pretty much every day since they started eating solid food! Their current favourite is porridge made with a teaspoon of drinking chocolate powder mixed in and lots of raisins!
We're going to be working with White's over the next few weeks to take our followers on a journey from field to plate. We'll learn more about how oats are grown, including a behind-the-scenes visit to a Northern Irish oat farmer and I'll be developing four exclusive oat recipes for White's Oats.
We also want to hear from you guys about what you love about oats and how important buying local is to you. And we'll be sharing all this content on our socials @theedibleflower and @whitesoats.
Plus keep an eye out for a little giveaway - maybe some exclusive supper club tickets!
What makes this partnership special?
Oats are a delicious, sustainable and nutritious ingredient and it's amazing to have the opportunity to learn more about them through this partnership with White's Oats.
Oats grow amazingly well in the Irish climate and are a big part of our food history here in Ireland. I love using traditional and local ingredients in my cooking and reimagining them in new ways.
Porridge is a staple (and yummy) breakfast but there is so much more you can do with oats and I'm really excited to share some recipes that help people to incorporate this really economical ingredient into their meals in new ways!
Do you use oats a lot in your cooking?
All the time, oats are a really versatile ingredient! I use them in desserts, breads, homemade granola, muffins and as a crunchy topping for savoury dishes. Recently I developed a recipe for rosemary and oat bannocks - which is a traditional Irish bread made with oats and cooked on a griddle.
I tweaked the recipe a bit so you can bake them like scones in the oven. We served them with whipped butter and a white bean and kale soup at our February supper club.
As an ingredient, what is your favourite thing about Oats?
My cooking is very much about making delicious food that also makes you feel good and oats are the perfect ingredient for that. They are full of goodness - antioxidants, soluble fibre, slow-release carbohydrates to name just a few.
But more importantly they add a really creamy, richness to dishes and have a phenomenal ability to take on flavour as they cook. I love adding spices or herbs when I'm cooking oats as they really take on those delicious tastes.
The Edible Flower Recipes
