Two different meals

So it has been a while since the last post but this doesn't mean things haven't been happening; I have just been doing different things.

The blog post today is split into two parts, based around me eating two different meals components of which I have grown myself.

First of all, a lunch... cheese and tomato butties.

Four slightly over-ripe tomatoes freshly plucked from the plant in the front room.

Fresh barms with cheese on and the tomatoes as in previous picture, just gratuitously really.

Sliced and placed on the barm and ready for squashing and taking to work.

It's great making your own butties, but particularly good when they are made with things you have grown yourself. One day maybe it'll be my own bread and cheese too.

So that is part one, the second part is slightly more involved as today I cooked a meal and it was a great success and so I am going to try and record exactly how I did it for posterity. I only took pictures of the elements involving my own produce, unfortunately, but the processes are not complicated so if you want to try this for yourself, go for it.

So, the reason behind my cooking was to harvest and start eating the last of the potatoes in the yard.

The bag with the Rocket Potatoes in, ready for harvest.

I do love harvesting Potatoes the way I do it, which involves digging my hands into the soil and feel for tatties; these came out particularly well so I took a picture.

My harvest wasn't as good of these as of the last type I pulled up, but still I had more than enough for this meal, and will be finishing them off tomorrow I reckon.

I am cooking Rosties Hasselbacks (whoops misnamed) with the potatoes; something I picked up on my most recent trip to Bulgaria. You have to slice the Potatoes most of the way through but leave them attached at the base. Slice them as thinly as you can, but be careful not to separate any of the leaves. They should be raw, and definitely NOT par-boiled..

While I was slicing them Potatoes I had poured a generous amount of oil into a roasting dish and added a large nob of butter, and then put them in at about 200 degrees C to start melting. This pan is too large for the four potatoes I am cooking; Ideally the potatoes should be sitting deeply in the fat and butter however I didn't have the correct pan. The area which is covered with oil is probably too large already so use the smallest deep pan you have.

Here I have added the Potatoes to the not-very-hot yet pan. The process here is to keep basting the potatoes using a large spoon every five minutes or so. I also gave them a short turn standing on the sliced side but this was because the pan is bigger than I wanted so they were not as submerged in oil and melted butter as I wanted. These will not over cook so do not worry about starting them early; the longer they are in the better as they stay exceptionally moist, but then the tops crisp off nicely. Gorgeous.

Onto the other part of the meal, which I didn't photograph as I was only taking pictures for this blog and not a cooking one. My plan was a pork based oven bake type thing. First of all I chopped a large onion and started frying it in oil and some black pepper over quite a high flame and while this was sizzling (and being tossed every now and then) I took some strips of Pork Belly and sliced the strips into cubes. As soon as this was done I added the pork to the pan and fried them together. Finally I sliced half inch long sections from a "Chorizo Iberico" flavoured with smoked paprika and added these to the frying pan.

Next I took a leek and sliced this up into about inch long sections. I took a square casserole and separated the leek rings, spreading them evenly over the base, and sprinkled with a little olive oil. By this point the Pork was nicely browned off and I poured the lot over the top of the leek, making an even layer.

To add some interest I took a Crossley Special chili and sliced it carefully into rings and then scattered these equally over the hot Pork and Onion mix.

Finally I sliced a whole red pepper and placed the raw on top of the dish.

Once this was completed I sprinkled a tiny amount more olive oil over the lot and then put the casserole onto a shelf in the middle of the oven. During this process I was, of course, remembering to baste my Potatoes.

Similarly to the Potatoes, there is no real rush to remove this from the oven and you can cook it as fast or slow as you want; the Pork has been fried and everything else just needs heating or, if you leave it for about 25 mins like I did, it softens down nicely and everything is moist and lovely. You could probably leave it for even longer if you want.

The final element of my meal was the Cabbage and I had chosen a Savoy cabbage as I love the texture. Normally I would steam Cabbage but today I decided to fry it in butter. A generous amount of butter (about the same as I put in with the tattiees) was dropped in the frying pan which I had used to do the meat earlier (less washing up, and a chance to recover the last of the flavour burned into the pan) and the Cabbage was added before it melted. Pretty quickly this was sizzling away very nicely and then I had a brainwave.

Bacon bits!

With a rush I cut one rasher of bacon into bits, put the heat on really high under another frying pan and crisped them off before adding to the Cabbage.

Serving time was dictated by said Cabbage and about 2 minutes or so later I turned all the heat off and plated up.

It does not look the most elegant meal but it was amazingly tasty and this is proven by the fact that we both polished it off with no left overs at all.

So there you are, not just a gardener :)

If you try this, please let me know what you think.

Cheers

Potatoes!

I have been looking out of my kitchen window at my Potatoes for the last few weeks thinking "mmm they were tasty last time, I really should get another harvest in" and today, finally, I built up the momentum to get out there and dig them all up.

What a great success it was too!

Here are some pictures I took whilst harvesting.

Here is a Potato just nestling in the soil waiting to be extracted gently and eaten. Mmmmmm

Here I am harvesting the Potatoes. They are so easy to get, you just push your hands in and pull them out. I could probably have harvested just enough for tonight and left the rest but I got excited.

I got some big ones and some little ones.

This one did not look very good. I decided to just throw it onto the left over pile. The next people in this house are going to get a treat as all this good compost is being thrown under the bushes where the soil is frankly not very good at all.

I pulled all of these Potatoes out of the ground! This is a lot more than the last time I harvested.

I've washed all the Potatoes and put them in this bowl. I won't be eating all of these tonight though, that's for sure.

Home grown Mint in the pan with the Potatoes.

The other idea I had today was to use some of the Mint in with some oil, mash it up a bit, and then coat the Lamb Steaks with this Mint Oil.

Chopped Mint leaves and olive oil in my pestle.

The Mint Oil spread on the Lamb Steak.

And here is my dinner; absolutely beautiful with a hint of mint on the Lamb (it would have been better if I'd had this idea last night and marinaded them in the mint oil, but you live and learn; next time) and the Potatoes tasted so very lovely indeed.

Finally, can someone help me identify what these are on this Potato. I have a few which are covered in them; they appear to only be on the skin and scrape off quite easily but I didn't want to eat just in case it would be bad for me :)

A load of weird growths on the outside of the Potato.

So there you are, what a pleasure to be eating my own home grown Potatoes, and to have grown so many I have enough for more than one meal from this bag.

Keep up your own growing people!

Eating a Tomato

After such a long time away from updating this blog, it is good that I have another thing to write about.

Actually, I reckon I could get a bit better at adding to this blog for another couple of weeks yet, before winter finally sets in.

As I was taking the pictures for the update post yesterday I noticed that a couple of the Tomatoes were starting to feel a little soft; getting overly ripe.

So, this evening, as part of my meal I decided to pick those fruits and incorporate them into my meal.

The three ripest Tomatoes just picked. You can see the middle one was very over-ripe and tore slightly as I was detaching it from the vine. The other two were only just starting to go that way so detached much easier.

I decided to fry the softest of them, as you can see here next to my very nice looking Pork Chop. The other two I baked with the chips but I didn't take a picture of that.

And here you have it. The Tomatoes were so tasty; super sweet and added some much-needed moisture to the Pork Chop which was a little lean for my tastes; I prefer a chunky bit of fat around the edges to add flavour and juices.

So there you are, it's the best thing in the world to think "I want Tomatoes with my dinner" and to be able to go and just grab them.

I've one other thing to add; since the photograph yesterday (and my comment that I thought it didn't get enough sun to flower properly) the smaller Geranium has flowered!

One lovely bloom on the smaller Geranium.

Lovely.

Anyway, that's all for now.

A much delayed update

Hi there, it has been ages since I posted an update on here.

I have a very good excuse though; I spent the last two weeks house sitting for a good friend, watering his wife's Tomatoes, and generally taking a weight off.

But I am back and I have a post with some pictures of progress which is happening in the few things I have managed to grow this year. I have been amazed at the progress other people who I've met through this blog and other means have managed to achieve. You know who you are and you are now an inspiration to me.

Anyway, on with the update...

Since re-potting the Ghost Chili has gone from strength to strength. As you can see here it is now quite large. I am worried that I am a lot late in the season though. A large number of flowers appear to be producing fruit but I'm not totally sure about that. I should have potted it up much earlier.

This is the one large-ish Chili on the Ghost Chili plant.

This is the Geranium which I was drowning in an earlier blog post; it has done much better since I have drastically reduced the amount of watering it was getting. I think it is not in a sunny enough position (and I have run out of sunny positions now unfortunately) to get the full bloom but it was an important lesson to learn.

My update goes outside for the first time for a long while and this is one of the Carrots which is growing; It is green; is this usual? Should I be moving this or covering it up or something?

The Parsnips have grown well in their little container, which is great; I did not think that either the Carrots nor Parsnips would be successful in containers.

The only sad thing about this picture is I will not be here to see it flower. I love Foxgloves and wish I'd tried to plant one earlier. Oh well, there's always my next location :)

Chives have, as previously, proven themselves to be really hardy and easy to grow. This, which was nearly dead, is now well established and I expect it to come back again after the winter.

I have come home to find that loads more Tomatoes have appeared on the Moneymakers in the front room. I hope the sun stays out long enough to ripen these off.

There are a fair number ripe now and nearly ready for picking and eating; I may have a salad this weekend.

Finally for this update, the Crossley Special Chilis which are fruitful as they were last year, and still flowering. I think I need to harvest these and try and dry them, though doing so in a house with no airing cupboard, and it becoming cold and unsettled outside, this does present a problem.

So there you are. I'd be very keen on advice about the Carrot which appears green?

And any hints and tips for drying which don't involve radiators, airing cupboards or hot dry days :D

Keep growing

The end of the chillis

What with moving house, I'm harvesting everything that I want from it's current location.

The other day it was the turn of the chilli plants so every fruit, in whatever stage of ripeness, was pulled off each plant.

While I was harvesting the outside plants I found that, in the previous week or so, something had got to a number of the chillis and eaten everything from inside them.

My poor hollowed out chilli. I have visions of a slug or something eating this, then bursting into flames, as these chillis do seem quite warm!

On the advice of a regular reader, I had been leaving the plants to "get stressed" as apparently this increases their heat.

The dried up remains of the bedroom window chilli plant.

I have been using the chillis regularly so the following picture doesn't reflect the total harvest (and as observed before, a good few actually got eaten just before my harvest) but anyway:

The chilli harvest.

There you are, a short update for now, but I'm preparing a longer one about the MASS of blackberry jam that I made yesterday.

Cheers

Lamb Roast with Cabbage and (very small) Parsnips

Last night I had another great feed involving food harvested from the garden.

This is such a great payback of growing your own because food really does just taste so much nicer when you have grown it yourself, and have watched it first poke through the earth and then slowly develop until it is ready for eating.

This time it involved the cabbage, and a few VERY early parsnips, one pulled to check the development of the crop, and the other two pulled accidentally while weeding.

The Bearded Bastard selecting leaves for dinner

Lifting leaves ready for eating

A shot of the cabbage leaves mid-harvest

Reading for chopping

I have the habit of removing the tough central stalk

I decided to slice these leaves into strips, ready for the steamer (10 mins only required for these)

The (tiny tiny) parsnips, fresh out of the ground

The washed and trimmed parsnips. I cooked these for about 5 mins in the roasting tin with the potatoes and lamb joint.

DINNER!!! Cabbage bottom left (obviously) and parsnip peaking out between the yorkshire pud top right and the tatty.

Can I just say that, tiny as they were, those parsnips really REALLY packed a punch. So sweet and so tasty. I can't wait for the rest of the harvest to come in.

The cabbage was a slight disappointment, not quite as tasty as the rest of the food which I have grown. It was nice though.

Right, a slight bonus for you here. Last night myself and the girlfriend went round the outside tomatoes and chillis and counted up the current harvest (there are more flowers ready to become fruit) and I drew the following diagram, with counts of fruit per plant, and a total at the bottom.

Yes, 111 tomatoes are currently going well in the garden.

Another (final) interesting point to observe is the two plants with 27 and 9 fruits on them were both runt plants which I almost threw away and just at the last minute pushed into the earth in the herb garden. So, however small and runty your seedling may be, give it a chance. That runt is now the most productive of them all.

Cheers

Clearing Tomatoes and harvesting Onions, Garlic, Shallots and Parsnips

So I finally got outside to do some weeding, and tidy up the wreckage of the inside tomato plants (which had been blown to all corners since I moved them outside, and hadn't recovered at all, sadly).

This morning, in a fit of energy, I got out of bed and went straight into the garden. I have recovered the bamboo stakes and the little green plastic bits from the tomato plants, and then separated the soil from the plants.

 Soil from the inside tomato plants

The dead inside-tomato plants

Anyone got any ideas what I can do with the soil? I was just going to spread it onto waste ground... I presume that with all the roots in it there is a chance that next year some random tomato plants may appear?

Anyway, that done, I headed for my Parsnip Patch to weed, and pull a couple of plants to see how well they are doing.  The weeds were pretty bad, but it didn't take long to pull them back. No gloves, pulling stinging nettles out, and very very few stings... I think it is true that if you grasp a nettle hard, you don't get stung - it is when you brush past them that it hurts the most.

My weeded Parsnip Patch

A single Parnsip, looking very healthy.

While I was walking across the grass one time I spotted this little fella hopping away from me.

 This tomato plant was a runt which I just pushed into the ground and didn't even think about. It has a really good crop of tomatoes and is hugely healthy. So there you are :)

The most ripe tomatoes are still getting redder, which is nice.

This is the fruit of my harvest today. The (tiny) parsnips are to the left, next are all the garlic that I saved, then a mix of onions and shallots.

I think I left my onions and shallots in the ground too long because a good half were soft and rotted. This despite the above ground growth not having died down yet. I think this is because of the wetness of the year, which is a shame, but it is all a learning experience.

I actually harvested all the root crops completely by hand, without using any digging implements. I just dug my bare hands into the soil and filtered out the crop. This was a very satisfying (if dirty) method. I recommend it highly.

This evening I am planning on a lamb roast with cabbage from the garden, and I may fry those parsnips up too. I will blog about it.

Cheers