A couple of recipes

With so much bounty from the allotment I now scan my cookbooks, magazines  and the net  for the right kind of recipes. By the right kind I mean ones that will use up a good amount of our produce. No matter how delicate and delicious a dish may sound if it doesn’t use a decent number of beetroot, beans etc to reduce my veggie stockpile it gets short shrift. But I have found there are some real gaps in my library of cookbooks …for instance what do you do with those tiddlers you find at the bottom of the potato bucket – often smaller than a pea  they are too numerous to throw away but dissolve into a mulch if you boil them with their bigger compatriots. …I’d recently offered to bring a dish of party fare to a friend’s summer gathering and suddenly I thought these baby potatoes would make ideal morsels to accompany a glass of wine. So I boiled them up for a few minutes in salted water until tender and then allowed them to cool. I then tipped a carton of soured cream into a pretty bowl and mixed in some chopped dill (you could use other summer herbs if you are growing those). You could also add a couple of drops of truffle oil to the cream for a rich flavour. I then threaded the tiny potatoes onto cocktail sticks and arranged them on a plate around the bowl of soured cream - ready for dipping … They proved a real success at the party and as I handed them around I felt I was the Nigella Lawson de jour  (sadly though without the lustrous good looks).

As for courgettes, it’s so important to find new ways to cook them to keep your interest going. Having boiled them, roasted them, made them into soup I decided to try griddling them and ended up concocting this recipe from store cupboard ingredients. This is 

Courgettes with Beans and Sun-dried Tomatoes

You need a 400 g tin of flageolet beans (you can use other beans if you prefer).

90 g (3 ½ oz) of sundried tomatoes

3- 4 courgettes

2 heaped teaspoons pesto

about 90 ml (3 fl oz) of vinaigrette made with olive oil and wine vinegar

Rinse and drain the flageolet beans and put them into a large bowl. Chop the sun-dried tomatoes and add them. Mix the pesto into the vinaigrette and stir into the beans. Heat your griddle. Slice the courgettes lengthways and then brush the slices with olive oil. Griddle the courgettes until they are tender and attractively striped. Allow them to cool slightly and add to the bean mix. Check the seasoning before serving.

 

I have shed envy

I have shed envy. They seem to be springing up everywhere I look - lovingly handcrafted with an odd assortment of wood and badly fitting doors and windows. Some so large and elaborate I fully expect they boast running hot and cold …. and maybe even a jacuzzi or two. Others are open sided tumbledown sheds where allotmenteers rest in the shade surveying the fruits of their labour. To my eye, all these homemade constructions have a real charm: they may lean a little, have gaps between the windows but they are as quaint and individual as any French country cottage. Just the other day two musclebound men having made short work of erecting  a very respectable shed struggled, sweated and cursed to string a dainty net curtain across the window – that’s what I call attention to detail

 

 I begin to peer shamelessly inside these sheds  intrigued by their dark, musty interiors : Tony, one of the Italians, keeps his antiquated tools inside his including a fearsome scythe – the kind that’s usually sported by the grim reaper. He tells me his father brought this over from Italy with the rest of his belongings in the 1930s. I imagine slinging that casually over my shoulder and sauntering through the boarding gates at Stansted…what are the chances?! Other sheds contain pottys, old bags of compost, spiders webs and the usual unidentified rusty things. So why the obsessive interest on my part? Well I hanker after one … especially now with the long evenings upon us I daydream about sitting inside the threshold soaking up the last of the evening sun with a satisfied smile on my face after a long hard day. The problem is I have no practical skills and my spouse, although adept at deconstructing the modern novel (he’s an English teacher), is unskilled with hammer and nails. There is nothing left to do  but search for a brand new one in a garden centre. We set off, but somehow none of the ones I see match the one in my mind’s eye. Several hours and garden centres later my other half ventures to suggest that we are looking for a shed not a second home! ….He so doesn’t get it! That is exactly what it is. It’ll be a place for relaxation and reflection, a place for pondering and perusing seed catalogues. Who can forget the episode of Eastenders where Albert, husband of Pauline, passed away in his allotment shed. I can imagine no finer way to go … with a  just finished mug of tea and a fully completed crossword by my side! Ah well the search continues.

 

potagers ....

I know some people think it is not quite the thing to grow flowers in the allotment but I really feel that the plot should not be a strictly utilitarian affair. I wistfully think of potager gardens. Although much loved by Victorian gardeners, the concept is French with the word potager meaning soup. It really describes a kitchen garden often on a large estate with potted plants etc. The Victorians took up this idea with enthusiasm and created gardens of great charm where although the emphasis was on edible plants and herbs the space was shared with flowers, sweet peas, rambling roses, marigolds and hollyhocks. Of course, despite the aesthetic appeal all this makes good sense, the Victorians knew a thing or two about companion planting. The flowers bring bees to pollinate the vegetables, plants such as marigolds and nasturtiums attract beneficial insects to ward off pests and judiciously placed fragrant herbs protect crops by warding off predators. When planning the allotment each year it is this potager idea to which I aspire. Well it is midsummer now and if I position myself in the right place to avoid looking at the weedy overgrown patch and narrow my eyes a little what comes into focus is almost a thing of beauty. Sunflowers are turning their faces to the sky; at their feet rows of carrots, parsnips and carrots are interwoven by the tendrils of pumpkins which are running riot throughout the allotment – their vines interspersed by vibrant yellow swollen globes. In the corner the hot colours of nasturtiums and marigolds are softened by the blue of  borage and the sweet pea trellis at the far end seems alive with fragrant pastel fritillaries. But it is not just flowers that give appeal to the plot, the vegetables lend texture and movement – the fronds of carrot and fennel ripple in the wind and the sun shimmers through the vibrant veined leaves of  chard. Of course, central to any vegetable plot in midsummer are the tall trellises of beans with their red flowers studding the dark vines – a variety of height seems essential for the overall visual interest of any plot. However, although as attached as I am to the idea of the potager garden I feel I have to grow flowers that are fitting for an allotment –I don’t think I would grow roses or plant daffodils as I have to feel the flowers must play a part … either as companion planting or as edible plants. Many people are a little wary about eating flowers but try nasturtium and borage in a salad – pretty and delicious. In fact try slicing some nasturtium flowers into cooked pasta with some other summer herb, then sprinkle on some Parmesan for an easy supper. As for sunflowers we do leave some of the heads for the birds throughout the winter but mostly we save seed to toast for an autumn snack. We mix a solution of salt, water and flour to coat the seeds and then toast them for a couple of hours in a low oven. Nice to chew over an early evening drink – although not exactly filling. I must confess now that there is one flower I grow because it is just so durned pretty and that is Cosmos – I love to see their mauve, pink and purple heads dancing in the sunlight and hear the bees nuzzling into their orange centres. I’m sure the ghosts of the Victorian gardeners wouldn’t be begrudge me that..

My neighbours are avoiding me

My neighbours are avoiding me… with a hurried wave they dash inside their houses and shut their doors with a firm bang. So why the sudden social pariah status? We don’t have all-night  noisy parties  (chance would be a fine thing), we don’t leave overflowing dustbins on other people’s doorsteps or throw snails into adjoining gardens (well only sometimes). The horrible truth dawns on me …. I’m the woman  who, with fixed smile on her face,  proffers armfuls of courgettes or beans and does NOT take no for an answer. Admittedly our neighbours are all far too polite to refuse outright but I have noticed a definite waning of enthusiasm for my muddy offerings,  a certain reluctance to accept yet a few more sodden salad leaves.  Our daughters, however, are not hampered by social niceties. At the offer of freshly dug vegetables they demur with a “no thanks that last lot of lettuce had five slugs and one snail – we’ll stick with the washed packet variety’. As King Lear said  How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child! Admittedly Shakespeare wasn’t talking about organic veg but I really do feel the sting of ingratitude  - how can they prefer shop bought stuff over my hard won crops? And there lies the reason for my generosity I  cannot bear to waste even one pea pod, one misshapen carrot or the tiniest of potatoes. Because each of these represents hours of care and attention: growing them from seed, making sure they have the right conditions to thrive, thinning them, feeding them,  protecting them from pests  - no way will I let any of these pampered crops end up in the bin – I know their backstory! In Britain we apparently waste an estimated 6.7 million tonnes of food a year and just recently I have been thinking that because we are so far removed from the production of our foodstuff we rarely suffer from that pang of a lost opportunity when we sling stuff away. The cellophane-wrapped pack of mange tout or baby carrots may have its country of origin on it, but that is the only clue as to their provenance, and because there is not a vestige of mud anywhere we can forget that these vegetables have been nurtured and laboured over by farmers somewhere – from their pristine appearance we could assume they came from a factory. If it’s past its sell by date we can chuck it away in a heartbeat. So my neighbours can run but they can’t hide … I just leave parcels on their doorstep. They just better eat every scrap!

The allotment is now at full throttle and things are ripe for the plucking. I love the word ‘glut’ … so closely linked with gluttony, it conjures images of ripeness and plenty, of gorging, of jam-making, bottling and pickling. Our kitchen is festooned with overflowing bowls of tomatoes, courgettes, beans and beetroot. We eye them with pride and luxuriate in the richness of it all but amidst the smugness there is a small kernel of … well may be dread is too extreme but maybe trepidation. Now you’d think the hard work is done – we’ve vanquished the armies of pests and pestilences, dealt with any inclement weather conditions and all we now have to do is harvest the fruit of our labours and enjoy them. This much is true, harvesting is loads of fun – pulling carrots  is a lucky dip affair, as Forrest Gump would say ‘it’s like life you never know what you’re gonna  get’ You curl your hand around a reassuringly abundant clump of foliage, tug and hope for the best  … sometimes you are rewarded with a ‘Bugs Bunny’ style perfect specimen, other times you end up with a comedy carrot –ha ha – it’s got arms and legs ... and occasionally an X-rated one – you know the ones they look as though they have a … well you get the drift! The real treat however, is the unearthing of potatoes. For so long we’ve watched them from the first tentative shoots, to the blossoming of their tiny fragrant flowers and the eventual dying back of the foliage. We’ve known that things were stirring and developing in a mysterious subterranean way but the excitement each year of turning over the first plant never diminishes. And there they all are – the buried treasure. The Pink Fir Apples we’ve grown this year emerge pink and glowing like newborn babies and rattle in the bucket with reassuring thumps. So with this much fun and reward why the smidgen of trepidation? Well maybe because everything does seem to come at once and because there is so much else to do: the weeds are dancing in merriment rejoicing in the sun and rain, tomatoes need to be tied and tended and of course there is more seeding and planting to do. Plus you really do need to harvest with regularity – leave the courgette plants for more than a day or so and you are confronted with giant specimens and if left too long the beans become unwieldy and woody. Oh and the back breaking work of harvesting an abundant crop of blackcurrants can end up with a session on the osteopaths couch! Our arms have become longer as we trudge home with our produce, but instead of sitting and surveying it all with a glass of wine in our hands … we roll up our sleeves and scrub mud off the root veg, destalk currants and berries and of course creep up on our unsuspecting neighbours with our surplus requirements.

gather ye raspberries while you may

Summer is having its last hurrah. The allotment  is .. how to describe it?….exuberant, wayward, full of colour, life and movement. Look a little closer though and it’s plain to see its youthful bloom has faded rather like a film star past her prime – a bit blowsy, a bit faded around the edges – more voluptuous Diana Dors than winsome Doris Day. There is still glamour here, the sunflowers in full bloom smile benevolently down on bean poles garlanded with scarlet flowers, pumpkin tendrils vie with each other in an exuberant race for ground control and tomatoes bow with the weight of blushing fruit. But the harbingers of autumn are here: leaves are dessiccated and yellowing, the sweet peas have faded and a certain luscious ripeness is present that says ‘times are a changing’. But it was ever thus and each season cradles the secrets of the next in its heart. In the same way the gardener, while revelling in summer rewards must look ahead to the future. How strange it seems in the heady days of spring and summer to sow seeds for winter cabbage, leeks and sprouts, how hard it is to imagine the bare trees and bleak aspect of December, January and February.  But to misquote T.S. Eliot ‘a cold coming we will have of it ‘. Certainly the time of cabbages and kale will soon be upon us. So amongst the flamboyant summer vegetation stolid rows of dark green seedlings are testament to the inexorable spinning of the world on its axis. Leeks, the versatile workhorses of the winter months are standing perkily in their trenches, swedes – a first for us – are modestly swelling, the cavolo nero are parading their dark green feather dusters.

Now as wonderful as fresh greens in the winter are they do lack the star quality of their summer counterparts and frankly, to my mind, some of them are downright charmless! There are of course Brussels Sprouts aka devil’s testicles … please don’t tell me they are delicious with butter and black pepper – I don’t believe you. And there is my spouses’ favourite – curly kale – so good for you he says … well as Marie Antoinette might say – let him eat kale.

So there they all are the next season’s crops and strange to think  in the chilly days when we are pulling leeks and digging up swedes we’ll be seeding tomatoes and courgettes ready for the next summer. And so it goes…  but really this is what makes gardening so interesting. Can you imagine the year without seasons? Each one with its own feel and flavour . Conjure up each season and you’ll find hundreds of associations often closely allied with growing, cooking and eating.  Autumn has its toasty aromas on misty mornings and rich earthy flavours: think butternut squash soup topped with mushrooms or caramelised onions, winter has its smoky, spicy qualities with chargrilled leeks, spicy stirfried cavolo nero and mulled wine around an open fire, in contrast spring has an icy freshness that chimes with the acid green of new shoots and we enjoy the bracing flavours of new season rhubarb and the brewing up of batches of marmalade. As for summer where do you start? The dreamy floral notes of elderflower, roses and sweet peas mix with the heady scents of freshly picked strawberries, the herbal scents of basil, rosemary and thyme drift along the smoke of barbecues and bowls of freshly picked blackcurrants  and strawberries languish in cool kitchens – a refuge from the summer heat. We need to go with the flow of the  seasons each one so individual and balanced with the workings of nature that the more we find ourselves in tune with them the more we enjoy them. Forget eating imported greenhouse strawberries and tomatoes in January – it will taste hollowly of bygone summers but relish the local produce – pink rhubarb and fresh green leeks and you’ll feel revitalised and in balance with the working of nature’s year.  So now when summer’s lease is expiring I’m going to revel in the last of its harvests and bask under the sunflowers and gorge on my soft fruit  - to misquote another poet … gather ye raspberries while you may as time is still a-flying.

 

pulp friction

Beetroot – love them or hate them? Well I used to thoroughly dislike the mouth puckering vinegar soaked ones you’d find in jars, but cooked and eaten fresh, well this is a different experience. Pleasing on so many different levels – their show stopping colour, their sweet, rich flavour and interesting texture, and of course so good for you. Oh and you can persuade children to eat it – no not because you can tell them it is full of vitamin C but because can they see their pee turning purple! 

We grow the traditional variety as well a variety called Chioggia - with an attractive pink striped pattern which would not look out of place in a shop selling pretty vintage crockery. Unfortunately, they lose their stripes when cooked but sliced thinly and served raw with vinaigrette  they are pretty and delicious.

 

When we have a glut of beetroot we tend to juice them. A juicer was a great investment and can whittle down a glut as well as give you delicious and nutritious juice that can often seem more like meals. Recent research states that beetroot juice increases the stamina of athletes and if that is not enough to induce you to start juicing, the zingy fresh flavour of this beetroot drink will. I’ve mixed apple and ginger to soften the beetroot’s rich, earthy flavour.

 

I’ve called it Pulp Friction:

 

this makes 1 medium glass.

 

1 small beetroot rinsed with any leaves chopped off

1 medium sweet apple, chopped

a nub of root ginger, don’t bother to peel

½ lemon

 

Chop everything into pieces small enough to fit into the juicer. Push everything through the juicer putting in the lemon last. Don’t forget to position your glass underneath otherwise you may end up with a scene reminiscent of Tarantino’s classic film of a similar name.

…………

One of my favourite words in the English language is ‘cake’. I also like saying it, thinking about it, cooking and eating it. I’m always looking out for new ideas and flavours and I have been hearing about chocolate and beetroot cake. Looking for recipes they all seem quite long and complicated and I am a great fan of simplicity when it comes to cooking. So I came up with this – it’s really quick and the beetroot just gives the cake a really moist texture – it doesn’t taste beetroot!

 

Chocolate and beetroot cake with chocolate cardamom icing

 

170 g (6oz) soft butter

170 g (6oz) caster sugar

100 g (31/2 oz) beetroot – 3 or 4 small beetroot

3 eggs

4 tbsps cocoa

140 g (5oz) self raising flour

 

 

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees /gas mark 3 and grease and line an 8 inch/20 cm cake tin. Peel and grate the beetroot and set aside. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy – you can do that in a food processor.  Mix in the eggs one at a time. Stir in the grated beetroot. Sift the cocoa and flour together and then fold this in to the egg mixture with a metal spoon.  Scrape into the tin and bake for 40-45 mins until risen. Cool in the tin

 

For the icing, grind the seeds of 2 or 3 cardamom pods and stir this into a little milk. Melt 100 g (31/2oz) dark chocolate. Sift icing sugar into a bowl and add the milk and melted chocolate. Add more milk if you need to make a good spreading icing and then slap this all over the top. I’ve heard these beetroot cakes store for longer but ate it all before I had time to find this out!

 

three cheers for mr macgregor

Yesterday, while turning the compost I startled a bright-eyed toad. It froze for a nanosecond allowing me to time to admire its mottled leathery coat before it ambled to a cool, shady  refuge. I was delighted to have such a benign presence on the allotment and even more delighted when someone told me toads loved to eat slugs and snails. I did hope that I hadn’t disturbed it enough to make it upsticks and establish toad hall on someone else’s allotment – it’s not as if we don’t have enough slugs and snails to provide him or her breakfast, lunch and dinner, not to mention elevenses and tea!

 

The allotment is a real haven for wildlife both welcome and unwelcome and you do become particularly aware of the myriad creatures that share the plot because the very nature of gardening often means you are eyeball to eyeball with the local fauna. Even snails which can turn me murderous after decimating a crop can captivate when seen close up – they do have a quirky charm as they slowly perambulate amidst the greenery , antennae alert  rather like elderly scholars in search of a rare manuscript or more fittingly like  interested shoppers eyeing the produce in a supermarket aisle. Hmmm! I’ve recently started placing empty snail shells as eye protectors on the canes around the plot as they looked prettier than old beer cans and plastic cups. A friend observed that it was rather like the old macabre practice of keeping criminals hanging on their gibbets as a warning to others. Wouldn’t it be great if they all took fright at this sight and turned tail and fled … well I can dream can’t I? 

 

 I have a long-standing fondness for worms, this dates back  to my childhood when I used to torment my squeamish older sister with them. I’d lie in wait and while she was immersed in  some magazine – usually  Jackie -  I’d drop some poor hapless worm down her back – oh happy days! Latterly my liking for them is due to other (more mature) reasons – I know when I see a few curling on my fork as I ‘m digging that  the soil is in fine fettle and that they are happily enriching the soil as they live out their wormy lives. I’m in good company – Charles Darwin was also a fan saying "...it may be doubted if there are any other animals which have played such an important part in the history of the world as these lowly organized creatures." .  I think he reckoned plant life would not have thrived if it were not for worms ploughing through the soil breaking it up and creating passageways for plant roots to take hold. So we all need to be grateful to humble worms … and treat them with due respect (naughty little sisters please note). 

Of course there are the four legged denizens of the allotment, early in the morning you can glimpse a flash of russet fur as the local fox streaks through the undergrowth. We now realize that the bones we discover on the plot aren’t a matter for urgent investigation by Time Team but leftovers from a nearby barbecue which Mr Fox fancied for tea. Cats love to saunter by and infuriatingly pad through newly seeded rows – how they love to walk  through fine tilth – it must seem like soft pile carpet to them. Well that may be so but I wish they wouldn’t do it. All in all we have a live and let live attitude and like to work with rather than struggle against the local wildlife. However, there would be one voracious beastie that would really upset my equanimity – rabbits. They can vanquish a crop faster than you can say Mr Macregor. I have to say, cute as he is,  I’m not on the side of Peter Rabbit, poor Mr Macregor he was just trying to protect his precious crops . Thank goodness we have no rabbits on the allotment … yet. The other day, though, I did see a suspicious looking hole dug in the side of a bank … hmm now where did I put my 12 bore!