- 20:39:00
- 1 Comments
So, a fair few weeks ago we went to the Heveningham Country Fair and a fun time was had by all. Especially this man:
On the way back, my wonderful, loving OH surprised my with an impromptu trip to Darsham Nurseries, a tiny little plot which is temptingly placed just past our nearest petrol station. As ever I made a bee-line to the row of lonely looking fruit trees and proceeded to worm my way through the tangle of shoots and branches to suss out what was what and if there was anything I was desperate for (lets forget for a moment that I already have ....'several' fruit trees and a giant metal trough brought with us from Hampshire). Amid the 'Victoria' plums and 'Bramley' apples (yawn), were a few exciting apricots and peach trees, but for better or worse, they were awkwardly large for any pot I'd had in mind and were a pretty penny at about £40 each. So no go there.
The option of adding more trees to my collection being out, I then went to hover over the vine section. It was a hard decision between the Japanese wine berry, the yellow raspberries and the grapes, but after a much needed countdown to thirty from OH, I finally turned back to the patiently waiting attendant at the check-out shed, clutching a beautiful new grape.
On the way back, my wonderful, loving OH surprised my with an impromptu trip to Darsham Nurseries, a tiny little plot which is temptingly placed just past our nearest petrol station. As ever I made a bee-line to the row of lonely looking fruit trees and proceeded to worm my way through the tangle of shoots and branches to suss out what was what and if there was anything I was desperate for (lets forget for a moment that I already have ....'several' fruit trees and a giant metal trough brought with us from Hampshire). Amid the 'Victoria' plums and 'Bramley' apples (yawn), were a few exciting apricots and peach trees, but for better or worse, they were awkwardly large for any pot I'd had in mind and were a pretty penny at about £40 each. So no go there.
The option of adding more trees to my collection being out, I then went to hover over the vine section. It was a hard decision between the Japanese wine berry, the yellow raspberries and the grapes, but after a much needed countdown to thirty from OH, I finally turned back to the patiently waiting attendant at the check-out shed, clutching a beautiful new grape.
- 15:09:00
- 0 Comments
I shudder to think of the number of slugs I've been feeding. Two weeks ago I braved the persistent drizzle, sowed three rows (some of my best work in terms of un-wonkyness) of delicious winter salad leaves, lovingly tucked them under a dark blanket of home-grown compost and then went inside and forgot about them. Then, yesterday -Shock. Horror. at when I went to see how things were progressing, little tub in hand to thin out a few cheeky sprouts for micro greens and not a single little leaflet was to be seen. Silvery slimy slug trails crisscrossed a patch of totally bare earth. I tracked one or two of the little s***s down and toted them across the road to the pheasant pens where several hundred scrappy peeping teenagers raced to gobble them down. Heh heh heh.
So, time to re-sow. With Charles in hand, I'm sowing more winter veg, round II. In some semblance of order, I'll be growing leafy greens in two of the square beds and whatevers left in the space left from lifting potatoes. For the salad beds I'm thinking chicory, coriander, land cress, rocket, endive, lettuce, winter purslane and some excellent rainbow chard.
For the everything else bed: spring onion, spring cabbage and I'll move my pot-grown cavolo nero and Red Russian kale in to tower over it all.
- 20:21:00
- 1 Comments
Lots of rain- good for cabbages. Bad for strawberries. |
It's still early days and this years terrible awfulness has had a huge impact on most fruit; my strawberries have been pathetic, enjoyed more by the slugs than by me, lots of plums have split and between three trees, I can count the total number of pears growing there on one hand. Not all has been lost. Despite already attracting everything from aphids to wasps, at least two plum trees are producing reasonable amounts of fruit and there were enough of the small, unripe little jobbies on the runaway rootstock plum to pick whilst green and sour to make my first attempt at verjuice (more on that later).
Looking dramatic, my first verjuice attempt. We shall see. |
Mwa-hahahaha. Lots of blackberries. Brought on a bit by the reasonably intact plastic cover of the poly tunnel but still with a little zingy sharpness. |
Lovely lovely Nigel has an excellent recipe for blackberry
focaccia bread. So good in fact (more importantly, it works. Even for me,
ritualistic sacrificer to the oven and creator of rock hard, un-risen and burnt
loaves) I’ve been adapting and tweaking it, adding little extras like walnuts,
rosemary, sage and olives. A chocolate version is in the works. While the first time I stayed true to the instructions, putting the blackberries into the bread, they're still a little sharp to really do the recipe justice. Instead I've been making a rosemary and seasalt version of the focaccia bread and made this delicious and very blackberry-ey syrup to dip the bread into:
Runny blackberry syrup:
500g blackberries picked over and cleaned
100g sugar (plus a little extra on hand)
Whizz the blackberries in a blender and strain through a sieve to remove the seeds and the majority of the pulp. Add the resulting juice and the sugar to a pot and simmer over a low heat for 20 min or reduced to the consistency you prefer, stirring regularly. Before taking off the heat, taste it and add a little more sugar if you like. Black berries can vary hugely in taste and sweetness, so adding a little sugar at a time is the best way to avoid overdoing it. Allow the juice to cool and bottle. Store in the fridge and use to pour into drinks, over muffins, ice cream, porridge or yogurt.
For a rosemary and sea salt focaccia -like loaf, as adapted from Nigel Slater's Tender II:
2 tbsp rosemary leaves, chopped finely (room to use a little more if you really like rosemary
425g very strong white bread flour
10g yeast (I use those little Allison's sachets)
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp sea salt (finely ground)
350 ml warm water
2 tsp butter
olive oil
1 tsp sea salt flakes
Optional: chopped hazelnuts or walnuts
Mix the honey into the warm water and stir till dissolved.Combine the rosemary, bread flour, yeast, any optional ingredients and the butter, and all in one go pour in the warm water. Focaccia dough is a wet dough, and I haven't yet dealt with anything stickier so this next bit is not for the fainthearted. Kneed the dough as best you can. I cheat and try to contain everything in the bowl by using one hand to very firmly hold the bowl down, the other to smush and kneed and roll, trying to stretch those gluten fibres as much as possible. Grunting is allowed.
After about five minutes (no more than ten), or when the dough has come together and feels more elastic, you can stop. Roll the dough into a rough ball shape, and put it to rest -covered- in a warm place for an hour or more.
After an hour or when it's doubled in volume (it might have done more, thats fine), punch the dough down, deflating all those lovely little air pockets. Oil a shallow pan or wide tin and press the dough into it. Drizzle the top with a few glugs (about 2-3 table spoons) and sprinkle or grind over with some sea salt flakes. Allow to rise again for another hour or two, to let the air pockets inside the bread to get as big as possible.
Preheat the oven to 220*C, and place a shallow pan filled with water in the bottom of the oven. When the oven is hot, carefully transfer the loaf inside, trying not to wobble or knock it around too much which will deflate those all important air pockets and risk the solid, flat loaves of bread I've come to know so well. Bake for thirty to forty minutes, or when the top is golden and brown. I like to take the loaves out a few minutes early and flip them out of their tins, so the bottoms get nicely brown and crunchy too.
This loaf is really best on the day, when the oil-soaked tops and sides are wonderfully crisp and crackly. The next day the texture changes, making it delightfully chewy, but without that particular more-ish quality had only when it's straight from the oven. Dip it in the black berry syrup, or have it warm with lamb and roast peppers.
- 17:52:00
- 2 Comments