I cook every meal. I like big portions, but I have little time and patience, so what I usually do is to cook a quick, big pasta, or pizza or main course and veg (recently I have also started cooking more than I need for the meal, so that I can take it to the office and eat healthily in the process). Hassle-free.
However, given the size of my plot (and apart from soft fruits and some gluts) most other produce I get in moderate quantities, a bit at a time, which requires me to change the way I cook.
- Produce is fresh and needs to be eaten or processed quicker, because it goes off and because tomorrow there will be something else fresh ready to eat;
- I throw away much less, and make do of more, because I have much less and because of all the work that goes into it!
- My native stock of recipes does not necessarily cover the amount and types of veg/herbs that are available to me.
In this situation, which is surely better for the environment, my finances and surely my health, more creativity is required.
Last night, for example, I found myself with a punnet of tree spinach (Chenopodium giganteum), a single courgette Summer Ball, five or so courgette flowers, a handful of Thai basil (which smells of aniseed) and a bunch of sage. My main course was supposed to be sole (not that filling). How to use up so little and ill assorted veg?
I kept the sage (in a vase with water) for focaccia tonight, but worked out a set of quick recipes for the rest.
Quite elaborate in terms of amount of crockery and pottery they required, the recipes produced a good dinner which my husband liked (which is always a good thing, isn’t it! :)). I blanched the spinach and served it plain with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. Simply pan fried the sole, but accompanied it with a Thai basil pesto made by mixing the chopped leaves with some more oil. And then bulked up the courgette and flowers by making a small omelette. A bit more proteinic than we would normally eat, with the sole AND the omelette, but the different tastes did not clash, rather went reasonably well together.
Previously I had mostly used small quantities to make stir-fries, to be eaten on their own or as pasta sauce, but it was interesting to be a bit more adventurous for a change!
Now I just have to improve my dish arranging technique and my food photography skills! ;p
By the way, the tree spinach tasted more strongly than normal spinach and had a tougher and slightly rougher texture, which I liked, although it took ages to clean it as it was affected by black flies on the underside of leaves.
aJuly is the time of endless bounty of soft fruits. This year it was raspberry first, followed by gooseberry and redcurrant is just coming now.
Pound after pound of raspberry for dessert were getting a bit too much, so I have frozen some for later on (trick to keep them whole I discovered is to dry them thoroughly), but I have just a small freezer. Last night I tried a River Cottage recipe for bottling them with gin and syrup. It was very easy, quite rewarding.
It takes:
- 1kg raspberries, firm just ripe
- 150gr sugar
- 750ml water
- 100-150 ml gin, brandy or raspberry liqueur
Make the syrup by slowly bringing to the boil water and sugar, stirring to dissolve it. Keep warm.
Pack a sterilised jar full of raspberries, pour the alcohol and then fill with the syrup.
Put the jars in simmering pan at body temperature and bring to 88C simmering point over 20 mins, leaving to simmer for 2 mins
–
from Pam Corbin’s book on Preserving –
Will have to check that the lid is airtight, which is done when cool in 24 hours.
You know, I am really at the basics with sterilising jars and checking bottletops and airtight lids: still learning the difference between “Le Parfait” (with metal buckle, particularly difficult for me but the most common here in the UK it seems) and “Quattro Stagioni” (with screw lid) handling practice, and I am so scared of poisoning someone by mistake! I have so many questions, for example: is condensation ok? It could lead to moulds, but how do I prevent it? And if I close the lid when the jam is cooler, how do I get airtight?
I wish I had learnt from grandparents/aunties before those skills went mostly lost in the 70’s. I wish I had been interested enough, for example, to learn how to bottle aubergines from my grandfather, who made delicious, spicy ones. Anyway… books should help, and I think it will be a good idea to take a preserving course – the one I did on breadmaking was such an eye-opener!
I also made gooseberry jam, but – same as last year – I added too much water so I had to cook it forever still to have it soft.
It is the first time since I have had the allotment that I can pick onions and garlic and leave them in the sun to dry.
The crop is not massive, so it’s unlikely I will be self-sufficient in garlic as I had planned. I must have left it too long in the ground, as the hardneck varieties started growing bulbils in the stems.
But the day was glorious: everything ripe, alive and buzzing.
I picked 7 pounds of gooseberry, the by now usual pound-worth punnet of raspberry, and a head of lettuce.
Also took pictures, which I will publish in my
allottment album, in a new folder for the summer!
4 pounds’ raspberries in two days: that’s a proper gluttony! My husband made a tasty sauce (with flour and vinegar) for our chicken tonight and I am trying to freeze some individually…
It took ages to pick them, and while I was inspecting the last few plants last nigh around 10 I saw the fox I had thought might be visiting the allotment: beautiful she is, and bold – she did not leave when I tried to scare her. But obviously we have a problem.
Finally the time has come when my chillies have put out the first bloom (which I read I should pluck out but have not dared yet). They are everywhere in the greenhouse, under cover outside, on the windowsill at home: will I manage to be self-sufficient?
