Gourmet Lunch

The lovely thing about being able to go home for lunch is that some days you can treat yourself to something like this.



Steamed new season purple sprouting broccoli with a poached egg on homemade toast....it was really yummy! This is definitely our asparagus stand-in until we start producing our own...

One thing in common...

...in these 3 potted delights are the Bramley apples from my tree (still a whole treeful to deal with!!).
From left to right - bramble & apple jelly, spiced apple jelly and green tomato chutney. The chutney is a Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall River Cottage recipe and the jellies are from this great little book (very retro!) that my sister found in amongst my mum's cookbooks and thought I'd like it - cheers M!! I adapted the apple jelly recipe with the addition of a few spices and making up the sugar content with muscovado (hence the dark colour) but it tastes delish! Will be making lots more of this to keep me in toast accompaniments over winter...
(Note: will post the recipe soon)

Squash harvest

This is our total harvest (plus one other eaten before this photo) of squashes from 7 plants. Sadly the other 5 plants perished in the hands of the dratted slugs (slugs don't have hands do they?).

Particularly pleased with the Thelma Saunders Sweet Potato Squash as it was really prolific. We had 2 of the smaller ones in a roasted squash risotto.

Post holiday bellies and leftovers

It's all very nice being on holiday and going out for dinner every night and eating lovely food but the great thing about being home is cooking in your own kitchen.

The 'ripe' tomatoes (or un-blighted parts of) were simmered with garlic, onions, anchovies and a few glugs of olive oil to become a pasta sauce base for a future quick dinner.

I thinned out the fennel and used the tender 'micro' ?!? plants in a creamy, mustardy, left-over-roast-chicken and almond bake creation with rice.

Some more of the ripe tomatoes, leftover roast chook with various other home grown veggies went into a curry (sadly the chickpeas are tinned).And then this wee beautie today went into a pork pot roast with some rescued windfallen bramleys...yum yum!

I think they look like trees when cut in half.

The Verdict

Whilst not a total disaster the plots haven't quite escaped the blight and the slugs whilst we've been away but then given what we heard about the continuous, torrential rain, that can only be expected.

Rescued the tomatoes off the bedraggled looking plants and sorted into 2 piles - blighted and not-yet-blighted. Looks like a bumper year for green tomato chutney! The tomato plants at home are still blight-free still so I'm hopeful of some proper ripe tomatoes to eat.

Although very mildewed the winter squash have been very productive and there are a lot of fruits of almost harvestable size. I'm particularly impressed with the 'Thelma Saunders' Sweet Potato squash from http://www.realseeds.co.uk/ as it's been prolific! And in the photo above you can see that there is new fresh growth on the courgettes but I think this might be their last encore of the season.The slugs have been quite well behaved for slugs...but they've removed any trace of what should have been my get-them-in-quick late sowing of dwarf french beans (you can just see a couple of seedlings hanging on in the bottom left), desecrated the pak choi seedlings again... and they've started attacking the red cabbage although they're of a decent size to withstand a fair amount of munching.

And the best homecoming 'present' was eating these 2 lovely specimens...

At least the dismal weather stopped them from ripening too fast whilst we were away and means we can eat all the rest (another 10) yeay!!

Last of the Broad Beans

...went into a very delicious risotto.

Beautiful Borlotti

I love the fact that vegetables can be pleasing to the eye as well as tasty.

These beauties (from a much larger haul) were picked the other night as I'm hoping to get another few out of the plants before the weather turns. I love the bright pink and cream splodged pods and the beans inside are just as pretty if a little more subtle.

Once I have enough - 2 handfuls so far - I'm going to make Pasta e Fagioli, a rather hearty bean and pasta soup, which my Nonna made with fresh borlotti in the height of summer. She always gave my sister and I the job of shelling the beans.

Plan B

When growing your own veggies and fruit you've always got to have a Plan B if things don't go as planned. For example the onions that didn't grow were the perfect size for pickling.
So with the several marrows that we came back to after being away for a couple of weeks I made chocolate and courgette cake (no pics as it was eaten very quickly...yum yum!) and Marrow, Ginger and Cardamon preserve (from Jane Grigson's Vegetables cook book).
Makes the common ol' marrow quite an exotic preserve to spread on your toast...

Totally addicted to...

... grilled courgettes, sprinkled with basil, sliced garlic, drizzled in olive oil and eaten whilst still warm, mmmm so yummy! No foreseeable shortage for awhile yet...