How does your garden grow?

August 5, 2015 ~ hannahmontana1978 ~ Leave a comment

With silver bells and cockle shells?

I could not be more excited at the moment with the progress of my little vegetable garden. Every day things change and grow, and I’m able to harvest something delightful for dinner. I literally go skipping down there like the Easter Bunny with my decade old metal trug feeling every inch the country living magazine (plus sized and slightly grey-ing) model. It must be one of the best feelings in the world to be able to come home from work, walk down the garden and get a bit muddy digging up spuds and onions then bring them indoors and cook them up, as fresh as fresh can be.

Talk about fast food…

I think my most successful things have been potatoes so far, they are fairly straightforward. The onions are proving to be fantastic, I will plant more of those next year. The leeks are still tiny but growing well, and I have planted some spring onions too. Fingers crossed for those. Oooh, and I have at least half a dozen baby aubergines….

The carrots are also unbelievably good so I am thinking that I will plant some more of those when I have pulled some more potatoes up in the next week. The kale although very pretty was very disappointing and holey and very tough to eat, I think that I really do need a Brassica cage to cover everything, not just my broccoli and cabbage plants. But I’ll give that a miss next year. Lesson learned! Tomatoes are slow but coming and I think I might be overrun with butternut squash when the time comes lol!

I am really really cheesed off with myself that I didn’t plant any sweetcorn. Everyone else’s is ready now and it’s one of my most favourite things so I am gutted I didn’t think to put these in. Must plan better. But I have already bought seeds from Wilkos so they will be going in next year I can guarantee it!
This is what I picked last night:

And here is what I consider to be fast food. Wash and boil your potatoes, then add a little fresh crushed garlic, seasoning and chopped fresh parsley and stir. With the onions, chop into wedges and roast with a little olive oil until translucent, perhaps 15 minutes or so at 190°. Then cut some ready-made puff pastry, and score a 1cm line around the outside. Place onto a greased baking tray. Take your onions out of the oven and pop onto the centre of the pastry, add some soft goats cheese and bake in the oven until golden brown and the sides risen. Add a little fresh thyme to serve.

But what about the courgette I hear you ask?! I didn’t think we needed that to so he has been chopped up to make a lovely salad with some leftover onions and goats cheese and quinoa and my new favourite salad dressing of mint sauce and elderflower cordial. Can’t wait to eat that today at lunchtime!

Now if only the first batch of red wine I’m making (currently stinking out the airing cupboard) was already ‘cooked’, that would have been great with this meal. Patience is very much not one of my virtues, I’ll be honest. But I am enjoying watching this one bubbling away every day fermenting

And I’m already itching to make the next. I think this could get quite addictive…

TTFN x

Courgette-tastic!

July 24, 2015August 21, 2015 ~ hannahmontana1978 ~ Leave a comment

Deep breath… Are you in the glut??!!! Funniest thing, I keep on using all of my own, so when my next door neighbour left a carrier bag of stunning courgettes on my doorstep yesterday I was so grateful! What an awesome gift! It means I’ve been busy until 10pm with two of my most favourite recipes, the chocolate courgette cake and the spicy courgette and tomato chutney.

As we’re now coming to the end of July, if you are careful about how you ‘jar’ your jams and chutneys, they will keep perfectly for Christmas and make the most amazing gifts for friends and family. I make hampers for my loved ones and they get bigger and better every year!.

Don’t ever think that because a courgette is bigger than you might normally choose, that it’s no good. These make great cake and chutney! This chutney recipe also works well with marrow, just remove the seeds. You only need to peel if it’s not fresh, or the skin is too tough.

So it’s all about best and effective use of time and a good bit of multi-tasking here… So chutney on first as that takes a good two hours to bubble down, then you can cake bake while that’s on the stove.

Chutney Ingredients:

1.4kg courgettes

900g onions

900g brown sugar

3 inches of fresh ginger root

6 cloves of garlic, chopped

1tsp chilli flakes

1tsp salt

900ml malt vinegar

900g tomatoes

Chop everything and pop into a preserving pan. Turn up the heat and let the juices start to run. Add your vinegar, sugar and spices all together and mix well.

Make sure you stir regularly with a wooden spoon to ensure it doesn’t catch to the bottom of the pan. Simmer. Then you can get on with your cake(s). I had enough courgettes to make two batches, one for home and one for hubby to take to work (he won’t tell them it’s a courgette cake until there’s only crumbs left in the tin teeheeeee) and for ease went with my loaf tins with pre-made liners which are an absolute revelation in life. This recipe is enough for a good full loaf tin and 3-4 muffins (for the chef!) or a flat tin approximately 20cm square.

Cake Ingredients:

250g plain flour

350g grated courgette

375g caster sugar

75g good quality cocoa powder – I use Green & Black’s

2tsp bicarbonate of soda

1tsp baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 tsp mixed spice

4 free range eggs

250ml vegetable oil

Remember to stir your chutney!

Back to the cake… Put your dry ingredients into a mixing bowl, then measure your oil into a jug and add the eggs. Whip the oil and eggs together to form an emulsion and add these to the dry ingredients in the bowl. Mix well for a minute or so. Fold in your grated courgette with a metal spoon. Pour into your cake tin! Bake at the centre of a pre heated oven 180 degrees for an hour or so. Test with a skewer to ensure it comes out clean, if not, pop it back for another five minutes.

Remove from the oven when baked, allow to cool and dust over some icing sugar. Then wait for it to be devoured!!!

Back to your chutney!

It’s ready to jar up when most of the liquid is gone and you can drag your wooden spoon through and just see it’s path. I’ve tried to photograph that below.

Warm your jars through with their lids in the oven at 100 degrees then jar up using a jam funnel if you can to keep the mouth of the jar nice and clean. Pop on your lids and you’re done! This one I’ve found gets better and better like a good wine so if you can leave it till Christmas you’ll be grateful for it at Boxing Day lunch when you’ve got all your cold turkey and gammon and cheeseboard in front of you.

Enjoy peeps. I’m off to make some scones x

Oh no, not another bloody courgette!

July 14, 2015July 20, 2015 ~ 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