Top that!
3 minute read.
So, the first year of release for Garden Granola’s seasonal flavours has taken our taste buds through spring, summer, autumn and winter. Many of my customers have found and declared their favourite, anticipating the arrival of it again in 2025, whilst lamenting it’s leaving as one season turns into the next and one flavour moves over to make room for another. The delightful things is, that as long as time ticks on, the seasons will come around again and so therefore will the flavours that are your favourites.
Some of us though, and it’s not just me, like them all! I love to eat seasonally, enjoying produce that brings with it a new colour or a new flavour when the time is right, when it’s ready and at its best. It is only then that you can really enjoy them, I think.
And do you, like me, think it’s good not to be able to have everything we want when we want it ? Sadly, delayed gratification is almost a thing of the past in today’s world here in the UK, and it applies just as much to the availability of food as it does to anything else we desire that can be obtained almost instantly when we tap on our apps. We have forgotten how exciting anticipation can be!
Let us consider seasonal toppings too. A way of ‘top-dressing’ your bowl of Garden Granola, not just to make it look even more temptingly delicious but to complement the seasonal flavour of the granola itself. So how do you eat yours? What would you choose?
If you’re partial to a bit of stewed fruit in the winter months then try spooning a sumptuous helping on top of the Date & Ginger granola or the Winter Citrus Spice overnight oats. There is something very inviting about topping a breakfast bowl of oats and nuts and seeds with a large spoonful of dark, glistening fruits such as prunes, figs and currants. Alternatively, fresh figs sliced up and placed on top bring a bit of decadence to the festive season.
Spring time however sees most of us wanting to be a bit lighter in our food choices, capturing the zing of spring in what we eat. Toppings such as kefir or natural yoghurt go beautifully with a drizzle of fruit coulis to add some colour. The combination makes for a sweet, silky compliment to the nobbly nuts in your granola!
Other toppings from around the world that become available to us here in the springtime are kiwis. Sliced up on top of your granola they look so green and vibrant that the mere sight of them can boost your mood and, when eaten, your vitamin C levels too!
It is the fruits of summer however, that make things so easy and varied for us when considering what to throw on top of our granola. Handfuls of raspberries, chopped strawberries, dark red cherries, currants and beautiful blueberries take us all the way through into early autumn where the fruits mellow and the colours deepen with elderberries*, blackberries and plums…. all so, so delicious. We are spoilt for choice.
*Raw elderberries contain toxins. Always cook before eating.
There is one topping though that I haven’t tried yet, but since moving back ‘up north’ it is firmly on my to-do list, and that is the majestic ‘Roseberry Topping’.
Not a food but a walk…a climb… a hike….. day out… an adventure ….. an achievement!
At just 1,049 feet (320 m) high, Roseberry Topping may not be the biggest hill you'll ever see, but it will certainly be one of the most distinctive. Its shape, caused by the combination of a geological fault and a mining collapse in 1912 has made the hill the most beloved landmark in the Tees Valley area. With its half-cone summit and jagged cliff, some say it reminds them of the Matterhorn in Switzerland.
Well, I have my sights set on it for 2025 with or without the children, but oh, how they would love the view from the top! A glorious landscape stretching out to the sea across Cleveland and North Yorkshire: ‘God’s own County’. I don’t think anything could top that!
Penny 🌸