Grow your own

The enormous parsnip…

~ hannahmontana1978 ~ Leave a comment

Once upon a time in a land far far away, there was a woman who lived in a little white farmhouse with her four hairy dogs and her husband. She dreamed of a simpler life where she grew her own organic food in the fields where farmers had grown things for centuries gone by.

The first year that she tried, she grew vegetables with lots of sunshine and lots of rain and there were some that were too small… (there were some very tiny carrots) but there were some that grew too big… and herein lies the story of the enormous parsnip!

If you’ve read any of my previous blog posts, you’ll know that amongst other things, I’m aiming to grow most of the things for my family for Christmas dinner. This weekend saw our (quite late) first frost and so I decided that I would have a little trial run and cook a big roast on Sunday. I dug up some carrots and some potatoes and some leeks, and cut some sage to make the stuffing. But then I tried to pull up the parsnip with the largest leaves and my goodness, I’ve never seen such a creature!

Do you remember reading the Enormous Turnip at school? About a farmer and his wife who had a bad year but then they grew unfeasibly large turnip big enough to feed the whole family and their animals? And how they had to all bend down and hold onto one another’s waists to try and pull harder. Well that was us. We were in fits and yes I did fall over at one point. It took us a good fifteen minutes and we literally had to dig it out from around the sides leaving a crater the size of a small sink hole.

He measured almost a foot tall, and fed us for two meals, with leftovers! He also looks a bit like a ballroom dancer in the photo above having a jig on the worktop with his little legs and tuft of hair. And oh my goodness the flavour – literally out of this world. The taste I am sure is magnified a hundred times over when something is in your oven within twenty minutes of leaving the ground. I so love this way of living and these were just from a 50p seed packet all those months ago. Definitely one of my most successful plantings.

Between all the veg and my yorkshire pudding (necessary with every roast in this house, not just beef) made with fresh eggs from the girls next door, I’m truly not doing badly in my quest for organic freshness here. My organic free range turkey and sausagemeat for December 25th will come from the butcher at the little farmshop in the village and then I think that is pretty much me done. It does baffle me when you see photos of people going mad with two over sized trollies laden with ridiculous amounts of food wrapped in shiny paper panic buying in the supermarket – honestly – it’s not the apocolypse – it’s a big roast dinner with family where the shops just shut for 24 hours!

Roll on Christmas Day! In the meantime, it’s time to get up some decorations and I’m off on a Christmas wreath making course next week – we are surrounded by holly hedges and I thought it would be nice to make wreaths for the doors here with everything from our own land!

TTFN x

Oh no, not another bloody courgette! 

~ hannahmontana1978 ~ Leave a comment

I feel that today needs a little fanfare really. It’s the day of my first courgette of the year. First of many I hope. As a longstanding vegetablearian I truly love these versatile veggies.

But my poor hubby, a caveman-esque manly meat eater with a great love of all things steak, did get fed up of the things last year.

The glut. Ah yes, you know it? The London bus syndrome of the vegetable world. You plant your seeds in March, then mother them daily until BOOM they become unruly teenagers one weekend when your back’s turned and the first fruits appear. Then they all arrive at once and grow at an unrivalled rate of knots.

So over the years, I have devised many many ways of using these little babies in all sorts of recipes… I’m not saying I sneak them in as such… Well yes, you’ve got me, sometimes I do. Don’t tell the hubster.

He suggested that I write a book. Oh no, not another bloody courgette! was born, in my mind at least. Basically this is what he would say to me every night when he got in from work from the onset of July’s first harvest.

Last night we enjoyed our first one of the year, it was sensational and in the form of one of my very favourite things, Zuchinni Fritti. I’m eagerly awaiting the next one and as supply becomes more plentiful, I shall stuff and batter up some flowers too. Prosecco chilling in the fridge? Check.

I’m going to list my recipes here as you’ll be needing them as we hit the season of plentiful harvest and I’ll write them all up as soon as I can with links to each one… So please sign up to my blog and keep checking back here for more recipes!!!

*Courgette and feta fritters

*Roasted courgettes with onions, halloumi and herbs

*Courgette and goats cheese quiche

*Courgette and pepper frittata

*Stuffed baked courgette boats

*Courgette soup

*Chocolate courgette cake

*Lemon courgette cake

*Zucchini fritti (healthy)

*Zucchini fritti (less healthy!)

*Courgette flowers

*Courgette and pesto tagliatelle

*Courgette lasagne

*Paneer & vegetable tikka kebabs – great for a BBQ

*Courgette & broad bean summer salad

*Courgette & goats cheese crostini

*Sweet courgette & apple chutney

*Spiced courgette chutney

*Spicy summer BBQ relish

I’d love to know if anyone has any more genius ways to use them… Please do share.

And one day I really will write that book I swear…

Bon appetit! X

From plot to plate…

~ hannahmontana1978 ~ Leave a comment

The time is here. The day I’ve been waiting for. I’ve been away for a few days and when I came back, my veggie patch was a jungle! And so drumroll please…. I’ve picked my first courgette of the year!!! Previously I’ve only ever bought plants from the garden centre but these were actual 50p for ten from B&Q seeds. I’ve nurtured them and loved them each day and now they’re rewarding me with my dinner!!!  

When I was starting to thin out my other seedlings a few weeks ago my mum suggested taking the biggest ones to eat, and leaving the little ones to come on rather than the traditional method of pulling the weaker ones and composting them. So I’ve done that with my carrots and I have enough for dinner there too. Don’t laugh, but I really want you to know just how carrotty they smell.   

And some kale… So here’s my dinner for tonight! I think I’ll make a cottage pie to go with it even though it’s the middle of summer. It’s pretty nippy out today so I think that will go down a treat. I’ve got onions that another friend gave me from her allotment last week so honestly there won’t be much on our plates that’s not been grown by me or one of my pals. It doesn’t get much better than this.  And I wonder why people keep calling my husband and me Tom and Barbara?   

I got given some red gooseberries at the weekend too so I’m thinking I might whip up a gooseberry and elderflower fool for afters… A friend said this morning that her husband made one yesterday and after googling to see exactly what one was, I think I shall try! I’m going to go with Auntie Delia’s recipe as she’s never let me down yet. It’s basically a bit like crumble by all accounts and in this one you pop some elderflower cordial in with the gooseberries and some sugar. Seriously, what is not to like there?

Oh the good life 🎶

Last week I took out my first lot of rocket that had gone to seed and so I’ve planted some more and I found some spring onions seeds that I’d not had space to put so those have gone in too with the last of my ‘late’ potatoes which are maris pipers. In hindsight, half a row of rocket would have been fine and staggering the planting means you end up with longer for picking! There’s next year of course. I’m learning a lot that’s for sure as I go along. Cannot expect to be a genius straight away.

My aim (you may as well know it) is to be able to have grown the lion’s share of the first Christmas dinner that I serve for my family at the new house. Spuds, snips, sprouts, carrots. I have literally no idea if I will manage it this year to be honest as everything is seeming to be coming on a bit late for me but stranger things have happened…

Cross everything. x

We’re jammin’, we’re jammin’

~ hannahmontana1978 ~ Leave a comment

We hope you like jammin’ too… 🎶

The fruit season is upon us, and I keep being bombarded on a daily basis with photographs on the allotment sites on Facebook of people with bucket loads of fruit asking what to do with it all. 

Not. Jealous. At. All. 

Sadly, although I’ve had a pretty good strawberry crop from my first efforts this year, the earwigs seem to think that I am offering some kind of Michelin star strawberry restaurant for them all. As soon as the strawberries go that perfect deep ruby red, Mr Earwig and chums have a nibble-a-thon and destroy the lot. I’m not quite sure what to do about it but I think I’m going to have to move all the plants elsewhere for next year. 

I have to confess to having serious jam withdrawal. Since we moved to the new house, my preserving pan has been confined to the larder cupboard but this weekend, I simply could not let the sunny days pass without doing some jammin’. So I trotted off to the PYO farm and picked a cardboard trug load of strawberries to replace the ones the earwigs stole. 

I’ve made plenty of jams in the past but never strawberry strangely and I need the perfect homemade one to serve with an afternoon tea I have planned in a couple of weeks. Some friends of mine have just got engaged and are coming round for tea to celebrate… I am planning scones and cream and jam and earl grey and bunting, the whole works. This is quite some celebration, he’s 93 years young. 

Everyone says how hard it is to get strawberry jam to set as strawberries are naturally low in pectin. So I decided to use jam sugar (not preserving sugar) with added pectin as well as the juice of a lemon. Seemed like common sense to me. 

Here is my recipe:

900g strawberries, freshly picked – take the stalk out and chop roughly 

800g jam sugar 

Juice of a whole lemon 

(Put a saucer in the freezer now)

Stick all of the above in a preserving pan and start attacking it all with a potato masher. I can’t abide lumps so this is for those who prefer a smoother consistency jam. Keep going until it’s all one big liquid bubbling away then keep stirring (wooden spoon) and keep boiling for ten minutes. Don’t stop stirring or you risk it catching on the bottom of the pan. 

They say you should boil to 105 degrees but I’ve got two thermometers and can never get above a hundred. So once you’ve hit ten minutes, grab your cold saucer from the freezer and pop a little bit of the jam mix on. If it starts to solidify and ‘skin’ straight away, it’s done. If not, bubble some more and check every minute. It certainly shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes total. 

Once you’re happy with the set, skim off any froth from the top with a large metal spoon and pop in half a teaspoon of butter.

 
Re jars, I am all about recycling so mine are old ones with labels soaked off, put through the dishwasher then in the oven at 100. Use a teatowel to get them out! I ladel my jam into a glass jug then pour into jars, do up the lid, then turn upside down to cool. 

Pop your dirty pan and equipment straight in the sink with washing up liquid and it will clean up perfectly. Leave it and you’ll be scrubbing like a mad person. 

That’s it, done. No problem with the set at all, in fact it’s pretty darn perfick as Pa Larkin would say. And the flavour is out of this world good. Now that I know how amazeballs this recipe is, I shall make a swimming pool sized load next week. 

 
Happy summertime peeps. Hopefully there will be some raspberry jam on the cards soon too… And maybe black currant? And then it will be blackberry season!!! Excited much? Heck yes. 

Must.Make.Scones.Now 

Earth me up Buttercup! 🎶

~ hannahmontana1978 ~ 3 Comments

Have you ever grown anything? Anything at all? A Mr Cress Head perhaps, a hyacinth in a 70s plastic vase where you could watch the roots growing? Or just good old tomatoes? Whatever you’ve done over the years, you’ll know the insane amount of satisfaction that comes from simply growing your own.

The excitement for me is immeasurable, seeing the first courgette flower appear or your potatoes sprouting above the ground and almost growing before your very eyes.

As a child I remember the neighbours down the road bringing up a trug of vegetables to us and me being sent back to them dutifully with homegrown tomatoes, some eggs from our chooks and a little loaf of bread my mum had made. Little did I know this was something that would remain ingrained in my very being for life.

Since living away from home, I’ve always grown all my own herbs and chillies on the kitchen windowsill and space permitting have been able to have a few growbags out the back of the kitchen door where I’ve produced enough courgettes, cucumbers, tomatoes and potatoes to keep myself and hubby going for the whole summer, with a few jars of chutney too when supply was plentiful.

But this year is different. I’ve graduated to grown-up-dom and I have a full on herb garden and some great big vegetable beds, totally dedicated to growing our own.

There’s something relaxing, satisfying and rewarding after a day at work to come home and water everything, seeing it change on a daily basis and think to yourself, I did that.

And there’s literally no better fast food in my mind than an omelette from local free range chooks filled with fresh herbs picked moments earlier from your garden. Put in whatever herbs you like and be bold. I know it sounds wrong but fresh mint in an omelette is something to behold. I use a selection of soft herbs so mint, parsley, sage, chives and basil. Trust me, chop them up and pop over some bitter Parmesan shavings with some seasoning and this is the most mighty omelette you’ve ever had. Try it, please.

At this time of year, everything is truly coming to life and today I’ve been earthing up my spuds. I’m growing some in bags as I’ve always done and some in the ground this year, a sort of experiment if you like to see which are better? Both are doing great thus far.

This year I’m doing all of my usual staples plus I’m adding in some butternut squash, beetroot, kale, sprouts, French beans, parsnips, strawberries and rhubarb. I’ll let you know how it goes and then when the time is right I’ll be sharing some of my favourite recipes from the book that’s been in my head for the last few years which is titled ‘oh no, not another bloody courgette’. I think you can guess what that’s about. This was last years first courgette of the season. A proud moment:

I won’t bore you with how to guides, I’m no expert to be honest. I’m more of a Have a go Harry. Or should that be Hannah? You can find great information on the RHS website but honestly every packet of seeds you buy tells you when and how to plant and really that’s it.

What I’d really like to see are more folk growing their own. In an age where cash is tight, and we all love a bit of organic, why not have a go? You don’t need huge amounts of space and even a little patio can give you a crop of delicious-ness in the summer. It doesn’t take much time, you just need to remember to water them daily if it hasn’t rained. And it’s so nice to eat veg that hasn’t come into your home wrapped in plastic.

Go on, have a go, I promise you’ll never want to eat a shop bought cucumber ever again.