Midsummer Cordial

Summertime and the living is easy…. well not if you have an allotment it isn’t. There are weeds to pull, seeds still to sow, plants to nurture. But there are times when the sun is high, the insects are humming and a midsummer drowsiness takes over. This is the time to stop and smell the roses or, in my case, the elderflowers. A large tree at the end of the allotment is aglow with creamy, sweet-smelling flowers, which at dusk become almost luminous. Now although I’m not really a hedgerow forager I think the elderflower tree has so much to offer. In the autumn the berries can be mixed in with apples or damsons for crumbles, or made into wine, but it’s the pale starry blossoms that inspire me. So I collect a basket full of sprigs which give off a heady floral scent and I hadn’t noticed this before but the flowers are slightly concave forming a hammock for lots of small insects to nestle. Now although you can buy elderflower cordial I fancy making some of my own and capturing the scent of summer. It couldn’t be easier.

Elderflower cordial

30 heads of elderflowers

1 kg sugar

3 ½ pints of water

7 lemons, sliced

Wash the elderflowers to dislodge any insects. Put the sugar and water in a big saucepan and heat until it just reaches boiling point. Add the lemon slices and stir . Pile in the elderflowers and let them steep in the liquid for 24-36 hours. Stir occasionally, then strain through a muslin. Now pour it into freezer bags and freeze. Now when you want a cool drink scoop a dessertspoon into a glass – it remains soft enough to do this –and add water or some soda water to taste. And at the end of hard day in the garden why not make an elderflower cocktail mixing the cordial with a measure of gin and some soda water. Now all you need is a veranda, a swinging seat and Oh yes, in summertime the living is easy.

Rhubarb, Rhubarb, Rhubarb...

Have you ever wondered what actors say to each other when they quietly chat to each other while the action is going on elsewhere? Of course, traditionally, it’s ‘Rhubarb, Rhubarb, Rhubarb’. I know this practice harks back to the time of Shakespeare, but why choose this particular word for these theatrical mutterings? I suppose it does move the mouth quite emphatically, but can those thespians keep repeating it over and over again while keeping a straight face on stage. It is somehow a comical word, strangely at odds with the plant itself which has a majestic stateliness, it’s large elegant leaves forming a lush canopy hiding stems of the prettiest pink. Our large, mature rhubarb plant in its flowering prime puts me in mind of a Victorian matriarch gathering her dark green skirts about her, with a feathered plume to complete her glory. So, why the comedy name? Well it’s more historical than comical. Marco Polo brought rhubarb to Europe from China and Russia where it grew on the banks of the river Volga; rha comes from the Greek for the River Volga and, intriguingly, this was coupled with barbarium or barbarian which means foreigner. So there you have it  - rhubarb to you.

This exoticism may surprise some people who think rhubarb is really the stalwart of English puddings - rhubarb crumble, rhubarb and custard, rhubarb trifle, rhubarb pie. I’ve made all of these over the last couple of months, but last week I felt I wanted to make something to celebrate the plant’s eastern origins. I certainly didn’t want to do anything too complicated so took a favourite summer dessert and added a little bit of eastern promise.

Rhubarb Fool with Cardamom and Rosewater

This is a traditional fool recipe but I’ve given it the Turkish Delight treatment. The cardamoms subtly perfume the fruit while the rosewater gives it that eastern promise. You can buy rosewater from Middle Eastern shops, don’t be too heavy-handed with it as it is a very concentrated flavour. 

You’ll need:

450 g rhubarb, trimmed and coarsely chopped

175 g soft brown sugar

6 cardamom pods

150 ml double cream

½ teaspoon rosewater

Preheat the oven to gas mark 5 or 190 degrees centigrade. Mix the rhubarb, sugar and a couple of tablespoons of water in an ovenproof dish. Add the cardamoms. Bake for 30-45 minutes or until the fruit is completely soft. Allow to cool completely and then remove the cardamoms. Puree the fruit, adding more sugar if it is too tart. Whip the double cream until just holding peaks stage. Be careful not to overwhip. Now fold this into the puree. Stir in the rosewater before spooning into individual serving pots. Chill before serving. Garnish with a few small rose petals if you have any to hand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What's in a name?

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Mmmm well does it? We rarely stop to think about the names of plants and vegetables, but browsing in a French market last week I became intrigued by the impact of different words for familiar produce. The French call potatoes pommes de terres – apples of the earth, cauliflower – chou fleur, leeks – poireau. Is it because the French have a more gastronomic tradition than us that it all sounds so much more …well poetic. Us British like calling a spade a spade and a potato a spud - take beans for instance – there are broad beans – presumably because they are umm … broad, runner beans because they grow on runners … and I wonder what they call French beans in France? Of course most of the words for basic produce are retained from the Anglo Saxon – with the fancy schmancy language of cooking coming in after the Norman Conquest in 1066. For instance the Anglo Saxon word ‘cow’ when appearing on a menu becomes beef from the French word boeuf. When we want to do something posh with potatoes we do Dauphinoises or Boulangere and often peas magically become petit pois.

Well on the allotment the crop tous jours is guess what ‘purple sprouting broccoli’ – mmm I wonder why they called it that maybe because it’s purple, it’s sprouting and …well it’s broccoli. Good thinking – presumably our forbears thought we’d be stumbling around our vegetable plot not recognizing our crops without these blindingly obvious names.

Now we all know that purple sprouting is delicious just lightly boiled or steamed and served with butter, but with such an abundant crop I decided to search for a different way of cooking it. The Italians have a much loved recipe for this. It’s traditionally made with a pasta called orriechette which translates as little ears and its shape is just right for capturing all the delicious, tangy sauce. Oh and when you deliver it to your expectant family don’t say it’s sprouting broccoli say it’s Cima di Rapa – it does sound good in Italian!

Cima di Rapa with Orriechette Pasta

This is a recipe for four

500 g cima di rapa or purple sprouting broccoli

4-5 tablespoons of oil

1 red onion sliced

2 cloves of garlic,sliced

3 anchovies, roughly chopped

1 glass of white wine

1-2 dried chillies

seasoning

500 g orecchiette pasta  (or you can use other shapes)

a knob of butter

freshly grated Parmesan

Cook the broccoli in slightly salted water. Drain and reserve the cooking water for cooking the pasta.

Saute the onion, garlic and anchovies in the oil. Then turn up the heat and pour in the white wine. Mix in the broccoli and add more oil if it looks dry. Crumble in the dried chillies. Lower the heat and keep warm on a low flame.

Meanwhile bring the reserved water to the boil, cook the pasta and then drain. Add the butter and stir in the sauce. Check the seasoning. Serve with grated Parmesan. 

 

 

Adopt the pace of nature

‘April is the Cruellest Month’ said T.S. Eliot in his poem ‘The Wasteland’. Now a lot of scholars have debated his meaning, but I think I know exactly what he was talking about. Look out of the window on an April morning and see the sun shining brightly. How wonderful you think as you set off in a carefree manner dressed only in the merest whisper of a cardigan. But here’s the thing, a few paces away from the house and you are assailed by spears of icy wind. Oh yes, April is a cruel month tantalizing the impatient with the promise of warm days and long nights, but then teasingly holding back that little bit longer.

Ah but gardeners know this, they are not fooled by false promises, patience is a hard won virtue for horticulturalists . Cultivating anything – whether flowers, fruit or veg – means much waiting. From planting a seed to the flowering or harvesting stage usually takes months with the wise gardener just letting nature takes its course – helping it gently on its way – weeding a bit, feeding a bit and often just watching the sky wishing for sun or rain. It’s no wonder then that gardening is not a hobby taken up by the young; for teenagers instant gratification is just not speedy enough.

I thought about this as I drove to our local nursery to collect asparagus crowns. It’s been a long held ambition to plant an asparagus bed – how wonderful it would be to have fresh spears that can be picked and quickly cooked before the texture and flavour starts depreciating. I exclaim to the helpful man at the garden centre that it was hard to believe that these brown spidery lifeless roots would sprout and grow into flourishing, leafy plants producing such a great delicacy. ‘Hmm’, he says scratching his head laconically, ‘of course you won’t get any this year, only a few not worth mentioning next year – you’ll have to wait for the year after that for your first real crop! Whaat! Is he really saying I’m going to have to wait until 2012 before dribbling butter on to my very own freshly cooked asparagus. Ah well as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, ‘Adopt the pace of nature:  her secret is patience’. 

Ye olde weather sayings

I always find those old weather sayings either a bit bossy (never cast a clout before May is out) or incomprehensible (if you are in pain, it will rain) and just plain idiotic (a cow with its tail to the west makes the weather best). Mind you given the fallibility of modern weather forecasting these olde sayings are as good as anything– weren’t we meant to look forward to a ‘barbecue’ summer last year followed by a mild winter? We might as well consult a crystal ball when it comes to long-term weather forecasts. However, the old saying for me, which seems to hold true every year is ‘March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb’. Cast your mind back to the beginning of the month and we were still in the grip of winter – icy winds, sleet and snow and then, almost exactly in the middle of the month, around the time of the equinox the weather eased and the sun shone warmly. The winds were balmy and no longer did I have to venture out in the garb of a yak herder on the Arctic wastes.

I wouldn’t call my self a fair weather gardener, but there are limits. I don’t venture out in the freezing cold and tackle a wet, claggy soil. I confess I have been hiding away these past months – rather like those hibernating mammals - I’ve holed up in a cosy, dimly lit nest  and lived off a store of last year’s produce.

But how nice it is to get out there and feel the heft of a spade again! You can almost feel the plants sighing luxuriously and unfurling in the sunlight. Of course this time is  all about renewal, and on the allotment it is not just about plants, but about renewing gardening friendships also. There are people here who I haven’t seen throughout the winter months – people who I’d see and chat to every day in the summer. So how nice it is to establish all the old links  - how comforting it is to grumble about the usual things – pigeons, slugs, the weather – it’s like settling back into a comfortable old armchair. Of course many of these allotmenteers had got on top of all the jobs I had neglected in the recent months. One of these is pruning  …

Now somehow this is a task that passes me by… until I’m poked in the eye by a wanton twig. It then dawns upon me that aforesaid twig should have been pruned a while ago. I confess I’m a little nervous about pruning – I consult the books and scrutinise the diagrams and then it all goes out of my head the minute I have the pruning shears in my hand. Having over-pruned our blackcurrant bushes one winter resulting in a mass of foliage and no fruit I now try to be cautious. I stand with secateurs at the ready scrutinising each shoot and then rather like Edward Scissorhands I start slowly with a few cuts and then gradually build up to a frenzy of snipping. The end result is that the fruit bushes look as though they have had a very bad haircut; the apple tree has shorn back and sides and then, because I can’t reach very high, a Mohican on top boasting long skyward strands. Ah well, I feel another nonsensical olde worlde saying coming up: “Give a lot, expect a lot and if you don’t get it prune.” Mmmm very helpful.  

Potatoes - exotic fare?

Spring is not quite bursting onto the allotment scene, but taking a few tentative steps. From our point of view it is not the emerging green tendrils or the appearance of hopeful buds that herald the arrival of spring, but the cluttering up of our household surfaces with egg boxes full of chitting potatoes.

What’s this cried a visiting friend? Are you incubating dinosaur eggs? I saw her point – each seed potato snuggled into its individual pod looked as though it might be harbouring a baby velociraptor or maybe even a ninja mutant turtle.

For me, the arrival of the seed potato order ushers in the new gardening year. I know some say you don’t have to bother with all the chitting nonsense, but we all need our seasonal gardening rituals – and this is one of ours.

Potatoes have really had a Renaissance recently. We used to just think of them generically as new potatoes or large whites. But these days we refer to them by their, often very charming, names: Charlotte, Anya, Vivaldi, Mayan Gold, Desiree, Cara. But these varieties are apparently a mere drop in the ocean – there are 5,000 cultivated varieties in the world, 99% descending from a species that originated in a small area of Peru. So this vegetable that we often think of as a bit of a boring adjunct to a more exciting food on the plate is really very exotic. Their origins may be exciting, but for most people potatoes spell comfort. You know all is right with the world when you ladle a mound of creamy potato on your plate or spoon some garlicky Potatoes Dauphinoise to nestle against a lamb chop.

The creator of Winne the Pooh, AA Milne, asserted, "What I say is that, if a fellow really likes potatoes, he must be a pretty decent sort of fellow." What he didn’t say though was that if you like them too much you’ll end up with a girth not dissimilar to his famous creation.

purees aren't just for babies

This is a strange time for allotment produce – our stores are dwindling but the spring crops such as purple sprouting have not really come good yet.  This is partly due to our extended winter and partly because the pigeons have treated our crop as an ‘all-you-can eat’ buffet. Ah well all is not lost and we are still eking out our pumpkin and parsnip crop – and have a few leeks still to come. But I’ve had enough of winter – come on sun – come out to play.

Now my daughter and her baby, Alice, came to stay recently. Alice is just being weaned so purees are just the thing for those toothless gums. I rummaged in our vegetable store – otherwise known as the spare bedroom - and cooked up some cubes of butternut squash. I whizzed them with a bit of homemade chicken stock and Alice lapped it up with amazing speed and gusto – that is between blowing raspberries, squidging it all between her hands and splatting it on the wall. I licked one of the many splats that came flying my way and it tasted darn good. Maybe purees are not just for babies. This was later reinforced when we went out to a restaurant a few days ago and my plate arrived with an artistic smear of – would you believe – pureed swede. It was velvety, probably laced with cream and butter and beautifully seasoned.

So this gave me a few ideas and as we have  some pumpkins past their best I cut off the nasty bits and cooked up the rest to make:

Pumpkin Pasta Parcels

If you have ever eaten pumpkin ravioli you’ll know how delicious it is – but also guessed that they are very time consuming to make. This is my cheat’s version.  I’ve left the quantities vague as you can make as much or as little as you like.

You’ll need:

A quantity of cubed pumpkin of squash

Cream – single or double

A few knobs of butter

Sheets of lasagne

Parmesan cheese

Olive oil

Seasoning

In a saucepan, cover the pumpkin or squash cubes with water and cook until tender.

At the same time, put on a large saucepan of lightly salted water to boil. Then add lasagne sheets – 2 per person. Add a glug of olive oil to stop the sheets sticking

 When the pumpkin is tender, drain some of the water, but leave enough liquid to make a puree with a handheld blender or food processor. Now stir in cream and seasoning to taste – it should taste smooth, rich and velvety. Add a few small knobs of butter.

Drain the lasagne sheets.

To assemble put a lasagne sheet on a serving plate and add  a tablespoon or so of pumpkin puree and wrap and tuck the lasagne sheet around it. Grate some parmesan over and drizzle on some olive oil. Do  2 parcels per person. All you need to accompany this is a green salad.

 

Cupids versus Chinese dragons

So how was your Valentine’s day?  Was it a dozen red roses or a bunch of carnations from a garage forecourt? Cambridge was awash with pink hearts, plastic pink cupids and myriad invitations for romantic meals for two – not forgetting the  complimentary glass of pink champagne. I don’t know whether it was just me, the murky February weather, or whether I’m an old married lady but somehow it all just wasn’t  doing it for me. To misquote the late great Michael Jackson -  I didn’t blame it on the moonlight, I didn’t blame it on the good times, I didn’t even blame it on the boogie – I blamed it on the lack of sunshine! When the sap is rising and spring is in the air the thrill of romance seems somehow in keeping with the general mood of renewal and regrowth, but this long winter seems to be trying hard to dampen the amorous intent of all except perhaps the most hardened romantic

For me the Chinese new year celebrations, which coincidentally landed on Valentine’s day seemed so much more exciting. The Chinese supermarket near where I live was garlanded with bright red lanterns and banners. The shop was crowded with  extra produce for the festivities: live fish, brightly coloured cakes and exotic fruit. There was an air of excitement as shoppers loaded their baskets. A feast of gargantuan proportions was going to be created and  standing in the queue with my paltry stick of ginger, the purpose of my visit, I felt very envious. The vibrant red and golds on display here made the insipid pink hearts and cupids seem decidedly tawdry. I wanted to celebrate the year of the tiger too! So instead of a romantic meal with that special person alongside  50 or so other couples  doing exactly the same I decided to cook up a sizzling, colourful Chinese meal for two.

Now when I was in China a few years ago I remembered watching elderly women pick what looked to me like weeds growing along the verges in the road. I’ve no idea what these ‘Weeds’ were – I know in the years of famine most green leaves were cooked and eaten out of hunger and desperation, but I imagine these women were taking their harvest back to sizzle them with some choice spices and serve them with steamed fragrant rice.

So to the allotment in search of weeds – well plenty there, but in a cowardly fashion  I restrict myself to random green things – cavolo nero, sprout tops and leeks. I go home and make:

Chinese New Year Fragrant Prawns

You’ll need:

1 or 2 chillies, deseeded and chopped

2 inches of fresh ginger, peeled and chopped

2 cloves of garlic, chopped

1 leek or 3 spring onions finely sliced into discs

a handful of cavolo nero, savoy cabbage or sprout tops, sliced into thin strips

1 pint fish or chicken stock or water

1 tbsp of light soy sauce

1 tbsp Chinese rice wine or use sherry

1 tbsp white wine vinegar

1 tsp sugar

1 500g block of tofu preferably silken tofu, cut into small squares

small packet of frozen prawns, defrosted

Fry the chillies, ginger and garlic until soft. Add the leeks or spring onions and fry for a few minutes. Add the greens, stock or water, soy sauce, vinegar and sherry. When the greens are almost cooked add the tofu and prawns and stir gently to heat through. Serve piping hot with rice. If you don’t fancy the tofu just substitute it with more prawns.

So, with apologies to all Chinese listeners for the pronunciation – Gung hee fat choi – Happy New Year!

 

 

 

 

 

Dracula Beware...

We like to preserve moments. There are photographs, videos even images taken on mobile phones that capture the feel and flavour of a time or place. We buy souvenirs when we go on holiday to remember and relive our stay in places we have enjoyed. In another sense allotment owners and other vegetable growers are also taken up with the idea of preserving. How to capture the freshness and flavour of our produce after it has been harvested so we can enjoy it through the fallow months. I remember reading to my children The Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder stories about life on the American Frontier.  How they were intrigued by the description of the slaughtering and preserving  of the family  pig – the brining, the drying, the sausage making – and at the end of it all Laura and her sister  were allowed to keep the bladder to blow up and play with like a balloon. Well for us 21^st century people that would be taking homespun that little bit too far – unless your Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall of course. For us busy people, there are freezers – and thank goodness for that - but the old arts of conserving, bottling and jam-making have made a welcome come back.

Now I have always thought that jam and chutney making were the preserve (ha ha – pun intended) of WI members and elderly ladies who owned large farmhouse kitchens. I also thought it was hugely time consuming requiring a battery of equipment – thermometers, enormous pans, vast arrays of pristine jars. But I was so wrong. It’s easy! And it all feels so gloriously cosy – stirring a bubbling pan of molten raspberry or blackcurrant jam while the house fills with hot fruity flavours. I do all this on a small scale around this time of year. In August and September I’m too hot and tired after days toiling in the allotment to spend time cooking up various preserves so I freeze the fruit and wait for the long dark afternoons. Throughout the winter when the mood takes me I ferret out various parcels from the freezer drawers and transform them into a glistening fruity, sticky mess. When I’ve filled the jars, labelled them and ranged them on the shelf I can’t help feeling – I admit it – horribly smug. I feel like Delia Smith! And as the light shimmers through the  purple and red jellies I somehow I feel I have bottled up the summer. Not a photograph or a home video but still a souvenir of high summer that  I can relive on a February morning as I spread my toast.

I know vampires are very fashionable at the moment, but those bloodsuckers  are giving my house a wide berth. Why? That large bunch of plaited garlic that adorns our kitchen is enough to rebuff  any number of the undead and quite a few of the living also. Of course preserves don’t have to be sweet – there are chutneys – and then there are confits. A confit is foodstuff preserved in fat. Making a confit of garlic  couldn’t be easier. Of course you have to peel about 20 odd cloves, but just turn on the radio and it then becomes an oddly meditative exercise…

Garlic Confit

You’ll need

Approximately 20 cloves of garlic, peeled

Olive oil

Place the cloves in a small saucepan and cover them well with olive oil. Put the saucepan on a low heat – you may need to use a diffuser. Watch it quite carefully the oil should fizz not bubble wildly. The idea is to stew them in oil not fry them so the cloves should remain white. After about 30-40 minutes the cloves will be tender. When cool you can store these covered in the fridge for a few weeks. The garlic done this way is mild and creamy and  you can use them in soups, salads and pizza toppings. Oh and you can use the garlic infused olive oil for dressings. But my dark secret is I like spreading a clove or two on toast. Dracula beware…

 

Weapons of mass consumption

Leeks, that stalwart of the winter allotment, always seem to have a quiet dignity. With their flaring emerald tops they stand in ranks – all ship shape – giving a pleasing structure and pattern to the, let’s face it, dank chaos of the February plot. Impervious to the frosts and howling winds, they are easy to yank out of the ground unlike their winter compatriots, parsnips, whose extraction almost warrants an archaeological dig. These amenable vegetables are a most welcome addition to the winter kitchen – with leek and potato soups, gratins, stir-fries. Delicious and adaptable, they are then a most unlikely emblem of war….  but hear this in the year 640 the Welsh in their war against the Saxons wore leeks in their hats during battle. How interesting! I wonder if the Saxons,  spotting the veg-adorned hats, faltered in their attack, saying, ‘Quick men, scarper they’re giving us all they’ve got’. Mmmm I told you they are adaptable –weapons of mass consumption.

What’s more they are fairly promiscuous – they make very good bedfellows with so many other ingredients –cheese, milk, tomatoes etc. Well this recipe here cooks them with wine and honey – a bit different eh?

Leeks with Wine and Honey

You’ll need:

2 large leeks cut into 1 to 2 inch chunks

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons runny honey

approximately  ¼ pint of wine – red or white

Warm the olive oil and honey in a frying pan and fry the chunks of leeks for a few minutes.   Slosh in the wine and then simmer … Serve hot, but it is just as delicious cold. This is really good with roasts – especially if you’ve forgotten the gravy as you serve this with its honeyish winey juices.

 

 

 

parsnips are aphrodisiacs!

Parsnips, to my mind, are the prima donnas of the seed world. Temperamental and wayward one never knows if they will be bothered to germinate. Rather like  supermodels they won’t get out of bed for less than …. well in a parsnip’s case an obligatory amount of sun and rain. So imagine my pride when the full complement of seeded rows flourished.

Having watched them growing lustily over the summer I impatiently dug a couple up rather prematurely in October. Even then, as I had to dig deeper and deeper to unearth them, I knew they were winners, all I had to do now was wait for the frosts to sweeten them and we would have a bumper crop for Christmas. And boy did we have frosts! I envisaged everyone around the festive table exclaiming, ‘so all these vegetables are from your allotment! And I would smugly nod in agreement.  But this turned out to be foolish hubris – it wasn’t to be. I ended up buying supermarket parsnips coyly wrapped in cellophane. The truth was that the frost would not  relinquish  its icy grip on the soil and beware all forks and spades who entered there.

Ah but now that the thaw is here – the parsnips will be mine – all mine. Remembering their size last autumn I wonder how  big they are now. I imagine them remorselessly tunnelling down through the earth rather like a vegetable version of the ‘Shawshank Redemption’. Perhaps, I muse, they’ve reached Australia! ‘Get a grip, says my spouse when I unwisely share my thoughts. We certainly needed grip digging up these fellows. Now I don’t want to boast but they were about  oooh – this big…I know this doesn’t quite work on radio, but you’ll have to take it from me!

The first thing I make is my favourite thing at the moment – parsnip crisps. For that purpose I have bought a mandolin  - sadly not the stringed instrument but a lethally sharp contraption which, when used in the right way results in uniform little discs. However,  used in the wrong way – and I know this from experience – it results in decapitated thumbs.

This is how I make Parsnip Crisps

 Slice the parsnips into thin discs with a sharp knife or mandolin. Scatter them on a baking tray and sprinkle on sea salt and some paprika. Drizzle on some olive oil and then use your hands to toss the slices to ensure they are all coated. Now put them in a moderately hot oven for about 15-20 minutes until crispy and eat while hot.

Now it is Valentine’s day soon and, not many people know this but the Romans thought parsnips were aphrodisiacs! So forget the champagne and oysters – a plateful of parsnip crisps will bring a twinkle to your loved one’s eyes!

 

Brussels Sprouts aren't just for Christmas

I know that I have been rude about Brussels Sprouts – yes I have called them devil’s testicles and vowed never to grow them. But the trouble is Christmas lunch has to feature those green monsters – it’s the law. You get a fine and 8 hours community service if you dare to serve that turkey without it! So caving into convention we grew sprouts and I duly sent my spouse to collect them before the big day (there was no way I was grappling with the snow to retrieve those little blighters). And they weren’t bad, a bit small - some of them masquerading as peas on steroids, but duty was done, the sprouts were on the plate and Christmas tradition was duly upheld.

Now in January the allotment is under a blanket of snow and it’s tempting to resort to buying veg. So much easier to go to a nice warm shop than put on wellies and  brave the freezing winds, ice and snow. But since early summer we have been self sufficient when it comes to vegetables and I’m loathe to start buying them now. I rack my brains – what would be relatively easy and quick to harvest and not submerged by snow? Well standing proudly, facing down the east wind are the Brussels Sprout plants – oh yes the devil looks after his own. And actually the sprout tops look really enticing – little top knots of pale green tender leaves. I quickly lop them off and return home cold but triumphant.

I wanted to retain the leaves’ fresh crispness so I stir-fried them. I also wanted some taste bud tingling spice to warm up a cold January evening. This is my recipe:

Spiced stir-fried sprout tops

4 sprout tops

1 small onion finely chopped

1 tablespoon of oil for frying

1 teaspoon cumin

1teaspoon fennel seeds

1 tsp coriander seeds

1 tsp mixed spice

1 small chilli, chopped (deseeded if wished)

salt

Squeeze of lemon juice

Bring a pan of water to the boil and add the sprout top leaves. Blanch them for 2 minutes and then drain. Roughly chop them. Meanwhile pound all the spices in a pestle and mortar. Heat the oil in a wok until really hot. Add the chopped onion and fry until tender. Now add the ground spices and chilli and fry for 30 seconds. Throw in the chopped sprout tops and stir fry for 2 minutes – add salt and a squeeze of lemon. Serve piping hot!

Mmmm I think I’m going to have a sticker on my car windscreen saying – Remember Brussels Sprouts aren’t just for xmas!

 

 

Out with the old...

‘Out with the old, in with the new ‘ and once that mother of all hangovers has disappeared who can resist that optimistic thrill the new year brings. The bright, cold new year’s day banishes any fugginess and it seems right to christen the first day of 2010 with an allotment visit. Clad in my brand new Xmas wellies the soil is crisp underfoot and we look ruefully at the parsnips– we can’t see ourselves prising those out of the frozen soil. There’s little to do here which makes the visit even more pleasureable – and even if it is the dead of winter there are always subtle changes  taking place. It’s like looking through a kaleidoscope: the elements are always the same but a brief twist of the dial can alter the patterns and colours so the scene becomes transformed. Today the monochrome view is punctuated  by the rosy hues of the remaining apple windfalls, the bright green of broad bean shoots and the muted colours of kale and cabbages. All is still and wintry, on the surface nature is quiescent, biding its time. But what’s this, buds on the blackcurrant bushes; under the soil things are stirring, awakening. Mmmm if I think about this long enough it all starts getting a bit spooky!

The bracing air of January certainly stirs us from our post Christmas torpor and I start thinking about new year resolutions. What are my gardening goals this year? Well firstly not having eyes bigger than my stomach when it comes to ordering seeds. I can’t help it I’m a sucker for all those pictures and exotic names promising plentiful harvests of myriad varieties. The snag is, to achieve aforesaid harvests, you do actually need to plant the seeds in the ground. As I speak I’m guiltily looking in our seed box at all the unopened packets, what’s this – mizuna, pak choi, amaranth. I bet they would have been brilliant given their chance in the sun. Oh dear! Then of course there is the seed box itself – a motley collection of torn packets some with nothing in them and a variety of foil squares with ‘who know what’ variety of seeds in them. This year the seed box will be arranged with military precision – in alphabetical order and this is the genius idea: I’m going to make a calendar of seeding times. So all I have to do each month is look to see what I should be sowing rather than exasperatedly riffle through all the packets. As for the planting itself I resolve to be more disciplined …. Each year we draw up a plan of action. It is a thing of beauty – an A4 sheet with areas marked out and illustrated showing exactly what we are going to plant and where. We are always very pleased with it – it looks like a finely worked piece of Victorian tapestry. It ensures we plant rotationally – avoiding sowing plants in the same areas and gives pleasing symmetry and design. Do we follow this plan of action throughout the year? Do we hell! The drawing is shoved into a drawer never to see the light of day again and when we are on the plot – we scratch our heads and say ‘where did we plan to put these?’. After a few minutes ‘discussing’ also known as  ‘arguing’ we just find an empty patch of ground – plant and hope for the best. The resulting hodge podge looks nothing like our beautiful drawing. As Robbie Burns said ‘the best laid plans of mice and men, gang aft agley’. Now I’m not sure what ‘gang aft agley’ means but I have a feeling it means ‘all gone to hell’. Ah but this year it’s going to be different the best laid plans will be strictly followed, every weed will pulled and seeds will be planted at the appointed time. Hang on, what’s that I see? How strange it looks like a flying pig!

 

Bonfires or is it Bone-fires?

For me winter isn’t winter without a blazing, crackling bonfire. It’s almost one of those rites of passage  in the gardening year, marking the transition from the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness to the chilly frosty days  of December, January and February. The trouble is we’ve missed the bonfire ‘window’ on the allotment , this is the few weeks in November when we are allowed  to light fires on our plots – any other time it is verboten. Strange rule, but as Tennyson wrote ‘ours is not to reason why’!

We have lots of burnable rubbish on our allotment – rotten bits of wood, canes, fallen branches etc . Yes, we can lug it all over to the city tip – oh but the hassle, not to mention the big black spiders and snails crawling over the inside of the car. I know from past experience that these critters hide in dark corners then pop up days later to give you the mother of all frights  as you navigate a tricky turning! And of course, just think of the environmental cost of the petrol to get there. Oh yes a bonfire is definitely the thing. You may have guessed it …. I’m excited  about lighting a fire outside. It’s one of gardening’s innocent pleasures – not that there are many guilty ones. But what I mean to say is that we all turn into children when we gather around a blaze watching the flames dancing and sparking. So we decide to flout the allotment  rules…

Now it is hard to be furtive about lighting a bonfire, but we do our level best. We site it well away from the communal pathway and keep glancing over our shoulders in case anybody from the allotment committee passes by. We look guilty as hell! We pile up the wood as high as we dare and light a match. It catches briefly, sizzles and then dies – it’s all a bit damp  and sad. Like good boy scouts however, we’ve come prepared…firelighters to the rescue. This is more like it! Slowly, sparks ignite splinters and shards that in turn flame up to engulf the pile. We are triumphant and vie with each other poking the fire and throwing more and more bits on. Caution is thrown to the winds. Of course this is a one person job but neither of us is going to leave the fireside and we stand around rubbing our hands in the warmth as our faces go redder and redder.  I’m suddenly a child again standing with my dad around the garden bonfire – impatient if he thought it wasn’t going properly he’d dig out the can of paraffin from the shed.  Then with gay abandon he would slosh the pink liquid around the bonfire and watch joyfully as the flames leapt dangerously near the garden fence. Inevitably, of course,  it caught alight one year – what a hoo haa …buckets of water, angry neighbours ….

Speaking of angry neighbours I spy, Mike, one of the allotment committee far too close for comfort and I rush up the path to distract him with fatuous conversation: ‘So what are you growing ?’ and ‘Got any plans for Xmas?’ Out of the corner of my eye I see my other half dampening down the fire.  ‘Can you smell smoke?’ says  Mike. ‘Uhh smoke? No,’ I point in the far distance, ‘must be people in the houses over there’. I guiltily creep back to the allotment. The bonfire has burnt down to a core of hot embers and I half wish I’d brought some chestnuts to roast. Ah well mission accomplished .

As we walk home I mull about these gardening rituals, some seem to be purely  personal – one allotment neighbour always plants his broad beans on 21^st October, others have fixed days for pruning fruit bushes  or cleaning out a greenhouse.  Other traditions are mired in history, often linked with the farming year. Apparently the lighting of bonfires at this time of year is a very old farming practice. Around the beginning of November, with the growing season coming to an end, farmers would slaughter many of their animals, preserve the meat and use the hides and then burn the carcasses to make fertiliser. So it was literally a bone fire which then became known as ‘bonfire’. Ah hah I’ll remember that when I’m standing trial in front of the allotment committee – ‘It’s traditional’ I’ll yell either that or I’ll point accusingly at my husband and shout ‘He made me …it was all his idea!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beautiful borlotti

I was chatting to some friends in London who have an allotment in Finsbury Park and they told me that they devote two thirds of their plot to growing borlotti beans. I know a lot of our Italian neighbours also cultivate them so this year  we decided to grow them seriously.  We were told to sow them a little bit later than the runners  to avoid black fly and they were a huge success The vines develop beautiful crimson pods that in turn produce pretty pink-freckled beans like miniature birds’ eggs. Most people harvest the pods when they are dry and desiccated and then store the dried beans or freeze them. However I often collect the pods before they reach this desiccated state as the beans have a fresh creamy texture  at this stage.

I know now why my London friends grow so many. You can store them throughout the winter, they don’t take up much space and then you just throw them in soups and stews for about half an hour until tender . They are truly delicious without the earthy taste that many beans have. Sometimes I cook them separately as a vegetable in their  own right.  This is how I do it:

Put the podded beans in a small saucepan cover with water mix in some crushed garlic and a splash of both white wine and olive oil. Add some herbs such as sage or rosemary. Simmer for half an hour and then drain them.

To serve, splash a little more olive oil over the beans and sprinkle them with sea salt (don’t put salt in the cooking water as it can make the skins coarse). You’ll find the beans will have absorbed all the delicious flavours. I quite often serve this with roast chicken which sounds strange, but works brilliantly. 

Kale - Italian-stylie

Our leeks are thickening up like Nora Batty’s ankles and the parsnips are looking vigorous, but we decide to wait until a frost sweetens them up before doing any harvesting which leaves our veggie options rather limited. Luckily we grow cavolo nero (which although a kale translates from the Italian as black cabbage). I’m not a fan of kale, disliking its rag-like texture. This however, has a good firm texture and makes fantastic and versatile eating throughout the winter and is rich in all sorts of vitamins notably K, A , C  and B and elements such as manganese, calcium and iron. I buy the seeds from Seeds Of Italy, a supplier specialising in Italian varieties. It’s easy to  grow, it survives the coldest of winters and has a pleasing look about it – rather like dark green feather dusters poking out of the ground. Of course the Italians have always known about its benefits and grown and cooked it for generations, notably in a dish called ribollita which is a kind of soupy stew. I prefer to stir fry it:

Cavolo Nero Stir Fry

 Firstly I strip the leaves from its tough stem. Then I fry chopped onion and garlic in olive oil until they are golden and then throw in the shredded leaves, stir frying them rapidly for about ten minutes. Then in goes a slug or two of dry sherry or wine and some flakes of  dried chilli and some fennel seeds (fennel is a really good flavour with cavolo nero). Now cook slowly for ten minutes until the liquid is absorbed. Add a little more olive oil and stir fry again for a couple of minutes and serve immediately. Delicious and so good for you

 

Putting the plot to bed

It’s time for the annual clearing up on the plot and putting to bed for winter. It sounds so cosy as if the allotment is being tucked up with a cup of cocoa and a bedtime story. However, it does seem far from cosy as we drag yards of pumpkin vine to the compost, wrestle sunflower stalks to the ground, dismantle bean poles and clear away leaves and windfalls. Exhausting as it is it does seem somehow therapeutic – almost like a spring clean – if that doesn’t sound too weird. Once the detritus is cleared away you can somehow see the blank canvas again. Now that many of the plants have gone you can energetically unearth all the weeds that were hard to get at before – and also be safe in the knowledge  that they won’t be growing back so vigorously. And then there is the digging – as each forkful is dug you can almost see the earth breathing in the air and turning it’s face to the sun – albeit in a few weeks’ time   it will be tickled by the frost. I’ve decided to attempt double digging as I feel this is what real gardeners do – I assume this means digging twice. I  look up the term on the net – and oh no – it is nothing as simple as that.  You dig a trench and put the earth in a wheelbarrow and then dig another trench putting the earth  from there in the first trench and then from there … ok you’ve guessed it – I gave up. It is back breaking work and to be frank life is too short! I  look over at one of my neighbour’s allotment –now he comes only occasionally to his plot but his patch always looks in good shape. I decide to watch what he is doing… I realise he doesn’t dig but hoes and then spreads compost and manure over the top to let the goodness seep in and be taken down by worms. Well, this sounds like a plan – I presume it means that the goodness is kept locked away as some of it must get leached when exposed to the elements in the digging process. I realise though I like digging – it doesn’t feel like gardening if I’m not wielding a fork in a meaningful way – I like to see the worms wriggling, I like to look at and feel the earth and smell … well the earthiness of the earth …. Basically I like to do things the hard way!

 

Gardening exhibitionism

I have been taking pictures of our pumpkins. I’m very proud of them: we have several fine-looking specimens of various shapes and hues and one enormous green, knobbly affair that looks like it might house a colony of Martians. I’ve posted the pictures on my blog and bored my friends with them on Facebook. What is this need to ..well … show off. I suppose gardening is such an intense and often solitary business that, when given the opportunity, we want to crow about our achievements. It’s partly that we want to share our wonder of how a small seed dropped in to the soil all those months ago has grown into something productive. It’s a little like child rearing, you start with a tender little shoot to protect and feed , which then grows into an unmanageable adolescent stretching its gangly limbs over the plot … oh and playing host to a number of unsuitable friends – of whom many of them should be issued with ASBOS – that is Anti Social Bindweed Order. After all these nurturing efforts, you do hope to end up with a productive individual of whom you can be suitably proud. Everyone knows those people who never stop talking smugly about their offspring – and so it is with gardeners they just want to exhibit the fine specimens they have produced.

The desire to show off garden produce is very much evident in the local gardening show. I gather these events were introduced as a means of stimulating interest in growing vegetables presumably as part of the ‘Dig for Victory campaign around the 1940s. Their continuing popularity is testament to the desire to display our gardening successes. This year, for the first time, I visited a local show and was intrigued  and hugely impressed by the entries all neatly arranged on trestle tables. It was all gloriously homespun with giant onions jostling for space with the preserves  and oddest-shape vegetable display. It seemed all just a bit of fun …. that was until the grand announcement of the winning entries. The atmosphere turned expectant and just a touch tense – did Mrs P really deserve to win the best flower arrangement (not only that she carried off the rosette for the best jam as well), were old Dan’s carrots really up to snuff! The category of prizes were seemingly endless and imaginative and by the time all the winners were finally announced I was more interested in scoffing a gigantic slice of home made Victoria sponge – mmmm I wonder if it was one of Mrs P’s homebakes? Ah well it was congratulations to some and better luck next year to others and despite the intensity of the competition one got the feeling people just wanted to say, ‘look what I’ve been doing all summer – this is what I have created – it’s  a part of me.

As for open gardens, what better way to spend a summer afternoon then poking around someone else’s patch. It’s a great way to get ideas and discover new plants.  But what about the owners of these gardens? Yes the entry fees are a brilliant way to raise funds for charity, but I reckon that a part of them really loves to share the joy of their beautiful garden with other people. So much thought and creativity goes in to the cultivation of a patch that when it reaches its pinnacle how lovely it must be to hear people exclaiming what a thing of beauty it is. Of course it doesn’t have to be a National Trust size property, we even want to show off the smallest of patches – note how many people pay particular attention to their front garden so passers by can appreciate their pretty flowers and scented shrubs they have cultivated.

I have to say I do have that showing off instinct myself – even in the allotment. Our twenty-something daughters come down from London for the weekend and are ritually dragged to the plot – they come unsuitably dressed with a look that I can only describe as intense boredom. I talk them through what we have been doing and then try and engage them by asking them questions. ‘Do you know what we’re growing here,’  I say pointing at carrot fronds….’Courgettes,’ they reply in a deadpan fashion. I look at them  to see if they are joking? Do they really not know what they are? Or are they just being deliberately awkward to cut short the visit. The answer comes when after 5 minutes they start looking at their watches – shall we go to the pub now, they say rather too emphatically… hmmmmm

Ah well I ‘ve just checked my Facebook – a friend has seen the pictures of my pumpkins and has commented ‘Great crop Paula’.  Hurrah, someone appreciates my hard work!

 

It's raining apples

It’s raining apples. The tree on our plot is laden with rosy fruit and the windfalls are carpeting the ground. They are good to eat, good to cook and if left any longer good to rot. Our neighbour, Franco, says they are too hard for his teeth when we offer him a bag. This sets him reminiscing on his youth in Italy. He tells how he and his brothers would crush apples with a clothes mangle – put it all in a large drum and leave it to ferment for a week. Then they would guzzle it … very alcoholic he says! You don’t say! Cider Italian style. 

Well I make something much more sedate...

A quick apple tart

You will need a quantity of sweet pastry – how much depends on how large a tart you want. I usually make a quantity using 10 oz flour to 5 oz butter. If you want to make it really quickly just buy the pastry.

Preheat the oven 200 degrees or gas mark 6. Put the pastry in the fridge to rest while you peel, core and cut the apples into quarters and then half moon slices. Put these into a bowl of water acidulated with a squeeze of lemon to stop the slices browning. Roll out the pastry reasonably thinly in a rectangle or circle. Arrange rows of overlapping slices of apple on the pastry. Cram them in as they do shrink in the oven. Now sprinkle soft brown sugar liberally over the slices and then dot with butter. Finally shake over some ground cinnamon. Bake the tart for about 20 -30 minutes until the pastry is golden and the apples soft and slightly caramelised. Delicious hot or cold – irresistible with ice cream or cream.

Muddy toil?

Last week  a friend said to me, “I’d love to grow homegrown vegetables, but the thing is I don’t much like gardening.’ Well this set me thinking. Yes it is fantastic to have veg newly dug from the ground but the fact of the matter is that the gardening is the thing. ‘why don’t  you just go to the supermarket and buy organic veg,’ say other friends mystified as to why I bother with the muddy toil as they see it. Now when most people ask what it is about the appeal of allotmenteering I usually trot out my mantra about how delicious and fresh the produce is – how you couldn’t possibly buy such quality…Oh and the fresh taste etc etc . Absolutely all true, but for me and I suspect for many fellow gardeners the produce is only part of it and for some almost a by product of an enjoyable activity – in fact a few gardeners I know give away most of their produce.

Since my friend’s comments I’ve been trying to tease out what makes gardening so satisfying and just darned  good fun. Well there is much sensual pleasure to be had  ‘No, no not the bodice-ripping, pass the smelling salts, Edith’ type of pleasure but something much quieter.  Each sense comes into play when gardening. There is the  musky smell of the earth after a rain shower, the sharp fragrance of a tomato vine, the sweet scent of broad bean flowers and even the hot vegetative smell of the compost. Marilyn Monroe when asked what she wore in bed said ‘just  a dab of Chanel number 5’, well for me I’d bottle all those gardening fragrances and dab that behind my ears … well maybe. I’m not sure eau de allotment has the same allure – even worn by Marilyn. Our sense of sight, of course, affords us many gaudy pleasures but often it is the unexpected glimpse that can be joyful: a ray of evening sun glimmering through the bean poles catching a perfect cobweb in its sights or the sparkle of a raindrop cradled in a leaf. The soundtrack to all this is the hum of insects, the metallic rattle of a distant jackdaw and  often the chatter of my fellow allotmenteers.  I don’t wear gardening gloves and my hands and nails are testament to that, but I like the crumble of the earth under my fingers, the feel of fronds of carrots and the soft, furriness of leaves like  well worn suede trousers. We are often only half aware of this rich sensual experience, but imagine gardening without it ?

Thoughout history we’ve created gardens – not so much to tame nature but to create havens – an escape from day to day life. For me  gardening is  meditation with thoughts and anxieties seeping away while I occupy myself with some repetitive activity – weeding, digging, sowing. I suppose that is what Japanese zen gardens are all about but I have to say the appeal of endlessly raking stones to achieve inner peace is not quite my cup of green tea . Sometimes though I think we are all searching for our own Secret Gardens where we step into another world and find solace there. It is interesting that so many of history’s powerful and ruthless rulers created sumptuous gardens where they could drift of an evening after a gruelling day’s looting, sacking and burning. Think of the wonderful gardens of the Alhambra Palace where Moslem sultans would glide after hard battles with the Christians of Southern Spain – and who doesn’t wish that they could have just one glimpse of the fabled Hanging Gardens of Babylon with its terraces and lush waterfalls. Mind you I do wonder if any of these mighty rulers – creators of these wondrous gardens actually got their hands dirty? I imagine a horde of slaves and eunuchs were dragooned to do the dirty work and then make themselves scarce before the pampered princes and princesses wafted through to pick a perfect blossom. Ah ha that may well be the solution to all that muddy toil and to my friend’s dilemma – all we have to do is find a willing eunuch or two. Any offers?